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Authors: Marni Graff

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BOOK: The Blue Virgin
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Chapter Six

“Very nice sort of place, Oxford, I should think, for people that like that sort of place.”


George Bernard Shaw,
Man and Superman

12:30 PM

Val stood in the doorway, quivering like a cat before launching herself toward Nora and gathering her in a huge hug. As both women burst into tears, Nora was aware of Simon moving back into the hallway to give them some privacy. Val had called when they were just a few minutes out of Oxford and told them to meet at her flat.

  “Oh Val, I’m so sorry,” Nora said, rubbing her friend’s back.

  Val tightened her hold on Nora and cried into her hair, rocking back and forth. A few moments later she gulped and pushed Nora away, pulling tissues from her pocket and sharing them.

  “Simon, come in. I promise I won’t lunge at you,” Val said, giving him a damp hug before turning back to Nora. “Look at you—you’ve got a football in there.” She reached out to caress Nora’s baby bump gently. “You look wonderful,” she pronounced.

  “And you look tired and worn,” Nora said, taking in the dark circles under Val’s eyes and her splotched complexion. “How about I make us all tea?”

  “Sounds good,” Val said, linking arms with Nora as they entered the apartment.      It was the same layout as Nora’s on the floor below: a large main room with an opening in the far wall looking into a strip kitchen, one bedroom and a small bathroom. The flat showcased Val’s textile designs: bright, textured wall hangings; a colorful blanket shot through with satin ribbons, thrown over the back of the couch; heavy, theatrical trim bobbing from a lampshade.

  Nora settled Val and Simon on an overstuffed sofa and went into the small kitchen. “What happened with the police?” she asked.

  “They asked me a ton of questions, then I had to wait a hundred years for my statement to be transcribed, and after I signed it they let me go—with the usual warning not to leave the area,” she added in a heavy tone. “They’ll be here shortly to get Janet’s address. I hope it’s not that dark-haired detective, he creeped me out.”

  “Why?” Simon asked.

  Val shrugged. “He came in at the end just before they let me go. He had this way of looking into me instead of at me.” She closed her eyes for a moment. “It doesn’t matter as long as he finds out who—hurt Bryn.”

  Nora returned with three mugs of tea on a tray and a tin of buttery shortbread she’d found on the counter. “Lottie’s?” she asked, and when Val nodded, Nora added for Simon’s benefit: “She makes the best shortbread you’ll ever eat.”

  “She’s my partner at the co-op,” Val said. “You’ll get to meet her soon; she’s a doll.”

  “So who’s this horrible detective?” Nora asked, pouring for everyone.

  “A slick inspector named Barnes, and his sidekick Watkins,” Val explained.

  “At least it’s not Watson,” Simon said with a wink.

  “Trust me, this guy’s no Sherlock,” Val said.

  Nora leaned across the table and took one of her friend’s hands. “Don’t worry, Val, we’ve got your back.”

*

Nora took Simon down to her flat to turn on the air conditioner and give Val a few moments to herself. She unlocked a blue door thick with coats of paint from previous tenants, and they passed a coat closet and entered the cheery main room Nora had always liked. The back wall was lined with bookshelves, and windows along one wall looked out into the garden, letting in bright light. Shelves crammed with more books ran underneath them. On the left side, a pass-through counter piled high with mounds of unread catalogues gave a view of the tiny kitchen.

  “It all looks new to me after not being here for a few months,” Nora said, sitting down at a bleached pine table near the counter. She’d updated her recycled sofa with floral slipcovers which, along with a plaid wing chair, sat around a low table facing the garden. “I was comfortable here,” she said to Simon as he wandered over to the bookshelves.

  “I can see that,” he said, looking around him. “Great light, too. But my, you do have quite a book collection.”

  “I told you I was a biblioholic,” Nora cautioned. “It’s a disease—but don’t worry. I’ll be storing some and giving others away. I won’t make you drag all of these back to my suite at the lodge.”

  Simon flashed a smile and reached for a book.

  “That’s the bathroom,” Nora said, pointing to a closed door at the end of the hallway. “And that’s my bedroom.” She had no idea why saying this should make her avert her eyes. She changed the topic. “I bloody well hope they realize Val had nothing to do with Bryn’s death.”

  “They’ll figure it out the right way, I expect,” Simon answered.

  “I wish I shared your faith in the police,” Nora said, noticing Simon’s hands as he paged through a book on Oxford history. They were the hands of an artist, with long slender fingers, tanned from the summer sun at the lake.

  Nora knew he was glad to be back in Oxford, a town he hadn’t had time to explore well when he’d had a show of his paintings mounted here over two years ago. He had told her of his fascination with the ancient golden stone of Oxford, wanting to capture the dramatic alteration in color on the Bodleian Library and the Sheldonian Theatre according to the light and time of day. They and the dozens of colleges, bookstores, pubs, and cathedral spires were all perfect fodder for sketches he could turn into paintings back in Bowness.

  “I can just see you in your studio trying to recreate Oxford on canvas,” she said, receiving a slight smile in return. She must be certain to give him the time he needed for himself while he was being so helpful to her, and to Val. “Sorry to drag you into this.  That’s why I should have come alone and let you come in a week or so to help me pack.”

  Simon shelved the book firmly and stood looking down at her. “Nora, I wanted to be here

to help you, and to be here with you as Val goes through this. I’m going to use the loo.”

  Nora prickled. She knew Simon was a good man, but she felt compelled to keep him at arm’s length. That was only right in her situation, wasn’t it? She looked at the familiar flat that had been her home for the last six years, thinking back to Paul’s death.

  Their time together had always been severely constrained by his job at the Ministry of Defence. Eventually her engagement had felt like a convenience, an expected step after over a year of dating. Five months had then passed without firm marriage plans or even a ring. She met his parents for the first time at his memorial service; it had not been a binding experience.

  The permanency of death caught all of them in its grip that day, the realization that son and lover were lost to them forever. His mother murmured behind her black veil that Paul mentioned Nora often but had never brought her down to Cornwall to meet them. The implied criticism filled Nora with guilt, although it was Paul’s work that had kept him from coming home. His father, taller than Paul and with a wild look of surprise in his eyes, had briefly touched her shoulder and told her to keep in touch. She knew she would never see either of them again.

  The bathroom door opened. “All set?” Simon asked.

  “Yes, let’s get back to Val.” Nora stood up and impulsively gave him a brief hug. “I don’t deserve you, Simon Ramsey,” she said, gathering up her keys. “But I’ll take your friendship any day.”

*

Declan and Watkins were reaching to knock on the door to Val Rogan’s flat when a small woman and a tall man rounded the stairwell and joined them.

  “It’s on the latch,” the woman said, pushing the door open. Another lesbian friend? Declan thought. The small woman had wavy auburn hair and eyes more green than blue behind wire-rimmed glasses; the tall, slender man had sandy hair and deep blue eyes. Declan scrutinized the loose tunic and skirt the woman wore, perceiving she was not plump but actually pregnant. Curiouser and curiouser, he thought, following the pair into the apartment and down the hall with Watkins trailing behind. Val Rogan stood waiting for them in her sitting room.

  Once the introductions had been made, Val opened her address book and gave them Janet Wallace’s phone number and address. “I’m coming with you to tell Janet,” she pronounced.

  “I’m afraid that’s not possible,” Watkins said.

  Simon Ramsey spoke up. “Detectives, would you happen to know Detective Sergeant Ian Travers from Cumbria CID? He was in Oxford on a course you gave this spring and speaks highly of you, Inspector Barnes.”

  Declan did indeed remember the Cumbrian detective. He had been impressed with the young man’s desire to bring the most modern techniques back to his rural area.

  “I recall him,” Declan answered, wondering where this was going.

  “Ian is a close personal friend, actually soon to be my brother-in-law,” Simon said. “I’m quite certain if you were to call him he would vouch for me and for Nora. We’d be happy to follow you to Janet’s house with Val.”

  “It’s just that you’re a complete stranger to Janet, Inspector Barnes, and this news is going to devastate her. She and Bryn were very close—she needs someone around her who knew her daughter. Please say I can come with you,” Val pleaded.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Rogan,” Declan answered. “You’ve been instructed not to leave the area; it’s totally against police procedure.”

  “Look, Inspector,” Nora Tierney paused, meeting his eyes and smiling warmly, “What if Val rode with you? That way she would be in your custody the entire time.” Her green eyes flickered as she toned down her sarcasm.

  This one would be someone to watch, Declan decided.

  “And surely Simon and I could follow you in our own vehicle? I mean, if you left right this minute, and the very next, we decided to visit Chipping Norton, there isn’t any reason why we couldn’t—isn’t that right?” She pushed her glasses up her nose and smiled appealingly, this time without guile, and he realized she was trying to find an out for them all.

  “I suppose … ” In his hesitation he lost, for she proceeded to gather up her bag in a rush.

  “There you go then,” she said, shepherding Simon toward the door. “We will just happen to be behind you and Val and arrive at approximately the same time to visit Janet Wallace. Of course we’ll stay to support her after you deliver your news and have to rush back to Oxford to pursue her daughter’s murderer. There’s nothing in that your superiors could object to, and Val will be in your company the entire time.”

  Declan was amused by this small powerhouse and allowed her to hurry them out, leading them all down the stairs. Val locked her flat door and joined them. When they reached the street, Watkins unlocked the police cruiser, and Val took her seat in the back. The two men paused to watch the Tierney woman.

  Simon Ramsey hastened toward an ancient Celica. Nora threw Declan a somber smile and a quick “thanks” with a dip of her head, acknowledging his acquiescence as she climbed in.

  “Quite a manipulator, the American woman,” Watkins declared.

  Declan had to agree with him. As far as Val Rogan went, he didn’t really want to have her with him in Chipping Norton. But the ride would give him a chance to observe her at leisure. And at least he had made his point that she was a suspect.

Chapter Seven

“I confess that when I first made acquaintance with Charles Strickland I never for a moment discerned that there was in him anything out of the ordinary.”


W. Somerset Maugham,
The Moon and Sixpence

1 PM

Dr. Ted Wheeler sat at his desk and closed the proof book from his daughter’s wedding. He felt great satisfaction and only a hint of uneasiness after finally filling out the order slip from the Miles Belcher Studio. He had been putting off the difficult task of choosing the two poses he wanted for his rooms at Exeter College since yesterday’s meeting. Ted’s rooms looked out on the sprawling ancient chestnut trees of the Fellows’ Garden in the shadow of the Radcliffe Camera. He had already chosen the exact spot the photos would occupy on a bookshelf near his favorite window. That way, every time he glanced out, which he did often in the course of his day, he would see the two most important people in his world. He scrutinized his choices one last time as he sipped a mug of Lapsang Souchong tea, the smoky scent conveying a touch of the exotic. Little was exotic in the daily life of an Oxford don, but his was the life he preferred.

  The first picture was of his daughter, Kathleen, wearing her mother’s satin slip of a dress, a white rose coronet across her crown. She was beaming happily and holding her bouquet of white and pale, pink roses with one hand, her new husband with the other. They looked pleased, as though they had invented the state of matrimony, standing proudly in front of the vivid, rich colors of the stained glass in Exeter Chapel. He supposed he should amend his thinking about his family to include a third important person now, giving himself points for the effort he had exercised in warming up to Derek during the engagement.

  Ted reached for the next student essay on why the heroine in
Rebecca
is never named. It was a strange custom he’d been expected to embrace: blithely accepting someone relatively unknown into the intimate family circle, at the same time giving him total responsibility for his precious child.

  A man of comfortable patterns, proud of the small family he and his wife, Jess, had created, Ted wished they could have just continued on as they had been. Each of Kath’s milestones had been a special delight to him and to Jess, and they had even made their peace with Kath living on her own, regarding it as part of her learning and growing. She was living with a nice girlfriend, working as a registrar at The John Radcliffe Hospital, when this chap Derrick suddenly appeared one Sunday at dinner. Soon Ted had the feeling an uncontrollable force had washed over all of them.

  Ted remembered walking around the house singing James Taylor’s “Steamroller”:
“Well, I’m a steamroller baby, I’m bound to roll all over you


Jess had not been amused. It seemed Kath’s choice had pleased his wife, and he supposed he should trust her feminine instincts. It was true the lad seemed industrious: a radiological sonographer, whatever that was, with a decent income. But as far as he was concerned, young Derrick still had to prove himself by the way he treated Kath in the months to come.

  The other photo was of his Jess, her blue suit and filmy hat the color of robins’ eggs in the spring, taken in front of the chapel’s famous
Adoration of the Magi
tapestry. The muted colors glowed behind Jess, springing her into bold relief, and he gazed with fondness at the familiar face. A bout of guilt assailed him at the dismal thought of deliberately hurting this sweet woman who had helped him raise Kath and rise to his position at the college. He had dreaded this for years, and with an effort to numb himself, he pushed the ugly thought to the back of his mind.

  Ted had worked hard at reinventing himself from humble beginnings to a don in English literature and considered himself fortunate to be tutoring and lecturing about his favorite Gothic writers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Ascetic looking in a way many of his female students found appealing, he was unaware of how attractive he was.  He was a conventional man who liked knowing what was expected of him. His passion for his subject of study overcame even the most jaded student, filled his lecture halls and gave his tutorials a certain cachet. He took notice of those students who caught his enthusiasm for Wilkie Collins or Daphne du Maurier.

  But lately he’d felt off track, events interfering with the usual order of his life even beyond the unsettling upheaval of the wedding. He’d found himself having absurd fantasies and then dwelling on past mistakes. Ted shook his head to dispel his gloom. Everyone was entitled to his private thoughts, memories and fantasies included. It was a point he always championed; any form of censorship was abhorrent to him. But along with this, his ability to compartmentalize his past had been threatened, and his very existence had been shaken along with it.

*

Miles Belcher had struggled through a busy Saturday morning, made more hectic without his assistant. Thank goodness there wasn’t a wedding portrait today, he thought, flipping through the appointment book for the next week. It started out slowly but got busier as the week progressed, and he unreasonably blamed the dead girl for causing him added stress.

  When the uniformed officer had arrived at Miles’ door this morning, a frisson of fear had trickled down his spine at the sight of the copper. After establishing that Bryn Wallace was indeed Miles’ employee, the constable had broken the news of her death, indicating a detective would be calling in the near future to get “background information” on the deceased.

  He hadn’t fooled Miles. “Helping the police with their enquiries” was a well-known phrase that meant “being questioned down at the station.” But when Miles protested that he was merely the woman’s employer, the PC had hastened to assure him he would be interviewed either at his flat or at the studio. Miles had smiled his toothy grin at the young man, announcing in a courtly manner that he would be available at their discretion. Best to be cooperative on all counts. He reached for the telephone.

  No need to have the plod spending time with him when they should be out looking for the blighter to blame for this terrible event. Even though this PC had been annoyingly discreet when it came to the details, Miles had formed a mental picture of the crime scene, determining Bryn had probably brought her death upon herself with her dark good looks and variable love life. He sighed as he dialed. There was work to be done, no matter the circumstances.

  “Terry? Miles here … Good, and you? … Look, I seem to have lost my assistant rather suddenly, and I was wondering if that nephew of yours had found a position yet?”

*

At The Artists’ Co-operative, which she had started with Val Rogan, Lottie Weber wrapped a birthday gift that the gentleman leaning on the counter had bought for his wife. She was pleased he’d chosen a piece of her pottery, a large bowl with three different glazes that had taken her three tries before getting the effect she wanted.

  Aerosmith sang about their Ragdoll on the radio while Lottie wrapped the bowl in bubble wrap before settling it in a nest of unprinted newspaper in the bottom of the box. Today she’d chosen to wear dangling silver sunflower earrings, which bobbed against her neck as she kept time with the song. She knew they complemented her skirt with its blue background and large yellow sunflowers. She’d added a bright yellow tee that strained across her large bosom. “Which paper would you like to use?” Lottie pointed behind her to three rolls of decorated wrap hung on dowels.

  “The blue one with the stars; that’s her favorite color,” the man said.

  “And you could write on the card: ‘You are my favorite star!’” Lottie enthused.

  The man shrugged. Some people just didn’t get that relationships took work and careful attention, Lottie thought, tearing off a hunk of the paper. It was like her pottery. She started out with a lump of clay and molded it into shape, but if she overworked it, her bowl would collapse into itself. You had to use finesse, just the right amount of pressure. Lottie loved the earthy smell of the unbaked clay, the way the wheel spun and her fingers massaged what had been a square lump into a recognizable object.

  She wrapped the box and added a blue and silver ribbon bow. “There you go! Your wife should be very pleased with your choice. Please come again.”

  The man thanked her and left. The smile faded from Lottie’s face. It was quiet in the co-op now. The other artisans on duty today were out to lunch. The co-operative had a rotating roster of artists who manned their own stalls and helped shoppers in any stall. Lottie preferred to keep the co-op open at lunchtime, when working people might pop in for a gift, just as this man had done.

  Behind her, from a small fridge, she took out a chilled diet soda and her wrapped sandwich and settled down to her own lunch, one foot tapping in time to the music. She’d made two sandwiches that morning, on the off chance that Val would be in to join her, but that hadn’t happened. Silly to think it would. She wondered what Val was doing at exactly that moment, and bit into her salami sandwich.

*

In an expensive contemporary flat out west along the Botley Road, Cameron Wilson checked his profile in the triple mirror over his bathroom sink. For a moment he thought he detected a hint of sag, just there at the corner of his eyelids, and experimentally put tension on either side of his temples, tightening the skin around his eyes and lifting away his frown lines. If you do only one thing, a plastic surgeon he’d met had remarked, get an eye job. It takes away the tired expression characteristic of aging, freshening up the face. Best start saving for that one.

  Dropping his hands, he examined himself critically, judging his blonde highlights could go another week, scrutinizing himself the way the lens of the camera did every time he donned one of the expensive suits he modeled. Posing for magazine advertisements for a well-known designer, affecting a nonchalant, casual manner, he had become associated with the designer’s clothes, and Cameron knew once his face started to fall, so would his career, his travel, and his comfortable income.

  Cam fancied himself a Hugh Grant type, smarter because he would never consider lopping off his trademark floppy bang as old Hugh had recently done for a film, a bad move in his opinion. And his eyes were better shaped than Grant’s, he decided with one last look in the mirror, none of that downward droop giving him a hangdog look. Satisfied with his appearance for the moment, he checked his stash to see just how much of a good time he could have tonight at The Coven. The place would be jumping, mostly non-students vibrating to the lasers and lights, enveloped in clouds of smoke. A popular DJ was on tap, and his appearance would guarantee a dance floor filled with sweet-smelling young women, navels pierced and on display, shaking their booties and everything else they owned in his direction.

  Bryn had always refused to come to The Coven with him. After taking up with that lesbian, Val Rogan, and her artsy crowd, she’d gone on occasion to The Blue Virgin. One look in there had convinced him he needn’t return—too much sex and not enough drugs was his estimate. He’d rationalized when she’d broken off with him that Bryn’s action was proof positive she was rather immature. He’d also felt certain she would regret her decision to dump him. When that hadn’t happened, he’d made a decision to settle things. He could handle the rejection of a foolish girl leaving him for another man; what he couldn’t stand was being trumped by a dyke.

BOOK: The Blue Virgin
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