The Company of Fellows (29 page)

So what had he
been doing? Tommy printed off the list.

Delayed
Passion or Delayed Parousia: the Meaning of Marriage in the End
Times

Fruits of the
Womb of God: the Gift of the Spirit in Neo-Platonism and Eastern
Orthodoxy

She Wept for
her Children: the Meaning of Motherhood in Medieval
Iconography

Child of our
Time: the Infant Jesus and Modern Parenthood

Well there we
go
, he said to himself. These papers had
nothing to do with Aquinas.
What the hell
were you doing in Paris for two years? You’d already written your
book, hadn’t you? I bet you had these articles put aside for a
rainy day and wheeled them out to make yourself look busy. So why
did you have to go to Paris, then? Need to get out of the heat for
a while? Need a bolt hole away from prying eyes
?

He would try
and find a copy of the articles later and see exactly what Shaw had
been working on, see if it gave any hint of his state of mind at
the time, although he thought it probably wouldn’t. Nonetheless
he’d order the journals up on line and pick them up tomorrow. From
the collections desk at the Sorbonne. Something told him it was
time to follow the Professor to the continent.

Tommy logged
off and picked up the phone. “Bon apres-midi, Madame,” he said.
“Puis-je parler avec Professeur Bonnard?”

“
Bien sur,
c’est qui?”

“
C’est Docteur
West, ami de Charles Shaw, professeur de théologie à
Oxford.”

He waited a
few seconds before the line went live again and a heavy, crackly
voice answered in a heavy Bordelaise accent. Tommy had learned most
of his French in the Gironde, in the area around Bordeaux. He felt
at home with the slightly nasal voice on the other end of the line.
“A friend of Charles Shaw’s?” said the French Professor. “I read in
the papers that he killed himself. I’m sorry.” He sounded old.
Tommy gathered from the internet that he was in his early sixties
and had been at the Theology Faculty for at least 30 years,
researching medieval theology. He sounded much older, the result of
smoking rather than drinking Tommy guessed from the clarity of his
diction and the slight hiss in the lower register.

“
Thank you,”
said Tommy. “He supervised my doctoral thesis,” he added, feeling
the need to justify the remark.

“
You’re
that
Dr West, then?”
Tommy tried to work out if he was surprised, amused, or
impressed.

“
If you mean
the Dr West who worked on the Ecole Freudienne, then yes, I am,”
Tommy said, hoping that Bonnard was referring to his speciality,
and not his breakdown.

“
It was a
remarkable thesis, Dr West. You know, we would have been delighted
to have you on our staff.”

“
Thank you,
Professor.” It was interesting, thought Tommy, that after all these
years he could still open doors with his academic past; a past that
seemed so far ago he had forgotten was part of his life at all. Or
maybe it was just a past he had come to hope was nothing to do with
him any more.

“
How can I
help you?”

“
I’m putting
together a memorial brochure for Professor Shaw, and I was hoping
to include something by the people he worked with over the years. I
believe he spent two years at the Sorbonne in the early 1990s
working on Aquinas. I thought you might know whom I should speak to
there who might have worked with him.”

“
Yes, I
remember. He was registered with the Faculty here. He gave a couple
of lectures on the politics of marriage and church courts in the
middle ages, but he never hung around.”

“
What do you
mean?”

“
I mean he
came. He gave his talks, and then he took off again. Sometimes he
stayed for dinner, but he never stayed the night. We thought it was
very peculiar at the time, but we were pleased to get him to speak
at all.”

This
definitely felt like a breakthrough. Shaw had lied about where he
was for two years of his life. He’d pretended to be working on
something he wasn’t. What the hell was he doing? “Can you remember
where he was based,” he asked.

“
He was living
somewhere in Spain I think.” Bonnard went quiet. Tommy could almost
here him closing his eyes in thought. “Andalucia, that was it.
Jerez.”

“
Jerez?” said
Tommy. He remembered what Henry Wilde had said. Shaw had made his
money in Spain. Whatever had gone on, that was where it
happened.

“
Yes, I
remember teasing him about his taste in drink. I was brought up
drinking Lillet, the finest aperitif in the world.”

“
I thought I
detected a Bordeaux accent,” Tommy said.

“
Likewise, Dr
West.”

“
Professor,
was Charles connected officially to a faculty in Spain?”

“
No, as far as
I know he was there to write. He finished his book on Aquinas and
wrote up some fairly important papers from the previous couple of
years. I think he’d given most of them at various conferences. He
was would have been writing them up for the conference proceedings.
I don’t think he produced any new papers. He just enjoyed the heat
and the sherry,.” Tommy flicked through the CV that he had saved
offline. Bonnard was right. Each of the four papers Shaw had
produced from 1990-1992 was a write-up of a paper he had given in
1988 or 1989 at conferences in Leiden, Stockholm, Sofia, and
Princeton. There would have been hardly any work at all in getting
them licked into shape.

“
Didn’t anyone
there check up on him?”

“
No. We got to
put him on our visiting professor list for two years. He got peace.
Everyone was happy.”

“
I don’t
suppose anyone would have an address for him whilst he in Spain?
Maybe I could catch up with his neighbours and get something a
little more personal for the brochure.”

“
I expect so.
We sent him journals from time to time. Send me an e-mail and I’ll
send it back to you before I leave this evening if I have
it.”

“
Thank you for
your help, Professor Bonnard.”

“
You’re
welcome. And I meant what I said earlier. If you ever want to come
and work in Paris, please call.”

“
Thank you, I
will.”

Tommy put the
phone down and logged back on. He googled “flights London Jerez”,
and a few seconds later he found himself on the Ryanair website
booking flights for the next morning.

Now he just
had to tell Becky that he wouldn’t be at the funeral.

____

44

Tommy had time
for a good workout and a relaxing bath. He had decided that he
would do nothing before he headed to Spain. He’d still have to be
up by half past two to get round the M25 and make check-in, but the
way he was, or wasn’t, sleeping at the moment, the thought wasn’t
unduly worrying. The thought of being away for a night or two was
also good. The one thing that having time to think did mean was
that he had time to realise just how serious his position was. The
sooner he got out of the country, the sooner he’d get away from
danger. He thought for a moment that he shouldn’t be thinking like
that, worrying about himself. But, at least until now, Becky seemed
safe. Whoever had killed Shaw knew that it was Tommy that was on
their trail. As soon as he thought it, he realised what that also
meant. If they knew that much about what he was up to, quite
possibly they knew his next move would be to Spain. Suddenly even
the soothing heat of Andalucia seemed less of a haven. He had to
face up to the fact that nothing was going to feel great until this
was all over..

He watched
from the front window as Rosie pulled up in her orange Matiz and
flicked it neatly into the snuggest parking space. She carried a
cool-bag with her out of the car. Her step was brisk and playful.
She seemed happy to be coming. Tommy surprised himself that he felt
as excited about seeing her now as he had about seeing her again
when he left her flat yesterday morning. Perhaps he wasn’t entering
a manic phase. Perhaps he really did like her. Whatever the truth
was, though, tonight wasn’t going to be easy. He’d have to tell her
he was going away. What he couldn’t tell her was why. He still
hadn’t made up his mind whether he should ask her to come. He knew
he should. He also knew she almost certainly wouldn’t be able to
make it; but if she did, the whole trip would be pretty much
pointless.

“
It’s nice to
be here without a stiff to climb over,” she said, grinning as she
handed him the cool bag. She let the door slam behind her as she
pulled him onto her. The door smacked as she fell against it and
she felt it wind her as she grabbed his head and kissed him
furiously.

“
There you go,
pretend it’s Ready Steady Cook.”

They went
upstairs and Tommy emptied the cool-bag onto his worktop. It
spilled out a haul of fresh squid, spinach, and
pancetta.

“
Good stuff?”
she asked.

“
Delicious.
Fancy a drink?”

“
Fuck, I
should have brought wine. Sorry!” She looked almost as young as
Becky, he thought, as she stood there in black jeans and an off the
shoulder red jumper bound at the waist with a metal-spiked belt.
The hands in pockets were the same, the hunched shoulders,
everything except for the slight lines around her eyes. He realised
he was staring at her lines and looked away embarrassed. He liked
them, as much as he liked the eyes they surrounded. She had large,
dark eyes tinted with a little sadness that he thought had
something to do with leaving her childhood home and believing that
she wouldn’t go back. They were as unlike Becky’s as it was
possible to get.

“
That’s my
job,” Tommy said. “You brought dinner. Here, try this.” He poured a
vermouth glass of white Lillet that he’d taken out of the cupboard
after talking to Bonnard.

“
Spicy,” Rosie
said. “And sweet. Put some ginger with the squid and it’ll be
perfect.” He’d been right about her taste, he thought to
himself.

She watched
whilst Tommy sliced garlic and fresh ginger as fine as if they were
slide samples. “I told Emily about Sunday night,” she
said.

“
I hope it
hasn’t made life too difficult for you,” Tommy said. He wasn’t
interested whether Emily had been jealous. That was strange, he
thought. He’d had a lovely time with Em on Sunday afternoon. He’d
felt closer to her than he’d thought he ever would again. He
definitely wanted to see her again. Lots. But the thought of he and
Rosie going round for dinner with her and David seemed just as
pleasant as seeing her on her own. Provided David behaved himself,
of course.

“
I think she’s
pleased.”

Tommy held her
hand as he put the slices into sizzling chilli oil. “Oops,” he
said. “I’m afraid that was the garlicky hand.”

Rosie smiled.
She looked slightly awkward. He knew what she wanted to say. He
knew she was worrying that she’d sound jealous; but he was pleased
that she was confident enough to come out and say it. “So you don’t
wish you were with her instead?”

“
You must be
joking,” he said. He put a generous handful of fresh tagliatelle
into boiling water, and the spinach into another pan of hot
butter.

“
Last week,”
she said. “She told me she thought we’d be good together. I thought
she was having a joke.”

“
Well, I’ not
sure I’d have taken it as a compliment given our history.” He added
the squid and squeezed the ink sacs into the wok, gave a quick
flick of the wrist and turned the heat off. By the time he had
drained the pasta the squid was cooked.

“
So,” she
said. He could tell she was as glad as he was to have got the Emily
conversation out of the way, and had a feeling they’d both drawn a
healthy line under it. That seemed like a very good foundation for
a relationship. “You help rich people with no taste not to look
silly in front of their friends, then, Tommy?”

“
That’s one
way of describing it I suppose.”

“
What are you
working on at the moment?”

“
I don’t have
any clients at the moment.”

“
So what do
you do with your day?”

Here we go, he
thought. Here’s the other conversation he wasn’t exactly looking
forward to. He wondered how much he should tell her. Keeping
secrets wasn’t great. Then again, she was a detective sergeant.
That was sure to involve some kind of professional ethics about
following correct procedures in if he was up to no good. Not that
he was, but he didn’t think she’d see it like that. And he really
didn’t want to put her in an awkward spot.

“
Snooping
around,” he said casually.

“
Snooping?”

“
Basic Miss
Marple kind of stuff,” he said, deciding to follow the liar’s code
of sticking as close to the truth as he could get away with. “Becky
Shaw wants to know about her father. She was just getting to know
him then he died. I think she wants to know what he thought of her
at the end. I’m trying to fill in some gaps for her.”