The Company of Fellows (36 page)

Ellison picked
up the telephone and pressed a single key that was obviously set up
as an extension. Like Lord Muck summoning his maid with a
bell-pull, Tommy thought. “A pot of Earl Grey, please. Bring two
cups, I have a visitor who may want some. And some nice cold milk.”
He put the phone down and smiled back at Tommy. “Where were we? Ah,
yes, we were in Jerez. How nearly like the Duke of
Clarence.”

Tommy tried
not to roll his eyes. He smiled lamely and tiredly.

“
As I was
saying,” Ellison continued, ignoring Tommy’s failure to laugh. “One
of the most beautiful old towns in Europe. I used to stay there
quite regularly, in fact, when Charles Shaw lived
there.”

Tommy said
nothing. He hadn’t expected Ellison to come out with it. Tommy
could see behind the slightly heavyset eyes that the Professor was
playing a game with him. Trying to tease him, perhaps, or to goad
him with almost enough information but not quite. If that was the
case, then the case would be closed before lunchtime, Tommy said to
himself, unable to avoid borrowing the syntax of Ellison’s bad
humour. But the more he sat opposite him, the less he thought that
Ellison would be capable of duping someone like Shaw. If he was
plotting against Shaw, and meeting him every weekend in the Chapel
at the very least, Shaw would have sniffed him out in a second. No,
he felt a growing confidence that Ellison wasn’t a murderer. No,
that Ellison hadn’t murdered Shaw. What he’d done to Carol was a
different matter, and Tommy still didn’t know how or if he would
make him pay for it.

“
I assume you
knew Charles lived out there for a while. I mean, I assume that’s
why you went out there, to find out what he did in
Spain?”

“
I did, yes.
Not many other people do, though.”

“
No, I don’t
suppose they do, but we were very close friends. Well, back then,
anyway.”

Tommy was glad
he’d said no to tea earlier, or he would have spat it halfway
across the study. “What soured the friendship?”

“
You know how
it is, Tommy? Fickle things, friends. It’s easy to drift apart,
especially when he was in Spain and I was here. That’s the
difference from marriage – you don’t have the yoke of law to keep
you together.”

“
Or God,”
Tommy offered helpfully.

“
Indeed,” said
Ellison sharply.

“
Do you know
what he was doing in Spain?”

“
Having a
breakdown.”

A good, solid,
dependable reason to drift apart from your friend, Tommy thought.
“He wasn’t working on Aquinas, then? That’s what he said in his
application for affiliation to the Sorbonne.”

“
He wasn’t
working on anything the last time I saw him, except hanging around
drinking beer and holding large communal dinners.”

“
Did you stay
with him?”

“
No, no. He
was far too depressed. It made him claustrophobic. He couldn’t bear
to have anyone in the house with him. It gave him the shakes. Held
all his dinners outdoors as well.”

Tommy took in
Ellison’s face. It radiated smugness. To the extent that Tommy
couldn’t tell how much of what he was saying was how much of a lie.
Perhaps that made him smarter than Tommy had reckoned. Probably it
didn’t.

“
Here’s tea.”
Ellison announced as an even, confident tap, tap, tap came from the
door.

“
Thank you,
dear.”

Tommy stood.
Mrs Ellison was exactly what her husband was. Normal. Grey hair in
a wave perm with a plain blouse and slacks. Neat, efficient,
above-average intelligence. “Thank you, Mrs Ellison. I’m Tommy
West.”

“
I know,” she
said. Tommy detected resignation. It was as though she knew that he
had come to turn their world upside down; that she didn’t know how,
but that she knew when, and that there was nothing she could do but
to bring tea and be polite. “I’m Jane. Pleased to meet you.” He
felt her normality hit him deep inside his stomach, normality in
the middle of a terrible situation that was anything but. He wanted
to protect it as much as he wanted to protect Becky. He knew that
probably he could do neither.

“
I will have a
cup, please,” he said. It was the best thing he could think of to
do.

“
Good.
Milk?”

“
No, thank
you.” Jane at least half-filled Ellison’s cup with milk before
adding a splash of Earl Grey. Tommy held the door open for her as
she left, and returned to the sofa.

“
What was he
like when he came back?” Tommy asked. “Was he better?”

“
A complex
moral question.” Ellison lit a roll-up and took a series of shallow
little puffs, “I think he was over his breakdown, if that’s what
you mean. People didn’t like that. They found it insensitive,
rather like many of the Faculty here found it when you succeeded so
obviously and so quickly at you new career. He was different,
though.”

“
Different?”

“
More
measured, I think I’d say.”

Tommy held his
breath for the bad humour, which fortunately didn’t
come.

“
He stopped
playing around with his students. You know I don’t think he tried
it on with another woman from the moment he left his wife. Strange
way round to do things, but that was Charles.”

“
Thank you for
seeing me,” Tommy said, gulping down mouthfuls of tea that was far
too hot still, not wanting Jane to think he had left it.

“
Going
already?”

Tommy smiled,
“Goodbye, Professor.”

“
Goodbye. I’m
sure I’ll see you again soon.”

Ellison showed
no sign of getting up from his desk so Tommy showed himself out. He
cast a glance down the flagstone corridor by the staircase to the
basement. He could here the sound of an aerosol spraying and the
flapping of a cloth, and wondered how much longer the house would
be filled with the sounds of normality.

____

56

Tommy wondered
about Ellison’s falling out with Shaw as he walked the two sides of
Martyr’s Quad to the front door of the Warden’s Lodge. It had the
ring of truth. There was something in the way Ellison had said it.
He didn’t know if it was a hint of disbelief or piqued anger, but
it was something that had to do with an enormous ego. Maybe Shaw
couldn’t stand to look at him any more. Maybe Ellison was too
ashamed to stay close to his old friend. That was unlikely. Shame
was an emotion that required a degree of self-appraisal Ellison
didn’t possess. It was more likely he was too
frightened.

Tommy waited
outside the door for a minute to see if Clarissa would sense him
there. It was an experiment he couldn’t resist. No, no anticipatory
answer. He rang the bell. About five seconds later Clarissa opened
the door. He was smiling to himself when she saw him.

“
What a
difference a day makes,” she said.

“
Lime juice is
a wonderful cordial.”

“
Do come in,
and I’ll get you something with caffeine in today, if you’d
like.”

“
Actually,
this is just a flying visit. I was hoping to have a quick word with
you.”

Clarissa
hesitated slightly, he thought. Tommy wondered how often people
came to talk to her without her husband. No, that wasn’t it. She
clearly had her own network of friends and contacts in the catering
sphere. “Of course. Do you mind coming into the
kitchen?”

“
I never mind
being in a kitchen.”

The kitchen
smelled of a heady mix of half-cooked chocolate, browning pastry
and flamed whisky. It was a working kitchen, like Shaw’s had been,
large, smooth surfaces laid out for hygiene and large-scale
preparation. Tommy expected she kept her Food Hygiene Certificate
in one of the arch files neatly stacked on the shelf next to the
spice rack.

“
So, Tommy.”
Clarissa worked as she spoke, breaking pieces of bitter chocolate
into a Bain Mari and stirring them over a constant
steam.

“
Charles’
parties.”

“
I’ve heard a
lot about Charles’ parties. I believe the most famous of all was
the one he gave for you, if the subject isn’t off limits.” The
flaky caramel smell of nearly-done pastry was coming from the oven.
She’d put those on before he came, he noted. She was busy, not just
trying to give herself something to do to hide her agitation at
talking to him. Convenient, though, he couldn’t helped
thinking.

“
Not at all.
Did you ever do any catering for him?”

“
Well, for the
last few years he didn’t have as many parties as he used to. But
yes, I produced a few creams and custards for him.”

Tommy could
imagine what a few custards might mean. Exquisitely blended crèmes
brulées flavoured with just the right amount of the very best
extracts and oils.

“
You never
made the ice spoons for his caviar?”

“
No,” she said
without a pause or a flicker. “He didn’t get those from a caterer.
He got them from an ice sculptor. Martin Laszlo, you’ll find him
the Artweeks brochure,” she said. Artweeks lasted for a month each
spring during which time local artists and artisans in all fields
open up their workshops to the public. “And probably on the web.
Martin did them for him for the last 25 years.”

“
Thank
you.”

“
Why on earth
do you want to know about his ice spoons? Planning on having a do?
People might think it was a little macabre. They were something of
a signature of Charles’, I believe.”

“
No, nothing
like that. I’m just…” He wasn’t quite sure what he was just doing,
in terms he could explain to Clarissa at any rate.

“
Tying up
loose ends?” she offered, making a loud popping sound as she
removed a chocolaty finger from her mouth. “Good, that’s ready.”
She took the Bain Marie off the heat and cracked an egg, separating
the yolk in a matter of seconds and whisking it into the mix
nonchalantly. The actions were all complete reflexes and took up
none of the higher functions of her mind. Those were free to wander
wherever they wanted, and Tommy could see enough of the path they
were taking to know that she knew what he was looking
for.

“
Yes.”

“
You think
that’s how he was poisoned?”

Had she
brought that back with her from travels in her own mind, or had it
come from Hedley?
What do you talk about
when the lights go out
, he wondered, not
for the first time? It was the same question he found himself
asking every couple he met; a question he knew, thinking back, he’d
wanted to ask every couple since those terrible nights lying awake
with Emily, when every word he’d chosen had been wrong.
What do you share with each other? How much of it
is spoken, and how much is read from the curve of a shoulder or the
pressure of an arm – and how much of that does Hedley have any idea
you know?

“
I don’t know.
I’m sure Martin Laszlo didn’t poison Charles, though.” That was a
bold statement he thought. It implied that he had an idea who did,
and he really wasn’t sure that he’d be willing to bet his business
on it yet. It certainly implied something to Clarissa, who had
removed the pastry cases and was pouring chocolate mix into each.
She wanted to say something, he thought. Did she want to tell him
to be careful whom he told? Did she want him to think of Becky? Of
Haydn? Of something she couldn’t say?

“
Do you want
to lick the spatula?” she asked.

“
Thank you.”
He took it gladly. Now she had finished there was no more
distraction. She would have to create one. He held out the handle,
which she took with a hasty smile. She was already thinking the
same, which was pretty much all he needed to know. And certainly
all that it would be courteous to ask.

He headed
straight for the Westgate Library and googled
Martin Laszlo ice sculpture Oxford
.
He remembered the number and punched it into his mobile as he
walked out of the door.

“
Martin
Laszlo.”

“
Hi, my name’s
Tommy West.” Tommy was happy to play things very politely. He was
surprised that he didn’t know the name, and realised that none of
his clients had asked him for an ice sculpture yet. Maybe now it
was something he could suggest. “I was a friend of Professor
Shaw’s.”

“
Was? What did
you do to piss him off?”

“
Nothing. He’s
dead.”

“
Shit, what
happened.”

“
Police say he
killed himself.”

“
Damn, that’s
no good. He only had some kit from me the weekend before
last.”

Which answers
the question perfectly, thank you. Tommy wondered about Laszlo’s
slightly odd semi street slang, “Kit?”

“
Yeah, moulds
for ice spoons. He used them for caviar. Ordered six, I
think.”

“
Moulds. So he
didn’t buy them ready-made?”

“
Shit no,
might as well make your own with something like that. Even a
professor couldn’t get it wrong. And all you pay for is regular
postage. He usually ordered them for parties but not this
time.”