The Vavasour Macbeth

by Bart Casey

  “Of course. And all this just happened?”

  “Yes, the funeral was just last week,” said Margaret. “So I called because I wanted to check out two of the people in the mix of all this. The first is a quite distinguished old Oxford professor—he got involved at the beginning when the discovery of the papers was first made. I thought there might be an obituary file started on him because he’s written enough books, and given enough interviews and speeches and so forth. I also wanted to get a background check on him—which I thought would be best done from here. I was contacted by a local reporter from BBC East in Norwich about my father’s death—but I didn’t think they would be in a position to do something like that.”

  “No, they couldn’t really requisition that, but we do that sort of thing all the time from here,” said Guy.

  “And then there’s another man who’s been questioned about the crime: Tony Baker. I wanted to run a check on him as well, to see if any previous criminal history turned up. That’s it for now really...unless you have any ideas.”

  “Okay,” said Guy, “it will be very easy for me to follow up with BBC East and see if they’re aware of how the local investigation is going. I mean, they stay very close to the local police with regular briefings for their local radio news: robberies at convenience stores, car crashes, and so on. They should certainly know something about ongoing homicide cases. I do know the people there.”

  “Guy, that would be great. Maybe the police will just solve the mystery themselves—but I can’t just sit by doing nothing.”

  “That’s no problem, Margaret. I’m happy to help. And I can stay in touch with you on all this as things go along. I’ll get you the obit file first thing tomorrow, if there is one. I’ll let you know either way. The background checks take a few days to come back usually. Just get me the full names of the people, addresses if you can, and so on.”

  ~

  Margaret caught up with Stephen by telephone that night.

  “I did get everything started on the background checks,” said Margaret. “Can you just get me Tony Baker’s address?”

  “Sure,” said Stephen. “No problem. But we had something happen at school today I wanted to tell you about; I think you may be able to help. Remember I mentioned we had a Bosnian boy at school this term?”

  “Yes. Wasn’t his father at the new embassy?” remembered Margaret.

  “That’s it. Well, there’s a problem. Apparently the father—Mister Anton Juric—was called down to Sarajevo for some meetings about two weeks ago and he’s gone missing. At least he hasn’t been in touch with home, which is very unusual. So a week after he left, his wife went down to find him, leaving the children with an overnight caregiver. There’s the boy here at my school—Denis—and a younger sister about seven or eight at the town junior school. And now that caregiver, Mrs. Quick—she’s a widow here in the village—she called me this morning to say that the mother hasn’t checked in with her either.”

  “Oh my god,” said Margaret. “You can’t imagine how dangerous it is down there just now.”

  “Mrs. Quick had called the embassy without much luck. So then I called them as well and finally got someone who told me they are also looking for Mister Juric. He went back there for meetings at the new government offices, but there was a lot of shelling aimed specifically at those buildings, so there are several people missing. In short, they didn’t know much and they seemed focused on everything else. I mean, they said they’d let me know as soon as they could, but it seemed pretty crazy there.”

  “I have a call each morning with our team down there and can tell them,” said Margaret. “But it will really help if I know exactly when they each went down—oh, and also pictures of both of them.”

  “Pictures?”

  “Right, there’s a big language issue—but if you can show pictures—especially to our team’s local drivers, then we might get somewhere. Our team can copy the pictures and their drivers can show other drivers and so on and pretty soon we might know something. The network of drivers is probably the best bet. They’re the ones who know what’s been hit, where it’s safe to go, and who’s been visiting. We’re all set up in the Holiday Inn down there to send and receive picture images all the time—

  no problem.”

  “I’ll call Mrs. Quick and have her look around their house for good pictures of both parents.”

  “Okay. I’ll brief everyone on the call tomorrow morning and then follow up with the photos. But this doesn’t sound good, Stephen. Not good at all,” she said.

  ~

  Later that week, while Margaret was in London, Stephen finally found the guts to circle back with Miranda, whom he hadn’t seen for over a fortnight. He called early and caught her in her flat. She was surprised to hear from him, but no longer angry. They agreed to meet up that evening at the Cross Keys, a quiet village pub on the high street, very different from the boisterous Village Arms, where they had staged their memorable fight night almost three weeks before.

  Stephen arrived first and chose a table in the corner. At the bar, a cluster of regulars were swapping stories and paid no attention to him. Miranda came in ten minutes later and strolled over to the table, very calm. As she eased herself into the chair across from him, she stared at his damaged eye and noted, with some satisfaction, how the circles of color made him look like a raccoon.

  “I ordered your usual,” said Stephen, pointing to the drink he had for her.

  “Not so usual for me to come in here. More likely my uncles or grandpa, I suppose. Nice eye,” she said, opening her purse to find her smokes.

  “Right. It’s made quite an impression on the first weeks of school,” he replied, relieved she had cooled off so. “Thanks

  for coming.”

  “No problem. Shouldn’t be so difficult. We go back a long way.”

  “Look, Miranda, I want to apologize about the Bank Holiday weekend. I behaved really badly, and I wanted to explain,” he said.

  “Well, let me start. You know, ladies first.” Miranda lit up a cigarette and blew out a slow whistle of smoke, collecting her thoughts. “Turns out I’m not pregnant. I was just late. But I didn’t know all that back then. And I bloody well wasn’t being with anyone else either. Just you. So what you said really gobsmacked me. It hurt. I hadn’t expected anything rude like that—especially not from you.”

  “I’m so sorry, Miranda. I wasn’t thinking, and I’d had a few drinks. But that’s no excuse. But I need you to know why I was so surprised: it’s something I’ve never told you. I know now I should have let you know all this a long time ago, but there you are. And now I’m ready to tell you.”

  “Just what the fuck are you going to tell me?” she said, looking quite alarmed.

  “No, don’t worry,” Stephen said, unable to keep a wistful smile from spreading across his face. He reached across the tabletop, took her free hand, and locked eyebeams. “It’s nothing too crazy—don’t worry. And it all happened a long time ago, when I was a child. One spring, I got very sick with fever and the mumps. I remember spending a week or two at home on the sofa in the lounge, watching Bill and Ben the Flowerpot Men and Welsh folk dancing on daytime television instead of being at school or playing sports and so on. The fevers were quite hot. And then I got better and I assumed that was that.

  “But a few years later—you know, around puberty, I suppose—my mother had the doctor explain to me that I wouldn’t be able to have children when I grew up. All my stuff would work just as it should—and I had no idea what he was talking about then—but there wouldn’t be any kids after I got married. I remember that just seemed very odd, at the time, and not too serious. I mean, I had never thought about any of that anyway. So I pretty much just went on my merry way. I mean, I was just a kid and really hadn’t had any interaction with girls my age—except my cousins.”

  “Blimey, Stephen,” said Miranda.

  “So when you told me you were pregnant, I knew it couldn’t be me. And that made m
e go off in the wrong direction. You know, thinking you must be lying or maybe you’d been with someone else. All sorts of selfish thoughts about me, and not about you—which was just awful, and it must have been something to do with the drink, because it was so terribly self-centered. Thinking back, having a gin and tonic dumped on top of me and a black eye was just what I deserved—and probably more of all that. So there it is. And I am so sorry,” he concluded.

  Miranda sat quietly for a minute, considering him. Then she said, “Well, I wish you’d told me earlier. I mean, it wouldn’t have mattered, because I wasn’t trying to catch you out and make you marry me. We were just good with each other…and good fun.” She paused.

  “But then, when I was late and thought I really was knocked up, I got myself thinking what a good catch you’d be. It was the first time I’d thought like that. And I thought maybe my life might be taking a turn for the better. But it wasn’t. I know that now.” She leaned back from the table, pushing against her chair, and pausing for a moment. “I’m just back to square one, and you seem to be back with Miss Fucking Hamilton. Hard-luck Miranda, that’s me.”

  Stephen could see she was tearing up and felt terrible. They stayed there another half hour, moving on to good times remembered. What fun they had had. Then he made sure she knew he had nothing to do with Tony getting arrested—and that he didn’t think Tony had anything to do with what had happened.

  But he couldn’t really disagree with her analysis. He was back with Miss Fucking Hamilton—or at least well on his way, he hoped.

  After lunch on Friday, Stephen was able to leave the school in the capable hands of Mrs. Boardman and board the empty midafternoon train to King’s Cross. It had been a long few days away from Margaret. While she was still at work, Stephen had to get to the British Museum. He needed to sign up for privileges to use the rare book and manuscript collection so he could answer some of his questions about Anne Vavasour’s papers and John Heminge’s signature.

  With his small overnight bag in hand, Stephen walked briskly off the train, through the main hall of the station, and came outside, just by the Euston Road. He walked westward along the pavement, past the remarkable Victorian gothic brick masterpiece of St. Pancras Station and the fenced construction site adjoining, which was planned to become the new British Library at some vague point in the future. After five minutes, he crossed the road headed south toward Russell Square and Bloomsbury, turning right onto Great Russell Street and coming up to the fenced gate in front of the museum. He asked a guard for the office, and, after a wave-through with his bag at security, he was inside thirty-five minutes before closing. Plenty of time, he thought, to get set up for his planned future visits.

  Taking a number, with only one person ahead of him, Stephen looked around the grim space in the museum offices. The walls looked like they hadn’t seen new paint since the war, he thought, and he meant World War Two. The metal chairs, bookshelves, and battleship gray desks were all the same vintage. The museum was running on a shoestring budget while the grandiose construction for its soon-to-be-enclosed courtyard and the new British Library were unfolding at a glacial pace. When his number came up, Stephen walked over to the Museum Privileges Desk and was surprised to take his seat across from a person who seemed more like a uniformed museum guard than a librarian.

  “I’m here to request privileges for using the collections in the Manuscripts Students’ Room,” began Stephen. “I need access for several months as I am doing research on the Elizabethan era.”

  “Are you a professional researcher from an accredited university, sir?” asked the guard, seemingly happy to put up the first barrier for admission.

  “No. But I’m a school headmaster, working on a tercentenary history of our school, and I need to get at some of the resour-

  ces here.”

  “And what materials do you wish to consult, sir. Do you have your list?”

  “A list? No. I need to consult your catalogues. I mean, I’ll want to look at various histories of our county and the towns and so forth. And then some primary documents from the period establishing the school and its early years. That sort of thing.”

  “Well, sir, I’m sure you know this is a library of last resort, and we’ll need to understand what you want to see here.”

  “Just what is a ‘library of last resort’ exactly,” said Stephen, starting to redden slightly as he noticed the clock over the guard passing twenty minutes before five.

  “It means we only allow study of materials not available anywhere else in the public or private library system, sir. Histories of counties and towns can be consulted at regular libraries open to all.”

  “But I need to see manuscripts such as the Burghley Papers as well.”

  “Those have been published in facsimile and transcription and can be studied in any good university library. There’s no reason to disturb the originals. The London University Library up the road will probably have everything you’ll need, sir.”

  “No, I need to see the actual Burghley Papers. We want to be able to describe exactly what those four-hundred-year-old-papers look like today: the texture of the papers, the watermarks and the inks, and so on...the sizes and specific appearance.”

  “This is for your school history?”

  “We also have small classes for the students about studying old documents, and we need nuggets of information on how those all look today to keep them interested and so on.” Stephen was improvising like mad as the clock ticked along.

  “Then we’ll need a list, sir, so we can verify what you want is available for consultation. Then the documents would be collected from storage and brought into the Reading Room.”

  “I don’t yet know what they are, for god’s sake. I need to look through your catalogues.”

  “The catalogues are just there, sir,” said the guard as he gestured behind Stephen without looking up as he started to tidy away his things on the desk.

  Stephen turned and eyed the steel metal shelving, which seemed to hold dozens of sets of well-thumbed and shabby encyclopedias.

  “Those are the catalogues?” Stephen said, incredulously.

  “Yes, sir. Those are the ones we have down here in the office. We need specific references to the collections before issuing any pass—at least three citations in writing.”

  “That’s ridiculous. This is absurd.” After he said it, Stephen realized stating the truth might not be the best way to deal with this man, who had stiffened and was now eyeing his impressive-looking key chain and preparing to lock up his desk.

  They were alone in the room now, fifteen minutes before closing, and Stephen sprang from the chair over to the first set of shelves. The volumes seemed to be guides to various collections at random points in time. He fixed his gaze first on “Prints and Drawings of the India Office Collection, 1958 Series B,” and then on “Union Catalogue of Japanese Printed Books and Serials, 1969 Series”—what on earth could he make of all this?

  “Where are the catalogues for the domestic British manuscripts, officer?” asked Stephen, trying to give the man at the desk some sign of respect and contrition in his frenzy.

  “On the left wall there, sir, but I’m afraid we are just about to close,” intoned the man.

  Stephen kept his nerve—he was good about being under pressure—and found a more relevant book about the Lansdowne Collection on the top shelf. By some stroke of wild luck, the inside listings were alphabetical by name of manuscript author, and after a few page turns he was settled on the long listing of items relating to Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford (1550–1604). Tearing out a page from his notebook, Stephen hurriedly jotted down three of the itemized listings of individual manuscript letters: one from 1572 about Oxford’s reconciliation with his father-in-law, another from the same year about him desiring employment, and a third one from 1587 lobbying for promotion at court. Now there were about five minutes left to go.

  As he closed the oversize book and thrust it back on the shelf,
Stephen sliced open the side of his right thumb on the rough metal strut supporting the shelf. No time to deal with that now, he thought, and he leapt back over to the chair and the desk. Unfortunately, as he thrust the torn page in front of the startled man, he saw drops of blood from his thumb had gone onto the top of the page and were now falling onto the guard’s leather desk pad, splashing onto its pink blotting paper and leaving deep crimson marks. “Here are the listings,” Stephen said. “Sorry, I’ve just nicked my hand a bit—but here’s what you need.”

  The man looked in horror down at the bloody sheet and actually wouldn’t take hold of the paper.

  Stephen continued, urging him on. “Officer, here is the listing, just as you requested with three citations. There will be more to come later, I’m sure, but this is all that I understand you need at this point.” Unfortunately, just then another small droplet of blood hit the desk.

  Stammering, the guard said, “I can give you a day pass, sir. You can use it next week.”

  “No, I need something longer. I’ll be working all through this month and I can’t keep coming in every day for new passes.”

  “All right, a week then,” said the man, parsing out time as if he were handing out food-rationing coupons during the war.

  “No, it must be something for longer.” Stephen’s case was supported by yet another drop on the desk.

  “Six months, then.”

  “No, officer, I’ll need at least a year,” Stephen finished as he slid the paper out of his red hand and across the desk to where it touched the front of the man’s chest. With three or four quick movements, the man then opened his center drawer, drew out a tan-colored annual pass, stamped the day’s starting date, wrote “Mister Stephen White”—and that was that. With a short thank you, Stephen was out of the office, through the outer door where more guards stood waiting to lock up, and out into the courtyard and the fresh evening air.