The Company of Fellows

by Dan Holloway

  She stood in the doorway and tried to get a feel for the way he had used the room. There were piles of papers on every surface – the coffee tables, the desk, the sofa, most of the chairs. It was a fair bet most of them had been there for months and were irrelevant. If she could figure out which they were she could save herself hours. She looked at his desk. There was a clearing for his iBook but no more, and a couple of journals had spilled onto the white case. She made a note to herself to take the computer with her.

  Rosie tried a technique she often used. She walked out of the door and down the corridor. She imagined herself tired from a day giving lectures, seeing students, straining her eyes in the library. She thought of the iBook, partially covered, and realised that Professor Shaw didn’t use it to take his daily notes. She tried to feel a folder under her arm, with its pages of scribblings.

  She headed back to the study, yawning as she got into character. Without thinking she found herself heading across the floor, stepping over some heaps of journals, and sitting herself down in a Windsor chair with arms worn smooth and dark, placing her imaginary folder on the table to her left. The papers on it lay flat. Her folder wouldn’t fall off. They were a little beyond her comfortable reach – perfect for someone five or six inches taller than her, like the Professor.

  The chair felt good. God, she needed a drink. Instinctively she moved her hand to the right, felt rounded glass, a bottle of Glengoyne and a tumbler waiting on a mahogany tray. This was where he lived when he was in this room, she thought.

  She scanned her immediate surroundings. To her right was an ottoman, complete with the tray of malt. To her left was the table with the flat-topped stack of papers. They weren’t what he was working on. He used them only as a flat surface to put things on. What did he do when he’d finished whatever it was he did? She imagined him sitting down with his whisky. He’d put everything on the table – his notes from the day, his post, printouts of his e-mails. He didn’t keep them on his lap as he looked through them. That’s where he cradled his drink. He took them off the pile one by one, read them over. What did he do with them? There was no sign of a diary or a jotter. I bet you had a notebook, she said to herself.

  Carefully she retraced her steps to the door and repeated the routine. As she stepped back inside it struck her. You’ve had enough of this heavy tweed. You want to make yourself comfortable. She took off her make-believe jacket and hung it on the back of his door. Sure enough, there was a tweed jacket on the back of the door, a fat mechanical pencil sticking out of the top pocket. I bet you used that pencil to take notes in the library. And, bingo! On the peg next to it was a fine silk smoking jacket. She put it on and padded the pockets. She reached inside. There was the notebook, a small Mont Blanc Mozart biro clipped over its front cover.

  Rosie went back to the chair and opened up the notebook. She was right. The entries were all dated. She started from the most recent, September 3rd, and worked back. Unfortunately it appeared to be nothing but a series of references from books he’d been reading during the day. Strange that he should have bothered taking notes the day before he killed himself. Maybe he hadn’t been intending to kill himself at the time; maybe something sudden happened. She put it on the arm of the chair. It was small enough to balance. She went back to the Professor’s routine. He’d read his papers, taken whatever notes he needed and then put them down one by one. That was it.

  She looked underneath the table. There was a sprawl of envelopes and letters a foot or so back. Clearly once he’d dealt with something he didn’t care what happened to it. She sat on the floor and gathered the pile of papers and correspondence, careful to keep things in order. The top few letters were unopened. A bill, some junk mail, one from college that was handwritten – why would he have left that?

  She got to the first opened letter – the last Professor Shaw had read. It was a strange size – she recognised it as US paper. There it was. Exactly what she’d been looking for. It was a letter from the Divinity Faculty at Harvard. And there were the words that explained the Professor’s death, his sudden decision – we are sorry but after lengthy deliberation the Faculty has decided to appoint another candidate to the post of Professor of Social Ethics. So he had been planning to go to the States, but his plans had fallen apart.

  Why get in touch with Tommy, a student he hadn’t seen in years, and ask him to come round if the Professor was going to kill himself before he got there? Maybe he’d wanted Tommy to get to him just in time. Who knows? she thought. One thing was certain, though. The Professor hadn’t bargained on his messenger dropping dead before he could deliver the message.

  ____

  9

  “Em, hi.” Tommy was already on his way upstairs to get a better signal. Becky put her feet back on the chair, and plugged her earphones in.

  Jericho was at the northwest corner of Oxford’s city centre. For a time it was Oxford’s red light district. Now it was home to a rolling stream of designer dress shops, gadget boutiques, wine bars, organic delis, and luxury interior design showrooms. Its name was an irresistible draw for wannabe designers and bright young chefs; but the rates value were so high most of them went bust after six months. Its swanky eateries appealed to the readers of glossy design porn like Wallpaper and idFX, places like the Big Bang, a restaurant devoted solely to locally made organic sausages. Some of them would last the course. Most of them wouldn’t. But one venue that had relentlessly resisted the march of fashion since Tommy and Emily were first together was Café Rouge, a grimois repository of shabby chic in the middle of the all the glass and chrome.

  The inside of Café Rouge was dark, and the furniture and floors were tired. It was the perfect place for the burnt-out and the broken-up to drink infusions that had seemed exciting and fresh in the 1980s. With their puffy faces and waxy skin, to anyone who looked, the couple could have been either.

  They sat with two cups of Earl Grey, pretending that because there was added bergamot they weren’t just after another caffeine hit.

  “Twice in two days?” said Tommy. “I’m guessing that means it wasn’t a heart attack. So what was it?”

  Emily paused for a moment. “John Charteris died of a heart attack, yes. That and however many years of cigarettes and fat. That’s not what I want to talk to you about.”

  Tommy leant back in the maroon velour wall seat and smiled. His near-black eyes seemed to suck in the blackness around them, and draw her with them.

  “Tommy.” It was probably the three double espresso shots she’d had already. “I don’t know why you think I want to talk to you, but this isn’t what you think it is.”

  “This isn’t what you think it is, Em.” He could see the expectation as her hand hovered by the hot chocolate. He thought he could see the effort in her tendons to hold her ring finger in. Her friends had told her coffee at Café Rouge was special. They were used to sweet tea at Littlewoods or the Nose Bag.

  He wondered if she remembered. He thought that she didn’t, that the glassy grey sleepless skin looked real, and that she hadn’t wanted to meet him here in order to get him off guard.

  “Em, this is killing us.” He made himself hold his eyes up to her the whole time. He hadn’t been able to eyeball anyone for the next year. She hadn’t looked at him once. Just at the steam coming off her chocolate less and less until it stopped cold. When she looked up he was gone. Tommy watched her through the window from the other side of the road. She couldn’t find the arms on her coat. Then she stumbled on the table. Tommy slipped across Bane’s Avenue, down Keble Road, into the Parks and over the bridge. He sat in the middle of one of the fields, picked a thistle, rolled up his trouser leg and with the points carved a circle into his shin and tore away at the skin inside it. He made it a fetish for his self-loathing, a sore he wouldn’t let close over for a year.

  “Did you go to see Professor Shaw yesterday to collect your wine?” she asked.

  “No,” said Tommy, “I called and left a message.” Which was true, “But
he hasn’t got back to me yet.” Which was also true.

  “He won’t be getting back to you, Tommy. Charles Shaw is dead.” She waited for a few seconds, as if inviting his curiosity. He said nothing

  “It looks as though he may have killed himself.”

  “Killed himself? He wanted to see me. You read his letter, Em. He said he was going to America. He sounded excited. Why would he ask to see me then kill himself before he had?”

  Emily looked at him. “Is it possible he could have wanted you to talk him out of it?” she asked.

  “I hope not,” he said. “Why do you think he killed himself?” Did he sound too interested? No, it was the obvious question.

  “Well, we found a note. And the door was locked. There was no sign of forced entry, no fingerprints other than those of his students.”

  Locked? Tommy didn’t think he had actually raised his eyebrow. “How?”

  “He took an overdose of something. We don’t know what yet, we’re still waiting for the tests.”

  “Poison?”

  “Yeah. It was probably in a glass of wine.”

  This time he was sure he had raised his eyebrow. “He really must have been depressed to let his last ever sensation be a glass of spoilt wine. Of course if someone wanted to subject him to a final irony.”

  “Like I said, we’re still waiting for tests.”

  It sounded like the beginning of an out. “So who did you marry?” It was a stupid question, and he didn’t really want to know the answer. But he didn’t want her to go.

  “Not appropriate, Tommy.”

  “What about lunch sometime? Would that be appropriate?”

  “No.”

  “OK.” He wouldn’t push it. Not yet. Just give it time. He was sure this wouldn’t be the last time he saw her. “When can I pick up the wine?”

  “Any time. We’ve gone through it and made an inventory. Just in case it’s important. Call my sergeant.”

  Tommy winced at the thought of policemen rifling through fine wine. Charles would have been better off shipping it all to the States.

  “Goodbye, Tommy. Don’t leave town without calling us. Here’s Sergeant Lu’s number.” She handed him one of Rosie’s cards and left.

  ____

  10

  Emily crossed over the road. She stopped for a moment outside the University Admissions Office, which had previously been a minimalist furniture store, and watched him through the window. She watched him knock his cup as he put it down, and wipe his leather jacket with a paper napkin. She’d never seen him do anything clumsy before.

  For some reason she felt guilty for keeping him at arm’s length. He still had a gift for making her feel bad. She could feel anger building. How dare he come back into her life after all this time and carry on where he left off with the guilt trip? She knew it was unfair, and knowing it made her feel bad again. In the end she had to laugh. That was how the cycle of guilt and anger ate away at you until it had taken up every inch of you and shut out everything else.

  She clenched her hands and told herself to get over it. She had her job; she had David; she had her faith. Every part of her life was full; she was happy; there was no space left for Tommy or his mind games.

  Emily arrived at Martyr’s Gate, the main entrance to St Saviour’s, and went into the Porter’s Lodge. She knew better than to flash her warrant card and walk straight in. Colleges were very twitchy about the police. In reality, of course, she could go where she wanted, but Oxford colleges were harder to open up than an oyster. One false move and they would clam shut for good. So the police carried on playing a game of tug-the-forelock with them.

  The porter smiled at her. He obviously remembered her face from her days as a student. “What are you up to these days?” he asked cheerily.

  “I’m afraid,” she said, “that I’ve gone over to the dark side.”

  “You’re at Cambridge?” He smiled.

  “Worse than that.” Sometimes, when she was a student and in a hurry to get to lectures, the banter had drive her nuts, but now it had a familiar homeliness to it.

  “Worse than Cambridge?”

  “I’m afraid so. I’m with the police.” She took out her warrant card.

  “Ouch. Still,” he said, looking at her credentials. “DCI; you’ve done well for yourself.”

  “Thanks. I’m here to see the Warden. He’s expecting me.”

  “You’d better go on over.”

  He seemed exactly the same as he had done fifteen years before. People often said that college porters were part of the Oxford furniture, and Emily thought that was right, in a comfortable old armchair kind of way. Only they seemed to age better than any furniture she’d ever owned. “Thanks. It’s good to see you again.”

  Despite its unassuming door, the Warden’s Lodge occupied half a side of one of the largest quadrangles in Oxford. Each of its hallways and corridors was the size of an average house.

  She didn’t recognise the middle-aged man who showed her through into his vast study. As a law student, she’d had little to do with tutors from other subjects. And as an active member of the Christian Union she’d had nothing at all to do with the Chapel, whose regulars the zealous young students viewed with as much suspicion as if they’d actually carried pitchforks or broomsticks with them around college. Fortunately Dr Sansom didn’t seem to recognise her either. She wouldn’t have to go through all the tedious chitter chatter about how much she’d enjoyed her time there, how invaluable a grounding it had provided her for later life. More to the point, he wouldn’t expect any special favours.

  “So you’ve come about Charles,” he said, pouring himself what looked like a glass of guava juice. Emily was surprised. It was hardly the sweet sherry she associated with heads of Oxford colleges.

  “That’s right.” She left the space blank, giving him time to fill it before she led his thoughts in any particular direction.

  “It’s terrible, of course; he was one of our brightest stars.” Sansom sipped his juice. He was clearly going to be as helpful as he decided to be and no more. He certainly wasn’t going to do her job for her. Sometimes she wondered whether academics were hired for their ability to be bloody minded just for the fun of it. Well, she’d play for a moment, see if she couldn’t get him to tell her something without her having to ask him a leading question.

  “We think he killed himself.”

  “So I heard.”

  She wondered how he’d heard. They certainly hadn’t told the press yet. Haydn Shaw, possibly; then again in a place like Oxford there were probably fewer people who didn’t know than did.

  There was a knock at the study door. “Come in,” said Sansom.

  A small, neat lady put her head around the door. She looked at Sansom; then she looked at Emily. “I’m sorry to bother you, dear,” she said. “I thought I heard the door and wondered if your guest would like tea.”

  “Would you like tea?” Sansom relayed the message, as though Emily would have been unable to hear the initial request.

  “No, thank you,” she said to the woman, who retreated and closed the door.

  “My wife makes the most incredible pastries. If you’d come in the afternoon you could have had some,” he said.

  Wife? What kind of wife has to knock on her husband’s door? she wondered. Maybe the Shaws weren’t the only weird family in Oxford after all. “Professor Shaw’s death,” she nudged.

  “What would you like to know, Chief Inspector?”

  This was a battle of wills she clearly wasn’t going to win. “Do you have any idea why he might have wanted to kill himself?”

  Sansom put his glass down and steepled his hands. “Nothing springs to mind,” he said after a pause.

  “Was he unhappy at all?”

  “Unhappy? I don’t know that Charles was ever what you could describe as happy. His home life, well I’m sure you know about his separation from Haydn and the daughter he never saw, but I’d hardly have said he was depressed about it;
certainly not suicidal.”

  “Was there anything else?” she asked. “Was there anything more recent that might have affected him; anything to do with his career perhaps?”

  Sansom’s face seemed to light up as though he had suddenly remembered something. “Well, he was moving to Harvard, joining the brain drain.”

  Emily looked at him questioningly.

  “I’m leaving too,” he clarified. “I’m not quite sure where I’m going yet, but Charles knew where he wanted to go. He was heading over the Pond to the land of free speech.” He chuckled sarcastically. “And large paycheques.”

  That was very interesting, thought Emily. From what Rosie had told her on the phone just before she got here the planned move wasn’t as definite as Charles had made out; anything but, in fact. Clearly the news of his rejection hadn’t filtered through the grapevine yet, but from what the Warden said it would certainly have been a blow. To the Professor’s ego, if nothing else.

  “And Professor Shaw was excited about going?”

  “Cock-a-hoop would be a suitable phrase, I would have said.”

  “Thank you, Dr Sansom,” said Emily, getting up to go.

  “That’s quite all right. I’m sorry I couldn’t have been more help.”

  You’ve been plenty of help, thought Emily; although I’m sure you didn’t mean to be.

  ____

  11

  The roof of the top floor study sloped sharply down on one side leaving half of the room like a burrow-hole. It was both a storeroom for the rarest and most beautiful things that Tommy put in clients’ homes, and his own sensual sanctuary. It was everything that the claggy, grey-lit streets of an English town with its screeching youths, its chugging engines, and incessant clang of works are not. It was somewhere he could close his eyes and transport himself to the fragrant smells of the spice bazaar in Istanbul, run silks and cottons across his face and his feet that took him back to Calcutta or Shiraz. In its own way it was as much of a frenetic melee as the roads outside, obeying no principles of design, exhibiting no one style, having no distinctive groundnotes, no strong accents. But this room had nothing to do with fashions or rules. It was a cradle of sensations, a swaddling gown built on no principle other than the ability to take him somewhere else. Half the time this sensual shrine seemed so perfect that most people could never begin to aspire to it, and he knew how very lucky he was. The rest of the time he knew it was his prison. He was an invalid, as sure as if he were missing a leg, and these things, these escape mechanisms, were the oxygen tank he had to carry everywhere with him just to survive.