The Company of Fellows

by Dan Holloway

  “All of that, yes. Most brilliant man I ever met. He knew it too. Spent his life too wrapped up in his own thought experiments to give anyone else the time of day.”

  “Thought experiments?” Now Tommy was interested.

  “He liked to have people round for drinks,” Knightley continued, “to ask them ridiculous questions, discuss improbable scenarios, that kind of thing. What’s the ultimate pleasure? That was his favourite. They’d take something perfectly good and see what could be done to it to make it better. Constantly postponing the pleasure. Like tantric sex but without worrying if the other person is having a good time as well. The perfect wine was a big one. Pissed him off royally the thought he wouldn’t live to be 200. A hundred years to grow and bed in the vines, to perfect the terroir. Another hundred to ease it to maturity, he thought. He had the perfect shag worked out to the second, as well, from the moment you meet to the moment you come. Ahem.” Knightley seemed to have come out of his glazed monologue for long enough to remember his audience. “Haydn, Becky. Pardon me. Every chat-up line, every bloody action for nigh-on twenty years. Right, I’ve said too much; I’m off to the Bear. Tommy. Becky. Haydn, delightful as ever.”

  “Goodbye, Dr Knightley.” Tommy smile., “I’ll give you a call at the JR some time if I may. It would be good to chew the fat over some of Charles’ thought experiments. You brought back memories.”

  “Of course. I’ve got some lovely malts you can try. You look like a malt man.”

  “Indeed,” Tommy agreed, which was a lie. “My mother’s family is from Islay.” Which was not.

  “Take care of yourself, Stephen.” Haydn leant over and kissed him on the left cheek.

  Knightley went even redder, muttered a little and headed off rather shambolically. He had barely brought himself to look at Becky the whole time.

  “Poor Stephen,” said Haydn. “He won’t see this time next year if he carries on like this.”

  “Let’s go and get a drink,” Tommy said to Becky. “Dr Shaw, may I get you something?”

  “No, Tommy. Thank you. Please call me Haydn.”

  Before they had moved Haydn was engaged with a group of postgraduates, the lines of her body following the effortless sway of the conversation, her gestures as light as a feather, her porcelain smile completely unforced.

  “Becky,” he said. It was finally time to stop skirting around the subject. It was all very well mingling and finding out background, but now it was time to get down to business. “Your father wanted me to find his killer. He seemed to know that someone was going to kill him. He suggested that there had been incidents that made him think it. Did he tell you what they were?”

  He could see at once that Becky was delighted that he was opening up. He still wasn’t sure that he could tell why. “Of course,” she said, as though she had been waiting for the question all along. “There were letters, anonymous letters. Twenty or thirty of them. They all said the same thing, ‘Romans 9.13’”

  “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”

  ____

  22

  “Do you think it would be polite to leave yet?” Becky asked.

  “I’m sure it would be less impolite of us to leave than for everyone else to carry on as they are,” Tommy replied.

  “Bird and Baby?”

  “That’s a very good idea,” he agreed. “Let me say goodbye to your mother.”

  Tommy sauntered over to Haydn, who was deep in conversation with the University Lecturer in Coptic. He placed an unwavering hand lightly on her shoulder, a seamless kiss on the left cheek, and wished her a faultlessly worded by-your-leave. Tommy looked more at home in the setting than even Haydn did.

  The Eagle and Child on St Giles was, famously, the regular haunt of the Inklings, the literary academic group that included Tolkien and C S Lewis. Its sign lent it an ever-expanding set of nicknames amongst undergraduates, but the one that stuck longest was the Bird and Baby. From the outside it was little more than half a step and a door off St Giles, but its narrow, low-ceilinged interior snaked back to a large sun-room. Along the way it branched off into oak-panelled snugs that provided a wonderfully allusive canvas for all kinds of trysts and conspiracies. Or for a young man and a young woman to discuss murder without anything being thought strange.

  “OK” said Becky, putting two pints of bitter on the table. “Ground rules.”

  “Is that a question or a toast?” said Tommy, surprised again by her business-like approach to things.

  “It’s let’s get the bullshit out of the way,” she said. That was more like it, he thought. It was strange that despite the emptiness he’d felt for so many years he understood the bitterness more than he understood the coldness. “Dad sent you the research on his latest book. That’s why he wanted you. It wasn’t because he thought you were smarter than he was. It’s because he thought you’d be alive longer than him. He was getting letters almost every day. The quotation isn’t just some random reference to an article he published nearly thirty years ago, it’s clearly something to do with his book. I don’t know why he thought they were death threats, but he did.” She paused and looked straight at Tommy. “And it looks like he was right.

  “OK,” he said noncommittally. He still wasn’t going to admit exactly what Shaw had or hadn’t sent him. If he was going to do this, then he would be in charge of what information got told, and to whom. “So what are the ground rules?”

  “Ground rule one is this. I’ll help you. I’ll introduce you to dad’s friends. I know that’s why you’re letting me tag along. I won’t ask to see what’s in the box. I don’t care if you keep me in the loop but there are conditions on that. You don’t pretend you’re telling me something when you’re not. You don’t lie to me.

  “Ground rule two is this. Upset mum and you’re on your own. I want to know who killed my dad, and I want them locked up.” Suddenly her body softened and she hunched over her pint. She looked tired, Tommy thought. No, she looked more than tired; she looked beat. “Dad’s dead,” she continued quietly. “Mum’s the one who’s got to live with it; so until you’ve got enough to hand on a plate to your ex-girlfriend, she doesn’t need to know what you’re doing.”

  Tommy said nothing. He didn’t know what there was to say. He could see her fading in front of him, but for all her fragility it was clear that these weren’t questions. This was a done deal. There were some things he’d be in charge of. But there were others where she was in control.

  “Your turn,” she said.

  “OK,” said Tommy. “I’ve got two questions and one ground rule of my own.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Question one. If your mother is as completely indifferent to Charles as she seems why should she care what we do? Question two.” He stopped. He had a really bad feeling about saying this, but there wasn’t really a way of skirting round it. “What if she killed your father?” He carried on without taking a breath to allow her to interrupt. “Ground rule. Unlike you I do care that you keep me in the loop. If I ask you something I need you to tell me what you know. Something like whether you know what was in the box, and whether there’s anything your father didn’t put in it that I should know about?”

  “Is that it?” she said calmly.

  “Yes.”

  “Fine. To answer your four questions: Mum’s indifferent because she thinks dad killed himself. If he was murdered there has to be a motive, and whatever that is I think we both know it’s going to dig up a lot of shit she’s buried so deep not even you can see it. Which should answer question two. Three, I know dad put all his research in the box. I didn’t know that he’d actually sent it to you, but now I do I know that rules out the killer having it. And, finally,” she downed the rest of her pint as if to emphasise the point. “If dad thought you had everything you need then there’s nothing left out.”

  Tommy swirled the beer in his glass. He looked at Becky as though he were considering her answers, but she must have known that he thought more quickly than t
hat. Angry one minute, calm the next; defensive one minute, then open; he found her impossible to fathom. Maybe it was just that he had protected himself so long from grief, he thought, that that was the one area of human emotion where he was blind. “If you think there’s something buried that deep,” he said, “then you think it’s got something to do with you. I think that’s why you want to be involved.”

  She had slammed her glass down as though in a gesture of triumph, but he could see that it was simply the finality of exhaustion. She’d had too many hard days in a row: goading him to help her, treading on eggshells around her mother, she’d had no time even to begin to come to terms with any issues she had herself. Those issues weren’t going to go away just because she had other things to do. They would bang away relentlessly, demanding to be addressed and better sooner than later. He could see her beginning to strain to hold her head straight, to control the twitch of her eyelid. The time for posturing, and the pretend haggling of the souk had gone. He spoke softly, “I also think that’s why you don’t want me to tell you everything, and why you don’t want me to lie.”

  Becky made an effort to smile, “OK,” she said. “You can ask anything. Just not today. Deal?”

  “Deal.”

  ____

  23

  Becky had gone straight home leaving Tommy to make his own way to dinner. Dinner with her and Haydn would be the perfect chance to get to know the mysterious Dr Shaw. But right in front of Becky, who had just made him swear to keep his nose out of her mother’s business? Was it really the best time? Maybe it was best to take his foot off the pedal for the evening. He could let his subconscious do the work, and respect Becky’s request at the same time. He drew a curtain in his mind, pulling it tight as he pulled the collar together on his black silk Nehru jacket.

  It was probably best not to take wine, he thought. To take something from Shaw’s collection would be tasteless, but to take something else might make Haydn wonder why he hadn’t. And not flowers. She’d had too many of those already on a day like this. No, he knew what would be perfect, prepared it, and put it in his pocket.

  Despite a series of road widening and bridge expanding schemes in recent years that had threatened on occasion to bring Oxford to a total halt, the Botley Road remained a miserable bottleneck. Tommy looked wistfully down the Ferry Hinksey Road, at the end of which was the short cycle track to North Hinksey, and prepared himself for another mile in the traffic before the road almost doubled back on itself. He opened the windows to relieve the heat, letting in the stagnant particulate smog that hangs over Oxford in the high pressure in its place. The heavy guitars and throaty cries of Rammstein pounded his ears, flooding his senses with enough stimulation to keep his mind from asking too many questions.

  Eventually he pulled up outside Haydn’s house, noting the two cars parked outside. He couldn’t imagine that the black Lexus would be hers. No, it was much more likely that she would drive the neat crimson Clio next to it; and somehow he didn’t see Becky in a corporate hack’s car. Who could be visiting? Knightley? He found it hard to imagine that Knightley ever stopped drinking long enough to drive. Male company? It occurred to Tommy that the possibility hadn’t occurred to him.

  Becky opened the door.

  “Hey, Tommy.”

  “Good evening,” he replied. “Your mother?”

  “In the kitchen.”

  The soft leather soles of Tommy’s shoes whispered on the maple as he followed the corridor to the kitchen. He took in every inch of elegant minimalism as he went. “You have beautiful home, Dr Shaw,” he said as he arrived in the doorway.

  Haydn walked over to Tommy and ever so slightly raised one hand, which he took and kissed in one motion. Her grey dress slid down her like water and lapped at her feet just above the floor. It was a perfect complement to his shirt, the tiny black appliqué lotus blossoms catching the light in just the same way as his jacket. Tommy was pleased with his choice of wardrobe. “You appreciate design professionally, I believe?” she said.

  “Yes.” Tommy fetched the olive wood box from his pocket and handed it to her. “Wine and flowers seemed less appropriate,” he said. His pupils pulsed once as he heard her gasp when she opened it. “From Ghana.”

  Haydn lowered her head over the box and breathed in the scent of the sea that rose from the rough, dull nugget of ambergris. “Exquisite.” She placed the box in a drawer. “Please come and meet our guests.” Tommy registered the plural. Clearly it wasn’t – or at least not just – a boyfriend. He could see she’d noticed his reaction. “You may have met earlier today,” she continued. “I can’t be sure.” She led him back through to the reception room.

  “Tommy, this is Hedley Sansom, and his wife, Clarissa. Hedley, Clarissa, this is Tommy West, my late husband’s star student.”

  Tommy was sure he hadn’t shown his surprise at seeing the Warden of St Saviour’s sipping vermouth in Haydn Shaw’s front room. “Mrs Sansom, Reverend Sansom.”

  Tommy knew Hedley Sansom from his student days. Sansom had been another of Charles Shaw’s peers, another of the bright young things of theology. He had lacked the precocity of Shaw and Ellison in his early career, spending several years after his ordination as a college chaplain before taking up a University Lecturership. His field was the philosophy of religion, a subject that fell tantalisingly between disciplines and was often impossible to classify.

  Tommy had learned from a quick scan of the college website that he had been different from them in other ways. He hadn’t stayed in Oxford but had followed a classical career arc, going first to Tübingen in Germany as a junior professor, then to Trinity College, Dublin as a head of Faculty, and finally to Princeton, returning to Oxford not as a professor but as a head of college. He seemed to have the most important reputation of all in academia, that of someone who brought funding with him wherever he went.

  From what Tommy remembered he found it hard to imagine Sansom spending his life in the role of academic figurehead rather than scholar. Yes, Sansom had been good with people, but it’s one thing to be good at something, another to love it, to set your heart on it and follow a career that will see you doing it all your life. After all, just look at him. He was good at interior design.

  “Tommy, it’s wonderful to see you after all these years.”

  Tommy couldn’t detect any note of sympathy in Sansom’s voice, or gloating, the usual reactions from people who had known him when he had the world in front of him, and who had witnessed the sudden demolition of his dreams. “How is life in the Warden’s Lodge?” Tommy asked. “I can’t imagine that speeches to the great and the good and chapel sermons have quite the appeal to you as lectures in the Examination Schools.” Sansom’s lectures had been one of the highlights of Tommy’s undergraduate days. He’d had the knack of bringing one of the driest subjects on the curriculum to life with elegant wit and pertinent anecdotes.

  “It’s the price we pay for advancement, Tommy.”

  “Then I am glad that I have never advanced.” They smiled together, and Tommy sensed they understood each other on a deeper level than either would care to let on.

  “No? I always imagined you would have been a professor by now.”

  “Interior designer,” Tommy corrected. Sansom didn’t flinch. Maybe he was one of the few people from Tommy’s academic past who weren’t aware of his breakdown. Or maybe he was still being the consummate diplomat. Either way Tommy was glad neither to have the pretence of pity nor to be in imminent danger of having to rehearse the whole story again.

  “Then you’ll be one of the few people in this city of philistines who appreciates the marvellous things Haydn has done with this place.”

  Said with the tempo of a true politician, Tommy thought. “Absolutely.” He turned to the Warden’s wife, standing awkwardly behind him with her drink. “How does life at the House suit you, Mrs Sansom?”

  “Very well,” Clarissa said. Tommy could see in her brown, slightly heavy eyes that she both absolutely
meant and absolutely did not mean it with equal sincerity. She wore the marks of a conscious choice, once made and never reneged on. They were the marks that he had seen on Charteris’ rounded face three days earlier.

  “Please excuse me,” said Tommy. “Let me see if I can help in the kitchen.”

  Haydn was busy preparing food, a piece of bright red meat with a feather comb of fat running all the way through. It looked like hand-marbled end papers he had seen being made in Florence. “Wagyu beef. I’m intrigued to know what you’re going to do with it.”

  “What would you do with it, Tommy?” said Haydn, without looking up.

  “Absolutely nothing,” Tommy answered, taking in the pattern of the meat as though it were a painting. What gave wagyu beef its unique appearance was the constant massaging of the cattle, working the muscles and the fat through the skin, making every mouthful equally moist and tender. This and a diet of the finest grains and beer could raise the price to well over £100 per kilo.

  “And that is what I intend to do,” she said. “You know the Warden, Tommy? I suppose he was at Oxford when you were a student. Now he’s leaving.”

  “Yes, he lectured philosophy of religion. I remember him well. He’s very young to be retiring. As I recall most Wardens stay until they begin to disintegrate. Can I help in any way?”

  “Hedley isn’t like any Warden I can remember. He doesn’t let the cobwebs form or the woodworm take hold,” Haydn said, slicing the meat finely with the flat side of a sushi knife. “I don’t think he’s retiring as such. I imagine he plans to look for a Chancellorship somewhere They hate him for it, of course, everyone else in College. Most of all the older ones. The ones who could never even aspire to being Warden. They hate he fell into the post as easily as putting on a comfortable suit, and that he’s leaving it s readily as changing for dinner. And yes, you could begin to heat the miso soup lightly. Thank you.”