That was the trouble. I hadn’t the slightest idea. I looked at Alan.
‘If I were investigating this officially,’ said Alan, sounding very much like a policeman, ‘the first thing I would order is a thorough testing of that floor for bloodstains. None are visible now to the naked eye, but I’m sure you know about using ultraviolet light to detect blood.’
‘Only from cop shows on the telly,’ said Tom, grinning again. ‘Does it really work?’
‘It does, though not in quite the way you might expect. The blood doesn’t fluoresce under UV, but it shows very black, even if it’s nearly invisible to the naked eye. You have the equipment?’
Tom nodded. ‘The problem is going to be getting into that lab. Students – at least, graduate students – have keys to the rooms we use, but not to the rest. I could get in when the room is in use, but then I could hardly do any testing. I could see if I could wangle a key from one of my friends.’
‘I’d like you to try it, if you can without landing in trouble.’
‘That’s really important, Tom,’ I added anxiously. ‘Staying out of trouble, I mean. It isn’t just a question of getting into hot water academically for overstepping your bounds as a student. Where there is blood, there almost certainly was death. If it was a human death, then whoever is responsible isn’t going to take kindly to anyone poking around. You could be in danger.’
The grin had gone. ‘I understand. I’ll be careful. What else?’
‘If there are no obvious stains under UV light,’ Alan went on, ‘then you may have to do some close inspection on your hands and knees. The floor is of white linoleum, I believe, like this one. That’s pretty impervious, but if we’re lucky, some of the blood may have been spilt near a seam, where it could have run underneath. Dorothy, you’re going to have to show him exactly where it was, as nearly as you can remember.’
I nodded, not looking forward to it.
‘Then you’ll have to inspect carefully, perhaps even scraping a bit with a clean knife.’
‘I sometimes use sterile scalpels in my work. I can do that.’
‘Good man. This is exactly what I would have my scene-of-crime officers do, but in this case, we can’t call them in, or, rather, your aunt can’t call them in. Not yet. If you can find evidence of blood, enough to warrant a test with Luminal, it will get us a good deal further on. Any questions?’
‘No, sir.’ Unconsciously, I thought, he had responded to Alan’s air of authority. ‘Mrs Martin, could you bear to show me the spot right away? There aren’t many people here just now, but I think I saw Bristow coming in to work in that lab, so we could get in. I could tell him I was showing you around the place.’
‘Of course I will. It’s foolish of me to be so skittish about it.’ And Alan would be there. That would make everything much easier.
The building seemed to be deserted. At least it was very quiet. ‘Tom, are we the only ones here? And your friend Bristow? I had an idea dedicated scientists worked all the time.’
‘Friday afternoon,’ he replied. ‘Most of us take off, unless we’ve a critical experiment going that has to be tended like a dear little baby. And of course the animal-minders have to come in, but they usually just do a quick check of food and water and so on.’
We went back down the stairs. I was glad I was wearing sneakers. They squeaked a little on the stone treads, but they didn’t clatter. Tom’s shoes were rubber-soled, too, and Alan had learned the art of silence in decades of police work.
Why did I feel the need for caution in this nearly empty building? It was irrational, but still I clung to the banister, taking some of the weight off my feet, to quiet them still further.
Tom felt it, too. Perhaps my own unease was contagious. When we reached the ground floor, he pointed us in the right direction without speaking. I reached for Alan’s arm and clung to it as a much better alternative to the stair rail.
I was prepared to feel queasy when we opened the door to the zoology lab, just as I had when the tour guide opened it.
What I wasn’t prepared for was the sight of a white lab coat whisking out of sight through the back door.
SIX
‘Alan!’ I said, clutching his arm frantically. I meant to speak in a whisper. I realized after a second or two that I had made no sound at all. I swallowed to try again, but my husband put a finger to his lips. He raised his eyebrows in an ‘OK?’ expression, and gently loosed my death grip.
I wanted him to stay with me, but, of course, he needed to get across the room and try to spot the person who had disappeared through that door. It was so much like my first experience in that room that my eyes turned involuntarily to the floor. To the spot where …
‘X marks the spot,’ I said with a near giggle.
‘Steady, Mrs Martin.’ The boy behind me grasped my shoulder. ‘That was probably just Bristow, though why he’d leave, just as we came in … Anyway, your husband will be back in a tick, and I’m here.’
He was a child, no substitute for my stalwart husband. But he was a nice, kind child. ‘I’m sorry. I’m not going into hysterics, really. It was just … seeing that person leaving the room, just as he … she … it did the first time. Not through the same door, of course. There are so many doors, aren’t there? I’m not sure, anymore, which one … because I was standing back there, you see. Where he went out this time. And the puddle on the floor was …’
‘I imagine it was about where that puddle is now,’ said Tom, sounding grim.
That remark shocked me, at last, out of my babbling fit. ‘Puddle? But there’s no – oh.’ I looked where he pointed, and there, sure enough, was a barely visible puddle. Not of blood, but what looked from here like soapy water.
I took a deep breath. ‘We’re too late, aren’t we?’
‘Looks that way. If that really was the spot.’
‘I think so.’ I was regaining my equilibrium. ‘Tom, am I right that the door over there leads to a short corridor and then to an outside door?’
He nodded.
‘Then I think that’s the way I came in before. Could we go over and stand in front of that door? Then I’ll be seeing things from the right angle, and maybe I can be sure about the … about the blood.’
Blood. Perfectly ordinary English word. Nothing to get upset about. Say it often enough and it becomes routine.
Right.
I wished Alan would come back. I wished he’d catch the phantom lab tech. If that’s what he was. I wished I’d never seen this building, never come to Cambridge.
Or maybe not quite that. There was King’s …
We moved around the room, staying as close to the edges as possible so as not to tread in any evidence that might be left. With lab benches up against nearly all the walls, it wasn’t easy. I tried not to touch anything, but slow creeping creates balance problems for someone my age. I was glad of Tom’s sustaining arm.
As we went, I counted doors. The one we came in. The one at the back that led out. One at each end of the room that led who knew where. It was through the one to the right of the main door that the lab-coated person had flown, Alan after him.
‘I wish Alan would come back.’
‘He is back,’ said my husband in a normal tone of voice. He’d come in when I was looking the other way. ‘The bird has flown. This place is a rabbit warren, if you’ll forgive my saying so, Tom. My quarry could have gone in any one of three or four directions from the next room, and in several from each of those. He was just far enough ahead of me that I couldn’t see a closing door, and they’re all so blasted quiet I couldn’t hear one, either.’
‘He?’ I asked.
‘Or she. I’ve no clue.’
‘We’re out of clues here, too,’ I said with a sigh. ‘Our shy lab worker has been busy.’ I pointed to the rapidly drying spot on the floor. ‘That’s where the blood was. He seems to have come back to finish the clean-up job.’
‘And ran for the hills as soon as he heard us coming,’ said Tom. ‘I
’d say that puts the lid on it. If that was Bristow, he couldn’t have moved so quietly. He weighs around twenty stone. And none of the cleaners would be about just now. They come in at night. Something’s sure rotten in the state of Denmark.’
‘And there’s a rat i’ the arras,’ I said, adding one more metaphor to the rich mixture. ‘You’re right. An innocent cleaner would have no reason to flee. But that’s not evidence, is it, Alan?’
‘Not even close. I had pinned my hopes on those blood stains, but clearly we have here a villain who watches the telly and learns therefrom.’
‘But why did he – whoever – wait so long for the clean-up? It was there on Wednesday afternoon. This is Friday. Forty-eight hours. I know he did a lick-and-a-promise just before you and the others checked on Wednesday, but why wait for the thorough job?’
Tom frowned. ‘The lab’s in pretty constant use on Thursdays, but not on Fridays. I can’t think why he didn’t come back last night, or this morning.’
‘Something else to do, something critical?’ suggested Alan. ‘He was in hospital. He was in jail. He was called out of town on an emergency of some sort. It could be anything.’
‘So what do we do next? Should we – that is, should Elaine – be checking for missing persons, or hospital admissions, or a body? That blood had to belong to somebody.’
‘Possibly an animal,’ Alan reminded me. ‘The fact is we have no solid evidence that there ever was any blood. I’m sorry, love, but although Elaine and I both believe you, she can’t launch an investigation, risking both a good deal of expense and the possibility of town-and-gown umbrage being taken, based simply on your word. And that being the case, I suggest we ask young Thomas here to find us a good pub nearby and drown our sorrows, or at least take them for a moderate swim.’
I have always loved pubs. ‘English pubs’ is redundant; only in England – or perhaps one could extend it to the UK – does the pub flourish. Attempts to import them to America have been abysmal failures. The atmosphere of a place that has been a centre of community life for at least three hundred years simply cannot be transported to a country as young as the United States.
Now that they’re smoke-free, pubs are for me better than ever, although I admit that the ancient regulars befouling the air with their equally ancient pipes were a part of the ambience, and are missed by the real traditionalists. I’m as great a lover of Merrie Olde England as anyone, and as firm a defender of her institutions, but there are limits. I have an odd fondness for being able to breathe.
The pub Tom took us to was everything a pub should be. Near King’s College, it was predictably crowded and noisy. It was old, and the owners had resisted the temptation to tart it up. There was a terrace sheltered from the street by greenery, but on this chilly April afternoon we found the interior more appealing. There was a fireplace with an inglenook, but the press of customers made the room quite warm enough without a fire.
Tom greeted friends as he made his way across the room to a single unoccupied table. ‘What’ll you have?’
I expressed my usual preference for bourbon. Alan asked for whisky and held out a ten-pound note. ‘This round’s mine,’ he said, and Tom bowed a graceful thanks.
Settled with our drinks, Tom raised his pint. ‘Here’s to new friends,’ he said somewhat solemnly, and we joined him in the toast.
‘There’s nothing quite like getting involved in a murder to cement a friendship,’ I commented.
‘Is that what this is? A murder?’ Tom didn’t bother to keep his voice down. The noise level was such that anything below a siren would go unnoticed.
‘We don’t know,’ said Alan patiently. ‘A pool of blood. That’s all we have – or had. Now that’s gone beyond recall.’
‘As is your friend Bristow,’ I said sourly. ‘I’d very much like to know where he disappeared to.’
Tom pulled out his phone and poked at it, then held it to his ear. ‘Matt? Grenfell. I thought I saw you at the labs this afternoon, but when I tried to find you, you’d gone. Oh. Oh, I see. And how is she getting on? No, nothing important. Later.’
He pocketed the phone.
‘Had to leave to tend a sick mother, or girlfriend?’
Tom chuckled. ‘Not exactly. He came to the building just for a moment to check on a pregnant guinea pig. She’s doing well and not quite ready for her accouchement, so he left again.’
‘Another red herring, then. Tom, you work in that building, even if not in that particular lab. You know the people working there – besides Bristow, I mean – and something of their projects, yes?’
He nodded.
‘Can you think of any innocuous way a large quantity of blood could have been spilled on that floor?’
‘No. I’ve been giving it some thought ever since you told me. Sure, the zoologists work with blood, but they’re tiny samples.’
‘Human blood?’ Alan asked.
‘Not that I am aware. That kind of research is hedged round with all kinds of regulations, and rightly so. The possibilities for disaster are endless. No, they use the blood of lab animals. And before you get upset, Mrs Martin, they use tiny needles, and the quantity is so small the animals usually aren’t even aware they’ve drawn it. Though a chap I know was bitten once by a rat. It thought it was about to be fed, and expressed its disappointment rather forcefully.’
He took a pull at his pint. ‘How much blood was there, Mrs Martin? I know you’ve said quite a lot, but what does that mean?’
‘Alan wanted to know that, too, and I’m sorry, but I can only tell the size of the puddle. I know from kitchen spills that a small amount of liquid can cover an amazing lot of floor, but blood is more viscous than water or wine or coffee or any of the other things I’ve been known to spill. The pool was about so wide.’ I indicated about twelve inches with my hands.
Tom whistled. ‘And it was fresh?’
I had a healthy swig of bourbon. ‘Fresh enough that I could smell it.’ Alan gave me a concerned look, but I was OK. Almost.
Tom drank his beer and brooded. I looked at my watch and raised my eyebrows at Alan. He shook his head, which could have meant a number of things. I finished my drink.
Tom stood. ‘This is my round.’
‘No, thank you,’ I said.
Alan stood, saying, ‘I do really have to get back to the conference. The speaker at dinner tonight is an old friend, and I should be there.’
‘But we can’t just let this drop!’ Tom was now almost as concerned as Alan and I.
‘No,’ I said, putting my hand on his arm. ‘I have no intention of letting it drop. But until one of us has a better idea of how to pick it up, we might as well let it stew.’ My, but I had a fine line in mixed metaphors today!
‘I’ll ring you tomorrow,’ said Tom, ‘after I’ve had a better chance to think about it, and nose around a bit.’
‘But be careful!’ I said, just as Alan said, ‘Use all due caution, mind you.’
Tom grinned. ‘I have a healthy regard for my own skin, you know. I’ll not go and do something stupid. But what you need at this point is inside knowledge, and as I see it I’m the only man who can get that for you. And the drinks tomorrow are on me!’
We hurried back to St Stephen’s by the most direct route, not lingering to look at King’s or any of the other ancient colleges. I was sorry. I needed that dose of antiquity to offset a modern world that was altogether too much with us.
SEVEN
I indulged in the conference breakfast with Alan the next morning before making my escape. I was very glad there were no scales anywhere on which I could weigh myself. At the rate I was eating, I’d have gained ten pounds by the time I got home.
The earliest we could expect to hear from Tom would surely be late morning, if he was like every other college student I’ve ever known. So I told Alan I’d decided to get some exercise and some culture at one go, and planned to visit the Fitzwilliam Museum.
I’d heard a lot about the Fitzwilliam, but on pr
evious visits to Cambridge it was never a high enough priority to warrant skipping other attractions. This morning it seemed a good place to while away some time and perhaps take my mind off the mysterious pool of blood. So I pulled on my tam, unfolded my map (which was becoming somewhat tattered), walked south on King’s Parade until it became Trumpington Street, and there it was – a magnificent neo-classical building that reminded me of the Capitol in Washington, DC, minus the dome. Like the Capitol, it was approached via an impressive staircase, and though there were prominent signs pointing to the disabled-accessible entrance, I defied my years and minor aches and pains, climbed the stairs, and stepped inside.
And inside … oh, my! I simply stood and stared.
An imposing double staircase, with treads of white marble and railings and balusters of polished purple and golden stone, led up to a doorway supported by two Grecian-style caryatids, the whole surmounted by a heraldic shield, presumably that of the Fitzwilliams. It was supported not by the traditional lions, but by two large birds I couldn’t identify, although to my untutored eye they looked like ostriches. Surely not! There’s something intrinsically comical about an ostrich. I couldn’t imagine anyone choosing them as part of a family’s identity.
Beyond the dazzling doorway I glimpsed a warm red wall and a gorgeously carved ceiling, and by craning my neck I could see the frame of a picture or two. A gallery, then.
A dome topped the entrance hall, and behind the reception desk on the main floor were dark green marble columns flanking the entrance to more galleries.
‘Excuse me.’ The voice behind me sounded impatient, and I realized I was blocking the way.
‘Oh, sorry!’ I stepped aside. ‘It’s just that … I’ve never seen … well, it really is amazing, isn’t it?’
‘Your first visit, madam?’ The man behind the counter sounded mildly amused.
‘Gosh, how could you tell?’ I grinned at him. ‘Just because I’m totally discombobulated? Truly, I’ve never seen anything like this. It wouldn’t matter if you had nothing on display at all; the building itself …’ I waved my hands around, nearly beaning the woman who stood beside me. She took a hasty step back.
Blood Will Tell Page 5
