‘Yes, I thought of that. But if you show your identification, I’ll bet Everidge’s secretary, or whoever keeps the college records, would give you Terence’s number, and he can put us in touch with his fiancée. He’ll be at something of a loose end, with no work to be done in the lab, so I’m sure he’ll be happy to talk to us.’
‘As a second-year student, he’ll have other studies to worry about as well.’
‘Of course he will, but do you know, at the moment I just don’t care about those other studies one bit!’
‘And you, a teacher!’ He shook his head in mock horror. ‘Very well, I’ll see what I can do. What other assignments do you have for me?’
‘None until I do some more thinking. I’m going to play with my new phone for a little while and see if I can’t figure out how to make it do the handstands I understand it’s capable of.’
‘Mind you don’t set off a nuclear explosion by mistake. I’ll be back. Oh, and what do you want to do about lunch?’
‘When do they serve here in the dining hall?’
‘I’ll have to check. It’s not a long period. Twelve till half past one – something of that sort.’
‘Let’s do that, then. What time is it now?’ I don’t like wearing a watch.
‘Your amazing new mobile can tell you that, my dear.’
He left the room quickly.
I sighed, fished my phone out of my purse, and prepared to do battle. It was easy enough to find the time of day. It came up on the screen as soon as I turned the thing on. But then I decided to experiment a little and see if I could do some research.
Working out how to use the thing as a computer was harder. I punched various little pictures on the screen, some of which seemed to me to be highly obscure, none of which took me to anything resembling a computer.
Eventually, I found Google. I’ve used my computer at home enough to know that it’ll find you anything from a recipe for sticky toffee pudding to newspaper articles in Russian. It works a little bit differently on a phone, but I finally found what I was looking for: websites about famous student pranks. Of course, I still didn’t know if a prank was involved in our problem, but it couldn’t hurt to cover all the bases.
Alan walked in just as I pulled up a promising site. Unfortunately, it was about American colleges, and was rather disappointing, noting such stunts as filling dorm rooms with ping-pong balls or shaving cream.
‘I have the phone numbers,’ said Alan rather smugly. ‘The secretary gave me Jennifer Everidge’s as well.’
‘The old Nesbitt charm at work?’
‘Of course. Shall I ring them up now, or would you rather have a bite to eat?’
‘Call on our way to lunch. Then if you have to leave a message, we won’t have wasted time. Alan, can I save this thing?’ I pointed to the site on my phone.
‘I think so.’ He took the gadget, pressed and poked and swiped his hand up and down, performed other mystic rites, and handed it back to me. ‘I’ve saved the search. You can come back to it.’
‘Can I turn the blasted thing off now?’
‘You don’t want to. Just leave it alone. The screen will go dark, but the phone will ring if anyone calls in.’
‘That’s another thing we’ve got to do – change the way it rings!’
‘One hurdle at a time, love. Let’s go and find some lunch. Do you have your meal pass?’
Alan called both Terence and Jennifer. Both calls went to voicemail. He gave my number and his, and we sat down to lunch, not as elegant as the conference meals, but well cooked and sustaining. My phone set off its horrid jangling just as we were finishing our rice pudding.
It was Nigel. ‘Hi, Dorothy, just a quick question. I’ve had a little time to think about your problem, though I’ve not come up with anything definite. But am I right in assuming that your students have lab animals?’
‘Yes. Rats and snakes and guinea pigs.’
‘Good. Got to go. I’ll call after we get our particular beasts settled for the night.’
‘Wait, Nigel. What’s the word on Greta Jane? Is she growing properly and all that?’
‘Blooming. Sound of wind and limb. Especially wind. I’m surprised the neighbours haven’t complained about her lung power. Later.’
The next phone to ring was Alan’s, with its much more subdued tones, as we were walking out of the dining hall. Alan mouthed to me that it was Jennifer Everidge on the line.
They spoke briefly before Alan punched off and turned to me. ‘She’s with young Terence.’
‘No great surprise.’
Alan grinned. ‘No. They would like to meet us at the Eagle.’
‘Is it my sort of pub?’
‘It’s quite pleasant, and on a fine afternoon it won’t be terribly crowded, or not with students, at least. Such students as aren’t devoted to tutorials or the other duties of the academic life will probably be on the tennis courts or the river. I believe it’s the oldest pub in Cambridge, and some famous people have frequented it, so there may be tourists.’
‘I’ll chance it.’
‘Can you walk that far?’
‘You know, I think I can. I’m back almost to normal, and I put on my most comfortable shoes.’
‘Good. Avaunt!’
We stopped at our room so I could change into a cool blouse and put my hat back on, and then set out. The pub, when we got there, was not the tarted-up sort with baskets of flowers hanging everywhere, but it was, as Alan said, quite pleasant. Just an honest pub, bigger than most, and with a remarkable array of beers, if the pumps ranged along the bar were any indication. I opted for a half-pint of mild, and planned to give most of it to Alan. I needed my wits about me.
Terence’s eyes widened, possibly in disbelief, as he caught sight of me in my hat. Jennifer smiled. ‘I’ve never seen a woman wear one of those before,’ she said a little shyly, ‘but it suits you. I might just have to buy one for myself.’
‘I hope I’m not breaking some unwritten Cambridge rule by wearing one. Sort of like a college tie, you know, that no one except a member of that college should ever, ever wear.’
‘If you are, love,’ said Alan, arriving with our beer, ‘you’ll be excused on the grounds of being an ignorant American. Cheers.’
He let us each have a refreshing couple of swallows before putting his own glass down and surveying the room. It was just crowded enough, just noisy enough, to give us a reasonable measure of privacy. ‘Now. We are, Terence and Jennifer, on serious business here. Tom Grenfell is still missing, still not answering his phone. And as you’ve probably guessed from the security zone established around the Hutchins Building – if your father hasn’t told you, Jennifer – it has been declared a crime scene. Yesterday Superintendent Barker supervised a forensics team to collect various samples, and it was found that human blood had been spilled on the floor of the zoology laboratory. In connection with the other events surrounding that building, Elaine deemed it essential that it be sealed off.
‘You know that I am a retired policeman. I can tell you that it is extremely unusual for a murder to be assumed without the presence of a body. There are extenuating circumstances here, however, chief among which are the attack on my wife and Tom’s disappearance. So, as is sometimes said in church, I require and charge you both that you declare anything you might know or even suspect about these matters.’
The two youngsters looked at each other. Jennifer spoke first. ‘We don’t really know anything, Mr Nesbitt. We’d have told my father if we did. We have some ideas. Only …’
‘Only they are just ideas, and they may not be true, and we don’t want to get anybody into trouble.’ Terence looked unhappy.
‘The sentiment does you credit,’ I said before Alan could start the civic responsibility lecture he’d used so often when he was an active policeman. ‘This is a small and tightly knit community here at the university, and a well-respected one at that. No one wants to spoil relationships with unconsidered gossip. But this is
a special case. Your fellow student is missing and may have come to harm, Terence. Your father’s college, Jennifer, has already been pushed into the eye of the media, most unfavourably. And a human being, almost certainly someone who is a part of this university community, has been at least injured.’ I took another swallow of my beer before I could continue. ‘I must tell you both that there was quite a lot of blood on that floor, before someone cleaned it up. This was not a case of a cut finger.’
Another wordless communication between Terence and Jennifer, and the girl nodded sharply. ‘Yes. That’s what I told him. We have to tell, Terence. We must.’
We waited.
‘It’s about Mahala,’ Terence said at last.
‘Do you know where he is?’ asked Alan. I gave him The Look. Let him tell it his own way, I said silently.
‘No. Not even where he might be.’ He finished his beer. ‘It’s hard to tell this, because, you see, I’m not all that keen on Mahala. It isn’t a race thing, truly. There isn’t a lot of prejudice in Cambridge, anyway, with students here from all over the world. It’s just … no one likes him, really. He’s brilliant and works hard, but he rubs people up the wrong way. No one wants him for a partner in lab work; he gives the other person all the dirty jobs and takes all the glory if the task goes well. And then he hates sport, never even goes punting. He just doesn’t fit in.’ He looked at his empty beer glass. Jennifer slipped away to the bar.
‘This all happened two or three weeks ago, what I’m about to tell you,’ Terence went on. ‘Near the beginning of term. I overheard him arguing with one of the first-years. They were in one of the animal rooms – where they’re housed, you know – and as it was a warm day, the windows were open. I was outside, just under the window, and I didn’t mean to listen, but they were shouting, having a real ding-dong.’
Jennifer set down a tray with fresh glasses all around. I smiled and shook my head, but I helped her pile the used glasses on the tray.
‘I’ll tell the rest,’ said Jennifer. ‘Terence always sticks at the middle of the story, because he hates telling tales. It was an argument over the lab rats. The one student – Terence doesn’t know who it was – was saying that Mahala was feeding them too much, and the wrong sort of food.’
‘Wait a minute,’ I interrupted. ‘You’re saying Mahala works with the rats. Does anyone know what research he’s doing with them?’
‘He’s very close-mouthed about it,’ said Terence. ‘His professor would know, of course, but he’s in America just now lecturing at – would it be Columbia University? That’s the one in New York?’
I nodded, and Jennifer continued. ‘Anyway, the other student challenged him, and Mahala claimed he knew what he was doing, that it was part of a special experiment in breeding, and the other student could … er … keep out of what wasn’t his business.’
‘And that’s all?’ asked Alan after a pause. ‘No sounds of the argument turning violent?’
‘I don’t know. I didn’t hear anything, but I left pretty quickly. I don’t like conflict.’
‘And you’re sure Mahala was one of the two involved?’ Alan continued. ‘You didn’t see him?’
‘I didn’t need to see him. His accent is quite distinctive.’
‘Like his manner,’ said Jennifer. ‘And manners. He really is the most horrid little toad.’
‘And you don’t know who the other person was? You said he was a first-year student.’
‘I can’t be sure about that, but it’s usually the first-years who do the routine work of looking after the animals. I might know his voice if I heard it again, but there was nothing special about it.’
‘No particular accent?’
‘None that I could hear.’
‘And when did you say this happened?’
‘I don’t remember exactly, except it was in the first week of term.’
‘But you’re sure the argument took place in one of the animal rooms?’
‘I’m sure. It was the rat room. I’ve checked since. I was reasonably sure before, since they were talking about rats.’
I remembered something. ‘You know, Alan, when I saw the rats, they seemed awfully big to me. I thought lab rats might be bigger than the ordinary ones people get as pets. It could have been my imagination, though. I was pretty scared of them; maybe that made them look huge.’
‘It’s not your imagination, Mrs Martin,’ said Jennifer with a little shudder. ‘They really are far bigger than the usual rat. Terence showed me. They’re creepy, if you ask me.’
‘Well … but, just feeding them more wouldn’t make them bigger, would it? Fatter, yes, but bigger?’
‘No,’ said Terence and Alan together. The younger man deferred to the older. ‘I told you, Dorothy, that my daughter had pet rats. She decided they weren’t growing fast enough and started feeding them more. They rapidly became obese, sluggish, and not very healthy, but only girth increased, not length. Helen and I put a stop to the overfeeding when we happened to see them one day and noticed what sort of shape they were in. Neither of us could bear the things, but we didn’t approve of cruelty to animals, which was what this amounted to.’
‘You’re quite right, Mr Nesbitt. Mahala must be giving them growth hormones or something of the sort. And he did mention selective breeding.’
‘But you say he’s a first-year student. Would he have had time in just a few months to make much difference in the rat population?’
‘Oh, dear. I must have given the wrong impression. No, Mahala’s in his second year. And rats breed fast, you know. They can have as many as five litters a year, with maybe seven to ten babies, or even more. So if he chose the biggest and fittest from those litters—’
‘Wait! If he bred siblings to each other, wouldn’t he get a lot of undesirable traits?’
‘But he wouldn’t do that. He’d choose several of the biggest males and females in the lab, those with different blood lines, and raise several different litters. Then he’d repeat the process. He’s a git, but not a stupid git. And whatever he’s been doing, it’s working. Those rats are at least twice the size they ought to be.’
‘Yes, well.’ Alan cleared his throat. ‘This is very interesting. And if you’ll tell me the name of Mahala’s professor, I’ll try to phone him and learn more about the rat project. But none of it is perhaps directly relevant to our problems, the most immediate of which is the whereabouts of Tom Grenfell.’
‘Yes, but it is relevant, Alan,’ I said. ‘It may not tell us where Tom is, but it tells us where Mahala is, or will be soon.’
SEVENTEEN
They looked blank.
I beamed. ‘He’ll be looking after his precious rats, won’t he?’ I probably sounded a little smug. ‘He’ll go to the Hutchins Building, and when he can’t get in, he’ll raise all kinds of stink until he finds out where they’re being kept. So all we have to do—’
‘Is find the constables delegated to move the animals, and tell them to be on the lookout for an angry West African student. Does he have a surname, by the way?’ Alan had picked up his phone and was punching buttons as he spoke.
‘Probably, but I’ve never heard it,’ Terence said, but Alan shushed him as he spoke into his phone.
‘We’re just in time,’ he said as he put the phone down. ‘Elaine has dispatched the constables and they should have just reached the college. She’s having them notified to watch for Mahala.’
I breathed a deep sigh of relief. ‘And once we find him, we can pressure him to tell us where Tom is.’
‘If he knows.’
‘He knows something,’ I retorted. ‘He’s deeply involved in the prank thing. I’ll bet good English money that he knows all about how it went wrong, and I’ll bet he has a pretty good idea what Tom’s doing about it.’ I reached for the beer Jennifer had brought. ‘I think I do want this, after all.’
I had taken one good swallow when Alan’s phone jingled. He glanced at the display and shook his head. An unfamiliar number, then.
‘Nesbitt here. I see. Yes. Where? No. I’ll be right there.’
‘They have Mahala. I told the constable to keep him under observation, but not detain him. Not yet. Terence, would you have any reason to want to speak to him?’
‘No, sir. As I said, I steer away from conflict, and I don’t care for that boyo.’
‘Phone one of us if you think of anything at all relevant, or even peculiar. Dorothy?’
The pub was in a pedestrianized area, but there was a cab waiting at the end of the street. Alan grabbed it. ‘St Stephen’s, and as fast as you can.’
The cabby allowed himself one sarcastic snort, and set off through the madhouse of traffic.
The one-way streets were in our favour this time, and the taxi could use streets forbidden to private cars. He got us to the college gates faster than I would have dreamed possible, and Alan rewarded him with a hefty tip.
We were met at the gate by one of Elaine’s constables.
‘He’s still there?’ was Alan’s first remark. Which told me how concerned he was. He almost never neglects the courtesies.
‘He is, but we do need to hurry, sir.’
‘Where are we going?’ I said, trying to keep up with Alan’s lengthy stride. ‘Slow down a little, will you?’
‘Sorry, love. We don’t know how long Mahala can be expected to hang about.’
‘Go ahead, then. I’ll follow. Which building?’
‘Library,’ the constable called back to me, ‘lower ground floor.’
I walked as fast as I could, but Alan and the constable were soon out of sight around the corner of a building. I stopped a passing student to ask where the library was and limped along in the direction indicated, thinking how much I hated the infirmities of age. It’s only because of that fall, I told myself. You’re pretty spry most of the time. And then I remembered that the word ‘spry’ is only ever used to describe the elderly, and was annoyed all over again.
When I reached the library, Alan and the constable were standing just outside, talking, or rather listening, to a dark-skinned young man. He was tall and wiry, and at this moment extremely angry.
Blood Will Tell Page 14
