Matricide at St. Martha's

by Ruth Dudley Edwards

  ‘And me.’

  ‘Except, Robert, that you really have one.’

  ‘Yes, but Romford doesn’t know that.’

  ‘True. I can see you becoming top of the suspects any minute now.’

  ‘Can we do a quick elimination exercise, based on the truth as we know it, as opposed to how it might seem?’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Right, first list is of those who are definitely innocent, if one supposes the same person did both murders—and, of course, attacked Jack.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Me, the Bursar, Sandra and Bridget, if we believe them, and Mary Lou.’

  ‘OK, so our suspects are Pusey, Crowley, Primrose Partridge, Anglo-Saxon Annie and Miss Thackaberry.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know about you, Ellis, but I do not find that an encouraging list.’

  ‘Well, what about if somebody different did each of the murders?’

  ‘That just means you can add Mary Lou and the nasty old Windlesham as possibilities for Dame Maud’s murder and leave list two unchanged.’

  ‘Except for the Bursar.’

  ‘You’re not seriously suggesting…?’

  ‘I’m not, but one has to be objective. At least, I have to be objective. Maybe she’s plotting to become Mistress herself. Maybe she leaped at the chance of getting a false alibi.’

  ‘Ellis, I’m not going to follow you down one of your mad routes. I can imagine Jack seeing off one of her opponents with an unduly enthusiastic uppercut, but I do not see her sneaking into their bedrooms in the dead of night and stick ing paper knives into them. Anyway, if she did stab anyone she’d probably use a pitchfork.’

  ‘Of course I don’t really suspect her. But when you’ve got as few suspects as we’ve got you do get a bit desperate. And no one looks likely. Take Crowley. He thrives on minimum publicity. This murder’s going to bring a lot of publicity to St. Martha’s and that’s hardly welcome to someone who usually, when he’s found out, folds his tent and steals away into the night. I just can’t see him changing his tactics.’

  ‘Unless things became intolerable. Maybe Dr. Windle sham was blackmailing him. Or Holdness. Otherwise why would he have backed them?’

  ‘It’s possible.’

  ‘It’s time you worked Bridget over, Ellis. If it weren’t for that alibi she would be Number One suspect. And I don’t trust their alibis. You know Sandra would back up Bridget in any circumstances.’

  ‘It’s all very well to say work her over, but watching Romford interviewing Bridget Holdness is like watching a rabbit interrogating a stoat.’

  ‘Where’s that superintendent of yours? Surely now with two murders at St. Martha’s he’s got to give it higher priority?’

  ‘Cambridge just don’t have the resources, Robert. They’re stretched at the best of times and now, at one and the same time, they’ve got this grisly Fens serial murderer, a massive security operation going on for a conference which is expected to attract the attention of the IRA and now this. Poor old Hardiman is driven crazy. Still, I did catch him half an hour ago and he said he’d try to free himself up at some stage tomorrow if we still haven’t got anywhere.’

  ‘However, you’re right. I’ll lean on Romford to bring in Bridget Holdness. What are you going to do? Pursue Mary Lou?’

  ‘You sound reproachful.’

  ‘I am a bit.’

  ‘Have you ever been knocked over by a wholly unexpected and inappropriate sexual passion?’

  ‘You mean a consummated one? No, I can’t say I have—at least, not the way you seem to have been. Are you going to ditch Rachel?’

  ‘My dear Ellis, I am devoted to Rachel. I’m frantic for her to come back to London, I want to spend the rest of my life with her and if the option were open to me now I would probably run away from St. Martha’s to avoid further tempta tion but it’s not and I’m not superhuman.’

  ‘What does Mary Lou want?’

  ‘A fling. Wouldn’t you if you were marooned in a dump like this knowing nobody except the weird sisters? She’s much less affected by it than me. She’s more promiscuous anyway, and bugger it, she’s lesbian as well as straight. I am but a toy with which to while away the hours.’

  ‘Robert.’ Pooley cleared his throat. ‘Look, I don’t quite know how to say this but if Mary Lou’s promiscuous…’ His voice tailed off.

  Amiss took pity on him. ‘AIDS?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well, to tell you the truth, it’s the last thing I think of when I’m in the company of Mary Lou.’

  ‘But…’

  Amiss raised his hand. ‘It’s OK, Ellis. We’ve covered that. She’s a forthright girl. The first thing she did was to ask me where I’d been and then to reassure me that she’d been con fining herself to women for several years.’

  ‘Well, why did she go to bed with you then?’

  ‘Because I’m so devastatingly attractive.’

  Pooley looked sceptical.

  ‘Because she likes going to bed with men quite as much as women—it’s just that on her campus it was easier to be exclusively lesbian or you were accused by some of the loonies of being a traitor. She was lonely, I was there, we got on well and we drank a lot and the sexual chemistry was right. Yes, I know, I shouldn’t have and I particularly know I shouldn’t have the second time, but I’m not a saint.’

  Pooley sighed. ‘Oh well, at least if she’s normally a lesbian she’s unlikely to get AIDS.’

  ‘That’s a disgracefully anti-feminist observation.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Didn’t you know that a lot of right-on lesbians have a sense of grievance at their low AIDS profile; they feel they’re being left out of the limelight.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous.’

  ‘Ah, you say that. But that’s because you have no regard for wimmin. All this propaganda about wearing condoms shows that society values only heterosexuals and gay men.’

  ‘It does?’

  ‘Sure. Where do you see the great campaigns for using dental dams? You look foxed, Ellis. Don’t tell me you don’t know what a dental dam is? Don’t they teach you anything at Staff College.’

  Pooley shook his head.

  ‘Ah, well. Right. I’m an expert on this, owing to the fact that it has been an issue on the College Council. Jack tells me that one entire meeting last month ended in uproar over this. It’s one of the great tragedies of my life that I wasn’t present.’

  ‘Now, not only did the Mistress come under great pressure to install condom machines, which she refused on the grounds that it was a women’s college and she had no intention of encouraging men to enter the building and fornicate, but the Dykes mounted a campaign for a dental dam dispenser. When the Senior Tutor asked innocently why the college had to take responsibility for the students’ teeth, Bridget explained brutally what a dental dam was—viz, a piece of extremely thin latex, the kind of thing they make condoms out of, which can be placed over the female genitalia as a protection during oral sex.’

  ‘How do you get AIDS from oral sex?’

  ‘It can be done if you really put your mind to it. Let’s say the contingency is pretty remote unless you’re both actually suppurating.’

  Pooley leant his head on his hands. ‘Someday, I’m going to find a nice girl who has, in the past, had only one or two boyfriends, if that, and we will get married and settle down and have 2.4 children and be faithful to each other.’

  ‘One isn’t always completely able to live up to one’s principles in this regard, Ellis. Believe me, I have similar aspirations and my present carry-on is out of character.’

  ‘I know it is,’ said Pooley with a rush of generosity. ‘Besides, I’m jealous. She’s very attractive.’

  ‘Marilyn Monroe compared to the rest of my colleagues. And I have made a few weak efforts to stop. Unfortunately, Mary Lou believes in enjoying yourself when you get the chance, so she’s not really cut out for heroic self-sacrifice.’

  ‘Well, she was prepared to be a
rrested rather than blow the gaff on you this morning.’

  ‘Sorry, I mean self-sacrifice on the sexual front.’

  The door crashed open and the Bursar entered. ‘What are you two gossiping about?’

  ‘Duty versus desire,’ said Amiss.

  ‘Can’t say I often find a conflict. However, you may, Ellis. The bonehead is back and is looking for you.’

  She threw herself into his vacated chair. ‘Now, listen here, young Robert, there’s serious trouble brewing. Bridget’s called a College Council for tomorrow morning.’

  ‘So she can become Mistress?’

  ‘Presumably.’

  ‘How do the numbers look?’

  ‘They don’t hold steady for ten minutes together, as you well know. It’s a bit hard to predict anything with any cer tainty when you don’t know which of your colleagues is going to be a jailbird by the time the meeting commences and how many of them will be bribed into doing an about-turn.’

  ‘Anything I can do?’

  ‘Let me know what Pusey’s price is. I’ll see to Crowley.’

  ‘Who are you running?’

  ‘Emily, of course.’

  ‘Do you think anybody really wants a job in which two of her predecessors have been murdered?’

  ‘Emily doesn’t think like that. All she knows about is service.’

  ‘You’ll feel pretty sick if you get her elected and then she’s knocked off too.’

  ‘I shall see that no harm comes to her.’

  ‘That’s a fine fat rhetorical statement. Why don’t you run yourself?’

  ‘Who’d vote for me?’ she asked reasonably. ‘I frighten the wits out of the Old Women and the Dykes all hate me. Anyway, I don’t want it. I shall enjoy being the éminence grise behind Emily—her ventriloquist, her puppet master. Or do I mean puppet mistress? I was a civil servant; that’s what I’m used to. Now, let’s get to work.’

  ‘When can we compare notes?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s a busy day ahead.’

  ‘Tonight?’

  ‘No, I’ve got a working dinner. Come to my office in the morning, fifteen minutes before the Council meeting. You know what has to be done. Just get on with it.’

  ‘But you want to know what Pusey says. And I might seriously need you.’

  ‘Leave a message on my answering machine. I might even be lurking behind it.’

  ‘I really hate answering machine owners who sit there auditioning callers before deciding if they’re worth speaking to.’

  ‘Don’t be so sensitive. An answering machine is a con venient social prophylactic.’

  ‘What does that make those attempting to, as it were, penetrate it?’

  ‘Some metaphors, Robert, are better not taken to their logical conclusion.’ With a cheery beam she waltzed out of the room.

  Chapter 26

  ‘A cake. Oh gosh, a Sachertorte.’ Pusey simpered. ‘I think you’re trying to bribe us, but we don’t mind, do we, Bobsy?’

  Amiss simpered back. ‘I am a bit, Francis. I need advice. It’s bad enough being new to an academic environment with out having all this happen.’

  ‘It really is frightful. I don’t dare to think what’s going to happen next. We’re keeping our heads well down, Bobsy and I.’

  He bustled around filling the kettle and getting out crockery and cutlery. Amiss and Bobsy gazed at each other, Bobsy uninterestedly, Amiss distastefully. Fortunately, one of Bobsy’s few virtues was his lack of interest in nuzzling up to anyone other than his partner.

  ‘There we are, then, all ready. Milk in first? I hope I’ve got it right? Yes? Oh, good. And now let me give you a great big slice.’

  ‘Not a big slice, please, Francis.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be so coy. I’m going to have a great big slice.’

  Resignedly, Amiss embarked on the miserable task of once more forcing loathsome stodge down his reluctant throat. Not until Pusey was replete could they get down to business.

  ‘My fear, Francis, is that Bridget Holdness will become Mistress tomorrow and all the men will be out in no time. I bet you anything that mob will go in for gender cleansing in a big way.’

  ‘You don’t really think that, do you? She says she’ll renew my contract for three years.’

  ‘Just like Windlesham promised. Have you got it in writing?’

  ‘She said that would be legally impossible since it would seem like a bribe.’

  ‘You’re a brave man, Francis. I can’t say I’d be prepared to take the word of Bridget Holdness.’

  ‘But she’s going to win, anyway.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because no one thinks Emily’s up to the job. I mean, you and I would rather have her, but the waverers aren’t going to vote for somebody who doesn’t know what century she’s in, and that means we have to back the person we think will win.’

  ‘Aren’t there any other candidates? You wouldn’t run your self?’

  Pusey giggled. ‘I don’t think I’d get many votes.’ Amiss did not trouble to challenge such an incontrovertible state ment.

  ‘Thackaberry?’

  ‘Doesn’t know what planet she’s on.’

  ‘Anglo-Saxon Annie?’

  Pusey laughed.

  ‘Jack Troutbeck?’

  ‘Out of the question. They wouldn’t have her. Too rough. No, I’m afraid we’re stuck with Emily versus Holdness and self-preservation drives me into the Holdness camp. If you’ve got any sense, you’ll try and strike a deal with her yourself.’

  Amiss brooded. ‘If you thought there was a good chance that Holdness could be beaten and your job would be safe, would you take the risk?’

  ‘Oh dear, Robert. You are a naughty boy. You’re making this very difficult. I’d quite made up my mind.’

  ‘I just think we shouldn’t throw in the towel.’

  ‘Have another slice of cake and we’ll talk it over.’

  ***

  ‘I don’t need this,’ said Sandra.

  ‘What?’ asked Romford.

  ‘This hassle. You’re hurting my feelings.’

  ‘I have no desire to hurt your feelings, ma’am, but I just have to ask you a few more questions.’

  ‘You’re harassing me.’

  ‘I’m trying to find out the truth.’

  ‘You’re inferring I’m a liar. That’s defamation.’

  ‘Dr. Murphy, all I ask is that once more you give me an account of your movements on the nights of the two murders.’

  ‘It’s here. That’s the statement I wrote out for you before.’

  ‘You have nothing to add?’

  ‘No. And don’t you try forcing a confession out of me. I know about British injustice. You won’t trap me.’

  ‘Excuse me, sir, could I have a word?’

  Crossly, Romford marched out of the room. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Don’t you think it might be a good idea, sir, if you asked her about the two nights she spent with Holdness?’

  ‘What’s the point? They’ve already coordinated their stories.’

  ‘Well, they just mightn’t have, or not fully. I mean, if we went into real detail…’ Pooley cleared his throat. ‘For instance, if we asked about…’ he plunged on boldly ‘…if they’d, er, made love and if so, how and when, we might catch them out.’

  ‘Sergeant Pooley, I’m surprised at you. We can’t sink to that. Anyway, she’d complain. She’s already threatened us with a lawyer.’

  ‘She wouldn’t have a good case, sir.’

  ‘They can make a good case out of anything, those people. I’m not going to lay myself open to that kind of scandal. I’d be accused of asking improper questions for my own gratifi cation. They wouldn’t like that in church.’

  ‘But we might catch them out, sir. I mean, we could ask about what they wore in bed and who got up first in the morning and…’

  A whirlwind arrived in the shape of Superintendent Hardi man. ‘What’s going on, still floundering?’

  ‘We�
�re making progress, sir. I shall shortly be making an arrest.’

  Pooley gaped at him.

  ‘Well, thank God for that, Romford. You’ve caught the murderer?’

  ‘No, sir. We have not as yet had a breakthrough in that department. This will be an arrest on a drugs charge.’

  ‘Who, what, where, when, how much?’

  ‘In response to a tip-off which I received at lunch-time, I instructed that a thorough search be made of the bedroom of Mary Lou Denslow where DCs McMenamin and WPC Allen found a substantial quantity of what they recognized as marijuana, concealed in the woman’s toilet bag. I have therefore instructed that she be apprehended, taken to the station and charged with possession of drugs.’

  ‘Who tipped you off?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir.’

  ‘Has it not occurred to you that this might be a plant?’

  ‘Why should it be?’

  ‘To stir up trouble. All we need now is a case of wrongful arrest.’

  ‘Well, maybe she tipped us off herself, sir. Maybe that’s what she wants. Trouble. Some of these people like being martyrs.’

  ‘So we help them?’

  ‘If she’s guilty, she’s guilty, sir.’

  ‘Inspector Romford, cancel that instruction. What I want done this afternoon is an intensive attempt to break the two sets of alibis.’

  ‘Well, I’ve just been trying that, sir, with the Murphy woman. We got nowhere.’

  ‘Have you taken each of the four in minute detail through every stage of that night.’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I didn’t think it appropriate, sir.’

  ‘Romford, by the time you report back to me, I want you to know which of them took their knickers off first or if they took them off each other, if they did it standing on their heads or on the top of the wardrobe, if any of them got up to pee in the middle of the night, if the curtains were open or closed and what they talked about afterwards; then we will know if the alibis stand up. Do I make myself clear?’

  ‘Yes, sir, but I don’t like it.’

  ‘You’re not paid to like it, Romford. I should not have to remind you after thirty-six years that police work is often sordid.’ He turned to go. ‘And don’t let one half of the alibi out of your sight until the other half is in your clutches. Now, get to it.’ He rushed off without another word.