by Joan Smith
“What?”
Tracey ground out his cigarette and produced a spiral notebook, turning back through pages covered in a mixture of longhand and his own eccentric shorthand until he found what he wanted. “Marc Testard,” he read in an Anglicized French accent, “he saw her arrive in the Upper Reading Room about quarter to twelve. He says she was there about an hour and hurried off looking upset.”
“Never heard of him,” said Loretta. “And I don’t see how—they can’t have interviewed every single person who was in the Bodleian that day. How would they know who was there, for a start?”
“Routine detective work,” Tracey said, “the boring stuff you don’t usually read about. First they checked she really did request a book, something about vampires?” Loretta nodded. “Actually she asked for it earlier in the week and it was waiting for her. So they have a look and it’s only what, fifty or so pages? And big print. I mean, unless she’s a very slow reader . . .” He paused. “So then they go through all the request forms, everyone who asked to look at a book in the Upper Reading Room that morning—”
“Which must run into hundreds.”
He nodded. “I wrote it down somewhere if you really want to know.” She shook her head. “OK, so once they’ve got a list they divide it up by subject, assuming arts people are a better bet than, I don’t know, zoologists. This Testard bloke, he’s a postgrad in the English faculty so they sent a DC round to his flat and asked, do you know Bridget Bennett, and he said—”
“Shit.”
“He didn’t, actually. He said he knew Bridget by sight and he remembered her arriving because it was just after he got there himself. He waved but she wasn’t looking in his direction and it’s hardly the sort of place you call out.”
This was perfectly true, Loretta admitted to herself, thinking of the slightly menacing hush of an academic library. Tracey watched her for a moment, then added: “You also ought to know they have no sightings of her, the victim I’m talking about now, after that Thursday. No hotels with a missing guest, no friends who thought she’d gone off for a few days in the Lake District.”
“The Lake District?”
“I meant, for example.”
“But she’s not exactly your average tourist, is she? Do they know what she was doing here, by the way?”
“No, but her brother’s arriving tomorrow. There’s been some difficulty talking to the family, they won’t use the phone so they’re having to send messages back and forth through the local cops . . . Anyway, they’ve apparently overcome their objection to modern technology long enough to send this guy over and he gets in to Heathrow first thing tomorrow morning.”
Loretta turned her head away, not knowing what to say. The thin boy was gone, his place taken by a very old man whose name and address were inked in enormous capitals on the side of a shabby suitcase, “WALTER WEEDON,” she read, and the name and number of a house in Staverton Road, north Oxford.
Tracey said, still in the same matter-of-fact voice: “What was she up to, Loretta? Has she told you?”
She looked down. “I knew she wasn’t in the library all day,” she said in a low voice, “but I’m sure it hasn’t got anything to do with . . . I mean, I feel very awkward about this.” She picked up a flimsy stick of white plastic, a rather inadequate substitute for a teaspoon, and pressed it down on the surface of the table until it snapped. “I’m pretty sure she was with a man, I don’t know who.”
“Jesus, Loretta, she’s how many months pregnant?”
Loretta swung her head listlessly from side to side, examining every mark and scratch on the Formica surface. “I know. But it’s Sam she seems to be worried about, as far as I can make out. Not the police.” She lifted her head, suddenly hopeful. “You don’t think she told them the truth this afternoon? When she realized how serious it was?”
Tracey snorted. “You didn’t see her come out—ashen’s not the word. Remember that old movie, the one where Diana Dors is in the condemned cell? Well, she made Diana Dors look like a champion hurdler by comparison. At least we don’t have the death penalty these days.” He felt for his cigarettes again, lit one, and was sitting back to enjoy it when he saw her expression. “Come on, Loretta,” he said roughly, “it can’t be that much of a shock. I told you last night—”
Loretta made an impatient gesture. “You’re just trying to scare me.”
Tracey began to lose his temper. “Of course I’m trying to bloody scare you,” he snapped, accidentally blowing into his cigarette and sending sparks into the air. He waved them away and leaned forward: “Answer me two questions, OK? One, did she do it? Two, if she didn’t what the fuck was she doing that Thursday that she’s being so secretive about?”
Loretta squirmed in her seat, aware that the violence of his language was attracting attention. “Of course she didn’t do it,” she hissed. “Who do you think we’re talking about, Myra Hindley?”
Tracey said more calmly: “She’s pregnant, Loretta, it’s a well-known fact pregnant women do funny things. Their hormones—”
“Oh, yes,” she interrupted, throwing her head back, “eating asparagus at five in the morning and beating complete strangers to death. It’s in all the textbooks.”
Tracey regarded her quizzically. “So you’re an expert all of a sudden? What’s happened, your biological clock begun to tick after all?”
Loretta shrugged. “You know my feelings about children. Other people’s are fine but I’ve never had an urge to pass my genes on.”
Tracey checked his watch and leaned forward. “I said I’d call the newsdesk before six,” he announced shortly, grinding his second cigarette into the ashtray. “If I were you, Loretta”—he held up his hand, preempting the protest rising to her lips—“if I were you I’d have it out with her pronto. Tell her if she doesn’t want to become the Oxford One—”
“One what?”
“Sorry, bad joke.”
“You can say that again.”
He looked her straight in the eye. “I’m doing my best, Loretta. Do you think I’d have volunteered for this story if I’d known it was going to be like this?”
She remembered his letter, and felt her cheeks grow red. “Sorry,” she said, “you’re absolutely right. I’ll go home at once and talk to her. Where will you be this evening?”
“The Randolph. Give me a call?”
“OK.”
“Loretta?”
She looked at him, seeing for the first time how unhappy he was: he looked tired, he needed a shave and his suit looked as though he’d slept in it.
Tracey said: “Nothing. Speak to you later.”
Loretta walked blindly away and immediately collided with a hard object which turned out to be Walter Weedon’s suitcase. The old man began struggling to his feet as she bent to apologize and their heads almost collided, coming so close that Loretta glimpsed his badly fitting false teeth and the stale tobacco flakes trapped in the wispy hairs above his upper lip.
“Sorry,” she said, flinching. The old man fell back in his seat, goggling up at her, and the accusation in his rheumy eyes stayed with her as she hurried across the concourse, through the main doors and into the open air.
The West Indian taxi driver who drove Loretta home was inclined to chat, having recognized her from a previous trip between the railway station and Southmoor Road. His niece, he reminded her, had just taken her A levels and was waiting for her results; she was worried about her history paper, and he asked Loretta’s advice on what the girl should do if she did not get the grades she needed for a place at Liverpool University. Loretta explained the clearing system in a rather distracted way, preoccupied with the question of what she was going to say to Bridget, and had already counted out the fare and a small tip when the car drew up outside her house.
“Thanks,” the driver called, waving through the open passenger window as he drove off, and she hurried up the path to the front door. Her key slid easily into the lock but the door grounded on an obstacle which t
urned out, on closer inspection, to be the free newspaper which arrived every week in spite of Loretta’s pleas to the delivery girl. She curved her hand round the bottom of the door and worked it free, flattening out the crumpled front page and discovering that most of it was given over to a sensational account of the murder at Thebes Farm. Whoever laid it out was a bit behind with his or her cultural references, dredging up a still from Bonnie and Clyde to illustrate the now discredited bank robbery angle; the paper had gone to press too early, Loretta guessed, to print the step-by-step rebuttal issued by the police at the previous afternoon’s press conference.
She stuck out her heel as she read and pushed the door shut, calling out: “Bridget, I’m home.” Seconds passed without a reply and she became aware of a stillness and silence which suggested the house was empty—no faint footsteps on another floor, not even a radio playing.
“Oh, God” she moaned, going to the bottom of the stairs and repeating the name more loudly. The only response was from the cat, who stretched and yawned as he slunk down from the first floor with every appearance of having passed the afternoon asleep on Loretta’s bed. She brushed his head absently with her fingertips, left him rolling on the floorboards and went into her study. The message light was blinking and, drawing a piece of blank paper towards her, she leaned across and pressed the “play” button.
“Good afternoon,” said a woman’s voice—breezy, professional, not someone Loretta knew. “This is a message for Bridget Bennett from Belinda Green at Barrington Properties. I’d be grateful if she could ring me back as soon as she gets in. It’s about her house in Woodstock Road, I showed a gentleman round this morning and he’s just phoned me with an offer. The time is quarter past four on Thursday afternoon, August the fifteenth.”
The machine bleeped and a second voice spoke into the room, this time in a South African accent which Loretta had no difficulty in recognizing as Digby’s.
“Well, Loretta, aren’t you the clever one, sneaking off like that and missing Bernard’s little surprise. This guy turned up after you left, a potential sponsor no less, and gave us a lecture on what industry expects from us. We were all having such a good time it ran over, so Bernard’s fixed another meeting next week.” Loretta frowned, remembering she had to go to Paris for four days and foreseeing trouble from Bernard. Digby went on: “I tore up your questionnaire, by the way, just in case you had second thoughts and decided you want to keep your job. There’s a spare one in your pigeonhole—you can’t say I don’t look after you. You also left your Guardian and I’ve finished the crossword—four down is ‘uninhibited.’ Easy really. Bye.”
Another bleep, and Loretta pulled a face as she heard Sam leave another of his solicitous messages for Bridget: “Hon, just checking you’re OK, I thought you were planning on taking it easy this afternoon.” He gave a nervous laugh and added: “Maybe you’re sleeping—I don’t want to be a pain in the butt but you do know what the doctors said. Call me anyway, soon as you wake up.”
Loretta put her hand out towards the machine, thinking the messages had finished, but it bleeped again and a mellow female voice said: “Hi, this is Professor Dolores del Negro calling from the Women’s Studies Group at Berkeley, University of California. I’d like to talk with Dr. Loretta Lawson and get her response to an idea I have about her coming over here and giving some lectures . . . I loved her book on Edith Wharton. I got her number from Geoffrey Simmons and I hope she won’t mind me calling her at home. She can reach me at the following number—” Here she rattled off ten figures so fast that Loretta missed the last two, followed by a detailed account of her movements over the course of the day: she would be in a meeting all morning but hoped to hear from Loretta in the afternoon, West Coast time.
Loretta looked at her watch, considered the time difference and worked out there was no point in calling Professor del Negro before 10:00 P.M. She hardly heard the tape rewind, standing by her desk in a dream as she savored the prospect of telling Bernard Shilling to stuff his sponsors and his accelerated degree course, ignoring for the moment the fact that there had been no hint on the tape of how long she was being invited to Berkeley for, or how the trip might be financed. The woman had mentioned lectures, in the plural, which might mean a whole term . . . Loretta, whose idea of San Francisco was an amalgam of images from Tales of the City, pictured herself strolling along a tree-lined street of clapboard houses populated by cheerful transsexuals and gay nuns on roller skates. This fantasy was so agreeable that the ringing of the phone failed to puncture it, and she was still in a daydream when she lifted the receiver.
“Hello?” The caller was female, a stranger who asked very politely to speak to Bridget Bennett.
“Bridget?” Loretta replied, coming back to earth. “She’s not here. To tell you the truth”—she gave a short laugh—“I haven’t a clue where she is.”
“Not to worry. Is that Loretta? I think we did meet once, my name’s Jane Kaplan. I was just ringing to let her know—she left a message for Stephen and I just wanted to let her know he’s out of the country till next week, at a conference in Budapest. I’ve got a number, if it’s urgent, but he isn’t going straight there—”
“I shouldn’t worry,” said Loretta, unable to think of any urgent reason why Bridget should want to speak to Stephen Kaplan. “But I’ll certainly tell her you rang.”
“Thanks. How is she, by the way?”
“Oh,” said Loretta, hardly knowing how to answer. “Bearing up. You know.”
“Yes, well . . . Give her my regards.”
Jane Kaplan rang off and Loretta bent over her desk to add her name below the message from Barrington Properties.
“Loretta?”
She turned. Bridget was standing just inside the room, swaying slightly and blinking in the early-evening sunlight which streamed in through the study window.
“Loretta?” she said again, slightly hoarse. “Sorry, I didn’t hear you—I took two of those tablets and I feel a bit woozy.”
The swaying became more pronounced and Loretta hurried forward to support her. “For God’s sake sit down,” she said and led Bridget, unresisting, to a sofa in the other half of the room. She had just made her comfortable when there was a faint double ping from the hall and Loretta lifted her head. Not the police again? She glanced out of the window and saw no sign of a patrol car, though that didn’t prove anything. Knuckles rapped on the door, suggesting the caller was becoming impatient, and Loretta left Bridget and went to answer it.
A woman in jeans and a red shirt was standing on the doorstep. She smiled when she saw Loretta and said: “Your bell doesn’t seem to be working. Sorry I’m a bit early.”
“Early?” Loretta stared at her, trying to think what Marilyn Ramsell, a teacher she had met through the local Labor Party, was doing on her doorstep.
Marilyn gave her a puzzled look. “It is tonight, isn’t it?”
Loretta put a hand up to her face as realization dawned. “Oh, God,” she admitted, “it completely slipped my mind.” Two months ago, at a meeting of the Oxford branch of Charter 88, she had reluctantly agreed to speak at the August meeting on the implications for women of a written constitution in Britain. Marilyn had volunteered to help her, and they had discussed it briefly on the phone about a week later.
“I can’t do it on my own,” Marilyn said, visibly alarmed. “I mean, we agreed you’d take care of all the legal stuff, a bill of rights and so on.”
Loretta interrupted her, anxious to avoid a scene. “You’d better come in,” she said, stepping back. “Look, you go on down to the kitchen and I’ll be with you in a minute, there’s something I have to take care of first. Yes, down the stairs—make yourself a cup of tea or something.”
In the drawing room Bridget had stretched out on the sofa, one hand cradling her stomach. “Who is it?” she asked.
“Don’t worry, nothing I can’t deal with. Listen, Bridget”—she knelt beside her, brushing Bridget’s hair back from her sticky forehead with h
er right hand—“I have to go out for a while. Will you be all right? I’ll come home as soon as I can.”
“Where are you going?”
Loretta shook her head. “You won’t believe this. I promised to speak at a Charter 88 meeting, I don’t see any way of getting out of it. Is Sam staying here tonight?”
“I’m not sure, he’s going to ring. He had to go over to the house, something to do with the police.” She shifted uncomfortably on the sofa. “I think I’ll go back to bed, I’m so sleepy.”
“OK, I’ll come up with you. Put your legs on the floor, that’s it. We’ll get you back to bed and I’ll bring you—what? Tea?”
“Yes please.”
“Can you wait for food till I get back? I can pick up a Chinese takeaway.”
“Chinese sounds great.”
Entering the kitchen a few minutes later, Loretta was astonished to find the table covered in lined A4 paper. The kettle stood cold and empty, and there was no sign that Marilyn had availed herself of Loretta’s offer to make tea.
“I made a few notes,” she said modestly, gesturing towards her research, and began to read out some of the headings: “Active citizenship, what it means for women; an elected second chamber; reform of the monarchy; whether we should include reproductive rights; reform of the judiciary—that’s your bit.”
Loretta winced, turning away so Marilyn couldn’t see her face. She was hungry, desperately anxious about Bridget, and the prospect of spending the best part of the evening in the dreary Women’s Institute building in Middle Way filled her with dismay. Seizing an apple from the fruit bowl and biting into it, she said indistinctly: “I’ll just make some tea, I’ve got someone staying.” She filled the kettle and switched it on; then, not wanting to waste a minute, she ran upstairs to her study, where she began pulling books from the shelves, tossing them aside one by one as she conducted a frantic and largely unsuccessful search for inspiration for her speech.
