by H. Y. Hanna
“You’re so right,” I said quickly. “I was in Sydney for eight years and I went to some of the best cafés in Paddington, but none of them could serve a decent cup of tea,” I lied, hoping that some of my favourite cafés Down Under would forgive me.
She nodded. “Oh yes… those Australians. They’ve got some right awful tea, don’t they? Billy tea, I heard it’s called! Has the most disgustin’ smell.”
Actually, billy tea was a beloved Australian icon—a bush tea that was a blend of tropical tea leaves from northern Queensland and eucalyptus leaves. It got its name from the “billy can”—the traditional tin can used to heat hot water over the campfire—and had a strong, smoky flavour which was a bit of an acquired taste for some people, but hardly the horror she was making it out to be. Still, I made a sound of agreement and said:
“I don’t think anything compares to a proper cup of English tea.”
She slapped the counter in agreement with me. “That’s right, dearie. I’m sure now that you’re back in England, you’ll be glad to have some real tea.”
And she proceeded to prove her point by pouring me a cup of thick brown brew that was practically a sludge of solid tannins. I kept the smile on my face with effort as I accepted the cup from her, praying that my gastrointestinal tract was coated with enough acid to cope with it.
“Go on,” she urged me. “Take a sip. Tell me—isn’t that how a cuppa tea ought to be?”
I took a cautious sip, stopping myself just in time before I grimaced and spat it back out. It was sharp and bitter and so astringent that my teeth almost shrank in my mouth.
I swallowed with some difficulty, then pasted a shaky smile on my face and said, “Yeah, this… this is just what I’ve missed.”
“Oh, silly me—I forgot to add milk,” she said. And without asking me, she reached over and poured a large glug of yellow milk into my tea, which promptly turned a sickly shade of brown.
“Er… thanks. That’s great.” Terrified that she would urge me to take another sip, I added quickly, “You must meet a lot of foreign students and academics working here. Do you find that they don’t really know how to appreciate proper English tea?”
She gave me a dark look. “Oh, them foreigners. The whole department’s run amok with them. Most of ’em are all right,” she said generously. “The students especially—they seem to make a real effort to try new things… But some of them top lofty academics… professors an’ such… Think they know everythin’, they do.”
“That must be really exasperating for you,” I said, giving her a sympathetic look.
“Jolly right! Only yesterday I had to tell Professor Wang that there was nothin’ wrong with the peas. They’re supposed to be all mushy an’ brown in colour. That’s why they’re called mushy peas, see?”
“Mm, yes…” I said, wondering how to bring the subject around to Leila Gaber in a natural way that wouldn’t raise suspicions. Then I realised that I was worrying too much. Someone like this tea lady loved the chance to gossip so much, it would never enter her head to wonder why I was asking.
I took the plunge and said, “What about Dr Gaber? I met her at a party recently and she seemed quite… um… exotic. I don’t suppose she would take very well to English customs?”
“Her!” The tea lady sniffed. “Thinks she’s the Queen of Sheba, she does! Complainin’ about this and complainin’ about that. Last Tuesday, she had the cheek to tell me that my sponge cake was dry! As if I don’t know how a sponge cake ought to taste like! Well, I told my Norman, I said, I’ve been makin’ sponge cakes since the time when she was—”
“Uh… yes,” I said hurriedly. “I… um… I’d been hearing stories about Dr Gaber—seems she’s been involved in some sort of scandal?”
“Ooh, yes, I’ve heard those stories goin’ round the department too…” She leaned towards me and lowered her voice conspiratorially. “They say she’s in Oxford because she’s runnin’ away from somethin’ back in Egypt.”
“Running away from what?”
She wagged her finger at me. “Well, there’s been talk… Katie in HR was talkin’ to Sue May who mentioned it to Mel, who told me… They say she was arrested.”
“Arrested!” I stared. “What was she arrested for?”
“Well, as to that, no one’s quite sure…” She shrugged. “Something to do with a colleague, I think. She drowned in the Nile, you see—the colleague, I mean—an’ they said it was an accident… but then there was some talk, maybe it wasn’t an accident after all… an’ the woman worked with Dr Gaber, you know. But in the end, they couldn’t pin anythin’ on her so they had to let her go. But there was more talk and people were scared to work with her after that…” She leaned towards me. “Mind you, I think that woman is capable of anythin’. You’ve only got to look in her eyes to know. Don’t think she’d think twice about doin’ away with someone...” Then she leaned back, clasped her hands under her bosom, and said: “Now, what else can I get you, love?”—as if she hadn’t just been accusing a woman of murder.
“Um… nothing, thanks,” I said, desperate to keep her talking. “So did you hear anything else about Dr Gaber’s background? Why do you think the Egyptian police suspected her of her colleague’s murder? How—”
I broke off as I realised that the tea lady was no longer listening to me. Instead she was looking over my shoulder with an expression of horror and dismay on her face.
I whirled around and found myself facing Leila Gaber.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“D…Dr. Gabber,” I stammered. “I was just—”
“Yes, I heard,” said Leila Gaber, taking a step towards me.
I stumbled backwards and felt the counter bump against my hip. It was stupid, but looking into the woman’s dark eyes in front of me, I felt a flash of fear. I could see that she was furious, though she kept her temper under control and her voice was silky as she said:
“You seem to be very inquisitive about my past, Miss Rose. Perhaps I can help enlighten you. In Egypt, we believe it is only polite when someone has questions to ask that person directly first—I had thought that the rules would be the same in England but perhaps I was wrong?”
I flushed, feeling like a schoolgirl being chastised by the headmistress.
“I… I’m sorry,” I stammered. “I was just curious…”
She raised a well-groomed eyebrow. “Ah… well, you know what they say about curiosity and the cat…”
That Mona Lisa smile was in place again but there was no mistaking the sense of threat emanating from her. Although her lips offered explanations, her eyes dared me to ask further. I didn’t like to admit it, but she intimidated me. I lowered my eyes from her gaze and fumbled with the handle of my teacup.
“Dr Gaber—are you after a nice cuppa tea?” the tea lady said behind me with false cheerfulness. “Else I’m closin’ up.”
“Yes, and I’d better get going too,” I said hastily.
I fished in my pocket for some change and put it on the counter to pay for my tea, then gave Leila Gaber a slightly shame-faced smile and quickly left the canteen. I knew I was running away like a dog with its tail between its legs, but I also knew that it was useless to stay and fight. Leila Gaber was on her home ground here and would always have the advantage over me. Better to regroup and tackle her another day.
***
There was something ominously familiar about being dragged out of sleep by the shrill ringing of my phone. I rose on an elbow and groped on my bedside table, my heart pounding. It was like a repeat of a bad dream—I almost expected to hear Seth’s voice on the other end of the line—so it took me a moment to realise who was speaking.
“Darling, you simply must help me talk to this man!”
“Mother?” I sat up groggily. I leaned over and glanced at the clock on my bedside table. The glowing numbers read 2:35 a.m.
“Mother, is everything all right? Are you still in Jakarta?”
“Yes, yes, we’re at Carita Beach
. You must help us speak to this fisherman.”
“Fisherman?” I was struggling to gather my thoughts. “What fisherman? What are you talking about?”
“The fisherman who is taking us to Krakatoa, of course!” said my mother impatiently. “He is ever so stubborn and just will not budge. Helen and I have been trying for the last twenty minutes—and really, I must say, we’ve become quite the experienced hagglers—we have been following your instructions to the letter and I even told the hotel yesterday that I should get a discount on the room rate since I’ve brought my own toiletries and I’m not using theirs,” she added proudly. “But we just can’t seem to persuade this fisherman to agree to anything! I wonder if the problem is that he doesn’t speak English? Anyway, I thought you could speak to him…”
I groaned. “Mother, you didn’t just ring me up at two in the morning to haggle with an Indonesian fisherman on the other side of the world?”
“Oh, is that the time? I was so sure that I got the time difference right. Isn’t it four-thirty in the afternoon in Oxford?”
“No,” I growled. “It’s two-thirty in the morning.”
“Oh dear. I suppose I must have read the time zones the wrong way around or something. I downloaded an App on my phone, you see,” she said importantly. “Dorothy Clarke told me about them and you can get an App for all sorts of things—it really is marvellous—and I’ve got one to tell me the different times around the world. Let me see…” My mother’s voice faded away slightly as she looked at her screen. “Is it this one? No… That’s the Melon Meter App—it tells you when a watermelon is ripe, darling—isn’t that wonderful? Hmm… and this is the Anti-Mosquito Sonic Repeller App—so clever, it gives off a special frequency which repels mosquitoes and other nasty bugs—although I must say, it doesn’t really seem to work… Maybe this one? Helen, do you think the App for the time zones was called Rooster Time Clock?”
“Never mind, Mother,” I said wearily. “Please just remember that we are seven hours behind you in the U.K…. Mother? Are you still there?”
“Sorry, darling… what was that? Oh, Helen’s just waving to me. The fisherman seems to have agreed! Marvellous! Right, must dash—”
“Wait, Mother—”
But she was gone. I put the phone down and stared at the glowing screen, then flopped over backwards on my pillow with a sigh of exasperation. Aaaargh! My mother!
“Meorrw…” said Muesli sleepily from the foot of the bed, where she was curled up amongst the folds of the blanket. She yawned widely, showing me her sharp little white teeth, then lowered her head, tucked her tail under her chin and shut her eyes again, purring softly.
I pulled the covers over myself and tried to go back to sleep, hoping that the sound of my purring cat would lull me back into slumber…. but I was wide awake now, my head buzzing with Indonesian fishermen and ripe watermelons. I tossed and turned, trying all the tricks that I had been told: emptying the mind, focusing on my breathing, visualising my body relaxing, counting sheep, counting watermelons…
Finally, I turned onto my back again and stared up at the ceiling in the dark. It was no use trying to keep my mind blank so I let it wander where it wanted to… which was right back to the murder. Something was still nagging me… it had been bothering me for a while now… like a piece of food stuck between your teeth: you can’t find it with your fingers when you try to pluck it out and yet you know it’s there, you can feel it… probing it with your tongue…
It was something to do with the Richard Barrow and his escape from Wadsworth… Why hadn’t anyone seen him?
And something else too—something I had heard at the Oxford Society of Medicine dinner… and…
… and something about Muesli, I thought suddenly. Something that had struck me last night after the firemen had left… of how she had managed to go down one vent and come up another one on the other side of the room, where we had least expected it…
That’s it!
I sat bolt upright in bed, causing Muesli to give a disgruntled meorrw!
That’s the answer! It has to be!
I realised now what had been nagging me from the Society of Medicine dinner. That conversation about Christ Church’s concealed staircase leading from the dining hall down into the S.C.R. below, which was the inspiration for the rabbit hole in Alice in Wonderland… And Christ Church wasn’t the only Oxford college with hidden staircases and passageways…
There must have been another way out of the Cloisters—a shortcut—that led directly from the Cloister arcades out of the main gate, without the need to go through that long roundabout detour, through the tunnel and Walled Garden and then across the two quads of the college.
Yes, I was certain of it. Wadsworth must have its own secret passage which connected the Cloisters with the outside world. And the murderer must have used it to escape.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
At last, I fell into an uneasy sleep and was deeply unconscious when my phone rang again. I opened my eyes blearily. It must be my mother again. God knows what she wants me to do now. Struggling out of the tangle of blankets, I scooped up my phone and snarled, “What is it now?”
“I see you’re still not a morning person,” came an amused male voice.
“Oh! Devlin…” I spluttered, sitting up slowly. “Sorry… I thought… I thought you were my mother.”
“Your mother?” He sounded faintly puzzled.
I sighed. “My mother’s gone off to Indonesia with her friend and she woke me up in the middle of the night to ask me how to bargain with a fisherman at the beach…” I heard something that sounded suspiciously like laughter and said grumpily, “It’s not funny. It took me ages to get back to sleep afterwards and—Oh!” I remembered what I had been thinking as I’d drifted off to sleep again. “Devlin, I’ve got something to tell you! I think I’ve figured out how the murderer escaped from the Cloister! I think Richard Barrow—”
“That was why I was ringing you, actually,” said Devlin. “This is confidential information, you understand, but I appreciated what you did yesterday, telling me immediately about what Glenda Bailey had learnt from the head porter, so I feel it’s only right to return the gesture.”
“Thanks.” I felt a flush of pleasure. I remembered that Devlin had said that he would be going to Reading this morning to interview Richard Barrow. “Are you back in Oxford?”
“No, I’m still in Reading—I’ve just come from Joan Barrow’s house, actually.”
“Did you speak to Richard?” I asked eagerly.
“No. He gave me the slip,” said Devlin, his voice thick with annoyance. “That man must have run from the police several times in the past—he’s too practised at it. But I managed to pin his sister down. She didn’t know everything—I think Richard was careful about what he told her—but she did confirm that he was at Wadsworth last Friday—the night of the murder—staying in the college guest room. He’d gone to Oxford hoping to persuade Barrow to pull him out of a tight spot.”
“He owed money and was in debt,” I guessed.
“Yes, a fair amount, I think,” said Devlin dryly. “Our friend Richard is a bit of a wheeler-dealer and had got himself in with a bad crowd, making some big promises he couldn’t keep. Now he owes money to some very bad people. And I’ve had some experience with these organised crime gangs he’s involved with—they can be very unforgiving of those they think are trying to pull one over them.”
“You mean he’s on the run?”
“I wouldn’t put it as dramatically as that—sounds like something out of a Hollywood film! But yes, I think he was getting desperate. He had no money, nowhere to go, and these gangs after him.”
“And he thought Quentin Barrow would help him?”
“Apparently his brother had bailed him out before. But Barrow had warned Richard last time that he wasn’t going to do it again and it seems like he stuck to his word—refused to help him this time. Joan told me they had a pretty heated discussion on Friday mornin
g…”
“Heated enough that Richard decided the next best way to get the money was to kill his brother and get his share of the estate?”
“That’s something I could find out from Richard Barrow himself—if I could interrogate him.” Devlin sounded frustrated. “I’d like to know where he was at the time of the murder—Joan says he was in the guest room, but I don’t know if she’s lying to protect him or if Richard lied to her…”
“Quentin Barrow was quite a hypocrite, wasn’t he?” I said in disgust. “Telling people he was against charitable giving and not helping the homeless because they deserved their lot—but then when it was his own brother, he wouldn’t chuck him out on the street. He got him a guest room in college.”
“I think that’s why he wanted to keep it quiet. It would have been embarrassing for him to admit that he couldn’t follow his own words. And since he knew that Peters the head porter was running this little scheme on the side…”
I remembered suddenly what I had been wanting to tell Devlin. Quickly, I recounted my idea about the hidden passageway out of the Cloisters.
“It would explain how Richard got out of the Cloisters so quickly, after the murder was committed, without anyone seeing him,” I said excitedly.
Devlin sounded sceptical. “Secret passage? Gemma, this isn’t some Gothic novel—”
“No, but this is Oxford,” I insisted. “And hidden staircases and secret passageways are par for the course here in these ancient college buildings. You know that.”
“Hmm…” Devlin still didn’t sound convinced.
“We need to speak to Clyde Peters,” I said. “He’s the key to the whole thing. I’ll bet he would know about any hidden passageways at Wadsworth—he’s been the head porter there for years. And Glenda said that he told her he managed to get Richard out before the police arrived. I’d been wondering how he managed that. This would explain it. We just need to ask him. Have you tracked him down yet?”
