by H. Y. Hanna
“Are you all right?” I asked Glenda as Lincoln quickly examined her for injuries.
Then a grunt and a cry of pain made us jerk our heads around. Two bodies hurtled across the tow path next to us.
Devlin and Jim, locked together in an ugly, vicious fight.
I heard the sickening crunch of bone on muscle, the harsh panting, as they wrestled and fought. Jim took a swing and I saw with a jolt of horror that he was holding a broken bottle in his hand. The jagged glass edge came perilously close to Devlin’s face as he ducked just in time. He twisted and elbowed Jim in the stomach but the tramp seemed oblivious to the pain. He was fighting like a wild animal now, cursing and yelling, and lashing out in any way possible.
I gasped as I saw the broken bottle strike again, and this time it dealt a glancing blow to the side of Devlin’s head. He staggered back and I saw blood. Jim took the opportunity to ram his head into Devlin’s chest, taking them both to the edge of the bank.
“No!” I screamed.
Lincoln sprang up to help but it was too late. They struggled at the edge for a heart-stopping moment, then both fell into the canal.
There was a resounding splash and ripples spread out across the murky surface. Jim’s head broke the water; he was at the edge, his elbows hooked on the bank, trying to haul himself out.
But there was no sign of Devlin.
My heart stopped.
Oh my God. No. No. No!
“Devlin! Devlin!” I cried, running to the edge where they had fallen in and peering desperately at the black water. Where was he?
Devlin’s a strong swimmer, I thought desperately. The canal isn’t that deep. He should be fine. Then I remembered that he had had a blow to the head. What if he had been knocked unconscious?
I was about to dive in myself when something broke the surface of the water in the middle of the canal. I sagged with relief. It was Devlin, his dark hair plastered to his head like a seal. He shook the water out of his eyes, then began swimming towards me. The next minute, he was there at the bank and Lincoln was reaching down a strong hand to help him out.
Devlin stumbled to his feet, coughing and dripping water, and stood up next to me. I flung myself at him, not caring about his wet clothes soaking into mine.
“Oh God… thank God you’re safe…” I babbled. My cheeks were wet and I realised that I was crying.
“Hey… Hey, Gemma… It’s all right… I’m fine,” said Devlin gently, his arms around me. His hands gripped mine and I felt the strength in his warm fingers. The icy fear eased around my heart. He was all right. I hadn’t lost him.
Next to us, Lincoln was helping Jim out of the canal. The fight seemed to have gone completely out of the red-haired tramp. Maybe the cold water had shocked him out of his berserker rage. He sat on the grass, wet and shivering, his expression dazed.
I suddenly remembered the Old Biddies and looked quickly around. Florence was kneeling next to Ethel. I ran over to join them.
“Ethel! Are you hurt?”
“I’m… I’m all right,” the old librarian murmured. She tried to give me a brave smile. “Just slightly shaken up. I had the wind knocked out of me.”
“I’ll have a look at her,” said Lincoln, appearing next to me and crouching beside Ethel.
Glenda and Mabel came slowly over to join us, their arms around each other. They were shivering and looked slightly shell-shocked. It hurt me to see Mabel, normally so loud and bossy, looking so pale and silent. I shrugged out of my coat and draped it around their shoulders. They clutched at it gratefully and huddled together.
“We need to call an ambulance,” I said, fumbling in my pocket for my phone.
“There are reinforcements coming,” Devlin spoke up. He grimaced and moved his right shoulder gingerly, dripping water as he walked over to me. “I radioed for backup before I came here. They should be here any moment.”
I looked up and saw the blood pouring down one side of his face. “Oh my God, Devlin—you’re bleeding!” I gasped.
He reached up and fingered his temple, wincing slightly. “Must have been when he knocked me with that glass bottle. Caught me on the side of my head.”
“It’s bleeding a lot!” I said in consternation.
I turned to Lincoln, still tending to Ethel, and called to him. He came over and examined the wound with expert hands.
“It’s not too bad,” he said reassuringly. “Head wounds bleed like crazy but they usually look worse than they actually are.” He dug into his pocket and pulled out a clean handkerchief, pressing it against the side of Devlin’s head. “Here, hold this against the wound and apply pressure. That should help to stop the bleeding.”
“Thanks,” said Devlin, following Lincoln’s instructions.
The brief wail of a siren told us that we were no longer alone. A minute later, the darkness was broken by the glare of headlights, followed by the whirling glow of red and blue. Police cars screeched to a halt on the bridge above us, and in a few moments officers were swarming the bank. An ambulance arrived. Car doors banged. Voices shouted. I felt slightly dazed myself as I was led up the embankment and onto the bridge. A paramedic came to fuss over me and I waved him away impatiently.
“No, no, I’m fine! It’s the Old Bi—the old ladies you need to see to first. They’ve been hurt and are in shock. And Inspector O’Connor—he’s had a bad cut to his head.”
Then I remembered Jim and wondered if he had been injured in the fight too. I looked around for him—he seemed all right, sitting on the grass, his expression defeated. A police officer was standing next to him, giving him the official caution, but I didn’t think Jim was taking in much of what was being said to him.
A stretcher went past me and I followed it to the ambulance, watching anxiously as Ethel and Glenda were lifted up.
“I’m fine,” said Devlin irritably as a paramedic tried to persuade him to get in as well.
“You should go to the hospital,” said Lincoln. “Get yourself checked out. You don’t want to mess around with a head injury.”
Devlin looked as if he was going to argue, then he ceded to Lincoln’s advice. “Okay, but I’m not going in the ambulance. I’ve got my own car—”
“You’re not driving in that condition,” I said quickly. I held out my hand. “Give me your keys. I’ll drive you. I would have followed the ambulance to the hospital anyway.”
Devlin handed the keys reluctantly to me. Then I clapped a hand to my head as I remembered something and turned to Lincoln urgently.
“Oh, bloody hell—our mothers! They’re probably stranded at Gloucester Green, wondering where we are!”
“I’ll go back and fetch them now,” said Lincoln. He grinned suddenly. “Don’t worry—of all the excuses there are, I think catching a murderer trumps the lot! I’m sure they’ll be all agog when I tell them what’s happened.”
He left, and Devlin and I waited as Florence and Mabel were helped into the ambulance to join their friends.
“We’ll be right behind you,” I said, as I stood by the open back doors.
Mabel turned around and reached out to pat my hand. A flash of her old spirit showed in her face. “Don’t worry about us, dear. We’re tougher than you think.”
Glenda’s voice came muffled from one of the stretchers. “And I can’t wait to tell everyone in the village that the handsome Detective O’Connor jumped off a bridge to save me!”
I laughed in spite of myself, feeling much better, and thinking that when I reached eighty, I hoped I would have half the spirit of the little Old Biddies.
CHAPTER THIRTY
“I still can’t believe it.” Seth shook his head. “Jim?”
I sank down into the armchair opposite him, grimacing slightly. My thighs were still reeling from the enforced workout along the canal yesterday and I winced as my sore muscles complained loudly.
“It wasn’t because of the Domus Trust project, like we thought,” I explained. ”Although Jim did hate Barrow for his attitude t
owards the homeless. But he wouldn’t have murdered him for that. It was much more personal. He found out that Barrow was the hit-and-run driver who had killed his girlfriend and unborn baby.”
“But how did he find that out?”
“Clyde Peters. They worked together in the Porter’s Lodge at Wadsworth College. Jim used to be a porter there as well. When he came back to Oxford, he decided to look up his old colleague again—it was easy because Peters was still the head porter at Wadsworth—and they met up for drinks the night before the murder. Peters was gossiping as usual and happened to mention Leila Gaber’s campaign against Barrow and his drunken behaviour. He also mentioned that he once saw Barrow staggering into the college late at night many years ago, looking like death, very shaken up and reeking of alcohol. Peters had helped the drunk professor to his room and had heard him mumble something about an accident, although the next morning Barrow had denied everything. However, Peters noticed that Barrow sold his car soon after and from then on always insisted on taking a taxi everywhere he went.”
“But how did he connect that with Jim’s girlfriend?”
“He didn’t,” I said. “That’s the whole point—otherwise he would have told Jim years ago. But Jim hadn’t told anyone about his girlfriend; they kept the affair discreet because she was married. Of course, the papers did report the accident but they used the woman’s married name and said she was a Reading housewife. Peters never suspected that Jim had any connection to the hit-and-run victim. And anyway, Jim went off the rails quite quickly after that—lost his job, left Oxford…”
“And meanwhile, Clyde Peters never said anything?”
“I think he was keeping it up his sleeve, as blackmail leverage, in case he ever needed Barrow’s help with something. After all, the old professor had a powerful position on the college committee and that would give Peters some protection.”
“So he kept it quiet all these years,” said Seth thoughtfully. “Why suddenly tell Jim about it now?”
“I don’t think he intended to tell Jim anything in particular—it just slipped out in conversation. I guess with him dead now, we’ll never know. But I think he was just gossiping about Leila Gaber stirring things. Maybe he was wondering aloud if it was time he approached Barrow with this ‘dirty secret’, to ask for money in return for his silence… and of course, he wouldn’t have known that it had personal meaning for Jim…”
“It must have been such a shock for Jim,” said Seth.
I nodded. “Yeah, Owen mentioned that Jim was in a strange mood on Friday morning—that he was ‘really worked up’ about something. I think Jim must have carried the bitterness and anger in him for so many years and now suddenly, here was a chance to get closure. He probably became fixated on revenge. He remembered that Barrow had a habit of having a smoke in the Cloisters last thing at night—and he also knew about the secret staircase. It seemed like the perfect opportunity.”
Seth frowned. “But why use Leila Gaber’s dagger as the murder weapon?”
“I don’t think he really planned it all out. Probably, he had some weapon of his own, but when he came through the Porter’s Lodge that night, he must have seen the dagger sticking out of Leila Gaber’s pigeonhole. He probably remembered Clyde Peters telling him about Leila’s campaign against Barrow and thought that here was a chance to throw suspicion on someone else, someone known to be after Barrow.” I gave Seth a rueful smile. “Of course, he didn’t know that you had borrowed the dagger last and that suspicion would be thrown on you instead.”
Seth leaned forwards and took his glasses off, rubbing the bridge of his nose tiredly. “The whole thing is like a terrible nightmare. When Devlin called this morning and told me that I was cleared of all charges, I almost couldn’t believe it. In fact, I still can’t believe it’s all over!”
“Seth…” I hesitated. “Now that it is all over, can you tell me the truth about something?”
He looked puzzled. “Yes, of course.”
“How did you get that black eye?”
“Oh, this…” He fingered his left eye socket self-consciously. The skin around it was an ugly mottled mix of purple, mauve, and brown. “Um… it’s nothing, really.”
“If it’s nothing, why couldn’t you tell Cassie about it?” I gave him a stern look. “She didn’t believe that cock and bull story you spun her about walking into a door.”
Seth looked down, his cheeks reddening. “Well, I couldn’t tell her the truth… it would have been too embarrassing.”
I looked at him quizzically.
He took a deep breath, then said in a rush, “I got the black eye from my personal trainer. I had a session with him on Thursday night—the night Clyde Peters was murdered. We were doing some boxing and I didn’t duck in time.”
“Your personal trainer? Since when do you have a personal trainer?”
“Since a month ago. I thought… well, I thought maybe if I could… you know… beef myself up a bit…” Seth’s voice sank so low, I had to strain to hear him, “… Cassie might… um… notice me a bit more.”
I stared at him, torn between the urge to laugh and the urge to whack his head in exasperation. “Seth, Cassie does notice you!”
“Yes, but not like… Not as a man,” Seth mumbled, still not meeting my eyes.
I opened my mouth, then shut it again. I didn’t know what to say.
Finally, I said gently, “Maybe you should just tell Cassie how you feel—”
“No,” said Seth quickly. “I can’t. It would be so humiliating. I know she won’t feel the same way and then—”
“But you don’t know,” I said. I thought of Cassie’s recent distress and that awkward moment when she had nearly flung herself into Seth’s arms when he was released from the police station. I had a feeling that my best friend didn’t know her own feelings either. “I think… I think you might be surprised if you spoke to her…”
Seth gave me a despairing look. “I can’t, Gemma. It’s hard enough now, trying to hide my feelings, but it would be even more awkward if she knew… It could destroy our friendship. Please… don’t say anything to her.”
I sighed. He was right. In fact, it was awkward enough already for me, stuck in the middle, but if Seth declared his feelings and Cassie didn’t return them, it would put a terrible strain over everything. Our trio would probably never be the same again.
“All right. But I still think you should tell her.” I glanced at my watch. Cassie taught a few classes at the dance studio in Meadowford-on-Smythe as a supplementary income earner and tonight was one of them. “She’ll be finishing her class now—she should be joining us soon.”
Seth pushed his glasses up his nose in that familiar gesture and gave me a smile. “I’m really looking forward to this party.”
So was I. Somehow, at the eleventh hour, the housing project for the homeless had been approved. Seth had been ecstatic—almost as happy as hearing that he had been released from all charges. The Domus Trust was holding a small drinks party to celebrate, and Cassie and I were invited as Seth’s guests. The Georgian building housing the charity’s offices looked very different to how I remembered when we arrived there half an hour later. It was lit up with disco lights and filled with the buzz of laughter and excited conversation. Someone had even rigged up a sound system and cleared a space in the middle of the office for those who wanted to dance.
“Eh, now… nice to see you here, miss!”
I turned and smiled in delight as I recognised Owen, looking smarter than I’d ever seen him. My gaze dropped automatically to his feet, expecting to see a doggie smile.
He laughed. “No, Ruby’s not with me tonight. Dogs aren’t allowed ’ere in the office. She’s with a friend.”
“Oh, in that case, you’ll have to give Ruby her present for me,” I said, pulling a large rawhide bone wrapped with a red ribbon out of the gift bag I was carrying.
Owen’s face split into a grin. “Oh! Ta! Very kind of you, miss… Ruby girl will love that.” H
is grin widened. “I’ve got good news to tell you too—they’ve approved pets at this development and I’ve bagged a ground-floor unit. Me and Ruby are goin’ to ’ave our own ’ome!”
“I know—Seth told me,” I said, smiling warmly. “I’m so happy for you, Owen! I thought it wasn’t going to happen. The last I heard, the project seemed to be in trouble. When I spoke to the receptionist here, she told me that the Wadsworth college committee had been swayed by Professor Barrow’s views and were refusing to give approval—”
“Yeah, but the new ’Ead of the Ethnoarchaeology Department worked ’er magic,” said Owen with grin and a jerk of his head across the room.
I followed the direction of his gesture and as the crowds parted, I saw a vivacious, attractive woman, clad in a glittering jewelled kaftan, standing across the room from me. Her head was thrown back in laughter, her generous mouth smiling widely and her mane of dark hair flowing down her back. And all around her was an eager congregation, laughing with her, listening to her every word, basking in her charm as a flower basks in the warmth of the sun.
“Leila Gaber!” I said in surprise. “What is she doing here?”
“She’s been amazin’, Dr Gaber,” said Owen. “Talked to the college committee, she did, and I don’t know ’ow she did it, but she got them to approve the project within an ’our. And she put in a good word for those of us with pets too—said she’s got two kitties of ’er own and they’re like ’er family. That’s ’ow they agreed to let us ’ave pets at the development.”
I was wrong about Leila Gaber, I thought. It seemed that she could use her manipulative charm for more than just her own ends. Across the room, the beautiful Egyptian woman turned her head and our eyes met. There was a pause of a second, then she gave that Mona Lisa smile of hers and raised her glass to me. I smiled back and saluted her with my own glass.
Then I turned back to the man beside me. “Hey, Owen—I’ve brought something for you too.”
