The Glass Ceiling

by Anabel Donald

  ‘Do what?’ she asked, not unreasonably.

  ‘It sounds like “fairma”.’

  ‘Never heard of it.’

  ‘Oh, shit,’ I said, and for a moment I fantasized about taking Nick with me and walking out. I didn’t want to watch the torrents of rain about to descend on his parade. And it was such a small parade. Not even a whole parade, just a senile float. But somewhere in his tea-chests was information Janet Wilson thought important, and she was an Alpha if ever I’d met one. I always try to listen

  when Alphas speak, though I’d never called them that before.

  I took a deep breath. ‘Do your best, Nick,’ I said. ‘Bluff.’

  ‘OK.’

  Kinross came out of the doorway behind us. ‘Let me introduce you,’ I said, as buoyantly as I could, and I didn’t make a bad stab at it, under the circumstances; his face was falling as he looked at the female teenager standing where he’d expected a mathematician in his prime, perhaps a younger version of himself. ‘Dr Kinross, may I introduce Nick Straker. Nick, this is Charles Kinross.’

  Kinross looked no happier; he hesitated, then extended his hand politely. But Nick did. Her normal glum expression gave way to an enormous Cheshire Cat grin.

  ‘Kinross!’ she said, louder than I’d ever heard her speak, grasping his hand and pumping it up and down. ‘It’s . . . an honour to meet you. Sir Professor Doctor.’ She was way over the top, I thought. Unless (could it he?) she actually recognized his name.

  ‘I’m working on a proof of fairma,’ he said defensively. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I’ve never heard of it,’ she said. He turned and walked away, and she talked on at his retreating back: ‘I need your help.’

  I tell her to bluff, and she says she doesn’t know what he means? And now she needs his help? Perhaps it was something in the Oxford air. No wonder Alice in Wonderland was written here.

  ‘Come on,’ I said grimly, and followed him back into the kitchen, hoping to salvage what I could. He was bent over the papers on his table, looking suspiciously damp about the eyes. He’d be crying next.

  I felt thoroughly pissed off. With myself for taking the outside chance on Nick, whose fault it wasn’t, and for exploiting an old and foolish man. And with Janet Wilson for sending me on a wild-goose chase when she could have told me more, if she thought it important; or less, and sent me on my way without a time-wasting diversion into the Bog Kinross.

  Nick went over and stood beside him. ‘I need your help. On group theory.’

  He shook his head. ‘Read my book.’

  ‘I have,’ said Nick.

  He looked at her with the beginning of interest. ‘Found it difficult, hey?’

  ‘Not at all,’ she said. ‘Very clear. Some of it was very beautiful. But what I thought was – I’ll show you. Can I write on this?’ She picked up a piece of paper from the table and glanced at it before he snatched it away and held it to his chest protectively.

  ‘That’s my work,’ he said. ‘Leave it alone. That’s my work.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said, took out her notebook and a pencil, scribbled two words and held it for him to see. ‘Is that what you’re working on?’

  As he read it, his face was once more a Christmas-morning child’s. ‘Of course it is. That’s what I said. And you said you’d never heard of it.’

  ‘I haven’t. I’ve only seen the name written down. I thought it was pronounced furmat.’

  I looked over their shoulders, at the notebook page. Fermat’s Theorem, Nick had written. I was no wiser, but they were, gibbering away at each other about angles of approach and computer capacity.

  ‘Can I look through the tea-chest now?’ I said loudly, but I had to repeat myself to get his attention, and then he made shoo movements with his hands.

  ‘Not now. Not yet.’

  ‘When?’ I said.

  ‘Oh—’ He looked at Nick, looked at the table, looked at me again. ‘Next week, perhaps.’

  He wasn’t getting her for a week.

  ‘Tomorrow morning,’ I said. ‘Tomorrow morning, first thing, I’ll come to pick up Nick, and you’ll let me look. Or else we both leave, now.’

  ‘Oh, all right,’ he said, and sat down. ‘Pull up a chair, Nick.’

  Chapter Twenty

  I left Nick to it. She didn’t seem to mind: it was all I could do to drag her away from Kinross long enough to take her notes on the Arabella Trigg shadowing and to get her transcription of my telephone messages.

  By two-thirty Barty’s card had paid my bill at the hotel and I was on the road, glad to be heading for London.

  I did the journey in under the hour. My flat was empty: no messages on the answering machine; a note from Peter said Back at six – d’you want to go out to eat?

  No, I didn’t, I didn’t have time. I kicked off my boots, made a cup of coffee and ate the last of the Bournemouth hotel cheese. It was improving with age, but it needed to. Then I sat down at the kitchen table and looked at the information Nick’d given me.

  Two telephone calls booking me provisionally for research work in November. Good.

  Adrian Trigg: was I making any progress? Give him a ring, please.

  Teddy Webb: how was it going? Did I need any help? He’d do anything I wanted. He’d be in Thursday evening and would call again.

  Jordan: she’d remembered something about Grace Macarthy that might be useful. If I wanted to know, call back.

  That was all from the telephone. Nothing from Barty. Surprise me.

  I went on to the Arabella Trigg notes.

  1) Body Shop. Tried lipsticks. Bought nothing.

  2) Principles. Tried two jackets. Bought one, light blue. The sort a television newsreader might wear. Paid in cash, eighty pounds (reduced from over a hundred and twenty).

  3) Marks and Spencer. Underwear Bought two dark-blue high-cut pants with lace trim, size ten, and two matching underwired dark-blue lace bras, size thirty-four C. Paid in cash, thirty-five pounds ninety-six pence. Children’s dept. Bought light-blue trousers, for age four, three, two. Paid by cheque, thirty-eight pounds ninety-seven pence.

  4) Cooks. Looked at long-haul holiday brochures. Took several, mostly Far East.

  5) Boots. One economy-size toothpaste with fluoride, own brand. One giant family shampoo for normal hair, own brand. Five pounds twenty-three, pence, paid by cheque. One large pack incontinence pads, own brand. One large box Super Tampax. Five pounds thirty-three pence, paid cash, different till.

  I’d asked Nick for detail and she’d come through. Good girl.

  She’d also solved the case for me. Incontinence pads. Unless Arabella was also shopping for her mother or grandmother. But it looked to me as if she was being treated by a physiotherapist for incontinence, probably brought on by producing three children so quickly, and she didn’t want to tell her husband about it. Which was also why she’d paid for the incontinence pads and the Tampax in cash.

  I went back to the notes again, looking for another angle. She’d also paid for other things in cash; perhaps she was planning to run away with a lover, wearing her new jacket and a change of lace-trimmed underclothes, possibly to the Far East.

  A telephone call would settle it. I found the number of the physiotherapist practice in Harley Street, told the obliging girl who answered about my embarrassing problem, and said I’d been recommended to someone at that number but I couldn’t remember his name.

  ‘You mean Mr Spenlow,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, that’s the name, great. Does he work evenings?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Could I have an appointment next Tuesday evening? As late as possible. Say, eight o’clock?’

  ‘I’m sorry, he has a regular patient at that time. I can offer you seven-thirty?’

  ‘Oh dear It has to be eight . . . Is there any chance your eight o’clock patient will cancel?’

  ‘Not much, I’m afraid. Mrs Trigg is very reliable.’

  Bingo. I disentangled myself and rang off.
/>   That was Adrian Trigg’s job done. I considered ringing him back and telling him, but decided against it. I’d write a report.

  There was another note from Nick. Grace says, do you want to have a drink and a chat with her at five-thirty this evening? She’ll expect you unless you ring to cancel. PS. I didn’t tell her you’d gone to Elspeth Driscoll’s last night.

  Good for Nick. Again.

  I rang Grace’s number, let her answerphone message chuckle at me, and confirmed for five-thirty.

  Then I rang Jordan. ‘Hi. Alex here.’

  Cough.

  ‘You said you had info about Grace Macarthy.’

  ‘You do a lot of work for Barty O’Neill, don’t you?’ she said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He was up at Oxford with the Vestal Virgins. He had an on-and-off thing with Grace, before he married that beautiful idiot. And I’m not sure they didn’t get back together again, briefly, after his divorce.’

  ‘Barty and Grace?’ I said blankly, trying to identify the emotion that was bringing the hotel cheese back up my throat and making it hard to speak.

  ‘Yes. You can ask him.’ I thanked her, but not as warmly as she expected, and rang off over her protestations that I was an ungrateful cow. But I’d identified my emotion. It was jealous rage.

  * * * * *

  I hate feeling jealous. When I was younger, I often did: jealous of girls who had what I hadn’t, like looks and a home and a family and money and an education and a place in the world, so that their life was like a ski-jump, starting high up the hill and launching out into infinite possibilities, while I grubbed about at the bottom for enough of the necessities to keep me warm. It was a sick and poisoned and sapping feeling.

  I’d been jealous of Barty before: of his ex-wife. Mildly. And that had been bad enough. But Grace. Amazin’ Grace Macarthy, so pleased with herself, whose ski-jump had started so high up the hill. Oxford, confidence, and Barty too.

  She wouldn’t ever lose her nerve. She wouldn’t have drowned the cheese-plant in wine. She’d probably have run through sixteen exotic love positions as described in an ancient Indian text-book (which she’d read in the original Sanskrit) before she took off her lace underclothes to reveal a perfect body. Even if it was a good fifteen years older than mine, it was still better.

  I took several deep breaths and touched my toes.

  I knew what I had to do.

  I had to decide what to do about my Womun. Whoever she was. However many people she was.

  And I had to work for Teddy Webb. I’d watch the BBC Carnival video next; Nick had left it on the television.

  But before I could, I went upstairs to the bathroom, vomited, and flushed the toilet on the last of the hotel cheese.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I watched the Notting Hill Carnival footage twice through before I caught any faces on a balcony. When I did, I paused it. Several male and female faces. One of them looked something like the photograph of his father that Teddy’d given me. It could possibly have been the same man, ten years on; as he’d said. On the other hand it needn’t have been. And the face was very drawn and haggard: it was perhaps older still. I supposed Edward Webb would now be about forty-three if he graduated in 1971. The face on the balcony could well have been in its fifties.

  Teddy was right, though; it was the balcony of one of the houses on the Grove just round the corner from me, opposite the pub. It was very run-down: the police had used one of the flats in it for their drug surveillance. The others were, as far as I knew, squats.

  But I did recognize one of the male faces on the balcony with the Edward Webb look-alike. I didn’t know his name but he’d been a regular in the pub before the drug swoop. He probably drank in the pub up the road with all the others now. If he wasn’t banged up in the Scrubs.

  I could try him later that evening. After my drink with Grace. Which I’d have to leave for in half an hour. I wasn’t going to dress up for her. Though I might put on a clean sweatshirt; maybe even the new green one, for jealousy.

  Time for some more telephone calls.

  I dialled directory enquiries for the number of the sub-post office at Leadington, Elspeth Driscoll’s village. Enquiries gave me one of those interminable unfamiliar country numbers which probably double as the code for a Swiss bank account, and I punched it in irritably. If I’d had posh nails I’d have broken them. I made a huge effort to sweeten up when the post office answered with a plump woman’s voice. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hello. I wonder if you can help me. I live in London but I was driving through Leadington and something went wrong with my car, and the gentleman who lives at Nelson Mandela Cottage was so kind, and I want to thank him, but I never got his name, and he really was so kind . . . and I thought you might know . . . Oh, Mr Drinkall, Richard Drinkall? D-r-i-n-k-a-l-l? Thank you so much . . . Because he was so kind . . . and so few people are kind nowadays, in London anyway, aren’t they, so I did want to thank him ...’

  I was getting carried away, I realized, and rang off before she signed me up for a cake morning for the church roof fund.

  Directory enquiries again.

  Another Swiss bank account number.

  ‘Hello?’

  It sounded like Thong. After I explained who I was, he recognized me, so it was Thong. ‘I wanted to ask you,’ I said. ‘You may not remember, but when you gave me directions to Elspeth Driscoll’s place the other night, you said that when I got near I’d hear barking, but not just from the dogs. What did you mean?’

  He spluttered.

  ‘No, of course I didn’t tell her . . . I just wondered what you meant, because I only met her that night but she seemed quite normal to me. I’m a private investigator working on a case and it would be helpful to know, in complete confidence, what you meant.’

  I’d put him on the spot. He rambled on about a casual remark and not meaning it and having a high regard for Elspeth. ‘I understand,’ I said soothingly. ‘I quite understand, but I also need to know. If you don’t feel able to clarify, then I’ll assume it was Elspeth you were talking about, shall I?’

  ‘Absolutely not,’ he said definitely. ‘I was absolutely not referring to Elspeth.’

  ‘Then to someone else who lives there, perhaps? Or often stays there?’

  ‘Well – yes.’

  ‘Anyone in particular?’

  ‘Well – yes. A friend of hers from London.’

  ‘A man?’

  ‘Yes. But that’s all I’ll say.’

  ‘So this friend is distinctly eccentric. In what way?’

  ‘He’s fought with everyone in the village, for God’s sake. Not just me.’

  ‘Fought physically?’

  ‘Sometimes. He has violent rages. He’s very strong.’

  ‘Is he staying there now?’

  ‘I expect so. He lives there, for all intents and purposes. And that really is all I’m prepared to say.’

  ‘His name?’

  ‘I suppose – oh, all right. His name’s Edmund Wilson.’

  I went into the kitchen for a mug of coffee and updated my action list. When I’d finished, it read:

  Melanie Slater’s break-in? ‘baby-killer’?

  opportunity?

  ?foto

  Edmund Wilson

  BBC archive footage – carnival, Teddy’s father – man in pub

  ? Elspeth’s break-in – opportunity?

  ? delivery of Womun’s letters – opportunity?

  Ring BT – E.D.’s phone

  Arabella Trigg – report

  I looked at the list while the kettle boiled and tried to remember what was familiar about the name Edmund Wilson. I’d come across it in the papers, somewhere in the book sections. He’d written an autobiography, that was it. Full of spite and explicit sex. But what was he famous for? Why was he writing an autobiography anyway? And was he Elspeth Driscoll’s unpopular house guest?

  No, he couldn’t be. The autobiographical Edmund Wilson was dead, because it was a
posthumous work. I was remembering better now. It might even have been a diary, and he’d been an American academic of some kind.

  I looked at the list again.

  It’s a commonplace of detective fiction that when people adopt an alias they often keep their initials. Most practical commonplaces of detective fiction are rooted in fact. So I crossed out Teddy’s father and substituted Edward Webb, and made the coffee, wondering if I’d just earned Teddy’s four hundred pounds.

  No. It couldn’t be that easy.

  Ten minutes and one telephone call (pretending to be Elspeth) later, I had an answer from British Telecom. Elspeth had been paying by budget account until three weeks ago, when she’d cancelled the bank payment and begun an obstructive correspondence which ended in the phone being cut off. Her monthly payment was tiny: fifteen pounds. She must have one of the lowest quarterly bills in the country.

  Don’t tell me she couldn’t have found fifteen pounds. She might have been hard up in her own terms, but she wasn’t poor, not the kind of poor that couldn’t find that kind of money. Her fridge had been full. There’d been a receipt on her cork-board from a clothes mail-order company that wasn’t cheap. Besides, if cash-flow had been a problem, she could just have cancelled the budget payment and agreed to pay in full at the end of the next quarter; the woman from British Telecom had said, baffled, that that remained an option, and why didn’t I take it?

  As Elspeth, I hadn’t answered. As Alex, I thought I knew why.

  She’d wanted her phone cut off.

  She’d wanted it cut off at a particular time.

  Just when I started hearing from the Womun in the Balaclava Helmet.

  * * * * *

  As I brushed my teeth and changed my sweatshirt, I felt disappointed. I’d been looking forward to puzzling the Womun out, in my own time.

  But if it was all being done by Elspeth Driscoll, I reckoned all I’d have to do was lean on Grace, tell her what I suspected and why I suspected it, and she’d admit that she’d known all along. She might even be able to tell me why, and that would really spoil my fun. Why was the salt of both my jobs: why was the brass ring. Anyone well-organized and thorough could find you what.