by Simon Brett
“And he thought we wanted to talk to him about that?”
“That’s my theory. When I saw him in the back yard this morning, he was out there having a swig from his secret supply. He thought I’d actually seen him drinking. That’s the only reason he agreed to meet us. He was afraid we might shop him to Head Office.”
“But why on earth would he think that?”
“Alcoholics are paranoid. Like all addicts. Including gamblers.”
“Well,” said Carole sniffily, “you’d know about that.”
Thirteen
The decision to stay in the Crown and Anchor for another glass of the Chilean Chardonnay was quickly made. And they were soon joined by other after-work regulars. Shortly after six Ewan Urquhart and his younger clone Hamish appeared. Maybe they did this every evening after a hard day’s estate agenting (though Jude sometimes wondered whether ‘a hard day’s estate agenting’ wasn’t the perfect definition of an oxymoron). Certainly the speed with which Ted Crisp set up a pair of unordered pints for them suggested a daily ritual.
Father and son took the first sip together and both smacked their lips in appreciation, another part of the ritual that needed to be observed. Then Ewan Urquhart took in the occupants of the pub and nodded recognition to Jude. She smiled back.
“Cold enough for you?” he asked, falling back, as most Englishmen do in casual conversation, on the weather.
“Pretty nippy,” Jude agreed, following the convention. She decided it wasn’t the moment to engage in further talk. On their previous encounter Ewan Urquhart had not endeared himself to her. But the introduction had been made and who could say when a tame estate agent might suddenly become a useful source of information? She continued to talk to Carole about Friday’s impending visit of Gaby and Lily. But through their desultory conversation they managed to hear what the Urquharts were saying at the bar. Doing so was in fact unavoidable. Ewan Urquhart was one of those men who thought it was his God-given right to talk loudly.
“Do you know, led, what an absolute chump my son has been today…?”
“Tell me about it,” said the landlord.
“He only managed to turn up for a viewing of a property having left the keys in the office. Client wasn’t best pleased about that, let me tell you.” While the litany of his incompetence was spelt out, Hamish’s reaction was interesting. He looked apologetic, but at the same time almost grateful for the attention, as though undergoing such criticism was an essential part of the bond with his father. Hamish had apparently been cast early as the family buffoon, and it was a role that he played up to.
“Client was one of these city slickers,” Ewan Urquhart went on, “investing his obscene bonus in a country cottage. Kind of guy for whom time is money. Wasn’t best pleased to turn up to the property and find he couldn’t get in. Gave you a bit of an ear-bashing, didn’t he, Hamish?”
“Yes, Dad,” came the sheepish reply.
“So, needless to say, a call comes through to the office and I have to leap into the Lexus, take the keys and smooth the city slicker’s ruffled feathers. Turns out all right, actually, because when I get chatting to the chap, turns out he’s an Old Carthusian just like me.”
“What’s that when it’s at home?” asked Ted Crisp.
“Old Carthusian? Means I went to a little educational establishment that goes by the name of Charterhouse. Rather decent public school, as it happens. So of course when the city slicker finds out we went to the same school we’re all chums…and of course Hamish wouldn’t have had the same connection, because you were too thick to pass the Common Entrance, weren’t you?”
“Yes, Dad,” Hamish agreed, once again apparently proud of his inadequacy.
“Anyway, so once again I got the boy out of a mess. Which means that you’re bloody well paying for the drinks tonight.”
“Of course, Dad.” The young man’s wallet was out immediately; as yet no money had changed hands.
“And you can buy a drink for your sister when she arrives too.”
“Will do.” Hamish Urquhart looked at his watch. “She said she’d be along about six-fifteen. Got some class or other up at Clincham College.” Carole and Jude pricked up their ears at that. “Guarantee she’ll be on the G and Ts. Ted, could you take for the pints and do me a large G and T too?” The young man’s bluff bonhomie sounded like a parody of his father’s. “And won’t you have one yourself?”
“No, thanks,” the landlord replied. “I don’t have anything till the end of the evening. Otherwise I’d drink myself into an early grave.”
“And we don’t want that happening, do we?” said Ewan Urquhart heartily. “I’m sure you’re just like me, Ted, want to keep going as long as possible, becoming more and more curmudgeonly with every passing year, eh?”
“I reckon I’m pretty curmudgeonly already,” said the landlord as he poured tonic into a double gin with ice and lemon.
“Nonsense, nonsense. You’re a fine upstanding English gentleman. Which is more than can be said for that fellow we had in the office this afternoon, eh, Hamish?”
“I’ll say. He was very much an ‘oriental visitor’.” The young man put on a very bad cod-Indian accent for the words.
“Not that we weren’t punctiliously polite to him, of course. And, actually, nowadays it’s all right. I mean, even ten years back I’d have had to be very discreet with someone like that…you know, suggesting that the Shorelands Estate in Fethering was maybe not quite where they should be looking…maybe they could find something more suitable in Brighton. But now half of the people on the Shorelands Estate are of dusky hue.” Ewan Urquhart let out a bark of laughter. “Soon I would imagine the Residents’ Committee there will be worrying about white people moving in next door to them!”
Ted Crisp guffawed too readily at this for Jude’s liking. But she and Carole were distracted by the appearance through the door of a girl who was undoubtedly Hamish’s anticipated sister. In her the ginger tendency of her father and brother was transformed into a mane of pale golden hair and their thickset bodies had been fined down into a slender voluptuousness. Her pale skin was flushed red, presumably by the February cold. She wore a Barbour over jeans and big fleece-topped boots. There was no doubt from the expression that took over Ewan Urquhart’s face that she was the apple of her father’s eye.
“So what’s kept you, Soph?” he asked, as he enveloped her in a large hug. “I didn’t think you had classes as late as this.”
“No,” she said lightly. “Had to do some work in the library.” Her voice had been trained at the female equivalent of Charterhouse.
“Well, I’m not sure I approve of all this book-learning for women. Women are only really good for three things. Cooking and cleaning are two of them…and…” Hamish and Ted Crisp joined him in a chortle of male complicity. He had spoken in an over-inflated tone of self-parody, but deep down he clearly believed in what he was saying.
“Anyway, your timing’s good in one respect. Your brother’s just bought you a drink.”
“Oh, thank you, Hamish.” She took a grateful swig of the gin and tonic.
“No prob, Soph.”
“And shall I tell you why the drinks are on him tonight?” Without waiting for a prompt, Ewan Urquhart once again recounted the tale of his son’s ineptitude. At the end the girl gave her brother a little hug and said, “You are an idiot.” Her tone was the affectionate one that might be used to an over-eager puppy.
“So what have they taught you today?” asked Ewan, sharing his next observation with Ted Crisp. “Have to be doing a constant cost analysis on this higher education lark, you know. The amount they get charged for tuition fees these days, you want to know where the money’s going.”
“Yes,” the landlord commiserated, “I’ve heard about it. The debts these kids come away from university with, all those student loans, they’re never going to get out of the red, are they?”
“Well, at least young Sophia doesn’t have that problem.” He prono
unced the second two syllables of her name like ‘fire’. Then, with a tap to his back pocket in the vague proximity of his wallet, he explained, “Muggins here’s footing the bills for everything. So come on, what did they teach you today?”
“We had a class on Eisenstein, and then some work-shopping in the Drama Studio. It’s for this show we’re doing.”
“Huh, play-acting,” her father snorted. “Not my idea of hard work. You know what my daughter’s studying, Ted? Drama and Film Studies. They seem to be able to do degree courses in anything these days. Media Studies, Dance, Pop Music, Fashion, you name it. Probably be doing degrees in bloody Shopping before too long. Wasn’t like that in my day…”
“Why, what did you study at university then, Ewan?”
For the first time the estate agent looked discomfited by Ted’s question. “Oh,” he replied, quickly recovering, “didn’t go down the university route myself. Got out into the real world, got down to some real work. I’m sure you’d agree that’s the best way to go about things, wouldn’t you?”
“Dunno,” the landlord replied. “It’s not what I did. I went to university.”
“Really?” The surprise of the eavesdropping Carole and Jude was as great as that of Ewan Urquhart.
“Well, of course,” Ewan continued defensively, “I studied later. You know, got my ARICS qualifications…eventually.” The recollection was clearly not a happy one, so he moved swiftly on. “What did you study then?”
“Nuclear Physics.”
“Good Lord. So you have a degree in Nuclear Physics, do you, Ted?”
“Well, no, I don’t actually. I left halfway through my second year. I was starting to spend more of my time doing stand-up than on my studies, so I thought I’d give it a go professionally.”
“And did it work out?”
“Ewan, do you have to ask?” Ted Crisp’s large gesture, encompassing the whole of the Crown and Anchor, was sufficient reply.
“Anyway, Soph, I wonder if what you learnt today is ever going to prove of any use to you…”
The girl shrugged easily. “Who knows, Daddy? Some people say that education shouldn’t be about direct application of skills to commercial challenges, that it should be about training and broadening the mind.”
“What a load of poppycock. It’s not a broad mind that’s going to help you succeed in the marketplace, it’s applied skills. Isn’t that true, Hamish?”
“Certainly is, Dad.”
The set-up was perfect. With a guffaw, his father responded, “And maybe, when you get some applied skills, you’ll have a chance of succeeding in the marketplace too!”
Shamefacedly, Hamish Urquhart rode the laughter. Carole and Jude exchanged looks and decided it was time to be getting back home.
Fourteen
The next morning, the Thursday, Carole drove Jude in her neat Renault up to Clincham College. They had tried ringing, but the woman who answered the phone said she wasn’t allowed to give out any details about the students. Maybe an in-person approach would prove more productive.
The entrance to the campus was flanked by boards thanking local companies and other institutions for their sponsorship, giving the impression of a business park rather than a seat of learning. As the Renault nosed its way up the drive towards the visitors’ car park, they passed a few students, looking impossibly young and clutching armfuls of books and folders. In warmer weather they might have been drifting more lethargically, but the brisk February air kept them on the move.
The main building of Clincham College had always been an educational institution, though it had undergone various metamorphoses before its recent attainment of university status. Originally built by a late Victorian philanthropist as ‘an academy for the furtherance of Christian knowledge’, the humourless tall grey edifice had at various times been a boys’ prep school, a girls’ public school and an outpost of a minor American university, peddling expensive degrees to students mostly from the Middle and Far East. Before its recent elevation it had for some years been a technical college. Now, as the biggest board at the entrance proudly proclaimed, it was ‘The University of Clincham’.
The portico through which Carole and Jude made their way to the Reception area was elaborate and imposing, though it presented that quality of tired shabbiness which infects all educational establishments. The modern lettering of the various signs attached to the tall pillars was at odds with the period of their design.
Inside, more students were draped around the central hall, talking in groups or on their mobile phones. Their manner was loud and over-dramatic, trying to assert their personalities in their new supposed maturity.
Carole and Jude followed the signs to Reception, a glassed-off area with a counter, at which sat a daunting woman in a black business suit. Behind her in the office area stood a tall man reading through a stapled set of spreadsheets.
“Good morning,” said the woman, following some script that had been imposed on her. “Welcome to Clincham College.”
“Hello, my name’s Carole Seddon, and I wonder whether you could help me?”
“That’s what I’m here to do,” said the woman, though her manner belied the welcome in her words.
“We’re trying to make contact with someone who we believe may have been a student here.”
The woman’s face shut down immediately. “I’m afraid I’m not allowed to give out information about the students at the university.”
Jude thought she’d see whether charm might succeed where Carole’s confrontational approach had failed. “No, I’m sure that’s the rule, but all we wanted to know—”
“I’m sorry,” the woman interrupted. “I cannot let you have any information about the students.”
“Is there someone else we could speak to?” asked Carole frostily.
“You could write to the Principal with your enquiry, and it’s possible that he might reply to you.” The woman didn’t make that sound a very likely scenario.
“Look,” Jude persisted, “all we want to know is the answer to one very simple question.” There was no point in pretence. Everyone in the locality knew the name of the recent murder victim. “We want to know whether Tadeusz Jankowski, the man who was stabbed in Fethering last week, was ever actually enrolled in the college here.”
The woman went into automaton mode. “I am not allowed to give out any information about any of the students in—”
“Ah, so you’re admitting he was a student here?”
“I am not doing—”
She was interrupted by a voice from behind her.
Tadek’s name had distracted the man from his spreadsheets. “It’s all right, Isobel, I’ll deal with this.”
Leaving his papers, he emerged through the door from Reception and approached the two women. “My name’s Andy Constant. Lecturer in Drama Studies. Also Admissions Tutor.” Carole and Jude gave their names. “Would you like to come and have a cup of coffee?”
They agreed that they would and, without further words, he led them to an adjacent snack bar. “Don’t worry, the coffee’s all right.” He gestured to a well-known logo over the door. “Outside franchise. Like everything else in this place. The academic life has ceased to be about learning. It’s now all about raising funds and doing deals. I’ll get the coffees. What would you like?”
As he went to the counter, Carole and Jude found a table and studied him. Long and gangly, Andy Constant moved with a laid-back swagger. His face receded from a beak of a nose and surprisingly full lips. His grey hair was worn long, rather in the style of Charles I. He had on black jeans, Timberland boots and a grey denim blouson over a white T·shirt. His voice was as languid as his manner.
He brought over the coffees, a cappuccino for Jude, the ‘ordinary black’ Carole had ordered, a tiny cup of espresso for himself, and sat down opposite them.
“Bit of excitement in a little place like Fethering, a murder, isn’t it?” His tone was joshing, sending up the intensity of their interest. But
he was at the same time alert, apparently trying to deduce the agenda that had brought them to the college.
“Bound to be,” said Jude easily.
For the first time he seemed to take her in, and he liked what he saw. “Yes. And everyone’s got their own theory about what happened.”
“The students too?”
“And how. Big excitement for them. Also rather frightening. A young man killed, possibly murdered, only a few miles away in Fethering. Comes a bit near home for them. Current crop of students have been brought up to be afraid of everything. The Health and Safety Generation, I call the poor saps. All afraid of being attacked, the girls afraid of being raped…Whatever happened to the innocence of youth?”
“Did it ever exist?” asked Carole.
“Maybe not, but I think when I was their age I did at least have the illusion of innocence. I kind of trusted the world, was prepared to give it a chance. I wasn’t afraid of everything.”
“You say they’re afraid of everything,” said Jude, “but you’re talking about a generation who think nothing of shooting off round the world on their gap years.”
“True. Except that’s just become another form of package tourism these days. For me it takes the excitement out of far-flung places, knowing there’ll be a nice familiar Macdonald’s waiting when you get there.”
“Maybe.” He had taken over the conversation so effortlessly that Jude wanted to find out more about Andy Constant. “You said you lecture in Drama. Does that mean you used to be an actor?” A theatricality about him made this quite a possibility.
“Very early in my career. Moved into directing for a while. Since then, teaching. Mind you, that involves a certain amount of directing too. And acting, come to think of it.”
He had considerable charm, and a strong sexual magnetism. The latter got through to Jude at an instinctive, visceral level, and she wondered whether Carole was aware of it too.
