Dry Bones

by Sally Spencer

  The dean of St Luke’s College, Horatio Cornwallis Pierson, was standing in the college’s main archway, and recognised a number of the young men marching by, which was hardly surprising since, until a few hours earlier, they had been members of the college, and hence, nominally at least, in his care.

  He noticed, too, that he was not alone – that at the other end of the archway stood a very tall, very thin man with an aquiline nose and a broad mouth.

  Gough, the head porter!

  Pierson felt a momentary shiver run down his spine.

  It wasn’t that he was in any way intimidated by Gough.

  Of course not!

  He was, after all, the dean, and Gough was merely a college servant – but he still felt a certain amount of unease at being in the man’s presence, an experience which he was not sure other Oxford deans shared when dealing with their own head porters.

  Pierson crossed the archway, and as he drew level with the porter, Gough touched the peak of his cap in what should have been an act of submission, yet somehow didn’t quite feel like it had been.

  ‘Just watching our young gentlemen leave,’ Gough explained. ‘I have to say that they’re a credit to the college, sir.’

  ‘I’m glad you approve,’ the dean said, then found himself hoping – though he wasn’t sure quite why – that Gough hadn’t read the comment as sarcastic. ‘Have we lost many of our college servants to the war effort yet?’

  ‘Two of them joined up today, sir,’ the head porter replied. ‘One of their early morning jobs was blacking up, so it looks as if the gentlemen are going to have to learn to polish their own boots.’ He laughed, though it was one of the least humorous laughs the dean could ever remember hearing. ‘Only joking, sir,’ he continued. ‘We can’t have our gentlemen doing anything as common as that, can we? They’d probably end up getting more polish on their faces than they got on their boots. No, don’t you worry, I’ll find someone – maybe a retired servant – to fill the gap.’

  ‘Actually, there might not be too much of a need for that,’ the dean said. ‘Nearly all our students have either joined up or seem to be on the point of joining up – and quite rightly so!’

  ‘Will Mr Boulting be joining up, sir?’ the head porter asked.

  ‘Now why would you want to know that?’ the dean asked suspiciously.

  Gough shrugged. ‘I was just curious, sir.’

  It occurred to the dean that no subordinate had ever shrugged in his presence before – it was something that subordinates simply did not do – and he wondered how he should react.

  He could, of course, tackle the problem head on – ‘You will not make casual bodily gestures in front of me’ – but somehow even acknowledging that anything had occurred only seemed to make matters worse. And it had to be admitted that in a vague, undefined way, Gough was different to other head porters and certain allowances must be made.

  Still, he was damned if he was going to let the blighter get away with it completely.

  ‘It is not your place to be curious about your betters, Gough,’ he said, harshly.

  Gough should, by rights, have reacted to the rebuke by gazing at the ground and mumbling an apology – but if he had done that, then he wouldn’t have been Gough.

  ‘You’re probably right that it’s not my place, as an individual, to be curious, sir,’ he said, ‘but as the head porter, I have a responsibility for the college as a whole, and I have to tell you, sir, that there’s a general feeling in St Luke’s – a feeling which extends from most superior members of the college right down to the lowest class of servant – that we’d be better off without Mr Boulting.’

  ‘Which superior …?’ the dean began. Then, realising his own curiosity was on the point of dragging him down to the gutter, he continued, ‘That’s enough of that – I was telling you what will happen after the students have gone.’

  ‘Were you, sir?’ the head porter asked, recognising a diversion when he heard one, but content, for the moment, to go along with it. ‘That’s right, you were.’

  ‘Once we know how many rooms we have available, we will be renting those rooms to the army, and the army, I assume, will provide itself with servants from within its own ranks,’ the dean said.

  The head porter made no reply.

  ‘Do I take your silence to mean that you disapprove of the scheme, Gough?’ the dean demanded, with just a hint of outrage in his voice at such a presumption. ‘Because let me tell you, my good man, the college needs the money, and we can charge them two shillings a night each for accommodation, and add on extras such as the hot water they’ll need if they are to take a bath twice a week. And then, of course, there is the electric lighting, which, I dare say, will be a novelty to some of them. That money, once collected, Gough, can be used for the maintenance and repair of the college, especially – as it happens – the repair of the master’s roof.’

  Oh, why am I justifying myself to a mere porter, the dean found himself wondering, as he reflected on his speech.

  ‘Forgive me if I’ve given that impression, sir, but I wasn’t complaining in any way, shape or form about billeting soldiers here – or about charging them for the privilege, sir,’ the head porter said, his own level approach to their discussion clearly unchanged by the dean’s display of mild petulance.

  ‘Good,’ Pierson said, ‘I’m glad you clarified that, because, to be honest with you, Gough, I was starting to wonder which of us was dean.’

  ‘Oh, you are, sir,’ Gough said, as if the sarcasm had gone completely over his head. ‘You’re better educated, better trained, and – if I may be permitted to say so – a more natural, more inspirational leader.’

  ‘Yes, well …’ the dean said, somewhat flustered by the comment.

  ‘But what I was wondering was which particular soldiers we’ll be billeting in the college,’ Gough said.

  ‘We expect several regiments to pass through the city before the war finally comes to an end, and I believe that, initially, it’s likely to be the Oxfordshire Light Infantry which is billeted with us.’

  ‘I see,’ Gough said, with a slight sniff.

  ‘Do you have any objections to that, Gough?’ the dean asked.

  ‘Me, sir?’ the head porter replied, as if truly astounded to be even asked the question. ‘No, sir! Certainly not, sir. It’s not my place to have opinions on such matters, as you’ve so recently pointed out in such an erudite way. If I were allowed an opinion, however, I’d probably say that I’m sure that the Oxfordshire Light Infantry are a very fine body of men, but …’

  Don’t play his game, the dean told himself – just don’t play it.

  ‘But what?’ he heard himself say.

  ‘The college isn’t used to having men from the more minor regiments sheltering under its roof,’ Gough said, ‘and, to be honest with you, sir, I doubt it will enjoy the experience. If St Luke’s men are intent on following a military career they usually join a regiment of some reputation, like the Coldstream Guards or the Blues and Royals.’

  ‘You doubt the college will enjoy the experience,’ the dean repeated, chuckling at the weird ideas which the lower orders sometimes seemed to entertain. ‘You talk as if the college were actually a living, breathing thing. Did you realise that?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Gough said, deadpan. ‘And if I talk about it that way, it’s only because that’s what it is – a living thing.’

  Yes, it probably was a living thing to him, the dean suddenly realised.

  Fellows and Dons tended to think of the college as theirs – ‘I’m a St Luke’s man through and through, and will be until the day I die,’ they’d say – but few of them spent their whole careers at their beloved institution. (The draw of American universities, which might sometimes lack a mature academic ambience, but made up for it by being awash with cash, proved irresistible for many; while others chose to accept a chair in a provincial university, rather than gamble on one becoming available in their alma mater). And even the ones whose who
le academic life was lived entirely in the city of dreaming spires still did not invest as much of their time in the college as did some of the servants, who started work at the age of twelve and sometimes continued into their seventies.

  And that, of course, was probably only the tip of the iceberg of mystical attachment that some college servants seemed to have.

  ‘Did your father work for this college, Gough?’ the dean asked, testing the validity of his new thesis.

  ‘Yes, sir, he did.’

  ‘And what was his position?’

  ‘Ultimately, he was the head porter.’

  ‘And what about your grandfather?’

  ‘He was the head porter, as well.’

  ‘Was your great-grandfather the head porter, too?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Then what was he?’

  ‘He was the college’s head blacksmith, sir.’

  The dean smiled. ‘What a disappointment,’ he said patronisingly. ‘It’s almost a blot on your family history, isn’t it?’

  ‘You seem to regard it as a trivial post, sir, but it wasn’t,’ Gough said. ‘Back in those days, every student owned a horse – some owned more than one – and they depended on the blacksmith quite as much as our students now depend on the skills of a motor vehicle mechanic.’

  ‘Yes, I can see that,’ the dean said, with the vague feeling that he had just been put in his place. ‘I suppose you’re hoping that one day, your son will maintain the tradition and take over from you as head porter.’

  ‘My wife and I haven’t been blessed with a son, sir,’ the porter said coldly. ‘Nor a daughter, neither.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ the dean said.

  ‘Nothing to do with you, sir, so you’ve no cause to be sorry about it,’ Gough said, matter-of-factly. ‘As regards the next head porter, there’s no doubt that Hugh Jenkins would be a fine and worthy replacement for me, but if anything happens to him while he’s over in France, fighting the Germans, well, even though his son Harold is only four, there’ll be plenty of time to mould him before I retire.’

  ‘Good heavens, you’re talking as if you had the right to nominate your own successor, Gough!’ the dean said, shocked. ‘Don’t you know that appointments of that nature can only be made by the Maintenance and Enhancement Committee, of which I happen to be a member?’

  ‘Yes, I did know, sir, but I seem to have forgotten it,’ Gough said. ‘I’m not very intelligent, you see.’

  Dean Pierson was about to say that simply wasn’t true, but then he suddenly realised that he ran the risk of getting far too friendly – almost intimate – with a college servant.

  ‘Right, Gough, carry on,’ he said, turning and striding rapidly across the Forshaw Quad.

  He was still not sure whether or not talking to Gough had been a good idea, but he was starting to suspect it had been a very bad one. Had the head porter been making fun of him or hadn’t he? And if he had, what was he, the dean, going to do about it?

  It really would be advisable to take an interpreter with him when he intended to talk to the lower orders, he thought.

  Or perhaps, as in the army, you should only communicate with them through a transitional figure like a non-commissioned officer.

  ‘Ask him why his boots are dirty, sergeant.’

  ‘Why are your boots dirty, private?’

  ‘I’ve just come off manoeuvres and I haven’t had time to clean them yet, sergeant.’

  ‘He says he’s just come off manoeuvres and he hasn’t had time to clean them yet, sir.’

  Yes, that would certainly make things easier, but unfortunately there was really no equivalent to NCOs in a university.

  The dean had crossed the Forshaw Quad, and was passing under the archway that led into the Gothic Quad.

  Gough had been right about one thing, though, he thought – if Albert Boulting could be persuaded to join the army, the college would be well shut of him.

  THREE

  7 October 1974

  Jim Withnell, the stonemason, is quite broad, but would only ever be likely to win the prize of tallest man in the room at a Snow White convention. He has a nice smile and a twinkle in his eye. He’s the kindly uncle type, I decide – that particular breed of uncle who has the gift of being able to pat you on the bottom at a wedding reception, without you wanting to reciprocate by slapping him hard across the face.

  When he takes me down to the cellar, I’m surprised at the size of the hole in the ancient air vent.

  ‘I thought it was just big enough for you to be able to put your head through,’ I say.

  ‘Big enough for my apprentice to put his head through,’ he corrects me. ‘There have to be some perks to being a master craftsman, because – Lord knows – the job brings enough aggravation with it.’ He pauses and grins at me. ‘You’re right, it was just large enough for Tony to get his noggin through, but we had to make it bigger in order to remove all the bones.’

  ‘In order to do what?’ I shriek – and that shriek, of banshee intensity, bounces right back at me from the wall, a reminder (if I needed one) that I will never be an asset at a posh dinner party.

  ‘We had to make it bigger in order to remove all the bones,’ Jim Withnell repeats.

  I take a step forward and shine my torch into the hole.

  He’s right – there are no bones there.

  ‘So what have they done with the bones?’ I ask, fearing the worst.

  ‘They’ve taken them across the University Park to the medical department,’ Jim says. ‘They said something about having to store them under conditions that would prevent them turning to dust.’

  So now Charlie has not just tampered with the evidence, he has dismantled the entire crime scene, I think.

  Great!

  The Thames Valley police will undoubtedly be totally over the moon about that …

  The hole starts maybe three feet off the ground. It is not large – just wide enough to post a body through.

  ‘So what can you tell me, Jim?’ I ask.

  ‘What can you tell me?’ he challenges, flashing his torch up and down the brickwork, as if this was some television game show, with me the eager contestant and him the smug host.

  ‘The brickwork around the edge of the hole looks a lot less professionally laid than the bricks further away,’ I say.

  ‘Exactly,’ Jim agrees. ‘The bricks that are further away were laid and mortared into place by real craftsman. The closer ones are the work – if you want to justify what he’s done with that title – of a complete bungler. That’s why we took out bricks from the area he was responsible for – because they were a lot easier to remove.’

  ‘Maybe he was a bungler,’ I agree, ‘or maybe it was just the work of a craftsman in a hurry.’

  As anyone might be in a hurry when he was concealing a dead body, I add mentally.

  Jim laughs. ‘Even in a blind hurry, a craftsman still wouldn’t have produced this. With work of this nature, the correct way to do things is almost always the quickest way, too.’

  ‘I see,’ I say.

  Jim frowns, then licks the pad of his index finger, rubs it against the exposed mortar, then pops it into his mouth, where he proceeds to probe delicately with his tongue, as he might have done if he suddenly thought he’d discovered a new erogenous zone.

  ‘What’s happening?’ I ask – because it really does seem like the obvious question, given the circumstances.

  ‘He used lime mortar,’ Jim says. ‘The bugger only went and used lime mortar!’

  ‘Is that some new kind of mortar?’

  Inhibition not being one of his strong suits, Jim laughs at my obvious stupidity.

  ‘Some new kind of mortar?’ he repeats, just to ram home the point that I really am dumb. ‘No, it’s definitely not that. The ancient Egyptians are known to have used it 6000 years ago.’

  I don’t quite see where he’s going with this.

  ‘So is that a bad thing?’ I wonder.

  ‘N
o, for a building of this nature, it’s a very good thing,’ Jim says. ‘You see, what’s mostly used today is OPC, and …’

  ‘OPC?’

  ‘Ordinary Portland cement. It’s been around since the 1790s. It’s quicker and easier to use than lime mortar, but one of its drawbacks is that it’s a hard, rigid mortar, if you see what I mean.’

  ‘I’m not sure I do see,’ I admit, since I’ve not got a bleeding clue what he’s talking about.

  ‘An old building like this shifts slightly from time to time. Now when it does that, something has to give, doesn’t it?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ I say, dubiously.

  ‘And there’s only two things that can give, aren’t there – the bricks and the mortar. But Portland cement doesn’t want to give, and so it’s the bricks that get damaged, whereas lime mortar is so yielding and flexible that sometimes it doesn’t even crack. And even when it does crack, they’re small cracks which often heal themselves in time.’

  I have a sudden vision of myself as an Agatha Christie-type detective, addressing all the possible suspects in the library.

  ‘It was when I realised that the killer had used lime mortar rather than Portland that I understood why the horse had refused the third jump and what the mysterious Mongolian had been doing in the jam factory.’

  I do my best to suppress a rising giggle, in case Jim thinks that I’m laughing at him.

  ‘And then there’s the moisture,’ he says.