by H. Y. Hanna
But as I started tidying my room and making sure that I had nothing else to add to the laundry pile, I realised that my pashmina scarf was missing. Aside from the fact that it was a fairly expensive purchase, it had sentimental value for me—it was the special treat I had bought myself with my very first pay cheque. Alarmed, I searched in my handbag, the chest of drawers, the wardrobe, the chair beside my bed… but couldn’t find it anywhere.
I sat down on my bed and thought of my movements over the weekend. I was sure I had been wearing it when I went to dinner at Gloucester College on Saturday night. In fact, I remembered draping it over my shoulder and looking at myself in the mirror before I left my room. And the next day? I frowned. I couldn’t remember but I knew I wouldn’t have worn it to the tearoom—I tended to dress much more casually there, especially as I had planned to do some cleaning and tidying up on Sunday.
So I must have left it at Gloucester College on Saturday night. Feeling annoyed with myself, I got up and glanced at the clock. It wasn’t late—I could pop down to Gloucester College and try to find it. Tossing a sweater around my shoulders, I grabbed my purse and headed out of the house.
It was just past eight o’clock when I stepped through the main gate of Gloucester College and I could see several students walking across the quad, taking off their gowns as they went. They must have just finished Formal Hall. I ran lightly up the steps into the Porter’s Lodge and went up to the old-fashioned wooden counter with sliding glass windows. A kindly-looking man in his sixties, wearing the traditional black suit of the college porters, gave me a smile and said, “Can I help you, luv?”
I explained about my pashmina and asked if anyone might have dropped it into their lost property box. He shook his head regretfully.
“There’s been nothing of that description brought in. Where did you lose it?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “I was here last Saturday night for dinner at High Table and I think I might have lost it then.”
“Have you looked in the Senior Common Room?”
“No… I thought someone would have brought it in here if they’d found it.”
“If it was something in the SCR, the fellows might not have turned it in because they wouldn’t consider it student property. They might just leave it in the common room thinking that one of the other fellows would retrieve it. Why don’t you go along there and see?”
I thanked him for his help and made my way to the SCR, which was housed in the northwest tower of the main quadrangle. It was quieter in the college tonight, perhaps because it was a weekday and most students would be at various University clubs, society meetings, or parties, if not studying in their rooms (based on my own experiences, more likely the former than the latter).
My steps echoed hollowly as I climbed the wooden staircase up to the SCR and knocked on the heavy oak door. There was no answer. I pushed it open slowly. The room was empty, a fire burning down to the embers in the grate. I saw my pink pashmina almost instantly. It was draped across the back of one of the leather wingback chairs by the fireplace. I hurried across the room, grabbed it, and was out again in less than a minute. However, as I was about to make my way back down the staircase, I heard the sound of furtive whispering.
I paused and glanced up.
The staircase continued upwards into the tower, probably to various dons’ private rooms where they would hold their tutorials. I wondered if perhaps a couple of students were huddled there, waiting to speak to their tutor. But the voices sounded too mature to be students. In fact, I realised, they sounded slightly familiar.
Curious, I turned around and mounted a few steps of the next flight of stairs, peering upwards into the dimly lit stairwell. I saw four shapes huddled on the next landing, talking in loud whispers. They sounded like they were having an argument. My eyes widened in disbelief as I realised who they were. The Old Biddies.
I ran up to join them. “What are you doing here?” I hissed.
They froze and stared at me, like rabbits caught in headlights.
“Gemma!” said Mabel Cooke at last. “How lovely to see you, dear,” she said, as if it was perfectly normal for her to be skulking about a college staircase every day.
“What are you doing here?” I repeated.
Mabel glanced at her friends and they all looked at me with equally guilty expressions. I had a sudden impression I was facing four naughty children, rather than four members of the senior generation.
“Well, you know… we just happened to see him… and we thought we’d tag behind…”
“Just a bit of curiosity…”
“Not that we were following him or anything…”
“No, no, of course not…”
“Following whom?” I said, confused.
Mabel threw a furtive look up the staircase to the next landing, then turned back to me and lowered her voice. “Detective Inspector O’Connor!”
“Devlin?”
“Shh!”
“You’re stalking the inspector?”
“Not stalking,” said Mabel indignantly. “We were just out in Oxford— it’s Seniors Night at the Old Fire Station, you know—and we happened to see Inspector O’Connor… so we… uh… followed him for a bit and saw him walking into Gloucester College. Of course, we knew all about the murdered American having come here to meet one of the professors—”
“How did you know…?” I sighed. “Never mind.”
“We were sure Inspector O’Connor must have come to interview this professor,” said Florence eagerly.
Ethel nodded. “A suspect in the murder case!”
“Yes, so we hurried up right behind him and were just in time to hear him tell the porter at the gate that he had an appointment with Professor Hughes.”
“But how did you get into the college? Don’t tell me you managed to pass yourselves off as students,” I said.
Glenda giggled. “Oh, well, the porter—Roger—is one of my beaus.”
“Your… beau?” I didn’t think people used that word anymore.
She nodded, giggling again like a schoolgirl. “Yes, I go dancing with Roger. Nimble on his feet, he is, for such a big man. And you know, it’s true what they say about a man being as good in bed as he is on the dance floor…”
Ugh. I shut my eyes briefly. Okay, that definitely fell into the category of Too Much Information. Whatever else I might have been curious about, I did not need to know about the active sex life of little old ladies.
“So Roger let you in,” I said quickly.
“Yes, I promised him a private dance later as a thank you,” said Glenda with a wink.
Double ugh. “And you followed Devlin here?”
Mabel nodded. “We saw him go up and heard him being received by someone. A man.” She jerked her chin upwards towards the next landing. “He’s just gone in.” She turned to the others. “Come on.”
“Wait—what are you going to do?” I put a hand on her arm.
She looked at me like I was stupid. “Eavesdrop on their conversation, of course!”
They began to creep up the staircase, clutching their linen handkerchiefs and lavender patent leather handbags. I stared at them, feeling like I was in a Pink Panther movie or something. Were they seriously going to eavesdrop on the interview?
I turned around and started to descend, but I hadn’t gone two steps when I paused. I wanted badly to hear Devlin’s conversation with Geoffrey Hughes. I looked back up the staircase. Was I going to be bested by four little old ladies, just because I was scared of doing the “wrong” thing? Yes, my mother had always hammered it into me that it was Terribly Rude To Eavesdrop—but so what? What had happened to my new determination to take risks and live a little dangerously?
I whirled and hurried up the staircase after the Old Biddies. I found them on the top landing, literally pressing their ears against the large oak door. It was such a ridiculous sight that I almost laughed out loud. Instead, I took my position next to them and pressed my own ear against
the door too.
I heard nothing.
As was common with the fittings in most Oxford colleges, this door was a sturdy antique, carved of solid timber, and had probably withstood prying ears for centuries.
“It’s no use—we can’t hear anything through this door,” I whispered to Mabel. “We might as well just give up.”
She gave me a look of disdain and put her hand on the door handle.
“Mabel—!” I stared at her in disbelief.
Very, very slowly, she turned the handle. I was impressed someone of her age could have such steady hands. She managed to ease the door open a tiny crack—enough so that we could hear but not enough that anyone would have noticed that the door was open, unless they were specifically looking.
Thankfully, it seemed that Devlin was not specifically looking. I waited with bated breath but no one sprang up and came to see who had opened the door. Instead, we were suddenly able to hear the rumble of conversation inside. From the sound of it, Devlin had finished the preliminary background questions and was now asking Hughes about last Friday afternoon.
“Yes, Brad Washington did come to see me. We used to be at Oxford together, many years ago. He had a new business venture that he was inviting me to invest in. We talked about it for a while, then he left at around five o’clock.”
“And did you decide to invest in his new venture?”
There was a pause. “No, I decided that it wasn’t for me.”
“Any special reason?”
“N-no… You must understand, Inspector, that I am a world expert on this class of drugs and I’m constantly being asked to take part in research trials or get involved in some new product development. One can’t take part in everything so one must pick and choose.”
Devlin seemed to change tack. “So Brad Washington was an old friend—an academic colleague, I understand?”
“Yes, we both arrived at Gloucester College as graduates, to do a DPhil in Pharmacology. We worked together, actually, on the same research project. But we haven’t seen each other in fifteen years.”
“So why should he suddenly contact you now?”
“I already told you—to tell me about his new venture.”
“Yes, but he must have had any number of new ventures in the past decade. Why only this one now?”
“I’m afraid you would have to ask him that.”
“I can’t do that. As you know very well, he’s dead.”
There was a pause.
“Yes, of course.”
“And you never thought of contacting the police? You were probably one of the last people to see him alive.”
“I… er… I didn’t think our meeting would have any relevance. I heard a rumour that he had got into a fight with some local drunk and the man killed him later in retribution.”
“Is that behaviour what you would expect of Washington? Getting into fights?”
There was a humourless laugh. “Yes, Washington had a big mouth and he wasn’t afraid to use it. He was just the type to get into a fight with some local yob, especially if he started throwing money around.”
“Had a lot of it, did he?”
“Well, when he left Oxford, he went back to the States with some of the findings of our research and—as the saying goes—made his fortune.”
“So you were both here together, in the same field, and then he goes off and benefits enormously from the research you did together. Didn’t you feel resentful?”
“No, why should I? He chose a life of commerce and I chose academia.”
Devlin circled back. “So you had a discussion and then he left and you never saw Washington again?”
“I already told you. Yes, that was the last time I saw him.”
“I still find it curious that you didn’t come forward to the police. We made it very clear on the evening news that we were appealing to anyone with information on the victim.”
“Yes, well…” Hughes’s voice was uncomfortable. “Suppose I ought to have, but you know how it is… No one wants to get involved with the police, unless they have to.”
“That’s not been my experience at all,” Devlin said dryly. “In my experience, the public love getting involved and are very keen to help with a murder enquiry. If anything, we usually have more hassle sorting through all the ‘helpful’ tips and phone calls we receive, full of unnecessary information. It tends to only be those with something to hide who don’t want to speak to the police.”
“Well, I have nothing to hide…” blustered Hughes.
“Good.”
There was a tense silence. I couldn’t see into the room but I didn’t need to be in there to guess that Devlin was probably giving Hughes one of his famous steely-eyed looks.
“Your face is very swollen, Professor. Have you been in a fight?”
“No, I’ve got an allergy. I’m very sensitive to pet hairs and my neighbours just got a new puppy. They brought it over to show me on Saturday—it licked my face and I just started puffing up.”
“I see. Isn’t it a coincidence that this happened on Saturday—the same day that your friend, Washington, was murdered?”
“I don’t know what you’re getting at. I’m telling you, this swelling is due to an allergy. I can’t go near pet hairs. I have to take prescription anti-histamines to control the reaction.”
“And have you taken any this time?”
“I took some on Saturday night, once I realised… but it takes time for the symptoms to subside. Sometimes as much as forty-eight hours.”
“Hmm… Well, Professor Hughes, that will be all for now. I may have some more questions to ask you but, for now, thank you for your time. Here’s my card… If there’s anything else you think of…”
There was a rustle from inside the room, the sound of people standing up, the floorboards creaking as weight shifted. Then footsteps approached the door, faster than we expected.
Mabel jerked back from the door. “He’s coming out!”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I stumbled backwards in panic. There was no time to run down the staircase—Devlin would be sure to see us in the stairwell. We looked wildly around for a hiding place. This was the top landing in the tower and there was only one other door up here. Mabel ran across and flung it open. It was a broom cupboard, filled with cleaning equipment.
“Quick! In here!” she hissed at the other Old Biddies. They piled in, wedging themselves between the mops and brooms. I was amazed at how quickly four old ladies could squeeze themselves into such a tiny space, lavender handbags and all. The only problem was, it left no room for me.
“Sorry, Gemma, age before beauty,” said Mabel ruthlessly and she yanked the door shut in my face.
I stared at the closed door in disbelief. What? They’re leaving me out here to deal with Devlin alone? I’m going to kill them, senior age or not!
Whirling, I considered my options. I could hear the rumble of voices coming from Hughes’s room—it looked like they had stopped to talk again just inside the door. It bought me a few more seconds reprieve. I glanced around. The only other thing I could see on the landing was a narrow Gothic window. I ran over and pulled the casement open. Instead of the sheer drop I’d expected, it led out onto a circular battlement which enclosed the tower. If I could climb out, I could crouch beneath the level of the parapet and hide from view until Devlin had gone down the stairs.
It was ludicrous and humiliating but not unsafe. I hooked a leg over the windowsill and started to push myself out through the narrow gap. It wasn’t as easy as I’d thought. I was sitting astride the windowsill, half in, half out, trying to suck my stomach in—when I heard the dreaded voice.
“Gemma?”
Oh bugger. I froze, then slowly turned my head.
Devlin stood on the landing, looking at me in bewilderment. “What on earth are you doing?”
I thought of Mabel’s trick and tried to act like climbing out of Oxford college windows was a perfectly normal mid-week activity for me.
I gave a little trill of laughter. It was scary how much I sounded like my mother. “Ah, Devlin, ha-ha… Fancy seeing you here!”
It didn’t seem to work. He came towards me, frowning. “What are you doing?”
“Um…” I wracked my brain for some excuse to explain my window-straddling position. I came up with nothing. “I… um… I was looking for my… pashmina! Yes, I’ve lost my pashmina, you see—and I thought I might have left it here when I came to High Table last Saturday night.”
“And your pashmina managed to get by itself all the way up to the parapet outside Professor Hughes’s room?” Devlin raised a sardonic eyebrow.
I flushed. “Yes… well… Funny how things end up in the strangest places.”
“And I suppose you didn’t know that I was interviewing Professor Hughes?”
“Oh, were you?” I opened my eyes wide, the picture of innocence. “What a funny coincidence!”
“Yes, isn’t it?” Devlin said. “And I suppose it’s also a funny coincidence that the door to his room was slightly open—when I knew I had definitely shut it firmly behind me when I arrived?”
“Oh… you know how draughty it can get in these old Oxford buildings…” I gave him a bright smile. “Probably the door didn’t latch properly when you shut it and the wind pushed it open again.”
“And naturally you didn’t happen to overhear any part of my conversation with Professor Hughes…”
“Well… um… you know, the landing being so small… I did maybe overhear a bit of the conversation… not that I was really listening, of course…”
“Of course not,” said Devlin blandly.
A muffled sneeze sounded next to us. Devlin turned sharply towards the broom cupboard. We could hear the sounds of shuffling coming from inside, accompanied by whispers of:
