Party Girls Die in Pearls

by Plum Sykes

  “Sort of,” she replied.

  He fished a black substance out of a plastic bag and started crumbling it on top of the tobacco, rolled up the spliff, and lit it.

  “Smoke?” he offered. Ursula shook her head.

  “So I guess you know all about India’s infatuation with Dr. Dave.”

  “Isobel seems to think India and the tutor had a fling, but ages ago,” said Ursula.

  “Yeah, man. Bet Isobel didn’t tell you about her one-night stand with Wenty, though,” Dom cackled, seeming completely stoned.

  Ursula gasped. “No, she didn’t. What do you mean?”

  “I followed India and Wenty out of the party. Isobel and Henry did too. We all saw the major slanging match between Wenty and India. First, India accuses Wenty of being a terrible flirt—”

  “—which he clearly is,” interjected Ursula.

  “There’s no argument there. But then, Wenty accuses India of still being involved with Dr. Dave. She denies it, and then accuses Wenty of sleeping with her ‘best friend,’ Isobel. My girlfriend! Wenty denied it, but India didn’t believe him. She went nuts,” Dom recalled. “That’s when she ran off towards Dr. Dave’s rooms.”

  “Dom, do you think Wenty and Isobel ever—”

  “Course they did. New College ball behind the Pimm’s tent this past summer. Everyone knew. Except India.”

  “But Dom, weren’t you upset?” Ursula couldn’t quite believe how laid-back he seemed to be about his girlfriend’s extracurricular exploits.

  “Man, do you dig Siddhartha? I read it on my gap year in Nepal. I renounced all personal possessions, just like Siddhartha. Isobel doesn’t belong to me. If she shags some idiot toff, that’s her spiritual journey, man. When things go pear-shaped, I just say, ‘Om.’* Then nothing freaks me.

  “O-o-o-o-m-m-m-mmm . . .” chanted Dom, dragging deeply on the joint. He closed his eyes, crossed his legs, put his hands together in prayer, and sat there like a yogi, meditating.

  His drug-induced trance didn’t look like it was ending anytime soon. Ursula got up, amazed at how edited Isobel’s version of the Great Quad row had been, and made her way over to Henry Forsyth, who was on the other side of the room nosing through Dom’s record collection. Perhaps he could confirm Dom’s version of events.

  “You a Run-D.M.C. fan?” said Henry when he saw Ursula. He was holding a single with the title “It’s Like That” emblazoned across the front. “I dig hip-hop.”

  “Me too,” lied Ursula, deciding now was not the moment to admit that she was more of a sheet music kind of girl than a hip-hop fan.

  Henry put the single on the record player and carefully lifted the needle onto the vinyl. Run started rapping and an athletic-looking boy dressed all in black except for a white baseball cap, white sneakers, and an enormous gold chain round his neck suddenly broke into break dancing mode. A little group, the most vocal of whom was Nancy, was soon cheering and clapping him on as he spun on his hips and shoulders.

  “He should be on the stage,” declared Henry, admiring the boy’s moves.

  “I hear you’re a brilliant actor,” said Ursula.

  Henry smiled for just a moment. “To misquote Oscar Wilde, ‘To lose your Hamlet role to a girl once may be regarded as a misfortune, but to lose it twice looks like carelessness.’ No doubt you’ve heard about the scandal over my role?”

  “Well, I was at Wenty’s party last night,” Ursula replied. “I saw the whole thing.”

  “Quite a performance, wasn’t it?” grumbled Henry. “Although the drama in Great Quad after the party was truly worthy of an Oscar . . . and then the murder! God. Sunday night was like some kind of Alfred Hitchcock movie come to life.”

  “Why do you think Dom gave India your role?” Ursula asked him.

  Henry looked at her suspiciously. “Why are you so interested?”

  “I’m investigating what happened to India for Cherwell.”

  “Press. I see,” he said sternly. Henry looked so fierce that Ursula wondered if she had blown her chance of getting him to open up. She should never have mentioned Cherwell!

  “I wouldn’t mention your name, I promise,” she said hurriedly. “I’m just trying to find out a bit of background. That’s all.”

  “You misunderstand,” replied Henry. “I’ll only help you if you do mention my name.”

  “Er . . . okay,” said Ursula.

  “I want my Hamlet role back,” he declared, his face hardening. “I wouldn’t be in Dom Littleton’s godforsaken room tonight unless I thought I could persuade him to get rid of Isobel. The publicity will help.”

  “I completely understand,” said Ursula. She’d play along with Henry. “It all sounds very unfair,” she added with a sympathetic smile.

  “It was absurd. What happened was ab-solutely ab-surd,” Henry complained. “I’ve been building up to Hamlet since F Block. Dom and I did some awesome productions in our second year here. Equus was the hottest ticket in Oxford last summer. Took all my clothes off—huge audiences! Dom and I had it all planned. We’d take on Hamlet. He’d direct. I’d star. We’d invite all the agents. Dom and I agreed on everything. Naturally, I wanted Isobel Floyd as my Ophelia. She’s the best actress in Oxford. And the most beautiful. Only problem was India Brattenbury thought that she was the best actress in Oxford . . . It’s such a pathetic cliché. They all want to be Ophelia, don’t they?”

  “I suppose so,” said Ursula.

  “India didn’t give a flying you-know-what about her best friend. All she cared about was herself. One minute Isobel was going to be Ophelia, the next minute India had the role. She seduced Dom—”

  “What?” said Ursula. Had she heard Henry correctly? “Did you say India seduced Dom?”

  “Course! That’s how she got Isobel’s role. The only talent involved was hers for shagging. Everyone in Oxford knows that India was pretty selfish, but stealing your best friend’s role and sleeping with her boyfriend—that’s a double betrayal.”

  Gosh, Ursula thought. This all made Louis XV’s love life seem positively boring. “Do you mind if I make some notes?” she asked Henry.

  “Go ahead,” he replied.

  Ursula jotted in her notebook:

  —Isobel: one-night stand with Wenty while dating Dom

  —Dom: infatuated with India while dating Isobel

  —India: dating Wenty, sleeping with Dom, confiding in Dr. Dave

  —Wenty: dating India, up to no good with Isobel

  “Anyway, I should have seen the whole Hamlet thing coming, I suppose,” continued Henry. “When India arrived on Thursday night with Dom at Wenty’s party and they told me that she was going to be Hamlet—! God! I thought he’d really lost it. India had brainwashed him. The whole thing was utterly humiliating. I could have killed her. Tragically, I didn’t get the chance.”

  Henry laughed at his own horrid joke then his face lapsed into a cold, sullen expression.

  “Anyway, I couldn’t believe it when Wenty and India started rowing in Great Quad and he suddenly accused her of shagging some tutor!”

  “Apparently the affair with the tutor was over a while ago,” Ursula explained.

  “Really? It was bad enough that India was stringing Wenty along as her boyfriend while she was bonking Dom. If she’d been at it with a tutor as well . . . Christ! No wonder Isobel and Dom started having a massive barney.”

  Ursula was surprised. “Isobel never mentioned that she argued with Dom that night,” she said. “He didn’t either. Isobel said that she and Dom agreed to spend the night apart because he had rehearsals early the next morning.”

  Henry let out a hollow laugh. “Isn’t it amazing what people choose to forget when it suits them?”

  “What happened with the two of them?” asked Ursula.

  “Look, I’ll try and get this right, but it’s complicated. I was standing at the edge of Great Quad, with Isobel and Dom. When India accused Wenty of cheating on her with Isobel, Dom didn’t really seem to react. It was as th
ough he didn’t care. But when Wenty accused India of sleeping with Dom, Isobel went bonkers on him.”

  “Even though she’d slept with Wenty?” Ursula was incredulous at the story. From her virginal point of view, Oxford seemed to be in a state of permanent orgy.

  “I know. Talk about double standards. Isobel whacked Dom on the head with her evening bag and announced she would be spending the night alone.”

  “What did Dom do?” asked Ursula.

  “He just said, ‘Om,’ which really annoyed Isobel. She stomped off towards the Monks’ Cottages, furious.”

  Ursula couldn’t believe that she’d been so naive. Isobel’s version of events—that the row between Wenty and India had been over Dr. Dave—was only a tiny portion of the truth. Horatio hadn’t invented the rumor about India stealing her friend’s role. Things were far messier than even he could have imagined. No wonder Isobel had had her back turned to Dom at the beginning of the Perquisitors’ party tonight—she was furious with him for cheating on her with India. Ursula wondered if giving Isobel the Hamlet role had been Dom’s way of trying to make up with her. Perhaps Isobel was even more ambitious than her late friend had been. She could conveniently forget her boyfriend’s indiscretions if it meant being the star of the show. Jago was right: every story needed to be verified two or three times over.

  “So then Dom pushed off back to Magdalen—”

  “Are you sure?” said Ursula.

  Henry hesitated. Pondered for a moment. “Well, I’m just assuming he came back here . . . Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. You don’t think . . . Dom would have wanted to hurt India, do you?”

  Ursula shrugged her shoulders. “Who knows. What happened after that?”

  “It was all over pretty quickly. The night porter appeared from the gate tower and told everyone to leave. We all scattered, to God knows where . . . You will remember to mention my name in the article, won’t you?”

  “Absolutely.” Ursula said with a smile.

  “And please do feel free to suggest that I’d make a far better Hamlet than Isobel,” added Henry.

  “Sure,” said Ursula, crossing her fingers as they said good-bye.

  She looked at her watch. It was almost midnight already. A perfect moment to depart for the library, à la Cinderella. She found Horatio and Nancy sharing a cigarette in a corner. After updating them on the various love affairs India was embroiled in before she died, she told them she was going.

  “No way! Why? It’s early!” complained Nancy, puffing smoke into the air. “And you’re not allowed to go anywhere by yourself, remember?”

  “I’m just . . . tired,” said Ursula. “I’ll be fine on my own.”

  “I’ll walk you back, Ursula,” said Horatio. “Can’t have you being murdered while you’re reporting on a murder now, can we? Although that would make a marvelous diary item.”

  Ursula poked him in the ribs. “That is so mean!” she cried. “But I’ll take you up on the offer. Let’s go.”

  As they left the party he added, “By the way, I do envy you this story. There’s going to be enough revolting gossip in it to fill the entire men’s public urinals on Cornmarket.”

  Chapter 18

  Monday, 1st Week: Midnight

  “Excuse me,” Ursula whispered as quietly as she could. The midnight hush in the Hawksmoor Library was so still, so soft, she felt wretched marring it even for a moment. The only sound in the room was the occasional turning of a page.

  A prim-looking woman in her late twenties was seated behind the librarian’s counter, reading intently. “Olive Brookethorpe, Ms., Librarian,” read the badge pinned to her dress. The Laura Ashley number was navy and printed with lilac flowers, with frills at the neck and the cuffs, and Ms. Brookethorpe’s smooth shoulder-length dark hair was held back by a matching navy velvet Alice band.

  The librarian momentarily glanced up from her work, peered disapprovingly at Ursula’s ra-ra dress, lifted her forefinger to her lips, and pointed to a large sign on the desk. It read, “Silence Please.” With that, she snapped her head back down and continued scribbling.

  Ursula wasn’t quite sure where to start. A lone graduate student, who looked Lilliputian against the vast room with its domed ceiling, was sitting at a desk, poring over a pile of manuscripts. Perhaps she could help.

  Ursula tiptoed, as quietly as she could, towards the student, who, she soon saw, was clad in a tattersall nightie and huddled under a knitted blanket. Fuzzy pink slippers covered her feet, and her hair, an uncontrollable frizz of mouse brown, tumbled out of a tortoiseshell comb on the side of her head. She looked up when she heard Ursula approach.

  “Don’t tell me you’re trying to borrow a book,” she said in a low voice.

  Ursula nodded.

  “Alas!” whispered the girl.

  Without raising her voice, she introduced herself as Flora White, a Classics scholar. The problem with book borrowing, she explained, was that Ms. Brookethorpe was notorious in college for her desire to create as hostile an atmosphere as possible in the Hawksmoor Library.

  “As gatekeeper of some of the rarest manuscripts in the world, she sees it as her duty to be extremely unhelpful. After all, she can only protect the books from the revolting vandal-like paws of undergraduates if no one borrows any of them, and the way to ensure no one borrows the first editions or ancient folios is to make the—theoretical—borrowing process as arduous as possible,” explained Flora. “Photo ID, signed letters from tutors, university seconders—there’s always one more impossible-to-find document that Ms. Brookethorpe requires.”

  “Why is she like that?” asked Ursula.

  “The less time Brookethorpe spends collecting books from the secure stacks in the tunnels underneath college, the more time she has to recatalogue fragments of the thirteenth-century Bible that was written and illustrated by the order of Augustinian monks who first taught at Christminster,” Flora told her. “She’s here every night working on it. If she ever finishes the recataloguing, she’ll be made a fellow. But she never will. Everyone knows that. It’s pathetic . . . Look, the protocol is, you fill out a request slip and leave it on the librarian’s desk, and then she’s obliged to serve you.”

  Flora turned back to her work. “Sorry, major thesis crisis,” she said apologetically. “Two days to finish thirty thousand words on the moral significance—or not—of Virgil’s Aeneid.”

  Ursula thanked her and tiptoed back towards the librarian’s counter.

  “Sorry to interrupt,” she said, sotto voce. “I’d like to fill out a request slip.”

  “Bodleian card please,” hissed Ms. Brookethorpe.

  She could barely hide her disappointment when Ursula produced the university library card with her photograph on it from her satchel. The librarian took it and disappeared into a small office behind the desk, from which Ursula could hear the sound of a photocopier whirring. After ten long minutes Ms. Brookethorpe reappeared and handed the card back to Ursula, as well as a slip entitled “Hawksmoor Library—Request Form.”

  She thanked the librarian and scribbled “‘The Apocalyptic Vision of the Early Covenanters,’ Scottish Historical Review, Volume 43, April 1964, S. A. Burrell” on the request form and handed it back to her. Brookethorpe scrutinized the request form, beady-eyed, and then declared, “That doesn’t mean anything to me.” Impatiently, she rolled her eyes heavenward.

  “It’s an article, from the Scottish Historical Review,” explained Ursula.

  “I am well aware that you seek an article from the Scottish Historical Review, Miss Flowerbutton.” In a deeply offended tone, she then addressed Ursula with the following monologue:

  “If you are to borrow from this esteemed library, you must inform me of the shelf number and pressmark of the volume you require. The title and author are not enough. Then, you must fill out each of these”—she handed Ursula a white form, a pink form, a green form, and a blue form—“with all the information about the book, and leave it in the box on the librarian’
s desk. The pressmarks can be found in the catalogues at the other end of the library.” Ms. Brookethorpe pointed towards the most distant part of the room.

  Ursula set off. A monolithic statue of Thomas Paget, seated on a throne with a tower of books on one side and a sword and shield on the other, was prominently positioned in the center of the room. As she traipsed the considerable length of the gallery, she allowed her gaze to drift towards the arched, double-height windows that overlooked Great Quad.

  The north side of the room was lined with ornate bookcases. Over each section, the subject of the books below was indicated in Latin, inscribed in grand gilt lettering. Ursula passed “Theologia,” “Historia Antiqua,” “Historia Orientalis,” and “Philosophica,” all the while painfully aware of the click of her heels echoing on the black and white marble flags as she progressed along the gallery.

  She finally found herself confronted by the three massive oak chests that contained the Hawksmoor Library catalogue. Within each were hundreds of cards containing the details of every book belonging to the college, organized alphabetically. Ursula quickly located the Bi–Bu section, wrote down the pressmark and shelf number of the article on the various forms, and headed back to the librarian’s desk, where she held out the forms to Ms. Brookethorpe.

  “All forms must be left in the librarian’s box,” Ms. Brookethorpe ordered officiously, pointing to a completely empty brown leather box on her desk. Ursula put the forms inside.

  “How long does it take to get a book?” she asked.

  Ms. Brookethorpe gave her a stern look and then regarded her watch.

  “It’s almost half past midnight. As such, Nighttime Lending Rules apply. We are very understaffed. Depending on where your volume is located in the stacks, which contain over a hundred thousand items, well, there really is no predicting how long it could take to bring a book to you,” she concluded with a smile. She cocked her head to one side, as if to say, Surely that will put you off.

  When Ursula replied, “I’ll wait,” Ms. Brookethorpe huffed, looking irritated.