Party Girls Die in Pearls

by Plum Sykes

  “Do you think the killer was someone who was at the party?” asked Ursula.

  “I’m talking out of turn. I wouldn’t know anything . . . about the party . . .” Mrs. Deddington hesitated as she spoke, as though she was slightly unsure of herself. Ursula noticed her direct a particularly sharp look at Alice, who tried to avoid catching her eye. “See, I wasn’t here . . . in Christminster on Sunday night. Can’t miss my weekly dose of Dallas!”

  That was an odd thing to say, thought Ursula—that she wasn’t in college on Sunday night. Surely Mrs. Deddington was never in college at night.

  “Good episode this week, wasn’t it?” said Alice.

  “Er . . . yes, one of my favorites,” agreed Mrs. Deddington. “Anyway, Alice, let us take you with us to the funeral. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  “I suppose, yes, we all need to say good-bye to the dear girl. A proper farewell.” Alice looked downcast.

  “At least that’s settled,” said Mrs. Deddington. “Now, more tea, girls?”

  Chapter 27

  “Otto and Claire Potter?! No. Way,” cried Nancy, amazed.

  “I know—but don’t tell anyone, I promised Claire I’d keep it all a secret,” said Ursula, doing up the pale pink satin buttons on the front of the navy velvet coatdress that Nancy had lent for her date with Eg. It was slim-fitting, and Ursula loved its extravagant satin sailor collar. “But Otto can’t deny it. I found a plastic ice cream spoon in his tailcoat pocket, exactly like the ones Claire had out that night. She feels like he’s ignoring her, but the truth is he can’t remember anything about it.”

  “No wonder she’s gutted,” said Nancy. Then, admiring Ursula’s appearance, she added, “This look is great for a date. You don’t look slutty, but you don’t look completely unavailable. That dress says, ‘Maybe I’ll make out with you, but no blow jobs tonight.’”

  Ursula tried her hardest not to look too shocked. Her goal was for tonight to conclude with a proper kiss that didn’t resemble disgusting school food. She couldn’t contemplate anything more complicated.

  She had promised to accompany Nancy to see Dr. Dave before heading off to meet Eg at the restaurant. As they made their way from the Gothic Buildings to his staircase, Nancy said, “I’m seriously hoping Dr. Dave’s in right now. There is literally no way I am going to be able to produce a sentence, let alone an essay, if he doesn’t explain that article to me. I read and reread the first section again and again, and I still can’t figure out one word of it.”

  When they reached Dr. Dave’s landing, a male student emerged from his rooms, clutching a heap of history texts.

  “Looks like he’s in,” said Nancy, relieved, and knocked on the door.

  “Come in,” came the reply.

  Ursula followed Nancy into Dr. Dave’s rooms, which were arranged almost exactly as they had been the first time they had visited for the sherry party. The only thing missing was the great argus. As she took in the familiar sight of the chaise longue to the left of the fireplace, the memory of India’s corpse lying there came back to Ursula as vividly as though the girl were still there now.

  The evening was starting to close in, and the room seemed dark and slightly claustrophobic. Dr. Dave was not in his usual ebullient form. He was gazing Byronically out of the window over Great Quad, as if lost in thought. Yes, thought Ursula, seeing him in profile, his hair did have an undeniably languid swoop to it. Perhaps Ms. Brookethorpe had seen him that night, very late, walking towards the Monks’ Cottages.

  The girls stood there awkwardly, not quite knowing what to do. Suddenly Dr. Dave spun around.

  “Forgive me, ladies,” he said. “I’m shattered. I’ve spent half the afternoon being interrogated by that nincompoop Trott in a miserable room at the police station. The twit was trying to get me to confess to India’s murder, based on nothing. It was like being persecuted by Oliver Cromwell. Anyway, what can I do for you?”

  “It’s about the article,” said Nancy hesitantly.

  “Marvelous analysis of the Scottish Covenanters, isn’t it?” Dr. Dave brightened at the thought of it.

  Suddenly, Nancy’s face started to crumple. To Ursula’s and Dr. Dave’s utter amazement, she began shedding tears by the gallon.

  “Boyfriend problems?” the tutor asked tentatively.

  “No, academic ones,” Nancy sniffed.

  “Here.” Dr. Dave offered her the blue silk handkerchief from his top pocket. “Don’t tell me bloody Brookethorpe wouldn’t lend you the Historical Review.”

  “It’s not th-th-that,” stuttered Nancy, blowing her nose into the hanky. “I-I-I c-can’t understand why you guys let me into Oxford in the first place. I wanna drop out. I’m too dumb. Northwestern was so much easier. I can’t understand a word of that article you want me to write about. I mean, what is a forraine?”

  “There is a very useful book in the Hawksmoor Library. The Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue to 1700. If you were to look up the word ‘forraine’ in it, you would discover that it means nothing more complicated than ‘foreigner.’ Someone like you, in fact.”

  “Oh,” said Nancy, dabbing her eyes and looking relieved by the simplicity of the answer.

  “Gin fizz, Miss Feingold?” offered the don. “When a student comes to me with a crisis of confidence, I say start on the booze. Restores the spirit far more quickly than anything else. Miss Flowerbutton? Drink?”

  The girls nodded. Dr. Dave went to his fridge, put ice cubes, sloe gin, sugar syrup, and soda water into a cocktail shaker and shook it violently. He then poured out the fizzy red cocktail and handed each of the girls a glass. Ursula thought the drink was delicious—sharp and tangy and very alcoholic. The tutor drained his in one gulp and immediately poured himself another. Drawing himself up, he then pronounced, “As the great Marcus Aurelius said, ‘If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself but to your own estimate of it, and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.’”

  “That’s so deep,” said Nancy, cheering up a little.

  “Miss Feingold, we dons have a tendency to suggest to students that the world is square. Christ, it’s freezing in here.”

  “Uh?” said Nancy, looking confused again.

  Dr. Dave took a match from the mantelpiece, struck it, and lit the fire. Flames began to flicker about the kindling and newspaper underneath the logs.

  “The onus is on you, the student,” he continued, “to convince us that the world is round. Or hexagonal. Or triangular.”

  “What? I don’t get it!” Nancy said.

  “Metaphorically speaking. I asked you to tell me in your essay why S. A. Burrell was wrong about the Scottish Covenanters. Have you asked yourself whether I am wrong to ask you if he is wrong?”

  Nancy slowly shook her head. Meanwhile, Dr. Dave, having drained his second glass of fizz, was already most of the way through his third.

  “Perhaps I am. The truth is, there is nothing wrong with Mr. Burrell’s paper. It’s a seminal work,” Dr. Dave said wistfully. “It’s the kind of thing I hope to write myself one day.”

  “Really?” Nancy looked incredulous.

  The don nodded. “Yes . . .” He regarded himself broodingly in the mirror, where he saw a lock of hair had fallen over his forehead and rearranged his swoop to best advantage. “No undergraduate ever understands the work here until their final exams. The whole point of Oxford is to learn how to win an argument. To be so brilliant that you can convince me that the world is a rhombus, or that Cromwell was England’s great liberator. In the meantime, just read, read, read. Start with that Scottish dictionary I mentioned.”

  “Okay,” said Nancy.

  “If you have any more problems, Miss Feingold, please let me know. What you are experiencing is a common occurrence. As a moral tutor I frequently find myself ministering to troubled undergraduates—”

  “—like poor India?” interrupted Ursula, trying to sound as innocent as she could. It was the perfect momen
t to change the subject.

  Dr. Dave nodded and lit a cigarette.

  “Ah, India. She had beauty, talent—and troubles.” He sighed, exhaling elaborate smoke rings. He plopped down onto the sofa next to Nancy.

  “Did she confide in you?” asked Ursula.

  “Oh, yes, absolutely,” he said. “We became quite, er . . .” He coughed and looked faintly embarrassed. “Yes . . . we were jolly . . . friendly! Mmm . . . I spent a lovely Christmas at Brattenbury Tower last year. Working on my new book.”

  “Did India let you get any work done?” said Nancy, directing a suggestive wink in his direction.

  “Much less than I had hoped.” Dr. Dave smiled cheekily.

  “I’m not surprised,” said Nancy.

  Dr. Dave shrugged his shoulders casually, as if to say, No one is. He didn’t seem the faintest bit perturbed by Nancy’s hints that he’d been having an affair with a student. In fact, thought Ursula, he seemed pleased, almost flattered by it. She decided the moment was right to dig a little deeper.

  “Was that why India was here on Sunday night?” asked Ursula.

  “Rather curious, aren’t you?” he said, topping up everyone’s glass, including his own.

  “Actually, I’m writing up the story for Cherwell,” she explained. “It’s so important to get the facts straight, isn’t it?”

  Dr. Dave regarded her for a moment. Finally he said, “I see. An amateur sleuth with journalistic ambitions. Hmmm . . . I like to encourage young writers. I’ll try and help you.”

  “Thanks. Can we go back to what happened on Sunday night?”

  “God knows why she was here that night,” sighed Dr. Dave, sounding frustrated. “She had absolutely no reason to come here. No reason at all. If she hadn’t, she might still be alive.”

  “But you were such good friends,” said Nancy suggestively.

  “Ah, but the . . . friendship, so to speak, was over,” he replied. “I’d told her not to come up here. I couldn’t allow her to visit me in college anymore.”

  “Why?” asked Ursula.

  “My fiancée.” Dr. Dave smiled gaily.

  “Fiancée?!” repeated Ursula, staggered by this new piece of information. “You’re engaged?”

  “It’s fairly new. We got engaged in Venice in September. Any close friendships with the girls here—well, all that had to stop. Naturally I told India about Fiammetta—”

  “When?” interjected Ursula.

  “As soon as India came up this term. She was upset. Blubbed a bit. But she didn’t take much notice of what I’d said—she still kept appearing in my rooms last week, wanting advice, chats.”

  It was no wonder, Ursula thought to herself, that Wenty thought India and Dr. Dave were secretly still seeing each other. Dr. Dave peered at the fire. The flames seemed to be disappearing. He picked up a pair of bellows and puffed at the kindling a few times until it relit.

  “India was in love with you?” Nancy asked.

  “I don’t think so,” said Dr. Dave. “But she certainly liked to confide in me. I finally told her—this must have been on Saturday—that she must never, ever come to my rooms again.”

  “So why did she come up here then, on Sunday night?” asked Ursula.

  “I’ve no idea.” Dr. Dave shook his head. “I wasn’t here.”

  That’s not what Brookethorpe had told her, thought Ursula. Or Claire Potter, for that matter. Both had said that they’d seen Dr. Dave heading towards the Monks’ Cottages, just after India had entered the JCR staircase. Surely they couldn’t both have been lying?

  “Where were you?”

  “I was at home.”

  “Home?” Ursula was surprised. She’d always assumed that Dr. Dave lived in college full-time—at least that’s what Otto had said.

  “Fiammetta and I bought a house on Cranham Terrace a few months ago. The pretty corner one with the wisteria. I only stay overnight in college when I absolutely have to these days. I was late in here the next morning, as you know, Ursula.”

  She couldn’t deny it. Dr. Dave had certainly not been in his rooms when she had found the body. He hadn’t arrived until well after nine in the morning, and so must have spent Sunday night elsewhere. What time had he actually left college? Ursula wondered. Long before India came to his rooms, as he said? Or after the argument took place on Great Quad, per Ms. Brookethorpe and Claire’s accounts? The existence of a fiancée further complicated things: Could Fiammetta have been a motive for Dr. Dave to have gotten rid of the girl who was almost stalking him? Or perhaps Fiammetta had found out about India and been driven to attack her fiancé’s former fling herself?

  The fire was starting to smoke slightly. Dr. Dave puffed at it more fiercely with the bellows and more smoke swirled back into the room. The atmosphere was soon clogged enough for girls and don to be coughing. Dr. Dave dashed over to the window and opened it.

  “I think the chimney might be blocked,” Ursula volunteered.

  “Oh piffle.” Dr. Dave covered his nose and mouth with a handkerchief, stood next to the fireplace, and somehow managed to reach his free arm up into the chimney breast without catching fire or choking to death.

  “Definitely something stuck up here,” he said, pulling at something inside it.

  He retrieved his hand, which was holding what looked like a scrunched-up towel.

  “Odd,” he said, examining it. He unfolded the fabric and almost jumped out of his skin, letting out a yelp of fear at the same time.

  “Uuggghh-aaahhh!” he shouted.

  Dr. Dave flung the towel to the floor, where it landed in a heap. Ursula saw what had frightened him so much: the towel was caked in dark red dried blood. And on one of its corners, she spotted a familiar motif—an embroidered blue W.

  Chapter 28

  Tuesday, 1st Week: Evening

  A swanky mixture of potted palms, mirrored paneling, and Parisian toile-covered walls, the dining room at Chez Romain, the famous French restaurant on Turl Street, was the most glamorous—and romantic—place Ursula had ever been. She sat comfortably on a dark green leather banquette at a table laid with an immaculate white linen cloth. Eg, sitting opposite her, was dressed in a crisp pale blue shirt and a sports jacket. He looked as striking as ever. A candle and a vase containing a red rose only upped the romantic ante. Ursula was in, she thought happily, for a major kissing session later on tonight.

  “Wine list, sir?” asked a waiter wearing a white tuxedo.

  “No, no, thank you,” said Eg. “Just a 7Up please.”

  “A glass of champagne for mademoiselle?” asked the waiter in a terrible fake French accent.

  Ursula smiled. “Lovely,” she said.

  Hopefully, she thought to herself, a glass of bubbly would settle her nerves after the discovery of Wenty’s bloody towel in the chimney. After he’d contacted the police, Dr. Dave had warned Ursula and Nancy not to mention the towel incident to anyone for the moment, and they’d agreed. That night, Ursula wanted to forget all about murder and enjoy herself with Eg. And anyway, he was so close to Wenty that he was the last person who needed to know about the latest discovery.

  The drinks soon arrived on a little silver tray. Ursula took a long swig from her glass.

  “Delicious!” she said.

  “Good,” said Eg, glugging at his 7Up.

  “Why don’t you have a glass of champagne?” she suggested. “It’s so scrummy.”

  “I don’t drink,” he told her.

  “Really?” Ursula asked, rather concerned. How on earth was Eg going to get around to the snogging marathon later without a little bit of alcohol to help things along?

  “It’s against my religion,” he explained.

  “Right,” she said, trying not to sound too surprised.

  “You look very pretty tonight, Ursula,” he told her.

  Though flattered, she wasn’t quite sure what to say. She just tried to smile. Luckily, the moment was interrupted by the return of the faux French waiter.

  “Menu?�
�� he said, handing Eg and Ursula a pair of enormous leatherbound volumes.

  Ursula opened hers and was so entranced by the array of dishes on offer that she had no idea how she was going to choose between the various delicacies. She noticed that her menu didn’t include any prices and hoped she didn’t choose anything expensive by mistake.

  The waiter hovered impatiently over them as they perused the menus. Finally he said, “Mademoiselle?”

  “Er . . . I’m not quite ready, sorry,” replied Ursula, hoping Eg would order first. If he ordered a starter, she would too. “It all looks so delicious.”

  “Monsieur?”

  “The melon balls to start, and then the duck à l’orange,” said Eg. He snapped the menu shut and handed it back to the waiter. “Ready, Ursula?”

  “Yes,” she said. “May I please start with the prawn cocktail, followed by the salmon en croûte?” She hoped her choice would seem ultra-sophisticated.

  “Merci,” said the waiter. He dashed off to place the order.

  Now that the two of them were left alone, Ursula wondered what on earth they would talk about. They had at least two hours of dinner and chitchat to get through before the kissing fest would begin. It seemed a torturously long time to wait.

  “I’m so glad you could come tonight, Ursula,” said Eg. “Even with everything that’s going on in college.”

  “It’s nice to forget about it all for a bit,” she replied. “This is a lovely restaurant. Have you been here a lot?”

  “No, actually. Never.” Eg sounded embarrassed.

  “Why did you choose it then?” Ursula found herself giggling. How odd, she thought, to invite a girl on a date to a serious French restaurant that you’d never tried.

  Eg looked tense. “Er . . . well, I . . .” he stuttered. “Apparently, this is where you take girls on dates.”

  He looked round the room, and Ursula followed his gaze, noticing that almost every table was occupied by a loved-up pair, most of them holding hands or staring longingly into each other’s eyes.