There was no reply. Tom put his ear to the panel. There was a wheezed inhalation and then nothing. Complete silence. He listened again. Nothing. Only perhaps a faint smell. What though? Something familiar yet also – no, he could not place it. He listened again. Then he heard it. A rasping, whispery voice.
‘Go away. Go away now. Get away from here before it is too late.’
Tom stepped back again. He stared at the door, his eyes wide and round, the hair on his neck on end.
After a second he shook his head and returned to his room. He was being stupid, he reasoned. He noticed the label on his own door read just ‘Wormwood’. What did he expect, he wondered? This was Cuff College. Of course there would be running feet, locked doors, unexplained disappearances and strange smells.
He was smiling to himself until he turned and saw something that made him shrink back in terror. Hanging from a nail driven into the wall, a small crudely carved wooden doll with a long hatpin sticking from a bloody wound in her chest. Under her someone had carved some words that made Tom step back in terror: The Dean and Prof. Wikipedia are bum chums.
‘Bum chums?’ he said aloud. Did people say such things anymore?
3
A tea party …
‘Ah, Hurst, my dear boy, there you are at long last. Settled in all right, eh? That’s the job.’
Once again the Dean was standing by a fire, under another portrait of Wilkie Collins, with what looked like a pastis in his hand. The only differences from the first time they had met were that he had shed his smoking jacket and there were, post-Christmas, no mince pies. Instead he was wearing a white shirt, pristine, gathered with articulated steel bands just above the elbows, and some skull-and-crossbones cufflinks. A present from an indulgent nephew, perhaps. He looked well, slightly tanned perhaps, and the vein that Tom had noticed before Christmas no longer throbbed in the Dean’s temple.
The Dean waved Tom to one of the two leather chesterfields and retreated behind his own magnificent dark wood partner’s desk. The fire spat and the ice in the Dean’s glass chinked2 as he put it down on the leather blotter. Tom sat. It was ostentatiously civilised.
‘Good Christmas? New Year?’ the Dean asked, careless of the answer, shuffling through his papers looking for something.
Tom thought for a moment. He recalled a few long days with his parents: his mother absenting herself in the kitchen, his father sitting in the armchair in front of the fire, deep in a Danielle Steele novel.
‘Quiet,’ he said.
‘Hmmm,’ approved the Dean absently. ‘I always like to get some sun, myself.’
The Dean’s room seemed designed to give away nothing more than the obvious: that he was a bookish dandy who kept his whisky in a heavy cut-glass decanter; his taste in art was orthodox to the point of nullity and he liked to keep his room warm. There was a series of framed photographs – portraits – on the wall. Past Deans of the College, by the look of them, in their fur-lined academic gowns. They were names Tom would know, of course. Some of the most famous names in the Genre. From where he was sitting he could see a photograph of a man with a very large head – he must, thought Tom, wear a size-eight hat.
The Dean now had a sheaf of papers for Tom to sign and a ‘chit’ that he explained was redeemable from a tailor in town for one of the long black gowns similar to his own, although without the silk-lined hood. Together they went through the timetable for Tom’s lectures – two a week – and the list of his undergraduates. They were, as the Dean had suggested, a mixed bunch.
‘I understood I was to supervise just five students,’ Tom said. ‘Yet I see six names here? I am not complaining, you understand, but perhaps it is a mistake? One name is repeated. Chowdhury? Or are they siblings?’
‘Ah yes,’ agreed the Dean. ‘Chowdhury. Rather awkward. Chowdhury is – are? – Siamese twins. Joined at the head. Twice the brains; double the insight. I’m expecting great things of them. There aren’t many in the Genre from the subcontinent. Can’t think why.’
It seemed that Tom was also to supervise an Argentinian gaucho, a Chinese tumbler and a man skilled at deep-sea diving. There was also a woman bus driver. The Dean tutted when he read out her name.
‘Means she can only solve crimes committed on bus routes.’
Tom was pleased to see that the fashion for Scandinavian detectives seemed to have waned in favour of the more exotic.
‘This one’s a Tuareg.’ The Dean pointed at an unfamiliar name. ‘Knows a lot about camels and the desert and so forth. According to his CV he can track week-old footprints across dry sand, but he doesn’t talk much. Worried sand will get in his mouth, I suppose. And with that headgear on, you can’t see much of his face. Not a pull for the film rights, is it? Still, he is supposed to be very loyal and he might make a decent sidekick in something light. I won’t say you haven’t got your work cut out there, though.’
The Dean glanced at his watch.
‘Now I hope you don’t mind, Tom, but I’ve asked some of the members of staff to join us for tea. Your first chance to meet them, although no doubt you’ll know some of them by their work. And you ought to meet Claire.’
‘Claire?’
‘Claire Morgan. Your head of department.’
The Dean took on a slightly uncomfortable look as he said her name. Distant alarm bells began ringing in Tom’s mind again. Why had a vacancy come up mid-year? What had happened to his predecessor? Why had he not met his head of department before he was given the post? Something was wrong, but what?
He was about to ask when the Dean continued.
‘I ought to warn you, though, that Claire can be rather—’ he paused, searching for the right word. He found it: ‘Abrupt. Particularly if she has had a drop to—’
There was a heavy knock at the door and it opened before the Dean had time to say anything else. It was a heavy-set, formidable-looking woman in her middle age, wearing a teal-blue three-piece tweed trouser suit and a gold-rimmed monocle. Her greying hair was drawn back, but wildly, and her craggy face was ruddy. As the door opened Tom saw she was consulting a large, handsome half-hunter watch, which, once she had announced the time – four o’clock exactly – in a contralto voice, she pocketed in her waistcoat, leaving a heavy chain stretching across her substantial girth.
‘DEAN!’ she boomed, making the Dean flinch.
‘Hello, Claire, I am glad you’re here first—’
‘Always punctual, Dean. You said four o’clock. It is four o’clock and so HERE I AM!’
‘Yes,’ mumbled the Dean. ‘Good stuff. Now, Claire, this is Tom Hurst, your new Junior Lecturer.’
Claire turned to squint at Tom through her monocle. He felt as if he were something on a plate that the Dean was offering in the same manner as a waiter trying a new dish on a tricky but important diner. He knew he might be sent back at any moment.
‘So this is HE!’ she bellowed, loud enough to make the ice in the Dean’s whisky shift. ‘The Dean has TOLD me about you.’
Flecks of sputum flew from a mouth in which her teeth were square and yellow, like those Spanish snacks the name of which Tom could not instantly recall. Anyone could have smelled the drink on her from a hundred paces. Tom forced a smile and proffered his hand. She recoiled.
‘NEVER shake hands! Can’t bear to TOUCH people! Hate to think where that hand’s BEEN, you see! KNOW too much about ’em, I do!’
Tom shrugged as if he sympathised, but then could suddenly think of nothing to do with his hands. He clasped them with a slight clap.
‘Stand still, will you!’ she snapped. ‘Let me have a look at you! Hmmm. Good seat. Like your father’s and I dare say you father’s father before him. Runs in the family, you know, Dean, FROM THE PATERNAL SIDE.’
The Dean raised his eyebrows.
‘Really?’
‘You DON’T believe me.’
She said this as if she were somehow disappointed, as if the Dean had just let her down, but before she could take it any further there was a sharp rap on th
e door.
‘Come!’ cried the Dean, clearly relieved. Claire harrumphed and took a step back, subsiding with a rumbling sigh into one of the chesterfields, her back to the door just as it opened. In came a willow wand of a man clutching a small pile of leather-bound books.
‘Dean—’ the man began in a high querulous voice, ignoring Tom and walking into the Dean’s study with quick dainty steps. ‘Dean, I weally must pwotest at this term’s we-allocation of pigeon holes—’
The Dean was in no mood to hear his protestations.
‘Yardley,’ he said. ‘This is hardly the time. I’ve asked you here to meet our newest member of staff: Tom Hurst. Tom is joining us to help out with Tran and Path, aren’t you, Tom? And you know Claire, of course. Tom, this is Professor Yardley, Lecturer in Formalist Fiction and Socio-Political Critique.’
Yardley – wearing a well-cut brown suit, a yellow waistcoat and, almost inevitably, to Tom’s eyes, a mulberry bow-tie – stopped mid-stride and, with hardly a glance at Tom, he pulled a sickly and wholly unconvincing smile of joy at seeing Claire.
‘Claire—’ he began, his voice thick with treacle.
‘It won’t work, you know, Yardley!’ Claire barked. ‘I’ll not lecture from RUBBISH.’
‘Wubbish?’ said Yardley. ‘I hardly know what you’re talking about, Claire.’
‘Your book. The one that should never have been published. I know you want me to set it as a course text but I won’t, you know, because it’s wubbish. It’s bunkum. You UNDERSTAND me, man?’
Yardley gaped a couple of times, struggling for breath, before withdrawing a folded square of canary-yellow linen from his breast pocket and dabbing at his bulbous brow. Before he was required to come back with a face-saving answer, there was a soft knock on the door and in came a battered trolley on which some tea things tinkled gently on its top shelf. Behind it shuffled an elderly woman in a housecoat.
‘Here we are,’ she said, more to herself than anyone else. Her voice was grandmotherly and Tom was sure he could smell roses.
‘Oh not those BLOODY old fairy cakes again!’ barked Claire from her position on the chesterfield. The tea lady – her face the shape of a scone, including dabs of flour on one cheek – looked up in surprise. Her periwinkle-blue eyes began to water.
‘But I made them myself,’ she stammered.
‘I thought you might’ve,’ Claire said. ‘They’re horrible. Disgusting. Why don’t YOU BUY SOME IN?’
‘Claire,’ began the Dean. ‘Steady on. Please.’
‘I tell it like it is, Dean, you should know that by now. Her cakes – I don’t like to call them fairy cakes, in the company of Yardley here – are dis-GUSTIN’’
‘Well, Mrs Robinson, I will certainly have one of your cakes. I think they are delicious.’
The Dean helped himself as Mrs Robinson poured the tea. She was snivelling slightly, and a drop of something clung to the end of her nose, threatening to fall into someone’s teacup. Yardley came and stood beside Tom.
‘She can be wather abwasive,’ he said, referring, Tom guessed, to Claire.
‘Yes,’ agreed Tom. ‘So I see.’
‘I wonder if you have read my latest work? The Pwototype and its Successive Wepwoductions: Magnum P.I., Higgins and the Poly-Industwial in Cwime Fiction Today?’
Tom shook his head.
‘Pity,’ said Yardley, drifting away.
Once again there was a knock at the door.
‘Only us!’ cried a bright-voiced girl as she popped her head around the door, a ponytail of gathered blonde hair swinging gaily around her chin. She was flushed from the cold or exercise and someone seemed to be playfully pushing her in from behind. Tom saw she was wearing old-fashioned tennis clothes. Behind her came a young man with a receding hairline, also in vintage tennis gear, including a cable-knit sleeveless sweater. He was carrying a couple of Dunlop max-ply rackets and a tube of balls. His arms were thin and very hairy and the skin seemed almost green.
‘We’ve just had the first set of the year!’ he exclaimed in a deep voice. ‘So invigorating! You should all try it, you know!’
‘Ah! The two lovebirds,’ smirked the Dean, hoping for some respite from Claire. ‘How was it?’
‘Wonderful! Although Rex will keep hitting those cross-court dinks!’
Introductions were made. Celia and Rex were Junior Research Fellows. He was writing his paper on the function of the personal trainer in Crime Fiction, hers was to be on the role of the mannequin. They were engaged to be married in the summer. Rex had a powerful grip.
‘Good to meet you,’ he confirmed, crushing Tom’s fingers. His breath was sour and Tom could not help but flinch. Celia made a fuss of Mrs Robinson and her tea cakes and it looked as if things were calming down again when Claire Morgan spoke up.
‘No one’s FOOLED, you know?’ she said.
This was aimed at Rex. The room froze.
‘Sorry?’ Rex said, his face tensing.
‘I said no one’s fooled. You act like a twenty-year-old but we can all see you’re nearer fifty. What did ye think of the handshake, Tom? Nearly broke your bones, I’ll warrant. He’s very proud of that, is Rex. Thinks it makes him appear virile. Manly. We all know what it is, don’t we? An ONANIST’S HANDSHAKE.’
‘Claire!’ snapped the Dean.
‘He’s got the grip of a compulsive masturbator. Look at yourself, man! Your head is like a skull! Love’s young dream? BUMS AND FISHCAKES, more like!’
‘Claire!’ spluttered Celia. ‘You can’t talk to my fiancé like that!’
‘Oh BE QUIET. I’ve had enough of you. What? Three engagements is it now? Three rings, eh? No doubt your WEDDING DRESS IS WHITE!’
Celia burst into tears. Rex looked rattled – Claire’s revelation was obviously news to him – and was almost unable to take Celia by the shoulders and lead her away.
Just then there was another knock at the door. The Dean shifted uncomfortably. Two more people appeared: an old lady with a cloud of white hair under a hat that looked more like a tea cosy, and a tall thin man in a slightly shabby but beautifully cut racing suit.
‘Ah,’ muttered the Dean again, but half-heartedly this time. Things were obviously not going to plan and he was no longer enjoying himself.
‘Miss Featherstonehaugh! Lord Denbeigh! So glad you could make it. Do come in and help yourself to tea. You will not have met Tom Hurst. Our new Junior Lecturer in Tran and Path.’
Denbeigh, whippet-thin and with a sheaf of blond hair swept back over one permanently cocked eyebrow, shook Tom’s hand, mumbling a stream of only vaguely intelligible patrician vowels, while Miss Featherstonehaugh blinked at him kindly and mewed something about the weather. Denbeigh guided Miss Featherstonehaugh to the chesterfield opposite Claire. He helped her settle herself with her appliqué bag of knitting.
‘There you are m’dear,’ he drawled, hardly opening his mouth to speak. ‘I’ll fetch you a cup of tea?’
The old lady nodded gratefully and fussed with her knitting for a second before, suddenly aware that she was being watched, she looked up. Claire was glaring across at her.
‘Well, if it isn’t old Miss Marple herself,’ she started. ‘Knit, knit, KNIT, you old NITWIT.’
Miss Featherstonehaugh straightened her tartan skirt and frowned slightly, her eyes taking on a faraway look, as if something that had just been said had triggered a distant memory. But of what she could not, or would not, reveal.
‘Oh look,’ cackled Claire, ‘Old Miss Featherstonehaugh’ – which she pronounced Feather-stone-whore – ‘has just discovered a clue! What is it? Go on darling, you tell us! That you won’t see another Christmas ’cos you’re SO DAM’ OLD?’
Denbeigh’s expression did not change as he returned with a cup of tea for Miss Featherstonehaugh, but anyone who knew him would have seen his pupils dilate slightly, the only sign that he ever allowed to show that he was irritated. He remained looking so youthful because he did not move his face over often.
; On the other side of the desk the Dean was tight-lipped and the vein in his temple was fluttering again. He about to say something when there was a loud bang on the door. The handle turned and in came a man in a wheelchair, being pushed by a large, handsomely built black man in a Church of England dog collar. It was immediately obvious from the direction in which the second man pushed the wheelchair – straight into the Dean’s desk – that he was blind. What was not so obvious, until he spoke, was that the man in the wheelchair was deaf. His words came out in a garbled stream, only comprehensible a minute or so afterwards, by which time it was usually too late. Crunch. Tom’s toes.
‘Oh, great,’ muttered Claire. ‘Here we go; the black and white minstrel show. Hey! Sooty! Why don’t ye get yerself a PROPER guide dog? Old Ironsides is no good! Couldn’t find ’is way out of a PAPER BAG!’
The coloured man turned and sniffed the air.
‘I smell something rotten,’ he said, in a biblically deep voice.
‘Would you like a cup of tea, Vicar?’ asked Denbeigh.
‘WOULD YOU LIKE A CUP OF TEA, VICAR?’ imitated Claire. ‘Never mind about him, but I bloody well would like a cup. Only fix us a proper cuppa, will you, Denbeigh? And do it properly this time. Milk and three sugars in before the tea! And I like to be able to trot a mouse across the top!’
There was a volcanic silence.
Miss Featherstonehaugh began making some little wet gasping sounds, as if experiencing the onset of an asthma attack. Her eyes were fixed on Lord Denbeigh, who had turned and was looking at Claire with undisguised loathing. She stopped and turned and looked at them all with an expression that Tom could not place, but knew to be false.
‘Oh, go on with you all,’ she said. ‘I’m only TEASING.’
* * *
2. Readers should note the inversion of the moral universe here, so that where cold would ordinarily represent bad, and warm good, here they represent their opposites. I do not suppose this is the last time I will muddle something up.
4
The No. 2 Global Detective Page 2
