Dying on Principle

by Judith Cutler

  Nor would we have been, except for the massive traffic jam that was currently garrotting Selly Oak. Just where the arterial A38 is at its most congested, where it crosses the Outer Ring Road, they built an enormous Sainsbury’s. To try to ease the subsequent chaos, they then made it and its car park into a giant triangular island at the centre of a primitive one-way system. Comet and some other superstores were on the other side of the three lanes of stationary metal from Sainsbury’s. We crept round two sides of the triangle, and now had to inch into the far lane to get into Comet’s car park. I knew Chris ought to drop me and fight his way back to Rose Road. So did he.

  I decided it for him. I let myself out. ‘Cut through Sainsbury’s car park,’ I yelled as I shut the door. ‘And phone me as soon as you can.’

  This time they’d actually wrapped the bloody ghetto blaster before I reached for my purse and found someone had fingered it and I was completely penniless. Worse still, when I realised what had happened, there and then, right in front of all the people on the cash desk, I burst into tears.

  ‘At least my bus pass lives in my pocket,’ I told Simon, phoning him as I’d promised. ‘But I was too late for the building society, of course.’ Chummie had missed my chequebook, so I wasn’t penniless, but I did rate pretty high on any scale of pissed-offness. Two hundred pounds, just like that.

  ‘You’ve reported it?’

  ‘Yes, to a sergeant at Rose Road so newly striped he didn’t know my relationship with Chris. But, as he said, there wasn’t much you could do against opportunist thieves, and the best thing I could do was remember not to carry such large sums of cash in future.’

  ‘How about I do you a stir-fry?’ asked Simon. ‘And Sophie, I’ll pay for a taxi or anything.’

  Just then I didn’t want to argue.

  Simon’s house was a stately Victorian semi in Moseley, a suburb which prides itself on being a village without the bourgeois element they condemn in Harborne. Certainly it is home to many of the artier of Birmingham’s denizens, and the Midshires Symphony Orchestra coach makes a special stop there.

  Simon shared his house with another bass player – a golf addict – and a rugby-playing trombonist. It couldn’t be all that easy having gender problems in such hearty, indeed macho company. He also gave houseroom to a family of orphaned basses, which grew, it seemed, by the month if not the week. Some were so battered you couldn’t imagine music ever being coaxed out of them; others had been oiled into a comfortable sheen. This week I found one in the downstairs loo – rescued, apparently, from a skip. I didn’t tell him about my find in similar circumstances. Not immediately. There were other things to talk about first.

  I poured myself a glass of red wine – Simon’s father’s a wine merchant – and sat at the kitchen table. It was covered not with vegetables and meat but with the innards of something electrical, a soldering iron and a variety of tools.

  ‘Another car alarm?’ I asked mildly. The wine was very strong, and I was already woozier than I liked; I’d had no lunch and there was no supper in immediate prospect. I set the wine firmly to one side and picked up a screwdriver.

  ‘Microwave,’ he said. ‘The magnetron’s packed up.’

  He passed me what looked like an old-fashioned radio valve, surprisingly bulky and heavy for what you expect to find in miniaturised technology. ‘That’s the magnet there, see: that’s what makes it so heavy. That’s the business bit that does the cooking.’

  ‘Isn’t it a bit risky, trying to repair things like this for yourself?’

  ‘What d’you mean, trying? I’m bloody good at it. Damn it, that’s what my degree’s in. Well, physics.’

  I nodded. Music and maths were supposed to go well with each other. No reason why music and physics shouldn’t.

  ‘Anyway, why shouldn’t people take risks?’ His voice was challenging, almost truculent. ‘That’s what’s life’s about, surely? Taking risks.’

  I couldn’t argue with that.

  ‘You’re talking to a risk-junkie here,’ I said, reaching for the wine and topping up both glasses. He looked at me uncertainly. ‘But there are more serious risks than physical ones. Emotional ones. In fact,’ I said, ‘I’m going to risk something right now.’

  The kitchen went so quiet you could hear the hum of his soldering iron.

  ‘No. Look, Sophie, I’m really not – no, I don’t want …’ He flushed. ‘You see, I’m not—’ He spilled some wine on the table and dabbed at it.

  I passed him a tissue from my bag.

  ‘I’ve cocked this up,’ I said. ‘I’m not here to invite myself into your bed. I’m here for a drink and stir-fry and maybe a bit of a natter.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Well, that’s what friends are for. And I hope we are friends. There’s nothing I need more than friends,’ I added, ‘after George’s death.’

  ‘He was with the MSO, wasn’t he? The principal bassoon?’

  I nodded. The wine had made me emotional. Simon passed me some kitchen towel.

  ‘Were you very close?’ he asked.

  ‘We loved each other,’ I said simply. ‘We weren’t lovers; it was more like brother and sister. It’s good to have someone you can share things with, without sex creeping in all the time.’

  I was telling the truth, neither more nor less, but I was being disingenuous, signalling that I was prepared to let our little flirtation atrophy without hard feelings. Perhaps the signals were too crude. He didn’t speak, just switched off the soldering iron and started to gather up his tools. He put the microwave, minus the magnetron, back next to the cooker, and poured himself more wine, ignoring my nearly empty glass.

  ‘What shall we do about food, then?’ he asked at last.

  ‘I’m in your hands,’ I said, spreading mine. ‘No card, no cash, not to speak of. And no food. But I’ll chop and peel anything you want chopping and peeling.’ I could feel my smile was too bright.

  ‘Adrian called just before you arrived,’ he said. ‘He wants to come round later.’

  I prepared to be hurt and offended.

  ‘But I said I’d promised you a meal tonight. So he won’t be round till quite late. I thought – I wanted – I need—’ He broke off, gesturing helplessly.

  ‘You need a friend,’ I said.

  ‘I hoped – you see, I really like you. But then along comes Adrian …’

  At one level I think I was angry: had I been used as a sort of stooge to prove that Simon was straight? Surely to goodness that sort of pretence wasn’t necessary in the 1990s! But how could I rage at a young man who seemed confused and disoriented to the point of tears?

  ‘Simon, love, we were friends in the first place. Let’s go back to being friends.’ I stood and held out my arms.

  After a frighteningly long delay he came towards me and accepted my hug.

  At last I pushed him away and poured some more wine. ‘What about this ’ere food, then?’

  He looked at the electrical mess on the table as if he’d not been responsible for putting it there, shoved the lot into his toolbox, and then reached for his jacket. ‘Come on, we’ll have a balti. And then I’ll run you home and I’ll see what I can do for your radio. Adrian’ll just have to wait.’

  11

  Sunday morning was so fine and warm that I set my marking on hold and pottered around the garden. It was one of those days that made not having a car irritating. Not that I wanted to rush like a lemming to the coast; I merely wanted a large bag of potting compost and a load of bedding plants, and a bike was inadequate. If Chris phoned – as I rather expected him to – then I could no doubt inveigle him into doing the honours.

  So when the phone rang, even though I found I’d left muddy footprints, I answered it in my sunniest voice. It wasn’t Chris, however, but a voice I had difficulty placing. Richard Fairfax! Why should he want to speak to me? Come to think of it, how had he got hold of my number?

  His voice rang with confidence; anyone would have thought he was one of my oldest fr
iends. He wanted, he said, not to take up much of my time on this glorious morning, but merely to drop off some papers for tomorrow’s meeting. And he’d be with me at about noon, if that would suit me.

  Although politeness made me agree, I felt steadily more irritated as the morning progressed. I couldn’t greet anyone in my gardening jeans, and my old Oxfam T-shirt was decidedly disreputable. Not to mention my nails, which seemed to attract dirt from within the leather gardening gloves which were supposed to protect them. So at eleven thirty I came in and scrubbed up; I even brushed my hair. Even as I peered at myself in the mirror, wondering if a spot of lipstick might be appropriate, I pulled myself up short. Why was I making such a fuss for someone I didn’t like?

  It was a waste to be inside; I took my coffee and Observer out to what if it were larger might be called a patio. There was just room for a couple of chairs, a table and some big pots I’d fill with petunias and fuchsias once I’d got hold of the potting compost and there was no threat of frost.

  The problem with the patio was that it made far too intimate a setting for what should have been the briefest of meetings. Ensconced in the better chair, with a cup of milkless Earl Grey to hand, Fairfax settled back for what appeared to be a long and meaningless chat about the problems of lawn maintenance. I couldn’t understand it: here was a man to whom time must be of the essence, oblivious to the barrow of weeds with the fork and leather gloves laid, now I came to think of it, ostentatiously across the top. The proposals he was to put before tomorrow’s meeting must be self-explanatory – certainly he made no attempt to fish them out of the A4 envelope that lay on top of my Observer.

  ‘It must,’ he said suddenly, ‘be hard to balance the demands of house and home against those of your job.’

  ‘No more than for any single person,’ I said. ‘Though teaching must rate pretty high on a Richter scale of stress.’

  ‘You said you were working on some project: is that stressful?’

  ‘Not the computer work itself. What I have found hard is taking on classes this late in the year. They all resent having their proper lecturers whisked away. And who can blame them? Their exams start immediately after the half-term break.’

  ‘You teachers and your holidays,’ he said. ‘Why on earth don’t you work proper hours and weeks like the rest of the world?’

  ‘If you’re referring to this particular half-term,’ I said, ‘then the students need the time for last-minute private revision.’

  ‘What if they encounter any problems? Shouldn’t there be someone there to help?’

  If there’s one thing that really makes me angry, it’s people complaining about teachers without ever having done the job. But I’ve learned from bitter experience that there’s simply no point in engaging in arguments with people who want more than anything else to cling to the belief that teachers work short hours for a lot of money.

  ‘Wouldn’t a conscientious teacher want to be there to help?’ Fairfax pursued.

  ‘I sometimes wish we could take their exams for them,’ I said. There must be some reason for this interrogation.

  ‘And shouldn’t you be there when the results come out?’

  ‘I’ve never known a college where the staff don’t organise a rota to be there at the crucial time.’

  ‘That’s not the same thing. How do you know when the crucial time is?’

  ‘By experience.’ I hoped my tone showed I’d had enough of this interrogation. To emphasise the point I reached for the envelope he’d brought.

  ‘I’d have thought it was in the students’ interests,’ he pursued, ‘not to close in the summer. You don’t get firms closing down wholesale.’

  ‘You do in France,’ I said, despising myself for taking the bait. Then I opened the envelope and started to withdraw the papers.

  ‘Tell me, do you think Muntz is an efficient college?’

  ‘I think it’s well on the way to being an unhappy one,’ I said. ‘Someone seems to have forgotten that lecturers are people too.’ I told him about the invasion of my office and the probable termination of my project. ‘Oh, and they’ve denied the staff the use of their common room and the students are so hostile to our invasion of the canteen that none of us use it. Some of the staff are on this new contract, the rest aren’t, so you can imagine what that does for staff morale. They’ve just derecognised the union—’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  I looked at him, torn between an urge to grass on la Cavendish and a strong desire to demand what business it was of his. Certainly it was time to end the conversation: dealing with the occasional vile student had taught me the flick of the eyelid and quick movement to my feet that would tell him I had had enough. But before I could dismiss him verbally, the phone rang. I gestured him, none too courteously, through the French window before me into the living room. I stopped to answer the phone and asked the caller to hold while I escorted Fairfax through the hall.

  ‘Unusual design this, having the party wall between the two halls rather than between the living rooms,’ he said, smiling as pleasantly as if we’d discussed nothing more controversial than compost heaps.

  I nodded. I didn’t think a comment was necessary.

  ‘Until tomorrow evening, then,’ he said

  ‘Yes,’ I replied, and closed the front door on him.

  ‘Jesus,’ said Chris, when I picked up the phone, ‘is that Sophie or an iceberg? Who’ve you been freezing off, eh?’

  ‘Richard Fairfax. Bloody fascist,’ I added. ‘Spoiled my day.’

  ‘Can I unspoil it? D’you fancy going out to lunch?’

  ‘Sunday? Everywhere will be full of cheery families.’

  ‘My garden won’t.’

  ‘You’re on.’

  It turned out to be a working lunch, in the calm of Chris’s dining room. The death of Melina was high on the agenda. The parents recognised the shoes – in fact, the father had wept at the sight of them. And no one had managed to explain why she wasn’t wearing them when – if – she jumped. Neither had anyone explained how she had managed to fall on the skip without injuring herself on the lumps of rubbish – not, said Chris, dropping his voice, that she hadn’t suffered horrific injuries anyway.

  ‘The paving she should have fallen on didn’t produce the bloodstains you wanted? Hey, this is a wonderful avocado.’

  ‘Thanks. No, nary a one. Not that this is a subject we should be talking about over lunch.’ He got up and twitched the curtain slightly. ‘Sorry: I’m getting over one of my heads. Can’t stand too much light.’

  ‘Bad?’

  ‘Bad enough. I think it was meeting her parents. Laid me low all evening. Didn’t really surface till about ten this morning. And then Ian phoned about your purse. Why didn’t you tell me?’

  I scraped out the avocado skin and licked my spoon as if it were a lolly. ‘Common theft. As the lady said, life’s a bitch and then you die.’ I hadn’t wanted to worry him.

  ‘I don’t like coincidences. How much did you lose?’

  ‘What I got out of the building society: £200.’

  ‘Cheque book?’

  ‘Safe inside a zipped pocket. But it was a pain. And the real pain is that Simon’s mended my radio, so I didn’t need a new one.’

  ‘But you’ll get one anyway. It’s important.’

  I nodded. Chris and Aberlene together constituted an irresistible force.

  ‘Simon and Adrian – the viola player – are now an item, by the way,’ I said lightly. I didn’t want to trivialise it into gossip, but Chris deserved to know, and I didn’t want to make any heavy explanations. ‘He told me all about it when we went for a balti down Moseley Road last night.’

  Chris gathered the avocado dishes; I followed him to the kitchen. It might never have seen a saucepan raised in anger, but a wonderful smell was emanating from the oven. He bent to remove a casserole, one of those heavy le Creuset ones, and bore it to the table. I followed with smaller casseroles: crispy roast potatoes and tiny butter
ed carrots.

  ‘Chicken,’ he said.

  ‘Great. Somehow I’m off red meat.’ I explained very briefly about the truck I’d followed.

  And then we looked up at each other and said it together; ‘A tarpaulin! Melina might have fallen on a tarpaulin!’

  ‘How bloody premeditated can you get?’ Chris exclaimed, pushing his chicken away untouched and reaching for his phone.

  ‘No, leave it till you’ve eaten. Please. Five minutes won’t make any difference to the case, and it might to your stomach. Here.’ I topped up his glass. ‘Go on: one won’t hurt you, and it comes with St Paul’s recommendation. Let’s think about why anyone should want to kill her.’

  We ate in silence for a few minutes. What had she said about her previous job? Something to do with the Jewellery Quarter. Computers in the Jewellery Quarter. Servicing them for industrial firms; ‘quite a few’…

  ‘If you service a computer,’ he asked at last, ‘does that give you access to all the files?’

  ‘If you were very bright, you could explore all sorts of unauthorised highways and byways. Are you wondering if she might have found something in a computer?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe. Something about one of her old clients – I’ll have someone follow it up. There’s even George Muntz, of course.’

  ‘But she was so discreet about her other job, and so cowed by Dr Trevelyan, I don’t think she’d have blabbed to anyone about anything. Except that she wanted to talk to me urgently the night she was killed.’

  ‘So what had she found and what did she intend to do with her information? Do you see her as the blackmailing type?’

  I wanted to protest, sharply, that Melina struck me as being very moral, but morality is not the same as discretion. And she seemed to have obeyed authority, in the form of Trevelyan, without necessarily respecting it.

  ‘I think she might have seen it as her duty to warn whoever was doing wrong that she would have to report it,’ I said at last. ‘But the problem is her wanting to talk to me first, as if she might have wanted reassurance that she was doing the right thing. Oh, Chris, I don’t know. If only I hadn’t been in such a hurry that evening—’