An Advancement of Learning

by Reginald Hill

  ‘Any luck?’ shouted the captain.

  ‘Not yet,’ said Douglas. ‘It might be a bit farther. It wasn’t a bad hit.’

  On the seaward side of the dunes, wind and waves had scooped out a series of semi-circular bays which provided ideal situations for bathing parties. Usually in the summer there were some students around, but the chill edge of the wind seemed to have kept them all away today.

  Or nearly all. Douglas walked a little farther along and looked down into the next bay. He drew in his breath sharply. Lying on her side in the white sand was a girl. She had her back to him and seemed to be asleep. She was also naked.

  His ball lay gleaming, challenging, a few inches from the smooth curve of her young buttocks.

  Absurdly his mind began wrestling with the difficulty his next shot presented. Should he awaken her and ask her to move? Or perhaps he could claim a drop without penalty.

  But the non-golfing part of his mind was beginning to notice other things. There was no pile of clothes nearby, for one thing. And there was an awkwardness about the sprawl of her limbs and a strange stillness about the whole body which he did not like.

  ‘Shall I come up and help?’ called the captain.

  Douglas did not reply but, laying down his golf-bag, he jumped into the bay, half-falling, and reaching the bottom in a slither of sand. Down here out of the cut of the wind, it was quite warm.

  But the coldness of the girl’s skin as he gently touched her shoulder told him she felt nothing of this. He knew at once she was dead.

  And as he turned her over and looked down into her stiff contorted face, he knew he had been right.

  It had taken something very powerful indeed to stop Anita Sewell from carrying on along her chosen course.

  Chapter 8

  The parts of fifteen are not the parts of twenty; for the parts of fifteen are three and five; the parts of twenty are two, four, five and ten. So as these things are without contradiction and could not otherwise be.

  SIR FRANCIS BACON

  Op. Cit.

  Now there was twice as much work and more than twice as much activity. Pascoe had visible evidence that he had been right to feel that old bones didn’t produce the same sense of urgency as a fresh corpse. It was Kent’s finest hour. For the second time in a quarter of a century he had been in the right place at the right time. (The first occasion had given him the promotion momentum which had brought him to his present eminence.) He had come across Pearl and Jessup in earnest conference by the fourteenth fairway. By the time Dalziel arrived everything needful had been done, down to a list of those who had played a round that day, and a methodical search of the dunes and the beach was taking place.

  All Pascoe wanted to do was to re-immerse himself in his (so far unproductive) researches into the last movements of Miss Girling. But Dalziel didn’t seem in the mood for demarcation disputes.

  ‘These are distinct and separate enquiries, sir?’ said Pascoe hopefully.

  ‘If you mean, is there any connection, the answer’s yes,’ snapped Dalziel. ‘Two bodies in the same place means a connection to me. It might be accident; but coincidence is like the bastards we pull in, assumed innocent till proved guilty. And we do that by finding two distinct and separate killers. Right?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Pascoe.

  ‘Anyway, how are you getting on? Any progress?’

  ‘Precious little. I was just getting into it when news of the girl came in. I’ve got an outline of the day here. Look. Mostly from Miss Scotby’s old diary of events. She hoards them. The students had gone down the previous Friday. There was a staff meeting on the Monday morning and a governors’ meeting in the afternoon. Now Miss Girling was catching her flight at 11.30 P.M. or thereabouts. She was evidently a believer in starting the vacation as soon as humanly possible. Anyway, Miss Scotby saw her after the meeting, about 5 P.M. and she says she waved to her as she drove out, presumably on her way to the airport, about an hour later.’

  Dalziel grunted. ‘She didn’t leave herself much time. It’s well over a hundred miles.’

  ‘That’s what I said. But Scotby says she thinks the governors’ meeting may have been arranged late in the term, after Girling had made her holiday plans. The ink confirms this.’

  ‘Ink?’

  ‘It’s not the same as the stuff she used for the other major events. So she deduces she noted the meeting later.’

  Dalziel rolled his eyes. The whites were quite revolting without the little brown pupils to hold the attention.

  ‘So what are you doing now?’

  Pascoe was ready for this.

  ‘What I’d like to do is check at the airport. The big question is, did she get that far or not? They may still have records. And at the other end, Austria, too.’

  ‘All right,’ said Dalziel. ‘But remember, it’s tax-payers’ money, lad.’

  ‘It’s the tax-payers’ bodies as well,’ said Pascoe, but only after Dalziel had gone out of the door.

  His destination was the golf clubhouse where Kent had set up a temporary HQ. He found the inspector gazing dreamy-eyed at a large gilt-framed photograph of Harry Vardon in mid-drive.

  ‘Look,’ he said. ‘He had his jacket on. And a tie.

  ‘Was he playing here today?’ asked Dalziel.

  ‘No. Of course not.’ Kent returned to earth. ‘Sir.’

  ‘Anything new?’

  ‘Nothing much. The p.m. report won’t be through for a while yet, but I’m sure they’ll confirm what the doctor said. Death by asphyxiation. Her mouth and nostrils were full of sand.’

  He grimaced at the memory.

  ‘Next of kin?’

  ‘Her parents. They live in Newcastle. They’ll be on their way.’

  ‘Have you seen Mr Landor? I couldn’t find him at the college and they said he might have come up here.’

  ‘That’s right. He’s through there.’

  Kent nodded at a door to his left.

  ‘He doesn’t look well.’

  ‘Right. How’s the search?’

  ‘Nothing yet. Or rather, a great deal. Those sand dunes are pretty popular evidently, by day and by night. But nothing obviously relevant.’

  ‘I’ll have a look later,’ said Dalziel.

  He went through to the next room where he found Landor leaning against a billiards table, sightlessly flicking a red between the opposite cushion and his hand.

  ‘Hello, Principal. I asked for you in the college.’

  ‘Superintendent. I had to come up here. They had taken her away. I was glad really, I would not have liked to see her. As it was, I had to come through here and be by myself for a moment. That poor girl! Why her? On top of all her other troubles…’

  Dalziel interrupted in his turn.

  ‘What other troubles?’

  Landor looked surprised.

  ‘Didn’t you know Anita, Miss Sewell, she’s at present in the middle of an appeal against dismissal from her college course. She has - had - made certain allegations against a member of my staff..’

  ‘Oh, that. It’s that girl? That’s interesting.’

  ‘Why? You can’t think there’s a connection? Oh, it’s vile!’

  Landor turned away and with a single convulsive movement hurled the ball away from him down the table. Dalziel noted with interest that it went into the farthermost pocket without touching the side.

  ‘What kind of girl was she?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Who can tell these days? She seemed an amiable young thing, quiet, well-mannered, not one of our high-fliers academically, but intelligent. Then last Autumn term, there started a falling off in the quality of her work which soon reached serious proportions. I talked to her, of course. She appeared quite unchanged from the description I have just given you, agreed that there was cause for concern, could offer no explanation but gave assurances of renewed diligence, then went off and continued as before. We don’t work on exams alone here. Course assessment plays a very important part in all our co
urses and it was clear by the end of the Easter term that she was in desperate straits.’

  ‘What did you do then?’ said Dalziel.

  ‘I wrote to her in the vacation suggesting she came up early to have a talk with me. She didn’t reply. She didn’t come early. Indeed she didn’t turn up till almost a fortnight after the start of term. Her case was discussed at a meeting of the Academic Board. There was nothing else to do but ask her to go.’

  ‘High time from the sound of it,’ said Dalziel.

  ‘We try to be humane,’ said Landor coldly.

  ‘And then she appealed to the governors? And brought out this story about … whatsisname?’

  ‘Fallowfield. That’s right. She alleged that her relationship with him was the major factor affecting her work.’

  ‘Did he deny it?’

  ‘No,’ said Landor sadly. ‘He admitted freely that they had been lovers.’

  ‘Is that unprofessional conduct?’

  ‘In the eyes of some, yes. But not in any legalistic sense. Our humanity doesn’t stop at the students, Superintendent.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it. So?’

  ‘She claimed also that they quarrelled, he wanted rid of her. And alleged that his assessment of her work in biology was unfairly weighted against her.

  ‘I’m a bit thick,’ said Dalziel, scratching his pate as though to prove the point. ‘But couldn’t someone else just have a look at what she’d done?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Landor. ‘This has been done. It’s of a very low standard. But just as important in that course is practical work, laboratory work done under supervision, experiments, dissections, that kind of thing. It was here that Mr Fallowfield was most critical. It was here the suggestion, was made that he had allowed his personal involvement to outweigh his academic judgment.’

  ‘Which could be serious for him? Real unprofessional conduct?’

  ‘That’s true,’ said Landor. Suddenly he looked at Dalziel sharply. ‘But you can’t think … you’re not motive-hunting, Superintendent?’

  ‘We’re always doing that,’ said Dalziel.

  The door opened.

  ‘Can you spare a moment, Super?’ said Kent.

  Dalziel joined him in the other room.

  ‘What is it?’

  Triumphantly Kent held up a flimsy white brassiere.

  ‘They’ve just found this. In some gorse bushes about two hundred yards from where they found the body.’

  ‘So?’ said Dalziel.

  Kent was a little nonplussed to find his own enthusiasm so little shared.

  ‘Well, it might help to pin-point where the actual killing took place.’

  ‘If it’s hers.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Kent. ‘Yes, of course. But it seems likely. It obviously hasn’t been lying long.’

  ‘No,’ said Dalziel, taking it from him. It was slightly damp from the dew. But the metal adjusting rings and fastening hooks were bright and shiny still.

  ‘May I see?’ It was Landor, at the door. Dalziel looked at him in surprise, but held out the garment without demur. Landor took it between his thumb and index finger.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t think it’s hers.’

  Kent opened his mouth and began to say something, but Dalziel silenced him with a glance.

  ‘Now, why do you say that, sir?’

  ‘She, Miss Sewell, was larger,’ he said, enunciating the last word with meticulous precision.

  ‘I see. Well, thank you, Mr Landor.’

  He took the brassiere back and laid it on the table.

  ‘Still, it will be interesting to find out who it does belong to,’ he said.

  Franny Roote woke instantly as he always did, with no interim stage of gradual revival. It was late. He was already missing his only lecture of the morning. Not that it mattered. It was only people like Disney who moaned about absentees. In any case as President of the Student Union his official duties often kept him otherwise engaged. He smiled.

  This morning, he thought as he dressed, Miss Cargo. About the art exhibition in the Union building. That would do. An attractive woman, Miss Cargo. He must keep an eye on her.

  Someone tried the handle of his door. It was, as always, locked.

  ‘Who?’ he called.

  ‘It’s me, Stuart. Open up, Franny.’

  ‘Wait.’

  He fastened a single button of his white silk shirt, leaving it open from the throat almost to the navel. There was a speck of dirt on his white tennis shoes which he flicked off before fastening them, making sure the laces were nowhere twisted.

  A careful glance in the full-length mirror fixed behind his wardrobe door; he held his own gaze steadily for half a minute; the door handle was rattled impatiently, but he did not move.

  ‘Franny!For Godsake!’

  He closed the wardrobe door and turned the key in the main door to admit Cockshut.

  ‘Nothing is worth hurrying for, Stuart, love,’ he said amiably.

  ‘You moved as fast as anyone last night,’ snapped Stuart. ‘Listen, haven’t you heard? About Anita? They’ve found her. Dead! Out in the dunes. Oh Christ, this is terrible.’

  He sat on Franny’s bed and put his head between his hands. The other did not move but stood stock-still, a pale outline in the light of the single heavily-shaded lamp which was the room’s only source of illumination.

  ‘Can’t you open these bloody curtains?’ said Cockshut finally. ‘It’s the middle of the bloody afternoon.’

  ‘No,’ said Franny. ‘There is an ambience I wish to preserve here. Besides, now it is fitting. Tell all you know.’

  It came pouring out of Stuart. It was all over college. The plain fact of Anita’s death was certain, and the place - there were policemen all over the golf course. The rest was rumour. Her body was naked, half-clothed; she had been drowned, strangled, stabbed.

  ‘Take your pick,’ said Stuart. ‘What are we going to do, Franny?’

  ‘I must go and have a word with Landor,’ said Franny. ‘There’ll be things to do. The poor love won’t know whether he’s on his arse or his head.’

  ‘But what about the police? Shouldn’t we … ?’

  ‘Anything we do must be a democratic decision, Stuart. Surely I don’t need to tell you that? We meet for recall this evening. Then we’ll talk. Now I must act as befits a President of the Union. You, I suggest, should be thinking as befits a pragmatic Marxist. There could be a new basis for action here.’

  Cockshut looked at him with distaste.

  ‘You’re a cold bastard, Franny.’

  ‘No,’ he replied with something like passion. ‘I live in balance. I am all I should be, but not in each part of me. There is no place for weeping in that part of me which wishes to survive.’

  Stuart shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘You can’t survive without humanity.’

  Franny laughed.

  ‘Go and start a revolution, Stuart.’

  The door opened again and Sandra Firth rushed in, her hair more dishevelled than usual and a flush burning through her sallow skin at the cheek-bones.

  ‘Franny, have you heard? What are we going to do?’

  Roote looked at her long and steadily.

  ‘Nothing,’ he said, giving each syllable a full value. ‘Later we will talk. There are things we must talk about, you and I, Sandra.’

  The flush ebbed away from the girl’s face.

  ‘Stuart, we’ll need a full Union meeting. Tomorrow night; no, Saturday. Get the word around, posters up, you know the drill.’

  ‘Surely it’s up to the committee … ?’

  ‘Oh, see them first then,’ said Franny impatiently. ‘But arrange it.’

  ‘It’s a bad night, especially at short notice. You might be pushed for a quorum.’

  ‘Quorum forum,’ said Franny. ‘Just get the notices out. Right? I’ve got to go.’

  He took Sandra by the hand and smiled at her, the smile lighting up his whole face.

  ‘Don’
t look so down, love,’ he said pressing her hand reassuringly.

  She responded instantly, coming close to him, pleasure and relief in her face.

  ‘Oh, Franny,’ she began, but he interrupted her, still smiling.

  ‘After all, you didn’t even like Anita, did you? So why so glum?’

  She pulled away from him, her face set again, and ran out of the door without replying.

  Franny waved Stuart out before him, then followed, locking the door behind them.

  ‘What the hell do you keep in there, Fran?’

  ‘Memories,’ said his companion. ‘The distillation of experience. See you later, love.’

  Stuart Cockshut watched him stride confidently away through the windy sunlight, strangely indistinct in the shifty dapplings cast by the old beeches which had survived the building programme. Turning back into the hostel building they had just left, he ducked into a plastic-shielded telephone booth, an unnecessary movement for one so small. With the end of a pencil, he dialled the London coding, followed by a number he knew by heart.

  ‘Hello,’ said a non-committal voice at the other end.

  ‘Cockshut,’ he said. ‘Let me speak to Christian … Listen, Chris, we’ve got a situation here which might be useful..’

  The trouble with a college, Dalziel was finding, was that you had a hell of a job putting your hands on people. If they were teaching, they were reluctant to be interrupted and Dalziel was reluctant to provoke open antagonism. Yet.

  If they weren’t teaching, they might be anywhere. In their rooms if they lived on the campus; at home if they didn’t. In libraries, laboratories, bathrooms, bars or beds.

  There was a copy of the staff time-table on the wall of Landor’s room but he gave it up after ten seconds. He found he was missing Pascoe. There were plenty of other ‘leg-men’, uniformed and CID, at his disposal, but Pascoe knew his ways and was at home in this kind of territory.

  Kent he had left up at the golf club.