The Gentle Art of Murder Read online

  ‘But of course you’re far too young to remember very many summers, aren’t you? Anyway, what are you doing all dressed up on a day like this? Shorts and a tee would be more in order, I’d think.’

  ‘Meeting. Term’s going to start next week and we needed to get organized. We’re getting a few new computers in, so there’s installation to worry about, and then training. And then next term it’ll be all to do over again.’

  ‘On a Sunday? And for that you needed a tie?’ Nigel worked with the computer systems at Sherebury University, and the dress code in that department was casual in the extreme.

  Nigel was still young enough to blush. ‘Well, you see, I’ve been moved up a notch or two. The thought was to impress the peons.’

  ‘Nigel! You got a promotion and you never told us!’

  ‘Yes, well …’ He sipped his lemonade, his face still flushed.

  ‘And what did you mean about doing it all over again next term?’

  ‘It’s the budget, you see. It’s tight all over the uni, so we have to do everything piecemeal.’

  ‘Even in IT? But you’re right at the heart of all the university operations. Surely you need the proper equipment to function.’

  ‘We do. But the powers that be don’t seem to see it that way, so we use the chewing gum and baling wire approach. That’s one reason I dressed up today. The Head of Finance was to be at the meeting, and I hoped to convince him that the dear old uni was being penny wise and pound foolish.’

  ‘But you didn’t manage it?’

  ‘He never showed up. Sent a message about an important obligation elsewhere. I tell you, Dorothy, there’s not a whole lot more important to the functioning of the whole university than the computer system. It goes down, everything grinds to a halt.’

  ‘Well … surely the teaching …’

  ‘Classroom assignments are made by computer. Students’ and teachers’ schedules are done by computer. Textbooks and other materials are ordered by computer. An awful lot of the lectures use PowerPoint presentations. Hundreds of classes are taught online.’

  He was ready to go on, but I held up a hand in surrender. ‘Okay, okay, I get the point. Actually, I had a thought a while back when I was reading a suspense novel. The villains were making plans to destroy some government or other, and I thought that all they really needed to do was disable all the computers. That would bring the world to its knees. But I’m sorry you’re having such a lot of grief. Let’s change the subject. How are Inga and small Nigel Peter?’

  I was keenly interested in the Evans family. I had played a small part in assuring their marriage, some time ago, and Alan and I were godparents to the baby. Well, hardly a baby anymore. ‘Nearly four, isn’t he now?’

  ‘Nearly four in years, and a hundred in devilment.’ Nigel reached into his pocket for his phone and handed it to me. ‘This is what he looked like last week when we had all that rain. He’s discovered the great joy of muddy puddles.’

  The little boy in the picture was wearing a yellow mac and rain hat, yellow wellies like Paddington Bear’s, and a broad grin. All were splashed with thick brown mud. ‘A little darker mud,’ I said, laughing, ‘and he’d look like the Tar Baby.’ I’d been reading him some of the Joel Chandler Harris stories.

  ‘I think that’s what he had in mind. Inga says, next time could you read him a story about a clean child?’

  ‘A clean four-year-old boy is a contradiction in terms. He’ll outgrow it.’

  ‘Soon, we hope. Because, as a matter of fact …’

  ‘Nigel! Are you going to tell me he’s going to have a baby brother or sister? What a good thing you got that promotion!’

  ‘The extra money will come in handy,’ he said, ‘because Inga’s going to have to give up her work at the pub soon. She tires easily, and the Nipper’s a handful. She won’t be able to manage him and a new baby and still work. But we’ll work it all out.’

  ‘Well, you both know we’re eager babysitters when necessary. When’s the new addition due?’

  ‘End of March. We’re hoping around Easter, and we hope you’ll both stand godparents again. But that’s not really why I dropped by.’ He leaned forward in his chair. ‘I’m issuing an invitation to you both. One of Inga’s old friends, Gillian Roberts, is starting her first term teaching at the uni, or really in the art school. It’s a more or less separate entity, you know?’

  ‘No. Explain.’

  ‘Oh, dear, I’d have to go into a lot of the history of Sherebury University, and I’d bore you rigid. The gist of it is, the Wolfson College of Art has been here a long time, back when the university was little more than a glorified training institute. Then it became the Wolfson College of Art and Design and joined forces with the university. Now art students can be awarded degrees, not just diplomas, but the entente is sometimes not all that cordiale, and the art school tends to elevate its nose and move its skirts aside from university matters. That said, they do manage to jog along fairly comfortably together. Most of the time. Anyway, the art school is having a sort of reception for new teachers next Wednesday, just before the term officially begins. Inga and I are going, more or less to support Gillian, and we wondered if you and Alan would like to join us.’

  ‘Indifferent wine, peculiar snacks, and a lot of noise?’

  Nigel grinned. ‘You’ve got it. And a tour of the facilities, with student work on display. Oh, and a string quartet that you won’t be able to hear over the talking.’

  ‘The mixture as before, in short. We’d love to. Just let us know the time.’

  Wednesday, September 3

  I was glad we had decided to go. Only a few brave souls had shown up, and Gillian was looking rather bereft when the four of us walked into the vast sculpture studio.

  I knew the bereft one must be Gillian because she was the only woman in the room, and the only person who’d made any attempt to dress up. She wore a colourful, loose shirt over black leggings and her honey-coloured hair was drawn up into an elegant French twist. No one would have called her beautiful, but her face would be pleasant when it wasn’t looking anxious, and what I could see of her figure was slender and well-proportioned.

  She was talking to a short, stocky, balding man clad in chinos and a T-shirt, both streaked with some grey substance. A few other men, just as casually clad, stood around talking, with very little animation. Altogether, the party could not be said to be going with a swing. There wasn’t nearly the noise level I’d expected. I could actually hear the string quartet, though they were playing something modern and atonal, and I’d have been just as happy had they been drowned out.

  Nigel and Inga took us over to Gillian and introduced us. She gave us a radiant smile and said, ‘I’m so glad you came,’ and no one could doubt her sincerity. ‘I’d like you to meet my boss, the sculpture professor, Mr Singleton.’

  ‘Dennis,’ said the man in chinos, putting out a hand. It was hard and dry. ‘Forgive the way I look, won’t you? I’ve been working.’ He pointed to a large shape on a pedestal in the corner, shrouded in a damp cloth. ‘It’s shaping well, and I didn’t want to stop, but I had to make sure Gillian’s party came off.’

  ‘Not just mine,’ she said. ‘There are the other new teachers as well.’

  ‘Painters!’ said Dennis. He made it sound like a four-letter word. ‘Will Braithwaite gets four new grad teaching assistants, and I get one. Will gets all the materials he wants, and I’m to make do with beer cans and driftwood.’

  Gillian opened her mouth, took a good look at her boss’s face, and shut it again.

  ‘But you’re not interested in departmental politics. Get yourself something to eat and drink, and then let Gillian take you on a tour of the place. Antiquated though it is. There’s some work on display in the gallery that you may enjoy.’

  With that he went back to his work. As he pulled the cloth off, I saw that it was a tall mass of clay in a swirly sort of spiral. I couldn’t have said why it looked angry, but there was an energy abou
t it that made me uneasy. I looked away and walked over to the table where refreshments had been set out.

  One sip confirmed that the wine was every bit as bad as I had feared. I could feel a headache coming on at the very smell of the stuff. The nibbles provided worked out to a small bowl of peanuts, about three per customer, and some tiny sandwiches filled, apparently, with brown glue. Nigel and Inga drifted off to talk to people they knew. I looked at Alan. He smiled at Gillian and said, ‘I, for one, would very much like to see over the school.’

  ‘It’s quite a hodgepodge, as Dennis said. Only about fifty years old, but it reminds me of an old country house that’s been done up over the centuries. Corridors going nowhere, two steps up and three down, rooms cut up into smaller rooms, or walls pulled down to make rooms bigger. It was planned sensibly to begin with, but.… ’ She shrugged. ‘Well. This is the sculpture studio, or one of them. At least they had the sense to put it on the ground floor. Heavy pieces would never fit into our lift. It’s a bit wonky as well. It was out of service all summer, being repaired, I hope, and they’ve only just taken the sign off today. I’d suggest we walk up, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘I’ll give it a try,’ I said. ‘I’m not a great fan of elevators, especially wonky ones. Lead the way.’

  Inga and Nigel had seen it all before, and Inga could claim her pregnancy as an excuse not to see it again. They had driven their own car, so they wished Gillian well and waved goodbye, and Gillian began her tour. She showed us the rest of the ground floor of that wing, the other sculpture studio designed for wood carving, with a wooden floor. ‘So if a piece of wood is dropped, it won’t come to much harm, as it might on concrete.’

  We saw the small gallery where staff and student art work was displayed. ‘This is what’s left of the end-of-term exhibition.’

  I couldn’t make much sense of it. ‘Does no one do representational art anymore?’ I asked timidly.

  ‘Not much. It’s viewed as passé, and our head doesn’t care for it. The students are taught the basics, of course, but then most of them go on to conceptual work.’ She lowered her voice, though no one else was around. ‘To tell you the truth, I love figurative sculpture. I work in bronze, and a lovely little nude … ah, well. Autres temps, autres moeurs.’ She said it with such an air of world-weariness, her twenty-some years sitting heavy on her shoulders, that I had to hide a chuckle.

  ‘Where is the great man today?’ I asked idly. ‘I’d have thought he’d be here to welcome new people.’

  She frowned. ‘I don’t know. I haven’t seen him since the end of last term. Of course no one much has been here since then, actually, and the head was going on holiday to Greece, so …’ She shrugged. ‘The stairs are this way.’

  We were shown, in various wings and up various stairs, the print rooms and the photo studios. ‘Darkrooms still?’ Alan commented. ‘I thought it was all digital these days.’

  ‘Again, to give the students a thorough grounding. For black-and-white work, many photographers insist that the continuous-tone print is far superior. But of course you’re right. Who knows how long we’ll even be able to get the chemicals?’

  By the time we arrived at the painting studios on the third floor (fourth, to my American mind), I was beginning to flag. I made what admiring noises I could, but Alan could see I’d about had it. ‘I think this is about as much as we can take in, my dear,’ he said gently to Gillian. ‘We need some time to process it all. But I’m afraid I’m a bit lost. If you could show us the way out?’

  ‘Well, the stairs for this wing are all the way on the other side,’ she said apologetically.

  ‘Going down stairs is always harder for me than going up,’ I said. ‘I have titanium knees, and they don’t work quite as well lowering my weight as raising it, for some reason. And three flights … maybe we could try the elevator?’

  ‘It’s just around the corner.’ Gillian led us to it and pushed the call button. ‘It’s awfully slow … oh! It was already here.’

  The doors opened slowly. We entered and Gillian pushed the button for the ground floor.

  It was a slow, creaky elevator. I didn’t care for it much. It even smelled old and musty, with some unpleasant overtones of something I assumed to be art materials of some sort.

  I tried to concentrate on what Gillian was saying. ‘I’m so grateful to both of you for coming today. Almost everyone else was a painter or the guest of a painter, and they’re always so superior. At Hallam, where I took my degree, it was always that way, even among the students. Those painters think they own the art world. And it’s even worse here, because they seem to get the lion’s share of the budget, and paint and canvas don’t cost nearly as much as bronze. It’s just not— Oh, drat!’

  The elevator had stopped between floors. I felt a flood of panic out of all proportion to the situation. ‘Alan?’ I said in what was almost a whimper. He took my hand in a firm grip.

  ‘Hang in there, darling,’ he said in the voice he used to his grandchildren when they needed to be calmed. ‘Gillian, could you try again?’

  ‘I’ve tried to take us up to the next floor, since it won’t go farther down, but it just isn’t responding. I thought they were meant to have repaired it over the break. I’m so sorry!’

  ‘Not your fault. It’s all right, Dorothy. We’re perfectly safe.’

  ‘I know … but …’

  ‘My wife suffers from claustrophobia, Gillian. Perhaps you’d best sound the alarm, so someone can work out how to get us out of here.’

  I was beginning to find it difficult to breathe. The more I told myself I was being foolish, the worse it got. I was holding Alan’s hand so tightly I wonder I didn’t break his fingers.

  The shrill cry of the alarm rang out, nearly deafening me. I wondered if anyone else was in this wing. I wondered if anyone would hear. I wondered if I would die of asphyxia before someone came.

  But then the alarm shut off and I could hear voices calling to us. ‘Everyone all right in there?’

  ‘No,’ said Alan. ‘No physical injuries, but we have a claustrophobic lady who needs to be rescued at once.’

  That made me feel like a fool and a major nuisance, which helped a bit. I thought I could breathe for a little while longer.

  ‘Right you are. The fire service is on the way. We’ll get you through the trap door if we can’t get the lift to move. Meanwhile, you might open the trap if you think that’ll help the lady breathe a bit easier.’

  ‘What do you think, love?’

  ‘Worth a try,’ I said in a shaky whisper I couldn’t recognize as my own voice.

  ‘I can reach it,’ said Gillian eagerly, ‘if you’ll give me a back.’

  Alan obligingly bent over, keeping his tight hold of my hand, but before Gillian could scramble up, the elevator started to move upward, very slowly.

  ‘Thank God!’ I said fervently.

  ‘The doors won’t open automatically,’ said the voice from above. Almost, I thought, from Above. ‘As soon as the lift’s reached the first floor, we’ll force them, and you’ll be right as rain.’

  I didn’t know I was biting my lip until I tasted blood.

  It was only a few more minutes, though it seemed like hours, before we saw the crowbar between the doors. I nearly fell into the arms of the fireman who had freed us. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry, so sorry to cause such a lot of trouble, so stupid of me. Thank you, thank you!’

  ‘Not stupid at all, madam. Claustrophobia’s a nasty thing, and I know right enough there’s nothing much to be done about it. Here, sit down and have a glass of water, for I’ll be bound your mouth’s dry as straw.’

  It was, indeed, and the water tasted like heaven. When I had regained something resembling my right mind, I looked around for Alan. He was talking in a low voice to one of the firemen. I stood, only a little tottery now, and went over to him.

  They stopped talking.

  There was something odd about their silence. I looked from one to the other. ‘What? What
’s going on?’

  Alan took my hand. ‘Are you feeling better?’

  I nodded. ‘Much. What’s going on?’ I repeated.

  ‘If you’re sure you’re all right again,’ he said doubtfully.

  ‘Alan, tell me!’

  ‘It’s only that they’ve discovered why the lift wouldn’t go down to the ground floor.’

  ‘Why?’ I asked, knowing from his tone of voice that I wasn’t going to like the answer.

  He took my other hand. ‘Someone’s caught on the springs near the bottom of the shaft.’

  I drew in my breath. ‘Oh, dear God! Alive?’

  ‘No.’

  THREE

  I was very glad Alan had taken my hands. I gulped. ‘Then we … the elevator … Alan, are you telling me we killed someone?’

  ‘They don’t know how the man died. They don’t know anything, really, not even who he is. No one saw the body until they brought the lift up to this floor and stopped it, and someone started down to check the machinery.’

  ‘What do you mean, started down? The blasted thing wouldn’t go down.’

  ‘Sorry, climbed down, I mean. There is machinery at both the top and bottom of the shaft, and ladders so it can be serviced.’

  ‘But isn’t that horribly dangerous? If the cage started to move while someone … oh! Is that what happened?’

  ‘We don’t know, love. Try not to think about it.’

  That’s like being told not, under any circumstances, to think about a pink and green elephant. I gave Alan a look he knows well.

  ‘All right. Why not try thinking about Gillian? This is going to be a terrible ordeal for her, poor girl. Just starting off in her first job, and having, one gathers, to deal with a certain amount of departmental infighting, and then a grisly death on the day of her welcoming party. Quite a lot for a child her age to deal with.’

  ‘For anyone, of any age.’ I loosed my hands and looked around. ‘Where is she?’

  We were, I thought, in the photo department. At least photographs adorned the walls, some of them quite lovely in my eyes. Four or five men were standing around in firemen’s gear, but no women. No Gillian.