Elizabeth George - For the Sake of Elena

They rode the rest of the distance without conversation, threading through the lorries and taxis on St. John’s Street to make their way down the narrow gorge of Trinity Lane. Lynley parked near the end of Trinity Passage, just outside the north entrance to St. Stephen’s College. Unlocked and pushed open during the day, it offered immediate access to New Court.

“My rooms are this way,” Thorsson said, striding towards the west range of the court which was built on the river. He slid back a slat of wood to uncover his name, painted in white on a black sign by the door, and he entered to the left of the crenellated tower where woodbine grew thickly on the smooth stone walls. Lynley and Havers followed, Lynley having acknowledged Havers’ knowing look at L staircase directly across the lawn on the east range of the court.

Ahead of them, Thorsson pounded up the stairs, his boots barking in staccato against the bare wood. When they caught him up, he was unlocking a door upon a room whose windows overlooked the river, the blazing autumn of the Backs, and Trinity Passage Bridge where at this moment a group of tourists were taking pictures. Thorsson crossed to the windows and dropped his haversack onto a table beneath them. Two ladder-back chairs faced each other there, and he draped his overcoat across the back of one of them and went to a large recess in one corner of the room where a single bed stood.

“I’m done for,” he said, and lay down on his back across the plaid counterpane. He winced as if the position were uncomfortable for him. “Sit if you want.” He gestured to an easy chair and a matching sofa at the foot of the bed, both of them covered with material the colour of wet mud. His intention was clear. The interview that he wished to be conducted on his turf would also be conducted precisely on his terms.

After nearly thirteen years on the force, Lynley was used to encountering displays of bravado, specious or otherwise. He ignored the invitation to sit and took a moment to inspect the collection of volumes in a breakfront bookcase at one side of the room. Poetry, classic fiction, literary criticism printed in English, French, and Swedish, and several volumes of erotica, one of which lay open to a chapter entitled “Her Orgasm.” Lynley smiled wryly. He liked the subtle touch.

At the table, Sergeant Havers was opening her notebook. She produced a pencil from her shoulder bag, and looked at Lynley expectantly. On the bed, Thorsson yawned.

Lynley turned from the bookcase. “Elena Weaver saw a lot of you,” he said.

Thorsson blinked. “Hardly a cause for suspicion, Inspector. I was one of her supervisors.”

“But you saw her outside of her supervisions.”

“Did I?”

“You’d been to her room. More than once, I understand.” Speculatively and as obviously as possible, Lynley ran his eyes the length of the bed. “Did she have her supervisions in here, Mr. Thorsson?”

“Yes. But at the table. I find that young ladies do far better thinking on their bums than on their backs.” Thorsson chuckled. “I can see where you’re heading, Inspector. Let me put your mind at rest. I don’t seduce school girls, even when they invite seduction.”

“Is that what Elena did?”

“They come in here and sit with their pretty legs spread and I get the message. It happens all the time. But I don’t take them up on it.” He yawned again. “I admit I’ve had three or four of them once they’ve graduated, but they’re adults by then and they know the score proper. A bit of dirty hard cock for the weekend, that’s all. Then off they go, warm and tingly, with no questions asked and no commitments made. We have a good time-they probably have a far better time than I, to be frank-and that’s the end of it.”

Lynley wasn’t blind to the fact that Thorsson hadn’t answered his question. The other man was continuing.

“Cambridge senior fellows who have affairs with school girls fit a profile, Inspector, and it never varies. If you’re looking for someone likely to stuff Elena, look for middle-aged, look for married, look for unattractive. Look for generally miserable and outstandingly stupid.”

“Someone completely unlike you,” Havers said from the table.

Thorsson ignored her. “I’m not a madman. I’m not interested in being ruined. And that’s what’s in store for any djavlar typ who makes a mess of himself with an undergraduate-male or female. The scandal’s enough to make him miserable for years.”

“Why do I have the impression that scandal wouldn’t bother you in the least, Mr. Thorsson?” Lynley asked.

Havers added, “Did you actually harass her for sex, Mr. Thorsson?”

Thorsson turned onto his side. He put his eyes on Havers and kept them there. Contempt drew down the corners of his mouth.

“You went to see her Thursday night,” Havers said. “Why? To keep her from doing what she threatened she’d do? I don’t imagine you much wanted her to give your name over to the Master of the College. So what did she tell you? Had she already filed a formal complaint for harassment? Or were you hoping to stop her from doing that?”

“You’re a fucking stupid cow,” Thorsson replied.

Lynley felt quick anger shoot blood to his muscles. But Sergeant Havers, he saw, was not reacting. Instead, she twirled an ashtray slowly beneath her fingers, studying its contents. Her expression was bland.

“Where do you live, Mr. Thorsson?” Lynley asked.

“Off the Fulbourn Road.”

“Are you married?”

“Thank God, no. English women don’t exactly heat my blood.”

“Are you living with someone?”

“No.”

“Did anyone spend the night with you Sunday? Was anyone with you Monday morning?”

Thorsson’s eyes danced away for a fractional instant. “No,” he said. But like most people he did not lie well.

“Elena Weaver was on the cross country team,” Lynley went on. “Did you know that?”

“I might have known. I don’t recall.”

“She ran in the morning. Did you know that?”

“No.”

“She called you ‘Lenny the Lech.’ Did you know that?”

“No.”

“Why did you go to see her Thursday night?”

“I thought we could sort things out if we talked like two adults. I discovered I was wrong.”

“So you knew she was intending to turn you in for harassing her. Is that what she told you Thursday night?”

Thorsson hooted a laugh. He dropped his legs over the side of the bed. “I see the game now. You’re too late, Inspector, if you’re here to sniff up a motive for her murder. That one won’t do. The bitch had already turned me in.”

“He’s got motive,” Havers said. “What happens to one of these University blokes if he gets caught with his hands in some pretty thing’s knickers?”

“Thorsson was fairly clear on that. At the least, I imagine he finds himself ostracised. At the most, dismissed. No matter its politics, ethically the University’s a conservative environment. Academics won’t tolerate one of their fellows becoming entangled with a junior member of his college. Especially a student he’s seeing for supervisions.”

“But why would Thorsson even care what they thought? When d’you think he’d ever fi nd the need to go rubbing elbows with his fellow scholars?”

“He may not need to rub social elbows with them, Havers. He may not even want to. But he’s got to rub academic elbows all the time, and if his colleagues cut him off, he’s ruined his chances for advancement here. That would be the case for all the senior fellows, but I imagine Thorsson has a finer line to walk to move along in his career.”

“Why?”

“A Shakespearean scholar who’s not even English? Here? At Cambridge? I dare say he’s fought hard to get where he is.”