Peter Lovesey - Swing, Swing Together

“I should like to meet Mr. Fernandez. Bonner-Hill had no enemies in the College, you think?”

“I am sure of it.”

“He was murdered, sir.”

“Then you must look outside Merton, Sergeant. First let us see if Fernandez is in his rooms.”

He answered their knock after a delay so long that they were on the point of going away. He had a towel draped over his head and his moustache was glistening with damp. “It’s you, Warden! My word, I do apologize. I had my head over a basin. I was inhaling friar’s balsam, the only remedy I ever found effective for a sore throat.”

“I’m sorry to hear you are indisposed, Fernandez.”

“The crisis is past, Warden, I am confident of that.”

“Are you well enough to spare us a few moments? This is Sergeant Cribb of the police-”

“Police?” Fernandez repeated the word with distaste.

“Investigating the death of poor Bonner-Hill,” the Warden went on.

Fernandez nodded. “Rest his soul, yes. Do come in, gentlemen.”

Cribb turned to the Warden. “I don’t think I need detain you any longer, sir. Mr. Fernandez can tell me everything else, I’m sure. I’d like to see Mr. Bonner-Hill’s rooms before I go, but I’ll speak to the porter about that. Thank you for your time, sir.”

Fernandez, with the towel still draped over his head like a Bedouin, led Cribb into a sitting room with a window overlooking the Fellows’ Quadrangle. One wall was lined to the ceiling with books. The others presented an odd juxtaposition of religious paintings, antique maps and photographs of actresses. Cribb crossed to the window and looked out. “Finish your inhaling, sir. It’s got to be done while the stuff is still hot.”

“I am fully cognizant of that, thank you. I have inhaled sufficiently for now.” From the tone Fernandez used, he must have detected patronage in Cribb’s offer. Unexceptional in height, but broadly built, with hands like a stevedore’s, he was not the sort to provoke. “Pray enlighten me as to how I can be of assistance to the police.”

Cribb had picked up a tiny twist of scarlet feathers from the windowsill. “Fly-fishing. Is that a pastime of yours, sir?”

“Pastime?” Fernandez screwed his face into the expression it had formed when the Warden had mentioned police. “I do not indulge in pastimes, Sergeant. Fly-fishing is a sport. Yes, as you so cleverly deduce, I have taken a few fish with the fly in times past. Of late I have favoured live bait. I fish for pike, although what this has to do with poor-”

“Pike, sir? The large ones. Are there many to be had in Oxford?”

“Sufficient for good sport. The record catch from one of the backwaters weighed twenty-nine pounds. That is no small fish, Sergeant. I nurse a small ambition to take a pike that weighs thirty pounds or more. For some two years I have devoted most of my Saturdays to this quest. I have several times seen one not far from here, a very large one, but it would not take the strike. They are devious adversaries.”

“I understand Mr. Bonner-Hill used to accompany you in your hunt for pike.”

Fernandez held up a finger dramatically. “Now I see the drift of your interrogation! Ah, the subtlety of the detective police! We have got to Bonner-Hill. Yes, Sergeant, he joined my Saturday expeditions two months ago. He was a novice with the rod, but prepared to learn.”

“He was on the river this morning.”

“The morning is a favourable time,” said Fernandez. “I should have been with him myself but for this abominable laryngitis.”

“After his body was taken from the water, we found his punt in Bulstake Stream. His fishing tackle was still aboard.”

“Had he caught anything? I suppose not. Trolling is an art not easily acquired. Bonner-Hill scarcely knew one end of the rod from the other, for all his enthusiasm. Would you care for a sherry?”

“He was murdered, sir,” said Cribb, determined not to be deflected. “Why should anyone choose to murder Mr. Bonner-Hill?”

Fernandez held open his hands. “It is enough for me to fathom the behaviour of a simple fish. I suggest you put your question to somebody who professes to know something about the intricacies of the human mind. In Oxford there are experts upon everything.”

“You saw a powerful lot of Mr. Bonner-Hill, though,” Cribb said in justification.

“No, Sergeant. Kindly do not jump to conclusions. I saw more of Bonner-Hill than others in Merton, but I did not see a powerful lot of him, as you so graphically assert. I am a man with many responsibilities, which often take me away from Oxford for days on end. I frequently visit the Royal Geographical Society in London. I am a member, you understand, and I have the honour to serve on more than one of the committees. If a meeting lasts until the evening, I stay overnight at my club, the Oxford and Cambridge. It would be quite misleading to suggest that Bonner-Hill and I were often in each other’s company. When it was possible, we went fishing together on Saturday mornings, and that was the extent of it.”

“Did he talk to you about his troubles, sir?”

“Troubles?”

“Matrimonial. I understand he left his wife a year ago and moved back into Merton. Have you met Mrs. Bonner-Hill?”

“The murderess? I’ve met her, yes.”

“Did you say ‘murderess’?”

Fernandez smiled. “A frivolous remark, Sergeant. It was Bonner-Hill’s term for her-only, of course, in a jesting sense. She is an actress, you know-very good in romantic comedy. At some point in her career she was persuaded to try a more demanding role. The local newspaper commented that if she and the actor playing Macbeth had murdered Duncan with a modicum of their success in murdering Shakespeare, the play could have stopped at Act One and so prevented further suffering. Uncharitable, but amusing. I saw her in something of Pinero’s at Windsor not long ago and thought her quite enchanting.”

“Why did Bonner-Hill leave her?”

“There you go again, Sergeant, inviting me to speculate on the mysteries of the human mind. I decline the invitation for the reason I gave you before.”

“I thought he might have told you.”

Fernandez tossed his head so vigorously that the towel fell off. “You think he might have told me why he left his wife? How in Heaven’s name do you suppose a subject like that arises between two gentlemen on a fishing expedition?”

“If you tell me it didn’t arise, I must believe you, sir, but my experience is that confidences are frequently exchanged in circumstances like that. The early morning. Nobody about. Two of you sitting in a punt in a quiet backwater waiting for the fish to bite. I’m no angler myself, but I’ve done observation duties in the police that aren’t so different from that and I’ve invariably found that if I have a fellow officer with me, we’ll talk, and before too long he’s telling me about the arguments he has with his wife and I’m telling tales about my days in the army. The most reticent of men become talkative when there’s no one else about and three or four hours to pass.” Cribb gave a short laugh. “Perhaps you did all the talking, sir. Poured out so many confidences that Bonner-Hill couldn’t get a word in edgeways.”

Fernandez crossed the room to within a yard of Cribb, his eyes alarmingly red-lidded. “What are you saying? What are you implying about me?”

Cribb put up a placatory hand. “One moment, sir. I don’t think I’m implying anything. I’m simply trying to assist your recollection of those fishing expeditions in case Bonner-Hill told you something that might be pertinent to my inquiries. When did you last speak to him? There’s a straightforward question for you!”

Fernandez continued to stare inhospitably at Cribb for several seconds more before replying, “Last night, after dinner.”