Peter Lovesey - Swing, Swing Together

The “really” gave Melanie the chance, if she wished, of pressing the point, but she was not going to risk a stronger rebuff. “You’re right, my dear. Possibly he left it here when he was calling on Harry. Oh dear, I wish it wasn’t addressed to him, of all the people in Merton, though. I suppose I could hand it to the porter to give to him, but it looks so pointed when his room is just across the passage.”

“Let me take it,” offered Harriet, hoping her eagerness was not too apparent. When Melanie had suggested spending the afternoon in Merton, the possibility of a second meeting with Fernandez had crossed her mind, but she had seen no way of taking the initiative. “I met Mr. Fernandez this morning.”

“Would you? What a thoughtful suggestion! I am not comfortable with the man, as I think I mentioned this morning. I should not go inside, my dear, even if he invites you.”

“I shall not,” said Harriet. “It would not be proper.”

The card on the door read J. Fernandez, M.A., but the envelope in Harriet’s hand was less formal: Mr. John Fernandez, Merton College, Oxford. The postmark was London, 23 Aug. 89 -a week ago. She examined the neatly severed envelope, even put her fingers inside and satisfied herself that it contained a letter, but she did not take it out. That would have been too demeaning after the conversation with Melanie.

She knocked and held her breath, waiting to see if he was in. He might so easily have decided to go out for a Sunday afternoon stroll, making up on the fresh air now that his throat was better. How did she know it was better? In the chapel he had sung more lustily than the Warden and the other Fellows together.

Footsteps ended the uncertainty. Fernandez opened the door, blinked in surprise, and said, “How very delightful. Let me see. It’s Miss Harriet Shaw, is it not?” His hand went to his hair and made sure that it was flat.

She smiled. “Yes, I’m sorry to disturb you-”

“Not at all. Won’t you come in?” He opened the door fully and stepped back with it.

“Thank you, but no,” Harriet firmly replied. “I have just come to return a letter addressed to you which Mrs. Bonner-Hill found in her husband’s rooms. We are sorting through his things, you see.”

He took the letter, glanced at the writing on the envelope and pocketed it. “Careless of me. I must have left it when I spoke to him on Friday evening. I wasn’t my usual self at all. Had a confounded nasty bout of laryngitis.”

“You’re better now, I hope?”

“Immeasurably, Miss Shaw, immeasurably. If I may presume to say so, I felt a distinct improvement in chapel this morning when I saw that our little congregation was not quite the same as usual. And when you mentioned afterwards that you had an interest in geography, my recuperation was complete. Is it physical?”

Harriet felt a tingling of her cheeks. “I beg your pardon.”

Fernandez smiled. “The geography, my dear. Is your interest mainly in the natural features of the earth’s surface?” “Oh. I understand. Yes, I particularly enjoy looking at maps.”

“A cartographer, too! We seem to have so much in common. Are you sure you won’t step inside for a few minutes? I have a collection of maps which is certain to interest you, including, I may say, a copy of a sixteenth-century chart said to have been used by Magellan.”

“You are most generous, sir, but I must return to Mrs. Bonner-Hill. I am here to keep her company, you see. She is likely to become depressed if I leave her for long.”

He nodded resignedly. “Yes, from my slender acquaintance with Mrs. Bonner-Hill, I would expect her to be easily agitated. Well, Miss Shaw”-he took a step towards Harriet-“I shall let you go upon one condition, and that is that you allow me to meet you tomorrow morning at eleven o’clock at the entrance to the Bodleian Library. It is not renowned for its maps, but I suppose I am the foremost authority in Oxford on those that are there, and I should be most honoured to show them to you.”

“That is very obliging of you, sir, but-”

“You cannot refuse,” said Fernandez.

“I shall have to see how Mrs. Bonner-Hill proposes spending the morning. If she should require my company …” Harriet was already determined that nothing would stop her from keeping this engagement, but she was not so naive as to let Fernandez know. It did no harm to introduce a little uncertainty into one’s dealings with gentlemen.

“It would be kindest not to tell her of our arrangement,” Fernandez suggested. “I should not like her to think that we discovered our mutual interest in geography as an indirect consequence of her husband’s death.”

“I shall not mention the matter to a soul,” said Harriet, and meant it. Her cultivation of Fernandez was her own business. She was uniquely placed to find out why somebody had meant to murder him.

Twenty minutes after Harriet had left, Fernandez had a second caller: Sergeant Cribb.

Harriet, back in Bonner-Hill’s rooms packing shirts into the trunk, did not look up as the sergeant made his way round the Fellows’ Quad. If she had, she might have wondered what he was doing in Merton. That he was there to follow up her theory that Bonner-Hill had been murdered in error would not have occurred to her. At the police station, her contribution had been totally eclipsed by Constable Hardy’s.

She did not understand that Cribb was a strict observer of priorities. First, he had done what was of paramount importance, released Humberstone, Lucifer and Gold, at the same time assuring them that no charges were to be preferred on any of the matters which had come to his attention. Then he had taken a solitary, ruminative lunch. Over the roast beef he had assessed the consequences of the collapse of his case against the three men. He was left with no suspects and, worse, no logical explanation for the murders. Over the apple pie with cream he had begun to think about what Harriet had said.

A strong black coffee, and he was on his way to Merton College.

Fernandez whisked open the door with such a winning smile that Cribb took half a step backwards.

Order was swiftly restored. “I supposed you were somebody else,” Fernandez explained, frowning.

To make things absolutely clear, Cribb reminded him of their last meeting. “I’d like a few words more with you, if that’s possible, sir,” he went on. “You know how it is-things come to you afterwards that you should have asked about before. Might I come in, sir? I wouldn’t care to be overheard.”

In the sitting room, Fernandez took a stance at the fireplace and motioned Cribb towards a chaise longue. The wall behind it fairly bristled with actresses and angels.

“I’ll take the window seat, if it’s all the same to you, sir. I was wanting to talk to you about the late Mr. Bonner-Hill.”

Fernandez shrugged. “I hardly expected you were here to discuss the weather.”

“I was hoping you might know what led him to go out on the river yesterday morning.”

“Nothing led him there,” said Fernandez. “He went of his own volition.”

“It was the first time he’d ever been out like that, fishing on a Saturday morning quite alone.”

“True, but he was becoming interested in the sport.”

“How long had he been going out with you on your fishing expeditions, sir?”

“I told you that before,” Fernandez said, as if he were addressing an undergraduate. “Two months. No more.”

“So you did, sir. But you’ve been doing this for two years yourself. Every Saturday.”