Peter Lovesey - Swing, Swing Together

“Harriet?” Hardy was on his feet.

“This morning I was planning to show her some of Oxford’s places of interest in return for her kindness to me. I said nothing about it last night, thinking it might make a small surprise this morning. But when I called at her room, she had already gone out. I found one of the hotel staff, a chambermaid, who had seen her go out. She was wearing a muslin skirt she showed me yesterday, calling it the best she had. She had sat in the hotel lobby watching the clock until five to eleven, when she looked in the mirror, powdered her cheeks and went out. Sergeant, she is a stranger to Oxford. I think she had an appointment to meet somebody, and the only person she has spoken to other than me in the last forty-eight hours is John Fernandez.”

“Fernandez?” Hardy clapped his boater on his head. “That’s the man they thought was Jack the … Sergeant, I must find her!”

“Steady, Constable,” cautioned Cribb. “Mrs. Bonner-Hill, you say that she has spoken to Mr. Fernandez. I presume this was at Merton College. How could she have had a conversation with Fernandez without your overhearing it?”

“It was when we were clearing my husband’s rooms yesterday afternoon. I found a letter posted from London addressed to John Fernandez. It had been opened. To save me calling on Mr. Fernandez, whom I didn’t wish to see in the circumstances, Harriet offered to return it. She was gone for long enough to have been persuaded to meet him. He is very difficult to refuse.”

“This letter,” said Cribb. “It would be helpful to know what it said. You didn’t, by any chance …?”

Melanie nodded. “I might as well admit that I did. Before I called Harriet, I opened it. It wasn’t a proper letter at all, for there was no address and no signature. It seemed to be about fishing-an arrangement to meet at half-past eight on Saturday near a railway bridge.”

Cribb brought his clenched fist down on the table with such suddenness that Melanie started in surprise. “Got ’em!” he said. “Mrs. Bonner-Hill, you know Fernandez. Where would he take a lady for lunch?”

“The Clarendon Hotel,” she said at once, and blushed. “Just over the road in the Cornmarket.”

Cribb took out his watch. “Ten to two. Past lunchtime. Better hurry, Constable.”

Hardy was already through the door. As an afterthought Cribb shouted, “You might find ’em in-”

The door slammed.

“-the coffee lounge,” Cribb finished, practically to himself.

“She’s completely inexperienced,” said Melanie. “He’ll take advantage of her. I know him. Oh dear, I feel so responsible.”

“No more than I do, ma’am,” said Cribb, remembering Miss Plummer. “Hardy’s the right man for this. Good in emergencies. Nicely mannered, too.”

“But what if they have left the coffee lounge?” Melanie’s eyes opened wider at this dire possibility.

“I dare say the management would be of assistance in that case, ma’am. Duplicate keys, you know. All’s not lost.”

Melanie was unconvinced. “On an afternoon like this he is more likely to have taken her on the river.” She blinked twice. “He’s not to be trusted in a punt.”

“The river? Do you mean the Isis, ma’am?”

“The Cherwell. And I know exactly where he likes to go. I shall go after Constable Hardy at once and tell him.”

Somebody had to escort Melanie across Carfax to the Clarendon. Consequently, when the telephone rang loud and clear three minutes later, Cribb was deprived of the satisfaction of seeing Thackeray’s jaw sag in surprise, as it surely would have done. More irritating still, he had to walk to the Cornmarket and seek out the two constables to announce the news to them. They were just leaving the Clarendon with Melanie. And Thackeray spoke first.

“Nobody’s seen Fernandez or Harriet here, Sarge. They must have gone somewhere else to lunch.”

“It doesn’t matter where they had lunch if they went on the river afterwards,” chimed in Melanie. “We must go to Magdalen Bridge without delay.”

“We’ll take a cab,” Hardy announced, starting out towards the road with his left hand held high. “You’ve decided to join us after all, then, Sergeant.”

“I have just been speaking on the telephone,” Cribb said, in tones measured to combat the distractions of Cornmarket Street. “The keeper of Abingdon Lock was on the wire to me. Only a few minutes ago a paddle steamer travelling from Oxford to Reading passed through the lock and the captain remarked to him that two passengers had been noticed behaving oddly, standing at the aft end of the boat, away from the other passengers on the upper deck, which has a sun canopy. As one of these two was a lady, carrying no sort of sunshade of her own, although the sun was particularly hot at that time, another passenger very decently went down to the deck and offered her the use of his wife’s parasol. She simply turned her back on him and made no reply. Supposing they must be foreigners who had misunderstood his meaning, he addressed the man in French and was told in very forthright English to mind his own business. He was so insulted that he reported the incident to the captain. After taking a discreet look at them, the captain decided not to pursue the matter. But he related it to the lockkeeper at Abingdon, who was sharp enough to put two and two together and pick up the telephone. They can’t escape us this time.”

“Well, I never!” said Thackeray. “A man and a woman. Who would have thought-”

“ You wouldn’t and that’s plain,” said Cribb ungraciously. “You’re coming with me to arrest ’em, Thackeray. Hardy can cope with Fernandez.”

Hardy had made his priorities patently clear before Cribb had got to the end of his speech by stepping into the road and whistling for a cab he had seen. It pulled up beside the curb.

“This will do,” said Cribb. “What are you waiting for, Thackeray? There’s another one behind for you, Hardy. Whistle him up, man, or he’ll pass you by.”

Harriet reclined against the cushions watching clusters of foliage drift across her vision. She had the interesting sensation that the punt was stationary and the trees were travelling over her head in the direction of Oxford. Common sense dimly insisted that John Fernandez was poling the punt upstream, but common sense was a poor match for dark leaves moving against a blue sky after Chianti and Benedictine.

She should not have accepted the drinks. How many times had she heard Miss Plummer articulate the perils of insobriety? One sip, she would say, one sip will seep into your veins, depriving you of the will to resist the devil and all his works. And she was right! The dear old Plum was right! Harriet on her cushions was unable to resist even the glass of champagne John Fernandez had poured for her after they had pushed off from Magdalen Bridge.

Bubbly, Molly always called it when she talked about it in college. Molly, naturally, knew about champagne, the devil and any of his works you cared to mention. But had she ever shared a bottle of Pommery and Greno’s Extra Sec on a punt with a Fellow of the University of Oxford?

“We shall stop under the willow there,” announced Fernandez, so distantly he might still have been at Magdalen Bridge. “The leaves will form a natural canopy. Do not be alarmed if they brush your face as we pass underneath.”

She closed her eyes and enjoyed the coolness of the shade. Fernandez thrust the pole into the mud below and looped the painter round it. Then he brought the champagne bottle to Harriet’s end of the boat and sat level with her knees. “Before I begin, will you have another glass, Harriet? Of course you will.”