G Malliet - Death at the Alma Mater

"I'll want to talk with you further, of course," he told her, and smiled. "Meanwhile, think back for me over everything that's happened. Oh, and I don't have to tell you, do I? No investigating on your own."

"Who, me?"

"You. I mean it, Portia."

She all but stuck out her tongue at him, but she subsided-willingly enough, to all appearances. Why upset him, when all she really intended was to keep her eyes wide open from now on? With a promise to see her when he could, St. Just left to find Sergeant Fear and the Master.

The Master was looking slightly improved by being returned to his natural habitat, like an otter released into a pond, but he was not improved by much. His manner as he waved the policemen to two chairs in front of his desk was distracted, his mind clearly elsewhere. Sergeant Fear, having first discreetly moved his chair to a far corner of the room, pulled out his policeman's notebook and riffled through it to a clean page. He was restless; called out from a rare night at home with the wife and family, half his mind was still with them. Furthermore, with two small children, the sergeant had only recently come to appreciate the value of an unbroken night's sleep. Unconsciously, he snapped the elastic band of the notebook until St. Just turned and silenced him with a "Would you mind?" gaze.

"Put us quickly in the picture, would you please?" St. Just asked the Master. "When was the last time the victim was seen alive?"

At the word "victim" the Master gave another little shudder of distaste.

"Lexy Laurant," he replied with emphasis, "was last seen by me and I should think several others in the Fellows' Garden, talking with Sir James. This was following the dinner. We were all on our way to the SCR for port."

"You saw this yourself? You're certain? Excellent. Tell me: What was her manner? Was she nervous? Upset?"

"They seemed to be having a normal enough conversation, given the circumstances."

"Would you elaborate on the circumstances?"

The Master sighed. "As you will no doubt hear from all and sundry, they were once married. Lexy and Sir James, as he was later to become. Both the marriage and the rapid breakup of it occurred when they were both students here. There was a great deal of unpleasantness. A very great deal. Still, things of that nature have a way of sorting themselves out with the passage of years, don't you find?"

St. Just's experience was that the passage of years could also lead to regret, pent-up anger, and lingering recrimination, but he nodded as if to accept the Master's halcyon view of all things marital.

"Sir James is a writer, you know. Knighted for his contributions. He has had some great success in particular with-now, I want to make sure I get this right: Cygnus and the Northern Cross. I believe that's the title."

St. Just said, "We'll need you to fill us in on the security arrangements at the college. This is why I wanted to speak with you first."

Did he imagine it, or did the Master's shoulders relax slightly at those words? His nervousness was understandable-no one really wanted to be first up in a murder investigation. But his relief at the change of subject, towards mechanics and away from personalities, seemed a tad obvious.

"I see," said the Master. "As to the security arrangements-well, such as they are, I will gladly tell you about them. We have a CCTV system that's a combination of dummy and real cameras." St. Just nodded. He had noticed the bare-bones arrangement at the boathouse. "Anyone could get to the boathouse, although the building itself is kept locked and the keys strictly accounted for. And before curfew, anyone could get into the grounds at the back. It's part of the Porters' duties to patrol, but of course they can't be everywhere. The Fellows' Garden has an outer gate kept locked after curfew following an unfortunate incident in which we found a donkey drinking from the commemorative pond. He wore a Magdalene scarf and a straw boater, as I recall. The undergraduate population, sadly, is not what it was."

There was a moment of silence as St. Just and the Master appeared internally to review the changes wrought by the passage of time, and by the influx of scholarship students. Fear, sitting in his corner like a spider with a notebook, recognized this as one of his superior's techniques: He was good at getting the nobs to let down their hair. Fear tested the point of his Biro against his notebook and waited.

St. Just said at last, "Things are not what they were in my day, I can tell you." Silently he added: Thank God. "Well, I'm sure you will appreciate that we'll need to talk with the Porters, especially whoever was on duty tonight. And I will need a list from you of everyone present in the college this night, including staff, of course. Those in the kitchen, the bedders, and so forth."

"The college servants. Yes, yes, of course. But you can't think-some of them have been here years, since I've been here. Anyway, there's a reduced staff, because of the time of year. We shut up entire areas of the college. It empties out except for the 'orphans' who can't afford to fly home. Even when we're at full capacity, there's often not enough to go around to operate as we'd like," the Master finished sadly.

St. Just said in a commiserating tone, "Not quite what it was in the day?"

"My, no. Not that St. Michael's ever had much of a day, really. But now, we're running this place on a veritable shoestring. You get half what you used to get out of the servants, too."

I'll bet.

"I do hate to trouble you," said St. Just, "but we'll need a room set aside, somewhere where we can conduct our interviews. I think that's much preferable to asking everyone to come to the station, don't you?"

The Master, who had turned several shades paler at the mention of the station, agreed wholeheartedly that holding the interviews at the college would be much the better course.

"I think it would be easiest if you use my study, at least until other arrangements can be made," he added. "You'll have complete privacy here. I hope you won't mind my asking, but how was she killed?"

St. Just told him.

"Oh, dear. Oh, my, oh my. My goodness me." He began wringing his hands again. It was a little like holding a conversation with the White Rabbit. "There's been nothing like this since-well, I shall have to check the archives. Possibly that gambling dispute in the early eighteen hundreds. That ended badly. One dead, but no one sent down for it, thank God. They were able to hush it up rather quickly. Anyway, I'll go and see what I can arrange for you."

"One question before you leave: Who else representing the college was at tonight's dinner?"

"Apart from myself, the Bursar, and the Dean: Portia De'Ath. Also Hermione Jax-she's a Fellow of the college, but she was also here as part of the alumni group."

"We'll need a word with all of them."

"All?" Again, the Master blanched. "The Reverend Otis, as well?"

"I gather he is the Dean? Yes. Is there any reason not to speak with him?"

The Master, as has been noted, regarded the Reverend as a moron at the height of his powers, but thought better of saying so.

"I'm sure it will be all right," he said weakly. This was all spinning far too far out of his control for the Master's liking. The Dean would warble on, saying God knew what, with no one to contain him.

Once the Master had rabbited off, St. Just said to Fear, "Any member of the college would have easy access. And of course there is no limit to the number of old members who might be running around with keys or duplicated keys to heaven knows what-the Master doesn't seem to have taken that into account. It makes it all the more trying, this sort of monk-medieval atmosphere. Not like a murder in a modern block of flats, for example, where one could at least hope for decent video camera surveillance." In fact, many of the colleges had reluctantly gone in for these modern protuberances attached to their stone walls, the unsightliness being the lesser of two evils-the other evil being robbed blind. But St. Mike's clung steadfastly to appearance and tradition, St. Just had noticed; although there were static cameras at the boathouse, which was a relatively modern building, he hadn't noticed them otherwise.