G Malliet - Death at the Alma Mater

"The psychology of the crime, like?"

"Exactly like. From what we know, she was a harmless enough soul, for all her failings-no threat to anyone but herself, perhaps. If she was killed cold-bloodedly, as the case may have been, we have an extremely dangerous killer on our hands. One who, having gotten away with it, would have no compunction about killing again, the next time someone got in her or his way, for any reason.

"Let us take, for example, India. A horsewoman, and, like her son, physically fit, given over to outdoor pursuits. A woman comfortable holding the reins of a horse, and holding a horse's reins so many years would make one strong-more to the point, make one's hands strong. We can't discount her. The only question is, to what degree did she see Lexy as a threat to her, to her marriage?"

Before St. Just's eyes now arose the specter of Hermione springing from the shadows, wielding a deadly scull. Not impossible, of course, despite Lexy's advantage of youth.

"Might India," he said aloud, following his earlier thought, "along with even the older Hermione, have had the advantage over the younger but more ethereal Lexy in a struggle to the death? Because if the blow to the head had failed to connect, if Lexy had not been hit forcefully enough to be rendered helpless, the killer had to be prepared and able to deal with an awake, enraged, and frightened victim, pumped full of adrenaline. One would have to be sure of one's physical superiority in case of such an eventuality."

He drummed his fingers on the battered desk in frustration. Some memory flitted at the edge of his mind, a memory connected somehow with the little gargoyle overlooking the Fellows' Garden, the evil little fellow who was all claws and pointed ears, the fellow who had a water spout where his mouth should be. He'd been clutching a club or mace, perhaps even an oar or some kind of boat paddle. It was difficult to say, time having eroded the stone, blurring the edges. Much like my thinking. St. Just shook his head. It would come to him.

"What I don't see," he went on slowly, "is how the break-in to her room plays into this. A break-in where nothing was taken, she claimed, although a prescription container does seem to be missing. Sergeant," and here Fear, who had let his mind wander as he pondered the theftless break-in, sat up straighter, "if you were trying to hide something, would you use a frequently used room-hide it in plain sight, a la Edgar Allen Poe-or would you use a room you thought would be empty? Yes, the timing of the break-in is very suggestive. A break-in where nothing was taken," he repeated. "What does that say to you?"

Fear shrugged. "They didn't find what they wanted?"

"That's one explanation, yes. The other is that she didn't want to admit what was taken. Find out who normally would have occupied her room. We'll need to eliminate their fingerprints."

"Fingerprints?" asked Sergeant Fear. St. Just explained what he wanted.

As the sergeant repeated the orders into his mobile, the gargoyle came creeping back into St. Just's mind, watching him and Portia as they watched the pigeon consecrate the statue of Titus Barron.

"Oh, and one other thing," he said to Fear when he'd rung off. "We'll probably need someone standing by to dredge up that river. Don't forget to call your wife."

As St. Just was reaching for his own phone to call Portia, the instrument began to ring. An ordinary ring, no instruments blaring, no mosquito buzz (which he wouldn't have been able to hear in any event), but not an ordinary call. As it turned out, an immediate full-scale dredging of the river was unnecessary. Divers already dispatched to St. Mike's had been able to recover an object of interest amongst the usual jetsam found in a busy river, news of which object they dispatched with all haste to St. Just.

St. Just and Sergeant Fear pulled up to the college, the sergeant, as if celebrating his liberation from enforced stillness, exuberantly spraying gravel as he spun the car to a full stop. Constable Brummond ran out to greet them. Expecting no more than an update on the river discovery, St. Just was puzzled by the look of alarm on the constable's face.

"Come quickly, Sir. The ambulance is on its way."

"Ambulance?" said St. Just and Sergeant Fear together.

Brummond didn't stop to explain, but led the way up the main staircase. With a sickening certainty, St. Just began to realize where he was leading them.

A bedder stood outside the oak door, a button-faced woman of perhaps fifty years, gray-haired, red-eyed, and weeping into her dustcloth. Automatically, St. Just pulled a pristine handkerchief from his suit jacket and pressed it into the woman's hand.

"She was a good girl!" she loudly informed St. Just. "There was no harm in her."

"Saffron. Yes, she was," said St. Just.

"Folk just had to look past all the makeup and earrings and such," she went on. "That was just her playing at being grown up. She was no more than a child!" St. Just noticed the woman was gripping an exercise book. Someone had decorated it in metallic swirls and flowers.

"What is that you have there?"

She looked down at her hands as if the object had leapt into them. Quickly, she handed it to St. Just.

"She always kept this under her pillow. It was her diary, I reckon. When I was… trying to help her just now… I don't know how I come to be holding it." She added quickly, "I never read it. I respect their privacy, I do that."

"What is your name, please?"

"Marigold. Marigold Arkwright."

"Marigold, this is important. Was she able to say anything to you?"

She shook her head. "Not really. She was delirious, calling for Sebastian, and for her father."

Brummond signaled him over and whispered. Turning to Sergeant Fear, St. Just said, "Call someone to stay with Ms. Arkwright. Don't leave her. She's in shock. Now, Brummond, what's all this about?" St. Just followed him into Saffron's room. -- St. Just and Sergeant Fear waited in their temporary office off the main library, giving the team space to work in Saffron's small room. St. Just read her latest entries in the exercise book. Closing it, he smacked the pages against the desk and said:

"The silly child. The bedder had that right. No more than a child. Of all the numbty-headed things to do…"

"Suicide, Sir?"

St. Just shook his head. "Murder. There were chocolates by her bed, and an opened bottle of cola, and I'd lay odds we'll find one or both have been tampered with. She's been snooping. 'Detecting.' It's all in here," he pointed to the garish little book. "It's partly a diary or journal, all right, but she's taken real events and tried to turn them into one of her favorite detective stories. She writes about what she saw the night of the murder, which was three different people in the vicinity of the boathouse. Three people who said they were somewhere else. We're narrowing it down, Sergeant. Narrowing it down."

"Where did the stuff come from, Sir? The poison, or the drugs?"

"Any drug taken in great quantity is a poison, Sergeant. We may know more when they're through going over Lexy's room. But let me clear up one mystery for you now. Sebastian admitted to Brummond he was on occasion using some of the empty college rooms for overflow storage for his illegal trade. They're comparing prints from his room with the unexplained prints they found in Lexy's room to be sure. I think we'll find some of the prints belong to Sebastian, some to the room's usual occupant. The prints he could easily explain away, of course. But now, according to Brummond, Sebastian hasn't been seen since he saw a team going over Lexy's room yet again. Apparently, he's gone missing… and just as we find the girl like that, surrounded by a regular pharmacopeia. It is not looking good for our Sebastian, although he swears he had nothing to do with Lexy's missing drugs."