Peter Lovesey: Rough Cider

“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “I’ll ask the girl herself.”

But when I returned to my office, Alice Ashenfelter was no longer there.

I dismissed her from my mind. I had a host of things to do before the end of the afternoon. Everything that could be put off during the week got left for those two precious hours at the end of Friday: letters, phone calls, requisitions, a couple of tutorials, circulars to initial from the dean and the prof, and a visit to the library to equip myself for next week’s lectures.

This session would be my fifth at Reading University, and although I’d never considered myself an academic, having scraped an upper second at Southampton where I was better known as a bridge player than as an historian, there had never been much prospect of anything else. A specialized knowledge of Europe in the Middle Ages didn’t open many doors in 1956. It turned out that the friendly professor at Bristol who offered me a research scholarship was interested mainly in the renaissance of the Senior Common Room bridge club. But with it came some lecturing experience and ultimately the Ph.D. and the move to Reading. There, I made strenuous efforts to fit the image of the thrusting young lecturer. I shaved off my beard, abandoned bridge in favor of snooker, bought a red MG and had it adapted for me to drive, and took a lease on a house by the river at Pangbourne. All in all, life was treating me well-which is when you want to look out.

Towards four I was starting to fill my briefcase when Carol Dangerfield put her head around the door. “Have you got a minute? I thought you might be interested. I’ve been doing some checking. You said the girl in your office was named Ashenfelter?”

“Alice Ashenfelter.”

“Well, she’s not one of ours. There’s no student of that name registered in the university.”

“Is that so?” I said. “I wonder what she was doing in here, then.”

“She didn’t leave a note on your desk or anything?”

“No.” I shifted my papers to check. “There’s nothing here.”

“Funny.”

“What’s funny?”

“Well, I mentioned her to Sally Beach, who runs the bookshop and knows just about everything that goes on in this place, and she said an American girl like that-blond, with glasses and a pigtail-was hanging around the union bar last night asking if anyone knew you.”

I frowned. “Asking for me by name?”

She nodded and gave a quick smile. “You’ve got a secret admirer, Dr. Sinclair.”

“Come off it, Carol. I’ve never clapped eyes on the girl before today. She happened to sit at my table in Ernestine’s this lunchtime.”

“Happened to?”

I fingered the knot of my tie, remembering how it had happened.

“She had a chance to talk to you, then,” said Carol. “Didn’t she say anything?”

“Her name, the town she came from, nothing else of consequence. I didn’t exactly encourage her. I mean, what does she want with me, a total stranger?”

“Perhaps she met you somewhere else, on holiday, for instance, and you’ve forgotten.”

“I wouldn’t forget. She’s, em, unusual. No, I swear I haven’t met her. Well, whatever she wanted, I seem to have frightened her off.”

“Don’t be so sure, Dr. Sinclair,” said Carol, staring out of the window. “It’s getting dark, I know, but isn’t that her down in the car park standing beside your MG?”

I went down to the Senior Common Room to make myself a coffee. The place was deserted except for a couple of cleaning women who had Sinatra’s latest at full volume on the record player in competition with their vacuums. Strictly, they shouldn’t have been in there until five, but they were obviously used to having the place to themselves after four on Fridays. Like everyone else, they didn’t care to hang about at the end of the week. Everyone except me, apparently. They looked at me as if I were an agent of the head caretaker, but I gestured to them to carry on.

Carol Dangerfield would be at the window of her office, waiting to see the next scene played in the staff car park. Would I invite my blond pursuer into my car and drive into the night-with her, or would I hold her at bay with my stick? Well, Carol was in for a disappointment unless she was planning some overtime. I made the coffee, drank it slowly, and practiced snooker shots until well after five.

When I eventually walked out to the car park, it was deserted except for three cars and one girl, reclining against mine. There was a light drizzle on the wind, and you could feel the chill of an October evening. Whiteknights Park is pretty exposed. Alice Ashenfelter was wearing a coat, but she had to be persistent or dedicated or just mad to have stood there so long.

The possibility that she was mad hadn’t occurred to me before. There was a girl living next door to us once who developed a passion for our Conservative Member of Parliament. I mean, a real infatuation. It didn’t matter that he was happily married with three young children. She used to write him passionate letters at the House of Commons. He staunchly ignored them until she started sending them in larger envelopes with pairs of Marks and Spencer panties. Apparently people in public life are subjected to more of that kind of thing than most of us hear about. Anyway, this girl was schizoid. She ended up breaking into the MP’s house at night and getting put away for a few months. The last I heard, she was under permanent sedation.

I nodded to Alice Ashenfelter as if she were just the latest blonde who happened to be leaning against the bonnet of my car on a Friday evening.

She took a step away from the car, clasped her hands in front of her as if in supplication, and said. “Dr. Sinclair, I’m sorry if I embarrassed you, going up to your room like that.”

“It didn’t embarrass me,” I said. “Forget it.”

“I wouldn’t want to be a nuisance to you.”

“You’re not,” I answered with more hope than conviction. “But it’s kind of you to mention it. Good night, miss, er…”

“Where are you going now?”

“Where I generally go at the end of the day: home.” I had the keys out and was fumbling for the door, always an awkward procedure for me.

“Could we talk?”

“Here?” I made it sound like a straight no. I unlocked the door and pulled it open.

“Someplace else. Anyplace you want.”

“I don’t think so.” I dropped my bag and stick into the car and lowered myself onto the seat. The moment I let it take my weight, I knew that I was in trouble.

Alice Ashenfelter said innocently, “It looks like you have a flat tire.”

I can cope with most of the functions necessary to maintain a car. I can change a tire. The only thing is that it involves more effort and more groveling on the ground than it would for a man with two good legs. On a damp surface in my gray worsted suit, it was a prospect that I think justified the mild obscenity I uttered.

The girl said, “I’ll fix it. Where do you keep your tools?”

I considered the offer. I had a pretty strong suspicion that she’d let down the tire. To accept her help would put me under some kind of obligation. Yet try to get a garage to send out a man on a Friday in the rush hour and see how long you have to wait.

I hauled myself upright and unlocked the boot, intending to do the job myself, but her two hands were quicker than my one at lifting out the jack. She didn’t need any help in assembling it, either.

“I can manage without your help,” I said.

“It’s too damn cold for that kind of he-man crap,” said she. “Would you hand me the wrench, please?”

I found myself smiling, and that was fatal. I succumbed to the logic of what she had said. She quickly and competently got on with the job. While she was jacking up the car I unfixed the spare and later I fastened the flat in its place, so I didn’t feel totally redundant.