Reginald Hill - An Advancement of Learning

“What the hell are you doing to that poor kid?’ demanded Ellie angrily.

“For Christ’s sake, I’d never have believed it. You’re like the bloody SS. Those sergeant’s stripes go all the way through, don’t they?”

Pascoe threw up his hands in mock bewilderment.

That poor kid as you call her was big enough and old enough to enjoy a moonlight orgy after which a girl got herself killed.

She also probably gets high pretty frequently on cannabis and doubtless does a bit of dabbling in the supernatural on the side. I should think she can stand a few straight questions from a policeman.”

“What the hell are you on about? You mean…’ For a few seconds Ellie was lost for words. For a few seconds.

“Look. OK. What’s the difference? If that’s the way she likes her sex, what’s it to you? It’s a lot to her though; these others, students, it’s nothing to them, a bit of embarrassment at home if mummy and daddy get to hear of it, but that’s all. But it’s that girl’s job. She’s not just a skivvy, she’s doing a training course in catering. And this kind of thing could easily get her chucked out on her ear.”

Pascoe shrugged.

“I’m sorry. It won’t come to that. There’s probably nothing she can tell us, no more than the students we’ve talked to. It’s unimportant.”

“Unimportant! You didn’t make her feel it was unimportant!”

“No. I’m sorry. Excuse me.”

He picked up the phone again and dialled Dalziel’s room. There was no reply, so he tried the study.

“Superintendent Dalziel.” “Pascoe, sir. I thought you’d like to know I’ve identified the owner of that bra found in the dunes. Elizabeth Andrews, the girl who brings our meals.”

There was a snort at the other end of the line.

“Yes, I know. I saw her leaving Roote’s room the other night. Is that all?”

“Well, yes sir. I thought she might have been keeping an eye on us for some reason.”

“You haven’t talked to her?”

“Well, yes, I have.”

“Oh God,’ groaned Dalziel. ‘ I’ll probably have my meals brought by some sour-faced harridan.”

The phone was slammed down.

“Well,’ said Ellie who had come close enough to hear both sides of the conversation. ‘ didn’t seem madly impressed. Strange. I should have thought the graduate wonder would always be miles ahead of the nonintellectual bluebottle.”

“He should have told me.”

“Poor sergeant,’ laughed Ellie, much mollified by his discomfiture.

“Doesn’t the nasty super tell you everything then?”

He grabbed her violently and kissed her till she gasped in pain.

“Let’s go and start an orgy in the dunes,’ she whispered.

“This will do me fine.”

He kissed her again. Outside a bell began to ring and there was a distant confusion of voices.

“What’s that?’ he asked lifting his head.

“It’s the Union. There’s a students’ meeting tonight. They summon them like going to church.”

“Why? What’s up?”

“Nothing. That’s the trouble. They’ve been organizing protests and boycotts on a small scale all year, but the big issue was going to break loose if she wasn’t reinstated. And all hell was breaking loose because Fallowfield refused to acknowledge the right of student governors to be present when he was giving evidence. But now Anita’s dead, they’ve lost their cause. No doubt they’ll find another.” “If we don’t hurry, I’ll lose my cause,’ said Pascoe.

“Softly, softly. There’s a long night ahead,’ said Ellie drawing his head down again.

The big black buttons, he was pleased to find, were functional as well as decorative.

“Order, order,’ murmured Franny. ‘ the meeting come to order?”

He tapped his gavel gently twice on the table across which he surveyed the assembled members of his Union. There had been a good turn-out, considering the fact that this was a very warm Saturday evening in June, and it would not be necessary for Stuart to use any of the complicated manoeuvres he had devised for overcoming the lack of a quorum.

Cockshut was at present on his feet refusing to give way to a thin, spectacled, crew-cutted youth who was attempting to turn a point of information into a speech. The secretary stood impassive, calculating the feeling of the meeting and watching Franny carefully. He observed the chairman’s enjoyment of the situation, his sense of self-parody as he requested order in a voice which even Stuart, who as secretary was positioned at one end of the official table, could hardly hear.

A clown, thought Stuart. A self-centred, amoral, socially non-productive clown. He had known him for three years now and was still unsure how seriously the man took his own claims. He himself had never concealed his own scepticism for all the mumbo-jumbo of seances and magic ritual which Franny delighted in. And his philosophy, if it merited so respectable a title, was a lot of meaningless, anti-social crap. But the man had something; power, charisma, call it what you will. Such men had to be used, though never trusted. It had been wiser to join him rather than oppose him, Stuart reassured himself; politically wiser he meant, of course, uneasily aware at the back of his mind of the whole range of sensual delights the union had procured for him. Nor, he had to admit, had the political education of the college proceeded at quite the speed he had hoped for. The place was still fragmented, divided.

He was in his final year now. There was a career in protest these days for the dedicated true-believer, which was what he was. They thought highly of him at the International Action Group HQ. But despite all his efforts, little of note in the world of student politics had taken place here. Poor Anita had seemed the best bet, though it had been Franny who masterminded that. In fact in his more pessimistic moments, Stuart sometimes felt that his pretence of lieutenantship was becoming a little too real.

But tonight, if he moved with care, they might get some concerted action at last.

The interrupter sat down and Stuart resumed his speech.

“I think we have been patient long enough; there comes an end to patience. We have delayed action long enough; there comes a time for action. Anita Sewell’s death was a terrible thing; but it should not be allowed to obscure the authoritarian, anachronistic and cavalier fashion in which she was treated before her death. And since her death, arising out of it in fact, we have had other instances of the relatively insignificant and subordinate role we are expected to play in this college. At the principal’s request, the staff are kept fully informed of the developments of this unpleasant business. But what of us? It’s one of us who is murdered, it is the rest of us who may still be in danger. What danger? you ask. How can I tell you when no one will tell us anything? No; the only approaches made to any of the student body by the police have been high-handed, arrogant, and worse still, they have often revealed a depth of background knowledge about individuals which can only have come from their getting access to so-called confidential files of a type we have been assured does not exist!”

There was very satisfying uproar at this point. Franny and Stuart permitted themselves a brief shared smile, and rumours of the noise were once again borne on the still air to Pascoe’s room, but neither of the inmates was in the least disturbed.