G Malliet - Death of a Cozy Writer

St. Just could never pass the Chapel without thinking of the slow, painstaking decades it had taken a series of medieval stonemasons to fashion it, their names now lost to history. He doubted such a prayer to heaven and mankind could be reproduced in this pre-fabricated, jerry-built century. Whoever had built the horror that was Ruthven’s office wouldn’t have had a clue.

At this time of year, the tag end of full Michaelmas term, Cambridge had been largely depleted of students, and the few pedestrians joining him as he neared Trumpington Street, judging by their clothing, were non-natives of England. He imagined they were mostly graduate students, far from home, shivering, trapped here by penury and distance to work on dissertations on obscure topics that few outside their tutors-and often, including their tutors-would ever read. A man of African descent who appeared to be in his thirties passed St. Just, muttering something under his breath about nuclei.

St. Just turned to cut through Market Square, filled this morning with vendors offering Christmas ornaments, sprigs of holly and mistletoe and pots of poinsettias, and handmade toys and sweaters. He paused by a tray of small, gaily painted wooden trains, wondering if they would make a suitable gift for Sergeant Fear’s baby, due in mere weeks. He felt somehow that Fear’s wife would question the safety of the red and yellow paint, or worry that the baby would swallow the caboose whole. It was difficult on the whole to know what to buy a child in these days of highly educated mothers. A safe room, perhaps.

The offices of Quentin Coffield, Esq., were located down a cobblestone alleyway that snaked out near the right wall of the Cavendish Laboratory. They occupied the first and second floors of a squat, beamed Tudor building, whitewashed and bow-fronted, with dormer windows that seemed to date from a later period; on the ground floor was a shop catering to the tourist trade, selling sweatshirts, T-shirts, and coffee mugs bearing the heraldic emblems of the University and of its various colleges. A sign over narrow wooden stairs to the left of the shop announced he was entering the premises of Coffield, Grant, Crisp, and Barley. St. Just wondered how they all four could fit into the cramped space which revealed itself as he gained the first floor and stooped to enter the dark-beamed doorway.

The young assistant sitting in the antechamber behind a small oak desk was, he imagined, a moonlighting law student. She wore the severe black suit and starched white shirt that was becoming the uniform of young professional women everywhere, her hair tied back in a sleek knot by a stretchy black fabric that looked like a man’s sock. All that was missing to complete the dress-for-success effect were the official black robes and a powdered periwig.

She peered at him suspiciously over thick, horn-rimmed glasses, an accessory making a comeback among the young, he’d noticed, the difference being that she wore them without a trace of the irony he found so touching among most of the students with whom he came in contact. This one would be head of chambers one day, he thought. That, or a hanging judge.

“You would be Detective Chief Inspector St. Just, would you not?” She might have been interrogating a witness in the box.

Perversely, he considered denying it. Instead, he settled for briefly flashing his warrant card and a smile.

“Mr. Coffield is, of course, expecting you,” she said. “Shocking business, this.”

“You knew Sir Adrian, did you?”

“Only in a manner of speaking. I just fill in here during the vacs, you know.” As I fast-forward my way to the Inns of Court, finished St. Just for her silently. “But Sir Adrian was a frequent visitor. Mr. Coffield used to jest that he saw Sir Adrian more frequently than he saw his own wife.” She broke into a wide grin, then, recovering herself, pressed her lips into a stern line. He supposed laughing at the boss’s jokes was Chapter Four in whatever manual she was reading to help propel herself to the top. He just had time to note she had a lovely smile that he felt might take her even further than the starchy black suit might. She couldn’t have been more than twenty, he judged.

“When did you see Sir Adrian last?”

“It couldn’t have been even a week.” She flipped open a calendar diary, running a polished nail over the appointments list. “Here it is. Wednesday.”

Just after his wedding then.

“I gather Sir Adrian made rather a habit of rewriting his will,” he said.

He immediately saw he had overstepped her bounds. Smiling approvingly at Mr. Coffield’s little quips was one thing; betraying client confidentiality was another. Or perhaps her legal training was already teaching her that to say nothing whatsoever to the police was always the best policy.

“Now, that I wouldn’t know.” Slapping shut the calendar, she said, “Let me just see if Mr. Coffield is available.”

The offices of Coffield, Etc., apparently not running to the modern convenience of an intercom, she squeezed her slight frame out from behind the crowded confines of the desk and walked the few steps over to a door at right. Knocking, she peeked her head in and announced his arrival. The answer apparently being in the affirmative, she turned and waved him in. As he thanked her, he was again rewarded by a smile as brief as summer.

The man who rose to greet him was somewhat a surprise, much younger than St. Just could have imagined to have his name listed first in the roster of his lawyerly colleagues. Perhaps thirty-five, no more than forty, with a full mane of dark blonde hair sweeping across a high forehead in accepted Hugh Grant, matinee-idol fashion. In spite of his comparative youth there was a hard glint to Coffield’s eyes as he rapidly took the measure of his visitor. He waved him wordlessly into a leather chair before his massive polished desk. St. Just thought a person could have hidden several large torsos in its side drawers alone, if he were of a mind.

He wasn’t sure he was going to like Mr. Coffield, who had pushed aside his coffee and now sat anticipating St. Just’s first question in a studiedly dispassionate way. Far too polished by half, he thought. He also noticed Coffield didn’t bother with the formality of offering refreshments, one upholder of the law to another. Nor did he offer any of the requisite expressions of regret at Sir Adrian’s “passing.” A small thing, but it bothered St. Just nonetheless. Coffield’s manner seemed to say that the sooner the police could be gotten rid of the sooner he, Coffield, could return to more urgent business. And just what could be more important than murder?

Mentally steeling himself, St. Just sat down, causing the old leather chair to creak in protest.

“You were Sir Adrian’s solicitor, I take it?”

Coffield nodded regally, straightening a pen against a sheaf of papers on his desk.

“For the past three years, yes.”

“I see. I’d gathered from the family you’d handled his affairs for rather longer than that.”

“They’d be thinking of my father, I expect. Passed away three years ago, which is when I took his place in the firm.”

“But you are fully conversant with his affairs? Sir Adrian’s, I mean?”

Here Coffield hesitated. “To a large extent. My father was meticulous in his record keeping-one has to be in this line of work, of course. I gather he and Sir Adrian went back donkey’s years together, which helps explain-in part-the voluminous nature of the files on Sir Adrian.” Here he gestured to a wall to his left, filled with neatly labeled legal boxes. A disproportionately large number bore the name Beauclerk-Fisk.

“I see. And the nature of Sir Adrian’s business with your father?”

“My father was an expert on wills, probate, death duties.” He allowed himself a small smile, visibly expanding. “As am I, even though I read Greats at King’s College. I wanted an academic career, you see. My father convinced me not to be such a fool. Thank God-I think. Being the last word on Plato really doesn’t pay all that well.”