eBook
Available on Compatible NOOK devices, the free NOOK App and in My Digital Library.
Related collections and offers
Overview
Oxford, 1974. In the cellars beneath St Luke's College, a sealed medieval ventilation shaft is opened up to reveal human bones. Two bodies, buried thirty years apart, but is there a connection ...
Desperate to protect the College's reputation - and finances - the bursar, Charlie Swift, hires his old friend, private investigator Jennie Redhead, to find out the identities of the two victims. But as Jennie pieces the clues together, it becomes increasingly clear that Charlie knows rather more about the murders than he's admitted. As she uncovers a series of scandals stretching back more than sixty years, Jennie is forced to question how well she really knows her old friend Charlie Swift - and whether she can trust him...
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781780109336 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Severn House |
| Publication date: | 02/01/2018 |
| Series: | Jennie Redhead Series , #2 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 224 |
| Sales rank: | 735,093 |
| File size: | 894 KB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
7 October 1974
Since the only window in my office looks straight onto a window in the building on the opposite side of the alley, it would seem reasonable to assume that my lack of a view is compensated for by the fact that I am at least sheltered from most of the elements. After all, the wind likes to have a clear run at things, doesn't it – hence the phrase 'wind tunnel'.
All well and good, except that the normal laws of meteorology don't seem to apply here, and my current client and I are being periodically distracted by this particular wind – a harbinger of the chill winter to come – rattling away at the window frame.
I dread a cold winter, as would anyone having to run – and heat – a business and an apartment in the historic city of Oxford.
I turn to my client and ...
Actually, before we go any further, a few words of clarification might be necessary. When I say an 'apartment', what I mean is a bedsit with an attached bathroom which is so small that even the mice are starting to feel hemmed in. And when I say a 'business', I mean a one-roomed office (upstairs from a company with a flashy purple logo, which imports dubious exotic goods from the Far East) located at the unfashionable end of the Iffley Road – an office, furthermore, which is being warmed this October by a paraffin heater, because, as expensive as heating oil is, it is nothing like as ruinous as the amount the robber baron who owns this building would charge me for access to his central heating system.
I'm not complaining about my lot in life, you must understand. I like living in Oxford, and I generally enjoy my work – when I have any work to enjoy. I'm even almost reconciled to the fact that I'm a redhead called Jennie Redhead (my late father always insisted it was genetics, rather than malice on his part, which was responsible for that particular predicament).
But that's all by-the-by. What's bothering me more than the wind and the fuel bills – and this really is bothering me – is the man sitting on the opposite side of my second-hand desk. And the reason that he bothers me is that he wouldn't be here if he wasn't in deep trouble.
Of course, all the people who come to see me are in trouble – tearstained women who suspect their husbands of unfaithfulness, anxious shopkeepers who have no idea which of their 'trusted' employees is stealing the stock – but what makes him different to the rest is that he is no stranger to me.
His name is Charles Edward George Withington Danby Swift. He is a genuine peer of the realm, the greatly respected bursar of St Luke's College, and absolutely my best friend in the whole wide world.
We met during my first week as a student at St Luke's, at a reception in the Master's Garden. I was standing in the middle of the throng – but I was not a part of it. How could I be? They (the rest) were predominantly southern and expensively educated, and when they spoke, it was with an almost lazy – and very confident – drawl. I was northern, state-educated, and with an only semi-refined regional accent.
And then there was the way we were dressed. We were all wearing subfusc (a strict requirement whenever the Master is present), which meant that I had on a dark jacket, white blouse, black bow tie, dark skirt, dark stockings, black shoes and commoners' gown. In other words, I was in the same uniform as every other girl there, and so should have blended in.
Right?
Wrong!
Because all the other girls' outfits had been purchased from top London stores (and no doubt charged to Daddy's account), whereas mine had only been bought from a discount warehouse in Whitebridge, for cash.
Standing there, I felt like a white nag of doubtful lineage which had been painted with black stripes, but didn't fool any of the surrounding thoroughbred zebras for a minute. I felt lonely and alone, and was just about to slip away when someone tapped me lightly on the right shoulder and I heard a plummy voice say,
'Hello, you seem to be a little down in the mouth. What's the matter, my dear – won't the other children play with you?'
I swung around, furious at being so openly ridiculed, and prepared to address the posh boy in language that I assumed he would never have heard before – an assumption which, I was to learn later, was about as far from the truth as it is possible to be.
Charlie was in his early forties then – a tall, stately-looking man with hair the colour of pale straw – and what struck me immediately was that despite his words, the expression on his face was completely free of malice.
'I'd ignore them, if I were you,' he continued. 'They're so terribly cliquish. But then, the nouveau riche always are.'
'The nouveau riche!' I'd repeated incredulously.
'That's right,' Charlie had confirmed. 'Take that chap over there.' He pointed to a typical Hooray Henry. 'I happen to know that only a couple of centuries ago, his family hadn't even got a pot to piss in.'
'Only a couple of centuries ago!' I'd repeated. 'Is that meant to be some kind of joke that only people already in the know would really understand?'
Charlie had assured me it was not a joke, then looked down at the glass of white wine he was holding in his hand.
'This Pinot Gris is perhaps a little too fussy for my taste. What do you think of it?'
What I'd thought was that it was only the third glass of wine I'd ever drunk in my life, and I was in no position to judge.
'I've tasted better,' I'd said, casually.
Charlie had just grinned.
'Have I said something funny?' I'd asked.
'No. I'm smiling because I'm embarrassed.'
'Embarrassed? What about?'
'About putting you in a rather difficult position.'
'I don't understand.'
'I said the wine was a Pinot Gris, but now I realise it's a Chablis, and you – having known from the first sip what it really was – have been wondering whether to correct me or let it pass.'
My rage returned. 'Just what kind of a sick bastard are you —?' I'd begun.
'There's no shame in not knowing about wines, you know,' Charlie had interrupted me.
'There might not be in most places, but it certainly looks like there is here,' I'd replied.
Charlie had looked around him.
'Perhaps you're right,' he'd agreed. 'What I'm really in the mood for now is a pint of best bitter in the Eagle and Child. Would you care to join me?'
'I would,' I'd told him, still in my pre-gin and tonic days. 'I'd like that very much.'
We've been best friends ever since, because despite our different backgrounds and experiences, we have plenty to talk about and can make each other laugh. And OK, it could be said that I find something in Charlie that I never found in my icy, non-communicative dad.
And yes – damn it! – I know that some women are drawn to gays because they know there's no danger with them of being sucked down into the pit of jealousy, dominance and recrimination. But none of that matters, because I love the man, and his worries and problems are my worries and problems.
He's smiling at me awkwardly, as if he doesn't quite know how to state the purpose of his visit.
'I take it that this isn't a social call, Charlie,' I say, in an attempt to kick the conversation into gear.
'No, no, it isn't social,' he says, shaking his head rather too emphatically. 'I'm here to purchase your professional services.'
Professional services! That makes me seem less like a gumshoe and more like a rather high-class call girl, I think.
What I actually say is, 'And what exactly is the nature of the task which requires these special services of mine?'
'Have you ever been down to the cellars under the college?' he says, going off at what – it seems to me – is a tangent.
But Charlie has as sharp and analytical a mind as you're ever likely to come across. He never goes off at tangents! I know that, and he knows I know it. So just what kind of a game is he playing?
'No, I can't say I have been to the cellars,' I say, noncommittally, biding my time.
'Most people automatically assume that there is nothing at all aesthetically pleasing about them – and very often they're quite right in that assumption,' Charlie says. 'But there are exceptions to the rule, and St Luke's cellars are a case in point. The one under the De Courcey Quad is particularly splendid. It was designed by Hubert of Ashby, the late-Medieval theologian. I expect you've read his rather important "Ex Natura Dei".'
'No, I nearly bought the paperback when it first came out, but now I'm waiting for the film to be released,' I say.
'Paperback?' Charlie repeats. 'Film?' Then enlightenment dawns. 'Oh, I see, you're making a joke.'
'That's right.'
And it's even more worrying that he didn't realise I was joking immediately, because the Charlie I know would have.
'Anyway, Hubert was not only a learned theologian, but also an architect and, by the standards of the time, an engineer of some merit.'
'I'll be honest with you, Charlie,' I say, 'just listening to all this stuff is enough to make me lose the will to live.'
But what I'm thinking is: why can't he be straight with his best friend? Why can't he just tell me exactly what it is that's on his mind?
'Recently, there was the problem of a smell – probably linked to sewage – which seemed to have its source in that particular cellar,' Charlie says, speeding up because he's afraid he'll lose his audience before he gets to the punchline. 'The superintendent of buildings – whose judgement on architecture and engineering I'd trust about as much as I'd trust Attila the Hun's judgement on market gardening – decided it came from a sealed medieval ventilation shaft, and ordered the stonemason to open it up, in order to find out what was going on.'
'I see,' I tell him, dramatically tilting my head to one side, as if I've just hanged myself.
You get the point? It's a comic gesture designed to disguise how concerned I'm becoming that my Charlie might have got himself into a real mess.
'The smell wasn't coming from the shaft at all – as the mason found out the moment he'd made a hole large enough to stick his head through – but what he did discover in the hollow behind the wall was some bones,' Charlie says.
Oh Jesus, I think, as the room suddenly grows colder and darker.
'Some bones,' I repeat neutrally.
'That's right,' Charlie agrees.
Is he being evasive? You could say that. I've heard rolling drunks – who could hardly remember their own names – get to the point quicker than he is.
What he's doing, of course, is employing the standard police technique of breaking bad news in stages.
'Your husband has been in an accident, Mrs Jones.'
'Oh my God, was he hurt?'
'Yes, I'm afraid he was.'
'Badly hurt?'
'Yes.'
'He's not ... is he?'
'Yes, I regret to inform you that he's dead.'
'They are human bones, aren't they?' I ask Charlie.
I'm hoping he'll say they were chicken bones, but if that were the case, he wouldn't be here now, would he?
'Yes, they were human,' he admits.
'Have you reported this to the police?'
'Not yet.'
'You must – and as soon as possible!'
'I will report it to the police, I promise you that – but first I need to talk to you,' Charlie says.
'I'm sorry, but I'm not prepared to ...'
'Please, Jennie,' Charlie says, in the voice of a four-year-old who has badly scraped his knees.
'How many bones did he find?' I ask, against what I already know is my better judgement.
'Quite a lot,' he replies, and then he sees the look of growing disapproval on my face and adds, 'Enough for two skeletons, in fact.'
And this last piece of deliberately specific quantification makes my stomach go into freefall – because I now see what he is doing. He is manoeuvring me into a position in which I have to ask questions that I don't want to ask and would probably prefer not to know the answer to.
And beyond that, by making me ask the questions, he is attempting to transform me into some kind of accomplice in his conspiracy – to drag me, in other words, into the swamp where he himself is just about treading water.
If it was anyone else but Charlie, I would ask him to leave immediately – but it is my beloved Charlie, and so I sigh and say, 'Are you telling me there were two bodies behind the wall?'
'Yes.'
'Two complete bodies?'
'Yes.'
'How can you be so sure?'
'I asked one of the college proctors – Patrick Harland Gray – to take a look at them.'
'You asked a man who invigilates examinations and handles complaints to look at these bones of yours.'
'He's not just a proctor; he's also an anatomist of some considerable international standing.'
It just gets worse and worse, doesn't it?
'By what twisted logic did you reach the conclusion that you had to consult me before you informed the police?' I ask.
'Among my many duties and responsibilities, one of the most important is to protect St Luke's,' Charlie says.
'Against what?'
'Against whatever happens to threaten it. In this particular case, it is to protect it against excessive claims for compensation that might be made by the greedy relatives of the two dead men.'
'Is that likely?'
'It's very likely. Everyone knows the college is rich – and therefore fair game – and since we failed to prevent the interment on college ground of men who died under suspicious circumstances – and were possibly even murdered ...'
'Possibly?' I interrupt.
'Given that both their skulls had been stove in from behind, it's more than likely,' Charlie admits.
'Their skulls had been stove in!'
'Didn't I mention that at the start?'
'No, you bloody well didn't!'
'Well, anyway, that's exactly what happened,' Charlie says glibly, 'and, as I was explaining, there is a good case for arguing that we have been, at the very least, negligent. That is why I need to know the victims' identity even before the police do – because it will give me time to look into their respective backgrounds and, based on their domestic circumstances, plan out the nature and extent of our pre-emptive financial offer.'
'So all you want me to do is find out who they were?' I ask, in a tone which is probably a mixture of sarcasm and incredulity.
'That's right,' Charlie agrees.
'And what clues will you be providing me with to assist me in this relatively simple task?'
'Clues?' Charlie says, as if he's never heard the word before, and is repeating it so he'll be sure to remember it the next time someone uses it.
'Clues,' I agree. 'An envelope with an address on it would be a great help, but I'm willing to settle for a clothes label, or a ring with the jeweller's identifying mark inside it.'
'I'm afraid there's nothing like that,' Charlie admits. 'All we have is the bones themselves.'
'Then why have you been wasting my time?' I demand angrily. 'You talk as if the bones have only been there for a short while, but without other evidence, you've no idea how long they've been there. How old is the cellar?'
'It was constructed in 1214.'
'So these bones of yours could actually have lain there for over eight hundred years!'
'No, they couldn't,' Charlie says quietly. 'And I know that for a fact, because I took the left radius from each skeleton over to the science labs.'
The swirling fog thickens; the nightmare tightens up a notch!
'So you've not only messed with the bones at the crime scene, you took some of them away to be experimented on,' I say, just to make certain that – however ridiculous it seems – I've got it right.
'Our labs are better than the police labs,' Charlie says, almost sulkily. 'Our labs are some of the finest in the world.'
In the movies, the scriptwriter or director (or whoever else it is who takes the decision) always portrays the men as calm and collected in situations like this one, while the women – obviously more prone to attacks of hysteria (bastard scriptwriters, bastard directors!) – rummage around helplessly in their handbags for a packet of cigarettes. And as my fingers tunnel through a morass of compacts, perfume, and God knows what else, I am annoyed to realise how closely I am shadowing the stereotype.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Dry Bones"
by .
Copyright © 2017 Lanna Rustage.
Excerpted by permission of Severn House Publishers Limited.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.