pleasantly, while wrapping a yellow scarf around his neck.
“Yes,” I say. I blink. “I was just speaking with your colleague.” The other porter pops up from whatever he’s doing underneath the counter. Stacking parcels, fixing a chair leg?
“It’s the end of my shift. I was just getting my coat.” Louis’s eyes flick towards the back of the room, and a tall coat stand in the corner. That’s where he was, donning his coat. Nothing’s off except for me.
“Right,” I say. “Right. Louis? You said Mathilde Oliver’s not a student?”
“Oh, no, no.” The porters share a look. “She works at the Registrar’s office,” Louis says. “Part time.” He explains, in brief, her role with insufficient addresses. The Katja letter would almost certainly have been one of those. “And,” he adds, halfway out the door, “did you notice the name I starred? George Hart-Fraser?”
The page had gone into my pocket with the phone. I pull it out again and shake it open. There, in the middle: George Hart-Fraser*
“George worked closely with Dr. Oliver, Mathilde’s father. And he was Grace Rhys’s supervisor. He would be a good person to talk to, if you want to know anything more about her time here.” His office and home addresses were written in neat block letters beside the name. Knew them both? That’s certainly of interest. And his address: Brookside,one of the quiet streets parallel to the traffic of Trumpington Road. That’s where the hammer and shirt had been found.… “He was late,” the porter sniffs.
Dead? No. Not that kind of late. I had to get it together.
“He was late to the memorial. It was incredibly rude.”
And he would have been wearing a dark suit. There’s going to be very little we can do to prove that Mathilde’s death was murder, but if it had been done because she’d got too close to the identity of the body in the fens, we could at least catch the man for that one.
I thank him, but it’s suddenly Chloe in the doorway, not Louis anymore. I flinch. Somehow I’m failing to follow transitions. My life has become a homemade animation, where the picture changes drastically, just once every second, instead of a hundred incremental times. “Where is he?” she wants to know. She means Stephen.
I look towards the Head Porter’s office. The door is shut, as I’d left it. The new porter—I check his name on the photo board; he’s Jonathan—says, “Louis tells me you have a guest with us.” He reaches out and turns the knob. The door falls open.
I blow out my pent-up breath. Stephen is still there, still in the rolling chair, now hunched over the desk, reading an open newspaper. He’s shaking.
“Stephen?” I prompt him. His head swivels round on his neck. The look in his eyes keeps me back.
“I lent her my red sweater. Blue-striped cuffs. I’d bought it at an Oxfam in Leeds,” he says. “It had been ‘lovingly knitted by June Marks.’ I always thought her son or nephew must have been a shit for discarding it. Jesus Christ.”
He looks like he’s going to be sick. Chloe and I pull him up to standing, and guide him outside to her car, to take him to Parkside station for questioning.
CHAPTER 12
GRACE RHYS
MICHAELMAS TERM, LAST NOVEMBER
T here were a lot of locks.
The huge wooden doors at the college gate always shut at seven p.m., leaving a normal-sized cutout door within one of them for use until eleven. Then that’s locked. That’s what the college A20 key is for, and also for the post room and laundry room, and the door out the back of college onto Free School Lane. Then there was my room key, a key for my cupboard in the kitchen, and my uni card for getting into the new library. I had a key for my bike lock, which is one of those heavy D-shaped ones that can’t be cut. I had a key to our house at home in Milton Keynes, but, with Mum and Shep on a long-deferred honeymoon, that was rented out. Altogether my keys made a sharp, jangling lump in the corner of
“Yes,” I say. I blink. “I was just speaking with your colleague.” The other porter pops up from whatever he’s doing underneath the counter. Stacking parcels, fixing a chair leg?
“It’s the end of my shift. I was just getting my coat.” Louis’s eyes flick towards the back of the room, and a tall coat stand in the corner. That’s where he was, donning his coat. Nothing’s off except for me.
“Right,” I say. “Right. Louis? You said Mathilde Oliver’s not a student?”
“Oh, no, no.” The porters share a look. “She works at the Registrar’s office,” Louis says. “Part time.” He explains, in brief, her role with insufficient addresses. The Katja letter would almost certainly have been one of those. “And,” he adds, halfway out the door, “did you notice the name I starred? George Hart-Fraser?”
The page had gone into my pocket with the phone. I pull it out again and shake it open. There, in the middle: George Hart-Fraser*
“George worked closely with Dr. Oliver, Mathilde’s father. And he was Grace Rhys’s supervisor. He would be a good person to talk to, if you want to know anything more about her time here.” His office and home addresses were written in neat block letters beside the name. Knew them both? That’s certainly of interest. And his address: Brookside,one of the quiet streets parallel to the traffic of Trumpington Road. That’s where the hammer and shirt had been found.… “He was late,” the porter sniffs.
Dead? No. Not that kind of late. I had to get it together.
“He was late to the memorial. It was incredibly rude.”
And he would have been wearing a dark suit. There’s going to be very little we can do to prove that Mathilde’s death was murder, but if it had been done because she’d got too close to the identity of the body in the fens, we could at least catch the man for that one.
I thank him, but it’s suddenly Chloe in the doorway, not Louis anymore. I flinch. Somehow I’m failing to follow transitions. My life has become a homemade animation, where the picture changes drastically, just once every second, instead of a hundred incremental times. “Where is he?” she wants to know. She means Stephen.
I look towards the Head Porter’s office. The door is shut, as I’d left it. The new porter—I check his name on the photo board; he’s Jonathan—says, “Louis tells me you have a guest with us.” He reaches out and turns the knob. The door falls open.
I blow out my pent-up breath. Stephen is still there, still in the rolling chair, now hunched over the desk, reading an open newspaper. He’s shaking.
“Stephen?” I prompt him. His head swivels round on his neck. The look in his eyes keeps me back.
“I lent her my red sweater. Blue-striped cuffs. I’d bought it at an Oxfam in Leeds,” he says. “It had been ‘lovingly knitted by June Marks.’ I always thought her son or nephew must have been a shit for discarding it. Jesus Christ.”
He looks like he’s going to be sick. Chloe and I pull him up to standing, and guide him outside to her car, to take him to Parkside station for questioning.
CHAPTER 12
GRACE RHYS
MICHAELMAS TERM, LAST NOVEMBER
T here were a lot of locks.
The huge wooden doors at the college gate always shut at seven p.m., leaving a normal-sized cutout door within one of them for use until eleven. Then that’s locked. That’s what the college A20 key is for, and also for the post room and laundry room, and the door out the back of college onto Free School Lane. Then there was my room key, a key for my cupboard in the kitchen, and my uni card for getting into the new library. I had a key for my bike lock, which is one of those heavy D-shaped ones that can’t be cut. I had a key to our house at home in Milton Keynes, but, with Mum and Shep on a long-deferred honeymoon, that was rented out. Altogether my keys made a sharp, jangling lump in the corner of
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