On Thursday morning Cathy picked up off the front doormat a purple envelope with her name written in spidery handwriting. She nervously opened the letter to find it contained two sheets of thick paper of the same color. The contents perplexed her, but at the same time brought her considerable relief.
19 Chester Square
LONDON
SW1
November 29th, 1950
Dear Miss Ross,
Thank you for your letter of last Monday, but I fear I can be of little assistance to you with your enquiries. I had two sons, the younger of whom is Nigel who recently separated. His wife now resides in Dorset, with my only grandson, Giles Raymond, aged two.
My elder son was indeed Guy Francis Trentham, who was awarded the Military Cross at the second battle of the Marne, but he died of tuberculosis in 1922 after a long illness. He never married and left no dependants.
The miniature version of his MC went missing soon after Guy had paid a fleeting visit to distant relatives in Melbourne. I am happy to learn of its reappearance after all these years, and would be most grateful if you felt able to return the medal to me at your earliest convenience. I feel sure you would no longer wish to hold on to a family heirloom now that you are fully acquainted with its origins.
Yours sincerely.
Cathy was delighted to discover that Guy Trentham had died two years before she was born. That meant it was quite impossible for her to be related to the man who had caused her future parents-in-law so much distress. The MC must somehow have got into the hands of whoever her father was, she concluded; on balance she felt she ought, however reluctantly, to return the medal to Mrs. Trentham without delay.
After the revelations of Mrs. Trentham's letter, Cathy was doubtful that she would ever be able to find out who her parents were, as she had no immediate plans to return to Australia now that Daniel was so much part of her future. In any case, she had begun to feel that further pursuit of her father had become somewhat pointless.
As Cathy had already told Daniel on the day they met that she had no idea who her parents were, she traveled down to Cambridge that Friday evening with a clear conscience. She was also relieved that her period had at last begun. As the train bumped over the points on its journey to the university city, Cathy could never remember feeling so happy. She fingered the little cross that hung around her neck, now hanging from a gold chain Daniel had given her on her birthday. She was sad to be wearing the memento for the last time: she had already made the decision to send the medal back to Mrs. Trentham following her weekend with Daniel.
The train drew into Cambridge Station only a few minutes after its scheduled time of arrival.
Cathy picked up her small suitcase and strolled out onto the pavement, expecting to find Daniel parked and waiting for her in his MG: he had never once been late since the day they had met. She was disappointed to find no sign of him or his car, and even more surprised when twenty minutes later he still hadn't shown up. She walked back onto the station concourse and placed two pennies in the telephone box before dialing the number that went straight through to Daniel's room. The ringing tone went on and on, but she didn't need to press Button A because no one answered.
Puzzled by not being able to locate him, Cathy left the station once again and asked one of the drivers from the rank to take her to Trinity College.
When the taxi drove into New Court Cathy was even more bemused to discover Daniel's MG was parked in its usual space. She paid the fare and walked across the court to the now familiar staircase.
Cathy felt the least she could do was tease Daniel for failing to pick her up. Was this to be the sort of treatment she could expect once they were married?
Was she now on the same level as any undergraduate who turned up without his weekly essay? She climbed the worn stone steps up to his room and knocked quietly on the door in case he still had a pupil with him. As there was no answer after a second knock, she pushed open the heavy wooden door, having decided that she would just have to wait around until he resumed.
Her scream must have been heard by every resident on staircase B.
The first undergraduate to arrive on the scene found the prostrate body of a young woman lying face down in the middle of the floor. The student fell to his knees, dropped the books he had been carrying by her side and proceeded to be sick all over her. He took a deep breath, turned round as quickly as he could and began to crawl back out of the study past an overturned chair. He was unable to look up again at the sight that had met him when he had first entered the room.
Dr. Trumper continued to swing gently from a beam in the center of the room.
Charlie
1950–1964
Chapter 42
I couldn't sleep for three days. On the fourth morning, along with so many of Daniel's friends, colleagues and undergraduates, I attended his funeral service at Trinity Chapel. I somehow survived that ordeal and the rest of the week, thanks not least to Daphne's organizing everything so calmly and efficiently. Cathy was unable to attend the service as they were still detaining her for observation at Addenbrooke's Hospital.
I stood next to Becky as the choir sang out "Fast Falls the Eventide." My mind drifted as I tried to reconstruct the events of the past three days and make some sort of sense of them. After Daphne had told me that Daniel had taken his own life—whoever selected her to break the news understood the meaning of the word "compassion"—I immediately drove up to Cambridge, having begged her not to tell Becky anything until I knew more of what had actually happened myself. By the time I arrived at Trinity Great Court some two hours later, Daniel's body had already been removed, and they had taken Cathy off to Addenbrooke's, where she was not surprisingly still in a state of shock. The police inspector in charge of the case couldn't have been more considerate. Later, I visited the morgue and identified the body, thanking God that at least Becky hadn't experienced that ice-cold room as the last place she was alone with her son.
"Lord, with me abide . . ."
I told the police that I could think of no reason why Daniel should want to take his own life—that in fact he had just become engaged and I had never known him happier. The inspector then showed me the suicide note: a sheet of foolscap containing a single handwritten paragraph.
"They generally write one, you know," he said.
I didn't know.
I began to read Daniel's neat academic hand:
Now that it's no longer possible for Cathy and me to marry, I have nothing left to live for. For God's sake, take care of the child.
I must have repeated those twenty-eight words to myself over a hundred times and still I couldn't make any sense out of them. A week later the doctor confirmed in his report to the coroner that Cathy was not pregnant and had certainly not suffered a miscarriage. I returned to those words again and again. Was I missing some subtle inference, or was his final message something I could never hope to comprehend fully?
"When other helpers fail . . ."
A forensic expert later discovered some writing paper in the grate, but it had been burned to a cinder and the black, brittle remains yielded no clue. Then they showed me an envelope that the police believed the charred letter must have been sent in and asked if I could identify the writing. I studied the stiff, thin upright hand that had written the words "Dr. Daniel Trumper" in purple ink.