A look of hurt came over her face, and Kathy saw a tear form in her eye. She wondered if Tina had been in love with Marion. ‘Didn’t you mind that, Tina?’ she said carefully.
Tina sniffed and shook off the question. ‘I thought it was really mysterious and interesting how she kept things dark. But now I wonder if she was afraid.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Well, afraid that bad things might happen if she let the different parts of her life come together.’
‘Did she ever mention being afraid of someone in particular?’
‘No, not in so many words. But when something like this happens you look back at everything and wonder, don’t you? I remember one time we were walking across the river, and she suddenly jumped, as if she’d seen someone, and as soon as we got to the other side she dashed off with hardly a word.’
‘I see.’
Kathy showed her the picture of Rafferty. The girl hesitated. ‘I’m not sure.’
‘What sort of research work was Marion doing?’
‘It was all to do with William Morris and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood-that’s what she was doing her doctorate on as well. Pretty boring really, but it was good for me-my Eng. Lit. lecturer is mad keen on them and there’s bound to be exam questions. He’s her supervisor too.’
‘That’s Dr da Silva, isn’t it?’
‘That’s right.’
‘What’s he like?’
‘Fancies himself. You know, shows off to the girls in class. Tells us about these papers he’s given at conferences around the world with lots of other important wankers like himself.’
Kathy smiled. ‘How did Marion put up with that?’
‘She could handle it. He’s supposed to be a world authority on the Pre-Raphaelites, so I suppose she didn’t have much choice.’
‘And Marion was particularly keen on that period.’
‘Oh yes. The way she talked about Dante Gabriel Rossetti, it sounded like he was the only man she’d ever really loved.’
‘But he’s dead?’
Tina nodded. ‘Yeah, over a hundred years ago. Sad, really-for Marion I mean.’
‘What did you do for Marion, exactly?’
‘Library searches, mostly.’ Tina’s expression softened as she explained, as if this was a part of her life that had gone well. ‘I wasn’t looking at the main Pre-Raphaelite literature-that’s what she was working on. But she wanted me to poke around the edges: old newspapers, memoirs, court records, books, diaries-anything really-by people who might have seen them from another angle, like doctors, lawyers, relatives, other writers and painters. She gave me lists of key words to work from. Marion said the most important thing was the choice of key words.’
‘Can I see them?’
The girl looked doubtful. ‘I don’t think they’ll mean much, but okay.’ She got to her feet and went to her room, returning with a folded sheet of paper. ‘This was the original list. From time to time she’d add new words. This is a copy; you can keep it.’
‘Thanks.’ Kathy scanned the words, mostly names that meant little to her: Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Siddal
Jane (Janey) Burden/Morris
Fanny Cornforth
Annie Miller
Lena Wardle
George Wardle
Madeleine Smith
James Smith
H. Haverlock
Poison
Arsenic
Laudanum
Suicide/suicide pact
Ophelia
The Awakening Conscience
Guenevere
Kathy pointed to the words Poison and Arsenic and asked Tina, ‘Why these?’
‘Oh, it comes up all the time, you’d be surprised. The Victorians used arsenic for all kinds of stuff.’ She caught the puzzled look on Kathy’s face, and said, ‘You think she was deliberately poisoned by someone, don’t you?’
‘It seems probable. Can you think of anyone who would have hated her that much?’
Tina shook her head. ‘I just can’t believe this,’ she whispered, and tears began to dribble down her cheeks.
Kathy dug a packet of tissues from her pocket. ‘Here… I’ll leave you my phone number. You might remember something that will help us get to the bottom of this. We may also need to speak to you later to get a formal statement.’
She looked up as Jummai approached with a tray and three mugs. ‘Sorry, Jummai, I have to go. Thanks for your help. Will you stay with Tina for a bit?’
‘Yes, and I will pray for Marion,’ Jummai said, as Kathy left. eight
K athy’s nose led her to the information counter of the laboratories. It began at the front door to the street, a faint chemical smell reminiscent of the swimming pool, and built up to something more like an attack on the Western Front.
A man in a white coat answered her ping on the counter bell. ‘Can I help you?’
‘I’m after…’ Kathy had to stop to clear her throat with a cough.
‘Yeah, sorry about that. We’re having a bit of trouble with the extractor fans.’
‘I’m after Dr Ringland. Is he in?’
‘Sure. Hang on.’
Actually, Kathy rather liked the smell. The laboratories that she’d visited at the forensic science facilities were mostly odourless and not at all like the school labs she had fond memories of. What was the point of studying chemistry if there were no stinks and bangs?
A rather handsome middle-aged man emerged after a moment, a worried frown on his face. ‘Yes? I’m Colin Ringland.’
Kathy showed her ID. ‘Can I have five minutes of your time, Dr Ringland? Somewhere quiet?’
He showed her down the corridor to a small tutorial room, with a whiteboard scrawled with diagrams of molecular structures. They sat at one end of a formica table.
‘I’m wondering if you ever met a PhD student at this university called Marion Summers.’
‘Ah, yes, that poor girl. I read the newspaper report, and her supervisor told me.’
‘Dr da Silva?’
‘That’s right. He said you’d contacted him.’
‘You know him well then?’
‘Yes, we live near each other and play squash regularly. In fact I originally assumed it was he who referred her to me, but it turned out she’d heard about my work from one of my students.’
‘So when did you meet her?’
‘I could check if you like, but it must have been about a month ago. She phoned and asked if she could see me about her research, then came over here and we talked for an hour or so. About a week later she followed up with some queries over the phone.’
‘Would you mind telling me what you talked about?’
‘Poisons-arsenic specifically.’ He raised his hands. ‘Yes, I know. When I saw in the paper that Marion was believed to have been poisoned I wondered if I should contact you. I discussed it with Tony-Dr da Silva-who hadn’t heard about the poisoning part. He thought it was probably a bizarre coincidence and so I did nothing.’
‘What’s your involvement with arsenic?’
‘It’s my main research area, part of a joint research project with Jadavpur University in Calcutta and our engineering faculty here. Do you want me to go into details?’
‘Maybe an outline.’
‘It’s to do with trying to find an effective solution to the contamination of drinking water with arsenic in West Bengal and Bangladesh. Have you heard about that?’
Kathy recalled what Sundeep had said. ‘Something, I think.’
‘Well, the Bengal basin is very densely populated, of course, and there has been a longstanding health problem because of a lack of access to clean water. People were relying on polluted river and pond water, and so in the 1970s UNICEF and the World Bank decided to fund a huge aid program to sink tube wells that would provide clean water from deep below the surface.’
‘Sounds like a good idea.’
‘Yes, enlightened Western aid to give the poor clean drinking water. What could be wrong with that? The trouble was that the whole region is sitting on thick layers of alluvial mud, and as the rainwaters soak through the mud they leach out naturally occurring arsenic and concentrate it deep down, right where the new wells were to draw their water.’