Along the corridor there was an open-plan office where three middle-aged women sat in front of PCs. There were plants on the shelves, photos of grandchildren. They seemed to be having an intense conversation which had little to do with the university. Vera thought these might be people who enjoyed gossip as much as she did. She tapped on the open door and walked in, leaving Ashworth lurking outside. The room fell silent, but she thought they were curious, not hostile.
‘I wonder if you can help me. My name’s Vera Stanhope. I’m heading up the investigation into the murder of one of your students.’ That had them gripped, as she’d known it would. It would keep them talking through until the lunch break. ‘Dr Calvert’s been giving us some expert advice. He’s with a student and I don’t want to interrupt him. I was wondering if one of you looked after his diary. I need to check a couple of dates, see when he’s next free.’
A plump, motherly woman with grey hair waved her hand, like an excited child at the back of the class with the answer to a difficult question. ‘That’s me, for my sins. Marjorie. Marjorie Beckwith.’
Vera beamed. ‘He updates it on the PC, I presume.’
‘He’s supposed to,’ Marjorie said indulgently, ‘so the rest of the department knows what he’s up to, but he’s not one for following guidelines, I’m afraid.’ And she reached to a shelf behind her and handed a black, hard-back book to Vera. It was that easy. Vera took it to an empty table, sitting so she had her back to the room and flipped through the pages. The day of Luke’s death, Peter Calvert had attended a meeting of the department in the morning. At five o’clock he’d planned a tutorial with two students. There were no names, only initials. The entry had been scored through with two lines and someone had neatly written cancelled in the middle of them. The following Friday – the day of Lily’s murder – he had a lunch appointment. No name. Just 12.30-2.00 lunch out, unavailable. Presumably that was for Marjorie’s benefit. The rest of Friday was clear. Vera flipped back the pages. It seemed the lunch appointment was a regular feature.
‘I was thinking of meeting up with him on Friday afternoon,’ Vera said, turning the diary a week on, seeing the page was empty. ‘There’s nothing here. He doesn’t have a regular commitment? A lecture?’
‘Oh no,’ Marjorie said. ‘Dr Calvert never lectures on Fridays.’ She looked up, eager to help. ‘Shall I make you a provisional appointment?’
‘No thanks, pet. I’ll give him a ring later in the week if we need his assistance.’ Vera put the book back on the shelf, gave a little wave to the three women and returned to where Joe was still keeping watch in the corridor.
‘Well?’
‘He was free both afternoons. The Wednesday before Luke’s death and the Friday before Lily’s. He cancelled a tutorial at five o’clock on the Wednesday.’
‘So he had the opportunity,’ Ashworth said. ‘Along with fifty per cent of the population of the north east. But there was no motive. No connection, even. So far as we know he hadn’t ever met the victims.’
Vera was going to say she didn’t care. She didn’t like the man. But she couldn’t face a lecture from Ashworth about detachment and objectivity so she let it go.
Outside, it was still hot. There were students lying on the grass or sauntering into town in the shade of the Gothic buildings. They had more than an hour to kill before the next appointment and Vera had a sense of time passing, time wasted. She got on the phone to Kimmerston but there was no news. Holly had arranged to meet Lily’s flatmates later in the afternoon and Charlie was trying to prise information out of her bank. They had a news conference set up for the following day and local plods would be at the lighthouse in the afternoon to ask regular walkers if they’d seen anything. The press officer would take the news conference. Vera was pleased. Those occasions always made her feel like a performing bear. She switched off the phone.
‘Coffee,’ Ashworth said. ‘And a bun. I didn’t have time for breakfast.’ He could sense her frustration, knew food might calm her for a while. Vera thought he treated her as he did his daughter; he was distracting her before she threw a tantrum.
He sat her in the shade of an umbrella, on one of the seats set out on the pavement, while he went inside. The cafe was close to the university and seemed full of idle students. A couple of young women approached her table and she glared at them, hoping to frighten them off. Then she recognized them. They were the lasses from the lecture theatre, the ones Peter Calvert had been performing for.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘No problem. You’re welcome to join us. Let me move my bag.’
They looked at her uncertainly. As if she were a dangerous dog, she thought. Were the young taught any manners these days? Didn’t they know they should be polite to their elders? Then Ashworth turned up, all soft words and smiles, and she realized why she’d come to rely on him.
‘Let me buy you a coffee,’ he said. ‘You’re students, right? I remember what that’s like. Especially at the end of term when the loan’s run out.’
One of them laughed. ‘My loan disappeared a week after we started.’
‘I’ll get them,’ Vera said and she went inside to buy the extra drinks, leaving him to tell a story which would pull them in.
When she returned, carrying a tray, they were laughing, easy together. He could have been a student too, though she knew fine well that he’d never stepped foot inside a university.
They introduced themselves. Fancy southern names which she couldn’t remember five minutes after they’d told her. Camilla? Amelia? Jemima? It didn’t matter. Ashworth would have made a note of them.
‘This is Vera,’ Ashworth said. ‘My aunty.’
They sipped their frothy coffee and looked at him with pity. A duty day out, they thought. A treat for her birthday. Or maybe he was taking her to an outpatient appointment at the RVI. Vera gritted her teeth and let him get on with it.
‘So you do botany,’ he said. ‘A mate of mine did that a few years ago. What’s the lecturer called, the famous one? Calvin?’
‘Peter Calvert. He likes to think he’s famous but it’s years since he published anything.’
‘You don’t like him?’
‘He’s a creep. Like, he’s really old, but he still comes on to you.’
‘Yeah, and everyone knows he’s got a wife and four kids. I mean, you’d think someone in his position would have a bit more dignity. The whole department knows what he’s like. But some people play up to it. You know, flirt, in the hope of getting extra marks.’
‘Just flirt?’ Ashworth asked, keeping his voice light. Like he was cracking a joke.
‘God, you’d have to be really desperate to go any further. Can you imagine him touching you? God, you’d just throw up.’
‘There was that rumour,’ the other said. ‘You remember, at the beginning of the term. Someone saw him out in town with a much younger woman. It got round that he was having an affair with a student.’
‘Oh?’ Ashworth said. Not really interested. Just being polite. I’ve taught you well, Vera thought.
‘It was probably just a story,’ the student said. ‘No one got any details. And we tried hard enough to find out what was going on. I mean, it could have been anyone. His daughter, even. It certainly wasn’t one of us. Not a botanist.’
And they floated off to the sound of the bangles clinking on bare brown arms, soft twittering voices.
Chapter Twenty-One
Joe seemed happy to sit there in the sun, nursing his fancy coffee until it was time to meet Clive Stringer, but Vera was impatient and restless. ‘I’m going to see if I can track down Annie Slater, the woman who put up Lily’s flatmates the night she died. She was one of Lily’s tutors. And they lived in the same street. I’ll see you at the museum.’