`Dad, what the hell were you doing? You can't leave an empty pan on the gas `“'
He frowns at her tetchily. `It's not empty, Verity `“'
`Oh yes, it is `“ I only just got to it in time `“'
`I can assure you it wasn't. I was just going to boil myself an egg. Given there's absolutely no sign of any other kind of sustenance round here.'
`I had to work late. I told you `“'
`That bloody cat gets fed better than I do.'
She feels her jaw tighten. `You know that's not true. And if the pan really was full how come it had boiled completely dry? That didn't happen in five minutes. Where on earth were you?'
He looks away and starts hurrumphing about being cooped up all day and everyone being entitled to a little fresh air.
She takes a step towards him. `This is serious, Dad. You could have burned the whole place down.'
He snaps a look at her at that. `All this silly hoo-ha over a boiled egg. Your mother's right, Verity `“ you really do have a deplorable tendency to over-dramatize things; always have had, ever since you were a child. She was saying so only the other day.'
Ev turns away. There are tears in her eyes now. Not just at the unfairness of it but because her mother's been dead for more than two years. There's a voice in her head saying You can't ignore this any more. Speak to him. Sit him down and speak to him. Right now. She takes a deep breath and turns to face him.
`What would you like for tea, Dad?'
At 9.15 the following morning Gislingham and Quinn pull up on to the drive in front of the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology on the Banbury Road. A converted Victorian townhouse `“ as so many smaller Oxford departments are `“ rising four storeys above a lower ground. Dirty `Oxford yellow' brick with ornamental woodwork in dark red paint. A bike rack, gravel greened with weeds, two industrial-sized recycling bins and a sign saying NO PARKING.
`Bloody hell,' says Quinn, pushing the car door shut and looking up. `You wouldn't catch me working in there. It's like something out of Hammer House of Horror.'
Gislingham shoots him a look; it's on the tip of his tongue to observe that Quinn's just a tad underqualified for a university teaching post, but that's the sort of banter they'd have had in the old days. As Janet reminds him every morning, he has to act like Quinn's boss now.
They go up the steps to the door and ring the bell, hearing it echo somewhere inside. But that's all they can hear. They ring again, and wait again, then Quinn goes back down a step and squints into the venetian blinds on the upper ground floor.
`Can't see anything,' he says, finally. `And there aren't any bikes out here either. Do you reckon anyone bothers to come in during the holidays?'
The answer, apparently, is yes, because suddenly the door opens and a woman appears. She has wispy grey hair in a French pleat, a tartan skirt and a coarse woollen jumper.
`I don't know who you are, but you can't park there.'
Quinn opens his mouth to speak but Gislingham gets there first. `We're the police, madam,' he says, flashing his warrant card. `I'm Detective Sergeant Chris Gislingham and this is Detective Constable Quinn. May we come in?'
The woman takes the card and stares at it, then looks at Quinn. `I suppose so,' she says eventually.
And as they follow her into the hallway Quinn mutters, in a voice calculated to be just about audible, `Acting Detective Sergeant.'
There's a room at the back overlooking the garden which clearly combines the woman's office, a reception area and a place for the coffee machine. She gestures towards two plastic chairs and asks them to wait while she finds Professor Jordan. `I have seen her today but she was on the phone to China. We have a collaboration with a university in Hangzhou.'
`No worries, we can wait, Miss `“'
`Mrs Beeton,' she says, tartly. `And spare me the cookery jokes because I've heard them all before.'
She turns on her heel and marches back down the hallway to the stairs, with Quinn grinning after her.
`She's a game old buzzard,' he says. `Reminds me of my nan. She didn't take no shit from no one, even in her nineties.'
Must be where you get it from, thinks Gislingham. He has too much nervous energy to sit down, so he wanders over to the rack of magazines and journals. American Ethnologist, Visual Anthropology Review, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Anthropological Journal of European Cultures. He picks one up and scans down the list of articles. Even the titles are completely impenetrable: what the hell is `performativity' anyway?
Quinn, meanwhile, is looking at the board on the wall with the names and pictures of the departmental staff. A good number of them are from overseas, if the names are anything to go by. There are one or two arty black-and-white photos, but most are standard colleague-with-a-digital-camera shots. Apart from Esmond's, which is definitely staged, and definitely professional.
`What do you think?' asks Quinn, staring at the picture. `Bit up himself? Baxter seemed to think so, judging from his Facebook page.'
Gislingham considers. `Strikes me as a bit insecure, to be honest. Over-compensating.'
Quinn makes a face. `Not sure how much `њcompensating`ќ you need to do when you've got a house like that. Must be rolling in it.'
`Speaking of which, did you check about the house?' Like I asked you to, hangs in the air.
`I did, actually,' says Quinn, with just the tiniest edge of sarcasm. `Still waiting to hear. But my money's still on family dough. No way he could afford that place on what he earns. And where else would cash like that come from? Embezzlement's a no-no for starters.' He gestures round at the slightly shabby room, the ancient radiator, the MDF shelves. `I mean, look at this place.'
`You're right, officer. Academic misdemeanours are rarely, if ever, pecuniary in nature.'
The voice is coming from the door. A tall thin woman with strong features and an arrangement of long dark clothes in layers. Wide trousers, tunic, overshirt. She has a chunky pewter necklace of geometrical shapes hanging low against her waist.
`I'm Annabel Jordan. Would you like to come up? Mary will bring us coffee. I, for one, could do with it.'
Her office is on the floor above, overlooking the street. What must once have been a family drawing room, complete with cornicing and a fireplace with a cast-iron surround. The walls are lined with untidy bookshelves, and she has two battered leather armchairs facing her desk. And on the wall a framed poster for an exhibition of Palaeolithic art at the Ashmolean museum `“ a carving of a woman, the hips and breasts bulbous, the head disproportionately small and without features.
`Do please sit down. I'm guessing you've come to talk to me about Michael. What a truly terrible thing to happen.'
`You heard about it?' asks Gislingham with a frown. They haven't released the family's name to the press.
She takes her own seat. `I saw the news, Sergeant. I recognized the house. Michael had a drinks party soon after he moved in `“ the department, the post-grads `“ there must have been a hundred people there. It made my semi in Summertown look positively disadvantaged.'
Gislingham nods; no doubt that was part of the point.
`And your colleague is right,' she says with a gesture to Quinn. `It was `“ is `“ family money.' She turns again to Gislingham, her face concerned. `Is there any news on Matty?'
Gislingham shakes his head. `Not that I've heard.'
`And that other poor child. Zachary. What a waste. What an awful, pointless, deplorable waste.'