No Graves As Yet

Eaden Lilley’s and disappeared inside.

Joseph walked on farther into the town, stopping for a while in Petty Cury, leading toward the market. He passed Jas. Smith and Sons and then the Star and Garter, dodged a couple of delivery carts and two dangerously speeding bicycles, and came back by Trinity Street to St. John’s.

Tuesday was much the same, a routine of small chores. He saw Inspector Perth coming and going busily, but he managed to put Sebastian’s death out of his mind most of the time, until Nigel Eardslie caught up with him crossing the quad early in the afternoon. It was hot and still again; the windows of all the occupied rooms were wide open, and every now and then the sound of music or laughter drifted out.

“Dr. Reavley!”

Joseph stopped.

Eardslie’s square face was puckered with anxiety, hazel eyes fixed on Joseph’s. “That policeman’s just been talking to me, sir, asking a lot of questions about Allard. I really don’t know what to say.” He looked awkward.

“If you know something that could have a bearing on his death, then you’ll have to tell him the truth,” Joseph answered.

“I don’t know what the truth is!” Eardslie said desperately. “If it’s just a matter of where I was or whether I saw this or that, then of course I can answer. But he wanted to know what Allard was like! And how do I answer that decently?”

“You knew him pretty well,” Joseph said. “Tell him about his character, how he worked, who his friends were, his hopes and ambitions.”

“He didn’t get killed for any of those,” Eardslie replied, a slight impatience in his voice. “Do I tell him about his sarcasm as well? The way he could cut you raw with his tongue and make you feel like a complete fool?” His face was tight and unhappy.

Joseph wanted to deny it. This was not the man he had known. But then no student would dare exercise his pride or cruelty on a tutor. A bully chooses the easy targets.

“I could tell him how funny Sebastian was,” Eardslie was continuing. “He made me laugh sometimes till I couldn’t get my breath and my chest hurt, but it could be at someone else’s expense, especially if they’d criticized him lately.”

Joseph did not reply.

“Do I tell him that he could forgive wonderfully and that he expected to be forgiven, no matter what he’d done, because he was clever and beautiful?” Eardslie rushed on. “And if you borrowed something without asking, even if you lost it or broke it, he could wave it aside and make you think he didn’t care, even if it was something he valued.” His mouth pinched a little, and the light faded in his eyes. “But if you questioned his judgment or beat him at one of the things that mattered to him, he could carry a grudge further than anyone else I know. He was generous . . . he’d give you anything. But God, he could be cruel!” He stared at Joseph helplessly. “I can’t tell the police that. He’s dead.”

Joseph felt numb. That was not the Sebastian he knew. Was Eardslie’s the voice of envy? Or was he speaking the truth Joseph had refused to see?

“You don’t believe me, do you!” Eardslie challenged him. “Perth might, but the others won’t. Morel knows Sebastian took his girl, Abigail something, and then dumped her. I think he did it simply because he could. She saw Sebastian and thought of him as this sort of young Apollo and he let her believe it. It flattered him.”

“You can’t help it if someone falls in love with you,” Joseph protested, but he remembered the character attributed to the Greek god, the childishness, the vanity, the petty spite, as well as the beauty.

Eardslie looked at him with barely concealed anger. “You can help what you do about it!” he retorted. “You don’t take your friend’s girl. Would you?” Then he blushed, looking wretched. “I’m sorry, sir. That was rude.” He jerked his chin up. “But Perth keeps asking. We want to be decent to the dead, and we want to be fair. But someone killed him, and they say it had to be one of us. I keep looking at everyone and wondering if it was them.

“I met Rattray along the Backs yesterday evening, and I started remembering quarrels he’d had with Sebastian, and wondering if it could be him. He’s got a hell of a temper.” He blushed. “Then I remembered a quarrel I’d had, and wondered if he was thinking the same thing of me!” His eyes pleaded for some kind of reassurance. “Everybody’s changed! Suddenly I don’t feel as if I really know anyone . . . and even worse than that, in a way, I don’t think anyone trusts me, either. I know who I am and that I didn’t do it, but no one else knows!” He took a deep breath. “The friendships I took for granted aren’t there anymore. It’s done that already!”

“They are still there,” Joseph said firmly. “Get a grip on your imagination, Eardslie. Of course everyone is upset over Sebastian’s death, and frightened. But in a day or two I expect Perth will have it solved, and you’ll all realize that your suspicions were unfounded. One person did something tragic and possibly evil, but the rest of you are just what you were before.” His voice sounded flat and unreal. He did not believe what he was saying himself—how could Eardslie? He deserved better than that, but Joseph did not have anything to give that was both comforting and even remotely honest.

“Yes, sir,” Eardslie said obediently. “Thank you, sir.” And he turned and walked away, disappearing through the arch into the second quad, leaving Joseph alone.

The following morning Joseph was sitting in his study again, having written to Hannah, which he had found difficult. It was simple enough to begin, but as soon as he tried to say something honest, he saw her face in his mind and he saw the loneliness in her, the bewilderment she tried to hide and failed. She was not accustomed to grief. The gentleness she had for others was rooted in the certainties of her own life; first her parents and Joseph, then Matthew and Judith, younger than she and relying on her, wanting to be like her. Later it had been Archie, and then her own children.

She reminded him so much of Alys, not only in her looks but in her gestures, the tone of her voice, sometimes even the words she used, the colors she liked, the way she peeled an apple or marked the page in a book she was reading with a folded spill of paper.

Hannah and Eleanor had liked each other immediately, as if they had been friends who had simply not seen each other for a while. He remembered how much pleasure that had given him.

Hannah had been the first one to come to him after Eleanor’s death, and she had missed her the most, even though they had lived miles apart. He knew they had written every week, long letters full of thoughts and feelings, trivial details of domestic life, more a matter of affection than of news. Writing to Hannah now was difficult, full of ghosts.

He had finished, more or less satisfactorily, and was trying to compose a letter to Judith when there was a discreet tap on the door.

Assuming it was a student, he simply called for whoever it was to come in. However, it was Perth who entered and closed the door behind him.

“Morning, Reverend,” he said cheerfully. He still wore the same dark suit, slightly stretched at the knees, and a clean, stiff collar. “Sorry if Oi’m interrupting your letters.”

“Good morning, Inspector,” Joseph replied, rising to his feet, partly from courtesy, but also because he felt startled and at a disadvantage still sitting. “Do you have some news?” He was not even sure what answer he wanted to hear. There had to be a resolution, but he was not yet ready to accept that anyone he knew could have killed Sebastian, even though his brain understood that it had to be true.

“Not really what you’d call news,” Perth replied, shaking his head. “Oi bin talking to your young gentlemen, o’ course.” He ran his fingers over his thin hair. “Trouble is, if a man says he was in bed at half past foive in the morning, who’s to know if he’s telling the truth or not? But Oi can’t afford to take his word for it, you see? Different for you, ’cos Oi know from Dr. Beecher that you was out rowing on the river.”

“Oh?” Joseph was surprised. He did not remember seeing Beecher. He invited Perth to sit down. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know how to help. There would be no one around in the corridors or on the stairs at that time.”

“Unfortunately for us.” Perth sat in the large chair opposite the one Joseph had risen from, and Joseph sank back into his own. “No witnesses at all,” Perth said dolefully. “Still, people ain’t often obliging enough to commit murder when they know someone else is looking at ’em. Usually we can write off a goodly number because o’ their being able to show they was somewhere else.” He studied Joseph gravely. “We come at a crime, particularly a murder, from three sorts of angles, Reverend.” He held up one finger. “First, who had the opportunity? If somebody