after they had introduced themselves.
Banks accepted because he liked dry sherry; Hatchley took one because he had never been known to refuse a free drink.
Barber’s study was cluttered with books, journals and papers. A student essay entitled ‘The Dissolution of the Monasteries: Evidence of Contemporary Accounts’ lay on the desk but didn’t quite obscure an old green-covered Penguin crime paperback. Banks tilted his head and glanced sideways at the title:
While Dr Barber poured, Banks stood by the window and looked over the neat clipped quadrangle at the light stone faзades of the college.
Barber passed them their drinks and lit his pipe. Its smoke sweetened the air. In deference to his guests, he opened the window a little, and a draught of fresh air sucked the smoke out. In appearance, Barber had the air of an aged cleric, and he smelled of Pears soap. He reminded Banks of the actor Wilfrid Hyde-White.
‘It was a long time ago,’ Barber said, when Banks had asked him about Collier. ‘Let me check my files.
I’ve got records going back over twenty years, you know. It pays to know whom one has had pass through these hallowed halls. As a historian myself, I place great value on documentation. Now, let me see…
Stephen Collier, yes. Braughtmore School, Yorkshire. Is that the one? Yes? I remember him. Not terribly distinguished academically, but a pleasant enough fellow. What’s he been up to?’
‘That’s what we’re trying to find out,’ Banks said. ‘He died a few days ago and we want to know why.’
Barber sat down and picked up his sherry. ‘Good Lord! He wasn’t murdered, was he?’
‘Why would you think that?’
Barber shrugged. ‘One doesn’t usually get a visit from the Yorkshire police over nothing. One doesn’t usually get visits from the police at all.’
‘We don’t know,’ Banks said. ‘It could have been accidental, or it could have been suicide.’
‘Suicide? Oh dear. Collier was a rather serious young man - a bit too much so, if I remember him clearly.
But suicide?’
‘Possibly.’
‘A lot can change in a few years,’ Barber said. He frowned and relit his pipe. Banks remembered his own struggles with the infernal engines, and the broken pipe that now hung on his wall in Eastvale Police Headquarters. ‘As I said,’ Barber went on, ‘Collier seemed a sober sensible kind of fellow. Still, who can fathom the mysteries of the human heart?
‘There’s no real type for suicide,’ Banks said. ‘Anyone, pushed far enough-’
‘I suppose you’re the kind of policeman who thinks anyone can become a murderer too, given the circumstances.’
Banks nodded.
‘I’m afraid I can’t go along with that,’ Barber said. ‘I’m no psychologist, but I’d say it takes a special type.
Take me, for example, I could never conceive of doing such a thing. The thought of jail, for a start, would deter me. And I should think that everyone would notice my guilt. As a child, I once stole a lemon tart from the school tuck shop while Mrs Wiggins was in the back, and I felt myself turn red from head to toe.
No, Chief Inspector, I’d never make a murderer.’
‘I’m thankful for that,’ Banks said. ‘I don’t need to ask you for an alibi now, I suppose.’
Barber looked at him for a moment, unsure what to do, then laughed.
‘Stephen Collier,’ Banks said.
‘Yes, yes. Forgive me. I’m getting old; I tend to ramble. But it’s coming back. He was the kind who really did have to work hard to do well. So many others have a natural ability - they can dash off a good essay the night before - but you’d always find Collier in the library all week before a major piece of work was due. Conscientious.’
‘How did he get on with the other students?’
‘Well enough, as far as I know. Collier was a bit of a loner though. Kept himself to himself. I hardly need to tell you, Chief Inspector, that quite a number of young lads around these parts go in for high jinks. It’s always been like that, ever since students started coming here in the thirteenth century. And there’s always been a bit of a running battle between the university authorities and the people of the city: town and gown, as we say. The students aren’t vindictive, you realize, just high-spirited. Sometimes they cause more damage than they intend.’
‘And Collier?’
‘I’m sure he didn’t go in for that kind of thing. If there had been any incidents of an unsavoury nature, they would have appeared in my assessment file.’
‘Did he drink much?’
‘Never had any trouble with him.’
‘Drugs?’
‘Chief Inspector Banks,’ Barber said slowly, ‘I do realize that the university has been getting a bad reputation lately for drugs and the like, and no doubt such things do happen, but if you take the word of the media, you’d be seriously misled. I don’t think Stephen Collier was involved in drugs at all. I remember that we did have some trouble with one student selling cannabis around that time - most distressing - but there was a full investigation, and at no point was Stephen Collier implicated.’
‘So, as far as you can say, Collier was a model student, if not quite as brilliant as some of his fellows?’
‘I know it sounds hard to believe, but yes, he was. Most of the time you’d hardly have known he was here.
I’m having great difficulty trying to guess what you’re after. You say that Stephen Collier’s death might have been suicide or it might have been an accident, but if you don’t mind my saying so, the questions you’re asking seem preoccupied with unearthing evidence that Collier himself was some kind of hell-raiser.’
Banks frowned and looked out of the window again. The shadow of a cloud passed over the quadrangle.
He drained his sherry and lit a cigarette. Sergeant Hatchley, quietly smoking in a chair in the corner, had emptied his glass a while ago and sat fidgeting with it as if he hoped Barber would notice and offer a refill.
He did, and both policemen accepted. Banks liked the way the dry liquid puckered his taste buds.
‘He’s a suspect,’ Banks said. ‘And I’m afraid that’s all I can tell you. We have no proof that Collier was guilty of anything, but there’s a strong possibility.’
‘Does it matter,’ Barber asked, ‘now that he’s dead?’
‘Yes, it does. If he was guilty, then the case is closed. If not, we still have a criminal to catch.’
‘Yes. I see. Well, I’m afraid I can’t offer you any evidence at all. Seemed a thoroughly pleasant hard-working nondescript fellow to me as far as I can remember.’
‘What about six years ago? It would have been his third year, his last. Did anything unusual happen then, around early November?’
Barber frowned and pursed his lips. ‘I can’t recall anything… Wait a minute…’ He walked back over to his ancient filing cabinet and riffled through the papers. ‘Yes, yes, I thought so,’ he announced finally.
‘Stephen Collier didn’t finish his degree.’
‘What?’
‘He didn’t finish. Decided history wasn’t for him and left after two years. Went to run a business, as far as I know. I can confirm with the registrar’s office, of course, but my own records are quite thorough.’
‘Are you saying that Stephen Collier wasn’t here, that he wasn’t in Oxford in November six years ago?’
‘That’s right. Could it be you’ve got him mixed up with his brother, Nicholas? He would have just been starting his second year then, you know, and I certainly remember him, now I cast my mind back. Nicholas Collier was a different kettle of fish, a different kettle of fish entirely.’
14
ONE
Katie stared at her reflection in the dark kitchen window as she washed the crystal glasses she couldn’t put in the machine. The radio on the table played soothing classical music, quiet enough that she could even hear the beck at the bottom of the back garden rippling over its stones.
Now that Stephen was dead and she had unburdened herself to Banks, she felt empty. None of her grandmother’s maxims floated around her mind, as they had been doing lately, and that tightness in her chest that had seemed to squeeze at her very heart itself had relaxed. She even noticed a half-
