‘And neither did Marion as far as I know, but I’ll check. Is that what she was interested in?’
‘Oh, anything to do with how the Victorians used the stuff-Fowler’s solution for warts, Gay’s solution for asthma, Frere Come’s arsenical paste for cancer…’
‘And where would you find arsenic these days?’
‘Well, somewhere like here, I suppose. We carry quite a bit of it. All under very secure conditions, of course. The university’s health and safety procedures are rigorous, believe me. But in any case, that wouldn’t be what killed Marion.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Well, nobody dies of arsenic poisoning in the UK these days. You’re not suggesting that, surely?’
‘We’re still doing tests.’
‘You’ll probably find it was some food toxin. It’s pretty scary what gets into our food.’
‘Yes, I suppose so. All the same, I’d like to be certain that the poison couldn’t have originated from here.’
Dr Ringland looked at her as if she was being obtuse. ‘But why? I mean, you surely don’t think she was poisoned by someone working here in the lab, do you?’
‘No, I wasn’t thinking that. I just wanted to be sure she couldn’t have got hold of something herself while she was visiting.’
‘Oh no, no chance of that.’
‘What about Dr da Silva, has he been in here?’
Colin Ringland raised his eyebrows at her. ‘Sure, I have shown him around, and he’s called in to see me a couple of times when I was working.’
‘Could he have got a sample of the chemicals for her?’
He choked back a laugh. ‘Utterly impossible. Come on, I’ll show you.’
He took Kathy into the working areas, showing her the locked storage rooms and cabinets and explaining the security arrangements of keys, alarms, cameras and inventory checks. By the end of it she had to admit it seemed highly unlikely that Marion or anyone else from outside could have helped themselves to the laboratory stocks of arsenic.
•
After trying Dr da Silva’s phone numbers without success, Kathy went back to the office of the Department of European Literature and spoke to the secretary, Karen.
‘Dr da Silva? I saw him earlier.’ She went over to the window and said, ‘Yes, his car’s there.’
Kathy looked down into the street and saw a red BMW sports car on a meter. ‘That’s nice. I didn’t think lecturing paid that well.’
‘Family money,’ Karen sniffed. Her tone was sharp with disapproval, and she turned away to consult her computer. ‘He’s giving a lecture at the moment, another twenty minutes to go. LT108. You could catch him when he comes out.’
‘Thanks, Karen.’
Kathy found lecture theatre LT108, its red LECTURE IN PROGRESS light illuminated, and opened the door. She found herself at the top of a steeply raked auditorium, packed with students, and took a seat halfway down towards the lecturer’s dais. A tall, dark-complexioned man was speaking. He was in his mid-forties, Kathy guessed, and spoke with a cultured drawl. His manner was confident and lively, and he emphasised his points with forceful gestures of his hands. From time to time, as he turned to his notes, he would sweep his long black hair back from his brow. His audience was attentive, especially the women, Kathy thought, and she wasn’t surprised, for his voice, appearance and manner were all quite compelling. She could see what Tina had meant.
When the lecture finished, Kathy worked her way down to the front against a stream of departing students. A couple of girls had cornered the lecturer, talking animatedly, and he was smiling as he replied, collecting his papers and moving towards the door. He spotted Kathy, and put a hand up to hold the door open for her. His face was a little fleshier and older than it had seemed from a distance.
‘Dr da Silva, I’m Detective Inspector Kathy Kolla,’ she said, showing him her ID, and watching his expression freeze. But she was used to that. She held out her hand and he shook it cautiously.
‘You want to talk about Marion?’ he said quietly.
‘Yes.’
‘Terrible. We’re all shocked. We just can’t believe it.’
‘Of course. Is there somewhere we can go?’
He led her to his room, a comfortable corner office with a large window. Books covered every inch of the walls. On the shelf facing her when she sat down were multiple copies of a thick volume, its title- Dante Gabriel Rossetti -printed in sumptuous Gothic script, as was the author’s name, Anthony da Silva.
‘Apparently it was on the radio that someone probably put something in her lunch, is that right?’ he asked.
‘That’s what we suspect.’
He pursed his lips with distaste. ‘I can’t understand how anyone could do that. There are some very sick people around. I suppose you have to deal with them every day.’ He gave her a sympathetic smile.
‘We have to consider the possibility that her attacker knew her in some capacity, so we’re speaking to her friends and work colleagues. How long have you known her?’
‘Um, it must be about three years. I first came across her in her honours year, and she’d be almost two years into her doctorate now.’
‘So you must have got to know her quite well?’
‘Well, academically, yes. I met with her on average, what-every couple of weeks during term time?’
‘How about socially?’
‘Oh not really. We bumped into each other from time to time-departmental drinks, open lectures, that sort of thing. And she came to our house once. Jenny, my wife, put on a little party for my doctoral students. She likes to do that occasionally, check them out.’ He gave a faint smile.
‘And you phoned each other frequently?’
He stared at Kathy for a moment, and she wondered if he was going to deny it. Then he said, ‘Well, yes, if she had a query about something in her work, or I had to change a meeting, that kind of thing.’
His reply was guarded, and Kathy sensed he wasn’t being completely open. ‘Have you been to her home?’
‘No. I don’t know where she lived, to be honest. I suppose the office will have the address.’
‘You don’t know if she shared with someone?’
‘Sorry, no idea.’
‘What about her friends, other people she went around with?’
‘No, I couldn’t say.’
‘I’ve just been speaking to Dr Ringland.’ Kathy saw the surprise register briefly. ‘He told me about Marion’s interest in arsenic poisoning. Can you enlarge on that for me?’
‘Oh… yes, of course. That is rather strange, isn’t it, in the light of what’s happened?’ He paused, as if debating how to go on. ‘She was studying the Pre-Raphaelites for her PhD. How much do you know about them?’
‘They were a group of nineteenth-century English painters, weren’t they?’
‘And poets, yes. The 1840s and ’50s, the first avant-garde movement in art, something of a sensation at the time-young men breaking the mould, that kind of thing. Their program was to reform art by going back to the fifteenth century, before it was corrupted, hence their name.’ He was interrupted by his phone ringing. ‘Excuse me.’ He picked it up. ‘Hello? Colin, hi, we were just talking about you. I’m sitting here with Inspector Kolla now… Yes, sure… You still on for tonight?… Great. I’ll call you back later. Bye.’
He smiled at Kathy. ‘Sorry about that. Where were we?’
‘The Pre-Raphaelites.’
‘Oh yes. Well, they and their circle-wives, lovers, models-were a fairly sickly lot. I don’t know if they were more so than the average Londoners of that period, but it’s a striking feature of their story. Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s wife Lizzie Siddal was a chronic invalid; she died of an overdose of the laudanum she was medicating herself with. His lover Janey, William Morris’s wife, was also sickly, and Rossetti himself eventually went barking mad, sharing
