“Maybe you just want the houses and cars and servants and money. And the title, of course. We mustn’t forget that. Countess of Asherton. What a brilliant match. At least one of us will end up making Daddy proud.” She turned on her side and switched out the light on the bedside table. “I’m going to sleep now. Put the baby to bed.”
“Pen.”
“No. I’m going to sleep.”
4
“It was always clear that Elena Weaver had the potential for a first,” Terence Cuff said to Lynley. “But I suppose we say that about most undergraduates, don’t we? What would they be doing here if they didn’t have the potential to take firsts in their subjects?”
“What was hers?”
“English.”
Cuff poured two sherries and handed one to Lynley. He nodded towards three over-stuffed chairs that were grouped round a gateleg table to the right of the library’s fireplace, a two-tiered demonstration of one of the more fl amboyant aspects of late Elizabethan architecture, deco rated with marble caryatids, Corinthian columns, and the coat of arms of Vincent Amberlane, Lord Brasdown, the college founder.
Before coming to the lodge, Lynley had taken a solitary evening stroll through the seven courts that comprised the western two-thirds of St. Stephen’s College, pausing in the fellows’ garden where a terrace overlooked the River Cam. He was a lover of architecture. He took pleasure in the evidence of each period’s individual caprice. And while he had always found Cambridge itself to be a rich source of architectural whimsies-from Trinity Great Court’s fountain to Queens’ Mathematical Bridge-St. Stephen’s College, he discovered, merited special attention. It spanned five hundred years of design, from the sixteenth-century Principal Court, with its buildings of red brick and freestone quoins, to the twentieth-century, triangular North Court, where the junior combination room, the bar, a lecture hall, and the buttery were contained in a series of sliding glass panels framed by Brazilian mahogany. St. Stephen’s was one of the largest colleges in the University, “bound by the Trinities” as University brochures described it, with Trinity College to its north, Trinity Hall to its south, and Trinity Lane bisecting its west and east sections. Only the river running along its western boundary kept the college from being entirely hemmed in.
The Master’s Lodge sat at the southwest end of the college grounds, abutting Garret Hostel Lane and facing the River Cam. Its construction dated from the 1600’s, and like its predecessors in Principal Court, it had escaped the ashlar refacing that had been so popular in Cambridge in the eighteenth century. Thus, it maintained its original brick exterior and contrasting stone quoins. And like much of the architecture of the period, it was a happy combination of classical and Gothic details. Its perfect balance spoke of the influence of classical design. Two bay windows jutted out on either side of the front door, while a row of dormer windows topped by semi-circular pediments rose from a pitched slate roof. A lingering love of the Gothic showed itself in that roof’s crenellation, in the pointed arch that comprised the building’s entry, and in the fan vaulting of that entry’s ceiling. It was here that Lynley came to keep his appointment with Terence Cuff, Master of St. Stephen’s and a graduate of Exeter College, Oxford, where Lynley himself had been a student.
Lynley watched Cuff settle his lanky frame into one of the over-stuffed chairs in the panelled library. He couldn’t remember having heard about Cuff during his own time at Oxford, but as the man was some twenty years Lynley’s senior, this fact could hardly constitute an indication of Cuff’s failure to distinguish himself as an undergraduate.
He seemed to wear confidence with the same ease with which he wore his fawn trousers and navy jacket. It was clear that while he was deeply-perhaps even personally-concerned about the murder of one of the junior members of the college, he did not look upon Elena Weaver’s death as a statement about his competence as college head.
“I’m relieved that the Vice Chancellor agreed to Scotland Yard’s coordinating the investigation,” Cuff said, setting his sherry on the gateleg table. “Having Miranda Webberly at St. Stephen’s helped. It was easy enough to give the Vice Chancellor her father’s name.”
“According to Webberly, there was some concern about the way a case was handled by the local CID last Easter term.”
Cuff rested his head against his index and forefinger. He wore no rings. His hair was thick and ash grey. “It was a clear-cut suicide. But someone from the police station leaked to the local press that it looked to him like a hushed-up murder. You know the sort of thing, an allegation that the University’s protecting one of its own. It developed into a small but nasty situation fanned by the local press. I’d like to avoid that happening again. The Vice Chancellor agrees.”
“But I understand the girl wasn’t killed on University property, so it stands to reason that someone from the city may have committed the crime. If that’s the case, you’re heading into a nasty situation of another sort no matter what anyone wants from New Scotland Yard.”
“Yes. Believe me, I know.”
“So the Yard’s involvement-”
Cuff stopped Lynley with the abrupt words: “Elena was killed on Robinson Crusoe’s Island. Are you familiar with it? A short distance from Mill Lane and the University Centre. It’s long been a gathering place for young people, somewhere they go to drink and smoke.”
“Members of the colleges? That seems a bit odd.”
“Quite. No. Members of college don’t need the island. They can drink and smoke in their common rooms. The graduates can go to the University Centre. Anyone who wants to get up to anything else can do as much in his own bed-sit. We’ve a certain number of rules, naturally, but I can’t say they’re enforced with any regularity. And the days of the proctors patrolling are gone.”
“Then I gather the island’s mostly used by the city.”
“The south end, yes. The north end’s used to repair rivercraft in the winter.”
“College boats?”
“Some.”
“So students and locals might have occasion to bump into one another there.”
Cuff didn’t disagree. “An unpleasant run-in between a member of a college and someone from the city? A few choice epithets, the word
“Was Elena Weaver likely to have had that sort of run-in?”
“You’re thinking of an altercation that led up to a lying-in-wait.”
“It’s a possibility, I should think.”
Cuff looked over the top of his glass to an antique globe standing in one of the library’s bay windows. The light from the room created the globe’s duplicate -slightly contorted-on the imperfect pane. “To be frank, that doesn’t sound at all like Elena. And even if that weren’t the case, if we’re talking about a killer who knew her and waited for her, I doubt it was someone from the city. As far as I know, she had no city relationship close enough to lead to murder.”
“An arbitrary killing then?”
“The night porter indicates she left the college grounds round a quarter past six. She was by herself. It would certainly be convenient to reach the conclusion that a young girl out running was victimised by a killer she didn’t know. Unfortunately, I tend to think that’s not the case.”
“Then you believe it was someone who knew her? A member of one of the colleges?”
Cuff offered Lynley a cigarette from a rosewood case on the table. When Lynley demurred, he lit one himself, looked away for a moment and said, “That seems more likely.”
“Have you any ideas?”
Cuff blinked. “None at all.”
Lynley noted the determined tone behind the words and led Cuff back to their original topic. “You mentioned that Elena had potential.”
