amiably, 'You and your daughter must be tired after your long journey from the city.'
'I'm not his daughter,' said Calamity. 'I'm his partner, I'm a detective.'
'What city?' I said.
The girls broke into a peal of giggles like silvery bells, and covered their mouths with their hands.
'Why, Aberystwyth of course!'
A number of people in the pub looked round sternly at the mention of the name. I ordered a rum and Calamity ordered a whisky sour which I changed to a ginger beer. When the drinks arrived we chinked glasses and I said, 'So why undertaking?' The girls paused politely as if allowing the other to go first. Gretel said, 'Strictly speaking, I'm not doing 'undertaking' as such. I'm doing media studies.'
'Are you hoping to write for the parish magazine?'
'Oh no! Not that sort of media. I mean I'm studying to be a medium.'
I said, 'Ah.' And then after I'd thought some more, added, 'I didn't know you could do that.'
Gretel smiled and looked down at her clogs. 'You don't believe, I can tell.'
'I didn't say that, I've got an open mind.'
Morgana nudged her friend. 'Make some ectoplasm, that'll shut him up.'
There was another peal of giggles and this time they both laughed so much the wooden beads clacked.
'Oh I couldn't!' squealed Gretel. 'Not after what happened the last time.'
The barman threw a suspicious look in our direction as if he'd read our thoughts and didn't need any reminding about the last time. Gretel added, 'Besides, it takes me half an hour just to get an eggcupful!'
'I expect a little goes a long way,' I said helpfully. 'Tell me about the Dean.'
Gretel picked up her beads, fingered them for inspiration and, prompted by subtle but insistent nudges from Morgana, gave me the background. He'd been at the college for many years and in all that time hadn't said boo to a goose. There wasn't any record of him ever having said anything to a goose, in fact, but if he had you could be sure it would have been more polite than boo. Then one day, out of the blue, he astonished everyone by announcing his intention to go away for a few days.
This revelation led to looks of disbelief being exchanged between the two girls. I was about to say it didn't seem like such a big deal when we were interrupted by raised voices at the next table.
A young man put down his glass sharply. 'Oh really, Jeremy, next you'll be telling me, like, Osiris never happened or something!'
'I'm just saying -'
'Perfumed unguents, wax, spices ... you know all that goo they make balm out of. Alexander the Great preserved in honey ...'
'Oh sure, spare me the O level stuff please! All I'm saying is wrapping in cloth and burying in dry sand was accidental and wasn't a chief mortuary concern ...'
'And I suppose the settlements at Abu Qir don't exist either?'
'Sssh, you two, keep it down!' said some of the other students at the table. 'You'll disturb the other drinkers.'
There was a murmur of approval round the table. 'Yeah, it's getting late anyway, we'd better go back and study.' They began to finish off their drinks.
We turned back to our own conversation.
'Maybe the Dean just felt like a holiday,' said Calamity.
Gretel blinked in disbelief. 'But Dean Morgan would never do anything as frivolous as that! And besides, he didn't say he was going to Aberystwyth, that's the funny part. It was Gwladys Parry the cleaner who saw him just by coincidence on the Prom, coming out of the Excelsior Hotel. Well, we couldn't believe it. The Dean in Aberystwyth! I rang the Excelsior Hotel straightaway and they said he had already checked out. Then a few days after that he rang me from that number I gave you —'
'The speakeasy?'
'Yes. But when I called him back it was really strange, I could hear the sounds of ... well ... a party or something in the background and the man who answered said ...' She half-closed her eyes as she tried to remember the exact formulation, ''It is the club policy to neither confirm nor deny the presence of any patrons on the premises.' But I knew it must have been a wrong number because the Dean would never go to a party.'
'It's unheard of,' said Morgana.
'What did he call you about?'
'Oh, he said to cancel his milk and I was to take his cat and the litter of kittens she'd just had and drown them.'
I took out the photo. It was just a stiffly posed shot of a priest in a dog-collar, taken for some yearbook or catalogue and obviously cut out of one.
'That's the best I could find.'
'Maybe he just wanted to go and play bingo or something,' suggested Calamity.
'But why would he want to do that?'
'For some light relief. Must be pretty spooky looking at stiffs every day.'
Gretel gave an understanding sigh. 'Yes, I know what you think — we must be really boring because we do what we do, not like those students in Aberystwyth. Everyone thinks the same.'
'Or they think we're really ghoulish,' said Morgana. 'Just because we do experiments with worms and flesh.'
Gretel nudged her friend. 'They're disappointed because we're not like the Bad Girl.'
They giggled again.
'Who's the Bad Girl?'
'Oh,' said Gretel throwing her nose up. 'We don't talk about her.'
'And you're wrong anyway,' added Morgana. 'Undertaking's a lot more exciting than you think. Do you know...' she exchanged a conspiratorial glance with Gretel, 'we each get a cadaver at the beginning of term to practise on, just like being a real doctor. Fancy that!'
'Yeah,' said Gretel. 'And some of the ones from Aberystwyth have died violently. I found a bullet hole in mine.'
'And mine had a crushed larynx!'
'And we get to go on some great field trips — the catacombs or crypts ... at Easter we're going to Golgotha.'
'All the same, none of this is any reason to think he's in trouble.'
Morgana nudged Gretel. 'Tell him about the other thing.'
Gretel took a breath and leaned closer in. 'A week after he went, a man came looking for him. A really strange man.'
'You mean strange for Lampeter,' asked Calamity, 'or strange for a normal town?'
I kicked her under the table.
'He was dressed funny and was unfriendly,' said Gretel.
'Rude,' added Morgana.
'What did he look like?'
'We couldn't see his face,' said Gretel, 'because he wore a muffler and had a wide-brimmed hat pulled down low —'
'With a black feather stuck in it.'
'And he wore a long black coat like the ones the medieval Jews wore - you know, like the ones they sell in Peacocks for nineteen ninety-nine.'
'The gaberdine ones.'
'Then a few days later the Dean called again, and I told him that a man in a Peacocks' coat was looking for him and he sort of cried out and said, 'Oh my God, I'm doomed!''
'What I don't get,' said Calamity, 'is why he contacts you and not a secretary or something?'
'Because', said Gretel, 'we're his friends, we do voluntary work for him and things.'
'What sort?'
She shrugged. 'Oh nothing special, alms-giving mostly. Just like students anywhere, really.'
I let that one pass.
