The shower lasted no more than three or four minutes and, as it exhausted its course, so did Mr Richardson exhaust his rage.
‘You must pardon the force with which I express myself,’ he said, touching Holdsworth’s sleeve. ‘It is foolish of me to let the matter rankle. But when we live cheek by jowl as we do here, it is not easy to keep a sense of proportion. But to have it reserved for a man who, however able, has not yet graduated as bachelor of arts is most irregular. I shudder to think what the other colleges are saying of us. But let us leave that aside – I wished to ask you about something of far more importance. It has been rumoured that you have been with Mr Frank Oldershaw. Is it true? How is the dear boy?’
‘I am afraid I cannot break a confidence,’ Holdsworth said, smiling.
‘Ah, so that’s the way the wind blows, eh? Well, wherever he is, I hope his health improves. You must let me know if I may be of service either to you or to him. And if you should chance to see him, pray give my compliments.’
The rain had stopped. The two men strolled slowly under the green shade of the tree in the direction of Chapel Court and New Building. Neither of them spoke. Over to the left there was a metallic rattling that continued for a few seconds and then stopped. It was the sound of iron-rimmed wheels rolling over flagstones. Tom Turdman was doing his rounds. The chapel bell began to toll.
‘Ah – dinner time. Do you dine with us, sir? You would be very welcome.’
‘Thank you, no,’ Holdsworth said. ‘By the by, and under quite a different head altogether, I wanted to ask you about Mrs Whichcote’s wound.’
‘Her wound?’ Richardson stopped, his eyebrows rising. ‘You have the advantage of me.’
‘When I talked to the night-soil man, he mentioned that there was a wound of some sort on her head. On the left temple.’
Richardson laughed. ‘What Tom referred to as a wound was no more than a slight discoloration. An old bruise, no doubt – perhaps the poor lady knocked her head on a beam a day or two before her death. How typical of the uneducated mind to make a melodrama from the most mundane circumstance.’
The Jericho was a brick outhouse that backed against the college boundary wall on the south side of the gardens. The door was at one end, raised about a yard above the ground, and with five stone steps leading up to it. There were no windows, only a line of long rectangular vents just below the eaves. Beyond the door and the steps was another lower door, as wide as the first but no more than four feet high. Both doors were open. Tom Turdman’s barrow stood near by.
Holdsworth went up the steps and stopped in the upper doorway. The chamber was empty. From below, however, came the sound of scraping, shuffling and spitting.
Along the right-hand wall ran a four-seater bench, each hole separated from its neighbour by a low partition that afforded the notion of privacy rather than its reality. Generations of undergraduates had scratched their initials and a selection of insults and obscenities into the wood.
The bell over the chapel continued to toll, calling members of the college to their dinner in hall.
As Holdsworth came out of the boghouse, Tom Turdman emerged from the lower door, hunching forward to duck under the low lintel. A heavy apron, soiled with excrement and urine, protected his clothes. He carried a bucket overflowing with ordure and scraps of newspaper, which he emptied into the barrow. In his other hand was a stained handkerchief, trimmed with lace. Whistling tunelessly, he pushed the handkerchief into the mouth of a little sack hanging from the handle of the barrow. He straightened and blew his nose between finger and thumb. He saw Holdsworth standing over him.
‘Are you later than usual?’ Holdsworth said.
‘I come when I can, sir.’ Tom knuckled his forehead in salute and turned back to the door of the cesspool chamber.
‘Wait. I wish to speak to you.’
‘Me?’ Tom repeated, sounding like a parrot and contriving to give the impression that he understood the word as much as a parrot would have done.
‘I want to ask you something.’
‘Best be getting on, sir. Always a rush on the Jericho after dinner.’ He gave another of his toothless grins. ‘You wouldn’t like to be down there when the young gentlemen is up above you, sir, upon my honour you wouldn’t.’
Holdsworth jingled a handful of change in his pocket. ‘About your discovery in the Long Pond.’
‘The ghost that murdered herself, sir?’
‘Damn it, man, she did not murder herself and she was not a ghost and nor is she now. She was a woman of flesh and blood who had the misfortune to fall in the water and drown.’
‘If you say so, sir.’
‘I do say so. Now listen to me: when we talked in the Angel, you told me that when you found the body your first thought was that it was Mrs Carbury because she was the only woman who slept in college.’
‘There’s two of them.’
‘What?’
‘Her maid sleeps in too.’ Tom Turdman chuckled. ‘Ain’t natural, sir, is it? Two women, all these men.’
‘Listen: you said it wasn’t her outside, not this time. So you mean to tell me that Mrs Carbury sometimes walks out in the garden very early in the morning? At night, even?’
Tom shuffled nearer the low doorway, his bucket clanking. He did not look at Holdsworth.
‘Well? Is that the case or is it not?’
The night-soil man glanced at Holdsworth and then away. ‘Sometimes, maybe.’
‘Does she know you see her?’
The man shrugged.
‘Surely she must hear your wheels?’
‘I ain’t always moving around, sir. Sometimes I just stand somewhere and rest a bit.’
‘So you smoke a pipe or have a nip of something to warm you or fall into a doze? Very likely. And where do you do this?’
Tom Turdman waved vaguely, his hand describing an irregular arc that took in most of the college. ‘Ain’t particular, sir. All I ask is a bit of shelter from the weather, a bit of quiet.’
‘Under that big tree by the pond, perhaps?’
Tom nodded.
‘And where have you seen Mrs Carbury?’
‘In the Master’s Garden, sir, walking up and down. Or sometimes she used to come out here. Through that gate on t’other side of bridge.’ He nodded towards the gate with the iron grille through which Holdsworth’s fingers touched Elinor Carbury’s. ‘Lady can’t sleep, I reckon.’
Holdsworth took a handful of coppers from his pocket. ‘Used to? Does she no longer walk abroad at night?’
‘Don’t know, do I, sir? All I know is what I see with my eyes. And hear with my ears. And I ain’t heard her or seen her for weeks. Not that I’ve been looking out for her, though. Got my work to do, haven’t I? So for all I know she might be walking here still. Or maybe the lady sleeps more soundly now.’
Holdsworth held out his hand. Tom Turdman stared at the coins.
‘I saw them both, one time,’ he said.
‘What? Who?’
The night-soil man wiped his nose on his sleeve. ‘The Master’s lady, sir. She was with the one that died, the ghost.’
‘When was this?’ Holdsworth snapped.
Tom Turdman stared up at him with frightened eyes. ‘Months ago, sir. Before Christmas, before the pretty one died. They were walking in the garden under the moon.’
32
Like shrunken academics, two hooded crows stalked across the sacred square of grass in the middle of Chapel
