and Mrs Smith from Acacia Avenue might consider “scandalous” is considered de rigueur for these people. That’s what the club is basically for. It is a way of showing us that they don’t have to play by the rules. Meaning the rules that the rest of us have to obey. If you can’t sufficiently annoy the little people, you’re not fit to become a member.’
‘Where would I be able to find out more information about the club down through the years?’
‘How far back do you want to go?’
‘I’m not sure,’ said Joe warily, not wanting to give too much away. Even Mr Medieval Boozing must be aware of the current crop of ex-Merrion celebrities. If he started gossiping around town, the investigation could still find its way into the press. ‘Maybe thirty years or so.’
‘There’s a student newspaper called Grantebrycge.’
‘What?’
‘Gran-te-bry-cge… it’s what Cambridge was called, back in the Middle Ages.’ Hawley spelt it out, letter by letter, so that Joe could scribble it into his notebook. ‘The paper has been going since just after the First World War. It comes out every two weeks during term time. How specific is the information you’re looking for?’
‘I don’t really know.’
‘A fishing exercise?’ Hawley smiled. ‘Well, you might get lucky. Some American internet company started digitising the magazine archive as a PR stunt last year. Some of it might be online, but I don’t know how far they’ve got.’ He pointed along the street. ‘Their offices are just down the road. God knows if there’s anyone around at the moment, though.’
‘I’ll check it out, thanks.’ Joe took one last look at his Zen tea and decided to leave it. ‘Let me know if anything else comes to mind.’
The offices of Grantebrycge were housed in what looked like a small shop on a side street running towards the station. In the window was a copy of what Joe presumed was the front page of the latest edition, which was by now more than a month old. There was a website address above a cover feature about undergraduate hookers, headlined ‘Students for Sale’. More than half the page was given over to an image of a statuesque blond, wearing little more than her underwear, climbing out of a Porsche. Both her face and the car’s number plate had been pixelated out. In the top left-hand corner of the illustration it said: ‘As posed by a model.’ Joe scribbled down the email address and made a mental note to check out the ‘special investigation’ that was promised on pages four and five, once he next got online. Standing with this nose up against the window, he peered further inside. The place looked empty. He tried the door, which was locked.
Hovering outside the newspaper office, Joe watched a pretty blond girl walking up the road in his direction. From a distance, she looked similar to the model in the picture. However, there was no sign of any Porsche-driving punter on the mean streets of Cambridge that afternoon.
For want of anything better to do, he called Carlyle, but the inspector’s mobile was going straight to voicemail. Joe didn’t want to leave a message admitting that he’d found out next to nothing. Hoping that Carlyle was having a better day than himself, he wondered how long he would have to wait for a train back to London.
The blonde, meanwhile, had reached the Grantebrycge office. To Joe’s surprise, she stopped and smiled at him. In his experience that was not what pretty girls normally did.
‘Can I help you?’ she asked.
Unconsciously, Joe pulled in his gut and pushed back his shoulders. He gestured at the front page displayed in the window.
‘I was hoping to speak to someone at the magazine about back issues.’
‘You can find those online,’ the girl replied.
‘I need to go back a long way, maybe twenty-five or thirty years.’
A look of understanding breezed across the girl’s face. ‘Ah, yes, back when you were a student?’
‘Jesus,’ said Joe, ‘do I really look that old?’
‘Sorry,’ said the girl. ‘We get a lot of people wandering through here trying to dig up old stories to prove that the good old days actually happened.’
‘I didn’t go to university,’ said Joe, a tad defensively.
‘OK.’
‘But, if I had, it wouldn’t have been much more than a decade ago.’
‘Sure,’ the girl said doubtfully.
‘Anyway…’ Joe then belatedly managed to explain who he was and, in broad terms, what he needed.
‘Well, you’re in luck,’ said the girl, after she’d taken a careful look at his warrant card. ‘I was just popping into the office now. This is probably the only time for the next two months that you’ll be able to get in.’
After unlocking the door and inviting him inside, she turned and said: ‘I’m Sally McGurk, by the way. I’m a research student in Accounting and Finance, and also the deputy editor of Grantebrycge.’
‘An accountant and a journalist.’ Joe grinned. ‘How schizophrenic.’
‘No prizes for guessing which career path my parents are keener on me pursuing,’ Sally laughed.
‘No,’ Joe smiled. ‘I’d be delighted if my two kids became bean counters.’
‘And if they turn out to be journalists, instead?’
‘I might have to drown them in the Thames.’
She pulled a memory stick out of her pocket and waved it at him. ‘Right now, I’m two weeks late with my MPhil dissertation.’
‘Is that a big deal?’
‘It sure is,’ she grimaced. ‘It’s thirty thousand words and it represents a third of my final mark. I need to get three copies on my professor’s desk by ten o’clock tomorrow morning, before he heads off to Umbria for the summer, or else I fail.’
‘Bummer.’
‘It’s no biggie. I need an hour or two on the computer here, and then I’ll be able to print them out in about ten minutes flat.’
‘Why not just go to the library?’
‘Too many distractions. Always someone wanting you to go for a coffee with them or chat about what a shit their latest boyfriend is.’
‘Ah.’ Joe tried his best to look knowing.
‘Here I get guaranteed peace and quiet.’ She tossed him another dazzling smile. ‘At least I did until you came along.’
‘Sorry,’ said Joe.
‘Don’t worry about it.’ She pointed towards a computer at the back of the room. ‘Park yourself over there and get it switched on. Then I’ll come and see if I can help you in the right direction. What years are you looking for?’
‘1981 to 1985,’ Joe replied. The Carlton brothers had been at Cambridge until 1984, but he thought he should allow himself a little extra room at the back end, in case they’d hung around after graduating.
By now, Sally was already bashing away at the keyboard of another machine by the door. She paused to explain, ‘I don’t know if we’ve got that stuff on the system yet. Last I’d heard, they’d got as far back as 1988, but that was a few months ago, so you never know.’
After a bit of random groping around, Joe located the on-switch for his machine. ‘I could always look at the hard copies, I suppose?’
‘You could,’ she called over, while scanning the words on her own screen, ‘but they’re not kept here. Some are in the library, but most are stored in a warehouse out of town somewhere. That could take a while.’
In the end, accessing old copies of the newspaper proved much easier than he could have hoped. Not only had all the editions of Grantebrycge back to 1977 been put online, but an excellent search facility allowed him to compile lists of stories referencing both the Carltons and the Merrion Club. However, after more than an hour of scanning articles about binge drinking, trashing of restaurants, urinating in the street and other by now familiar types of student naughtiness, Joe was feeling quite fatigued, and fearful that he wasn’t really any further forward.
‘How’s it going?’ Sally asked. ‘I’m almost finished here.’
