Murder Is Academic (15 page)

‘I've got to explore this,' said Stephen.

He felt in the pocket of his fleece and took out a pencil torch.

I looked at the steep, irregular slope of rock. It was shiny and slick with water.

‘I'll wait here,' I said.

Stephen clambered up into the cave and disappeared round the bend.

I sat down on a ledge in the rock. Before me was a short, steep, grassy slope, which ended in a cliff after about fifteen feet. I could see the spindly tops of trees that had managed to get a foothold in the shallow soil lower down. Far below, two walkers in bright orange cagoules came into sight. I watched them moving along the path until they reached the point where it disappeared again. My eyes began to water in the wind, and I wiped some tears away with the back of my hand.

I had read in the guidebook that Palaeolithic and Mesolithic hunters had used the cave as a base from which to hunt reindeer, woolly rhinoceros and the mammoth. Archaeological digs had uncovered pottery, whetstones, querns and arrowheads dating back thousands of years, along with the bones of bears, deer, wolves and polecats. I looked out over the dale, thinking about the people who had also sat here all those years ago, scanning the horizon for game. Probably the landscape had not looked very different then: more wooded, perhaps a little wilder, but essentially the same.

Stephen seemed to have been gone a long time. I looked round at the entrance to the cave. And suddenly I knew where I had seen it before; not in real life, but in a painting. That was why I had been confused. It was one of those sinister apocalyptic pictures by John Martin. I'd seen it in the Victoria and Albert, and I'd especially noticed it because the subject was from
Paradise Lost.
A monstrous tunnel carved out of a rock face leading to Hell … but no, it was worse than that: it was the highway by which Sin and Death came into the world after the Fall.

I shivered. The sun was hidden behind a band of grey cloud. Without its thin warmth, the day was bleaker. My feet were getting numb. I called Stephen's name. There was no reply, but when I called again, I was answered by an indecipherable sound from deep in the cave. A few minutes later, I heard the sound of his boots on the rocky floor of the cave, then a yelp and a thud.

‘Stephen! Are you all right?'

‘I think so, yes.'

There was a scuffling. He edged gingerly round the bend in the cave.

‘I put my foot into a big hole and went down up to my knee.'

He slithered down the rock face and landed with a thump beside me.

‘It would be easy to have an accident here,' he said. ‘The rocks have been worn smooth by people climbing up into the cave, and if they were wet as well, and the light was beginning to go…'

‘And if you hit your head against one of these projecting ledges…'

I could see it all: the carelessly placed boot, a skid, a cry, arms whirling, the crack of bone on rock, a limp body rolling over and over, turning faster and faster. The thud of impact as it hit the trunk of a tree. Then silence settling again over the valley, and night descending. There was nothing now to fear from bears and wolves, but death was still here in the darkness and the cold.

‘I hope she didn't regain consciousness,' I said.

Had the cold and dark been the only things to fear on that night? I wondered. I saw a shadowy figure follow Lucy up the steep path to the cave – a friendly greeting, a conversation, perhaps, then a violent shove.

‘But who would want her dead?' I said, thinking aloud.

‘How about Malcolm? Or, better still, Margaret?'

‘No, oh no.' I stared at him.

‘You said yourself that she wouldn't have wanted her affair with Lucy made public. Well, suppose she had tried to break things off and Lucy wasn't having any of it.'

Fragments of Lucy's last letter to Margaret came back to me.
I can't stand this concealment any longer … it's too painful to go on like this … I want to sweep all that aside and come out into the open …

‘What if Margaret drove up to Derbyshire to have it out with Lucy?' Stephen continued. ‘Malcolm is away on business. No one knows she's here. Margaret and Lucy go for a walk. They argue. Lucy threatens to expose Margaret. Everything that Margaret holds dear is threatened: her marriage, her job, her reputation. She sees red. One shove and it's over.'

‘But how could she be sure that it would be enough to kill her? And, in fact, it
didn't
kill her, or at least, not straightaway. She died later in hospital.'

‘Margaret doesn't think that far ahead. She just sees that it looks like a long way down. She acts on impulse. Then she panics and drives back to Cambridge. It's a terrible jolt when she learns that Lucy has been found alive, but then she dies and Margaret is in the clear after all. Plausible?'

‘Absolute tosh. In all the years I worked with Margaret, I never once saw her lose her temper. She just wasn't an impulsive person.'

‘She was impulsive enough to fall in love with Lucy..'

‘Well, OK, but that's hardly the same thing. And if she'd murdered Lucy, would she have kept her letters? Surely not.'

‘You do have a point there,' Stephen admitted.

In the heat of our discussion we hadn't noticed the time passing. Now I realized that the air had taken on the grainy texture that means it will soon be getting dark. I looked down into the valley. The other walkers had gone. There was no one in sight.

‘We'd better go,' I said.

Stephen stood up.

‘Where exactly was Lucy found?' he asked.

‘I think her fall was broken by some trees, so I suppose it must have been down there.'

He took a step or two further forward for a better view.

And that was when it happened. He put his foot down on a stone hidden by the grass and turned his ankle. He swayed sideways. I was just getting to my feet and I put out my hands instinctively to break his fall. He was teetering, trying to get his balance. He reached out to grab my coat. His eyes met mine. Time seemed to stop for a moment, and in that space it was as if I could see the thoughts going through his mind. The baby! I mustn't … I wasn't sure if it was my thought or his. I took a step backwards. At the same moment he jerked his hand away. Then he was down, rolling down the slope, scrabbling at the grass as he went, pulling out huge muddy handfuls.

I watched in helpless horror as Stephen went over the cliff.

Chapter Twelve

DEATH CLIFF CLAIMS SECOND VICTIM

I read the headline aloud.

‘Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated,' Stephen said sourly.

‘They don't actually say that you're dead,' I pointed out. ‘Just that you are a victim. Now where was I? Oh yes. “Cambridge solicitor, Stephen Newley, 41, a partner in the firm of Callow, Newley and Loomis, was lucky to escape with his life when he lost his footing walking in the Derbyshire Dales and fell over the cliff that claimed the life of Cambridge postgraduate, Lucy Hambleton, earlier this year. He suffered multiple injuries—”'

‘Multiple injuries!'

‘Well, I suppose cuts and bruises, a cracked rib, a sprained ankle and mild concussion could be described as multiple.'

‘But it makes me sound as if I'm at death's door!'

‘Let's see. How does it go on…? “His heavily pregnant girlfriend, Cassandra James, 40" – bloody cheek! Can't they get anything right? – “scrambled down the mountainside to summon help. Mrs Vickery, landlady of The Compleat Angler, where the couple were staying, said, ‘Thor's Cave is very picturesque, but the path up to the cave is very steep, and it's slippery when it's been raining. People don't realize how dangerous it is'…” blah, blah, blah.'

I dropped the
Cambridge Evening News
on the bed. It slithered onto the floor, startling Bill Bailey who was curled up at the bottom of the bed.

‘How did they get hold of the story anyway?' Stephen wondered.

‘Some enterprising stringer hanging around Derby General Hospital, I expect. The article was right about one thing. You
were
lucky.
We
were lucky.'

‘I know. It doesn't bear thinking about. Still can't believe I was so stupid.' Stephen closed his eyes.

I watched his face. We hadn't talked much about the accident. It was as though we didn't want to make the horror of what had nearly happened more real by discussing it. Those moments on the hillside after he had vanished over the edge of the cliff had been the most terrible of my life. There had been a crashing and a tearing sound. Then absolute silence had settled over the valley. I was still standing there, frozen to the spot, when I heard Stephen faintly calling. His fall had been broken by a tree. I had made my way slowly down the hillside, willing myself to keep calm for the sake of the baby, going down the steepest parts on my backside so as not to risk falling. Near the bottom I had met two mountain bikers on a rough track. One of them had gone for help, while the other had stayed with me. Stephen had only been in hospital overnight. We had stayed at The Compleat Angler for an extra night to rest, then I had driven the Audi very slowly back to Cambridge on the Monday, with Stephen in the passenger seat, angled as far back as it would go. He was installed in my small spare bedroom on the ground floor of the Old Granary. It was Tuesday evening now.

Stephen opened his eyes and smiled at me. ‘One thing,' he said. ‘I won't be short of things to read.'

It was true. There wasn't a room in the house that wasn't full of books. Even in here where the bed took up half the space, I had a makeshift bookcase of bricks and planks. This was where the light reading was kept. Stephen had only to stretch out a hand to have a row of classic green Penguin crime novels at his disposal: Nicholas Blake, Josephine Tey. Ngiao Marsh.

‘When I'm on my feet again, I'm going to make you some proper bookshelves and I won't take no for an answer.' He gave a yawn that turned into a grimace. ‘Do you know, the worst thing isn't the pain – though that's bad enough – but the blasted itching under this dressing on my chest. It's driving me crazy.'

I heard the sound of a car draw up outside. I looked at my watch. ‘Seven o'clock. I suppose it's the doctor. He's a bit early.'

The bell rang.

I went over to the window and looked out. The visitor had set off the security lights, but they were standing too near the front door for me to see anything except the back of a cream raincoat.

‘It doesn't look like him.'

‘Don't take the chain off until you've seen who it is,' Stephen said.

I went into the hall and opened the door a crack.

The person I saw outside, waiting in the rain, was Jane Pennyfeather.

‘Cassandra! Are you all right?' Her face was pale in the powerful light.

‘Yes, yes, I'm OK.'

‘I've come to see Stephen. I'm acting as a locum for Dr Ferris.'

I took the chain off the door. The net of tiny raindrops on her fair hair caught the light as she came in. The chill of the evening came with her, clinging like an aura.

‘He's in here,' I said. I opened the spare room door to display Stephen lying on the bed with his blue-and-white pyjama jacket open over his bandaged ribs. There was a bandage round his head from which his hair was sticking up in tufts. His face was scratched where the branches of the tree had caught him. He had a plaster on one cheek, and one of his hands, sore from his efforts to break his fall, was still bandaged.

‘Jane, this is Stephen. Stephen, this is Jane Pennyfeather.'

‘I know I look like something from
The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb,
' he said, ‘but it's most cuts and bruises.'

‘Thank goodness for that,' she said.

‘Take your coat off. Have a cup of tea.'

‘Thanks. Yes, I'd like that.'

I helped her off with her coat. Under it she was dressed in a smart red sweater, calf-length navy skirt and matching court shoes. I guessed that she had come straight from evening surgery. When I came back with the tray of tea, she was sitting on the bed beside Stephen, looking into his eyes with a little torch.

‘You'll live,' I heard her say. ‘But I expect those ribs are still pretty painful, aren't they?'

‘I'll say,' Stephen said with feeling. ‘It's particularly bad when I'm trying to get to sleep.'

‘I'll give you a painkilling injection before I go. That should help.'

I poured out the tea. As soon as I sat down, Bill Bailey jumped off the bed onto my knees, throwing a suspicious glance at Jane. He didn't like strangers coming to the house.

‘How's Malcolm?' I asked.

‘Not bad, all things considered. He still misses Margaret terribly, of course, but he's coping.'

She sipped her tea in silence. Stephen lay back on the pillows with his eyes closed. I stroked Bill Bailey.

Jane said, ‘It's not by chance that I'm here this evening. I
am
acting as a locum for the practice, but not actually for Dr Ferris. When I saw the call listed, I asked to come in his place. I just had to find out what was going on, how you were. Especially you, Cassandra, with your pregnancy.'

‘It's sweet of you to be so concerned,' I said slowly.

There was a question in my voice. I waited for her to say more, but nothing came. I looked into her face and saw that she was frowning.

‘Jane, what's the matter?'

‘It's just brought everything back.'

‘Brought what back?' Stephen asked.

‘Of course, you don't know, do you? Lucy Hambleton was my cousin.'

‘Your cousin?' I stared at her. I had never dreamed of there being any connection between them. How could they be cousins? They seemed to be from different generations. It didn't make sense.

I was about to speak. Jane anticipated my question. ‘She was the daughter of my mother's younger sister. I was fifteen when she was born. I've always felt protective towards her. She stayed with me when she first came to Cambridge.'