The Last Detective (9 page)

It was difficult to tell at such close proximity, but it seemed to me that as I blew the second breath into the boy's lungs, the eye that I had examined gave a twitch. It remained shut, but the muscles around it appeared to flex. I could not be certain that it had happened. And I was not sure whether I had caused the effect myself with the pressure of my hand against the nose.

I stopped the blowing and drew back to get a better look. As I was putting my hand towards the eye, it opened and the iris moved. Both eyes opened fully.

The moment was profoundly moving. It was a deliverance. An acquittal. A life had been given back.

I murmured, 'Thank God!' I am not religious, but no other words could encapsulate my feelings.

The boy coughed and spluttered.

'I'm going to turn you on your side,' I told him, and the joy of communicating was never so exquisite.

The boy took several short breaths and then vomited some water. I massaged his back.

'He's all right! You saved his life!' The other boy knelt close to his friend. 'Are you all right, Mat?'

'Is that his name - Mat?' I asked.

'Matthew. And I'm Piers.'

'All right, Piers, let's have the shirt. We'll put it around his shoulders.' And as the boy on the ground started to turn his head, I told him, 'We'll get you home soon, Matthew.'

Piers announced, 'Here comes Nelson with the Old Bill.'

I turned to look. Not merely Nelson with the Old Bill, but up to twenty people were strung out along the river bank, running towards the weir. First they would have to climb a flight of steps and cross over the sluicegate. I took the opportunity to put in a word on Nelson's behalf. 'Piers, if I were you, I wouldn't say any more about the piece of wood that was thrown. Matthew walked along the weir and fell in. That's all you need to tell anyone.' fell in. That's all you

'I suppose it is.'

'I'm certain of it.'

'Right you are, sir.'

Matthew himself managed to speak in a croaking voice. 'It wasn't deliberate.'

I glanced down at the pale face, the red-lidded eyes and the dark hair flat to the forehead. He looked a bright kid. 'That's right, son,' I told him. 'Some time in our lives we've all done daft things we'd like to be overlooked.' The 'son' came naturally to my lips although I had neither son nor daughter. At the marvellous moment when Matthew had opened his eyes, I had experienced something not unlike the joy and relief a father must feel at the miracle of childbirth.

Piers said, 'The gentleman saved your life, Mat.'

I said, 'I think Mat needs to rest.'

It wasn't a policeman Nelson had found, but a traffic warden. He led the rescue party up the steps and over the platform. They had to climb over a railing and let themselves down.

Someone had thoughtfully picked up my jacket and shoes. While I was putting them on, the boys gave their version of what had happened. The siren of an approaching ambulance cut the explanation short. A blanket was handed down. Matthew protested that he would rather go home, but he was wrapped in it and hoisted up.

It was my opportunity to slip away. The role of gallant rescuer didn't appeal to me. I'd rather be known as the obstreperous fellow who winds up the dean.

LATE THE SAME AFTERNOON, I was drinking coffee in the kitchen of my house on Bathwick Hill, when the drum-roll sound of the rollers on the garage doors signalled Geraldine's return from her pub lunch. In quick succession came the thump of the Metro door, the clatter of heels across the concrete floor and the rasp of the door handle. She flung open the door. All those years in television and she still couldn't resist making an entrance.

This one was perfectly set up for her. 'Christ,' she said when she saw the white bathrobe I was wearing. 'What's going on - infidelity?'

I smiled. If she was being humorous - and I couldn't be sure these days - it was worth encouraging. 'Want a coffee?'

She nodded. She was pink from the Pimm's she'd been putting away. Her skin was drawn tight from cheek to jaw. For almost a decade the BBC make-up department preserved the peachy softness of her youth. Now it was gone. She had been written out of the series for two years, yet the image of Candice was impossible to forget when you looked at her. She was still a strikingly attractive woman, but the changes were striking, too - a poignant illustration of why the framed wedding photo in most homes gets consigned to a drawer after a few years.

She told me, 'For a moment just now I thought you were dead.'

'Dead?'

'I saw the suit hanging up in the garage. At first glance I thought you were in it. What on earth is it doing there?'

'It got wet, or at least the trousers did. I had a ducking today. My things smell of river water so I hung them out there.'

'River
water? Are you serious?'

I spooned instant coffee into a cup, poured on the boiling water and told her about the boy in the weir. When I had finished, she said, 'You could have drowned doing that. You could
really
have been dead.'

There wasn't the depth of concern in her voice that the statement warranted. On the contrary, there seemed to be a note of wistfulness.

I let it pass. As a literary man I know the mind's limitless facility for flights of imagination. 'Unlikely,' I said cheerfully. 'I have a charmed life, like the pigeon in Great Russell Street.'

'That:

'You haven't entirely forgotten, then?'

'I'm not likely to.'

These days, the Great Russell Street pigeon seemed to have become a bird of ill omen. Our marriage might have broken up already, were it not for the way we had chosen to conduct it. Although Geraldine no longer had professional commitments, we had kept to our pact to conserve a strong measure of independence. I would go abroad on courses without expecting Geraldine to tag along; and she took her own skiing holidays. We each had our own cars, beds, newspapers, books and records. She went to church; I didn't. We sometimes went separately to dinner parties. The theory was that when we did spend time together, the experience was more precious because it was by choice, not circumstance. And for the first few months it had worked, sexually and emotionally.

Given the free-ranging style of our marriage. Gerry's altered life after she lost her part in
The Milners
didn't threaten to spoil things too much. She had a pile of money from television and she spent it liberally. She soon linked up with a lively crowd from Bristol who were only too happy to hoist her on to the social merry-go-round she had missed before.

Now, two years on, our independence was about all we could agree on. Her erratic moods, the rages and the accusations, had turned the space we had created into a gulf. The sex had become perfunctory, and we both needed to be half plastered to perform it. Our conversations were strained even when Geraldine switched to her exultant, highly animated states, because our worlds hardly overlapped. She had friends I had never met. 'They would bore you,' she'd say, 'and, God, would you bore them!' There was an assumption in the way we treated each other that it would have to end in a separation.

However, I hadn't yet grasped that Geraldine's notion of separation was more absolute than mine.

And I still felt some responsibility towards her. I said casually as we sat drinking the coffee, 'I went for my medical this morning. I saw Bookbinder, your doctor.'

Geraldine gave me a sharp look. 'I didn't tell you Bookbinder was my doctor.'

'You didn't tell me you were being treated for insomnia, either.'

'Bloody hell!' The jar of coffee tipped over as she swept her arm outwards. 'That's private and confidential. You had no right to ask.'

'Hold on, Gerry,' I told her. 'Before you hit the ceiling, Bookbinder volunteered the information. He expected me to know all about it. I told him I didn't. It's news to me. I must say, I haven't noticed you lying awake.'

She didn't answer. She glared at me with her green eyes, threatening any minute to prove the truth of the axiom about redheads and their temper.

I said in conciliation, 'Gerry, I don't want to make an issue out of this. If you haven't been getting your sleep, I'm sorry. On the few occasions I've had a wakeful night myself lately, I've heard you breathing evenly and assumed you were out to the world. But I suppose the tablets have solved the problem.'

Her eyes widened and narrowed almost as quickly. 'You heard about those, too? What else did you bloody find out? Did you read my notes at the same time?'

After my attempt to take the heat out of the exchange, I found her response abusive. I rapped back, 'You'd better complain to your doctor, not me.'

She vented her fury m a piercing attack. 'Snake in the grass! You've been trying to find out things, haven't you? Prying into my treatment. What are you plotting? Going to my own doctor behind my back - it's disgusting!'

The usual tack. I said, 'Will you listen to me? I'm getting heartily sick of this persecution mania of yours. I was sent in to Bookbinder because my doctor - Marshall - is away. I went in to get the result of my medical.'

'You fixed a date when you knew Marshall was away.' She stabbed the space between us with her finger. 'You trumped up this medical just to get in to my doctor and find out what my medication is.'

'Give it a rest, will you?'

'It sticks out a mile! What are you up to, that's what troubles me. Are you trying to get something up with him behind my back? That's it, isn't it? You're in league with my doctor now, you bastard.'

'If this was behind your back, why do you think I told you about it?' I pointed out.

'Because you're bloody devious, that's why,' she shouted. 'You're covering your tracks, pretending it's all out in the open when it isn't. Why did you mention it at all if you knew it would upset me? You're up to something, there's no question of that.'

'Have you finished? You want to know why I mentioned this. I'll tell you. It's the reverse of what you're suggesting. The reason I spoke out is that I've always believed in being straight with you. And there's another reason: I'm damned sure you shouldn't be drinking or using the car if you're on phenobarbitone. A taxi might be sensible next time.'

'Go to hell.' She snatched up her bag and walked to the door.

I said, 'I mean it. You're going to kill someone if you carry on like this.'

She started to laugh.

I gave up trying to reason with her.

THURSDAY AFTERNOON OF THAT WEEK found me standing in front of a television camera beside one of the seven marble fireplaces in the main Assembly Room in Bath, the location so recklessly nominated for the forthcoming Jane Austen exhibition. As it happened, this wasn't directly concerned with the exhibition. I had been invited there in another connection, to contribute to a BBC
Points West
item about the history of the building. Even so, my thoughts kept darting ahead to September. The place was even more vast than I remembered. My gaze travelled up a Corinthian column and across the ornate ceiling to the orchestra gallery.

'Professor, would you mind coming in closer to Sadie?'

'If Sadie can stand the excitement,' I answered.

'Enough. Hold it there.' The highly-strung New Zealander who was directing this interview asked the lighting man if he was happier and got a thumbs-up. 'Fine. Are we okay for sound?'

While they continued to set up the shot, I spoke confidentially to Sadie, who was to interview me. 'Before we start, I'd like to get one thing straight. Just now you mentioned the
Jane Austen in Bath
Exhibition. At this stage dear Jane is just a twinkle in my eye, and a faint one at that. I only heard about it myself a couple of days ago. You'd better not ask me what my plans are.'

'No problem,' she said. 'Didn't Dougie make this clear? I won't ask you anything about it. After we screen the interview we'll mention that you're planning to hold the exhibition in September. That's all - a little advance publicity. We can drop it if you like.'

'No, it ought to go in.'

Today's item is just about the uses the Assembly Rooms have been put to over the centuries. All we want from you, Professor, is something about what went on here in Jane's time.'

'You mean behind the pillars?'

A look of disquiet crept over Sadie's features. She said, 'We were rather expecting that you would stress the more formal aspects, the dress balls and so on. I'm recording two more interviews to bring out the slightly more disreputable uses it was put to in more recent times. Apparently it was used as a cinema between the wars.'

'A cinema?' Still with a straight face I said, 'I can't imagine
anything
more disreputable than that.'

Every television interviewer dreads a wisecracker. Sadie eyed me without amusement and said firmly, 'Everything will be edited, by the way. It doesn't have to go out until Friday. Dougie wants at least two takes in case of a problem, so if you cough or anything, you needn't worry. It won't be transmitted.'

'My dear, I never worry.'

Sadie wetted her lips, turned away and said, on a lower note that I think was directed at the crew, 'You worry me, ducky.' She nodded to Dougie, the director.

'Quiet please,' he said. 'We're going for a take. Take one -and action.'

We didn't get past Sadie's first question before Dougie said, 'Cut'. Something was amiss with the sound. While they checked it, I awarded myself a short break. I left the firpelace, strolled across to a row of Chippendale chairs that the crew used between takes and picked up a newspaper someone had left there, the
Bath Evening
Chronicle.
The headline ran:
SHY HERO IN WEIR RESCUE.

I sat down and read on:

An unknown man plunged to the rescue of a drowning schoolboy at Pulteney Weir yesterday afternoon and hauled him to safety. The boy, Matthew Didrikson, twelve, of Lyncombe Rise, a day pupil at the Abbey Choir School, was unconscious when brought to the bank, but his rescuer revived him with the 'kiss of life' method of resuscitation. He was taken to the Royal United Hospital suffering from shock and water inhalation, but was not detained. , Matthew's rescuer, a well-dressed man of about thirty-five, left the scene without identifying himself.

Mr David Broadbent, a retired optician, saw the entire incident from Grand Parade. He said, 'The boy was playing with two others beside the weir and he started to walk out to the centre. The current was strong after all the rain we've had lately. The lad appeared to wobble and slip and the next thing he was in the water below the weir. The man must have seen it from Pulteney Bridge or thereabouts because he came running down the steps by the bridge and jumped straight in. He didn't hesitate. He swam to the weir and went in after the lad. It was heroic because people have drowned there in the past. Somehow he got a grip on the boy and they were washed to one side, and he climbed out and dragged the boy on to the bank and gave him the kiss of life. I think the Royal Humane Society should be informed, because that man deserves a medal.'

Dr Rajinder Murtah, who attended Matthew at the hospital, said, 'The boy undoubtedly owes his life to the prompt and sensible action of this unknown man.' Matthew's mother, Mrs Dana Didrikson, who is employed by Realbrew Ales Ltd as a driver, said, 'I would dearly like an opportunity to thank the brave man who saved the life of my son.' Matthew, apparently none the worse for his adventure except for superficial grazing, will return to school tomorrow.

A police spokesman said, 'At least three people have drowned at Pulteney Weir in the last ten years and there have been any number of incidents involving swimmers or canoeists. People don't realize that it's so deep below the weir that you could sink a double-decker bus there. For anyone caught in the undertow, it's a deathtrap.'

A voice at my shoulder said suddenly, There's no escape. I've tracked you down.'

'What?' I slapped the paper face down.

Sadie said, 'We're going for another take.'

On the evening the interview was screened I was caught up in a Board of Studies meeting, so I missed it. Gerry saw it and thoughtfully switched on the video-recorder, which she failed to notice was tuned to Channel 4, so when I got in I sat through ten minutes of a gardening programme before I realized what had happened. But it was meant as an olive branch after the shindy we'd had about my visit to Dr Bookbinder, and I thanked her for making the attempt.

'It's funny,' she remarked. 'You always look different when I see you on the box - almost dishy, in fact.'

'Dishy?'
I said, pretending to take umbrage. 'We were discussing the social
mores
of Bath in Jane Austen's era. That was my donnish look.'

'I wasn't taken in by that,' she said. 'It's just an act, isn't it? Greg Jackman putting it across that he's the professor, just like some actor hamming it up as Julius Caesar.'

There was more than a germ of truth in her comment, but I didn't much care for the analogy.

Some time after ten that evening, when I was sipping a cognac prior to checking that the doors and windows were locked, the phone rang. Gerry was taking a shower, so I picked it up, expecting to find myself talking to one of her many friends who called at all hours with titbits of gossip.

'Is it possible to speak to Professor Jackman?' a woman's voice asked.

'Speaking.'

'I thought I recognized your voice. I'm sorry to be calling so late. Is it terribly inconvenient?'

'Well, you found me at home,' I said cautiously, trying to work out whether this was one of my students wanting to contest a grading. 'Do I know you, then?'

'No. My name is Abershaw - Molly Abershaw.' She paused as if I might have heard of her, then resumed, 'From the
Bath Evening Telegraph.'

I said, with more tact than I usually employ, 'Now that you mention it, I believe I have seen your name in the paper.'

'And I saw you on television earlier this evening.'

That was why she had recognized my voice. I felt more comfortable with the call now that I had some idea of its provenance. 'You picked up the reference to the Jane Austen exhibition, I suppose?'

'Yes, indeed. That's in September, I gather?'

'Correct,' I told her, refraining from adding that it scarcely merited a ten o'clock call this evening.

'You'll be wanting to publicise it, I'm sure,' she went on. 'We'd like to run a feature nearer the time.'

'Fine,' I said, not wanting to prolong the conversation now that the necessary goodwill had been exchanged. 'It's early days yet, but I'll be happy to co-operate. And as you obviously have my home number as well as the university's, there should be no difficulty getting in touch.'

'I'd like to ask you something else,' she put in quickly. 'I don't know if you know my paper. It probably gets pushed through your door twice a week. It's free, but we have a very good name for our news reporting. Earlier this evening I was speaking to the young schoolboy who was almost drowned at Pulteney Weir on Monday. He saw you on
Points West
tonight and thinks he recognized you. He believes you were the man who saved his life. Are you able to confirm it, Professor?'

I hedged. 'Why exactly are you asking me this, Miss Abershaw?'

'I thought that was obvious. It's a matter of public interest. It was a very brave act and it deserves to be written up.'

'But it
was
written up, on the day after it happened.'

'Yes, in the
Evening Chronicle.
They weren't able to reveal the name —'

'.. .of the shy hero.'

'Exactly.'

'And you're hoping to get an exclusive?'

'Was it you, Professor?'

Stupidly I admitted that it was, and from the elation that came down the line she might have turned a cartwheel. 'Listen, I don't want any fuss,' I added, too late, of course. 'Anyone would have done what I did, seeing the boy in difficulties.'

She laughed. 'That's a load of balls.'

'What did you say?'

'Give me a break. This story has been written a million times before without a single line being altered. Man saves child, or old lady, or kitten - and then walks away without identifying himself. And when he is finally traced, he says, "Anyone would have done the same thing". Would they -hell! These days, nine out often would look the other way.'

I took refuge in the same well-worn formula she was attacking. 'I don't know what you want from me, Miss Abershaw, but the incident is over, as far as I'm concerned.'

She said, 'My paper will print your name. I thought you might like to be credited with a few intelligent remarks. Would you mind if we sent a photographer round in the morning to get a picture of you?'

'Yes.'

'That's very good of you. Would about nine be convenient?'

'I said yes, I
would
mind. I'm not posing for pictures.'

With steel in her voice, she said, 'We are a major local newspaper, Professor. We work closely with the university, publicising events.'

'Agreed, but this isn't an event requiring publicity.'

'With respect, I believe it is.'

'We'll have to differ, then.'

Then she played her trump. 'Don't you want to know how young Matthew is getting on?'

There was a threat of adverse publicity here. I said without much show of concern, 'Right. Tell me. How is he?'

'He's fine, but he'd like to meet you and thank you personally.'

'Oh, no,' I said. 'I'm glad he's all right and that's the end of it, as far as I'm concerned. Thank you for calling, Miss Abershaw.' I put down the phone.

Out of curiosity mingled with apprehension, I picked up a copy of Molly Abershaw's paper the next day. It was even more embarrassing than I expected. The main story, in banner headlines, was:

The mystery man who leapt to the rescue of a schoolboy at Pulteney Weir last Monday and used the kiss of life to revive him was today revealed as a Bath University professor. He is Professor Gregory Jackman, thirty-seven, of Bathwick, who was appointed to the newly-created Chair of English in 1987. The
Evening Telegraph
this week appealed for help in tracing the hero of the rescue, who walked away from the scene without identifying himself. A number of our readers phoned with detailed descriptions of the man, but appropriately he was spotted by the boy he rescued, twelve-year-old Matthew Didrikson, from the Abbey Choir School. Matthew recognized the professor when he appeared on the
Points West
programme on television last night, in a filmed report about the Assembly Rooms.

Said Matthew when the
Telegraph
phoned him last night, 'I'm positive that the professor is the man who saved my life. I switched to the programme by chance and there he was. It was really amazing.'

The
Telegraph
contacted Professor Jackman late last night and he confirmed that he carried out the rescue. After making sure that Matthew was fully conscious and the ambulance was coming, he had walked away because, in his own words, 'The incident was over as far as I was concerned'. He said he was pleased to be told that Matthew has now made a complete recovery.

It made me squirm, of course, but I suppose it could have been more of an embarrassment. I had to be thankful that I'd given my last lecture that term, for the article would have been a perfect excuse for some kind of stunt from my students.

As it was, I planned a low-profile weekend. The only social occasion was a party that Waterstone's bookshop was throwing at lunchtime on Sunday to publicize a new book of poems by Ted Hughes, the Poet Laureate, who was coming to sign copies. I had never met Hughes, but I liked his work and the issues that he espoused, and I wanted to be there. If I could get away reasonably early I hoped to drive down to Hampshire later the same afternoon to look at the house where Jane Austen had once lived in the village of Chawton. It was set up as a museum, so I was duty-bound to make a visit there soon, on the cadge for exhibits.

The weekend was one of those precious, if uncanny, intervals in an English summer when the weathermen were prepared to hold out the prospect of sweltering heat. Across the nation last year's snorts were tried on for size and straw hats were dusted off. Tables and chairs appeared outside pubs and cafes. Sales of suntan lotions, insect creams, lager and lettuce increased phenomenally. And, unbeknown to me, my wife prepared to murder me.

On the Sunday morning, I needed to catch up on some office work, so I put in a few hours at the university before the sun made further work impossible. Then I drove down to Bath for the signing party, which was marred for me by an unexpected incident. When I arrived soon after twelve, the crush around the table on the first floor where Ted Hughes was already signing was a fine testimony to the literary taste of Bathonians, even if some had lowered the tone by climbing on to stools to get their sight of the great man. I looked for someone I knew and spotted a group of kindred spirits from the university. We were soon deep in discussion about trends in modern poetry.