Trick of the Dark (6 page)

'That's right. I said it because that's what I saw. They slipped away towards the punt landing stage. There was no reason for them to go that way. You can only go to the landing stage or back up to the porter's lodge. And he didn't see them.' Magda stared down at the floor. 'That was when they killed him.'

'But you said you'd seen them from the window of Mummy's office. When you went up to get changed into your going-away outfit.'

'That's right. The office overlooks the Magnusson Hall lawn, where the marquee and the dance floor were. You know that.'

Catherine shook her head. 'But you weren't there, Magda. Not when you said you were.'

Magda felt cold, in spite of the stuffy warmth of the room. 'What are you talking about, Wheelie?'

Catherine's mouth twitched uncomfortably. 'I went up after you. I wanted to wish you luck. Give you a hug. Whatever.' One shoulder shrugged. 'Like sisters do. Only you weren't there. The door was unlocked but you weren't there.'

Magda forced a laugh, trying to sound warm and carefree. 'That must have been when I was in the shower. I took a quick shower, Wheelie. I was all sweaty and sticky from the dancing. I didn't want to put clean clothes on in that state. You must have come in then.' She leaned forward and rubbed Catherine's shoulder. 'Silly. Have you been worrying about this?'

'Not worrying, no. Just wondering.' Catherine's expression was still troubled. 'But, Magda . . . I don't think you can have been in the shower. Because, remember, when I couldn't find you I came back down the middle staircase in Magnusson Hall. And when I got to the ground floor, we met halfway down the corridor. Like you'd just come in the front door. And you were already in your going-away outfit. Remember?'

This was what she had dreaded. A witness who could challenge the version of events she and Jay had fixed on. But it was only Catherine, Magda told herself. Catherine, who had a vested interest in believing in the sister who had always been her hero. Magda shook her head indulgently. 'Well, of course. You don't think I was using the student bathrooms, do you? I had the keys for the Senior Common Room bathrooms on the ground floor of Magnusson Hall. Like I said, I'd just been in the shower.'

Catherine's face cleared in relief. Then it clouded over again. 'So when did you see them? If you were in the ground-floor bathroom, you couldn't have seen them from there.'

Magda gave an exasperated sigh. 'You missed your way, Wheelie. You should have been a lawyer or something. I saw them when I picked up the change of clothes from Mum's office. I stood at the window, looking down at the wedding. All the people I know and love, enjoying themselves. Thinking about the way my life was going to change.' She gave a bitter little laugh. 'Not that I had any bloody idea how it was really going to change.' She turned away from Catherine's gaze and studied the Spanish holiday poster. 'That's when I saw them.'

'Oh. OK.' Catherine smiled, uncertainly. 'I guess that clears it up, then.'

Magda sipped her drink and said nothing. She understood that labouring a lie was the very thing that undermined its credibility. 'Good coffee,' she said. 'Thanks for taking so much care of me over the trial. I appreciate it, Wheelie.'

Catherine shrugged. 'What else would I do? You're my sister.'

'I'm my mother's daughter, but she's not been near me.'

'She's struggling with the Jay thing, Magda. On top of losing Philip . . . well, it's been like a double whammy for her.'

'Thanks, Catherine.' Magda's tone was sharp. 'I didn't realise me being happy came in the same category as having your son-in-law murdered.'

Stung, Catherine stood up for herself. 'You've got to see it from her point of view. Philip was her dream son-in-law. He dies a horrible, violent death on the very day that all her dreams for you come true. And then you apparently turn into a lesbian without any warning. That's a bit hard for a committed Catholic like Mummy to take. You've got to give her time. You've got to talk to her. Make her realise you understand her point of view, even if you can't agree with it.'

Magda felt her throat constrict with emotion. 'And what about my point of view? When is she ever going to take that into account? How do you think I feel?'

'Like shit, I imagine,' Catherine said softly.

Before Magda could say anything more, the door opened and the familiar bald head of the court usher appeared in the gap. 'Jury's coming back,' he said.

'Already?' Catherine said. She turned to Magda. 'I told you it was open and shut.'

'As long as it's the right open and shut.' Magda followed Catherine and the usher out the door, praying that what she and Jay had done hadn't been in vain.

7

O
nce upon a time, Charlie had been more than a little in love with Dr Corinna Newsam. There were several very good reasons behind an infatuation that had lasted for most of her first year at St Scholastika's College. Corinna, the college's junior philosophy fellow, was the smartest woman she'd ever met. She was also the least stuffy academic, the most challenging conversationalist and the most demanding teacher Charlie had encountered. She was charmed by Corinna's Canadian accent, in awe of her mind and attracted by her sardonic smile. The husband, four children and adamantine Catholicism were mere details that barely impinged on Charlie's dreamy fantasies. And she never noticed that, like the family, she was entirely under Corinna's thumb.

The fascination didn't survive Charlie's first real love affair. Flesh and blood trumped dreams every time. Besides, by then Charlie had discovered Oxford was full of bright, stimulating women who carried less complicated baggage than Corinna Newsam. Not that she stopped admiring Corinna. She just stopped imagining those moments when the brush of two hands would suddenly explode into something more. Probably just as well, since by then she was an occasional babysitter for the Newsam children. Feverish unrequited lust was a major impediment when it came to occupying the hands and minds of four independent and intelligent children.

Of course, Charlie also eventually worked out that Corinna was a control freak and that she was just another cog in the wheel of the machinery that made Newsam family life run smoothly. When she left Oxford, Charlie knew that, in spite of their mutual assurances, she would be out of sight and out of mind to Corinna. They'd exchanged notes with their Christmas cards for a couple of years, then that had tailed off too. The only time they'd met since Charlie's graduation had been her ten-year gaudy. It had been an awkward encounter, neither really knowing how to bridge the gap between past and present.

And now she was going to have to pluck up the courage to call her. It wouldn't have been such a trial six months before, when Charlie had still been someone with a decent professional reputation, albeit tinged with a degree of notoriety. But now? Charlie stared at the phone and sighed. It was no good trying to pretend that Corinna would know nothing of her disgrace. Oxford colleges were gossip factories, their Senior Common Rooms a buzz of speculation built on slender accumulations of half-truths and rumours. But in this instance, they'd only have had to glance through the neat stacks of daily newspapers on the SCR table to fuel lengthy excursions through the moral maze of Dr Charlie Flint's professional actions.

'Oh, bugger,' Charlie muttered, reaching for the handset. This time of day, Corinna should still be in college. With luck, not teaching but reading. Or lying on the big green velvet chaise longue, thinking. The porter answered on the third ring. No such thing as a professional switchboard operator; the twenty-first century and still the college operated as if they'd barely made it out of the nineteenth.

'St Scholastika's College. How may I help you?' The burr of a local accent that sounded as if it had escaped from a BBC costume drama.

'I'd like to speak to Dr Newsam,' Charlie said, more brusque than she'd intended.

'May I ask who's calling?'

'Dr Charlotte Flint.'

'Dr Flint? How nice to hear you. One moment, I'll see if Dr Newsam's available.'

Bloody Oxford. Never lets you go.
Charlie waited, hollow silence in her ear. Nothing as tacky as canned muzak for her alma mater. She'd almost given up when she heard a sharp click followed by a familiar drawl. 'Charlie? Is that really you?'

'Corinna,' she said, taken aback by the warmth she suddenly felt. 'But you're not really surprised, are you?'

'That depends on why you're calling.'

The joust was on. Charlie felt tired at the thought of it. She moved in a different world these days, and she preferred it. 'I'm calling because you sent me a package of newspaper clippings, ' she said. 'About the trial of the two people who allegedly murdered Magda's husband on their wedding day.'

'Why would I do that?' Corinna sounded as if this were no more important than a routine tutorial inquiry about some detail of an essay.

'I think it was a challenge, Corinna. Given what you sent, would I be able to figure out who had sent it? And why? You did it because you're a philosopher. You've grown so accustomed to setting everyone tests and challenges that you've forgotten how to ask a straight question.'

'And what could my motivation for such a challenge possibly be?' Charlie thought she could hear tension in Corinna's voice now, but she couldn't swear to it.

'I'm not sure,' she said. 'But I did track down one photograph that gave me pause. I think if I was a mother and my daughter was running around with Jay Macallan Stewart, I'd be shouting for the cavalry. Now, I know I'm not everybody's idea of the cavalry, but I'm probably all you could think of at short notice.'

There was no humour in Corinna's laugh. 'I thought my memory was still reliable. You always had a gift for investigation and resolution. It's good to see the years have only sharpened it. Well done, Charlie.'

'What's all this about, Corinna? Apart from me being your self-fulfilling prophecy?' She didn't care that she sounded impatient.

'I need your help.'

Charlie sighed. 'It's seventeen years since I graduated, Corinna. You don't know anything about me.'

'I know enough, Charlie. I feel pretty certain you've got a burning desire to redeem yourself right now.'

Charlie closed her eyes and massaged her forehead. 'That's a little presumptuous, don't you think?'

A moment's silence, then Corinna spoke crisply. 'We know you here, Charlie. And there is a strong feeling among the senior members in college that you have been made a scapegoat. That you have in fact acted with honour and honesty. It may have been uncomfortable, but it was right to stand up for Bill Hopton's innocence when he was actually innocent. It's not your fault he went on his killing spree afterwards.'

'Some might disagree with you,' Charlie said, her voice weary. 'Some might say it was his very experiences at the hands of those of us involved in law enforcement that sent him over the edge.'

'Speaking as a philosopher, I find that an untenable proposition, ' Corinna said briskly. 'Now, there's nothing we can do to help you professionally, obviously. Although I'm sure, where influence exists, it's being brought to bear. But what I can do is offer you the chance to be useful. To use your skills for good, if you like.'

Charlie didn't know why, but she felt like laying her head on the desk and weeping. 'I don't have the faintest idea what you're on about, Corinna. And I'm pretty sure I don't want to.'

'Charlie, we can help each other here. But a phone call isn't the way to do this. Come and talk to me. Come to Oxford for the weekend. Bring your partner if you like. I'm sure she'd find plenty to amuse her in the city. You don't have to come and stay with us if you'd find that awkward after all this time. We'll find you a room in college.'

'I don't think so, Corinna.'

'All I'm asking is that you listen to me, Charlie. No obligation. If you won't do it for me, do it for Magda. You and Magda were always buddies. Charlie, I understand the reason you do what you do. It's because you have a desire to protect the vulnerable. Right now, Charlie, my daughter has never been more vulnerable. Can your conscience really afford any more burdens?'

'That's a very poor effort at emotional blackmail, Corinna.'

'You said yourself if you had a daughter who was running around with Jay Macallan Stewart, you'd be shouting for help. That's all I'm doing here.'

'I understand that. But I'm not the person to help with this. I don't know how to break up Magda and Jay Stewart, even if I thought that was an appropriate thing to do.'

'I'm not asking you to separate my daughter from Jay Macallan Stewart,' Corinna said, sounding ruffled for the first time. 'I wouldn't be so crass. I know my Magda well enough to understand that finding out the truth about the kind of person Jay Stewart is will do the job perfectly well. What I'm asking is that you bring your talents to bear on uncovering that truth. At heart, this is about a miscarriage of justice. I thought you still cared about that kind of thing, Charlie.'

It doesn't take long for silence on a phone to loom large. After a few empty seconds, Charlie said, 'I don't understand.'

'Paul Barker and Joanna Sanderson did not kill my son-in-law, Charlie. The jury's out today, the evidence is stacked against them. They're going to jail. And it's wrong.'

'Haven't you left it a bit late to try and drag me into this? If it was really about avoiding a miscarriage of justice, surely you should have called me weeks ago.'

Corinna's exasperated sigh was not unfamiliar to Charlie. 'This hasn't exactly been easy for me. I thought it would be thrown out of court. I had no idea how far . . . Look, Charlie, what matters here is that the two people in the dock are innocent. They didn't kill Philip.'

Charlie couldn't help herself. 'Who did?'

'Some things don't work over the phone. Come and talk to me, Charlie.'

Hook, line and sinker, Charlie thought. Here we go again.

8

I left Northumberland Jennifer Stewart and arrived at Oxford Jay. A small thing, for sure, but the first stage of my transformation. A lot more was needed, that much was soon obvious. Years later, I still have vivid, humiliating memories of my first tutorial with Dr Helena Winter.