Geraldo Valentiano was, as reported, packing, folding his tailor-made shirts into a leather bag of butter-soft leather, and hanging his jackets inside a Louis Vuitton garment bag. He looked up briefly as the policemen entered (the door had stood open), gave them the once-over, and carried on with his task. His face betrayed not an ounce of concern.
"I think I just mentioned to you, Sir, that you were to remain here. We'll probably need you for the inquest."
Geraldo shrugged. "So I'll return for the inquest."
St. Just persisted. "I hope you're not planning to ignore an official police request? That could get… complicated."
"Could make you look guilty, like," volunteered Sergeant Fear. "Like you were fleeing justice."
"Fleeing justice," mimicked Geraldo. "What an old-time concept. Justice. Is a man not allowed to pack his luggage in this country?"
"As long as that's all you do," said St. Just. "Were you planning on growing a beard, then?" He indicated the shaving kit already packed into the bag.
Geraldo Valentiano looked at him. "I might."
"One question, Sir. Well, let's make it two. Lexy was overheard asking for the payment of some money you owed her."
Geraldo just looked stonily across the room.
"Well?" said St. Just.
"Oh. Was that a question?" said Geraldo. Then, off St. Just's look, he said, "Well, yes, I got in a tight spot at the tables one night. She bailed me out. Just twenty-five thousand pounds-no big deal. I was going to repay it-she knew I was good for it."
"I see," said St. Just slowly. "Yes. All right, second question: You've told one of my officers that when Lexy's room was broken into, you were playing tennis, is that right?"
"I was. An innocent pastime, no? The thing I like about tennis is that when you're in the thick of it, it takes your mind off everything else. You stop thinking, like."
Hardly a novel experience for you, I'd wager. Sergeant Fear fairly snorted his frustration. What more did St. Just hope to learn from this swarthy oaf?
"Who were you playing with, if not Lexy?"
Geraldo gave one of his eloquent shrugs.
"India. She was very keen. And quite a good… " Here he paused, lifting an eyebrow sardonically. "She is quite a good player. If you catch my meaning."
St. Just looked at him coldly.
"Will that be all, Inspector? It looks like I have some unpacking to do." -- "What was that about?" fumed Sergeant Fear as they walked away from Geraldo's room. "Is he really trying to imply he's having some kind of affair with Lady Bassett?" Fear, having taken quite a shine to India, was in full chivalrous mode at hearing her honor maligned.
"I'd say he was. Implying, that is. It may or may not be true, of course, but it's a convenient alibi for them both, isn't it? Tennis, followed by… whatever." Sergeant Fear, with an effort, managed to stifle his horrified protests. "Let's see who's downstairs."
They came across Karl Dunning in the SCR. He was reading the Financial Times, closely following the type on its light salmon-pink pages as if deciphering an ancient rune.
"Ah, just the man I wanted to see," said St. Just, taking a seat across from him. "I wanted to get some insight from you. My feeling is that you're rather an insightful man."
"Flattery will get you everywhere, Inspector," said Karl, putting aside the paper. "What is it you want to know?"
"Nothing specific. Something general, rather. What was your sense of Lexy? I mean to say, what kind of person was she, beyond what was apparent?"
"You're on to that, are you? You must be, to ask the question."
"She seemed to manage rather well," said St. Just, "for a woman who was, technically, unemployed. She also apparently wasn't shy about asking for repayment from anyone who might owe her."
Sergeant Fear, at a loss, looked from one man to the other.
"Everyone talks about how flighty she was," said Karl Dunning. "Hermione goes on and on about how man-mad she was, but Hermione rather revels at times in her reputation as a crackpot spinster, don't you agree? Anyway, all of what Hermione says may be true, but it doesn't entirely match my experience of Lexy. She and I stumbled somehow into a conversation about the stock market, and I saw a different side of the woman, I can tell you. She was able lucidly to discuss the reasons behind the financial meltdowns in Iceland and on Wall Street, making her one of the few people alive who can. She wanted my advice, she said, but I'm not sure she really needed it. It was more like she wanted confirmation of what she'd already decided on for herself."
"Financial advice?"
"Yes. She had some money to invest, wanted to know what I'd do with 'a small windfall.' I told her I'd lend her a book I had with me. It was actually a book I'd co-authored on the subject, in point of fact."
"You were on friendly terms with Lexy, it seems."
For the first time, the amiable Karl showed a flintier surface. "I was lending her a book, Inspector, not asking her to run away with me."
"A windfall, you say. She wasn't specific about the amount? Or where it came from?"
Karl Dunning shook his head. "I didn't get the impression it was any large amount, although I realize 'large' is a relative term to an already wealthy person. She called it her 'mad money' and told me she wanted a flutter with some of the riskier stocks. But what I was saying-she liked to pretend she knew little about 'men's business,' as she called it, gazing up at you from under flickering eyelashes the while, but the questions she asked were spot on. I got the impression of a sharp mind in operation-sharp when it came to money, certainly. But at the same time, she was expending a lot of useless energy trying to cover up her knowledge. In discussing the economy, she'd use a phrase like 'collateral debt obligations' or 'sales-to-income stream,' realize what she'd said, and try to pretend she was just mouthing terms, like she didn't know what the terms meant. She knew. Do you see what I mean? It was like some tortuous Victorian-era style of flirtation. And why waste it on me? Force of habit, I guess. But she could talk the jargon with the best stockbroker." -- "That was interesting," St. Just said to Sergeant Fear as they walked along the corridor from the SCR towards the long gallery above the Fellows' Garden.
"You think he's a reliable witness, Sir?"
"I do. For one thing, I don't know why he'd lie about such a thing. It's really nothing to us whether Lexy could balance a bank statement or not. What's interesting is that she felt it necessary to hide it. That Lexy was not as thick as she liked to pretend. That she was two personalities, if you like. I thought Mr. Dunning might be the person to ask. He may keep a low profile and let his wife do the talking, but I got the impression of a man who doesn't miss much. I don't think his wife is quite as silly as she appears, either. Like Lexy, she might be clever but only in certain ways. Certainly she's clever at getting her own way. Could be the man's had long practice with women who aren't quite the way the world perceives them."
They had reached the long gallery. Looking through one of the glassed-in archways, St. Just could see the back of a particular head of glossy dark hair, the thick, straight strands of which were tied back low on a long, graceful neck. The tilt of the narrow head made it recognizably Portia's.
Plus, he knew what she was up to.
Sergeant Fear followed his gaze and tactfully said, "Right. I'll get onto HQ about when we might expect to see some of those background reports."
Portia was sitting on the garden bench, in the same spot that had been occupied not that long ago by Lexy Laurant.
"How morbid, you'll be thinking," she greeted him.
St. Just raised a quizzical eyebrow.
"Actually," she explained, "I was doing a little unofficial investigating."
"Thought you might be. I've warned you before about that."
"I was trying," she went on, "to see what she could see from here. Maybe that night she saw something she should not have seen. You know-something that put her in danger. Drug smuggling or something."
St. Just looked around him at the gardens, the buildings, and the pale blue sky corrugated with narrow strips of white cloud. Peering down on them from above were two gargoyles, one at each end of the gallery roof. Only they saw, only they heard, thought St. Just. That little fellow with the claws and the pointed ears and the long tail. He saw Lexy walk away to her death.
He sat beside Portia and took her hand in his.
"I would much prefer having a little less help on this investigation," he said. "But if you really are trying to see things from her angle, you'll have to slump a bit. She was quite a small woman, you know. Short and petite, unlike my Portia. So zaftig."
Portia gave him a dig in the ribcage that could have sent him flying. If ever there were a woman to whom the word zaftig could not apply, it was Portia.
"What?" he said. "Luckily for you I like a woman with meat on her bones."
"Shut up," she instructed him. She slumped down several inches and panned the area slowly from left to right. St. Just sat quietly, breathing deep of the complex perfume of the garden, and of the light scent Portia wore, a flowery fragrance, perhaps mixed with a little vanilla. The air lay warm and moist against his face.
"Nothing," she said at last. "If anything, I have a more restricted view than before. The walls, the trees…she had to have been staring at the statue of the founder. Granted, he's an eyeful."
They both cast a baleful eye on Titus Barron, founder of St. Michael's. He stared out from across the centuries wearing his snug-fitting doublet, with his cloak tossed rakishly across his shoulders and his legs encased in hose. He was posed ballerina-like to display shapely ankles to best effect-ankles that no doubt had helped attract the wealthy merchant's widow he had taken as his bride, nicely shoring up his already substantial fortune. Bloodthirsty even by the standards of his day, he had been instrumental in pushing through King Henry's infamous divorce from Catherine, and had been amply rewarded for his efforts.
At the moment, a pigeon was perched on the feather in his cap.
"Granted," said Portia. "It's not taken from the life, but from some late-Victorian sculptor's idea of how a fine gentleman of that era must have looked."
They stared at Titus awhile longer, but nothing about the sixteenth-century founder, or the pigeon, suggested to them how a twenty-first century woman might have come to meet her violent death under his self-satisfied gaze. The Fellows' Garden, walled on all sides, seemed an oasis of calm.
"Anyway," Portia continued, "one has to say there was not a lot to hold her attention, although I suppose the fountain's rather nice."
"Is it always turned on, the fountain?"
She shook her head. "It's on a timer so it shuts off at ten. A compromise in another case of the Bursar v. the Master, the former wanting it turned off at all times to save money."
Together they watched the fine mist play against the light and air.
"She was apparently in an emotional state," said St. Just. "She may not have been looking at anything in particular, if you follow."
"Yes, I do. In any event, she evidently got bored after a while, and wandered off towards the boathouse and the river. I wonder why-was it just aimless wandering, or did she go there with a purpose, to meet someone?"
"I have wondered the same. Some party from completely outside our group of suspects, someone from her life in London, perhaps… an old flame, perhaps. She had been a single woman for some time. We're of course looking into that angle, but it seems unlikely someone not connected with the college would be guilty of this crime. Do you know: Was there much in the way of gossip about her?"
"Oh, yes, she was fodder for the gossip magazines of a glossier sort," said Portia. "Always photographed doing something glamorous, and managing to look better than the average mortal as she did it."
"Was she generally photographed with an escort of some kind?"
"Oh, generally. But it was her clothing that was of interest. The men tended not to be in the picture. Literally."
"Yes, well, we'll have to look into all that, I suppose. Disrupt a few lives, perhaps needlessly. It's jolly hard to imagine someone following her from London to lurk about in the grounds all weekend, awaiting the chance to strike. It requires a degree of lunacy, that kind of patience and planning-a sustained rage as well. One would think there would have been signs of that all along in the outward behavior of our killer, if this was indeed a crime of passion or revenge. That should make our job all the easier. But… "
"But?"
"But somehow I should be very much surprised to find that kind of solution. For one thing, this crime speaks of an intimate knowledge of this college's doings, or at least its doings during this kind of old members' knees-up. Without that knowledge, there is too much left to chance in the crime. Far easier, in fact, to believe in the passing lunatic or addict doing her in for the thrill of it. And that kind of crime is mercifully rare in this city. Without robbery as a motive… "
"I wonder… she had no purse, no evening bag? She had one when I saw her on the stairs."
"One was found next to the body. It contained a little jeweled, mirrored container of face powder, a handkerchief, and a comb. The key to her room, and a ten-pound note. That was all."
"Face powder, but no lipstick?"
"Actually, a lipstick was found here, by the bench," he told her. "They're testing but the assumption is it was hers. It matched the design of the container of face powder."
"Hmm. I suppose that also speaks to the degree of her upset-that she dropped it or it fell out of her purse somehow, and she didn't notice."
St. Just nodded, and said, "Again, the circumstances-barring that she was killed by someone who just happened upon her-the circumstances argue for someone with some knowledge of the layout of this college. If they came here deliberately to meet her, to quarrel with her, to kill her, some knowledge of the setup is indicated."
"There was a quarrel, you think?"
"No, come to that, I do not. The physical evidence suggests she was surprised. There was no struggle to speak of; she was quickly overcome."
"Pity there was no one on the river to see," said Portia.
"It was getting too dark for most. Yes. Getting too late, and the boathouse is well out of the way for a puntful of tourists to wander off course and discover. The last punt rented out that night from any of the hire services went out at eight from Silver Street and was safely returned an hour later. We're asking the boat club and the colleges if any of their keener rowers would have been out practicing, like young Seb, but if they had they'd have been out of their usual range, perhaps in violation of the myriad of regulations that govern use of the river. And there are very few students around, anyway, as you know. The river is never quite deserted but at night, this time of year…"
"Fishermen?"
"We've got inquiries afoot. Or afloat, in this case. But if anyone saw anything we'll get a response from the appeal to the public that's appearing in tomorrow's paper. It will bring out the eccentrics in a town famous for its eccentrics, but it has to be done."
Just then the pigeon flew away, first having left a deposit on Titus Barron to mark its visit.