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.* * *She settled the strap of her handbag comfortably in the crook of her left arm, put down the walkie-talkie on the shelf beside the type-written papers, scooped up the same papers and the Guardian and the critical study of the English Novel and tucked them under her left arm above the handbag strap, and picked up the briefcase.It was heavy—She tensed her arm against its weight as the muscles of her right breast pulled tight against it.It mustn’t look heavy—The white-faced young woman in the mirror walked towards her, and then turned outwards into the doorway without giving any sign of recognition.The entrance foyer was huge and empty, and the click of her high heels echoed off the polished floor.Detective-Sergeant Ballard and Professor Crowe were waiting for her just inside the glass doors.Crowe smiled at her.In fact, he positively beamed at her—‘There you are, my dear! We’ve been wondering where you’d got to -‘So they hadn’t told him what she was carrying, thought Frances, undecided as to whether that omission was kind or unfair.And yet he hadn’t raised his eyebrows as she had shouldered her way out of the gentleman’s cloakroom, so maybe—Ballard moved in front of her, blocking her path.And also blocking any view of their encounter which an observer might have from any distant vantage point across the campus outside.‘If you would be so good as to have a brief word with Colonel Butler, madam, after…’Ballard searched comically for a suitable description of what was coming before the brief word ‘after…’‘After wards’, said Crowe, still smiling.‘And after that, my dear Frances—it is Frances, isn’t it?—come and have tea—or maybe something stronger, eh?—in my rooms in the old Dower House … If you have time, of course.’He did know?But if he did know, how could he smile at her like that?Ballard opened one of the glass doors for her.‘Thank you, Sergeant,’ said Crowe reaching above her head to steady the door.Cold autumnal air enveloped her.There were lots of people round about, but a clear path stretched out ahead of her.Turn to the right.Crowe was still beside her, one hand on her elbow gently steering her in the right direction.Out of the corner of her eye, away to the left over the heads of the crowd standing on the slight slope in front of the new building, she caught another flash of the same colour she had seen earlier, of scarlet doctoral robes.‘There they are now,’ murmured Crowe in her ear.‘So they did go into the Student Union after all—if it had been the Minister of Education that would have been a place to steer clear of, even though our present young things are rather more … motivated—is that the word?—motivated … than some I have encountered.Hah!’The crowd was thinning around them.It wasn’t fair that she should carry him along with her a yard more than necessary.‘I—I can find my own way now, I think,’ said Frances.‘Of course you can!’ Crowe nodded, but continued to walk by her side.‘But … I was wondering, now, whether you knew an acquaintance of mine—a Cambridge man—in your line of work.The name eludes me—now what was it?’The hand was on her shoulder now—her left shoulder.The right shoulder was beginning to ache.‘Mitchell?’ hazarded Frances.‘No-o … That name doesn’t ring a bell…’ He shook his head.‘Big fellow—played rugger, but for some reason never got his blue.History scholar—medievalist—clever fellow, but eccentric—‘David Audley, thought Frances with absolute certainty.The specification fitted like a glove.It was no business of Professor Crowe’s to know the names of her senior colleagues, nevertheless.Paul Mitchell, by any other name, was fair enough, since he was here on the ground.But David Audley, somewhere else, was another matter.‘I think you must have him mixed up with somebody else,’ she smiled back at him.‘Very probably—very probably!’ He returned the smile with another smile.‘Well, Frances my dear—here we are, then.’They had passed the corner of the building long since, following the curve of a gravel path into an open parkland thick with fallen beech leaves.Directly ahead of her she could hear the subdued conversational quacking of ducks undisturbed by human beings and the need to compete for free handouts of bread.Crowe squeezed her arm gently.‘I must get back to my dull duties now, my dear.And you must complete yours.But you’ve only a yard or two to go.’He had talked her far beyond any possible requirement of Colonel Butler’s, Frances realised as she looked around her.And he had also talked her out of remembering to be terrified until this moment.Even now he wasn’t in any hurry to leave her.‘Thank you.Professor.’ In other circumstances he deserved to have a kiss planted on his cheek, but in these ones she could only give him every last extra second back in return for the minutes he had freely given her.It really was only a few yards: the pond was in a natural hollow in the parkland, and she could already see the far side of it, with the near side, hidden by the slope just ahead, no more than a dozen strides away.Which was just as well, for her last shreds of nerve were running out with time and distance.One step after another—three, four, five, six—Now the convenient path she’d been following obstinately refused to take her any closer, dividing to sweep round on each side of it.But that no longer mattered—But it did matter.As she stepped off the path on to the carpet of leaves her high heels sank through into the soggy ground beneath.The fall of the slope made the going even more treacherous, and she teetered wildly as first one foot and then the other became trapped, unbalanced equally by the weight of the briefcase and the fear of what might happen if she dropped it.The cruising ducks on the pond caught sight of her and instantly changed course, quacking loudly in anticipation of food.Their cries awakened other ducks ashore on the far bank, which at once threw themselves into the water, hydroplaning towards her across it on beating wings and feet.The whole pond exploded into a frenzy of greed.Frances lost contact with one of her shoes.The English Novel slipped out of her grasp and slithered down the slope, followed by the rest of Dr Penrose’s possessions.The ducks hurled themselves towards the scattered papers.With a convulsive effort Frances freed her other shoe.But as she did so her foot came out of it and her already shoeless foot slid out from under her.She sat down heavily on her bottom, just managing to clasp the briefcase to her breast before she hit the ground.Both her stockinged feet rose in the air as the weight of the case pushed her on to her back and she instantly started to toboggan down the slope towards the chaos of squabbling ducks and mud-stained papers.She cried out in terror, but the sound was lost in a crescendo of panic-stricken quacking and wing-beating as she crashed into the ducks.For a moment there were ducks everywhere: ducks running over her legs, ducks clumsily trying to climb the slope beside her, ducks attempting impossible vertical take-offs, ducks colliding and snapping and splashing in the shallows.Their panic infected her [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]