Tad was home from the city, dressed in fez and silk smoking jacket — his standard informal evening attire. His weekend adventure seemed to have gone well; my apology for forgetting to invite him to the White House was accepted with a shrug.
‘I absolve you, chérie. Just this once. But I want to hear all about it. Not everyone gets to dine at High Table.’
I smiled: ‘Later. I need a shower.’
He was waiting with a glass of wine when I emerged from the bathroom half an hour later.
‘So how did it go, o favoured one?’
‘You think you can loosen up my tongue with this?’
‘This, and a little something to eat. I feel in Japanese mode. What say we slip into something less comfortable and essay forth into the world?’
‘I’m not eating again until December.’
He laughed, and pushed past me into the lounge: ‘Then we’ll eat here. I want to hear everything. The lifestyles of the rich and religious.’
I retreated to the bathroom and waved a hair drier across my head for several minutes. No magic wand, perhaps, but it left the mouse thatch manageable. I rejoined Tad — sans turban but still wrapped in my dressing gown — to find the coffee table spread with various scraps of food scavenged from cupboards and fridge: a small platter of cheese and biscuits, de-tinned anchovies, rough-hewn slices of tomato and capsicum. Two wineglasses sat next to the open bottle: mine still brimful, waiting, the other empty, probably for the second or third time.
‘You look a picture of elegance,’ he said.
He sat slumped on the sofa, bulging around and through his smoking jacket. There was a squareness about Tad: a too-large body with a too-short limb at each corner. Not for the first time I was reminded of a turtle, flipped on its back.
‘You’re no oil painting yourself,’ I told him.
I pulled my dressing gown tighter. In fact I could have sat there naked with no reaction from Tad — except perhaps for a grimace of distaste. He liked the company of women, he loved trading gossip with women, but there were limits. Which was part of the reason I felt comfortable with him; the sexual issue would never arise.
He refilled his empty glass: ‘So who was there?’
‘Hollis Schultz.’
‘Of course. And?’
‘His child-bride.’
‘Now don’t be catty,’ he said, meaning exactly the opposite. Tad’s presence brought out a certain side of me, usually well repressed.
‘Miss South Carolina,’ I added. ‘Or perhaps not. Perhaps only a semi-finalist.’
‘She’s the second wife,’ he told me. ‘If you hadn’t guessed.’
‘I thought she was his daughter at first.’
He shook his head: ‘A former member of the congregation back in the States. A member of the children’s choir, would you believe. It caused a megastink. The Church Elders wanted to defrock him.’
He lifted the wineglass to his fat lips, and sipped.
‘And?’ I prompted.
‘And what you see all around you. All this. He did a Henry the Eighth. Took his bat and ball and started his own religion. I quite like her — what I’ve seen. Very young, but bright.’
‘She hides it well.’
He smiled, and deftly moved me from the subject: ‘Tell me who else was there.’
‘Pfitzner. And his child-bride.’
Tad was unimpressed: ‘Wherever there are feet to kiss.’
‘Thomas Grossman. The medievalist.’
‘Walking death.’
I was a little surprised: ‘You know him?’
‘Scanlon performed the introductions some time back.’
‘You didn’t tell me.’
He shrugged: ‘It didn’t seem important. When you’ve seen one cadaver you’ve seen them all. Tell me more.’
‘Grossman took us to see his collection of relics.’
‘You are privileged.’
‘This is the interesting part: you won’t believe who we found there.’
He held up a podgy turtle paw: ‘Three guesses?’
‘You’ll need a hundred.’
He smirked: ‘Scanlon?’
‘How on earth did you know that?’
‘Educated guess. I knew he had an interest in the relics.’
I tried to raise some further indignation, but the wine had diluted it: ‘Why am I the last to be told anything around here?’
He shrugged again: ‘I didn’t think it was a big secret. Bill himself told me.’
‘Bill?’
‘Bill Scanlon.’
‘Since when has it been Bill? The two of you suddenly seem very thick.’
‘We get on. I’m trying to introduce him to the joys of opera.’
‘I hope you’ll be very happy together.’
He stroked his sleek goatee; it seemed to arch itself, catlike, responsive to his touch.
‘Did Scanlon show you any of the fingerprints?’ he asked.
‘What fingerprints?’
He covered his mouth with a hand, mock regret: ‘Oops.’
The penny dropped; the connection had been staring me in the face all afternoon. Hidden in full view, my mother was fond of saying. Can’t see it for looking.
‘Of course! He’s running genetic fingerprints on the relics. He’s looking for DNA. That’s how he’s going to pick the fakes.’
Tad sipped his wine: ‘Bravo, my dear. Two and two makes four. Quod erat demonstrandum.’
‘I must be losing my mind,’ I said. ‘I thought he was looking for material to carbon date. How thick can I be?’
He was enjoying himself: ‘As thick as they come.’
‘As thick as I’m allowed to be. Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘You’ve been hard to find of late.’
‘Well, you’ve found me. Here I am. What else haven’t you told me?’
He smiled and drained his wine, maximising effect: ‘There is one small thing.’
‘Well?’
‘You are going to love this, Frau Professor.’
‘Tad …’
‘More wine?’
A deeper growl: ‘Tad!’
‘The Schultzes are infertile.’
‘Your short-term memory is failing, Tad. I told you that piece of news.’
He held up a finger: ‘But what you didn’t tell me is it’s not her, it’s him. Your friend and mine, Doctor Hollis Schultz, is azospermic. He is the infertile half of the marriage.’