When you teach a three-hour evening class you’re so full of adrenalin at the end of it that you could go on and teach till dawn. When you’re taught for three hours, it’s a different story, and I staggered out, reeling after learning the theory of managing the curriculum.
Anon was there beside me before I could even yawn, suggesting a drink.
It was clearly time to establish myself as the sort of oddball he wouldn’t want to be seen with.
‘Not tonight, thanks. It’s the first day of the Second Test Match.’ I added sunnily, ‘In Australia. So I shall be glued to the radio till I fall asleep.’
His eyebrows disappeared into what would have been his hairline, and the rest of his face clearly told me I was an imbecile to throw up the chance of spending time with him, but he said nothing. In his position I should have thought it a pretty weak excuse but of course I didn’t want to use Mike as an explanation. It was an irritating situation anyway. I’d have thought my general body language would have indicated my complete lack of interest in him. If I said I was in a relationship with someone else, he could say he’d never wanted a sexual relationship with me. If I didn’t, he could say I was misleading him. And there was the distinct possibility that knowing I was with someone else would enhance my value in his eyes and he’d pursue me even more. If it was pursuit.
I didn’t want to go for a drink with Anon anyway. He struck me as the sort of man who’d want to make a conquest of any woman he was with and who wouldn’t take kindly to outright rejection.
I set off.
‘You really mean it, don’t you? That you’re going to listen to the radio!’
‘Yes. Good night.’
I got home to a whole set of messages on my answerphone. Ian Dale, the ex-police sergeant, wanted to know how I was. I could discuss wine for Tom Bowen’s dinner with him when I returned the call. Then there was my law-lecturer friend, Shahida, always good for a gossip about either William Murdock or her family. Steph, just after saying hi, like. And the one I wanted most: a few expensive words from Mike, telling me the letter I’d sent him on cassette had arrived safely, and one or two other things I wanted to hear.
Then to the radio. The Australians were batting – in for a good total, if the omens were anything to go by – and since Mike had never bowled a Test Match ball yet, I headed for bed. Not before I’d given Ivo a scrap of biscuit just to celebrate my happiness.
There I was, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as I ever manage to be at nine o’clock in the morning, outside Tom Bowen’s room, clutching a detailed estimate for his dinner party in one hand and my diary in the other. It was just like being a schoolgirl again, knocking, and waiting for the favour of a reply. I waited, fuming – yes, nine o’clock had been the time we’d agreed. Definitely.
At last, I shoved under his door the doctored estimate and a Post-it reminding Bowen I needed to see him. I stomped off to the library. Nine thirty already!
I’d done less than an hour’s work when Anon presented himself at my side.
‘There,’ he said, pointing with a long, rather elegant finger at what turned out to be our course handbook. ‘I told you she wasn’t English.’ He laid it on the pile of books on the table I’d commandeered.
I peered. Yes, there was a photo of Carla, and a short biography. Born and primary education in Canada; secondary education and first degree in New Zealand; doctorate in Australia: Levels of Meaning in the Multi-Cultural Primary Classroom.
I nodded as noncommittally as I could manage. ‘But I don’t see any problems,’ I said. ‘No one’s ever said anything particularly nasty about Australian education, have they? Except their further education colleges imposed all sorts of draconian conditions on their staff—’
‘And by their example ruined FE over here,’ he concluded for me, loudly enough to raise a librarian’s head.
Yes, it was wrong to talk in here. And he stood over me as if he had a lot to say. ‘Tom was saying this morning,’ he began.
Tom was saying when this morning? How had Anon managed to get hold of him when I was supposed to have an appointment? Exercising a little control, however, I touched my lips, gathered up my file and bag, and headed for the door. He was already there to hold it open for me. Yes, I’d have to ask his name – if only to be able to use it to tell him to get lost.
Sunlight streaming into the foyer told me it was a glorious winter morning; the outside world called imperiously. I wanted to shout, ‘Hang UWM!’
‘Bowen was saying what?’ I prompted him.
He looked round, hunching his shoulders. ‘I suppose it’s a bit confidential. How about an early half at that pub down the road?’
I shook my head. ‘I’ve got plans for lunch,’ I lied. I could, however, always make some. I set off briskly for the car park.
He fell into step with me. We walked in silence. Damn it, if he wanted to gossip he could open the conversation himself.
Which he did. ‘I have a feeling you’re avoiding me,’ he said.
I wasn’t about to accept or deny that one. ‘Why should you think that?’
‘Because every time I suggest a drink or whatever you say you’re busy. I mean, last night! Whoever wants to listen to a cricket commentary, for God’s sake!’
‘Me.’
‘No one likes cricket that much.’ Not enough to skip the chance of being with him!
I flicked an eyebrow up: take it or leave it.
‘You’re quite an enigma,’ he said.
Oh God, and he wanted to crack the code, didn’t he? ‘You were saying something about Bowen,’ I said at last.
He stared. ‘Oh, yes. Aren’t we lucky to have him? I mean, a research record like that … He’s been head-hunted by other places, of course.’
‘I wonder why he’s still here, then.’
‘Loyalty,’ he said.
I nodded. It would have to be a very good offer to prise me away from a house like that. And he probably wouldn’t want to uproot children from their schools, his wife from her job … ‘What was he saying that was confidential?’ I asked, despite myself. I had a feeling it might be something derogatory about Pentowski.
The sun was warmer than it ought to be for late November. I wanted to bask and dream of Mike. Perhaps the thought of him allowed a smile to form. Foolish Sophie: Anon took it as encouragement. ‘Oh, that she’s gone down the woman’s career path – too busy wasting time teaching to get stuck into research and publication. She’ll never make it to the top. Mind you, she’s too old, I’d have thought. Have to be there before you’re forty, don’t you? That’s why I’m here, after all. And you,’ he added with less certainty.
I reflected: if I didn’t enjoy managing the curriculum in theory from six thirty till nine thirty in the evening, I didn’t see me enjoying it much in practice during the working day. However Hoffman, the lecturer teaching the course, might interpret it, the very word managing sent a warning shiver down my back. It was the teaching I liked. The students. Not the managing. Not the admin. Perhaps I was having a road-to-Damascus experience in a Sandwell car park. If I was, I needed time to think.
‘Look,’ I said, ‘I really do have to be on my way.’
He looked offended. Good. ‘OK. If you ever have a spare moment, leave me a note.’
‘I would if I knew your name.’ Damn, it was out at last. I’d meant it as a put-down, but he could have heard it as a tease.
He did. ‘James.’ He added, with a would-be devastating smile, ‘But my friends call me Jago. Jago Calvin.’
‘And I’m—’ I began, determined to betray by not so much as a twitch how appropriate I found his surname. Or how pretentious his first.
‘Oh,’ he said, smiling down at me, ‘I know who you are. You’re Sophie Rivers.’
My route home took me through Smethwick. On impulse, not far from Rolfe Street Station I parked the car and headed for the cut. Hanging round on towpaths had been absolutely forbidden when I was a kid – the dangers of drowning, of being spirited away by person or persons unknown and, most realistically, I suppose, of being attacked by the vicious dogs which accompanied narrow-boat families everywhere. But this, unlike the cuts of my childhood, just down the road in Oldbury, was a heritage site. I could explore this, surely. Then I looked at the lonely stretch – not a soul in sight – and did something sensible. I fished out the mobile phone I carry but so rarely use – I didn’t want it to be frying tonight for my brain, not having once seen what microwaves can do in the wrong place – and rang Chris Groom.
‘Have you had lunch yet?’
‘Not yet, but—’
‘It’s a lovely day and I need some sane company.’
‘I won’t suggest our canteen, then.’
‘No. Tell you what. Get some sarnies and we’ll find a bench in the sun on one of the towpaths in Galton Valley. I’m parked on Great Arthur Street.’
I was so absorbed in my thoughts that I jumped when he tapped on the window, some ten minutes later.
‘Old Main Line or New Main Line?’ he asked, with no preamble.
Funny that they should give cuts names that seemed more appropriate for railways.
‘Old’s closer. And the New’s in such a steep gully there won’t be any sun at this time of year.’
‘Old it is. Avanti!’
We headed briskly down the ramp, and along the high-level canal. There was sufficient undergrowth to give the pretence of countryside, and there was a constant coming and going of birds hunting for late seeds and berries. Not to mention the constant roar of traffic and industry. We found a bench and stared at the ivy climbing up a huge blue-brick wall.
The advantage of being with an old friend was that you didn’t have constantly to be worrying about silences like this. If either of us wanted to talk, we could. Or we could sit and watch the wind ruffling the surface of the cut, not everywhere, but in patches selected apparently at random.
He was halfway through a tuna sandwich when he nodded at the water. ‘All very calm and peaceful, isn’t it? Noise apart.’
His sigh reminded me that the murky waters could hide tragedy.
‘Any news of your corpse? The one stuck in the cut?’ I asked.
‘A young woman. They can’t tell much; there wasn’t much left to go on. She’d been in there too long.’
‘How long?’
‘Six or eight months, maybe. She wasn’t European or from the Indian continent. Almost certainly Malayan, something like that.’
‘Malaysian,’ I corrected him.
‘No, Malayan. Specifically from the Malay bit of Malaysia,’ he said. ‘About five-one. No sign of any injuries. We don’t even know whether she was alive when she went into the canal. Cut.’
‘I suppose getting tangled in the propeller didn’t do the corpse any good?’ I was glad my sandwich was cheese. Malay!
‘Nope. But the pathologist reckons she might have dislocated her wrist herself – so she could have drowned in there.’
‘Here?’ My voice shot up an octave.
‘No. Along the Engine Arm canal. Near the old malthouse.’
‘Not very easy to get to. There’s no way through from Rabone Lane, is there?’
‘No. She’d have had to get on the towpath back at Engine Bridge.’
The afternoon sun seemed distinctly weaker. A walk, a run, a dash along the towpath? From where? From whom? A young woman like those I was trying to teach!
Chris was not a man for histrionics. I must ask a sensible question. ‘Does she fit anyone on the Missing Persons register?’
‘No. No one her age, her build, what I’m told I should refer to as her ethnicity reported missing in the period that would be appropriate. Maybe she’s what one or two of my colleagues will insist on calling “an illegal”.’ Chris’s voice was unusually expressive. ‘We’re working on it. Or rather, Peter Kirby is. He and Harvinder Mann. They make a good team,’ he added.
‘Nice cop, nasty cop,’ I agreed.
Whatever he was going to say was drowned by the roar of a passenger train. ‘Ironic,’ I said, when we could hear each other speak again, ‘that by the time the third canal modification had been made – Telford’s—’
‘That’s the New Main Line?’
‘Yes. By the time Telford’s was ready for use, the age of the train was already beginning.’ Oh dear. Always the pedagogue. But local history was one of Mike’s passions, and he’d begun to infect me.
Chris pulled a face. ‘If my recent trips on the railways have been anything to go by, it’s time we had another train age. Or, perhaps, a return to the canals.’ He stood up. His lunch break, all twenty minutes, was clearly at an end. And it was certainly too cold to sit still for long.
At least I’d got him out of his office into what passes in Smethwick for fresh air. And while I didn’t have to dash anywhere myself, I turned back to walk up the ramp to Brasshouse Lane with him. While I was in the area, I might as well take a stroll along the High Street and lay in a supply of fresh coriander and methi. Maybe a few of those wonderful sweets. Then I remembered my resolution: no sweets, then.
‘Aren’t you going to go for one of your walks?’ he asked, as we crossed the road.
I stuck out a foot. ‘Not in these shoes. And not alone. Not unless you’ve found your flasher.’
‘Alas, no.’
‘So I’m just being sensible. Don’t worry, your sad little story hasn’t freaked me out, even if it does puzzle me … No, I’d rather come sensibly shod and with a bit of company.’
‘You must be getting old, Sophie,’ he said, the affection in his smile turning to something else. ‘Tell you what, would my company do, another lunchtime?’
‘None better,’ I said. But my heart sank. Oh, Chris, not again.
Clutching aromatic bags of fresh herbs, and another bulging with splendid glossy aubergines, I paused on my way back to look along the Old Main Line towards the locks, the work of Brindley and Smeaton. This must be where Carla lived: a neat row of gaily painted narrow boats – if that isn’t tautology – moored along the approach to the locks. Ship’s cats were basking in the sun, and late geraniums still flowed from hanging baskets, but a more fitting reminder of the time of year was the little plumes of smoke rising from narrow chimneys. In the distance I could pick out a solitary figure, running with more speed than sense along the towpath. He’d have to slow down by all those ropes or risk hurting himself – badly: the path was cinder-covered and he was only wearing a singlet and shorts. He had a very good body: it looked as if he worked with weights, as well as running.
He dodged the ropes successfully and picked up speed. He was so close now I could have waved to him. But for whatever reason, I wouldn’t have wanted Jago to know that I’d seen him on his run.