When the college was founded in 1208 (the founder being Guy de Torre, 3rd Baron Forshaw, a noble lord who had made his fortune in the sacking of the ancient city of Constantinople and the slaughtering of its inhabitants), it consisted of no more than three private houses and a small chapel. And so it remained for over a hundred years, until, using an endowment from Thomas Cosgrove, a wool merchant, the college bought the houses behind it, and, by the simple expedient of building between the two rows, created the first of the college’s quadrangles. The second quad, built in the fourteenth century, was Gothic, and has gargoyles of nightmare ferocity staring down disapprovingly over the lawns below. The third was built in the Renaissance style, the fourth was Baroque, the fifth Neoclassical, the sixth Gothic again (it had come back into style) and the seventh and final quad is a Victorian mishmash. Thus from tiny acorns do mighty hybrids grow.

  I wonder if, when he was assuaging his guilt by spending his blood money, our founder, Guy, ever imagined that he would one day give the opportunity to a girl from the sooty north to have her already fine mind polished and refined, thus equipping her for the life of a private detective with a one-roomed office and an overdraft.

  I suspect not.

  A group of tourists – from the way they’re dressed, I’d guess they are Americans – is clustered around a guide near the gate; as I push my bike past them, I hear the guide say, ‘And, of course, even today, and despite all the changes we’ve seen since the war, well over half of the students come from public schools.’

  ‘Oh I think that’s just wonderful,’ says one of the tourists – a woman in her forties with a kindly face.

  ‘Wonderful?’ the guide repeats, confused.

  ‘Why yes,’ the woman says. ‘We’re standing in front of this marvellous college, which I’m sure offers a truly great education, and you tell us that well over half of the students in it come from the public schools. Don’t you think that’s wonderful?’

  ‘Well, not exactly,’ the guide says.

  ‘I mean to say, we Americans pride ourselves on being democratic and coming from a land of equal opportunity, but I’d be real surprised if over half the students at Harvard or Yale attended public school rather than private school.’

  The guide looks slightly embarrassed, though whether it’s for her or himself, I’m not quite sure.

  ‘The public schools are private,’ he says.

  ‘Excuse me?’ the woman says.

  ‘The public schools are private. They’re mostly boarding schools, and they’re usually very expensive.’

  ‘So what do you call the schools that aren’t private?’ the woman asks, mystified.

  ‘They’re state schools,’ the guide says.

  ‘Private schools that are called public schools and public schools that are state schools,’ she says, slowly and carefully, as if trying to get it straight in her mind. ‘It seems a little bit crazy to me.’

  You’ve got a point there, lady, I think, as I push my bike around the group and into the archway.

  The porter comes out of the lodge, and smiles at me.

  ‘Good morning, Miss Redhead,’ he says. He pauses. ‘Or should I be saying “Good morning, Mrs …”?’

  ‘It’s still Miss Redhead,’ I tell him.

  He shakes his head in mock despair. ‘It’s a crying shame, so it is. In my opinion, any young gentleman who doesn’t try to snap you up wants his head looking into.’

  ‘I dare say you’re right,’ I agree. ‘And how are you feeling yourself, Mr Jenkins?’

  ‘I can’t complain. Not that it would do any good if I did. The last college servant to complain was my great-grandfather, and if they didn’t listen to him then, I don’t see why they should listen to me now.’

  And he winks at me – something I’ve never seen him do to any other member of college.

  I am one of the few students or ex-students I have ever heard put a ‘Mr’ in front of the porter’s name, I remind myself as I park my bike against the porter’s lodge, and I do it not because I am a natural rebel against the great traditions of the college, but because I just can’t bring myself to call a man who is my father’s age only by his surname.

  I pass beyond the gate and cross the de Torre Quad, heading for the Fellows’ Quad, where Charlie Swift has his rooms.

  From the entrance to Charlie’s staircase, I can see the Master’s Garden through the archway, and I feel a shudder run through me – because the garden still reminds me of the desperate state Charlie was in when he walked into the Lamb and Flag, that day in the late spring of 1964.

  It had been over seven months since the garden party, and Charlie and I now met regularly for drinks. We were a strange couple, divided as we were by age, background and place in the college hierarchy, but the simple fact was that we enjoyed each other’s company and had become real mates.

  I’d already grabbed a table when Charlie walked in through the door, and I was shocked in the change in him. He looked much smaller, greyer and older than the last time we’d met, only days before, and when the barman shouted out, ‘A pint of the usual, Lord Swift?’ he seemed barely to have the energy to nod.

  He sank down into the chair opposite me.

  ‘I’m in trouble,’ he said, without any preamble.

  ‘What kind of trouble?’ I asked.

  ‘I was in the Master’s Garden late last night. I had a friend with me.’ Charlie hesitated. ‘We went into the bushes.’

  ‘Went into the bushes?’

  ‘For sex – all right! We went there for sex!’ Charlie said, with uncharacteristic aggressiveness.

  I felt an unworthy stab of jealousy. I didn’t want to go to bed with Charlie, and would almost certainly have turned him down if he’d suggested it – but still, I was a little miffed that he hadn’t at least asked me.

  Charlie put his hands to his head. ‘Oh, why didn’t we just go to my rooms? It would only have taken a couple of minutes.’

  ‘What went wrong?’ I asked – because it was becoming plain that all his troubles emanated from what had happened in the garden.

  ‘Apparently, there have been complaints from some of the dons that the undergraduates had been using the Master’s Garden after dark, and because of the complaints, the bulldogs decided to conduct a random check last night. We – my friend and I – were right in the middle of things when the bulldogs’ torches hit us. My friend ran away, but I couldn’t, because my trousers were around my ankles.’

  It was hard not to laugh. It must have been embarrassing for Charlie, certainly, but as a senior member of the college he’d been perfectly entitled to be in the garden with his guest, and the most he could expect from the Dean’s Committee was a slap on the wrist.

  ‘The bulldogs have reported to the dean that my companion was male,’ Charlie said.

  ‘Well, why don’t you just tell the dean that they’re talking bollocks?’ I asked lightly.

  ‘I can’t – because he was male,’ Charlie said.

  Three years later, none of this would have mattered, because by then the Sexual Offences Act would have passed through Parliament, and Charlie would have been legally able to screw any man he fancied, as long as that man was over twenty-one and consenting.

  But this was 1964 – the year that the four loveable mop-heads called The Beatles conquered the United States and Cassius Clay, the world heavyweight boxing champion, changed his name to Muhammad Ali.

  ‘If the dean reports it to the police, Charlie, you might well go to prison,’ I said.

  ‘He will report it to the police – he has been made aware that a criminal act has been committed within the college grounds, so he has no choice in the matter – and I will go to prison,’ Charlie said, gloomily.

  ‘How many bulldogs were there, Charlie?’ I asked.

  ‘Two.

  ‘And did they get a good look at your companion?’

  ‘Not a very good one, no. It was dark in the garden, and all they had was their torches. Besides, Adam was wearing his duffel coat because, at that stage, there was no need for him to get undressed, and when he ran away, he’d already pulled his hood up.’

  ‘Would they have seen the colour of his hair?

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘And what colour is it?’

  ‘He’s a blond – but darker than me.’

  ‘I’m going to go to the dean and tell him I was the one who was with you,’ I said.

  ‘You can’t do that!’ Charlie protested. ‘Think of your reputation.’

  ‘And think of yours if I don’t do it,’ I told him.

  As I stood there in the corridor, with only an ancient oak door between me and the Dean’s Committee for College Discipline, I reflected on the fact that within a short space of time, I might no longer be a member of the college I’d worked so very, very, hard to get into.

  Was I regretting voluntarily putting myself in this position?

  No, emphatically not – because, whatever happened to me, I couldn’t let sweet, gentle Charlie go to prison.

  The heavy door swung open, and I found myself looking into the eyes of a grim-faced bulldog.

  ‘You may enter,’ he said – as if he was reluctantly doing me a favour.

  I entered.

  The dean and two senior fellows were already seated behind a large table. A bulldog – even grimmer than the one who had admitted me – stood behind them, rigidly at attention. The second bulldog joined him, and now there were five pairs of eyes burning into me.

  ‘Sit down, Miss Redhead,’ said the dean, indicating a chair facing the table, which, unlike their chairs, did not have hundreds of years of history carved into its back.

  I sat on the modest, modern chair and, as I did so, I felt the devil enter me – he does that sometimes – and I determined that if I was going to be sent down anyway, I might as well have some fun.

  The dean – a stout man who has always reminded me of Dickens’s beadle – looked me up and down.

  ‘Is it your contention, Miss Redhead, that last night you were in the Master’s Garden with the bursar?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ I replied.

  ‘And … err … was some act of intimacy taking place?’

  ‘If you mean by that, sir, was I down on my knees, about to give Charlie Swift a—’

  ‘Just answer yes or no,’ the dean interrupted, hastily.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The bulldogs think it was a man on his knees in front of the bursar,’ the dean said. He turned to one of the bulldogs. ‘Isn’t that right?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ the bulldog said.

  ‘It was me,’ I insisted. ‘I was wearing my duffel coat – and duffel coats are such bulky things that it’s almost impossible to determine the sex of whoever’s inside them, especially in the dark.’

  ‘Are you sure it was you?’ the dean asked ponderously.

  ‘I’d hardly expose myself to this humiliating interrogation if I wasn’t sure, now would I?’

  The three wise men put their heads together, and talked in whispers. The bulldogs, rigid as ever, stared at the far wall.

  After a couple of minutes of whispering the three wise men looked up, and the dean delivered the verdict.

  ‘We have dismissed the charge of trespass against you, since you were in the garden as a guest of a senior fellow,’ he said.

  He seemed to be expecting me to say something. My first thought was to tell him I would be eternally grateful that they had found me not guilty of something I was plainly – by their own argument – not guilty of, but prudence prevailed, so all I said was, ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘We have also dismissed the charge of moral turpitude, since, when the bulldogs interrupted you, you hadn’t quite … you hadn’t quite …’

  ‘I hadn’t quite …?’ I asked.

  ‘But there was no doubt that you intended to commit moral turpitude, is there?’

  ‘No, sir, I was certainly going to—’

  ‘Thus, you are clearly guilty,’ the dean said, interrupting me for a second time – and for the same reason as he interrupted me the first. ‘However, given your youth, we are minded to ascribe most of the blame to the bursar, and on this occasion we are prepared to issue no more than a warning. But we will expect exemplary conduct from you in the future, Miss Redhead.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ I said, suitably meekly. ‘Thank you very much.’

  I left the room with only a slight stain on my character. I don’t think it was so much that they believed me, as that they needed to appear to believe me, because, if they hadn’t, Charlie would have ended up behind bars – and really good bursars like him are hard to find.

  I met Charlie later that afternoon, in the Eagle and Child.

  ‘How did it go?’ I asked, though I already knew it could not have gone too badly, because he was back to being almost his normal self.

  ‘Oh, they lectured me about being in loco parentis, and I pointed out to them that you were of an age at which, legally, no such requirement did – or could – apply. Then they told me that the decent thing would have been to take you to my rooms, and I replied that my doctor had prescribed both fresh air and sex to me, and I was simply combining the two.’

  ‘You really said that?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh yes. And finally, when all else had failed, they pointed out that we might have damaged some of the flora, and I agreed, but countered with the point that because of the bulldogs’ intervention, we’d had no opportunity to roll about crushing the Master’s precious marigolds.’

  ‘So how did it end?’

  ‘They invoked the college statute of 1345, under which I could be fined five groats – and not just any five groats, but ones produced by Edward III’s royal mint. I think the reason the statute is so specific has something to do with Edward’s groats having a higher silver content than those churned out by his father’s mint.’

  ‘And how do you intend to lay your hands on five medieval coins?’ I chuckled.

  ‘Clearly, I can’t, but the statute seems to have thought of that, and allowed for an alternative.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘I’m to provide the dean with six leather feeding-bags, full to the brim with oats. They’ll be no good to the dean – he’s never owned a horse in his life – but he’ll insist on it, because he’s a real stickler for tradition.’

  ‘I’ll get you a pint,’ I said.

  ‘No, I’ll get you one,’ Charlie countered. ‘And Jennie …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I really appreciate what you’ve done, and I’ll be forever in your debt.’

  ‘You don’t owe me anything,’ I told him, offhand. ‘I did it because you’re a friend.’

  ‘Then as a friend, I promise you this – if you ever need anything, you only have to ask.’

  He meant it then, and he means it now, but there must have been times since I’ve become a private detective that he wishes he’d simply kept his mouth shut.

  SEVEN

  I turn my back on the Master’s Garden – and on memories of the Dean’s Committee for College Discipline! – and climb the staircase.

  Charlie, like the gentleman he is, does not wait until I knock on his door but is there on the landing to greet me. He is wearing a Savile Row suit, a white shirt, and a tie which I believe identifies him as an officer in the Grenadier Guards. His black shoes are polished to a mirror shine, and when he reaches out to touch my shoulder, he exposes one of his solid gold cufflinks. He looks like a million dollars, and I would be flattered that he’d made the effort, if I didn’t already know that he would be dressed like this even if he wasn’t expecting any visitors.

  ‘CT,’ he says, and kisses me chastely on both cheeks, ‘what an absolute delight to see you.’

  CT is short for Carrot Top. If anyone else called me that these days, I would probably kick them right in the nuts, but Charlie is Charlie, and so he gets away with it.

  He gestures to the open door of his rooms. ‘Please enter my humble quarters,’ he invites me.

  Humble quarters!

  Right!

  Charlie’s ‘humble quarters’ consist of two rooms and a bathroom. One of them is an immense living room/study with a desk and filing cabinets at one end – he does have a regular office in the administrative wing, but rarely uses it – and at the other, his antique furniture, lovingly collected over a forty-year period. The second room, the bedroom, must have been equally immense until part of it was shaved off, sometime back in the Fifties, when the college authorities decided that while St Luke’s had many historic traditions which must be preserved at any cost, having plumbing was probably a good idea, and thus installed the bathroom.

  No kitchen? you ask. No utility room?

  Why would Charlie need either of those?

  He lives a privileged life, but since he comes from an equally privileged background, he is scarcely aware of the fact. His rooms are cleaned, and his clothes cared for, by his faithful scout, who has worked for the college for over thirty years, and whose father and grandfather probably worked there before him. He eats in the Great Hall, except for breakfast, which his scout picks up from the kitchen and brings to his room. I doubt he has ever crossed the threshold of a supermarket, and though it’s conceivable that he may know how to change a light bulb, I wouldn’t put any money on it.

  While Charlie is making the tea (that much, he has learned to do!), I take the opportunity to slip into the bathroom, which is an Italian marble extravaganza that he paid for out his own pocket. And it is once I am on the loo that I notice the framed poster on the wall.

  Actually, it is not a poster at all, but a blow-up of two of the inside pages of the Daily Examiner.

  I gaze at the headline.

  What a to-do, Milord!

  It refers, of course, to the unfortunate incident in the Master’s Garden. By rights, the whole affair should have been quietly put to bed with the ruling of the Dean’s Committee. And no doubt it would have been, if the story hadn’t been leaked by one of the college servants who was part of an experiment to discover whether it was possible to hire staff with no family tradition of serving the college (it turns out it wasn’t). Even then, the actions of this latter-day Judas Iscariot (as he was affectionately labelled by other servants) might have led nowhere, had it not been for the fact that the local journalist who paid Judas a retainer for juicy information had the ear of a Fleet Street tabloid editor.