But given that the servant was on a retainer, and the journalist did have the editor’s ear, the story landed on the editor’s desk and, once it was there, there was no way he wasn’t going to run it.

  This Oxford tale had it all – a private police force, a noble lord, and sexual ‘goings-on’ in a garden normally reserved for pondering on the philosophical mysteries of the universe. It may even have been that my red hair was the cherry on the top of the cake, though that could just be me pushing my own significance a little too far.

  At any rate, the story did come out as a double-page spread.

  Below the screaming headline, there are two photographs. One is of two men – models, probably – dressed as bulldogs and looking very stern in their bowler hats. The second is of a garden, which would seem a plausible Master’s Garden to anyone who didn’t know what it actually looked like.

  The story (?) follows:

  Lord Charles Swift, the bursar of St Luke’s College, Oxford, thought he was safe enough conducting his nocturnal hanky-panky in the Master’s Garden of the exclusive college, but the financial wizard hadn’t counted on his activities being disturbed by the bulldogs, the university’s bowler-hatted private police force, which has the power to arrest anyone within four miles of a college building. So it must have come as a shock to him to find himself and his companion – sultry redhead Jennie X, a student at St Luke’s – caught in flagrante in the bulldogs’ torch beams.

  There was more – at least another three columns – but I hadn’t read them at the time, and I don’t read them now.

  Back in the living room, I mention the poster to Charlie.

  ‘Ah,’ he says, the hand which holds the exquisite china teapot freezing for a moment, ‘I normally remember to take that down when I know you’ll be visiting me.’

  ‘But why do you have it hanging there at all?’ I ask.

  He shrugs, and a tiny splash of Earl Grey launches itself from the spout of the teapot.

  ‘I’m not sure I really know why,’ he confesses. ‘Maybe it’s just an old queen’s way of sticking two fingers up at what used to be a highly disapproving world.’ He frowns. ‘But if it bothers you to know it’s hanging there, CT, I’ll take it down permanently.’

  ‘It doesn’t bother me – not now,’ I tell him.

  But it had bothered me – or at least created some very awkward moments for me – at the time.

  It was my first trip home to Whitebridge since the story had appeared in the tabloids. When I arrived on the Saturday, my parents were somewhat distant (no change there, then, distance being pretty much a way of life in my family), but made no mention of the incident. It was only on Sunday, over afternoon tea in the front parlour – an obligatory family ritual which the outbreak of World War III, and Russian tanks rolling down our street, would probably not have interrupted – that Mum decided to broach the dreaded subject. And, even then, she did it in that roundabout way for which she was justly famous.

  Picture the scene.

  There were fresh antimacassars on the chairs, and the place reeked of newly applied beeswax. We were all sitting with plates of cakes (the best china, because, after all, it was Sunday) balanced on our knees.

  Suddenly Mum sighed.

  ‘Was it you yourself who told that newspaper reporter that you were a sultry redhead,’ she asked, ‘because you’re not, you know.’

  ‘No, it wasn’t me, Mum,’ I replied.

  ‘Then what did you tell him?’

  ‘Nothing – I never even spoke to him.’

  ‘Well, I’m not going to call you a liar, Jennie, but if you read what he wrote about you, it certainly sounds as if you talked to him.’

  We both relapsed into silence, and the only sound to be heard was the ticking of the old grandfather clock which has counted off the lives of several generations of Redheads.

  Tick-tock, tick-tock …

  ‘You’ve put me in a very difficult position, and make no mistake about it,’ Mum said finally, as she reached across to the cake stand for another scone. ‘I just don’t know what I’m going to say to the neighbours.’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, Mum,’ I said, exasperatedly, ‘why would the neighbours expect you to say anything to them? When was the last time you talked to Mrs Robertson?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Or Mr and Mrs Talbot?’

  ‘It’s been a while.’

  ‘It’s been ten years – at least.’

  It’s true – my mother doesn’t talk to the neighbours. It would be wrong to say she thinks of herself as above them – that would be being snobbish, and she’s no snob, as she will tell you herself at great length. It’s just that, well, most of them are not worthy of her time.

  It was Dad’s turn to talk. He didn’t want to – that much was obvious – but there is only so long that anyone can withstand my mother’s glare.

  ‘We expected better of you, Jennie,’ he said.

  At this point I could, I suppose, have told them the truth.

  It’s all right Mummy and Daddy, I didn’t do all those naughty things with the nasty bursar, because he prefers young men.

  But that would have really been to put the homosexual cat amongst the homophobic pigeons because, from their point of view, it was preferable to have a daughter who was a scarlet woman than to have one who was friends with a queer.

  ‘Look, I’m very sorry the newspaper got hold of it,’ I said, ‘but this is the swinging 1960s, you know – you surely didn’t expect me to still be a virgin, did you?’

  ‘Parents always live in hope,’ Dad replied, heavily.

  More silence – more clock ticking.

  ‘Still, I suppose that if you had to bring disgrace on the family, at least you did it with a better class of person,’ Mum said finally.

  And from that day to this, none of us has ever referred to the unpleasant incident again.

  ‘So how can I help you?’ Charlie asks, as he awkwardly mops up the tea with an immaculately ironed linen napkin.

  ‘I need some information on several St Luke’s students,’ I say, and hand him a list of the boys who were arrested on Beaumont Street with Linda Corbet. ‘I thought you could tell me who to ask.’

  ‘Is this for a case you’re working on, CT PI?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And what sort of information are you looking for?’

  Aye, there’s the rub. I don’t know what sort of information. Trying to find out what exactly happened on the night Linda Corbet disappeared is like feeling my way around a blackened room, and not only do I not know where the light switch is, I’m not even sure what it looks like.

  ‘I want some general information,’ I say, so I don’t appear a complete bloody idiot.

  ‘I might have some “general” information myself,’ Charlie says, abandoning his mopping with evident relief, and walking over to the filing cabinet which stands next to his desk.

  He takes out a list, scans it quickly, and then reaches into the cabinet again and produces a thin blue file.

  ‘All college societies are eligible for a grant to subsidize their activities,’ he says, flicking the file open, ‘but in order to qualify for it, they must register with the bursary. The six students on your list each belong to several college societies, just as you might expect. Is that the sort of thing you’re looking for?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ I say, trying not to sound dubious.

  ‘Two of them are in the Debating Society, and three of them are members of the Athletics Association. They all row, and – now this really is very interesting – they all belong to the Shivering Turn Society.’

  The Shivering Turn Society! The name rings a recent bell with me, but I can’t quite put my finger on where I’ve heard it before.

  ‘In case you’re wondering what the society does, it’s dedicated to studying the works of a Metaphysical poet called Robert Cudlip,’ Charlie says.

  Of course – Linda’s blouse embroidery project!

  Or will you, like a cold and errant coward/Abandon all and make a shivering turn!

  ‘Your degree was in English Lit, wasn’t it?’ Charlie asks.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So was mine. Did you get a first?’

  ‘Regrettably not.’

  ‘I did, which must mean I’m immensely clever.’

  ‘Oh, it does, Charlie,’ I agree. ‘Your intelligence is matched only by your modesty.’

  ‘The point is, I studied the Metaphysical poets, and yet I’ve never heard of this Robert Cudlip. Have you?’

  ‘No,’ I admit, ‘I haven’t.’

  ‘Isn’t that typical of the kind of undergraduates we’re getting these days!’ Charlie says in disgust.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘They’re all so bloody pretentious. They could have got together to study Shakespeare’s sonnets – God knows, there’s enough depth and meaning in the sonnets to keep them busy for a couple of lifetimes – but instead choose someone totally obscure, probably because they think that makes them look more profound. What pathetic little wankers they really are!’

  ‘When did the society last meet?’ I ask.

  ‘That’s almost impossible to say. When the bigger societies decide to hold a meeting, they have to book a room, and we’ll have a record of it. But there are only ten listed members of the Shivering Turn Society, and so they could quite easily meet in one of the member’s rooms.’

  ‘Is that uncommon?’

  ‘Is what uncommon?’

  ‘That a society only has ten members?’

  ‘No, it’s not at all uncommon. As far as some of these insignificant little shits are concerned, the exclusivity of the society is its main attraction. In fact, there are half a dozen societies which could simply be called “The Only Reason I’m Forming This Society Is So That When You Apply To Join, I Can Turn You Down and Feel Superior Society”.’

  So what have we got? I ask myself.

  Linda has a boyfriend called Jeff; Jeff is a member of the Shivering Turn Society which concerns itself with studying the works of the poet Robert Cudlip; Linda was in the process of embroidering one of Cudlip’s poems on to her white blouse, and everyone arrested with Linda outside the Playhouse was a member of the society.

  I’m beginning to think that since the Shivering Turn Society has begun to play such an important part in Linda’s life, the society – or at least some of its members – might have played a significant part in her decision to run away. Perhaps they did no more than encourage her. On the other hand, they might have actively helped her – finding her a job in a company that one of their fathers owned, for example. It may even have been more negative than that – perhaps they ridiculed her because she didn’t have the courage to do what she really wanted to do, and that tipped her over the edge.

  ‘I think I’d rather like to talk to these boys,’ I tell Charlie.

  ‘Then why don’t you just go ahead and do it,’ he suggests.

  ‘The thing is, though I want to talk to them, I’m not convinced they’ll be awfully willing to talk to me.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t they be?’

  Simply put, they won’t want to own up to an action which they must know will have seriously pissed off an inspector in Thames Valley Police, because – however rich or important their fathers are – a local copper, if he really sets his mind to it, can still make their lives very uncomfortable.

  But I don’t want to explain any of that to Charlie, partly because he’ll probably pick so many holes in my theory that I’ll start to doubt my own instincts.

  So I just say, ‘I’d like to tell you, but I can’t really do that without breaching client confidentiality.’

  ‘And we wouldn’t want that,’ Charlie says. ‘So let me see if I’ve got this straight – you want to talk to them, but you think a certain degree of compulsion will be necessary?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘If you need someone to crack the whip over them, then we’ll have to go to the dean, ’cos he’s the chief whip-cracker in this here college,’ Charlie says, in what I assume he fondly supposes to be an American cowboy’s accent.

  ‘The dean and I don’t exactly get on,’ I say. ‘I know he wanted me to lie about what went on in the Master’s Garden, but I think there’s a part of him that feels I should have been too terrified to lie to the almighty dean, and he still resents the fact that I did.’

  ‘The dean will be no problem at all,’ Charlie says confidently. ‘And that’s not because he’s a nice man – I know him better than most, and can assure you, he isn’t; it’s because he’s at war with the dean of St John’s at the moment, and he needs me as an ally.’

  ‘What kind of war is it?’ I ask, even though I can tell from his tone that he’s planning to have a bit of fun at my expense.

  Charlie grins. ‘You’re a smart girl – a private investigator, no less – and you’ve been around Oxford long enough to know how colleges work. What kind of war do you think it might be?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I admit. ‘Academic?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Theological?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Philosophical?’

  ‘No, it’s not that either.’

  I sigh theatrically. ‘You know, Charlie, this could take all day.’

  Charlie grin widens. ‘Indeed it could.’

  ‘Or you could break the habit of a lifetime and give a straightforward answer to a straightforward question.’

  ‘It’s “the War of the Two Self-Indulgent Epicureans”,’ Charlie says, in the manner of a stand-up comedian delivering his carefully honed punch line.

  ‘It’s what?’

  ‘Perhaps I should explain,’ Charlie says.

  ‘Perhaps you should,’ I agree.

  ‘Last Thursday, the dean of St John’s invited our dean over to his college for dinner, and our dean made the stupid tactical error of complimenting the dean of St John’s on the bottle of Château Haut-Brion premier cru which was served with the main course.’

  I smile. Only in Oxford – or, to be fair, possibly only in Oxford and Cambridge – would anyone have bothered to say ‘Château Haut-Brion premier cru’, when ‘red wine’ would have done just as well.

  ‘Why was it a tactical error to mention the wine?’ I ask.

  ‘Ah, because, as far as I can gather from our dean’s long rant to me, it gave the dean of St John’s the perfect opportunity to be patronizing. He appreciated the compliment, he said, but the last thing he wanted was for our dean to spend sleepless nights worrying over what wine to serve when he reciprocated the hospitality. Then, apparently, he actually patted our dean on the shoulder, and said he quite understood that St Luke’s was much poorer than St John’s, and in the interest of their long-standing friendship, he was more than willing to rough it for once with a much inferior wine.’

  I chuckle. ‘The dean must have been furious,’ I say.

  ‘He was livid. After that dinner, he did a bit of research, and he found that most experts on wine agree that a certain vintage of Château Margaux premier cru easily tops the Château Haut-Brion he was served, and now he wants me to lay down a dozen bottles of the stuff, so the next time the dean of St John’s comes calling, he can be made to feel like the poor relation.’

  ‘It must be expensive,’ I say.

  ‘It would probably be cheaper to start a real war,’ Charlie admits. ‘Which is why, if I am prepared to buy it for him, he’ll be prepared to jump through hoops for me. And he can start by lining up these interviews with the Shivering Turn Society.’ He takes another sip of his tea, and seems not to notice that by now it’s stone-cold. ‘Is there anything else I can do for you?’

  ‘Do you have photographs of all the members of the Shivering Turn in your records?’ I ask.

  Charlie frowns, as if he’s beginning to suspect – quite correctly – that he won’t like what’s coming next.

  ‘Yes, I do have photographs,’ he admits reluctantly. ‘But they’re only small ones – the sort you use for passports. And you know yourself that passport photographs never look like the real person.’

  ‘I’d like copies of them anyway,’ I say.

  Charlie frowns. ‘I’m not sure I can give them to you,’ he said. ‘Photographs attached to confidential records are, in a sense, a part of those records, and hence attain a degree of confidentiality in their own right.’

  ‘I wouldn’t want you to do anything that would make you feel uncomfortable,’ I say – knowing I’m making him feel uncomfortable by the very act of saying it.

  Charlie is silent for perhaps half a minute, then he says, ‘Tell me a story I can live with.’

  ‘I’m doing a montage for my next alumni dinner,’ I say. ‘I’m calling it “St Luke’s – Past and Present” and I need some photographs of current students for the left-hand corner.’

  ‘Fine,’ Charlie says.

  EIGHT

  If the interviews could have been set up straight away, I wouldn’t be in the public bar of the Red Lion now. But they couldn’t, because, as Charlie rightly pointed out, even when it’s only a gluttonous dean you are bribing, bribery can still take time. And so, with a couple of hours to kill, I have come to the pub, hoping to talk to Harry Garstead, and thereby acquire a little background information which may just prove useful when talking to the Shivering Turns.

  With this aim in mind, I order myself a gin and tonic and, while I’m paying for it, I say to the barman, ‘Is Harry Garstead in the pub today?’

  ‘That’s him, over there in the corner,’ the barman replies, jabbing the air with his index finger, and I can tell from the sour expression on his face that Garstead has never even come close to winning his Customer of the Week award.

  My eyes follow the line of the finger. Garstead is sitting at one of those brass-topped circular tables which the breweries seem to think will give their establishments a touch of class. He’s a thickset man with stubby fingers. I can’t really draw any conclusions about him from his face, because most of it is obscured by the copy of Sporting Life that he’s studying, and all I can actually see is the expanse of red skin that covers the top of his almost bald head.