Case Histories

Theo paid for his coffee, leaving a tip that was bigger than the bill. The worse the service, the more Theo tended to tip. He supposed it was a character weakness. He thought of himself as a person made almost entirely out of weaknesses rather than strengths. He had to fight his way upstream against a tide of tourists, all enraptured by the colleges, the tangible fabric of history – scholarship and architecture and beauty. When Theo had first come to Cambridge as a student he thought it was the most beautiful place on Earth. He had been brought up in a prosaic suburb in Manchester, so Cambridge had seemed like the architecture of transcendence. When he first glimpsed inside the courts of the colleges it had been like seeing visions of paradise. He hadn't known anything so beautiful existed, yet now he hadn't even looked at a college for ten years. He walked past the gorgeous frontages of Queens' and Corpus Christi and Clare and King's and saw nothing but stone and mortar and, eventually, dust.

"Closure," that was what they called it. It sounded so Californian. He had avoided the word, avoided the act, but he knew he couldn't go to his grave not knowing who the man in the yellow golfing sweater was. He checked his watch. He didn't want to be late.

Theo read a copy of Reader's Digest while he waited. Waiting rooms seemed to be the only place you ever saw Reader's Digest these days. The woman on reception said Mr. Brodie was "tied up at the moment" but would be able to see him in ten minutes if he'd like to wait. "I'm his assistant, Deborah," she added, "but you can call me Mrs. Arnold." Theo couldn't tell whether or not she was trying to be funny. He remembered how at Holroyd, Wyre, and Stanton that used to be a standingjoke among the staff- he'd heard them on the phone saying to clients, "I'm sorry, Mr. Holroyd is all tied up in his office just now," in that singsong secretary voice they all used and then when they came off the line they al-ways burst into laughter. Mr. Brodie's secretary didn't look as if she were deriving any amusement from the idea of her boss in some bondage scenario beyond the closed door of his office. Instead she was taking her aggression out on her computer keyboard in a way that suggested that, like Cheryl, his own secretary, she had been trained on upright typewriters, built like tanks. He still saw Cheryl sometimes – she was retired now but Theo had visited her in her overheated bungalow and had (rather awkwardly) drunk tea and eaten her All-Bran tea loaf.

Cheryl was the last person that Laura had ever spoken to – "Would you like more than one copy of this form?" – a prosaic note to end a life on.

Deborah Arnold paused in her attempt to destroy her keyboard and offered him a coffee, which he declined. He was beginning to suspect that Mr. Brodie, far from being tied up in his office, wasn't even in there at all.

If the police had never found the man who killed Laura then it seemed absurd to think that some backstreet private eye could, but Theo thought that the merest chance of that happening was better than no chance at all. And if he did find the man perhaps he wouldn't open his arms and embrace his death; perhaps instead it would be Theo who would be the maniac wielding the knife.

A man hurried into the office and Deborah Arnold said, "There you are at last," without looking up from the keyboard. "Sorry," the man – Theo presumed this was Jackson Brodie – said to Theo, "I had to go to the dentist." Deborah gave a bark of laughter as if this were a risible excuse. The man shook Theo's hand and said, "Jackson, Jackson Brodie, please come in and have a seat," and ushered him toward the inner office. As Jackson closed the door, Deborah's sarcastic tones could be heard singing out, "Mr. Brodie will see you now."

"I'm sorry," Jackson said to Theo. "She's delusional. She thinks she's a woman."

Chapter 7. Caroline