Reginald Hill

It was early evening. Soon the holiday-makers, temporarily his neighbours, would be returning from whatever exciting expedition they had so noisily launched that morning. But for the moment he had the place to himself. One or two featureless figures were distantly visible in pursuit of the sea. And away to his right a thin flag fluttered on an elevated plateau to mark the outermost boundary of the golf course. The college was completely out of sight more than half a mile inland.

It was a situation to make a man as indifferent to society as Fallowfield sigh with contentment.

He sighed.

“That sounds as if it comes from the heart, Sam,’ said a voice behind him.

“Come and sit down, Henry,’ he said without looking round. ”ll find a beer and another chair behind the door.”

Gratefully Henry Saltecombe lowered himself in the deckchair which he erected with a deftness unpromised by his podgy hands.

“Hope I’m not obtruding, my dear fellow, but I felt like a constitutional before driving back to the bosom of my family.”

Henry had a pleasant detached house on a modern estate about eight miles down the coast. It overflowed with four children, a dog, a cat, and his wife. He loved them all dearly but was rarely in a hurry to return home to them. He had married late when the habit of peace and solitude had long since moulded itself comfortably around his shoulders, and it was not easily to be torn away.

“What happened to you then?’ Henry asked after he had opened a can of light ale and jetted it expertly into the O of his mouth. ‘ noticed you disappeared when all the excitement started. The Law has arrived in all its majesty, controlled by a corpulence in excess even of mine. There have been comings and I have no doubt there will be goings. I have even seen one or two students with facial expressions distantly related to alert, intelligent interest. Simeon suspects it’s an act of Walt, and Walt firmly believes it’s an act of God.”

“And the police?”

The police are less public about their suspicions. But it is exciting.

At first I thought it was merely some animal remains. But it appears to be certainly human. I myself think the solution is simple.”

“How?”

“I have no doubt it will turn out to be a student jape. They knew all about the garden controversy. It was no secret and even if it had been, they have a supremely efficient intelligence system, if only in the military sense. So they get some bones, an anatomical specimen perhaps, and they bury them beneath the statue. What fun! Something to enliven a long, dull, very hot term.”

Fallowfield grinned wryly.

“I should have thought the term had been sufficiently enlivened already.”

Henry was immediately apologetic.

“My dear fellow, I never thought … that business is far too serious for anyone to be entertained by it.”

Fallowfield twisted in his chair so that he could see the other’s face.

Its rotundities were set in pattern of sympathetic seriousness.

“Come off it, Henry. It’s the most entertaining thing that’s happened here in years. One of the few consolations I have in it all is the pleasure I know I am giving my colleagues.”

Henry shook his head in protest, then began laughing. Fallowfield joined in.

“You see,’ he said.

“No, Sam,’ said Henry. ”s you. You just don’t strike one as a career man, so how can I worry about your career being ruined? It’s the effect on you personally that matters and you give a damn good impression of not giving a damn. Which makes it easier to spectate.”

“Enjoy yourself as much as you can,’ said Fallowfield. ‘ knows whose turn it’ll be next?” He said it lightly, but it stopped the conversation for a minute.

“You did bed the girl, didn’t you, Sam?’ asked Henry finally.

“I’ve never denied it,’ replied the other.

“Here?’ He indicated the cottage.

Fallowfield shrugged.

“Up against a tree. Out among the dunes. In the principal’s study. What difference does it make where?”

“She always struck me as a nice sort of girl.”

“What difference does that make?”

“Every detail makes some difference, Sam,’ said Henry earnestly.

“There’s a difference between casual promiscuity and a real love affair.

And between malevolence and malleability. She says you conspired to get rid of her. I know this couldn’t be true. Now, does she really believe it, or is she merely being used?”

“Used? How?’ Fallowfield’s tone was sharp.

“Politically, I mean. Things have been quiet here for a while. They seem to have got all they wanted. But people like that youth Cockshut are never satisfied. And there’s something about Roote I don’t like either.

They could be looking for another excuse to start trouble again.”

“Is that all?’ Fallowfield laughed. ‘ suppose it might be something like that.”

“You don’t seem much concerned.”

“Why should I be? It’s all a game, isn’t it? It’s about as real as that.”

He pointed towards the distant flag which was being held now by one unidentifiable figure while another tried to strike an invisible ball into the hole. From his demeanour it seemed likely he had missed.