The Whole Truth

At St Aldate’s, Sergeant Paul Woods is spending the afternoon on reception, and is very far from happy about it. He works the giddy heights of the custody suite these days but the civilian desk officer is on holiday and the PC covering her has food poisoning, and Woods drew the short straw. And along with it, a short fuse. It’s far too bloody hot for a start. BBC Oxford said it might hit 30 degrees today. 30 degrees. It’s bloody indecent, that’s what that is. He’s propped open the main street door but all it’s allowing in is fumes. And more people. A good half of them are just looking for some respite from the sun – there’s never been so much interest in the leaflet stand, that’s for sure. It can go weeks without needing to be refilled, but suddenly they’re all out of How To Protect Your Home From Thieves and Things To Look Out For When You Shop Online. There’s a group milling around it right now – tourists clearly, and mostly Chinese.

Woods glances up at the clock. Another twenty minutes before he can take a break. The tourists around the leaflet stand are talking eagerly among themselves now. One is gesturing towards Woods; she appears to be trying to get up the courage to come and talk to him. He draws himself up to his full authority, and at six foot two and sixteen stone that’s a lot of gravitas in every sense. It’s not that he’s trying to discourage her as such, it’s just that he knows from dreary experience that these sorts of questions can almost always be answered by any half-decent map. He really has had his fill of unofficial trip-advising over the years.

He’s saved, as it turns out, by the bell. Just as the Chinese woman starts to approach the desk, the phone goes. It’s the woman on the switchboard – another civilian, Marjorie something. She must have got the short straw too.

‘Sergeant Woods – can you take this one, please? I’ve tried CID but there’s no one in. It’s Edith Launceleve.’

He picks up his pen, momentarily irritated that he never has known the correct way to write that bloody place. Whose bright idea was it to call a college after someone nobody can spell?

‘OK,’ he says heavily. ‘Put them through.’

He raises his hand grandly to the Chinese tourist as if he has the Chief Constable on the line.

‘Is that Sergeant Woods? Jancis Appleby here, Edith Launceleve College.’

It’s the sort of voice that makes you sit up straight.

‘How can I help you, Miss Appleby?’

‘I have Professor Hilary Reynolds on the line.’

She says it as if even a minion like Woods will have heard that name. And actually, he has, but right this minute he can’t for the life of him remember when –

‘The Principal,’ she says briskly. ‘In case you may have forgotten. Hold on, please.’

Now that does bring him up short. The bloody Principal? What could possibly be so important that the Principal gets on the blower? What is she even doing in the office at the weekend?

The line clicks into life again.

‘Sergeant Woods?’

Not the female voice he was expecting and he loses the first few words remembering Hilary can be a bloke’s name too.

‘I’m sorry, sir, could you say that again?’

‘I said I’m afraid I need to report an incident involving a student at the college.’

Woods’ eyes narrow; ‘incident’ can cover a multitude of sins, from the mortal to the extremely mundane.

‘What sort of incident would that be, sir?’

An intake of cultured, well-educated but slightly irritated breath. ‘A serious incident, Sergeant. I’m afraid that’s all I’m prepared to say at this stage. Could you put me through to Detective Inspector Fawley?’

* * *

It’s hot in Boars Hill too, but somehow it seems a lot more bearable up here. No doubt some of that comes with the altitude, but the thirty-foot swimming pool and well-stocked poolside bar are definitely helping. Those come with the altitude too, though that’s an elevation of a rather different kind. Given the address, you don’t need to be a fully paid-up member of CID to make some shrewd deductions about the sort of house this was likely to be, but Gareth Quinn was, all the same, quietly impressed when he saw what lay behind the wrought-iron gates that swung silently open for his Audi A4, newly valeted for the occasion. A good acre of lawns (also valeted for the occasion, though he wasn’t to know that), a parterre and orange trees, and a scatter of what estate agents probably call ‘useful outbuildings’, shunted discreetly out of sight of the chiselled neo-Palladian pile and its uninterrupted prospect of ‘That View’. The bristle of construction cranes is unfortunate but in all other respects the spires lie dreaming down there this afternoon in the shimmering heat, just as Matthew Arnold once saw them.