2005 - The Oxford Murders Read online

  “Follow the score…that’s what I’ve done all my life,” she sighed. We were at the front door now and she put her hand on the doorknob. “Don’t take any notice of me,” she said, “I’ve had a bad day.”

  “But the day isn’t over yet,” I said. “Is there anything I can do to improve it?”

  She smiled sadly and took the cello from me.

  “Oh, you’re such a Latin man,” she murmured, as if that were something she should be wary of. Still, before she shut the door, she allowed me a last glimpse of her blue eyes.

  Two weeks passed. Summer was slowly starting, with mild evenings and very long sunsets. On the first Wednesday in May, on my way home from the Institute, I stopped at a cash machine to get money for my rent. I rang Mrs Eagleton’s doorbell and, as I waited, a man came up the winding path to the house. He was tall and took large strides, and he looked preoccupied. I peered at him out of the corner of my eye as he came to a stop beside me. He had a wide, high forehead and small, deep-set eyes, and a noticeable scar on his chin. He must have been in his mid-fifties, but a kind of contained energy in his movements made him seem still young. There was a brief moment of awkwardness as we both waited at the closed door, until he asked, in a deep, melodious Scottish accent, if I had rung the bell. I said I had and rang for a second time. I said perhaps my first ring had been too brief. As I spoke the man gave me a friendly smile and asked if I was Argentinian.

  “So you must be Emily’s graduate student,” he said, switching to perfect Spanish with—amusingly—a Buenos Aires accent.

  Surprised, I said that I was and asked him where he had learned Spanish. He arched his eyebrows, as if looking into the distant past, and said he’d learned it many years ago.

  “My first wife was from Buenos Aires.” He held out his hand. “I’m Arthur Seldom.”

  At that time few names could have provoked more admiration in me. The man with the small, pale eyes holding out his hand was already a legend among mathematicians. I’d spent months studying his most famous work, the philosophical extension of Godel’s theorem from the thirties, for a seminar. He was considered one of the four leading minds in the field of logic, and you just had to glance at the varied titles of his work to see that he was a rare case of mathematical genius. Beneath that high, serene forehead some of the most profound ideas of the century had fallen into place. On my second visit to the bookshops in town I had tried to get hold of his latest book, a popular work explaining logical series, and found, to my surprise, that it had been sold out for a couple of months. Someone mentioned that, since the book’s publication, Seldom had disappeared from the conference circuit and apparently nobody dared venture a guess as to what he was working on now. In any case I didn’t even know he lived in Oxford, and I certainly never would have expected to bump into him at Mrs Eagleton’s front door. I told him I’d expounded on his theorem at a seminar and he seemed pleased by my enthusiasm. But he was obviously worried about something as he kept glancing at the door.

  “Mrs Eagleton should be in, shouldn’t she?” he said.

  “I would have thought so,” I said. “There’s her electric wheelchair. Unless someone’s taken her out by car.”

  Seldom rang the bell again and listened at the door. He went to the window that looked on to the hall, and peered inside.

  “Is there a back door?” And then, in English, he said: “I’m worried something might have happened to her.”

  I could tell from his face that he was deeply alarmed, as if he knew something that stopped him concentrating on anything else.

  “We could try the door,” I said. “I don’t think they lock it during the day.”

  Seldom turned the handle and the door opened quietly. We entered without a word, the wooden floorboards creaking beneath our steps. Inside we could hear, like a muffled heartbeat, the stealthy to and fro of a clock’s pendulum. We went through to the sitting room and stopped by the table in the centre. I pointed to the chaise longue by the window looking on to the garden. Mrs Eagleton was lying there, apparently sleeping deeply, her face turned towards the back of the chair. One of her pillows was on the floor, as if it had slipped while she slept. Her bun of white hair was carefully protected by a hairnet and her glasses lay on the little table, beside the Scrabble board. It looked as if she had been playing on her own because the letter racks were both on her side.

  Seldom went over to her. As he touched her lightly on the shoulder her head fell heavily to one side. Just then we saw her terrified open eyes and two parallel trails of blood running from her nose to her chin, joining on her neck. Involuntarily I took a step back and had to stop myself from crying out. Seldom, who was supporting her head with his arm, rearranged the body as best he could and muttered something anxiously that I didn’t catch. He picked up the pillow, uncovering a big red stain on the carpet that was almost dry in the centre. He stood for a moment with his arm down by his side, holding the pillow, deep in thought, as if exploring the ramifications of a complex calculation. He looked truly perturbed. I said I thought we ought to call the police and he agreed mechanically.

  Three

  They said we should wait outside,” said Seldom laconically when he hung up.

  We went out to the little porch, making sure not to touch anything. Seldom leaned against the handrail and rolled a cigarette. His hands paused from time to time as he folded the cigarette paper, then compulsively repeated an action, as if they were following the stops and starts of a train of thought that he had to check carefully. He no longer looked overwhelmed, as he had a few moments earlier; instead he seemed to be trying to make sense of something incomprehensible.

  Two policemen arrived and stationed themselves silently in front of the house. A tall, grey-haired man with piercing eyes, wearing a dark-blue suit, came up to us. He shook hands with us quickly and asked for our names. He had prominent cheekbones, probably growing sharper with age, and a look of calm but determined authority, as if he was used to taking charge of situations.

  “I’m Inspector Petersen,” he said. He indicated a man in green overalls who nodded briefly as he came past. “That’s our forensic pathologist. Would you mind coming inside for a moment? We need to ask you some questions.”

  The pathologist put on latex gloves and leaned over the chaise longue. We watched from across the room as he carefully checked Mrs Eagleton’s body, taking blood and skin samples, which he handed to one of his assistants. The photographer’s flash went off a couple of times above the lifeless face.

  “Right,” said the pathologist, beckoning to us. “In exactly what position did you find her?”

  “Her head was facing the back of the sofa,” said Seldom. “She was on her side…a little bit more…Her legs were straight, the right arm was bent. Yes, I think she was like that.” He glanced at me for confirmation.

  “And that pillow was on the floor,” I added.

  Petersen picked up the pillow and showed the forensic pathologist the bloodstain in the middle.

  “Do you remember exactly where?”

  “On the rug, about level with her head. It looked as if it fell while she was asleep.”

  The photographer took another couple of photos.

  “I believe,” the pathologist said to Petersen, “that whoever did this meant to smother her without leaving any trace, while she was sleeping. He took the pillow from under her head very carefully, without disarranging the hairnet, or perhaps he found the pillow already on the floor. But while he was pressing it over her face, she woke up and maybe put up a fight. And this is when our man got scared, pressed down with the back of his hand or possibly even pushed with his knee to get more pressure, and crushed her nose under the pillow without realising. That’s all it is: a little blood from the nose. At that age the blood vessels are very fragile. When he removed the pillow he found the face all covered in blood. He may have got scared again and dropped the pillow on the floor without trying to put things back as they were. Maybe he decided that it didn’t
matter and just got out as quickly as he could. I think this is someone who’s killing for the first time. Probably right-handed.” He held his arms above Mrs Eagleton’s face to demonstrate. “Judging by where the pillow ended up on the carpet, I’d say he turned like this. That would be the most natural movement for a person holding it with their right hand.”

  “Male or female?” asked Petersen.

  “Now that’s interesting,” said the pathologist. “It could have been a strong man who damaged her by simply pressing down harder with the palm of his hand, or a woman who felt too weak and maintained the pressure by pushing down with the full weight of her body.”

  “Time of death?”

  “Between two and three in the afternoon.” The forensic pathologist then turned to us. “What time did you get here?”

  “It was four-thirty,” Seldom said, looking at me quickly for confirmation. And then, addressing Petersen: “I think she was probably killed at three.”

  The inspector looked at him with a spark of interest.

  “Really? How do you know?”

  “We didn’t arrive together,” said Seldom. “I came because of a note, a rather strange message I found in my pigeonhole at Merton. Unfortunately, I didn’t pay much attention to it at first. But I expect it would have been too late anyway.”

  “What was the message?”

  “‘The first of the series’,” said Seldom. “That’s all. In large, handwritten capitals. And underneath, Mrs Eagleton’s address and the time, as if it were an appointment: 3 PM.”

  “Could I see it? Did you bring it with you?”

  Seldom shook his head.

  “When I collected it from my pigeonhole it was already gone three and I was late for my seminar. I read it on the way to my office and, frankly, I thought it must be yet another message from a madman. My book on logical series came out recently and I foolishly included a chapter on serial killers. Since then I’ve received all kinds of letters confessing to murders…Anyway, I threw the note in the wastepaper basket as soon as I got back to my office.”

  “In that case, might it still be there?” asked Petersen.

  “I’m afraid not,” said Seldom. “When I came out of my class I remembered the note. The Cunliffe Close address had left me a little anxious: during the class I remembered that that was where Mrs Eagleton lived, though I wasn’t sure of the house number. I thought I’d better reread the note, to confirm the address, but the porter had been in to clean my office and had emptied the wastepaper basket. That’s why I decided to come here.”

  “We could try to find it anyway,” said Petersen, and he called over one of his men. “Wilkie, could you go to Merton College and have a word with the porter? What’s the man’s name?”

  “Brent,” said Seldom. “But I don’t think it’ll be any use. The refuse lorry must have been by now.”

  “If it doesn’t turn up we’ll call you so you can give our police artist a description of the handwriting. We’re going to keep this to ourselves for now, so I’d ask you both for your utmost discretion. Can you remember anything else about the note? The type of paper, ink colour, or anything that drew your attention.”

  “It was in black ink, from a fountain pen, I think. The paper was ordinary white notepaper. The handwriting was large and clear. The note was carefully folded in four in my pigeonhole. And yes, there was something intriguing: under the words there was a neatly drawn circle. A small perfect circle, also in black.”

  “A circle,” repeated Petersen thoughtfully. “Like a signature? A stamp? Or does it mean something else to you?”

  “It may have something to do with the chapter on serial murders in my book,” said Seldom. “In it I maintain that, except in crime novels and films, the logic behind serial murders—at least those that have been documented historically—is generally very rudimentary, and relates to pathological mental states. The patterns are very crude, typified by monotony, repetition, and the overwhelming majority are based on some traumatic experience or childhood fixation. In other words, they’re cases that should be subjected to psychoanalysis rather than being true logical enigmas. In the chapter I conclude that crimes motivated by intellectual concerns, by intellectual vanity, like Raskolnikov’s or, in its artistic variant, Thomas de Quincey’s, would seem not to belong to the real world. Or else, as I suggest playfully in the book, the perpetrators were so clever that they were never found out.”

  “I see,” said Petersen. “You think that someone who read your book took up the challenge. So in that case the circle would be…”

  “Possibly the first symbol in a logical series,” said Seldom. “It would be a good choice: it’s a symbol that historically has probably had the greatest variety of interpretations, both in the world of mathematics and outside. It can mean almost anything. It’s a clever way to start a series: putting the symbol of maximum uncertainty at the beginning, so that we’re almost totally in the dark as to how it might continue.”

  “Do you think this person is a mathematician?”

  “No, not necessarily. My publishers were surprised at what a varied audience my book reached. And we still don’t even know whether we should interpret the symbol as a circle. I mean, the first thing I saw was a circle, possibly because of my mathematical training. But it could be a symbol from some esoteric cult, or ancient religion, or something else entirely. An astrologer might have seen a full moon, or your artist might have seen the outline of a face…”

  “All right,” said Petersen, “let’s go back to Mrs Eagleton for a moment. Did you know her well?”

  “Harry Eagleton was my tutor and they invited me to some of their parties and to dinner here after I graduated. And I was friends with their son, Johnny, and his wife, Sarah. They were both killed in an accident, when Beth was a child. She’s lived with Mrs Eagleton ever since. I haven’t seen much of them lately. I knew that Mrs Eagleton had been suffering from cancer for some time, and that she’d had to go into hospital on several occasions. I saw her at the Radcliffe a couple of times.”

  “And this girl, Beth, does she still live here? How old is she now?”

  “She must be about twenty-nine, thirty. And yes, she lives with Mrs Eagleton.”

  “We need to see her as soon as possible. I need to ask her a few questions too,” said Petersen. “Does either of you know where I might find her?”

  “She must be at the Sheldonian,” I said. “Rehearsing.”

  “I pass the theatre on my way home,” said Seldom. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to request that you let me, as a friend of the family, break the news to her. She might also need help with the funeral arrangements.”

  “Of course, that’s fine,” said Petersen. “But the funeral will have to wait: we’ve got to get a post-mortem done first. Please tell Beth that we’ll wait for her here. The fingerprints people still have work to do, we’ll probably be here another couple of hours. It was you who phoned the police, wasn’t it? Do you remember if either of you touched anything else?”

  We shook our heads. Petersen called one of his men, who came carrying a small tape recorder.

  “In that case I’ll just ask you to give a brief statement to Detective Sergeant Sacks about your movements from midday today. It’s routine. After that you’re free to go, though I’m afraid I may have to bother you both with more questions over the next few days.”

  Seldom spent two or three minutes answering the detective’s questions. When it was my turn I noticed that he stood discreetly to one side waiting for me to finish. I thought he might have wanted to say goodbye, but when I turned to him he indicated that we should leave together.

  Four

  I thought we might walk to the Sheldonian together,” said Seldom, rolling another cigarette. “I’d like to know…” He hesitated, struggling for the right words. It was now completely dark outside, so I couldn’t see his face. “I’d like to be sure,” he said at last, “that we both saw the same thing in there. I mean, before the police arrive
d, before all the theories and explanations—the original scene as we found it. I’d like to know your first impression as, of the two of us, you’d had no warning.”

  I thought for a moment, trying to remember, to reconstruct the exact scene. I was aware too that I wanted to appear sharp and not disappoint Seldom.

  “I think,” I said, “I agree with almost everything the pathologist said, except maybe for one final detail. He thought that when the murderer saw the blood, he dropped the pillow and got out as quickly as possible, without trying to put things back.”

  “But you don’t think that’s what happened?”

  “He may not have tried to tidy up, but he did do one more thing before leaving: he turned Mrs Eagleton’s face towards the back of the chaise longue. That’s how we found her.”

  “You’re right,” said Seldom, nodding slowly. “What do you think it means?”

  “I don’t know, maybe he couldn’t bear to see Mrs Eagleton’s staring eyes. If, as the pathologist said, this was someone who was killing for the first time, he may have seen her eyes, suddenly realised what he’d done and tried to put them out of his sight somehow.”

  “Do you think he knew Mrs Eagleton, or did he pick her more or less at random?”

  “I don’t think it was totally random. What you said afterwards drew my attention—that Mrs Eagleton had cancer. Perhaps he knew that she was going to die soon anyway. That would seem to fit with the idea of a challenge that’s mainly intellectual, as if he wanted to do as little damage as possible. If it hadn’t been for her waking up, even the method he chose to kill her could have been seen as fairly merciful. Perhaps what he knew,” it occurred to me suddenly, “was that you knew Mrs Eagleton and that it would force you to get involved.”

  “That’s possible,” said Seldom. “And I agree that he wanted to kill in the most subtle way possible. What I was wondering while we were listening to the pathologist was what would have happened if things had gone according to plan and Mrs Eagleton’s nose hadn’t bled.”