Read Online The Company of Fellows by Dan Holloway - Free Book Online

to St Saviour’s, and went into
the Porter’s Lodge. She knew better than to flash her warrant card
and walk straight in. Colleges were very twitchy about the police.
In reality, of course, she could go where she wanted, but Oxford
colleges were harder to open up than an oyster. One false move and
they would clam shut for good. So the police carried on playing a
game of tug-the-forelock with them.
    The porter
smiled at her. He obviously remembered her face from her days as a
student. “What are you up to these days?” he asked
cheerily.
    “ I’m afraid,”
she said, “that I’ve gone over to the dark side.”
    “ You’re at
Cambridge?” He smiled.
    “ Worse than
that.” Sometimes, when she was a student and in a hurry to get to
lectures, the banter had drive her nuts, but now it had a familiar
homeliness to it.
    “ Worse than
Cambridge?”
    “ I’m afraid
so. I’m with the police.” She took out her warrant card.
    “ Ouch. Still,”
he said, looking at her credentials. “DCI; you’ve done well for
yourself.”
    “ Thanks. I’m
here to see the Warden. He’s expecting me.”
    “ You’d better
go on over.”
    He seemed
exactly the same as he had done fifteen years before. People often
said that college porters were part of the Oxford furniture, and
Emily thought that was right, in a comfortable old armchair kind of
way. Only they seemed to age better than any furniture she’d ever
owned. “Thanks. It’s good to see you again.”
    Despite its
unassuming door, the Warden’s Lodge occupied half a side of one of
the largest quadrangles in Oxford. Each of its hallways and
corridors was the size of an average house.
    She didn’t
recognise the middle-aged man who showed her through into his vast
study. As a law student, she’d had little to do with tutors from
other subjects. And as an active member of the Christian Union
she’d had nothing at all to do with the Chapel, whose regulars the
zealous young students viewed with as much suspicion as if they’d
actually carried pitchforks or broomsticks with them around
college. Fortunately Dr Sansom didn’t seem to recognise her either.
She wouldn’t have to go through all the tedious chitter chatter
about how much she’d enjoyed her time there, how invaluable a
grounding it had provided her for later life. More to the point, he
wouldn’t expect any special favours.
    “ So you’ve
come about Charles,” he said, pouring himself what looked like a
glass of guava juice. Emily was surprised. It was hardly the sweet
sherry she associated with heads of Oxford colleges.
    “ That’s
right.” She left the space blank, giving him time to fill it before
she led his thoughts in any particular direction.
    “ It’s
terrible, of course; he was one of our brightest stars.” Sansom
sipped his juice. He was clearly going to be as helpful as he
decided to be and no more. He certainly wasn’t going to do her job
for her. Sometimes she wondered whether academics were hired for
their ability to be bloody minded just for the fun of it. Well,
she’d play for a moment, see if she couldn’t get him to tell her
something without her having to ask him a leading
question.
    “ We think he
killed himself.”
    “ So I
heard.”
    She wondered
how he’d heard. They certainly hadn’t told the press yet. Haydn
Shaw, possibly; then again in a place like Oxford there were
probably fewer people who didn’t know than did.
    There was a
knock at the study door. “Come in,” said Sansom.
    A small, neat
lady put her head around the door. She looked at Sansom; then she
looked at Emily. “I’m sorry to bother you, dear,” she said. “I
thought I heard the door and wondered if your guest would like
tea.”
    “ Would you
like tea?” Sansom relayed the message, as though Emily would have
been unable to hear the initial request.
    “ No, thank
you,” she said to the woman, who retreated and closed the
door.
    “ My wife makes
the most incredible pastries. If you’d come in the