Chapter Text
How two hands touch and the bonds
will never be broken.
How people come, from delight or the
scars of damage,
to the comfort of a poem.
— Mary Oliver, “Mysteries, Yes”
T.S. Eliot was wrong, Adam Dalgleish thought as he crossed the car park at the Metropolitan Police, coat collar turned up against the biting wind. April wasn’t the cruelest month. February was. While there was no snow, it had been raining and the roads held dangerous pockets of ice despite the efforts of the council’s salt and grit trucks. A blast of central heating hit him as he opened the door to the Met offices, and he sighed while unwrapping his scarf and shrugging out of his overcoat. Rarely did he hope for a day without a case but today was one where he’d be happy to deal with paperwork at his desk.
No such luck.
Before elevenses, he and DS Kate Miskin had gotten a call about the discovery of a body at the University of Kent, Canterbury. Whether it was a co-ed or a professor was as yet undetermined.
Miskin closed the manila folder she’d been reading to listen to the vague debrief. “Identity as yet undetermined? That sounds ominous, Sir. Did they say why?”
“Not yet.” The phone in the office buzzed, and Adam pressed the speaker button. “Dalgliesh.”
“The Commissioner needs another word before you leave.”
“On my way.” He disconnected the speaker and turned to his DS. “Can you be ready to go in ten minutes?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Meet you at the front,” he said, heading into the Commissioner’s office.
Nine minutes later, they met at the doors to the Met, bags in hand. It didn’t always happen that they received a case so close to home, but it was still good practice to carry a go-bag, typically with everything needed to have an overnight stay. Unlikely with Canterbury being about an hour and a half away, but preparation was paramount.
On again went coats and scarves, as the pair headed out into the frigid air toward Dalgliesh’s car. “An added wrinkle: the Dean of the Mathematics Department is an old school friend of the Commissioner, so we’ve been asked to handle this with utmost care and attention.”
“Mathematics?” Miskin looked at him over the roof of the car, her eyes above the scarf widening before a frown formed between her brows. Kate’s voice was slightly muffled as she spoke through the heavy knit. The dark colour blended with her inky hair, and he couldn’t help but think a snood would keep her warmer. “Our Commissioner?”
“Behave,” he said with something approaching a chuckle. Commissioner Patterson was not known for his ability in maths, having trouble calculating the simplest formula when discussing a small pay rise or a percentage change in crime statistics. “Apparently, the Dean changed out of the Forensic Science track after his foundation year. Too eerie for him, I believe.”
“Right,” Miskin said, getting in the car. “Utmost care and attention.”
As if they would do anything less. Fortunately, his DS did not seem offended by the request. She had come so far in the past four, almost five years and was a sharp-eyed, intuitive detective. He had recommended her for promotion to DI, which she richly deserved, only with each attempt to secure her a team of her own, the detectives that would have worked under her requested transfers to other departments. In two cases, other cities.
They had all cited reasonable life decisions on their transfer paperwork, but Dalgliesh wasn’t fooled. Neither was Miskin. While she kept her chin up about the entire matter, he could see it wore on her. He wanted nothing more than to fix it, but he could not make officers accept positions under her command in any good conscience. Even if he were able to make them stay, a resentful team would only be setting her up for failure. So they had continued to be partners, and Adam Dalgliesh continued to wonder how long he could keep his admiration for her strictly professional. Six years had passed since he’d lost his wife and child, and he’d never thought himself capable of having interest in another woman. Yet here he was.
Today, Kate wore a turtleneck jumper under her pantsuit in deference to the weather. It was the colour of a good Claret and made her eyes look bright even in the low light of a grey February morning. She wriggled and tugged to smooth her overcoat beneath her. His overcoat was too uncomfortable to drive in, so he had shrugged out of it, and placed it on the back seat before getting in. He turned the engine over, letting the car run a while in recognition of the cold. When it was like this, the heating couldn’t completely chase away the freezing temperatures.
It was an hour and a half in the car, and Adam took the opportunity to brief Miskin on what little he knew of the case.
“Got an update as we left. It’s a professor whose body was found, and not on the campus.”
Kate loosened her scarf. “No? Then where?”
“They pulled the body out of the River Wantsum, in Sarre, a blink and you’ll miss it village just outside of Canterbury. It’s a wealthy area, and the Met wants to do all it can to solve this quickly and quietly, and with as little harm to the University as we can manage.”
Without the scarf, her voice was clearer and held a note of wonder. “In this weather? What in the world was he doing out there?”
Adam set his jaw, and changed gears. With the utmost care and attention, they’d soon find out for themselves.
***
It was no warmer in Canterbury, but the cold was a blessing at the crime scene. It kept onlookers to a minimum, making a lockdown of the location easier. It also preserved what was left of the body.
“Looks like he’s been in there long enough to get nibbled on.” The medical examiner glanced up from where he was crouched over the body. “Soft parts, tips of fingers and toes gone. Part of the lips.”
“I didn’t think we had any carnivorous fish in the UK.” A police constable, looking green around the gills, commented.
“If a body’s in the water long enough, not moving, it just becomes meat. I can tell you more once I get him back to the morgue.” He motioned a white-clad woman over and together they lifted the remains onto a gurney. “Oh, and here. Found it inside the left coat pocket. Nice suit too. Rice and Burrows.”
The medical examiner handed Dalgliesh a pin secured in a plastic bag. “Some kind of membership pin. Latin or Greek, I think.”
“Who found the body?” Miskin asked.
The constable, likely grateful for something less visceral to focus on, led her away to a fisherman, dressed in waders, wearing a sour expression. Dalgliesh turned the pin to the fading light to inspect it. Metal of some kind, but lightweight. Shaped like a Canterbury Cross, it bore the colours blue and grey. It was small, and any pin that might have been used to affix it to a garment had been broken off. The words engraved on it were indeed Latin, he could tell that, but not translate it directly. He did know who could and he would get in touch as soon as possible. Miskin joined him.
“The fisherman who discovered the body is out here most days, in the early morning. He didn’t see anyone or anything unusual. Save for the body, of course.” She shuddered as a gust of frigid wind blew over the water and surrounded them.
“Are you alright? It’s quite exposed here.”
She nodded, but her teeth chattered when she replied. “I took his details and gave him mine in case he recalls something.”
“Good.” He handed her the pin. “Look familiar at all?”
“No,” she said, turning it over in her fingers, “but it isn’t complete.”
At his expression of silent query, she continued. “See this bit here? It looks broken but it isn’t. It probably snaps into a larger piece. Some fancy exclusive membership pin, I’d guess.”
Dalgliesh pocketed the pin when she returned it to him. He wanted to get her inside where it was warmer. While Miskin would never admit her discomfort on a case, he could see she was struggling with the extreme cold. “Maybe we will find answers at the college. Let’s go see the Dean.”
They headed there, asked a passing student for the Mathematics College and the harried young man indicated a massive Gothic Revival building, complete with wicked-looking finnials, steep-sloping roofs, colonnades, and cloisters covering the courtyard.
“Impressive,” Miskin commented, jotting something down in her notebook.
He wondered what she would have to add about the building itself, but he trusted her judgment that it was something of import. “Yes, the Gothic Revival style is said to be linked to a fascination with the chivalry and romance of the Middle Ages.”
Miskin’s gaze swept the grounds, then she said. “I can see that. The romance of it, I mean. A hand offering you help up those steep steps. Stolen kisses under that archway.”
His breath caught at a flash of an image: a snapshot in his mind of them under the cloisters, heads close together, until she said, “But Middle Ages romance probably wasn’t what we consider it to be today.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Honour, courtesy, loyalty were only some of what was required in Medieval chivalry and courtly love.”
A troubled look passed across Miskin’s face as she gazed up at the grandeur of the building. “So no, then.”
Dalgliesh blinked, surprised by his DS’s comment but the expression he had seen so fleetingly was gone now, before he’d had the opportunity to interpret it. Before he could reply, someone called to them from those covered arches and he wondered how easily it would be to catch someone unawares when they were walking through.
They headed toward a spectacled young man, dressed in a surprisingly conservative tweed jacket and dark trousers, that was incongruous with someone who looked too young to have had to shave. He watched them approach with little emotion, save for wrapping his arms around the portfolio he carried.
“You are the police?”
As was customary for the junior officer, Miskin spoke. “Yes, we are. This is—”
“I am Dean Winters’ assistant. Follow me.”
The young man turned and walked away.
“Chivalry in action,” Miskin said, admirably keeping her face composed in spite of the sarcasm in her voice.
He could not disagree. They followed the nameless assistant indoors where there was a respite from the elements, but not a great deal of heat. Up a set of stairs, down a hallway lined with oil portraits of former deans, they went after the assistant who did not pause to allow questions or commentary. They finally stopped in a high-arched alcove where a small wooden desk and filing cabinets stood before a similarly arched door. The assistant knocked.
“Come!” A voice erupted from behind the wooden door.
Then they were ushered in to a wood-paneled office lined with bookshelves full of leather-bound tomes. In the center of the room stood an ornate lion-footed desk in a walnut, polished to a high shine. A painfully thin man, white-haired and hollow-cheeked looked up, beckoned them further inside. To Dalgliesh’s concern, the man placed a file in his desk before standing and greeting them with a hand outstretched.
“Francis Winters, Dean of Mathematics. Welcome to Canterbury College.” He shook both Adam’s and Kate’s hands, gestured to the seats in front of his desk. “I’m sorry it isn’t under better circumstances.”
They introduced themselves, and sat, taking the dean up on his offer of coffee or tea. Winters motioned to the assistant, who disappeared without a word. “Did he introduce himself? When he met you out front.”
“No, he was—”
“Brusque? Clipped?” Winters sighed. “Yes, we’re working on that. Brilliant mind, no social skills at all.”
Dalgliesh gave a tight-lipped smile of understanding. From the corner of his eye he saw Miskin take out her notebook again. “We know you and the Commissioner are well-acquainted and we understand the delicacy of this matter, but it is important we get as much background as possible.”
“Of course.”
“Do you know who this man is? We’re told he is a professor or lecturer here? I do have to warn you—” He removed an instant photo from his inside jacket pocket, and showed it to Winters.
“I was a Forensic Science major for some time… Good Lord.” With one hand covering his mouth, Winters studied the picture. He cleared his throat before placing it on his desk. “Even without the nose, I can identify him. It’s Henry Gladwell.”
At that moment, the door opened and the assistant entered with a tray. He set it down on a console table near the desk and began to pour coffee into mugs. His hand shook when he saw the photo, sloshing the hot brew.
“Oh,” he said, watching the liquid sink into the serviettes on the tray.
“It’s alright, Luca. No harm done.” Winters reassured him, mopped up the coffee with one steady hand and filled cups with the other. “I hear you did not introduce yourself earlier.”
Luca’s head bobbed once. “My name is Luca Heatherington and I am Dean Winters' personal assistant.”
“Thank you, you may go. I’ll finish up here.”
Looking relieved, the young man shuffled out of the room.
“We’ll get there with him. Before he graduates, one hopes.”
The dean handed a cup and saucer to Dalgliesh, who added a sugar cube and a glug of milk, then handed it to Miskin. Their hands touched, and a crackle of electricity sparked between them. His gaze slanted over to hers, watching her eyes widen a fraction. Heat moved in the room, crawled up his collar. The cup trembled in its saucer. Finally, Miskin's lashes lowered and she pulled the drink to herself, doing an admirable job of balancing the coffee with her notebook and pen.
It was simple science, he rationalised. A buildup of friction from walking across the rugs. The thought allowed him to focus, to breathe again. He took the second offered cup, added a splash of milk, then eased back into the chair.
“Tell us about Henry Gladwell.”