It always works. He’s got enough on his plate what with Dr. Beecham and his scheming. Paul is more worried than he lets on, and I try to boost his confidence. I tell him what a great teacher he is and how much his students love his classes.
And when that doesn’t work, I tell him he saved my life when he took me on and that always makes him smile. I wonder if he is remembering those early days, in the 1990s, when I was trying to get my life together. I was too old and different from the other students to join in their games. And, there was Paul. I made a pitch for him in my first term, but it was only in my final year that he fell in love with me. It was complicated, him being my personal tutor, but that didn’t matter to me at the time. I thought Dr. Paul Simmonds had all the answers to my problems.
He was twenty years older than me and wonderfully clever and funny in that dry, academic way. A bachelor, in un-ironed shirts and odd socks—and completely absorbed in his work.
“You mesmerized me,” I tell him and he laughs.
“Me? I couldn’t mesmerize anyone,” he says.
But it’s true. When he talked about things, he could captivate you. Me anyway. And it felt like he was talking directly to me. His lectures on the psychology of Shakespeare’s tragic heroines were all about me. And I would sit there and feel that he understood me and my jumbled head. I actually thought he might be able to make me better. Poor Paul. What a responsibility.
He says he fell for me immediately, but I think we both know he has romanticized the whole thing. The truth is that he was flattered at first by my interest in his lectures and then sympathetic to my struggles with essays and college life. He took me under his wing, the department’s problem child. Poor Paul. He didn’t have a clue what he was getting into.
I began following him around the campus, sitting at the back of all his lectures, just so I could be near him. The students in my year picked up on it immediately, nudging each other when they spotted me, whispering their catty remarks.
In the end, even Paul realized it was getting out of hand and tried to talk to me about my behavior, pointing out his professional responsibilities and urging me to find a boyfriend my own age. Sweet.
“Emma,” he said. “I am old enough to be your father.”
Jude would have said that that was the point if I’d told her. But I didn’t. My mother wasn’t part of my life back then. I didn’t have to tell anyone that I saw Paul as my safe harbor and I wasn’t about to let him go. He told me later it was my vulnerability that clinched it. He said I needed him more than any woman he’d ever known.
So romantic. Not like our first clandestine date in a dingy curry house with loud wallpaper and sitar music to drown out our declarations of love. Paul almost had to shout.
We had to wait until I’d finished my degree before we could go public, but everyone knew anyway. We kept the department in scandalized whispers for two terms and Paul suggested he apply for other jobs so we could have a fresh start together.
“And we won’t mention how you were still a student when we fell in love,” he said. “Best not. Mea culpa but sleeping dogs and all that . . .”
I’ve always thought that’s a funny saying. Let sleeping dogs lie. Because sleeping dogs always wake up eventually, don’t they?
EIGHT
Kate
THURSDAY, MARCH 22, 2012
Peter, the laborer, rang the next morning, his voice hesitant, struggling to express himself in a foreign language.
“Miss Waters?” he said. “I am Peter. John said you want to speak with me.”
Kate gripped the phone a little tighter. She hadn’t thought he would actually get in touch.
“Peter, thank you so much for calling. I know you must be so shocked by what happened.”
“Yes, very shocked,” he said. “How do you know about me?”
“Well, the police gave me some information about the investigation,” Kate said quickly. The man on the end of the phone was clearly nervous and she was anxious not to alarm him. It would be easier if they met. She could work her charms better face-to-face.
“Look, it’s difficult to talk on the phone,” she said. “Difficult to talk about something as sensitive as this. Could we meet, Peter? I could come to you.”
He hesitated. “Well, okay,” he said. “But just for a little time. I am staying with a friend just now. In Shepherd’s Bush. Can we meet there? In the café by the station, perhaps.”
“Of course. I’m not that far from there. I can be there in half an hour, Peter. Is that okay?”
Kate was already pulling her bag off the arm of her chair when Gordon Willis looked up. He earwigged every conversation. It was a given. And she’d mentioned the police. His jealously guarded patch.
“What are you up to?” he said. “Something I should know about?”
“No. Just a dead baby in Woolwich. It was in the Standard, Gordon,” she said, carefully underselling the story to head off any interference. The Crime Man was a renowned byline bandit, always looking for a chance to get his name on other people’s work.
“Yeah, saw that,” he said. “Cops think it’s old—historic, probably.”
“Well, I thought I’d have a look at it. Could be a good human interest story behind it.”
“Girls’ stuff,” he said and resumed his crossword puzzle.
? ? ?
Peter had a Coke in front of him when Kate walked across to his table. He was stick thin and his skin was so pale she could see the veins beneath. He looked up as she approached, stood, and shook her hand. His was cold and she felt the tremble.
“Thanks very much for seeing me, Peter. I really appreciate it,” she said warmly as they sat down. “I’m just trying to make sure I get my story right—for the baby’s sake.”
It struck the right chord. His eyes filled with tears and he looked down at his lap.
“It was so small. Almost not there at all in the dirt,” he said to his drink. “I didn’t know what I was looking at. Then I saw . . .”
Kate memorized his words automatically, an intro already playing in her head.
“What made you dig there?” she said, moving him on from his sticking point and opening up the conversation. “Tell me about that day.”
Peter spoke haltingly, occasionally looking up, about how he’d been told to clear a route through the gardens for a digger.
“It was a hard place to dig. There had been buildings a long time ago, John said, and concrete was left in the ground. Foundations. Underneath the gardens.
“It was raining and I was slipping in the mud. I remember I was laughing with the digger driver because we both fell over. It was funny . . .” he said, then looked stricken at his flippancy.
“It’s all right, Peter,” Kate said. “You’re not being disrespectful. It was what happened. It was funny at the time. You can’t change that.”
The laborer nodded his thanks and leaned forwards onto his elbows to get to the climax of his story.
“I was moving a big concrete pot and the driver went back to his cab to get ready to pass through the gap. And there it was. It was buried deep but I had made a hole when I dragged the flower pot. I put my hand down . . .”
His voice failed and he started to cry into his red, cracked hands.
Kate reached across with a cheap napkin too thin and shiny to absorb anything. She touched his hand lightly. “Please don’t upset yourself, Peter. None of this is your fault. And perhaps the baby can be buried properly now.”
Peter looked up. “That is what my priest said. That would be good.”
“Was there anything with the body? Clothes, toys?” she asked, praying for more details to make the baby seem real for readers. People found it hard to care about skeletons, she’d learned.
“No, I didn’t see anything. Some bits of paper. Small like confetti, my boss said. I couldn’t look after I pulled the first little bone out.”
“It must have been terrible for you,” Kate said, sneaking a quick look at her watch as she picked up her tea. “How are you getting home? Can I put you in a cab?”
Peter shook his head and stood up. “I prefer to walk, thank you. It helps clear my head.”