Lynley moved to the table, glancing down at the essays that were spread across it. “You share these rooms with Dr. Weaver, I’ve been told.”
“I put in a few hours most days, yes. I run my supervisions here as well.”
“And that’s been going on for how long?”
“Since the beginning of term.”
Lynley nodded. “It’s an attractive environment, far nicer than what I remember from my days at university.”
Adam looked round the study at the general mess of essays, books, furniture, and equipment. Obviously, attractive wouldn’t have been the first word to spring to his lips had he been asked to evaluate the room. Then he seemed to combine Lynley’s comment with his initial sight of him a few moments earlier. His head turned towards the door. “Oh, you mean the gyp and the bedroom. Dr. Weaver’s wife fi xed them up for him last spring.”
“In anticipation of the Chair? An elevated professor needs a proper set of rooms?”
Adam grinned ruefully. “That sort of thing. But she didn’t manage to get her way in here. Dr. Weaver wouldn’t let her.” He added this last as if to explain the difference between the study and its companion rooms and concluded with a mildly sardonic, “You know how it is,” in a brotherhood-of-men fashion in which the connotation was clear: Women need to have their fancies tolerated, men are the ones with the sainted toleration.
That Justine Weaver’s hand had not seen to the study was apparent to Lynley. And while it did not actually resemble the disordered sanctum at the rear of Weaver’s house, the similarities to it could not be ignored. Here was the same mild chaos, the same profusion of books, the same air of habitation which the Adams Road room possessed.
One form of academic work or another seemed to be in progress everywhere. A large pine desk served as the heart for labour, holding everything from a word processor to a stack of black binders. The oval table in the room’s centre had the function of conference area, and the gable recess acted as a retreat for reading and study, for in addition to the table which displayed Weaver’s own book, a small case beneath the window, within an arm’s length of both the chairs, held additional volumes. Even the fireplace with its cinnamon tiles served a purpose beyond providing heat from an electric fire, for its mantel functioned as a clearing house for the post, and more than a dozen envelopes lined up across it, all bearing Anthony Weaver’s name. A solitary greeting card stood like a bookend at the far side of the serried collection of letters, and Lynley picked it up, a humorous birthday card with the word Daddy written above the greeting and the round-lettered signature Elena beneath it.
Lynley replaced it among the envelopes and turned to Adam Jenn, who still stood by the table, one hand in his pocket and the other curved round the shoulder rail of one of the chairs. “Did you know her?”
Adam pulled out the chair. Lynley joined him at the table, moving aside two essays and a cup of cold tea in which a thin, unappetising film was fl oating.
Adam’s face was grave. “I knew her.”
“Were you here in the study when she phoned her father Sunday night?”
His eyes went to the Ceephone which sat on a small oak desk next to the fi replace. “She didn’t phone here. Or if she did, it was after I left.”
“What time was this?”
“Round half past seven?” He looked at his watch as if for verification. “I had to meet three blokes at the University Centre at eight, and I stopped by my digs fi rst.”
“Your digs?”
“Near Little St. Mary’s. So it must have been somewhere round half past seven. It might have been a bit later. Perhaps a quarter to eight.”
“Was Dr. Weaver still here when you left?”
“Dr. Weaver? He wasn’t here at all Sunday evening. He’d been in for a while in the early afternoon, but then he went home for dinner and didn’t come back.”
“I see.”
Lynley reflected on this piece of information, wondering why Weaver had lied about his whereabouts on the night before his daughter’s death. Adam appeared to realise that for some reason this detail was important in the investigation, for he went on earnestly.
“He could have come in later, though. It’s out of line for me to claim that he didn’t come back in the evening. Actually, I might have missed him. He’s been working on a paper for about two months now-the role of monasteries in medieval economics-and he might have wanted to go over a bit of the research again. Most of the documents are in Latin. They’re hard to read. It takes forever to sort everything out. I imagine that’s what he was doing here Sunday evening. He does that all the time. He’s always concerned about getting the details right. He’d want to have them perfect. So if something was on his mind, he probably came back on the spur of the moment. I wouldn’t have known and he wouldn’t have told me.”
Outside of Shakespeare, Lynley couldn’t recall having heard anyone protest quite so much. “Then he usually didn’t tell you if he’d be coming back?”
“Well, now let me think.” The young man drew his eyebrows together, but Lynley saw the answer in the manner in which he pressed his hands nervously against his thighs.
He said, “You think a great deal of Dr. Weaver, don’t you?” Enough to protect him blindly remained unspoken, but there was no doubt that Adam Jenn recognised the implied accusation behind Lynley’s question.
“He’s a great man. He’s honest. He has more natural integrity than any half a dozen other senior fellows at St. Stephen’s College or anywhere else.” Adam pointed at the envelopes lining the mantelpiece. “All of those have come in since yesterday afternoon when the word went out about what happened to… what happened. People love him. People care. You can’t be a bastard and have people care about you so much.”
“Did Elena care for her father?”
Adam’s gaze flicked to the birthday card. “She did. Everyone does. He involves himself with people. He’s always here when someone has a problem. People can talk to Dr. Weaver. He’s straight with them. Sincere.”
“And Elena?”
“He worried about her. He took time with her. He encouraged her. He went over her essays and helped her with her studies and talked to her about what she was going to do with her life.”
“It was important to him that she be a success.”
“I can see what you’re thinking,” Adam said. “A successful daughter implies a successful father. But he’s not like that. He didn’t just take time with her. He took time with everyone. He helped me get my housing. He lined up my undergraduate supervisions. I’ve applied for a research fellowship and he’s helping me with that. And when I’ve a question with my work, he’s always here, ready. I’ve never got the feeling that I’m taking up his time. D’you know how valuable a quality that is in a person? The streets round here aren’t exactly paved with it.”
It wasn’t the panegyric to Weaver which Lynley found interesting. That Adam Jenn should so admire the man who was directing his graduate studies was reasonable. But what underlay Adam Jenn’s avowals was something far more telling: He’d managed to deflect every question about Elena. He’d even managed to avoid using her name.
Outside, faint laughter from the wedding party floated up from the graveyard. Someone shouted, “Give us a kiss!” and someone else, “Don’t you wish!” and the splintering sound of breaking glass suggested a champagne bottle’s abrupt demise.
Lynley said, “Obviously, you’re quite close to Dr. Weaver.”
“I am.”
“Like a son.”
Adam’s face took on more colour. But he looked pleased.