Whip Hand

'False teeth are more common,' I said politely.

She came very near to a laugh, and although it ended up as a doubtful frown, the passing warmth was a glimpse of the true person living behind the slightly brusque facade. She scrunched into the toast and looked thoughtful, and after a chew and a swallow, she said. 'What can you do to help Jenny?'

'Try to find Nicholas Ashe.'

'Oh…' There was another spontaneous flicker of smile, again quickly stifled by subsequent thought.

'You liked him?' I said.

She nodded ruefully. 'I'm afraid so. He is… was… such tremendous fun. Fantastic company. I find it terribly hard to believe he's just gone off and left Jenny in this mess. I mean… he lived here, here in this flat… and we had so many laughs… What he's done… it's incredible.'

'Look,' I said, 'would you mind starting at the beginning and telling me all about it?'

'But hasn't Jenny…?'

'No.'

'I suppose,' she said slowly, 'that she wouldn't like admitting to you that he made such a fool of us.' 'How much,' I said, 'did she love him?' 'Love? What's love? I can't tell you. She was in love with him.' She licked her fingers. 'All fizzy. Bright and bubbly. Up in the clouds.'

'Have you been there? Up in the clouds?' She looked at me straightly. 'Do you mean, do I know what it's like? Yes, I do. If you mean, was I in love with Nicky, then no I wasn't. He was fun, but he didn't turn me on like he did Jenny. And in any case, it was she who attracted him. Or at least…' she finished doubtfully,'… it seemed like it.' She wagged her licked fingers. 'Would you give me that box of tissues that's just behind you?'

I gave her the box and watched her as she wiped off the rest of the stickiness. She had fair eye-lashes and English rose skin, and a face that had left shyness behind. Too soon for life to have printed unmistakable signposts; but there did seem, in her natural expression, to be little in the way of cynicism or intolerance. A practical girl, with sense.

'I don't really know where they met,' she said, 'except that it was somewhere here in Oxford. I came back here one day, and he was here, if you see what I mean? They were already… well… interested in each other.'

'Er,' I said, 'have you always shared this flat with Jenny?' 'More or less. We were at school together… didn't you know? Well, we met one day and I told her I was going to be living in Oxford for two years while I wrote a thesis, and she said, had I anywhere to stay, because she'd seen this flat, but she'd like some company… So I came. Like a shot. We've got on fine, on the whole.'

I looked at the typewriter and the signs of effort. 'Do you work here all the time?'

'Here or in the Sheldonian… er, the library, that is… or out doing other research. I pay rent to Jenny for my room… and I don't know why I'm telling you all this.'

'It's very helpful.' She got to her feet. 'It might be as well for you to see all the stuff. I've put it all in his room… Nicky's room… to get it out of sight. It's all too boringly painful, as a matter of fact.'

Again I followed her through the hall, and this time on further down the wide passage, which was recognisably the first-floor landing of the old house.

'That room,' she said, pointing at doors, 'is Jenny's. That's the bathroom. That's my room. And this one at the end was Nicky's.'

'When exactly did he go?' I said walking behind her.

'Exactly? Who knows? Some time on Wednesday. Two weeks last Wednesday.' She opened the white painted door and walked into the end room. 'He was here at breakfast, same as usual. I went off to the library, and Jenny caught the train to London to go shopping, and when we both got back, he was gone. Just gone. Everything. Jenny was terribly shocked. Wept all over the place. But of course, we didn't know then that he hadn't just left her, he'd cleared out with all the money as well.'

'How did you find out?'

'Jenny went to the bank on the Friday to pay in the cheques and draw out some cash for postage, and they told her the account was closed.'

I looked round the room. It had thick carpet, Georgian dressing chest, big comfort-promising bed, upholstered armchair, pretty, Jenny-like curtains, fresh white paint. Six large brown boxes of thick cardboard stood in a double stack in the biggest available space; and none of it looked as if it had ever been lived in.

I went over to the chest and pulled out a drawer. It was totally empty. I put my fingers inside and drew them along, and they came out without a speck of dust or grit.

Louise nodded. 'He had dusted. And hoovered, too. You could see the marks on the carpet. He cleaned the bathroom, as well. It was all sparkling. Jenny thought it was nice of him… until she found out just why he didn't want to leave any trace.'

'I should think it was symbolic,' I said absently.

'What do you mean?'

'Well… not so much that he was afraid of being traced through hair and fingerprints… but just that he wanted to feel that he'd wiped himself out of this place. So that he didn't feel he'd left anything of himself here. I mean… if you want to go back to a place, you subconsciously leave things there, you "forget" them. Well-known phenomenon. So if you subconsciously, as well as consciously, don't want to go back to a place, you may feel impelled to remove even your dust.' I stopped. 'Sorry. Didn't mean to bore you.'

'I'm not bored.'

I said matter-of-factly, 'Where did they sleep?'

'Here.' She looked carefully at my face and judged it safe to proceed. 'She used to come along here. Well… I couldn't help but know. Most nights. Not always.'

'He never went to her?'

'Funny thing, I never ever saw him go into her room, even in the daytime. If he wanted her, he'd stand outside and call.'

'It figures.'

'More symbolism?' She went to the pile of boxes and opened the topmost. 'The stuff in here will tell you the whole story. I'll leave you to read it… I can't stand the sight of it. And anyway, I'd better clean the place up a bit, in case Jenny comes back.'

'You don't expect her, do you?' She tilted her head slightly, hearing the faint alarm in my voice.

'Are you frightened of her?'

'Should I be?' 'She says you're a worm.' A hint of amusement softened the words.

'Yes, she would,' I said. 'And no, I'm not frightened of her. She just… distracts me.'

With sudden vehemence she said, 'Jenny's a super girl.' Genuine friendship, I thought. A statement of loyalties. The merest whiff of challenge. But Jenny, the super girl, was the one I'd married.

I said, 'Yes,' without inflection, and after a second or two she turned and went out of the room. With a sigh I started on the boxes, shifting them clumsily and being glad neither Jenny nor Louise was watching. They were large, and although one or two were not as heavy as the others, their proportions were all wrong for gripping electrically.

The top one contained two foot-deep stacks of office-size paper, white, good quality, and printed with what looked like a typewritten letter. At the top of each sheet there was an impressive array of headings, including, in the centre, an embossed and gilded coat of arms. I lifted out one of the letters, and began to understand how Jenny had fallen for the trick.

Research into Coronary Disability it said, in engraved lettering above the coat of arms, with, beneath it, the words Registered Chanty. To the left of the gold embossing there was a list of patrons, mostly with titles, and to the right a list of the charity's employees, one of whom was listed as Jennifer Halley, Executive Assistant. Below her name, in small capital letters, was the address of the Oxford flat.

The letter bore no date and no salutation. It began about a third of the way down the paper, and said:

So many families nowadays have had sorrowful first-hand knowledge of the seriousness of coronary artery disease, which even where it does not kill can leave a man unable to continue with a full, strenuous working life.