‘Which were? Her legs or her teats?’
‘Her legs, of course,’ said Barney. ‘I’ve told you she had these lovely great…’
‘We’re treating this as a case of murder,’ Inspector Flint told the Principal ten minutes later. The Principal sat behind his desk and thought despairingly about adverse publicity.
‘You’re quite convinced it couldn’t have been an accident?’
‘The evidence to date certainly doesn’t suggest accidental death,’ said the Inspector. ‘However, we’ll only be absolutely certain on that point when we manage to reach the body and I’m afraid that is going to take some time.’
‘Time?’ said the Principal. ‘Do you mean to say you can’t get her out this morning?’
Inspector Flint shook his head. ‘Out of the question, sir,’ he said. ‘We are considering two methods of reaching the body and they’ll both take several days. One is to drill down through the concrete and the other is to sink another shaft next to the original hole and try and get at her from the side.’
‘Good Lord,’ said the Principal, looking at his calendar, ‘but that means you’re going to be digging away out there for several days.’
‘I’m afraid it can’t be helped. Whoever put her down there make a good job of it. Still, we’ll try to be as unobtrusive as possible.’
Out of the window the Principal could see four police cars, a fire engine and a big blue van. ‘This is really most unfortunate,’ he murmured.
‘Murder always is,’ said the Inspector, and got to his feet. ‘It’s in the nature of the thing. In the meantime we are sealing off the site and we’d be grateful for your co-operation.’
‘Anything you require,’ said the Principal, with a sigh.
In the Staff Room the presence of so many uniformed men peering down a pile hole provoked mixed reactions. So did the dozen policemen scouring the building, site, stopping now, and then to put things carefully into envelopes, but it was the arrival of the dark blue caravan that finally clinched matters.
‘That’s a Mobile Murder Headquarters.’ Peter Fenwick explained. ‘Apparently some maniac has buried a woman at the bottom of one of the piles.’
The New Left, who had been clustered in a corner discussing the likely implications of so many paramilitary Fascist pigs, heaved a sigh of unmartyred regret but continued to express doubts.
‘No, seriously.’ said Fenwick. ‘I asked one of them what they were doing. I thought it was some sort of bomb scare.’
Dr Cox, Head of Science, confirmed it. His office looked directly on to the hole. ‘It’s too dreadful to contemplate,’ he murmured. ‘Every time I look up I think what she must have suffered.’
‘What do you suppose they are putting into those envelopes?’ asked Dr Mayfield.
‘Clues.’ said Dr Board, with evident satisfaction. ‘Hairs. Bits of skin and bloodstains. The usual trivial detritus of violent crime.’
Dr Cox hurried from the room and Dr Mayfield looked disgusted. ‘How revolting.’ he said. ‘Isn’t it possible that there has been some mistake? I mean why should anyone want to murder a woman here?’
Dr Board sipped his coffee and looked wistfully at him. ‘I can think of any number of reasons,’ he said happily. ‘There are at least a dozen women in my Evening Class whom I would cheerfully beat to death and drop down holes. Sylvia Swansbeck for one.’
‘Whoever did it must have known they were going to pour concrete down today,’ said Fenwick. ‘It looks like an inside job to me.’
‘One of our less community-conscious students perhaps,’ suggested Dr Board, ‘I don’t suppose they’ve had time to check if any of the staff are missing.’
‘You’ll probably find it had nothing to do with the Tech,’ said Dr Mayfield. ‘Some maniac…’
‘Come now, give credit where credit is due.’ interrupted Dr Board. ‘There was obviously an element of premeditation involved. Whoever the murderer was…is, he planned it pretty carefully. What puzzles me is why be didn’t shovel earth down on top of the wretched woman so that she couldn’t be seen. Probably intended to but was disturbed before he could get around to it. One of those little accidents of fate.’
In the corner of the Staff Room Wilt sat and drank his coffee, conscious that he was the only person not staring out of the window. What the hell was he to do? The sensible thing would be to go to the police and explain that he had been trying to get rid of an inflatable doll that someone had given him. But would they believe him? If that was all that had happened why had he dressed it up in a wig and clothes? And why had he left it inflated? Why hadn’t he just thrown the thing away? He was just rehearsing the pros and cons of the argument when the Head of Engineering came in and announced that the police intended boring another hole next to the first one instead of digging down through the concrete.
‘They’ll probably be able to see bits of her sticking out the side.’ he explained. ‘Apparently she had one arm up in the air and with all that concrete coming down on top of her there’s a chance that arm will have been pressed against the side of the hole. Much quicker that way.’
‘I must say I can’t see the need for haste.’ said Dr Board. ‘I should have thought she’d be pretty well preserved in all that concrete. Mummified I daresay.’
In his corner Wilt rather doubted it. With twenty tons of concrete on top of her even Judy who had been an extremely resilient doll was hardly likely to have withstood the pressure. She would have burst as sure as eggs were eggs in which case all the police would find was the empty plastic arm of a doll. They would hardly bother to dig a burst plastic doll out.
‘And another thing.’ continued the Head of Engineering, ‘if the arm is sticking out they’ll be able to take fingerprints straight away.’
Wilt smiled to himself. That was one thing they weren’t going to find on Judy, fingerprints. He finished his coffee more cheerfully and went off to a class of Senior Secretaries. He found them agog with news of the murder.
‘Do you think it was a sex killing?’ a small blonde girl in the front raw asked as Wilt handed out copies of This Island Now. He had always found the chapter on the Vicissitudes of Adolescence appealed to Senior Secs. It dealt with sex and violence and was twelve years out of date but then so were the Senior Secretaries. Today there was no need for the book.
‘I don’t think it was any sort of killing.’ said Wilt taking his place behind the desk.’
‘Oh but it was. They saw a woman’s body down there,’ the small blonde insisted.
‘They thought they saw something down there that looked like a body,’ said Wilt. ‘That doesn’t mean it was one. People’s imaginations play tricks with them.’
‘The police don’t think so.’ said a large girl whose father was something in the City. ‘They must be certain to go to all that trouble. We had a murder on our golf course and all they found were bits of body cut up and put in the water hazard on the fifteenth. They’d been there six months. Someone sliced a ball on the dogleg twelfth and it went into the pond. They fished out a foot first. It was all puffy and green…’ A pale girl from Wilstanton fainted in the third row. By the time Wilt had revived her and taken her to the Sick Room, the class had got on to Crippen, Haigh and Christie. Wilt returned to find them discussing acid baths…and all they found were her false teeth and gallstones.’
‘You seem to know a lot about murder,’ Wilt said to the large girl.
‘Daddy plays bridge with the Chief Constable,’ she explained. ‘He comes to dinner and tells super stories. He says they ought to bring back hanging.’