Murder in Cambridge (eBook)

The thrilling inter-war mystery series

Christina Koning (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2023
432 Seiten
Allison & Busby (Verlag)
978-0-7490-2939-5 (ISBN)

Infos

'With vivid characterisation and a keen ear for dialogue, Christina Koning has all the qualities of a first-class mystery writer.' - DAILY MAIL First published as End of Term under A. C. Koning. Cambridge, 1935. Frederick Rowlands, blind war veteran, is attending an event at St Gertrude's College. However, the festivities are harshly interrupted when when a research student is found dead in suspicious circumstances. As one of the last people to see the student alive, Rowlands finds himself at the heart of the murder investigation. On the hunt to identify the killer, Rowlands is shocked to learn of the hidden secrets of this seemingly idyllic city. As the violence escalates and the body count increases, Rowlands must act quickly to save St Gertrude's reputation, and his own, before it is too late ...

Christina Koning has worked as a journalist, reviewing fiction for The Times, and has taught Creative Writing at the University of Oxford and Birkbeck, University of London. From 2013 to 2015, she was Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Newnham College, Cambridge. She won the Encore Prize in 1999 and was long-listed for the Orange Prize in the same year.

Textauszug

Chapter One

One, two, three, four … The clock in Trinity Great Court struck twelve, its sonorous chimes echoing around that enormous space, which had seen so much coming and going of young men since its foundation nearly four hundred years before – some of them belonging to that doomed generation which had come of age in 1914. How many of those, thought Frederick Rowlands, had left these hallowed courts never to return? His commanding officer, Gerald Willoughby, had been one of them – although he had not in fact been a casualty of the war, Rowlands reminded himself. He recalled something Willoughby had said, which hadn’t meant much to him at the time. They’d been under heavy fire at Polygon Wood, and were having to advance at the double. ‘You might think this is bad, but it’s not half as bad as the Great Court Run,’ the young officer had laughed.

Smiling at the memory of his late friend, Rowlands paused for a moment in the middle of the flagstone path that bordered the expanse of grass on which – he’d been informed a few minutes earlier – only fellows of the college were permitted to walk. As he did so, a group of undergraduates loudly discussing Trinity’s prowess on the river that morning barged past him. ‘I say – look where you’re going!’ cried an indignant voice.

‘Can’t you see the gentleman’s blind?’ It was Maud Rickards, who had been walking a few paces behind with Rowlands’ wife, Edith. A chorus of sheepish apologies followed.

‘Awfully sorry, sir!’

‘Didn’t see you, sir.’

‘That’s quite all right,’ said Rowlands. ‘Although they barely touched me,’ he added to Miss Rickards when the youths had taken themselves off.

‘It makes no difference,’ was the tart reply. ‘They should make way for their elders and betters. If you ask me, there’s far too much of this kind of boisterous behaviour going on, and from university men, too. It sets a bad example – not least to my girls.’

Rowlands wasn’t about to disagree, although privately he felt some sympathy with the miscreants. What he wouldn’t give to be out on the river this afternoon instead of trailing round some stuffy garden party! He knew Miss Rickards’ intervention had been well-meant, but he’d disliked having his disability drawn attention to. He kept his thoughts to himself, however. In the space of the past couple of hours, since he and Edith had been met at Cambridge Station by his wife’s friend and fellow VAD, he had been discovering what a formidable woman she was. From her brisk instructions to the taxi driver – ‘Now, don’t go the long way round, will you? I live here and I’ll know’ – to the way she’d just ticked off the noisy rowers, it was evident that she was not to be trifled with. ‘Maud’s a dear, really,’ Edith said when they found themselves briefly alone. ‘It’s just her way. She was like that when we were at 1st London together. Always convinced she was right. She had some fine rows with Matron, I can tell you!’

Rowlands could well believe it. Now, as he felt his arm being firmly grasped by the determined Miss Rickards, he decided it was time to take a stand. ‘I can manage quite well by myself, you know,’ he said, gently disengaging his arm. ‘I’ve had a lot of practice, haven’t I, dear?’

‘Oh yes,’ said Edith, with the faintest note of irony in her voice. She’d seen some of the scrapes he’d got himself into through his stubborn desire to be independent.

‘It’s just that there’s a step here,’ said Maud Rickards, sounding a little put out. ‘I didn’t want you to fall flat on your face.’

‘Thank you,’ said Rowlands humbly. ‘I wouldn’t have enjoyed that.’

Emerging through the great gate onto Trinity Street, the three of them made their way towards King’s, having already taken in Magdalene and St John’s on their whistle-stop tour of the colleges. ‘You might as well see something of the really beautiful ones,’ Miss Rickards had said, with a laugh. ‘I wouldn’t want you to think they’re all as hideous as our dear Gertie.’

‘Cambridge is a remarkably pretty place,’ said Edith as they strolled along the narrow street, at the end of which, Rowlands knew, was one of the city’s most spectacular views: that of King’s College Chapel and the ornate Gothic gateway that led from King’s Parade to the college’s central court. He could picture this, even now, although he couldn’t see it. As with much of his mental furniture, the image was linked with a memory – in this instance, with his first visit to Cambridge, the summer before the war, a year or so after he’d started the job at Methuen. He’d had a meeting with the bookshop manager at Heffers in Petty Cury, and had wandered around the market for a while looking at the second-hand bookstalls before doubling back along King’s Parade and turning down Bene’t Street for a pint at The Eagle. Now there was a thought …

The two women were still admiring the view. Edith (whose brother had been at Worcester College, Oxford) said she thought it compared very favourably with that of the Radcliffe Camera. ‘Wait until you’ve seen the Chapel’s interior,’ said her friend. ‘It’s said to be one of the finest examples of Late Perpendicular in Europe.’ But they hadn’t time for that now, regrettably, she went on. They’d have to hurry if they were to get a bite of lunch before they were due back at college. ‘There’s the new Dorothy Café, in Rose Crescent,’ Miss Rickards suggested, with this end in view. ‘They do a very good Welsh Rarebit.’ Rowlands decided to leave them to it.

‘I’m sure you both have a lot of things you want to talk about,’ he said. ‘I’ll be in The Eagle when you want me.’ Because after all, he thought, entering the courtyard of the venerable hostelry – a former coaching inn – by way of its broad gateway, it really was Edith’s show. She and her friend had a lot of catching up to do. He’d only be in the way.

With necessary caution, he made his way over the uneven cobbled yard and entered the bar on the far side of it where he ordered himself a pint of Lacons’ Best Bitter, and a Scotch egg to accompany it. There’d be tea and sandwiches later, he supposed – not that he was a great one for garden parties. Again, it was to please Edith that he’d agreed to come. She and Maud Rickards had met during the war, and had remained firm friends, although, perhaps inevitably, their paths had diverged in the years since their VAD days, owing to the demands of bringing up children, in Edith’s case, and to those of working life, in Maud’s. So it had been a pleasant surprise for Edith when she’d received the letter, two weeks before. ‘It’s from dear old Maud. You remember her, don’t you? She and I shared digs in Camberwell when I first started nursing. She’s asked us to go up for the May Week Garden Party at St Gertrude’s.’ This was the Cambridge women’s college where Miss Rickards was employed as Bursar. ‘There’s a dinner that evening, too. Oh, do say you’ll come, Fred! It’ll be the most marvellous fun.’

Rowlands wasn’t so sure about that – but he hoped at least that it wouldn’t be too much of a bore. And it was true, as Edith had pointed out, that they hadn’t been away together without the children for a very long time. He sipped his drink, savouring its agreeably bitter taste, and allowed his thoughts to drift, glad to be at a loose end for a while, and away from Miss Rickards’ managing tendencies. It was pleasant sitting there in the relaxed atmosphere of a lunchtime pub, with its aromas of cigarette smoke and beer, and the sound of voices drifting in through the open window beside him. Although as a rule he tried not to listen to other people’s conversations unless it was unavoidable, there was something quite beguiling about trying to guess – from the scraps of talk he could make out – what those around him were like.

That group outside in the courtyard couldn’t be anything but undergraduates, with their loud self-conscious talk of ‘ploughing’ in the end of term exams, and their boastfulness as to number of pints sunk and severity of hangovers afterwards. Those men in the room behind him must be racing men, to judge from the frequency with which they mentioned favourites, handicaps and each-way bets. Of course, they weren’t far from Newmarket here. As for that couple on the other side of the window next to which Rowlands was sitting, they appeared to be having a lovers’ tiff. ‘I don’t know how you’ve got the nerve to say that to me.’ It was a young woman – a girl, really – who had spoken. Her voice was pitched so low that no one who wasn’t sitting opposite, or beside her, could have heard it....

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 19.10.2023
• Reihe/Serie: Blind Detective
• Reihe/Serie: Blind Detective
• Reihe/Serie: Blind Detective
• Verlagsort: London
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Historische Romane
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Krimi / Thriller / Horror ► Historische Kriminalromane
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Krimi / Thriller / Horror ► Krimi / Thriller
• Schlagworte: amateur sleuth • Blind Detective • Cambridge • Cambridge University • Christina Koning • Crime • Crime Fiction • detective • Fred Rowlands • Interwar • Murder • Mystery • sleuth
• ISBN-10: 0-7490-2939-0 / 0749029390
• ISBN-13: 978-0-7490-2939-5 / 9780749029395