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  She was back at the car in two minutes.

  'Is that what Helen can't face,' she exclaimed to herself out loud, 'the chance that Detlev didn't commit suicide but was killed by such a man?'

  'What did you say, Mummy?'

  'Nothing darling. Mummy thought she'd lost her purse.'

  'It's in your hand already, Mummy.'

  'Yes, it is.'

  'Silly Mummy.'

  'That's right. Too silly for words.'

  Laura's mind had jumped wildly from the strange man to the inquest.

  She was still puzzled at how Detlev's death had occurred. She had her own reasons for wondering what the verdict of the inquest might be.

  * * *

  One minute to ten o'clock. Professor Tom Fortius from the Centre for Entomological Research at Hull Wilberforce University, shuffled uncomfortably on the tiny island of his chair. Big framed and, apart from his spreading waistline, muscular rather than fat, he often had difficulty accommodating his six foot six body in spaces built for more average people. His pet aversion was being given lifts in tiny cars designed for under-size people to drive about town.

  Tom looked round the courtroom, his brilliant blue eyes almost hidden under a mass of near jet-black wavy hair, which as he leaned forward threatened to cascade down his forehead and prevent him seeing anything. He had too much on his mind to focus properly on the proceedings. It reminded him of a crematorium – not the kind of place you'd ever anticipate attending unless you had to. The usher had disappeared a few minutes ago through the door behind the coroner's bench. Those left in that sombre courtroom in Beverley, ten miles from Hull, sat in a silence strongly reminiscent of a religious ceremony.

  Tom had worries over and above his questions about Detlev's untimely death, about ten months ago. The funeral, a few days later, had taken place too close to the shock of his death and the immediate grieving, for considered reflection. It was different now. This occasion created that uniquely dramatic atmosphere, through the deliberate concentration of many hearts and minds on the circumstances surrounding the death.

  The courtroom was modestly small, with a raised desk and seats at the front facing a line of tables and chairs in the centre, and along each side two rows of chairs facing inwards. It was barely formal enough to serve its sombre purpose. The square seats in the courtroom, like the decor, were comfortable at a minimal level.

  When the usher returned, he didn't have to raise his voice to be heard clearly by the fifteen people present: witnesses, relatives, two police officers and two press reporters.

  The uniforms of the two police officers contrasted with the everyday clothes of most of the relatives and other witnesses. Constable Tebbutt displayed his nervousness at his first time giving evidence to a coroner's court by standing at the front table in the courtroom from soon after half past nine, whilst sorting and re-sorting his papers. Constable Birch, Scenes of Crime Officer, and very experienced at appearing in coroners' courts, was there as well, sitting down, more relaxed and conversational than her colleague.

  The rear table was occupied by the two press reporters, who came in at the last minute and kept themselves to themselves. Witnesses, including Detlev's friends and family who had flown over from Wolfach, their home village in the Schwarz Wald of Germany, were sitting to the left of the coroner, next to the usher.

  The usher, Frederick Blunt, his face as grey and his suit as plain and off-the-peg as his name, came in and stood, grey and bald like the butler in an old-style drama. He intoned in his sepulchral voice: 'The Court will stand.'

  James Wilkes, coroner, followed and then Faith Wistow, the clerk who for the past six years had taken a shorthand record of these proceedings. Wilkes appeared embarrassed at even this minimal ritual and spoke almost to one side as though he couldn't abide that people still stood there while he sat down first:

  'Please sit down.'

  * * *

  Robin Lovelace was lying on the unmade bed browsing through the pile of uninteresting morning mail. His eye caught an unwelcome view of the pudgy roll of fat round his waist which normally, because it was out of sight under his shirt, he could ignore. His bulging midriff apart, Robin had the undeveloped physique of the intellectual. Fair hair in his case meant almost devoid of body hair as well, a characteristic he thought might put women off. Perhaps his insecurity about his appearance was one reason for his repeated searching for reassurance through extra-marital relationships.

  His wife Helen, still as slim at thirty-five as she had been fifteen years ago, shushed the dryer over her long blonde hair, before dressing.

  'I'll fetch breakfast,' said Robin. He had intended to go into the University for nine-thirty. Impulsively he scrubbed that plan.

  'When I watch you,' he said, 'I think rude thoughts.'

  'You'd be better off working them out at the gym.'

  A thought struck her.

  'Didn't you have to be at work early?'

  'No one'll miss me for an hour. Tom's away at the inquest.'

  'Right.' Helen felt stupid. She paused. She changed the subject and hoped he didn't notice her hesitation. 'I wasn't joking about Rosie. You've had more than your nine lives with me. One more slip and we'll be going our separate ways.'

  'I'm desperately sorry, darling. You have my word, on my life, that I will always be true to you till the day I die. I don't know what came over me. It must have been the effect of the drink and the tiredness.'

  'And the hormones,' she said acidly. 'Perhaps you've been going through the male menopause.'

  He pulled a face. He was sensitive about being on the brink of fifty. 'Truly, darling, it was you I was thinking about that night. You really are the most beautiful woman in the whole world. You're the only one for me.'

  'I wish you'd give me compliments like that in the normal course of events, rather than only when you want something.'

  'I love you, utterly, completely.'

  She laughed, trying to act dismissively:

  'You're a flatterer.' And an emotional child, she thought.

  'Are we friends again?'

  'I suppose so.'

  'And lovers?'

  'You'll have to wait and see. I'm about to leap out of the house to keep a date with a very patient hairdresser.'

  He looked hurt now.

  'Please, Helen, darling.'

  She came round to his side of the bed, bent over and kissed him. 'I'm keeping your behaviour under review. I may give you an appointment later this evening, Dr Lovelace, when things have quietened down?'

  Robin smiled. His mood changed abruptly and he sniggered.

  'What is it?'

  'It can wait,' he said.

  'Come on,' she said impatiently.

  'I realised just then when I was watching you, how bees make love with their fingers.'

  'I didn't know bees had fingers. I'm surprised at such an elementary mistake from a University Reader in entomology.'

  'They don't. It's poetic licence.'

  'That's not fair,' she said crossly. 'Now you're a Reader you can make anything up. If I'd written that in an exam you'd have failed me. Reader? Why do they promote you and give you such a daft title? I mean, every primary school pupil learns to read.'

  Robin refused to be put off.

  'I wish I'd only just met you and you’d asked me what I did. I'd say I'm researching lovemaking with flowers, instead of boring insects.'

  'Rule one,' she said. 'Never bite the hand that feeds you. You're only saying they're boring. I know you find them far more fascinating than us mere humans.'

  Robin nodded absently.

  'You're not meant to agree with that,' she complained. 'Anyway, insects aren't boring. Their lives interlock so closely with every other living organism. Without them to pollinate plants, for instance, there'd be no seeds to produce the next generation.'

  'True, but there's hardly romance attached to them.'

  'I don't believe this,' she said. 'You've switched sides and now I'm defending
your subject.'

  She looked quizzically at him from the stool in front of the dressing table:

  'Are you trying to achieve an outside view for some paper you're writing?'

  Robin seemed to ignore this as he accelerated into his argument.

  'If the alternative is your average male in wellies, with beer gut and boxing gloves, give me a twelve hour love-making session between a pair of hermaphroditic giant snails any day.'

  'Why hermaphroditic for goodness sake?'

  'Basically because until they've explored each other's bodies they don't decide which is to be the man and which the woman. He sticks his love dart into her side and injects her with a massive dose of calcium carbonate plus various aphrodisiacs.'

  'Robin, is this true?'

  'Well the love dart and the calcium carbonate are, but the rest is speculative.'

  'As usual,' she said, 'accurate on the pedestrian bits, while indulging wildly on the male fantasy front. Men!'

  'Come back to bed.'

  'No, I'm meeting Laura at ten-thirty and I have to do some shopping after the hairdresser.'

  'You never said earlier you had to be anywhere.'

  'You never listen.'

  'That gives us at least half an hour.'

  'Five minutes.'

  'Pessimist.'

  'You're incorrigible. You'll have to cut the description and forget the slowness of those snails.'

  'My love dart is already quivering.'

  'What makes you think it's your stab. It could be mine. Fancy snails having solved the problem of liberating women. Simply exchange genders.'

  'Tease.' He was standing behind her, sliding his hand round to unbutton her blouse.

  Helen was in that matter-of-fact mode he didn't fancy. 'Hurry, or I'll be late. You'll have to drop me in town before going to work.'

  * * *

  Laura had planned to be in town shopping with the children. She knew Helen was intending to pop into Marks and Spencer's that morning to try to change a skirt which she now felt was too short. Of all mornings, this day of the resumed inquest was the one to be out of the house, and hopefully distracted. So they had arranged to meet for coffee and a chat at Quenchers opposite Princes Quay between nine forty-five and ten. Normally, when their paths crossed casually on the street, Laura couldn't have a proper conversation with Helen for more than a minute or two. There was always some interruption, or a reason for not stopping longer. She thought about congratulating Helen. Tom had found out late last night about Robin's successful grant for the expedition to equatorial Africa. That would be a relatively safe topic of conversation. Tom was going to leave a message for Robin first thing. Helen would know by now. On another tack, it wasn't the occasion to ask about whether the inquest brought back all that emotion associated with Detlev's shocking death. Helen probably wouldn't have talked in any case. Perhaps it would release feelings which would somehow make too public her affair with the most senior research fellow in the tightly-knit Research Centre in which Robin and Tom were deputy director and director respectively. Helen had always said to Laura what a disaster it would be if Robin found out about her and Detlev.

  'He'll use it to justify going for anyone he fancies,' she confided.

  Laura had got the children up early, breakfasted, braved the early morning traffic jams and driven into town with them for nine o'clock. She parked in the long-stay park in the Old Town, but having arrived couldn't settle to shopping. Instead, she irritated herself and the children by passing in quick succession through several department stores without a clear notion about what style of summer outfit she was looking for and where she might find it. The kids grew increasingly restive. Sarah wanted the toilet and Matthew a drink. This took more time and chipped further away at her patience. She was able to change the skirt at M&S on the way. She finished up hunting through children's clothes stores for bargains and impulse buying one or two totally unsatisfactory items which neither Sarah nor Matthew liked. By ten o'clock she'd dropped the shopping back at the car and was already hanging about with the kids near the Ferens Art Gallery, but it was ten-fifteen before Helen turned up. They walked across Castle Street and sat outside the cafe at one of the tables by the yachts in the Marina. Ocean-going craft with half a dozen busy crew berthed side by side with tiny boats for sculling up and down the Humber. The breeze ruffled the water, jangling riggings on a hundred masts. Seagulls swooped and called raucously.

  Helen was hardly aware of the colourful scene. It was earlier than she was used to stopping for coffee, but because it was later than she'd anticipated, she had that irritated sense of being late herself. Normally, she would have enjoyed the feeling of indulgence, but today she was angry and frustrated. She was mad with Robin for being so matter of fact about it, mad with herself for weakening and going to bed with him this morning. She was also very upset and not a little guilty about the tragedy of Detlev, but she couldn't take that on board at this moment. The frustration in her voice wasn't far from tears.

  'Hell, Robin! First you were going, then you said you definitely weren't going. Now you are.'

  'I wasn't,' he said sorrowfully.

  'Just as I hoped we were moving onto an even keel you change the rules again. I can't believe it.'

  'It's hardly me changing the rules. These research bodies are a law unto themselves, part of the uncertainty of academic life.'

  'It can't be the Science Research Council. You told me the grants took ages to sort out.'

  'No, it isn't,' he said hastily. 'It's our partner university. Someone's had to drop out.'

  'Your wife has to suffer so you can fill the gap at the drop of a hat. Meanwhile another academic changes his mind and prefers to put his feet up.'

  'It isn't like that. He's ill.'

  'We have all this upheaval because one of your colleagues has the flu.'

  'He hasn't got flu. He was told yesterday he's dying of cancer. He may only last a month.'

  'Love it, don't you. Seeing me dig a pit for myself.'

  Robin waved a hand: 'I didn't mean –'

  'I thought the trip wasn't for another month.'

  'They leave in less than a week.'

  'You could follow on, presumably.'

  'Unfortunately there's no chance of that. Either I go with them or we lose the tickets. That means we lose the place in the research team and possibly put the entire expedition, and the grant, in jeopardy.'

  'So, suddenly, from not going at all, you're leaving immediately.'

  'Well,' he said lamely, 'not exactly immediately.'

  'Come on, Robin, within the next day or so.'

  'I was due to go to the meeting in London anyway and the Oxford conference afterwards has been arranged for ages. It seems logical to return to Heathrow after that and hop on a plane.'

  'That's all it is,' she said sarcastically, 'hopping on a plane.'

  'That's the bad news.' He looked embarrassed and added brightly, 'The good news is, the man I'm replacing was taking his wife.'

  'You'll be travelling with his wife?' Helen's heart went into a panic fluttering. 'Is she young and attractive?' She regretted the question as soon as she'd uttered it. But these were anxieties never far from the surface when you lived with Robin.

  'No, silly. There's a place for another person. But he was paying. We'd have to pay for you to go. And it's full fare, no special deals.'

  'You mean I could go, but we can't afford it,' Helen said bitterly.

  'I could try the bank, but the University is a no-go area. Times are hard.'

  'Forget it,' said Helen, knowing their overdraft and credit card debts piled higher each month. Another thought occurred to her:

  'Is money the only reason you won't?'

  'Won't what?'

  'Won't want me being with you.'

  'Of course I only want you, my angel.'

  'Tell that to your biological equipment.'

  She snorted. That old joke between them reminded her of the gulf between Robin's intellectu
al brilliance and his incorrigible immaturity in relationships.

  'I hate the thought of you leaving me and jetting off five thousand miles to jump into bed with some beautiful young African woman.'

  'Darling, I promise you, never. You are, you always have been, the only woman for me.'

  'What about Rosie?'

  Robin pulled a face.

  'You're getting this out of proportion.'

  Five years ago, his sporadic affair with Rosie, a temporary laboratory assistant had ended. But it had sputtered on for several months after he and Helen had got together. Helen couldn't quite come to terms with his explanation that this was purely at Rosie's insistence during the closure of their relationship when he was trying to let her down lightly. Helen was then an undergraduate mature student, at a time when he was making the transition from being the star graduate student to appointment as a research assistant.

  Rosie had suddenly re-emerged as a bone of contention between them, appearing last month as part of the host team at an international conference Robin was attending at the University of Manchester. Robin had drunk too much and, according to him, she'd turned up outside his hotel room in a thunderstorm in the middle of the night, in hysterics. One thing had led to another.

  'It was never more than a physical aberration on my part. She threw herself at me. I was vulnerable, semi-conscious. It's no consolation, I realise, but I was in no fit state to do it when push came to shove.'

  'Don't insult my intelligence. God knows why I put up with you, Robin Lovelace. Most women would give you your marching orders.'

  * * *

  The atmosphere between Robin and Helen was decidedly edgy as he drove her to town.

  'You don't want me to come with you,' she said.

  'No, I thought you wouldn't want to come. Of course I don't mind if you do intend to come with me. I'm just surprised, that's all. You'll be fine at the airport but when we reach the forest you'll need rain clothes,' said Robin.