Manhattan in Reverse Read Free

of white ice crystals; it extended upwards for at least another two floors.
    ‘As good as any ladder,’ Francis said quietly. ‘And I’ll warrant there’s at least a dozen routes in and out of Dunbar that avoid the lodgekeepers.’
    The detective took a look at the ancient creeper encircling the window. ‘I’ve heard that the gentlemen of Dunbar College do have several methods of allowing their lady friends to visit their rooms after the gates are locked.’
    ‘And as the gates weren’t locked at the time of the murder, no one would have been using those alternative routes. The murderer would have got out cleanly,’ Francis said.
    ‘If we’re right, then this was a well planned crime,’ I said. If anything, that made it worse.
    Francis locked his fingers together, as if wringing his hands. He glanced back at the sheet-covered corpse. ‘And yet, the nature of the attack speaks more of a crime passionnelle than of some cold plot. I wonder.’ He gazed back at the students. ‘Mr Griffith we now know of. How do the rest of these bedraggled souls come to be here, Detective Pitchford?’
    ‘They’re Mr Raleigh’s closest friends. I believe Mr Griffith phoned one as soon as he’d called the lodgekeeper.’
    ‘That was me,’ the other young man said. He had his arm thrown protectively round the girl, who was sobbing wretchedly.
    ‘And you are?’ Francis asked.
    ‘Carter Osborne Kenyon. I was a good friend of Justin’s; we had dinner together tonight.’
    ‘I see. And so you phoned the young lady here?’
    ‘Yes. This is Bethany Maria Caesar, Justin’s girlfriend. I knew she’d be concerned about him, of course.’
    ‘Naturally. So do any of you recall threats being made against Mr Raleigh? Does he have an equivalent group of enemies, perhaps?’
    ‘Nobody’s ever threatened Justin. That’s preposterous. And what’s this to you, anyway? The police should be asking these questions.’
    The change in Francis’s attitude was small but immediate, still calm but no longer so tolerant. And it showed. Even Carter Osborne Kenyon realized he’d made a big gaffe. It was the kind of switch that I knew I would have to perfect for myself if I ever hoped to advance through the family hierarchy.
    ‘I am the Raleigh family’s senior representative in Oxford,’ Francis said lightly. ‘Whilst that might seem like an enviable sinecure from your perspective, I can assure you it’s not all lunches and cocktail parties with my fellow fat old men doing deals that make sure the young work harder. I am here to observe the official investigation, and make available any resource our family might have that will enable the police to catch the murderer. But first, in order to offer that assistance I have to understand what happened, because we will never let this rest until that barbarian is brought to justice. And I promise that if it was you under that sheet, your family would have been equally swift in dispatching a representative. It’s the way the world works, and you’re old enough and educated enough to know that.’
    ‘Yeah, right,’ Carter Osborne Kenyon said sullenly.
    ‘You will catch them, won’t you?’ Bethany Maria Caesar asked urgently.
    Francis became the perfect gentleman again. ‘Of course we will, my dear. If anything in this world is a certainty, it’s that. I will never rest until this is solved.’
    ‘Nor me,’ I assured her.
    She gave both of us a small smile. A pretty girl, even through her tears and streaked make up; tall and lean, with blond hair falling just below her shoulders. Justin had been a lucky man. I could well imagine them hand in hand walking along some riverbank on a summer’s eve. It made me even more angry that so much decency had been lost to so many young lives by this vile act.
    ‘Thank you,’ she whispered. ‘I really loved him. We’ve been talking about a long-term marriage after we left Oxford. I can’t believe this . . . any of this.’
    Carter Osborne Kenyon