The Wives of Bath Read Free Page A

tendril now when I should be getting back to Paulie Sykes and how she played her little game of pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey at Bath Ladies College.

2
    Morley’s scalpel was Exhibit 3 at the trial. Paulie’s trial, of course. The trial between Her Majesty the Queen and Pauline Lee Sykes. Exhibit 1 was the photographs, seven of them, showing the deceased lying behind the old cycling trunk in the heating tunnel. I don’t know why the photographs came first, before the murder weapons. I’d have started with the hockey stick myself. As it turned out, the stick, whose long handle had been wrapped many times with black construction tape, was Exhibit 2.
    H IS L ORDSHIP : Those are photos of the room in which the crime was committed and the weapons used?
    I NSPECTOR G OSSAGE : That is correct, my lord.
    H IS L ORDSHIP : Seven photographs.
    I NSPECTOR G OSSAGE : Yes, my lord.
    H IS L ORDSHIP : And the body of the deceased was concealed behind the trunk at the extreme east end of the tunnel?
    I NSPECTOR G OSSAGE : Yes, at first.
    H IS L ORDSHIP : It was hidden from view, then, was it?
    I NSPECTOR G OSSAGE : It was hidden from view because of the trunk being there, and also because of the way in which the body had been prepared for concealment. It was wrapped up in various garments—a lady’s skirt, and so on.
    H IS L ORDSHIP : And before that, it was placed in the trunk?
    I NSPECTOR G OSSAGE : Yes, my lord, but it wouldn’t fit. So it was placed as we see here, behind the trunk.
    H IS L ORDSHIP : And the lacrosse stick? And the knife?
    I NSPECTOR G OSSAGE: Two corrections, my lord. You are looking at a field-hockey stick and a scalpel.
    H IS L ORDSHIP : And placed in the trunk, were they, afterwards?
    I NSPECTOR G OSSAGE : That is correct.
    H IS L ORDSHIP : How would you describe the field-hockey stick?
    I NSPECTOR G OSSAGE : Weighing about three pounds, my lord. A good blunt instrument that could be put to a variety of uses.
    H IS L ORDSHIP : And the knife? Is this the knife in the photograph?
    I NSPECTOR G OSSAGE : Scalpel, my lord.
    H IS L ORDSHIP : And how would you describe, the, uh—scalpel?
    I NSPECTOR G OSSAGE : It looks like an X-Acto knife, only it’s more sturdy. A series of tiny curved blades that fit into a Bakelite handle, my lord.
    H IS L ORDSHIP : It’s plastic-handled—
    I NSPECTOR G OSSAGE : Bakelite, my lord.
    H IS L ORDSHIP : And the knife—blade, is about, what, five inches?
    I NSPECTOR G OSSAGE : I believe, my lord, it is only one and three-quarters. B-P Rib Back blade number twenty—very sharp, my lord.
    H IS L ORDSHIP : It was the property of another student, I believe?
    I NSPECTOR G OSSAGE : Yes, my lord. A student named Mary Beatrice Bradford, my lord.
    H IS L ORDSHIP : What sort of school was this? A training ground for doctors or psychopaths?
    I NSPECTOR G OSSAGE : I don’t know, my lord. [Laughter]
    That wasn’t the only mention of my name at the trial. I sat at the back of the courtroom, glad Morley wasn’t there. It felt like I was at one of the endless morning services at Bath Ladies College. The voices of counsel addressing the judge intoning—yes, my lord—sounded as if they were addressing God himself.

3
    I didn’t meet Paulie right away. Not as Paulie, anyhow. If I’d had any idea what was going to happen, I’d have asked Morley to turn back the day he and Sal drove me down to Bath Ladies College. It began to rain as soon as we left the Landing. See, Mouse—pathetic fallacy, I told myself.
    Nobody said a word as we rolled farther and farther south, passing farmhouses that weren’t really farmhouses but mansions, with high green hedges and white fences for horses to jump over, and little shops with wagon wheels positioned by the door to let you know they sold antiques. It was the sort of namby-pamby countryside you could imagine Virginia Woolf walking through in her long skirts. I often thought of Virginia when I felt low, because she was so depressed she drowned herself in a