As the Crow Flies

When the taxi drove into New Court Cathy was even more bemused to discover Daniel’s MG was parked in its usual space. She paid the fare and walked across the court to the now familiar staircase.

Cathy felt the least she could do was tease Daniel for failing to pick her up. Was this to be the sort of treatment she could expect once they were married? Was she now on the same level as any undergraduate who turned up without his weekly essay? She climbed the worn stone steps up to his room and knocked quietly on the door in case he still had a pupil with him. As there was no answer after a second knock, she pushed open the heavy wooden door, having decided that she would just have to wait around until he returned.

Her scream must have been heard by every resident on staircase B.

The first undergraduate to arrive on the scene found the prostrate body of a young woman lying face down in the middle of the floor. The student fell to his knees, dropped the books he had been carrying by her side and proceeded to be sick all over her. He took a deep breath, turned round as quickly as he could and began to crawl back out of the study past an overturned chair. He was unable to look up again at the sight that had met him when he had first entered the room.

Dr. Trumper continued to swing gently from a beam in the center of the room.

CHARLIE

1950–1964

CHAPTER

42

I couldn’t sleep for three days. On the fourth morning, along with so many of Daniel’s friends, colleagues and undergraduates, I attended his funeral service at Trinity Chapel. I somehow survived that ordeal and the rest of the week, thanks not least to Daphne’s organizing everything so calmly and efficiently. Cathy was unable to attend the service as they were still detaining her for observation at Addenbrooke’s Hospital.

I stood next to Becky as the choir sang out “Fast Falls the Eventide.” My mind drifted as I tried to reconstruct the events of the past three days and make some sort of sense of them. After Daphne had told me that Daniel had taken his own life—whoever selected her to break the news understood the meaning of the word “compassion”—I immediately drove up to Cambridge, having begged her not to tell Becky anything until I knew more of what had actually happened myself. By the time I arrived at Trinity Great Court some two hours later, Daniel’s body had already been removed, and they had taken Cathy off to Addenbrooke’s, where she was not surprisingly still in a state of shock. The police inspector in charge of the case couldn’t have been more considerate. Later, I visited the morgue and identified the body, thanking God that at least Becky hadn’t experienced that ice-cold room as the last place she was alone with her son.

“Lord, with me abide…”

I told the police that I could think of no reason why Daniel should want to take his own life—that in fact he had just become engaged and I had never known him happier. The inspector then showed me the suicide note: a sheet of foolscap containing a single handwritten paragraph.

“They generally write one, you know,” he said.

I didn’t know.

I began to read Daniel’s neat academic hand:

I must have repeated those twenty-eight words to myself over a hundred times and still I couldn’t make any sense out of them. A week later the doctor confirmed in his report to the coroner that Cathy was not pregnant and had certainly not suffered a miscarriage. I returned to those words again and again. Was I missing some subtle inference, or was his final message something I could never hope to comprehend fully?

“When other helpers fail…”

A forensic expert later discovered some writing paper in the grate, but it had been burned to a cinder and the black, brittle remains yielded no clue. Then they showed me an envelope that the police believed the charred letter must have been sent in and asked if I could identify the writing. I studied the stiff, thin upright hand that had written the words “Dr. Daniel Trumper” in purple ink.

“No,” I lied. The letter had been hand-delivered, the detective told me, some time earlier that afternoon by a man with a brown moustache and a tweed coat. This was all the undergraduate who caught sight of him could remember, except that he seemed to know his way around.

I asked myself what that evil old lady could possibly have written to Daniel that would have caused him to take his own life; I felt sure the discovery that Guy Trentham was his father would not have been sufficient for such a drastic cause of action—especially as I knew that he and Mrs. Trentham had already met and come to an agreement some three years before.

The police found one other letter on Daniel’s desk. It was from the Provost of King’s College, London, formally offering him a chair in mathematics.

“And comforts flee…”

After I had left the mortuary I drove on to Addenbrooke’s Hospital, where they allowed me to spend some time at Cathy’s bedside. Although her eyes were open, they betrayed no recognition of me: for nearly an hour she simply stared blankly up at the ceiling while I stood there. When I realized there was nothing I could usefully do I left quietly. The senior psychiatrist, Dr. Stephen Atkins, came bustling out of his office and asked if I could spare him a moment.

The dapper little man in a beautifully tailored suit and large bow tie explained that Cathy was suffering from psychogenic amnesia, sometimes known as hysterical amnesia, and that it could be some time before he was able to assess what her rate of recovery might be. I thanked him and added that I would keep in constant touch. I then drove slowly back to London.

“Help of the helpless, O abide with me…”

Daphne was waiting for me in my office and made no comment about the lateness of the hour. I tried to thank her for such endless kindness, but explained that I had to be the one who broke the news to Becky. God knows how I carried out that responsibility without mentioning the purple envelope with its telltale handwriting, but I did. Had I told Becky the full story I think she would have gone round to Chester Square that night and killed the woman there and then with her bare hands—I might even have assisted her.

They buried him among his own kind. The college chaplain, who must have carried out this particular duty so many times in the past, stopped to compose himself on three separate occasions.

“In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me…”

Becky and I visited Addenbrooke’s together every day that week, but Dr. Atkins only confirmed that Cathy’s condition remained unchanged; she had not yet spoken. Nevertheless, just the thought of her lying there alone needing our love gave us something else to worry about other than ourselves.