And the Rest Is History(43)

I nodded gloomily. He was right. On the other hand …

‘I take your point, sir, but I do think that in our job we do require certain amount of passion. We’re not accountants, sir, studying rows of figures and drawing conclusions. These are people we’re observing. Real people, whose actions then are still impacting upon us today. The events at Bayeux were hotly disputed at the time and in many academic environments today, they still are. I think a little loss of professional detachment might be forgiven.’

‘You misunderstand me, Dr Maxwell. It’s not the loss of detachment I deplore, but the location of that loss of detachment. I have, over the years, grown perfectly accustomed to witnessing brawling in the corridors as historians seek to impose their points of view upon one another, but not when you are all … on the job … so to speak. I trust the venerable and picturesque town of Bayeux is undamaged?’

‘Not a scratch, sir. It was all sound and fury, but you’re right. I apologise and I’ll speak to them about it.’

I thought he looked at me rather keenly. ‘Oh, I think you’ll find there’s no need for that.’ He began to rummage in his in-tray. I braced myself.

‘Two things this morning, Dr Maxwell. Dr Stone has requested me to request you to present yourself for an eye test. Consider yourself requested.’

Dr Stone had grassed me up. The bastard.

‘And Professor Rapson has presented me with an invoice for…’ he peered artistically and I braced myself for fresh horrors. ‘… seven former dogs of mixed breeds, eleven former cats all designated DSH…’ He frowned.

‘Domestic short-haired, sir,’ I said, glad of the opportunity to prove I wasn’t completely useless.

‘And a … Gavialis gangeticus.’

I know when to keep quiet.

‘You are very quiet, Dr Maxwell.’

I refused to be tempted into unwise speech.

He frowned at me. ‘Might I enquire…?’

I have an automatic response to this sort of thing. ‘I believe Professor Rapson is in the early stages of a valuable and relevant experiment, sir, the details of which, unfortunately, cannot be revealed at this time. To avoid possible outside contamination. Sir.’

This was St Mary speak for – I haven’t got a clue what’s going on there and even if I did, I don’t want to tell you because you’ll probably put a stop to it, and anyway you’ll need plausible deniability with the Chief Constable when the Professor blows up most of south Rushfordshire. Although surely even Professor Rapson couldn’t do anything incendiary with twenty or so small mammals and a Gangly Thingummy. Could he?

I made my way back to my office, dropped my files on my desk, and stared in amazement at a large bouquet of yellow roses, stuffed into what appeared some kind of container designed to collect body fluids for medical analysis. Provided, no doubt by Miss Lee, to whom that sort of thing would be funny. There was more. Square in the middle of my blotter was an enormous box of the world’s most expensive chocolate biscuits.

The accompanying note read, ‘Sorry, Max. Promise to do better next time,’ and was signed by Sykes, North, Bashford, and Clerk.

I read it again. There was definitely something wrong with my eyes after all, because the writing had gone all blurry.

Miss Lee was staring at me, so I bent hastily and rummaged for something in my bottom drawer until I was able to face the world again.

‘You know you’ll have to divvy them up at the Stamford Bridge briefing, don’t you,’ she said, referring, I hoped, to the biscuits.

‘Of course. Although if you put the kettle on, I can have one now.’

‘And what about me?’

‘I’ll let you look at the picture on the front.’



With Bayeux safely achieved, I had a week or so to take off my historian hat, and replace it with my hitherto little used and very unfamiliar mother’s hat. I went off to find my family. Another phrase to get used to. Still, I had managed to get my head around ‘my husband’, so ‘my family’ shouldn’t cause me any trouble at all. I hoped.

According to Dr Stone, it was important to establish a routine. To give Matthew a framework for his day and make him feel secure. So we did.

The three of us would always breakfast together. Matthew was, at first, perfectly bewildered by the choice offered – he thought he had to eat everything– a challenge he appeared more than capable of rising to. Much of it was completely unfamiliar to him, so we always had the same. Scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, marmalade, and as much tea as I thought I needed to get me through the morning.

From there, Leon would take him to Mr Strong where he would spend the first part of the morning taking care of the horses. He was good with horses and they liked him. When he’d finished there, he went on to Dr Dowson in the library. Initially the books were read aloud to him as he looked at the pictures, and then he progressed to picking out letters and words.

At lunch, Leon would try to get him to talk about his day so far. He seemed to have a very small vocabulary. If he wanted something, he would just point, or if pushed, say, ‘Want.’ Leon and I would chat away together, epitomising – we hoped – familial bliss and harmony, and hoping he was picking up words along the way.

He spent his afternoons with Professor Rapson, ostensibly learning maths and science. In reality, the two of them would trot around the place, putting things together and then blowing them up again and, incidentally, getting unbelievably dirty. When the weather permitted, they would potter about outside. The professor was showing him how to excavate one of Mr Strong’s many compost heaps.