Ryan Wilkins grew up on a trailer park, a member of what many people would call the criminal classes. As a young Detective Inspector, he's lost none of his disgust with privileged elites - or his objectionable manners. But he notices things; they stick to his eyes. His professional partner, DI Ray Wilkins, of affluent Nigerian-London heritage, is an impeccably groomed, smooth-talking graduate of Balliol College, Oxford. You wouldn't think they would get on. They don't.
But when a young woman is found strangled at Barnabas Hall, they're forced to.
Rich Oxford is not Ryan's natural habitat. St Barnabas's irascible Provost does not appreciate his forceful line of questioning. But what was the dead woman doing in the Provost's study? Is it just a coincidence that on the night of her murder the college was entertaining Sheik al-Medina, a Gulf state ruler linked to human-rights abuses in his own country and acts of atrocity in others?
As tensions rise, things aren't going well. Ray is in despair. Ryan is in disciplinary measures. But their investigation gradually disentangles the links between a Syrian refugee lawyer now working in the college kitchens, a priceless copy of the Koran in the college collection and the identity of the dead woman.
A Killing in November introduces an unlikely duo from different sides of the tracks in Oxford in a deftly plotted murder story full of dangerous turns, troubled pasts and unconventional detective work.
Release date:
January 20, 2022
Publisher:
Quercus Publishing
Print pages:
352
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Everyone said the security at Barnabas was a joke.
Folded gracefully into an irregular space at the back of the High, Barnabas Hall is one of the prettiest Oxford colleges. It possesses many features of outstanding charm: the sixteenth-century buildings in Old Court, for example, their low slate roofs blown by age into gentle waves, their brick facades a shade of rust; or the chapel with its late-medieval stained glass and Elizabethan brass lectern in the shape of a swan. But the exquisite wrought-iron gate at the end of Butter Passage doesn’t close properly, and the Victorian ‘castle’ gate in Logic Lane, with its unpredictable locking mechanism, can usually be opened with a brisk shove. The main gateway itself, elaborately decorated with scenes of Christ in the wilderness, is manned by a slow-moving elderly porter almost as picturesque as his lodge.
It seems the undisturbed dream of an otherworldly mind. But this is deceptive. Like all Oxbridge colleges, it is a high-value business, linked to corporations and governments round the world, a hub in a global network of high-speed information, its professors and scholars selling their specialised expertise to a hundred different enterprises. Which is why, on a damp evening in the middle of November, with cold drizzle coming down and jelly-like water hanging on the college’s carved stone lintels and sills, the Provost of Barnabas was in the Burton Suite making conversation with his distinguished guest, Sheikh al-Medina.
The Burton dining room is one of the glories of Barnabas. Situated at the top of staircase IV in the north wing of Old Court, it appears at first sight to be carved from a single piece of timber, blackened and hardened by age. The plaster ceiling is intricately mazed with Dutch strapwork and supported by warped beams of oak; the fantastically historical floorboards creak if you so much as breathe on them; and around the walls the painted faces of the college’s founding fathers – pale, stern men in Tudor bonnets – float against the lacquered darkness of the panelling, sober businessmen all.
It was these paintings, or the figures in them, that the Provost was attempting to make interesting to the Sheikh.
‘Cropwell,’ he said, peering. ‘Bishop of Winchester to Henry VI. He was the king who went mad, as I mentioned before. His is a curious case.’
The Sheikh said nothing.
The Provost was a short man, his ponderous bald head speckled with age spots, his voice smooth but nervous. Formidably well educated, a geographer by training, he was lacking in common sense and not averse to using outright aggression to conceal the fact. His short-fingered hands made heavy shapes while he talked. The Sheikh was large and stooped, with a fleshy nose, hooded eyes, and a habit of disconcerting stillness. He was the Emir of the least well known of the seven United Arab Emirates, a multi-billionaire, of course, and for three years the Provost had been trying to induce him to fund the university’s new Institute for Peace Studies. He did not yet know if he was likely to succeed. The Sheikh was enigmatic. Also, controversial; persistent rumours linked him to human-rights abuses in his own country and acts of atrocity in others. In the university, there had been fierce opposition to his patronage.
It was half past seven. The Provost was anxious. Conversation with al-Medina so far had been stilted. Earlier in the day, there had been a tour of the grounds, a viewing of the college’s collection of Islamic art and a recital of English fantasias, played in the chapel by the organ scholar. But the Sheikh had appeared unmoved. He had been the victim of a recent assassination attempt in Istanbul, and when he spoke it was usually to ask some question about security arrangements; he had noticed, for instance, the rudimentary nature of the college’s CCTV. For his part, the Provost, a man with little interest in such matters, suspected that his reassurances had not been wholly effective. As he talked now about the sour-faced Bishop of Winchester, he was uneasily aware of the Sheikh’s bodyguard, a handsome man with anxious eyes, pacing up and down at the top of the staircase outside.
Making the slightest of gestures with a hand half-hidden beneath his white robe, al-Medina excused himself from the Provost’s historical lecture and went to confer again with his bodyguard; and the Provost took the opportunity to make a phone call.
In the lodge adjoining the main gate, the porter, Leonard Gamp, was sitting with a mug of tea, looking at the roadworks outside the entrance, which had temporarily closed Merton Street. Leonard was seventy-four, a cockney veteran of the Royal Gibraltar Constabulary and the British Metropolitan Police force. He had the impeccable footwear and scrupulous hair of a man of strictly traditional views. His respect for the institution of the university, which he had served now for nearly twenty years, was boundless. When the lodge phone rang, he answered it in his usual suave ‘lodge’ voice: ‘Barnabas Hall, porter’s lodge. May I be of assistance?’
The Provost’s voice said impatiently, ‘Leonard, have you seen Dr Goodman this evening?’
‘Can’t say I have, sir.’
‘Do you know if he’s in college? I’ve been trying his rooms.’
‘He was certainly in earlier this afternoon; he came across to check his pigeonhole. I haven’t seen him go out. Would you like me to run across and see?’
‘That would be kind. I can’t go myself; I’m in Burton, with our guest.’
‘Of course.’
‘He might still be in the collections room. You could try there, as well.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Another thing, Leonard. We’re waiting for our drinks from the buttery, but something seems to have gone wrong. We were expecting them at least half an hour ago. And they’re not answering my calls.’
‘Shall I go and enquire, sir?’
‘Yes, please. A sherry and some sparkling water – the Blenheim, preferably. And, Leonard, do try to instil in them a little urgency. They know how important our guest is.’
‘I’ll go right away, sir.’
That buttery, Leonard thought to himself as he hung up, doesn’t know its arse from its elbow. There’s the Provost with Sheikh Camel-bollocks, and they’ve forgotten all about him. He put a cardboard Back Soon notice in the window, went out through the empty porch into the wet gleaming darkness of New Court and hurried stiffly in the direction of the buttery.
At that moment, carrying a tray containing a schooner of sherry and a bottle of Blenheim sparkling water, Ameena Najib from the buttery was lost in one of the labyrinthine corridors between the medieval Stable Yard block and the new Fitzgerald Conference Suite. She had been employed by the college for only five weeks, the first beneficiary of the college’s Syrian refugee programme, and everything was still unfamiliar to her. England itself was unfamiliar, and in many ways unsatisfactory. In Syria, she had been a law graduate; here, she was a kitchen porter, someone who could be given any menial task, to clean the ovens or take out the rubbish. This evening, for example, like a common household help, she had to collect a bag of clothing for charity from the porch of the Provost’s lodge.
Tonight was going to be different, though.
She had a narrow face and judgemental eyes. Her dark brown hair was hidden under a close-fitting hijab, navy blue, to match the college kitchen jacket, which she wore over her jeans and T-shirt. Glancing from left to right, she went rapidly along the corridor with her tray. She did not need reminding how important the guest was. The defiler Emir Sheikh Fahim bin Sultan al-Medina was well known to her, though she had never imagined that one day their paths would cross. It was not a coincidence, however. God was the dispenser of all opportunities. Also, she had received a message from a compatriot who monitored al-Medina’s movements from a safe place in the city of Dubai.
First, she had to navigate her way out of the conference suite. The college’s only brand-new building, a tasteful addition by a distinguished French-Moroccan architect, it still smelled of carpenter’s oil and overheated glass. Few of the rooms had yet been fitted with notices of their functions. Looking for the passage which connected the new suite with Old Court, she went quickly down the corridor, past blank doors, to another corridor, where she found yet more blank doors, and went past them to a final blank door, on its own, at the end. For a moment, she listened at it, then reached for her keys, before realising she no longer had them with her. She tried the door anyway – and it opened.
She saw at once that she had made a mistake. It was not the connecting corridor she was looking for, not a corridor at all, but a room lined with glass cabinets containing archaeological objects and hung with paintings and tapestries. Crouching on the floor in the middle of the room, a man wearing large round glasses was busy with a packing crate. Vaguely, she recognised him as a ‘don’ – a tutor. Phone squeezed between shoulder and chin, he was telling someone not to worry. He smiled at her, and the smile was so unexpected and cold, so full of difficulty and, above all, so English, that, without saying anything, she nervously backed out of the room and hurried away down the corridor. It was quarter to eight and she was later than ever.
In the Burton Suite, the Provost and al-Medina resumed their one-sided conversation. Mentally cursing the buttery for taking so long with the drinks, the Provost tried to think of a way to turn the conversation from the Burton portraits back to the more promising subject of Arabic art. He knew little about it, but the college’s collection of Islamic pieces, the bequest of an alumnus who had been a director of the Iraq Petroleum Company in the 1930s, was impressive, and he had been prompt to show it off to al-Medina. He had also taken the trouble to mug up on the history of one of the illuminations, from a late-medieval Persian album in the collection, depicting a sultry young lady reclining after a bath, a reproduction of which hung in the Provost’s own study. But he was unsure how to raise so sensual a subject with the Sheikh, whose religious views he could not determine.
He ventured a smile, which seemed to be absorbed without trace in al-Medina’s answering expression of utter impassivity.
Before the Provost could speak, al-Medina received a call. Withdrawing his phone from his robes, he looked at the Provost in his usual heavy-lidded way, without speaking.
‘Please,’ the Provost said, ‘take it, by all means.’ Gesturing, he added, ‘If you’d like some privacy, perhaps you’d be comfortable in the other room.’
Without reply, the Sheikh went into the small office next door, closing the door behind him, cutting himself off from both the Provost and his own bodyguard.
By this time, Ameena Najib had made her way into New Court. She stopped and looked round. Through the misty darkness, the chapel appeared in front of her, an enormous stone snail patterned with faintly luminous plum-coloured windows. It would be empty, she knew; its purpose was decorative. To her right was Cranmer Library, throwing lozenges of fuzzy-edged light across the darkened quadrangle lawn. She was in the wrong place. Turning sharply, almost spilling her drinks, she reversed through the cloisters, went round into Old Court and saw, at last, the north wing ahead of her.
By force of will, she focused her thoughts on the Emir Sheikh waiting for his refreshment. As she went, she pictured him in her mind, a heavy, sleepy-looking man, famous in her country for biding his time, for awaiting the right moment. And for other things. She imagined his face photographed against a background of smashed grey buildings and the smoking rubble of Kafr Jamal, which she had once called her home. No such photographs existed: the Sheikh was famously elusive.
But God had found him out.
In the mild, damp darkness of an English town, she felt suddenly at one with her lost family, and with those still living, somehow, among the ruins of their homes. She was weak, but luckily not alone. She saw the Sheikh as God saw him, with implacable judgement. She saw him as her sister Anushka might have seen him, if only she had lived. Under her breath, she began to recite.
Allāhu akbar, God is the greatest. Ana la ‘kafr Jamal’, I can’t forget Kafr Jamal.
It was nearly eight o’clock. But now she was ready.
Standing alone and irritable between the dinner table and the portrait of Bishop Cropwell, the Provost called the buttery again. No response. He called Dr Goodman, the college curator, and this time the man answered.
‘Where the hell have you been?’ the Provost hissed. ‘I thought you were joining us.’
Goodman said, ‘No. I’ve been busy. The tour of the collection this afternoon has created a lot of extra work. I shall be there for the dinner, if I can finish up here in time.’ His tone was openly hostile.
‘You better be,’ the Provost said rudely. ‘And, this time,’ he added, ‘I expect you not to mention the bloody Koran. If you think . . .’ he began angrily – but Dr Goodman had rung off, and the Provost sat there, staring furiously at the phone. The Farquar Koran was part of the college collection, one of Barnabas’s most valuable antiquities, but the Saudis wanted it back, and Goodman, the college’s only Arabist, was sympathetic to their cause. The Provost was anxious to avoid it being mentioned again at dinner. His temper, never good, was aroused.
Glancing at the shut door of the office where the Sheikh was talking on the phone, he checked his watch and, to pass the time, went over to the dining table and began to check the glassware and silver cutlery, brought out specially for the occasion. The plan was to impress his benefactor with the sort of relaxed, intimate, intellectually high-powered gathering for which Oxford was famous, a final act of persuasion in the effort to secure the Sheikh’s commitment to the new institute. But he could not stop fretting. In particular, he wished that his guest would stop complaining about security. It spoke of a negative attitude. The bodyguard had inspected the Burton rooms for nearly an hour before allowing his employer to enter, and had visited the kitchens to question the staff and examine the food. Several times the Provost had been on the point of telling the man that he ought to realise he was now in a country with the rule of law.
He was released from these troublesome thoughts by the much-delayed arrival of the drinks.
The young woman came in carrying a tray.
‘Thank God!’ the Provost exclaimed, and did not notice her frown. ‘Has there been a problem?’
Ignoring him, the girl said, with a heavy accent, ‘There is man outside, question me.’ She was flushed, her chest heaving as if she’d been running. An attractive girl, the Provost thought, noticing her figure. She did not look at him as he eyed her, but glanced around the room, as if searching for something, continuing to mutter to herself under her breath, rhythmic syllables he did not catch.
The bodyguard appeared in the doorway behind her, and the Provost, exasperated, ignored him, ushering the girl inside. ‘Don’t worry about that,’ he said to her, curtly. ‘The amontillado for me, thank you. And the sparkling water . . .’ He gestured towards the other room. ‘Our guest is on a call. Take it in and leave it on the table. Please don’t disturb him.’ He waved her through.
Ameena Najib took a breath, went quietly into the antechamber and closed the door softly behind her.
The defiler was sitting in a swivel chair, facing away from her, talking on his phone in Arabic, oblivious to her presence only a few feet from him. His shoulders were visible to her, and the top of his head vulnerable under his white keffiyeh. She took a cautious step towards him. Then, hearing the sounds of her own language, she hesitated; an expression came over her face, a listening trance.
Suddenly, as if he had felt her presence, the Sheikh stopped talking and spun round in his chair towards her, and they faced each other in silence.
The thought came to him at once: At last, they have found me.
The girl was nothing – merely an instrument, a face without a meaning.
He was tired suddenly. Exhausted.
The girl said nothing, nor needed to. Eyes fixed on his, she seemed to be willing him to read her mind and hear the words she spoke there. He could imagine them.
Last wahida, I am not alone. Tdhakkar annak batmut. Remember you will die. And other slogans, other taunts.
He watched her intently, immobilised by fear, but intensely curious to see what she would do. She would have instructions from her associates. What was concealed under that uniform? Still she did nothing. What was her role?
For a long, agonising moment, neither of them did anything.
Then her eyes suddenly widened, she sucked in her breath, and, as if dismissing him forever from this world, she turned abruptly and went quickly out of the room.
The Provost did not at first notice the Sheikh’s agitation as he emerged, immediately after the girl, from the study. He beamed as he raised his glass of amontillado. ‘Better late than never,’ he said. ‘Cheers.’
‘Who is that girl?’ the Sheikh asked.
The Provost looked at him curiously. ‘From the kitchen? She’s new to the college. Aneesha, I think. Or Anika, perhaps.’
The Sheikh clapped his hands and his bodyguard came rapidly across the room.
What was his interest in the girl? the Provost wondered as he sipped his sherry, watching them talk. Al-Medina had unexpectedly cast off his sleepiness; he spoke now to his man in abrupt bursts of Arabic, as if seized by some excitement. The Provost knew nothing about al-Medina’s private life, but allowed himself to imagine that the Sheikh had many wives. He had once been told intimate details about Arab princes’ sexual arrangements by a salacious diplomat, whom he had not discouraged.
Al-Medina ended his speech on a note of command and the bodyguard ran out of the room and quickly down the stairs.
The Provost was puzzled. ‘She’s a refugee,’ he ventured, ‘from Syria. We have an aid programme, just up and running. She’s only been with us since noughth week,’ he added. ‘I think she’s finding it hard.’
The Sheikh did not respond.
‘Noughth week,’ the Provost said helpfully, ‘is the week immediately prior to the beginning of term. Michaelmas term, I mean,’ he went on, after a moment, ‘which always begins on the Sunday after the Feast of St Michael and All Angels.’
His explanation made no impression. He frowned. Perhaps the difficulty lay in some aspect of al-Medina’s foreignness. He tried to remember the arcane differences between Shia and Sunni Muslims, about which he was vague.
The Sheikh turned and glared at him. ‘How did she come to be here?’
The Provost was taken aback by the ferocity of his tone. He said, ‘I don’t remember off the top of my head. Doubtless her journey was very difficult.’
‘Who are her associates?’
What was he to do with such a wild question? ‘I think her experiences have made it hard for her to make friends easily,’ he said.
He was beginning to feel browbeaten. He noticed how pale al-Medina was, how intent his manner. Now, the Sheikh rephrased his question: ‘Are there others of her kind here?’
Belatedly, the Provost understood. The man was frightened of the girl, he thought she was plotting something against him. What paranoia! He said, with dignity, ‘She’s been thoroughly vetted, of course. Thoroughly.’
But the Sheikh ignored this. He said in a low voice, ‘Who did you tell of my visit? Who?’
Feeling, now, the subject of an unfair accusation, the Provost said, ‘No one at all. Beyond those who needed to know,’ he added.
The Sheikh’s only response was to prolong his stare. With a nausea-like feeling of fear, it struck the Provost that the Sheikh was about to walk out – taking with him upwards of thirty-five million pounds of funding. Indeed, as the Provost stood there helplessly, al-Medina made an impatient gesture of dismissal – but, at that moment, to the Provost’s relief, the other members of the dinner party arrived up the stairs, led by his wife, and he immediately began introductions, talking rapidly. His wife, who had suffered a stroke three years earlier, limped forward with a strained expression, accosting the Sheikh with a smile her husband recognised as forced and engaging him brightly in conversation. The guests were followed by a waitress with two bottles of Mumm and a little silver platter of hors d’oeuvres. The bell of Barnabas struck half past eight and al-Medina was engulfed by his hosts, preventing his departure.
Outside, Ameena Najib watched the bodyguard approach, head swivelling, walking quickly in the direction of the kitchen. Half-crouching on the gravel strip that ran around the Great Hall, she pressed herself against its wall as he drew level with her, slowing down, peering into the shadow. He came nearer, and nearer still, and stopped. His eyes met hers, a brief moment of recognition passed between them, then he turned away and walked briskly on. She lifted her face to the mild, damp sky, feeling herself tremble. Tested, she had come through. The first part of her task was over. Taking out her phone, she hurriedly composed a text.
Hadha huwa. It is him. Ihna jahizeen. We are ready.
But, before she could send it, she heard her name called from nearby – ‘Ameena! What you doing in there?’ – and she turned in alarm, caught with the phone in her hand, text unsent.
In the Burton Suite, the champagne was being poured. Besides the Provost and his wife, there were four other guests to entertain the Sheikh. Humourless Dr Goodman, the necessary Arabist. The Dean of the college, whose silvery, smooth looks were familiar from his many television appearances. A zoologist called Arabella Parker, dressed in a bright flowing kaftan. And a junior visiting fellow from the States, called Kent Dodge, an art historian from Harvard, who had once spent a semester at the University of Abu Dhabi and had already been useful during the tour of the college collection, earlier in the day. All of them noticed how uneasy the Sheikh was, but none was able to rouse him from his introversion, which persisted through the preprandial drinks. Disengaged, he refused all conversational gambits from his lively, intelligent hosts – questions concerning the Middle East, witty chit-chat about orientalism and the discontents of globalism. When his bodyguard returned, he engaged in a long, agitated conversation with him, ignoring everyone else. It was a relief when the meal was served and they were able to take their places round the table.
Hoping, now, for a fresh start, the Provost stood, with an anxious smile on his flushed face, to propose a toast of fellowship between Barnabas and the house of al-Medina, and to the continuation of their joint efforts to promote peace in all parts of the world. But the polite echoes of his colleagues and their light applause could not divert attention from the unresponsive expression of the Sheikh, who remained impassive and immobile, and there was a hint of panic in the Provost’s voice as he sat down and immediately began to repeat to his guest all he had learned about the picture of the reclining girl from the Persian album in the college collection.
Stepping out of the shadows, Ameena stood in front of Jason Birch, the college handyman, who nodded at her. He was a thickset young man, with big hands, gingery stubble and a default expression of glazed friendliness. He took an interest in foreign girls and Ameena had caught his eye. She made him nervous, but he remained hopeful. He hadn’t expected her to be working so late.
‘Won’t get no signal in that hidey-hole,’ he said, grinning. His accent was broad rural Oxfordshire, all lazy vowels and muddy consonants.
She said nothing.
‘Just saw you,’ he said awkwardly. ‘That’s all. Need a hand with anything?’
She shook her head. ‘I must go.’
‘You alright? You look a bit, what’s the word?’
‘I have been lost.’
He ignored her curtness. ‘Easy done, place like this. Where was you trying to get to?’
‘Burton Room.’
‘Ah. I bet you was in the north side. Next to the chapel. All them little old corridors.’
‘No,’ she said impatiently. ‘Conference building.’
‘Even worse, then. All them little new corridors. Sure you’re okay? People treating you alright?’
He could tell this was a conversation she did not want to have, but he believed in his good-natured appeal, and in fact he was rewarded, because, as if she suddenly felt a need to express pent-up feelings, she began to speak quickly: ‘No,’ she said. ‘People do not treat me.’ Gesturing, she told him about the Provost, the way he spoke to her, the way he looked at her.
Jason, pleased to be confided in, made exaggerated disapproving expressions with his rubbery face. ‘No surprise there. He’s got a reputation, he has. All touchy-feely.’
And there was a man in the room of treasures who frightened her just with his smile. She made a gesture with her hands to indicate glasses.
‘Collections room? That’s Goodman, that is. He’s a weirdo. To be honest, this place is full of them. Now you’re here, you got to be careful how you go.’
To his surprise, her eyes filled with tears, and he took a protective step towards her. ‘What is it?’
She went on, emotion fracturing her voice. ‘In Burton Room . . .’
Jason’s mouth fell open a little as he leaned forward, agog. ‘In Burton Room, what?’
‘The Sheikh Emir,’ she whispered. ‘The defiler.’
She was pale with fury or fear, Jason wasn’t sure which. The word ‘defiler’ made him feel suddenly out of his depth.
‘That man,’ she said, musing to herself. ‘What was he talking about on the telephone? What was he doing?’ Raising her voice, she said loudly, ‘He is a defiler of the Holy Book.’ She glared at Jason.
‘Oh, right,’ he said, after a moment. He peered at Ameena nervously. ‘You don’t have to worry about him,’ he said at last. ‘He’s jus. . .
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