The Oxford Handbook of Murder

Trinity Term, 1996

Sneaking behind the crested college door for my clandestine evening shift, I was only too aware I was about to break one of the main rules of the Oxford University Handbook. Again. I ran my hand through my black hair, which seemed to have jumped up in all directions. Like a foreign raven, its legs caught in a three pin plug. Needless to say, I was not wearing one of those cozy, stripy college scarves to tame it and make me look pretty. Or an Oxford jumper, complete with an open-book logo that told the world I was in fact one of the university’s illustrious students. A badge of honor - or disgrace, knowing some of the things they got up to.

As Henry and I crept down the maze of corridors in the Norrington Hall, presided over by oil paintings of stern-looking headmasters from days gone by, we didn’t expect to see a single student at this time of night - and actually, I was counting on it. Academic stillness filled the air and I could imagine the gargoyles covering the ancient walls outside scrunching up their stony faces when the waft of the cooked dinner and smell of port reached them from under the closed doors of the dining hall.

‘Please let me stay-’ I nearly tripped over Henry when I heard a voice cut through the college calm. Even in the dusk I knew it had to be her. I made my way in the direction of the noise, down the cloisters with little cell-like rooms arranged off them like toy soldiers. A tiny streak of light guided me through the darkness.

And there she was.

A door slightly ajar revealed Allegra who was lying still on the strip of Persian carpet I could see through the chink. Dead still in fact, forgive the expression. I squeezed Henry by the hose and he gave me one of the blushing smiles constantly plastered on his face, his cheeky eyes locking with mine. Even hoovers in England have a personality.

My first instinct was to wheel Henry away and get out of here. If Allegra was just suffering the consequences of inebriation and suddenly roused to recognise me, this would be the end of me at Oxford. And the very fact of me being here was like a golden ticket out of misery and a Iife in a mafia-ruled country. But I couldn’t afford it just on my meager scholarship, I had to find work.

So I was standing in for the college maid or ‘scout’ Rose. A true crime according to the Oxford University Handbook. During term time, we were not supposed to sweat over anything else but our textbooks. Least of all, with a hoover in hand, in the dusty college halls. Sitting on a plush settee sipping tea, an open book in our lap was much more like it.

I was about to get away as quickly as possible but there seemed to be something unnaturally quiet about Allegra. Like a wax doll, her golden hair was splayed around her and with her eyes glazed at the star-spangled ceiling. There also seemed to be a long incision running along the side of her neck. Dark blood congealed all over. In fact, it had soaked the carpet. This would take months or even years to clean. Perhaps the carpet would be stained forever and even Henry couldn’t help to make it better. Henry usually made most problems go away so there was clearly something very wrong that had happened here.

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Allegra was like a marble statue, her pale fingers resting on her chest. Even dead she looked more alive than me with her flawless skin. She could have probably served as a model for a Christmas tree angel. They definitely don’t make ornaments like me - big nosed, black haired and with Bulgarian deep-set eyes. But I had no time to waste over analyzing her beauty. When you discover a dead body, even when it is as beautiful as this, the last thing you can do is dither. Or go to pieces. Especially not when you are a foreigner who is not supposed to be working during term time, least of all as a maid.

‘Be done with it,’ I heard a muffled sound as the door slammed shut. The image I’d caught of Allegra stayed imprinted in my mind like a painting. I couldn’t believe it was only a split second I had to register it with all the blood around it. And then she was gone, just like that. Poof. Like a real magic trick.

For a moment I couldn't move at all, the vaulted arches of the cloisters the only thing that could stabilize my gaze. This was a part of college that hardly anyone ever ventured to at this time of night. Whoever was doing this must have calculated it carefully. Well, I was hardly anyone at this college so I didn’t really count anyway.

Having regained as much composure as I could muster, I gave Henry a yank and fled the room as quickly as my legs and his wheels could carry us. I knew I had to do something but was not sure what. Back in my country, the saying ‘a policeman is a mafia man’ was part of our everyday life. We saw England as a country where gold grew on the trees and the police were honest.

As I am not usually the kind of person who can keep a secret even at the best of times and I wanted to use the privilege to report wrong-doing that I wouldn’t ever have back home, I knew what I had to do. And there were so far two witnesses, only one of whom could speak, even though it was with a telltale accent. So we sneaked up to my bedroom by the back staircase. I was shivery but not too worried anyone would recognise me in Rose’s uniform at night. I mean, most students didn’t pay attention to me during the light of day when I was wearing my own clothes.

Once inside the safety of my bedroom, I rushed over to my multifunctional peanut butter jar, which was both a pencil holder and a piggy bank and I took a couple of coins with the Queen’s face slightly smudged with peanut butter out. This was one of the main benefits of having a diet that consisted mainly of toast and peanut butter. Not only was it highly nutritious as you could add salt, paprika, sugar, cinnamon, cardamon or sugar depending on the meal you were having but you could also use the empty jars in so many different ways. My piggy peanut bank was not the only thing. I also had a peanut butter vase and a peanut butter mug. These were so much better suited to my niche taste in room decor than a green velvet sofa or an antique bookshelf filled with rare book editions. Peanut butter accessories brightened up my room, which was replete with a bed, a desk and two chairs. Best of all of course was Henry, when Rose let me have him.

And I really should have considered myself lucky, especially compared to Allegra and her friends. They kept receiving weekly packages from Fortnum and Mason. At first, I was a bit confused when I saw these names written in bold black letters. It made me wonder why these old-sounding men sent things to these girls. In my mind’s eye they looked like two Santas, or the Bulgarian Diado Mraz, dressed in light blue mantels and making a long list of all the talented women of St Matilda’s. When I asked my tutorial partner who these two old men were, she laughed so hard and said: ‘You’re such an alien. It’s just a shop.’ and she opened her delivery to reveal a carousel music tin of biscuits with the most exotic-sounding ingredients. This was a marvelous sight and sent my hungry stomach into spasms of desire. But really, it left nothing for the imagination. I was much luckier with my daily diet of peanut butter. Not only was it nutritious but it also let your mind swirl with hunger and anticipation of how else you could accessorize your piece of dry toast for the next mealtime.

‘You’ll enjoy this,’ Allegra had once given me a scone from her parcel, explaining that it could be pronounced in two different ways by the English. Not that I cared how they talked about it when all I wanted was to devour it.

I wheeled Henry under my bed and left him underneath, making sure nobody could see him or both of us would suffer the consequences. Throwing Rose’s maid uniform and cleaning gloves next to him, I put on my inconspicuous black top and jeans. I stuffed the maid accoutrements into a black bin bag as usual, the most fitting way of handing them over to Rose at the end of the shift.

My own clothes were nothing like the bright velvet suits or plaid skirts that the other college girls were wearing but on the plus side, they made me invisible. And to be invisible was to be safe. I slipped a couple of coins in my pocket, making my way down and then across the dark quad. The gargoyles of the college walls looked especially creepy that night and their eyes locked with mine in a way that suggested I had done something untoward, even though the only thing that happened that night was that I discovered the most famous girl in college dead.

I could pretend I never saw her, as horrible as it felt and sounded. But then how long would she lie there? She had shown me real kindness at times. And didn’t I come to this country to enjoy true democratic values after all? To be honest, if she was discovered in the morning, there would be all sorts of questions anyway. They would look into who had been on duty and then I would be caught for sure. And not just because I had failed to clean the blood-soaked carpet.

Then it stood right in front of me, gleaming in the dark. The red telephone booth. Before I came to England, the only thing I knew was that the country would be filled with them and similarly coloured double decker buses. I opened the door and slipped inside this quintessentially native box. I almost felt English for a moment in this cozy space before I quickly remembered that I was in the more awkward position of being a Bulgarian, about to report a dead body. Rounding up my mouth, I tried to practice my most English accent. I couldn’t risk the police getting wind of my foreign descent as an ex-Communist country of origin would be enough to merit a sentence in its own right.

When I was satisfied that I sounded almost like the hidden snatches of BBC programming I had been able to catch on my parents’ small radio back in Sofia, I picked up the receiver and dialled the number with shivering fingers.

‘How do you do?’ I said in my best Jane Austen manner.

‘Oxford Central Police.’ an officer said brusquely down the receiver. Not the sound of the knight in shining armor that I had imagined. ‘How can we help?’

‘I want to report a death at an Oxford college.’

‘Which one?’

‘St Matilda’s.’

I hung up immediately. Of course, staying there was the last thing I could afford to do at that moment. I had to get out as quickly as possible so I headed over to the porter’s lodge. Being seen there was important, nobody could suspect me of doing maid-like chores at this time of night when I was engaged in one of the most stereotypical student activities, visiting the lodge. Mr Jones, the college porter, was standing by his desk as usual, his head bent over the register.

‘How are you, young lady?’ he asked in his mellow voice.

I smiled at him but stood silent for a while. My best guess was that telling him everything about my day, including witnessing a dead body and a blood-soaked carpet was not the done thing in England. Back in my first months at the college, I would have certainly responded like this. In fact, I used to give an elaborate response to this most simple of questions. Starting with my peanut butter breakfast, the precise academic books I had taken from the library and my plans for the weekend. But judging by the tired faces of the people who asked, mostly my two English tutors, I realised that the only socially acceptable answer to this question was: ‘Very well, indeed.’

And so this was what I said to Mr Jones before I signed my name in the register. This large book with St Matilda’s in golden lettering was used to sign all students in and out when they made their way into the city, along with any male visitors. Mr Jones often joked he was the keeper of the ladies of St Matilda’s. A joke I joined in heartily but I often saw some of the other students frown at that, though I couldn’t figure out why.

‘Won’t you look in your pidge?’ he asked. ‘Something arrived for you today.’

Always polite in the most English way possible, he continued to expostulate on the weather and the college boats as I headed towards my pigeon hole. It looked almost empty compared to those of the other students in my tutorial group whose pidges were replete with deliveries from the most illustrious of places and it wasn’t just Fortnum and Mason. I could also see Harrods, Chanel, Dior and other famous brands spilling out of the shelves. I had once even spotted a fluffy pomeranian with a small purple bow as he let out a whimper among the other, inanimate luxury items. But what struck my heart worse, almost like a balloon popped by a pin, was when I saw the loving swirl of ‘Mama and Papa’ at the back of cream envelopes. I missed my own family so dearly.

As usual, my own pidge contents were rather sparse. All I could see was a single letter in a bright yellow envelope. I took it in my shivering hands and stuffed it in my pocket. It could only be another weekly communication about my scholarship. A rather small allowance, but one that gave one Bulgarian student per year the chance of an English gentleman’s education in this castle-like institution where most students looked like real lords and ladies. And I really fitted in. By which I mean, I had my unique and previously unclaimed little corner of the college, where I could retreat to in perfect obscurity. I had my own place here and I knew it as I flitted between the upstairs and the downstairs of my college. But until tonight, it had been easy to separate the two. Until the body. And the blood.

I swallowed at the thought and waved at Mr Jones, who said in his convivial manner: ‘Have a pleasant evening, my dear.’

As the rain poured outside, I could imagine my hair starting to rise like dough in the most Bulgarian fashion. Pleasant was the least likely word to describe it.

‘Pleasant indeed.’ I said, focussing on my ‘d’s and ‘t’s so that I could make a most British click with my tongue. Mr Jones seemed suitably impressed as he touched his porter’s hat and I went out into the pleasant, rainy English night.

But just as I was about to slip into town, a dark figure approached and nearly made me lose my balance. It was Tim - Mr Jones’ son who helped him with the night shifts at the porter’s lodge. Lanky and wild-eyed, he lurked in the college corners and distributed deliveries into the students’ pigeon holes. But there was something especially hurried about him that night. He didn’t even stop to apologise when he nearly tripped me over. And I thought that apologising was most English people’s default state.

‘Don’t worry about it.’ I shouted after him as he ran back to the college and I ran away from it with my small black bin bag hidden under my dark top.