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An Advancement of Learning
Reginald Hill
All is not well at Holm Coultram College.All is not well at Holm Coultram College: lecturers having affairs with students, witches’ sabbaths, a body buried under a statue.Detective Superintendent Dalziel, despite his cynical view of academics, doesn’t feel murder fits in here – let alone a rash of killings. But when he and DS Pascoe are sent to investigate a disinterred corpse at Holm Coultram College, that’s exactly what they find…
REGINALD HILL
AN ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING
A Dalziel and Pascoe novel
Copyright (#ulink_3b3dea45-158b-5e69-8816-8d08645fd880)
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Harper An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
Copyright © Reginald Hill 1971
Reginald Hill asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.
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HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.
Source ISBN 9780586072592
Ebook Edition © July 2015 ISBN 9780007373987
Version 2015-06-18
Dedication (#ulink_bd339a5b-2891-5497-bd38-c30da1782296)
For Malcom & Anne
Mike & Jo
Jim & Kathy
Contents
Cover (#u0685b363-a8b3-516a-8a68-9953b0369461)
Title Page (#ud96d27fc-7c82-5828-879f-f77e391d0dd9)
Copyright (#u7fc1962f-571e-57db-bbce-ea64277a5f08)
Dedication (#u594ee66d-ccb5-58ee-bcea-d36904a9fc0a)
Epigraph (#u309e144e-1ae5-56b8-aa91-77eca67f47d2)
Chapter 1 (#u4c2bd21e-66bd-5247-b3fe-ad532882036c)
Chapter 2 (#u6dc9e9fd-4a6d-5d00-9cfc-ad143ceb0573)
Chapter 3 (#u9ebfe88b-7c22-541a-996e-6e8e63684fc0)
Chapter 4 (#u9d9320cc-a99a-5690-b790-1c96b22061b2)
Chapter 5 (#u99410f92-6fe0-5a21-97fa-5b32c245cc0f)
Chapter 6 (#u20572bdf-f902-5a67-b7e6-42d4ad6cad24)
Chapter 7 (#u91b49d76-b689-585f-ad5a-07518dc0d27e)
Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
Also by the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Epigraph (#ulink_908f3e55-7b1d-521c-8c3c-0341efd30455)
… to have the true testimonies of learning to be better heard, without the interruption of tacit objections, I think good to deliver it from the discredits and disgraces it hath received, all from ignorance; but ignorance severally disguised; appearing sometimes in the zeal and jealousy of divines; sometimes in the severity and arrogance of politiques; and sometimes in the errors and imperfections of learned men themselves.
SIR FRANCIS BACON
The Advancement of Learning
Chapter 1 (#ulink_c9a591e3-6a36-5154-b8f0-6e5e916546b8)
If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.
SIR FRANCIS BACON
The Advancement of Learning
There had been a great deal of snow that December, followed by hard frost. A few days before Christmas a thaw set in, temperatures rose steeply, the snow became slush. The sun greedily sucked up the moisture till it saturated the air and impinged on all the senses.
Fog.
You could smell it in the great industrial towns, its edge of carbon and sulphur biting into the windpipe.
You could see it clearly wherever you looked. But it was all you could see.
You could taste it if you walked out in it without a scarf or kerchief wrapped round your mouth.
You could feel it, damp and greasy, on your skin. Almost under your skin.
And you could hear it. No sound passed through it that it did not muffle and crush and make its own.
It made driving difficult but not impossible. If you drove with care, if your motivation was strong and impelling, it was possible to get to your destination.
Flying was impossible.
Airport lounges filled. And overfilled. And over-spilled. Till the atmosphere of damp and smoke and noise and frustration was almost as bad as the fog outside.
Occasionally it raised itself off the ground. Sometimes long enough for a plane to taxi out on the runway. Sometimes long enough for a plane to get away, which made the waiting even more unbearable for those still crammed in the restaurants, bars and lounges.
Confusion breeds confusion. People found themselves separated from their baggage, their tickets, their passports and sometimes even other people. Some went home and bought a frozen turkey the next day. Some cancelled their flights at the airport, some claimed refunds later. Passenger lists became as scrappy as leaves from the Delphic oracle.
Finally a light wind breathed out of the southwest a couple of times and brought back the reassuring stars.
It was a warm wind. It blew gently over half of Europe, melting what remained of the great snows at sea-level.
Higher up, however, it proved more difficult. Which was good, for it was the snow that most of the thousands marching in still dubious queues across black, wet runways were seeking.
But sometimes the wind’s breath blew long enough and hot enough to loosen the grip which the long, frozen fingers of snow had fastened on the side of steep and deep.
Which was bad.
Merry Christmas.
The hot June sun glinted merrily on the placid blue sea, the long white sands, the unconscious sun-bathers and a little farther inland, the balding head of Douglas Pearl, solicitor, through the open windows of the long committee room. A neurotic motion to close the windows in the interests of security had been ignored by the chairman, who now waved Pearl and the girl who accompanied him to their appointed seats.
‘Forgive me, sir,’ said the solicitor, standing up immediately he and the girl had been seated, ‘but before we begin, may I formally establish that all those present are members of the governing body of Holm Coultram College of Liberal Arts and Education?’
‘Of course we are,’ said Captain Jessup, his grey eyebrows twitching in surprise.
‘And you, sir, are Captain Ernest Jessup, the Chairman of this body?’
‘I am indeed, sir,’ said Captain Jessup with greater acerbity, understandable as he and his questioner had played golf together only two days earlier.
‘And I take it, sir, that there is present here today a quorum of that body?’
‘You would not be here else,’ snapped the Captain. ‘Is that all?’
‘I think so, sir,’ said the solicitor, unperturbed. ‘In cases like this it is always as well to establish the standing in law of the body involved right at the beginning. There have been cases …’
‘I’m sure, I’m sure,’ said the Captain. ‘Let’s get a start. I may add I’m quite willing to accept that you are Douglas Pearl, solicitor, and that this is your client, Miss Anita Sewell.’
He smiled frostily at the girl who sat with her head bowed forward so that her long blonde hair hung like a curtain over her face.
‘Now,’ said the Captain. ‘As you all know, this meeting has been convened to hear the appeal of Miss Sewell against a decision of the Academic Board of the college.
‘The Academic Board at a meeting held on May 20th of this year decided that Miss Sewell should be instructed to withdraw from the college. In other words, my dear,’ he said, addressing the girl directly and in a kind voice, ‘you were dismissed.’
Pearl rolled his eyes upwards till the whites showed, a movement Captain Jessup did not miss.
‘The grounds for this decision were that Miss Sewell’s work in all subjects was of a standard sufficiently low to cause concern, and that in one subject, biology, she had sunk below a point from which it was possible for her to attain the lowest pass level by the end of her course. Miss Sewell was informed of this decision and the grounds of it. Later she decided to make use of her right of appeal to the Board of Governors, pending which appeal she has been, I believe, suspended.’
The girl nodded.
‘Now,’ said Captain Jessup, pressing his hands flat on the table before him. ‘Now. We have already seen the academic evidence on the basis of which Miss Sewell was dismissed.’
‘Suspended,’ said Pearl.
Jessup ignored him.
‘So I think the best interests of all would be suited if we passed straight on to the grounds of your appeal, my dear.’
Pearl coughed.
‘Miss Sewell has asked that I should lay out the general grounds of her appeal to start with, Mr Chairman. Then, under my advice, of course, she will be willing to answer questions.’
‘I see. Well, I suppose that’s in order?’ said Jessup. No one seemed disposed to question this.
‘Good. Then carry on.’
The solicitor shuffled a couple of papers in front of him. Under his polite, rather mild exterior there had long lurked a desire to try his hand at the kind of histrionic advocacy popular a century earlier. Magistrates’ courts offered little opportunity. Or encouragement. And looking at the row of attentive faces before him with Jessup’s challenging glare in the middle, he decided reluctantly that in the interests of both his own reputation and his client’s appeal this was not the time to start.
But he wasn’t too worried. What he had to say contained enough built-in drama to take the complacency out of their faces.
