Free An Advancement of Learning by Reginald Hill

Dunbar had been interesting. But first things first. At what stage did Miss. Girling cease to be Miss. Girling on her way to a winter holiday and become a corpse ready for its grotesque interment beneath her own memorial? Any point you cared to choose on the road from the college to Osterwald seemed as impossible as any other. Only the reasons changed.
    At least this wasn't one where time was of the essence. There was no freshly killed corpse to be examined, no relatives to be informed (perhaps there were? but it wasn't the same), no frantic rush to track down a killer, while the traces were still fresh. There was no need to browbeat witnesses, to cut corners.
    This one could be taken leisurely, almost academically (not that Dalziel would approve of either of those words!).
    But it was true. Pascoe felt almost happy as he went about his work.
    There was a feeling of cosiness in the old panelled room with the wind outside pushing vainly against the windowpane.
    Perhaps he should have gone in for the life scholastic after all. These boys knew what they were at, arriving at their (qualified) conclusions after taking the long way round.
    Welcome aboard! he told himself.
    Down near the shore the wind was stronger than ever, gusting with violence off the land.
    Captain Jessup was having difficulty in coping with it. It blew his drives into the rough, his approach shots into bunkers and even his putts he was willing to swear were being steered inches off course by the malevolent blasts.
    The captain's lips pressed together in a tighter and thinner line beneath his sadly ruffled white moustaches.
    Douglas Pearl on the other hand had discovered the secret of the perfect golf swing.
    Again.
    It was a cyclical business this, like the old religions. An endless circle of discovery and loss, death and resurrection. And to be conscious of the gift was often the prelude to losing it. So he viewed the fourteenth fairway uneasily. It ran along the sea shore, separated from the beach by a range of steep-sided dunes, vicious with tangled heather and gorse. The fairway ran round inland in a wide arc; the wise man followed it. The brave and the stupid attempted to carry the broad peninsula of dunes which lay between the tee and the hole.
    Pearl stood uncertain. The wind galed forth in new fury. The captain sniffed impatiently. He made his mind a blank, and swung.
    It looked good for the first hundred yards. Then like a Spitfire in a dog-fight, it seemed to accelerate upwards and banked violently to the right, finally crashing out of sight beyond the dunes.
    "Oh, bother!' said Douglas, much distressed. But his careful solicitor's mind took close note of the last-known position of the ball.
    The captain sent his shot on a flat trajectory one hundred-and-seventy-five yards down the fairway. It ran on another thirty.
    He spoke for the first time since losing two balls at the fifth.
    This letter you've sent me. You know it can't be done?"
    "It's not asking much, I feel,' replied Douglas. ' early decision, certainly before the end of the month, is necessary if my client is going to have a chance of finishing her course this year."
    "Naturally we'll come to a decision before the exams,' said the captain.
    "She can still carry on with her private work now, can't she?" "Oh, don't be absurd!' said Douglas excitedly. Think of the strain she's under. In any case, while under suspension, she can't attend lectures, as you well know."
    "Well, these students spend most of their time saying they're a lot of bloody nonsense anyway, as far as I can see,' said Jessup unrepentantly.
    "And you know what's holding things up as well as I do. Fallowfield's protests have brought up a pretty complicated constitutional position.
    It's not at all clear whether "college representatives" means the student members of the governing body as well as the staff. They've taken advice, I believe. I thought they might have come to you." They did,' said Douglas. ' couldn't help them. It