Mark Pearson - Death Row

Delaney walked past a number of doors, all black, all well kept, before stopping and tapping on one that was painted bottle green and had a shiny brass knocker. There was a small metallic plaque on the wall beside it. Sally kept her expression neutral but flicked her glance sideways to read it.

DR MARY O’CONNELL.

Before she had a chance to ask Delaney if that was his cousin the door opened. A tall woman in her late forties with long honey-coloured hair and sparkling blue eyes looked Delaney up and down critically and then smiled. ‘It’s good to see you, cousin.’

‘And you, Mary.’ He gave her a hug.

‘Well, you’d best come through.’ She looked at Sally and tilted her chin teasingly. ‘And who is this beautiful young thing with you? I hope you’re not up to your old tricks again, Jack Delaney?’

Sally blushed despite herself and held her hand out. ‘I’m a detective constable. I work with Inspector Delaney. Sally Cartwight.’

‘Pleased to meet you, darling.’

Mary shook Sally’s hand in a warm grip, clasping the other hand over and patting it.

Delaney gestured that they should go in. ‘She’s my right-hand woman, Mary, and that thirsty, more importantly, that she can barely speak for the dust in her throat. Let’s get the kettle on.’

‘Come in, come in, then! It’s you that’s standing there on the step like a kidnapped garden gnome who’s lost his fishing rod.’ Mary waved them in, laughing. ‘And kettle, you say? Are you sure you’re my cousin? What have you done with him, Sally? Signed him up for the pledge?’

Sally laughed. ‘Not in this life.’

Mary led them through into a beautifully decorated and surprisingly large lounge. Large windows looked out onto the street below but the double glazing muted the noise of the traffic so that it barely registered. A young woman stood up from the couch as they walked in. She had thick curly hair that was midnight black and shiny, flawless olive skin and beautiful almond-shaped eyes that seemed to shine. If she was one of Cleopatra’s hand maidens, Sally thought, she’d have probably had her killed.

‘This is Gloria, Sally,’ said Delaney.

The woman smiled and held her hand out. ‘I’m the girl in the boot,’ she said.

*

Whitefriars Hall was a brick-built building, constructed sometime in the early 1970s to house the burgeoning population of students in the ever-expanding West London University. The university had several buildings spread throughout the west of the city: old technical colleges, art colleges and a polytechnic that had been assimilated under the banner of West London University at the beginning of the 1990s. The Conservative government’s idea for getting more people into university by simply renaming the polytechnics.

‘More universities, that’s what the world needs isn’t it, Kate?’ said DI Bennett as he pulled his car to a stop in the car park outside the halls of residence. ‘Never mind if there’s no jobs for the poor sods when they graduate. Half of them would be better off studying to be mechanics.’

‘Is that meant to be a dig?’ asked Kate frostily as she snapped open her seat belt before letting it zip back into place with a definite clunk.

‘Not at all,’ said Bennett, enjoying her discomfiture. ‘You are clearly a successful driven woman. It’s not your fault that your car wouldn’t start — you probably flooded the engine.’

His smile did little to appease Kate. ‘There are jobs to be had and I thought we were supposed to be out of the recession,’ she said.

Bennett climbed out of the car and sniffed dismissively. ‘Twenty to thirty grand of debt and no job. Where’s the sense in that?’

Kate closed the car door, tempted, but resisting the urge, to slam it. ‘I take it you didn’t go to university, detective inspector?’

‘You take it wrong, then. But I did a proper degree, not some Mickey Mouse degree in media studies or the like,’ Bennett said as they walked toward the halls of residence.

‘As in?’

‘Criminology.’ Bennett jiggled his car keys in his hand as they walked along. ‘University of Kent. Vocational, linked to work. No debt at the end of it and a job.’

‘Some people believe it’s healthy for a culture to have people studying simply for the pleasure of studying.’

‘Some people believe little green men from Mars are running our government.’

‘They may be right.’

‘Did you know you can get a degree in stand-up comedy now?’

‘I teach medical students, Inspector Bennett. I know all about stand-up comics.’

They approached the building, stepping between three white concrete posts just outside the entrance that allowed bicycles through but no vehicles. A high arch bisected the building and led through to a square, surrounded on all sides by separate buildings that provided three floors of accommodation each. Around the arched tunnel, the fourth wall of the square housed the staff quarters and the Dean’s office. A woman in her early to middle fifties bustled up towards them as they came through into the square. She was dressed in charcoal-grey trousers with a matching jacket and a mauve blouse underneath. Silk, Kate thought, and expensive.

‘Doctor Walker? I’m Dean Anderson … Sheila,’ the woman said.

Kate nodded and held out her hand. ‘This is Detective Inspector Bennett.’

The woman shook her hand and turned to Bennett to do the same.

‘Tony,’ he said.

The Dean removed her glasses. Oliver Peoples, Kate couldn’t help noticing, liking her style.

‘I would make some sort of feeble joke, but I am sure you have heard them all and this doesn’t seem the right time for levity, does it?’

‘No,’ the detective inspector agreed. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a six-by-four photo of the man lying a mile or so away in the intensive-care wing of the hospital that was attached to this same university.

‘Is this him?’

The Dean took the photo and studied it, dipping her head and blowing out a sigh. ‘Jamil Azeez. Yes, it is.’ She handed the photo back. ‘Do we know what happened?’

Kate shook her head. ‘He hasn’t regained consciousness yet.’

‘And it was you who found him?’

‘Yes.’

‘Last night?’

‘Yes. In Camden.’

The Dean frowned. ‘And what time was this?’

‘Just before midnight.’

‘What was he doing in Camden?’

‘We don’t know,’ said Bennett.

‘Especially that late at night.’ The Dean shook her head, puzzled.

‘It was a Friday. A lot of people socialise on a Friday night,’ said Kate. ‘Camden is a very popular place for people of his age, particularly at the weekends.’

‘But Jamil never drank.’

Bennett cleared his throat. ‘Forgive me, but as a Dean of the halls of residence how would you know that?’

‘Because of his religion. He was very devout. We know because students with special dietary requirements inform us of it, for obvious reasons.’

‘He was a Muslim?’ DI Bennett pulled out his notebook.

‘Yes.’

‘He wouldn’t be the first Muslim to drink and it may well be that he wasn’t drinking anyway. They do serve soft drinks in the pubs and nightclubs.’

‘I get the sense he was pretty devout.’ She caught herself. ‘Sorry, that he is pretty devout. How is he, by the way?’

The Dean seemed a little embarrassed to be asking that question only now. Kate put a reassuring hand on her arm. ‘He is in a very serious condition. The next few hours are going to be critical.’

‘Who could have wanted to hurt him?’

DI Bennett tapped the notebook in his hand. ‘We don’t know. Is it possible to look in his room, as we asked?’