S. Bolton - Dead Scared

I learned of the existence of cults who believe the world is overpopulated, that suicide is a responsible and selfless act, and offer advice on the most effective ways of taking one’s own life. They cite the cruelty and distress of botched methods as their justification.

When I didn’t think it could get much worse, I discovered the trolls.

Wherever there is human misery, it seems to me, there are those who will feed on it. These so-called trolls are gatecrashers who access suicide sites to join and manipulate the online discussions for their own entertainment. Put bluntly, they’re getting off on other people’s despair. There were more cases than I wanted to think about of trolls actively goading people into acts of self-destruction, all the while keeping up a caring and helpful façade.

I sat back in my chair too suddenly and caught the lecturer’s eye. Not good. I looked down quickly. A boy in the same row as me glanced my way with what looked like a smirk on his face. He’d probably been in the crowd last night at my initiation ceremony. That made me remember the photograph of the three boys in my pocket. I wanted to know who those bozos were. Student prank or not, it went totally against every bone in my copper’s body that someone could do that to me and get away with it. Somehow, though, I didn’t think Joesbury was going to be too helpful with a personal vendetta. On this one I was on my own.

And it was hardly a priority. Twenty dead kids were my priority. Or was it nineteen? Bryony wasn’t exactly dead. Either way, it didn’t feel right that they were still just numbers for me. How could I investigate anything if I didn’t even know who my victims were? And I knew what Joesbury’s answer to that would be. You are not investigating anything, Flint. You are a pair of eyes and ears. Not a brain.

Well, they should have sent somebody else. Twenty dead kids, nineteen, strictly, was too many for me. Now there was a thought. Was my invisible list actually complete? What if there were other Bryonys out there? Other students who’d attempted suicide but failed? They belonged on this list too. I sent a quick email to Evi, asking her for details of failed suicide attempts over the last few years. That wasn’t giving me a good feeling. If I added failed attempts, my suicide list could get a whole lot bigger.

‘NICK, IT’S EVI.’

Nick Bell pushed his phone against his ear, held it in place with his shoulder and beeped open his car. ‘Hi, Evi,’ he said. ‘You OK?’

‘Fine, thanks. Is this a good time?’

‘I’m just getting into my car,’ said Nick, as he did exactly that. One dog on the rear seat looked up and waved its tail in greeting. The other didn’t even open its eyes. ‘I have to set off in five minutes so unless you want to be responsible for me committing an illegal act, that’s how long you’ve got.’

‘You can get hands-free systems now, you know,’ Evi told him.

‘Had one. Dog ate it. What can I do for you?’

‘How would you feel about releasing information on suicide attempts over the last five years?’

Nick slipped the key into the ignition. ‘You mean amongst patients at the practice?’ he asked.

‘I know you can’t give me names, but numbers of cases and a rough idea of the dates would help.’

‘It’s still bothering you, then?’

‘It is, yes.’

‘Let me run it past the partners. I’ll get back to you. Now are you sure you’re OK? You don’t sound too …’

‘I’m fine, thanks, Nick. Talk to you later.’

WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON AT most UK universities is set aside for sports and Cambridge was no exception. After lunch, students emerged from their residential blocks and courts dressed in sports kit of various kinds and went off to be athletic. I spent the first couple of hours in a quiet corner of St John’s library. Slowly, the invisible list of twenty students was beginning to assume substance.

I’d run a Google search of student suicides at Cambridge and had found news coverage of several. I knew about law student Kate George, who’d dropped a plugged-in hairdryer into her bath, and about Nina Hatton, who’d been studying zoology until she’d slashed her femoral artery. Photographs accompanying the stories showed attractive, happy girls.

Peter Roberts had found the demands of his mathematics course too much to deal with and had hanged himself in 2005. That same year the grieving mother of another student suicide, Helen Stott, told reporters that she had had no hint of her daughter’s despair. Along with Nicole, Bryony, Jackie and Jake I now had eight names, twelve blanks remaining.

At three o’clock I’d had enough. So far I’d worked non-stop on the case; now I was going to find time for a small personal vendetta. I got my coat, hat, scarf and gloves and went out in search of the Ninja turtles.

Oh, I knew I was being unprofessional, allowing my focus to be distracted away from my main reason for being here, but what had happened the previous night had knocked me for six. Most would see it as an unpleasant but harmless prank. To me it had been one of the worst things I could imagine.

There was an incident when I was younger (which even now I can’t bear to think about) that pretty much shaped who I am. Being set upon, finding myself helpless in the hands of an adrenalin-fuelled gang, had brought it all back. If I was going to function here, I had to wrestle back some sense of control and that meant I had to know who those boys were.

All three had been big blokes. As they’d been half naked, I’d got a pretty good look at their physiques. None had had the wide-shouldered, slim-hipped build of swimmers, or the lean strength of soccer players. They certainly weren’t track and field athletes. If I’d had to put money on it, I’d have said rugby. One of them had a mass of black curly hair. He’d be the easiest to spot.

I asked George the porter where I was most likely to find rugby matches and he directed me to three different sports fields. I went on my bike and was at the first pitch in minutes. Concentrating on the Cambridge squad, I figured perhaps there were two possibilities. I took photographs of both men then cycled to the next pitch.

This game took longer because it was an inter-college match: Magdalene versus King’s. By the time I’d finished I had three possibilities. I took photographs and moved on.

The game on the third pitch was just finishing when I arrived and it wasn’t so easy to get a good look at the players. By the time they started walking back to the changing rooms I’d spotted four vague possibilities, but taking photos would have made me very conspicuous.

It would be Saturday before I got another chance to stake out any more matches, and if the temperature continued to fall the pitches were likely to be too frozen for play. Ah well, they do say revenge is a dish best served cold.

I took the long way home, following the trail of one of the more popular walks in Cambridge. Once over the Cam I turned south to make my way around the Backs. The sun sank lower in the sky and the taller of the old buildings to my left began to gleam as though lit from within.

The Backs is the land between the Queen’s Road and the riverside colleges: St John’s, Trinity, Clare, Trinity Hall, King’s and Queens’. Some of it is laid out to elegant lawns or formal parkland, some is grazing land for cattle, other stretches are wildflower meadows.

Pushing the bike now, I walked on, relishing the quiet but getting lonelier by the second. Three days here and already my sense of well-being, not especially robust at the best of times, had sunk. The case Joesbury and I had worked on just a few months ago had been as bad as they come. A serial killer had struck London fast and hard, barely giving us time to blink before each new victim was found. That would have been bad enough, but as the crimes multiplied they seemed to be getting closer, until it looked as though I was the fat, juicy fly the intricate and bloody web was being spun around.