S. Bolton - Dead Scared

‘Lincoln,’ he said, pulling into the outside lane and picking up speed. The instrument panel told him the temperature outside had fallen to zero degrees. ‘To meet Danielle Brown.’

Silence for a second and then, ‘Why?’

‘Because she’s a former Cambridge student who attempted suicide and who, prior to that, claimed sexual abuse by assailants unknown.’

She ran a hand through her hair. ‘I know that,’ she said. ‘I told you that last night. I mean, why are we going to see her? Sounds an awful lot like investigating to me and I’m not here to investigate. You were very clear about that.’

‘Are you going to keep this up the whole trip?’ he said.

‘Probably. And the way back too. And why get you involved? I thought you were on light duties. You know, making tea for important people at the Yard.’

‘I guess the important people at the Yard thought driving you a hundred miles and watching you interview a nice young lady counted as light duties. They clearly don’t know you like I do.’

When he glanced across again, she was smiling. An unfamiliar ache in his cheekbones told him he was too.

Megan had been right. Fifteen years ago, when Evi Oliver had been a first-year medical student at St John’s College, shiny-haired and sound of limb, five students had taken their own lives.

Evi, in her consulting room at the SCS offices, sat back, her left hand going automatically down to her thigh to try to massage away some of the ache there. She remembered one of them, the one Nick had mentioned on Wednesday evening, a boy who’d jumped off the tower of one of the older churches. The area at its base had been closed off for over twenty-four hours and then strewn with cheap flowers for days afterwards. And now she’d learned about four others, none of whom she could remember. Maybe such things had been hushed up in those days. She went back to the stats on the screen.

Nothing else remarkable at all. One suicide in a year, two suicides, none at all some years. Absolutely what you might expect. Except for the blip when she’d been an undergraduate and what was happening now, Cambridge’s record on student deaths was bang on normal.

With one eye on the clock, knowing she had a departmental meeting in fifteen minutes, Evi accessed the archived site of the university newspaper. She entered suicide into the search facility and a few moments later had details of the five young people who’d died in her first year.

Four boys, one girl. One jumper, one wrist-slasher, three overdosers. Three of them had been medical students, one in his second year (jumper) and two in their first (wrist-slasher and overdoser). Evi looked at the clock again and picked up the phone.

‘I ran a check on your friend Nick Bell,’ said Joesbury, as they reached the A1.

‘Anything?’ asked Lacey, her head flicking in his direction just a fraction faster than he would have liked.

‘Clean as a whistle, but we’ll keep an eye on him.’

‘I could accidentally bump into him. Try to get to know him a bit better?’

She was winding him up. At least he hoped she was. ‘Keep your mind on the job, Flint. You can resume your unusual love life when we pull you off the case.’

She didn’t reply. When he glanced over she was staring straight ahead, pink-painted lips pursed just a fraction. Sulking. He hadn’t realized how plump her lower lip was.

‘We can also get someone into the practice he works for to check out his computers,’ Joesbury said, bringing his eyes firmly back on to the road. ‘If he’s been on any dodgy internet sites we’ll soon know about it.’ She was still staring at the dashboard. ‘It’ll take a week or so to sort out.’

‘How?’ She’d turned to look at him again. ‘You can’t just turn up on someone’s doorstep and ask to inspect their hard drive.’

On the radio, Michael Bublé began to sing about how it was a new dawn and a new day. Not his favourite cover but a good song. Joesbury reached forward to turn the volume up a tad. And was he going to let that last one go? Probably better if he did.

‘First of all we send ’em a hard-to-trace virus,’ he said. ‘Just enough to toss a few gremlins into the system. Then we reroute their telephone calls out of the building to pick up the one to their IT support when they call for help. We send someone along that afternoon.’

‘That’s sneaky.’

‘You did look up the dictionary definition of covert operations before you took this job, didn’t you, Flint?’

She gave a soft exhalation that might even have been something approaching a giggle and he was getting that feeling again. The one he always had when he was with her, even when the biggest load of shit ever was being fanned in all directions. The one that told him there was nowhere else in the whole world he’d rather be.

‘Meg, did I wake you?’

Silence on the other end of the line. Then the sound of fabric moving together. Something creaking, and, possibly, a yawn. Meg was still in bed.

‘Nope, wide awake,’ she replied, in her usual gravelly early-morning smoker’s voice. ‘Just not completely alert. It’s my day off and I’ve not had my caffeine fix yet. What’s up, Evi?’

‘Sorry, I didn’t realize. I can call you next week.’

More sounds of sliding fabric, a tiny grunt. ‘No, go on.’

Evi named the year both women had been students at St John’s, Evi in her first year, Megan in her third. ‘Five suicides,’ she said. ‘Only time other than the last five years when anything out of the ordinary in that respect has happened here. You mentioned it the other day. How much do you remember?’

Silence for a second, while Megan was thinking, and pushing herself up in the bed.

‘Not a lot, to be honest,’ she said after a moment. ‘But Evi, fifteen years ago, it was very early days for the internet. The sort of online bullying and goading you’ve been talking about wouldn’t have had a chance to get going. I don’t see how it can be relevant.’

She had a point. ‘That’s true.’

A small sigh. ‘Look, Evi, I’m really not sure this is what should be occupying your head right now. You’re far from well yourself. Let me pass this on to John. His team can follow it up if they think it’s important.’

Something in Megan’s voice suggested she found that last idea amusing. ‘Is he there?’ asked Evi.

Pause. ‘Might be,’ said Meg, with a definite smile in her voice.

‘OK, OK, I’m out of your hair. Enjoy the rest of your day, Meg.’

‘I’ll let you ladies chat,’ said Joesbury, walking to a dining table at the far side of the room and pulling out one of the chairs. Earlier he’d bought a copy of the Daily Mirror . He turned to the sports pages and dropped his head into his fingers. Now he had a good view of the two women, and would look like he was reading.

Danielle Brown was a mess. No other way of putting it, really. At twenty-five, she could have been a decade older. She was about four stone overweight, riddled with acne and scratched herself constantly. An hour and a half earlier, he and Flint had arrived at the small solicitors’ office where she worked as a legal clerk. They’d introduced themselves and asked to talk to her during her lunch break. She’d agreed willingly enough, almost seemed to welcome the unexpected attention. At one p.m., they’d driven her to the house on the outskirts of town where she lived with her parents.

The house was a big 1930s semi, with large rooms, high ceilings and art deco-style windows. The massive open-plan living room (two rooms knocked through) was full of photographs of Danielle as a schoolgirl and a young student. She’d been slim and athletic, with long, glossy brown hair. The hair was short now, cut for ease of care rather than to flatter. She could have been a different woman.