by Helen Cox
‘I’ve seen it this time, Kitt. Something really important,’ Ruby said, between huffs.
‘Course you have,’ said Michelle, her gorgon glare resurfacing.
‘Why don’t you sit down?’ Kitt said, indicating the chair in front of the desk. Ruby’s psychic predictions never came to anything, at least at no greater rate than the averages of probability, and did no real harm, but Kitt did worry about how excitable she got over them. Michelle probably wasn’t in favour of Ruby making herself comfortable, but it seemed kind to at least offer her a chair while she collected herself.
‘Not a second to waste, not a second to waste,’ said Ruby, though she slumped down in the seat anyway. ‘It’s about your future. Your very near future.’
Kitt looked at the old lady. Her short hair was dyed a diverting shade of orange, and clashed with the over sized magenta raincoat she had on. There was no telling what was going on underneath that raincoat either. Once, in the middle of June, Ruby had walked into the library dressed as one of Santa’s elves, and hadn’t feel the need to explain her sartorial choice to anyone. Entertaining as all this was, Kitt wasn’t convinced she wanted to hear Ruby’s version of her near future.
‘If it’s my near future, dear Ruby, then I’ll know about it soon enough,’ Kitt said, in the hope of calming the old woman down.
‘No, no,’ Ruby said, her green eyes bulging. ‘I saw them.’
‘Who?’ Kitt asked.
‘Police officers. Two. A man and a woman, they’re looking for you.’
Kitt’s head hopped back an inch. ‘Police officers? I don’t think . . .’
‘Er, Kitt . . .’ said Grace, who had just come back to pick up more books from the returns pile.
‘What?’ Kitt said, with a bit more snap in her tone than she intended.
‘Look,’ Grace replied.
Kitt followed the direction of Grace’s wide-eyed stare to see two suited strangers, a man and a woman, walking towards them with an air of brisk authority.
Two
‘Excuse me, ladies,’ said the male officer when he and his female counterpart reached the desk. His accent was local, but there were some unfamiliar edges to his words that Kitt couldn’t quite place. He paused, and as his gaze sauntered around the group, Kitt noticed his eyes were the same blue as the ocean on a stormy day, much darker than her own, which were best likened to blue topaz. He looked at Michelle, Grace, and Ruby in turn, before his eyes landed, and remained, on Kitt. He then adjusted his posture to stand a little taller, produced an identification card from his inside pocket, and held it up so everyone present could see. ‘I’m Detective Inspector Malcolm Halloran, and this is Detective Sergeant Charlotte Banks.’ The detective indicated his colleague, who lowered her head in a single, stiff nod. ‘We’re looking for Katherine Hartley.’
Rising from her chair, the librarian frowned at Grace. She could feel Michelle’s glare, but didn’t dare look in her direction.
‘Yes, that’s me,’ Kitt said. ‘Is everything all right?’ It was a silly question to ask, and she knew it. The police didn’t come looking for you when everything was all right, and in a split second her mind was working faster than her mouth. ‘Wait – are my family OK? It’s not Mam or Dad, is it? Or . . . not Rebecca?’
Rebecca was Kitt’s twin sister, a doctor who worked in a hospital up in Northumberland. The pair had always been close, but they’d never had the ‘twin thing’ where you’re supposed to feel something somewhere in your body if the other is in danger or sick or dying.
‘We’re not here about your family,’ said Halloran. His voice was deep but gentle, and he raised two firm-looking hands in the air to signal that Kitt should calm herself.
Placing her palm against her chest, Kitt closed her eyes for a moment.
‘Sorry,’ said Kitt. ‘I’m not in the habit of receiving police visits.’
Halloran didn’t quite smile, but pressed his lips together in acknowledgement. He looked again between Grace, Michelle, and Ruby’s open-mouthed faces. ‘Can we speak in private? It’s a . . . rather sensitive situation.’
That sounded ominous.
As a keen reader, Kitt was adept at deciphering the world around her. The sky, the rivers, the ragged faces of the aged, stone buildings that comprised the city of York. And, of course, she read people. But by their presentation, neither Halloran nor Banks offered any clues as to why they might want to speak with a university librarian.
Even in her heeled boots Banks didn’t reach shoulder-height on Halloran. She did, however, have the deportment to make up for it. Tight-postured and stern-jawed with her dark hair pulled into a businesslike twist, Banks had probably had to prove herself as hardy as her male colleagues once too often, and wasn’t difficult to decode.
Halloran’s face, however, was not an easy read, perhaps because it was part-obscured by a dark beard trimmed close to the skin. Like his hair, the beard was speckled with grey. His blue eyes stared into Kitt’s and her stomach tightened. For some reason she couldn’t quite put her finger on, it was difficult to hold his gaze, so she lowered her eyes to examine the precise knot at the top of his dark grey tie, the crispness of the white shirt, and the strong, sharp lines of his suit.
Detective Inspector – that was how he had introduced himself. A senior officer.
That meant whatever he wanted to talk to Kitt about was probably more serious than he was letting on in front of the chorus line of library regulars.
‘Excuse me, officers,’ Michelle said, interrupting Kitt’s analysis of these two unwelcome visitors. ‘But I manage floors one to three here at the library, can you tell me what this is about?’
‘I’m afraid it’s a matter I can only speak with Ms Hartley about,’ said Halloran.
Michelle’s face wrinkled around the eyes, and she turned on Kitt. ‘You better not be in any trouble here,’ she said. ‘The odd complaint about your sarcasm is one thing, but if you’re in trouble with the police, that’s cause for dismissal, you know. It won’t matter . . .’
From Kitt’s point of view, Michelle disappeared then and her voice trailed off to nothing. Inspector Halloran had taken it upon himself to stand between Kitt and her aggressor. She could now only see the back of his broad figure. She could, however, imagine the look of bewilderment on Michelle’s face as she heard the inspector say: ‘That’s quite enough. We’re here to speak to Ms Hartley and nothing more. Now if you don’t mind, we need to go about our business.’
‘Yes, of course,’ said Michelle, her voice smaller than Kitt had ever heard it. For all her huffing and puffing, Michelle never quite knew what to do when people stood up to her, which Kitt was just about to have done herself before the inspector stepped in.
Halloran turned back to Kitt. ‘So, is there a quiet room somewhere, Ms Hartley?’
‘Er, yes, somewhere private,’ said Kitt, meeting Halloran’s eyes again for a moment. ‘Grace, you don’t mind just looking after the desk for me, do you?’
‘No, don’t mind at all,’ Grace said, her tone a touch too casual given the intrigue of the predicament. Kitt was well-versed in the curious nature of her assistant. The second Michelle was out of sight she’d spend at least some of her time at the desk strategizing methods of getting close enough to the second-floor office to overhear what her boss and the police were talking about.
‘Told you, didn’t I?’ said Ruby, with a sly grin on her lips. ‘Ruby got it right this time. Saw it all coming.’
‘Yes,’ Kitt said, while Banks, who still hadn’t opened her mouth, raised an eyebrow at the old lady. ‘You predicted a visit from the police a whole thirty seconds ahead of time, a stunning demonstration of your prophetic abilities. There’s absolutely no way you could’ve heard them asking for me at reception on their way in, is there?’
Dipping her head, Ruby started fiddling with the toggles on her raincoat. ‘No . . .’
Kitt gave Ruby a grudging smile. As she did so, she sensed Halloran staring at her. He really was rather intense, but, Kitt reasoned, that was probably a CV-essential for a detective inspector. ‘Follow me, please,’ she said to the officers.
‘One of your mature students?’ Halloran asked, speeding up his own step to keep in time with the librarian, who only knew how to stand still or stride with purpose. There was no in-between.
Kitt glanced at the inspector out of the corner of her eye. So he really wasn’t going to give her any clue as to why he was here until they were locked away in a private room together? That was an incentive to quicken her pace if ever there was one.
‘Ruby? No,’ Kitt said, and, despite the potential seriousness of a police visit, let out an unexpected chuckle, a sure sign her hangover was lifting. Smashing news considering one needed a clear head to talk to the police about a ‘sensitive situation’. ‘The university is an open campus. Ruby’s our unofficial psychic-in-residence.’
‘Ruby? Not Ruby Barnett?’ asked Halloran.
‘Er, yes. I think that is her surname,’ Kitt said.
‘Ms Barnett has rung the station with predictions about missing persons cases a couple of times,’ Halloran explained.
‘I hope she hasn’t caused any trouble,’ said Kitt, resting a hand on the pewter handle of the office door. ‘She does get pretty over-excited when she thinks she’s onto something. If I’d known she might waste police time with her predictions, I’d have been firmer . . .’
‘You always get a series of calls on missing persons cases. People having a “feeling” about this or that. Some of them even pan out as viable leads,’ Halloran said, and then lowered his eyes to the ground. They seemed, all of a sudden, to be weighed down by a single thought too heavy to speak out loud.
‘What about Ruby’s suggestions?’ Kitt asked.
Halloran looked back up, examining Kitt’s face. ‘Sorry, I can’t discuss individual cases in detail, Ms Hartley.’
‘You terrible tease,’ Kitt said, raising an eyebrow at Banks in an attempt to include her in the moment, but the officer’s face registered no expression at all. There was something bothersome about the fact that Banks had remained so reticent. It was another clue, besides the seniority of Halloran, that whatever business brought the pair here was serious.
Clearing her throat, Kitt pushed open the door to the second-floor office and gestured to Banks, who strode in without a word.
Kitt looked again at Halloran, who stood opposite her in the doorway. ‘I could have handled my boss back there myself, you know, you didn’t need to step in,’ she said, already unsure why she’d bothered making such a point of it.
‘I’ve no doubt, but time is against us, and I thought the authority of the badge might offer a swifter resolution.’
The pair stared at each other.
‘Ahem.’ Banks cleared her throat, breaking the silence and prompting Kitt to wave Halloran into what was without question the most higgledy-piggledy office in the Vale of York University Library.
Possibly in the entire city.
It wasn’t the fault of the staff on that floor, the room was just an odd shape in comparison to those built on the other storeys, as though the builders had made some discrepancies in their measurements and tried to cover them up by creating an office with the most unusual combination of nooks and alcoves Kitt had ever seen. Still, at least it smelled homely, thanks to the almost constant brewing of fragrant fruit teas.
‘Do take a seat,’ Kitt said, pointing towards two shabby-looking floral armchairs. ‘Can I offer you a drink?’
‘No, thank you, Ms Hartley,’ said the inspector. ‘As I mentioned, time is not on our side, and I think it’s you who should take a seat. What we have to say might be hard to hear.’
Kitt sank slowly into the nearest armchair. A silence filled the room, so thick that Kitt found it difficult to breathe, and the strange turn this Monday morning had taken hit her hard. There was no distracting chitchat about aspiring elderly psychics now. Halloran closed the door after himself. She was trapped, alone, in a room with two police officers, with no idea what they were about to say.
Three
‘Given the urgency of the issue, I’m going to cut to the chase,’ said Halloran while Banks took a notebook and pen out of her pocket. She stood there in silence, poised to write.
‘Understood,’ Kitt said, wishing that whatever it was, the inspector would just be out with it.
Halloran stared at Kitt. Something tightened in her chest as he did so. He went to open his mouth, then closed it again.
‘Now this . . . this is a very serious business, and we’ll expect your full cooperation without question throughout.’
‘All right,’ Kitt said, trying not to let her body visibly sag at the anticlimax. The inspector’s version of cutting to the chase differed wildly from her own.
‘Can you tell us how you know Owen Hall?’ asked Halloran.
Kitt lowered her brow. ‘Evie’s ex-boyfriend?’
He was the reason the police were knocking on Kitt’s door?
‘So you know him?’ Halloran pushed.
‘I . . . well, Evie’s the best friend I have,’ Kitt said, wondering what Owen could have done to make the police take an interest in him. ‘But I don’t know Owen very well as a person, if that’s what you’re asking.’
‘They were together some time, from what we understand,’ said Halloran.
‘Almost two years,’ Kitt said with a grimace. Two years of watching Evie being underappreciated hadn’t been Kitt’s idea of fun.
‘And in that time, you didn’t get to know him well?’ Halloran asked.
‘When Owen and Evie were together he’d scuttle upstairs to his Xbox within about five minutes if I ever paid them a visit,’ Kitt explained. ‘I only spoke to him when we were out with a bigger crowd, and even then we didn’t have a lot to talk about. Think we once even resorted to talking about the curtains at the restaurant we were eating at.’
‘But Evie must have spoken to you about him, if you’re her friend?’ said Halloran.
‘It is possible to get her onto other subjects,’ said Kitt. ‘But not for long, especially since their break-up.’
‘And what can you tell us about that break-up?’ Halloran asked. Banks, who had been taking notes throughout this conversation, paused at this question and eyed the librarian with a ferocity that would have made a less strong-headed person shuffle in their seat.
‘Why do you need to know about Evie’s break-up?’ said Kitt.
‘It’s best you just tell us what you know.’ There was a commanding note in Halloran’s voice that invited compliance.
Kitt suppressed a sigh she was sure would come across as irritation. ‘Over the past few weeks she’s told me everything you’d want to know, and a lot you wouldn’t.’
‘Assume for now that every detail is important,’ said Halloran.
‘He broke up with her via Facebook Messenger while they were living together.’ Kitt shook her head, remembering the awful phone call she’d had with Evie just after she’d received that message. ‘What kind of person does that to somebody they’re living with? Especially after two years, when the relationship could definitely be described as serious. Poor Evie had started buying bridal magazines.’
Kitt expected some kind of reaction from the officers. Sympathy. Outrage. Maybe even commiseration, but both officers stood straight and still and silent, their expressions level.
The librarian tilted her head as she tried to read the room.
‘You already know all this, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ said Halloran. ‘But we needed to know what you know.’
Kitt’s eyes narrowed. ‘Wait a minute, what’s this about? Am I under suspicion for something?’
‘Not as such,’ said Halloran. ‘But please, do
n’t derail our inquiry with questions of your own. We need to be the ones asking the questions right now.’
‘I’ve no desire to hinder you,’ said Kitt, trying to keep the sting out of her voice despite the inspector’s rudeness whilst thinking back to some of the articles she’d read on the council’s website over the years, ‘but the police force is a service funded by all tax-paying community members, and I am such an individual. I have agreed to speak with you and assist you, but it’s only right I understand what these questions are in connection to.’
Halloran and Banks exchanged a look. Kitt wished for about the third time in the last minute that Banks would drop the silent act. She was helping them, after all; there was no reason to make this interaction more uncomfortable than it already was.
‘All right, you’re right,’ said Halloran, running his index finger and thumb along his eyebrows before looking again at Kitt. ‘But what I tell you isn’t to leave this room. The press will get to hear about this in due course, but we need to make sure that information about this incident is carefully controlled.’
‘I’ve no interest in becoming a YouTube sensation, I’ll be discreet.’
Halloran crossed his arms over his chest. ‘We’re investigating a murder.’
‘Murder?’ Kitt froze. Murders were rare in York. If somebody died in the city it was more often than not as the result of a terrible accident – an inebriated student who had gone wandering by the river and fallen to their death. That was about the worst headline any local newspaper ever had to run. ‘And Owen is . . . involved?’
‘He was . . . the victim, I’m afraid,’ Halloran said.
‘What?’ Kitt said, and her hand moved of its own accord to cover her mouth. ‘Owen is . . . dead?’
Halloran nodded.
‘But that’s . . . ridiculous.’
‘Ridiculous seems an odd choice of word,’ Halloran said with a frown.
‘Was it opportunistic? Was he mugged or something?’
‘No, quite the contrary,’ Halloran replied. ‘All evidence points to premeditation.’