‘Professor Patel has kindly agreed to give us the last part of your lecture time to talk about the recent murders that you will no doubt have seen on the Internet.’ He waited until the noise had died down. ‘Nobody here is being accused of anything – far from it. What I need is your help and expertise in an area about which we know very little; can you tell us anything about these murders, or about anyone who may have been behaving a little oddly recently?’
He stared around the room and Amber instinctively shrank down into her seat. ‘Oh my God,’ she whispered to Scarlett. ‘What do we do?’
‘They don’t know anything, they’re just asking questions. Stay cool and tell them you don’t know anything.’
Scarlett took Amber’s hand and squeezed it. ‘It’ll be all right,’ she whispered. ‘Stay strong. Remember where we were and who we were with. Tell them nothing else. You know nothing else.’ I’m glad Jay isn’t here, she thought. I’m not sure what would happen. She held on to that thought. She’d see him later, talk to him.
The main policeman continued. ‘So, there are twenty-four of you, and we’re going to split you into three groups. As soon as we have finished you are free to go. It shouldn’t take long.’ He glanced at the piece of paper he was holding. ‘We’ll do it alphabetically, by surname. If you are A to G, please make your way to the front of the room, with DC Foster.’
Scarlett and Amber were with DC Singh. ‘She doesn’t look too scary,’ said Amber.
They stood up. ‘I’m going to channel that obnoxious whiny girl in my philosophy class,’ said Scarlett. ‘That should put PC Plodess off the scent.’
* * *
Lizzie waited in the top corner of the lecture theatre for the last two of her little group to come and be interviewed. She noticed that they’d held back until the end, and positioned herself so she could get out and give chase if they ran for it. After some intense whispered chat, though, they sat and waited in line.
She smiled at the first one. ‘Please, take a seat, this won’t take long. Your name is?’
‘Scarlett Moorcroft.’ Scarlett was a large, young woman, with dark hair and make-up and black clothes. Bit retro, Lizzie thought. ‘Scarlett, we’re trying to establish any connection between your course on cults, and the murders that you’ve probably heard about. Can you help us with that?’ Lizzie watched the girl’s face closely. ‘For example, are any of your fellow students a bit too interested in how these things work? Anyone you’re a bit worried about? Behaving oddly? That kind of thing.’
Scarlett stared off into the space over Lizzie’s left shoulder, then shook her head. ‘Not that I can think of,’ she said slowly. ‘Well, apart from the usual loonies that you get at uni, of course. But they get everywhere.’ She gave a little laugh and twirled a strand of black hair around her finger.
The girl’s voice was at odds with her size, clothes and demeanour, Lizzie noted. She was all breathy, and high-pitched like a child, and that set up a disconnect that made her suspicious in a way she hadn’t been with the other six people she’d interviewed. Scarlett opened her eyes very wide and mentioned the name of a girl Lizzie had already spoken to.
‘Oh! I shouldn’t say anything, she’s just a bit weird, really,’ she said, and giggled again. ‘Not that I think she could set fire to someone, of course, but she does like the occult.’ She sat back in her chair and continued to twirl her hair.
‘And where were you on Halloween and Bonfire night?’
‘I was with a group of friends at the organised firework display in Lyme Regis, and on Halloween, I just went to the uni bar with a group of the girls from the house.’
That seemed very easy, almost rehearsed. ‘You seem to be very confident about where you were. Could other people confirm that?’
Scarlett gave the little laugh again. ‘Oh, you can ask any of my friends, we were together all night.’
‘And you didn’t hear anything about a rather different type of fire from any of these friends?’
‘No. If that’s all?’ she said, and gathered her bag and coat from the floor.
Lizzie checked that the contact details she had were correct and let her go. That one was definitely worth following up. Cocky, she was, and a bit odd.
Amber Northrop took the seat vacated by her friend, and Lizzie watched the closeness between the pair as they passed each other. All her spider senses were tingling. These two knew something. Amber was a shorter, podgier copy of her friend.
‘Amber, is there anything you can tell me about the Fire Goddess website? Anything you have noticed about the other students? Any of them particularly interested in fire, for example?’
‘I have no idea, I’m sorry. I only took this course because my friend was doing it. It’s interesting, finding out about all this weird stuff, but it’s not my thing.’
‘Which friend? Scarlett?’
The girl blushed. ‘Err … yes, Scarlett. We share a house, that’s how we got to know each other.’
‘So, you can’t think of anyone who might be able to help us with our enquiries?’
‘No.’
‘That didn’t take you long to think about. I would have thought this sort of course might attract people with a slightly different outlook on life? Your friend suggested someone we could talk to.’
‘She did?’ Amber looked surprised. ‘Right. Well, I have no idea about anyone. I don’t really know them.’
‘Where were you on Halloween and Bonfire night?’ Lizzie was unsurprised when the girl gave the exact same answer as Scarlett. She checked her details and let her go.
While she waited for the others to finish, she rang the station and asked for a check on both names, but, as she expected, they had no criminal record of any kind. So what was it? The alibis, easily tripping off the tongue; the whispered conversation before the interviews? Yes, all of that. She tapped her pen on her teeth impatiently and willed Adam to hurry up.
Dan walked up the steps and sat beside her on the back row. ‘Anything?’
‘Yes, I think so.’ She gave him the girls’ details. ‘I’d bet my lunch that these two are hiding something. Just something about their cockiness, and lack of interest in what’s been happening. Neither of them asked a single question about the murders. I dunno, gut feeling I guess you’d call it.’
‘Well, we’ve trusted your gut feelings before, so we’ll follow that up later. I had one missing, a Jay Vine. One of the students says he’s ill, you should follow him up later, too.’ He passed over the student’s details then stared down the theatre at Adam, still chatting away. ‘How’s he doing?’
Lizzie had been dreading the question. Much as she wanted to drop the idiot in it, she just couldn’t. ‘Oh, you know, sir, he’s Adam. About as sensitive as the chair I’m sitting on, and still like a bull in a china shop, but he’ll get there, eventually.’
‘You’re doing a good job from what I hear from Sergeant Ellis, but, you know, we’re not running a charity. If he can’t cut it as a detective, he has to go back into the pond and that’s all there is to it. I’ll put him in his first post-mortem with victim two this afternoon. That should clear matters up a bit. See if he’s up to the job.’ He grinned. ‘Do you remember your first one?’
Lizzie studied her pen. ‘I haven’t been in one, except during training. I think Sergeant Larcombe’s protecting me.’
‘Is that right? Well, brace yourself, when there’s another one, you’re going in.’
Below them, Foster started on his last interview. ‘I think his review comes up in January, or thereabouts; I’ll expect a report in by then.’
Lizzie’s face dropped. ‘I know, thanks for reminding me and ruining Christmas.’
Dan laughed. ‘Cheer up, we may have a lead with these two girls you interviewed.’ He scanned the almost empty room and watched the professor wringing his hands and fidgeting with the projector. ‘The professor’s really jumpy. Could his students really have concocted a series of murders? Can’t see it myself.’
‘Are you fancying the prof for it?’
Dan smiled. ‘Doesn’t seem very likely, I know, but my own gut feeling was all over him. He’s scared.’ Dan scanned the list the professor’s secretary had passed to him. It looked like they had seen all of the students except Vine. It was still very cloudy in his mind, but there was something here with these kids, he just knew it. Hellier’s psychic sleuthing: rates to suit all wallets …
Lizzie clapped her hands together. ‘Great. I love it when we start to break open people’s grubby secrets.’ Then she gave a little cheer. ‘Yay, Adam’s finished at last. Can we have some lunch, I’m starved?’
20
Jay sat on the floor in the corner of his room, out of sight of the window. He’d hidden out all day, avoiding lectures, waiting for the cover of night to make his move. If he could just get away before all this blew up, he’d be okay. He would get his passport from his parents’ house and disappear. Plenty of people did that every year. He’d blocked the door with his chair and abandoned his phone on the bed. He was writing a note, to explain to his flatmates that he’d gone home to stay with his parents because he was feeling ill, when the front door to the shared flat reverberated to the hammering of a fist.
‘Open up, Jay, let us in. We just need to talk mate, that’s all. Get this all sorted, yeah?’ There was more banging. ‘Come on, mate. We know you’re in there. Let us in. There’s people giving us funny looks out here.’
Jay recognised Kegan’s voice; he assumed the other person would be Tana. He didn’t for a minute imagine that talking was what they had in mind. At best, it was a warning. At worst? He’d known they would come. He punched himself in the side of the head, eyes watering at the shock of the blow. Too slow. Always too slow, Jay. Stupid, stupid, stupid. He swung over onto all fours, wiped his sweating palms on his jeans, and looked round for some means of escape. On the bed, his army surplus kitbag was packed, ready for the train to Bodmin. A sob escaped before he could stop it. His time at Exeter had been fantastic for two years, and now, here he was, almost finished, about to walk away with nothing except, when it all went tits up, a life sentence for accessory to murder. Two murders. He banged his head back against the wall, hard. What had he been thinking when Tana approached him? What had they all been thinking?
Kegan stopped banging on the door. Jay listened to the silence and counted enough steps until he thought they would be round the back of the house. It was what he would do: break in at the back where it was quiet. He crept to the door of his room, removed the chair, and opened it. Nothing. They hadn’t broken in yet. Quietly, he edged towards the front door. His only plan was to get the door open and run as fast as he could until he lost them.
He cracked open the front door and was bundled instantly back against the hall wall before he could utter a word. Kegan shuffled Jay along the wall and into the small bedroom, held his arm across Jay’s neck, and punched him hard in the stomach. Jay vomited bile, and the rank smell of old coffee, all over Kegan’s trainers.
‘Not that clever after all, Jay,’ Tana said, and stepped around the vomit into his room. Kegan pushed Jay after her and ripped the kitbag out of his hand.
‘Planning a holiday?’ Tana asked, pleasantly.
Jay said nothing. He didn’t think it mattered what he said. He would agree with everything she asked and run away as soon as she’d left. If he still could. He needed to get home, and then keep running.
Tana perched on the end of the bed. Kegan sat Jay down hard in the single chair, and stood behind him, blocking the door.
‘So, Jay,’ she began, ‘are you running out on us before the great work is finished, little man?’
‘I just need a break,’ said Jay, striving for a normal tone, not the terrified squeak that came out. ‘I was only going to my parents for a couple of days, honest. I will be back for the next … the next one. I’m sick, you can see that I’m sick.’ He tried to twist round to look at Kegan, his eyes swivelling wildly. ‘Sorry about your trainers, mate. I’ll pay for a new pair, no worries.’ Aware he was babbling, Jay put his fist into his mouth and bit down on it.
Tana frowned at him. ‘But I need to know that you are loyal to us, Jay. We can’t afford a weak link at this stage, when it is all nearly complete. You get that, don’t you?’
He nodded, over and over. ‘Yes, I do get it. It’s fine, you can trust me, Tana, I won’t tell anybody.’
His phone rang, loud in the silence. Tana picked it up and looked at the screen.
‘It's Scarlett, answer it. Put it on speakerphone.’
Jay answered the call. ‘Scarlett? What do you want? I’m not well.’
‘At least you answered at last, I’ve been trying to call you for the last two hours. The police have been in to uni. Came in to our lecture with Patel and interviewed us.’
Tana and Kegan locked eyes. She shoved Jay in the shoulder to make him respond.
‘Right … What did you say?’
‘I don’t think they suspected us. We were cool. My one was a bit dim I reckon. Anyway, they’ll probably be coming to see you, so be ready, okay?’
‘Okay. Thanks Scarlett. I’ve got to go now.’
‘No probs, hope you feel better soon.’
Jay put the phone back on the bed and stared at Tana. ‘Now what? They found us, like I knew they would.’ He slumped under Kegan’s hands. There didn’t seem much point in resisting any more.
Tana sat very still. The only colour in her white face came from the usual two red spots on her cheeks. She looked up at Kegan and nodded. ‘There is only one thing we can do, Jay, and that is to make it safe for us.’ Tana took latex gloves from her bag and handed a pair to Kegan.
Jay panicked. As soon as Kegan removed his hands from his shoulders, Jay made a dive for the door. He almost made the handle before Kegan’s fist connected with his temple and splayed him out on the floor.
‘What shall we do with him?’ Kegan asked. ‘He’s gone to pieces.’
Tana shrugged. ‘As I said before: he’s depressed. Everybody says so. Let’s do it.’
‘Jesus, Tana, I was hoping we could just have a word with him – threaten him a bit.’ Kegan rolled Jay onto his back. ‘He’s one of us.’
‘I think things have gone too far for that. He’ll blab to his parents or the police, and then where would we be? No, this is the safest way for all of us.’ She dug into her bag and brought out a bottle of whisky and three packets of paracetamol. ‘On his empty stomach, these should get to work quickly. Go find me a jug or something.’
Kegan slipped out and into the kitchen down the hall. He found a jug and took it back to the bedroom. ‘We’ve not got long,’ he said. ‘The other students will be back soon.’
‘Let’s get on with it, then.’ She crushed the tablets as best she could with the bottom of Jay’s boot on the fake wood floor, and added them, along with the whisky, to the jug. She gave the mixture a swirl with her finger.
Kegan propped Jay against the wall and shook him until he came round. ‘Here, drink this,’ he said, and held Jay’s nose closed and his mouth open as the boy spluttered and choked a little of the mixture down, and then coughed it back up again, eyes wide and rolling.
‘Careful, eejit, he needs to take most of it if it’s going to work.’ Tana held the jug and poured, while Jay used every ounce of strength to wriggle free from the strong arms of Kegan.
But, no matter how much he flailed and fought, he began to slide into sleep as he took more of the mixture. Soon he would swallow enough for the drugs to do their job. Against all his instincts, he let eyes roll back into his head, stopped fighting Kegan, and fought for control of his breathing instead. Kegan let him slide to the floor. ‘He’s unconscious,’ he said, and felt the boy’s neck. ‘Pulse has slowed down a bit.’
Tana judged the remains in the jug. ‘I hope that was enough to do the job. Let’s get out,’ she said, ‘before anybody comes.’ She gathered her bag, crushed Jay’s phone under her heel, and shut the door behi
nd them.
Stillness crept into the room, interrupted by irregular breathing and snuffling from the floor. Jay, almost too terrified to show he was still conscious, made the move that would save his life. He rolled over onto his stomach, stuck two fingers down his throat, and vomited until there was nothing left to bring up. On his hands and knees, he stared at the mess. Had he got most of it out?
He staggered to the bathroom and cleaned himself up under the tap, scrubbing at his hair and face until they felt raw. He set his mouth into a straight line. Try to kill him, would they? They should have made a better job of it. The bravado lasted a few seconds before it dissolved into tears in the bathroom mirror. Run …
He drank as much water as he could get down and ate some stale bread. Run … Clearly, they knew nothing about the mechanics of death by pills and whisky, otherwise they’d have hung around a bit longer to check him out. Unlike Jay, who had attended his elder brother’s funeral for the very same reason, and had looked at suicide sites on the Internet, obsessively, for many months after his brother had died. Run … A pillow across his face would have sorted him out quickly enough – if they’d had the wit. He suppressed a shudder at what it would have done to his parents if Tana had succeeded, and then remembered that whatever happened, he had already broken their hearts.
He ran away, into the afternoon gloom, to catch the train to Bodmin.
21
Lizzie Singh faced the boy, whose name was Luke, on the doorstep of the flat that Jay Vine shared with several other final year students. He didn’t want to let her in to see Jay’s room, that much was clear. Sam Knowles stood behind her, hands on hips, enjoying being out of the office for once.
‘Look,’ Luke said, ‘I've banged on the door and there’s no answer. The guy’s not there, okay? I can’t just let you in because you want to go in, can I? Be reasonable. As if I’m gonna let the fuzz just wander in. It’s like letting vampires over your doorstep: you just don’t do that. Okay?’ he said, and attempted to close the door in her face.
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