by Ellis, Tim
‘You’re wasting your time with Bradley McNulty,’ Mr Cowan said, as he ushered them in. ‘He’s a train wreck looking for a place to happen.’
Xena looked around at the battered chairs and tables, the graffiti and the other pieces of broken and battered furniture. ‘I think the train wreck happened in here.’
Cowan gave a laugh. ‘It’s called free expression.’
‘If you say so.’
‘Dr Wismer warned me you were on your way.’ He pointed to two chairs still in one piece in front of his desk. ‘I have a free period now. She said you wanted to talk about Clarice Kennedy?’
‘Yes.’
‘One of my best students. She was beautiful, talented and destined for greater things.’
‘Any enemies?’
He shook his head. ‘Everybody loved her.’
‘Maybe that was the problem,’ Xena said. ‘Did anything unusual happen in the weeks prior to her disappearance.’
‘No. The students had done their exams, we were winding down for the year and preparing a show for the awards evening. Everything was . . . well, normal. Clarice was in the thick of things as usual . . . until she went missing of course, and then there was a hole in our lives that seemed impossible to fill.’
‘Did she have any close friends?’
‘Alicia Love.’
‘Do you know if she’s about today?’
He looked at his watch. ‘You’ll probably catch her in the cafeteria at this time. I’ll come with you and point her out. I could do with something to eat anyway.’
‘One last thing. Do you have any students called Carl?’
He opened up the attendance record on his desk and skimmed through the names of the students in each of his classes. ‘No – no Carl.’
‘Is there anybody called Carl at the college?’
‘Students?’
‘Anybody?’
‘Well, I don’t know the names of all the students, but there’s a member of the teaching staff called Carl Jansen – he teaches Art & Design.’
‘Would Clarice have come into contact with him?’
‘Officially she hadn’t signed up for Art & Design, but she wanted to enhance her portfolio. I remember, she’d been so excited when she realised that there was a lot more to dance and drama than merely dance and drama. She’d gone along to a couple of his classes to learn about puppetry, masks, face art, backdrops, pantomime, mime, costumes and so on. ’
Xena glanced at Stick. ‘Did she now?’
‘Yes, and there’s also Carl Stoichkov – he’s one of our three caretakers. Came from Bulgaria about four months ago. His English isn’t up to much, but it’s enough to get by.’
‘Would he have known Clarice?’
‘I would say so. When we’re running a production, the caretakers help with the heavy lifting, setting up the chairs, the props, the hall and so on. Clarice always got involved. Not just as a cast member, but in all the other aspects of the production as well – planning and preparation, auditions, advertising, song choice, music . . . you name it, she wanted to get involved – I miss her. She made my job that much more worthwhile. Sometimes, a teacher finds that one student . . .’
‘I’m sure. I’d be grateful if you could keep this conversation to yourself.’
‘Of course.’
They followed Neil Cowan to the cafeteria, which had been designed like an American diner. He pointed out Alicia Love and then left them to it.
‘Alicia?’ Xena said, standing at the end of the booth she was sitting in with four of her friends.
‘Yes.’
Stick showed his warrant card. ‘We’re police officers. We’d like to talk to you about Clarice.’
‘Okay.’
Xena eyed the other girls in the booth. ‘That means you lot can find somewhere else to sit.’
Mumbling to each other, they wriggled out of the red plastic seats and moved to a table close by.
Stick went to sit down.
‘What are you doing?’ Xena said.
‘Sitting down.’
‘I’d like a ham and cheese panini and a pot of tea.’
‘Oh, all right.’
‘Do you want anything?’ she asked Alicia.
‘Coffee – Americana – large.’
She turned back to Stick. ‘Got that?’
‘I think so.’
‘And get yourself a lemonade if you want.’
‘Too kind,’ Stick said, and wandered off towards the counter.
‘Tell me about Carl?’ she said to Alicia.
‘Who?’
‘Clarice is dead, Alicia. Keeping secrets doesn’t matter anymore.’
Tears jumped into her eyes. ‘I know. I thought maybe . . . I don’t know. Maybe she’d still be alive, and . . .’
Xena reached across the table and put her hands over Alicia’s, but she didn’t say anything. What could she say? She couldn’t tell her that her best friend Clarice had been raped, sodomised and tortured over a number of weeks; that her death had been an unimaginable nightmare; that she’d been dumped in Nine Acre Wood like a piece of rubbish – no, she couldn’t tell Alicia any of that.
Stick returned with the food and drink on a tray, and passed it out like a waiter at the Ritz.
‘Just in time,’ Xena said. ‘I was about to keel over from lack of sustenance.’ She took a bite of the ham and cheese panini. ‘It’s cold.’
‘Well, they heated it up.’
‘Not very well.’ She took another bite.
‘Is the coffee okay?’ he asked Alicia.
‘Coffee’s coffee. I shouldn’t drink so much of it really, it makes me hyper.’
‘Hyper what?’
‘Hyperactive.’
‘Oh yeah.’
‘Take no notice of numpty. So, you were telling me about Carl?’
‘I told her she was a fool. She could have had any man she wanted. Instead, she fell for someone who was older than her.’
‘Who?’
‘I don’t know.’
Xena pulled a face and sighed. ‘You were her best friend.’
‘I know, but she wouldn’t tell me. We had a massive argument about it the day before she disappeared. She’d been seeing him for three months and we were drifting apart. We both said some awful things we didn’t mean – I feel terrible.’
‘As I said before – none of that matters now. She won’t be lounging about in heaven eating Ryvita crackers with Philadelphia cheese spread and thinking about the argument you had, she’ll be really happy that she had such a good friend as you.’
‘Do you really think so?’
‘Positive. In the end, only the good bits mean anything.’
‘We had lots of good bits . . . before he came along.’
‘Was it someone in the college?’
‘I just don’t know. She said that if she told anybody it would ruin everything.’
‘Why?’
Alicia shrugged. ‘I tried guessing who he was, but she wouldn’t play the game with me.’
‘She gave you no clues as to his identity?’
‘I know I shouldn’t have done, and I know it’s something a best friend ought never to have done, but I was worried about her. You can understand that, can’t you?’
‘Of course, and as it turned out you had every right to be worried about her.’
‘A couple of weeks before she disappeared I followed her. We both had a double free on a Friday that ran into lunch, and we usually studied together during that time, but she said she had to go somewhere.’
‘Where?’
‘She wouldn’t tell me, so I followed her. She went out of the college, but because I couldn’t stay too close to her, I soon lost her.’
‘So, you think Carl was someone outside the college?’
‘No, I’m not saying that. If she was seeing someone in the college she wouldn’t have met them here anyway. Remember, she wanted to keep him secret from everyone – including me, her best friend. I did
wonder if it was someone here, but if it was, then they left separately and met somewhere else – like a flat, a hotel room or something like that.’
Xena squeezed her hand. ‘You did the right thing telling us, Alicia.’
‘There’s something else as well.’
‘What?’
‘I’m not sure “Carl” was his real name.’
Xena glanced at Stick. Just when they could see some light at the end of the tunnel . . . ‘What makes you say that?’
‘If she wanted to keep him a secret, why call him by his real name? You look at her college notebooks. There was no “C” in the initials she scribbled intertwined with hers in the little hearts.’
‘You’ve been a great help, Alicia,’ Xena said, shouldering Stick out of the booth. ‘. . . And a great friend to Clarice.’
‘I hope so, and I hope you find who killed her.’
‘We’ll do our very best.’
They collected the staff list from the woman at reception, and as they made their way across the car park Stick said, ‘Pardon me for saying so, but you were unusually empathetic in there.’
‘Are you suggesting that I’m not normally empathetic?’
‘I never would.’
***
‘Long time,’ Bronwyn said.
‘Ray told me what you did.’
‘He’s a blabbermouth.’
‘Thanks.’
‘I’m choking up. How are you, anyway?’
‘Much better than I was. Thanks for visiting me in the hospital.’
‘I had nothing else better to do.’
She’d tried going it alone – it hadn’t been much of a success, so she’d moved into a squat on Oakeshott Avenue in Highgate, overlooking the cemetery. She reasoned that if the bastards from the government were going to kill her anyway, then she was in the right place for them to easily dispose of her body.
With people around her, who had no axe to grind, she felt a certain comfort. There were four others in the Victorian house – Hawk, Yoda, Sushi and Poo. Like her, they were living on the edge of a society that simply didn’t give a shit, and that suited her just fine. Nobody knew her, and she didn’t know anybody else. To them she was Bronwyn, they didn’t need to know her real name, or that she now had identity documents stating that she was Jessie Gibbs – it was nobody’s business but her own.
She’d been keeping a low profile as well, except for that one time she’d gone back to Baffin Road in Epping to visit Honey Hunt-Davis at number five. It was the middle of the night and the house was empty. It appeared as though it hadn’t been lived in for some time. Honey had been one of them, and it had made her realise that she just couldn’t trust anybody.
She had her own room in the squat. The shower was separate from the bathroom, so she didn’t have to get out of the water dripping wet and naked to let people in to pee. Although, she was sure Shrek had done it on purpose so that he could get an eyeful of her.
‘I need your help,’ Jerry said.
‘That goes without saying.’
‘Have you heard of Manning Naseby?’
‘I’ve been vaguely interested in the trial.’
‘His barrister is going to get him off.’
‘What’s that to you?’
‘Well, nothing really. Except that I don’t like to see the guilty get off.’
‘If his barrister is going to get him off, then that would indicate he’s innocent, doesn’t it?’
‘No.’
‘How could you possibly know whether he’s innocent or guilty?’
‘I’m in the courtroom. I saw something in his eyes. I’m sure he killed his wife. She deserves justice.’
‘And let me guess – we’re going to get it for her?’
‘You’ll help me?’
‘You remember I don’t work for free, or come cheap, don’t you?’
‘What about pro bono?’
‘That falls under the first category. If you want the best, you have to pay for her. So, if he’s guilty, how come his barrister is going to get him off?’
‘The police have made a right pig’s ear of the case.’
‘That doesn’t surprise me. So, you want me to find the evidence that the police couldn’t find?’
‘Yes, but you need to do it before the jury retire to consider what little evidence there is on Friday, which should take them all of five minutes.’
‘Let’s say I find something that proves he murdered his wife, what are you going to do with it?’
‘I’m not going to do anything with it. You have to send what you find to Martin Dryden at the Crown Prosecution Service.’
‘I must be mad.’
Jerry gave a strangled laugh. ‘Welcome to the party.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Don’t be. Well?’
‘What if I discover that he didn’t kill his wife?’
‘Then it won’t matter because he’s going to get off anyway.’
‘I’ll see what I can find out.’
‘Do you want the details?’
‘I think I’ll get by . . . Hey?’
‘Yes?’
‘I’m glad you made it through the tunnel.’
‘Thanks.’
She ended the call.
The wonders of the world never ceased to amaze and astound her! Earlier, when she’d been reading about the case online, she was also wondering who the mystery lover was, and why no one could find him. It sounded like the beginning of the film The Fugitive, but if Naseby was Dr Richard Kimble, who the fuck was she?
Chapter Fourteen
‘Are you positive it’s my turn to pay?’ Parish said to Doc Riley.
‘Definitely.’
He glared at Richards. ‘Mark it down in your notebook, and don’t lose it this time.’
‘I didn’t lose it last time.’
They were standing in the slow-moving queue in the hospital cafeteria. An obese woman with three toddlers and a baby in a pushchair was complaining about the attitude of one of the catering staff, while those directly behind her were jeering and telling her to move out of the way. She decided that she wanted to see the hospital’s Chief Executive and promptly sat down on the floor. The children began screaming and wailing, security were called and it all got very messy as they dragged the family out.
‘Do you think we should get involved?’ Richards said.
‘You can if you want to, but leave me out of it.’
‘And me,’ Doc Riley added.
Eventually, they reached the till and Parish paid. Richards and Doc Riley had the Bacon and Raclette Rösti, while he ordered the Chicken Schnitzel. By the time they’d helped themselves to pastries and drinks he didn’t get much change from thirty pounds.
‘Daylight robbery,’ he mumbled, as they found a table to sit at.
‘I don’t think you’d have any trouble playing Scrooge in the Christmas pantomime,’ Richards said, taking a sip of her bottled water.
‘Is that right?’
‘Yes, that’s right. What do you think, Doc?’
‘There’s definitely a resemblance.’
‘Enough about my finer qualities. Have you got anything for us, Doc?’
She slid a folder across the table. ‘The post mortem report is in there. In summary, there’s not much new. No sexual assault. We found small deposits of an unknown DNA around the mouth and nose, but there’s no match on the database. We did match it to the samples Dr Toadstone found on the rake, the paper and the wire, but that doesn’t help us identify the killer. Between us, we have enough DNA evidence to convict the killer – you just have to find him or her.’
‘Easier said than done,’ Parish said, taking a swallow of coffee to wash down a mishmash of chicken schnitzel, chips and coleslaw. ‘At the moment, we have nothing.’
‘You’ll still have nothing once you leave here. If you hadn’t called me earlier I could have told you about the paralytic Fentanyl, but you’ve had that already. No change to the time of death �
� between three forty-five and four forty-five. No change to the cause of death – suffocation.’
‘You made us come all this way to tell us you had nothing?’
‘You were paying for lunch, I wasn’t going to jeopardise a free lunch.’
‘There’s no such thing as a free lunch.’
Doc Riley smiled. ‘Yes there is. I just had one.’
‘I didn’t realise you were so desperate, Doc.’
‘Well, there you have it. A free lunch with two police detectives is the extent of my busy social life.’
Richards pulled a face. ‘I know what you mean.’
‘There’s something wrong with the world when an attractive young woman can’t get a man to take her out for a meal . . .’
‘. . . Without them thinking it’s a down-payment for something else,’ Richards added.
‘Exactly,’ Doc Riley said. ‘There’s no such thing as a date anymore . . .’
‘. . . It’s a military operation.’
‘Exactly. We have to be on our guard all the time. Do you know that men think about sex every seven seconds . . . ?’
Parish stopped eating and said, ‘That’s a myth. A study was conducted by the Kinsey Institute at Ohio State University in 2011 for the Journal of Sex Research, and the median number men think about sex was nineteen times a day. Women thought about it ten times a day.’
‘That’s still double the number women think about it,’ Doc Riley said.
Richards stared at him, ‘I’m more interested in why you were reading the Journal of Sex Research.’
‘I’d expect nothing less from you, Richards. Where would I get a copy of that?’
‘That was going to be my next question.’
‘It was merely a titbit on the news that caught my attention.’
‘Really? Why was that?’
‘Focus on the investigation, not on my reading habits. What are we going to tell the Chief and the press this afternoon?’
‘Maybe Paul will find something,’ Richards said.
‘And maybe a sinkhole will appear and swallow us up before then.’
‘You have no suspects?’ Doc Riley asked.
Parish shook his head. ‘The cupboard is bare.’
‘We haven’t ruled out a man being the killer, but we definitely think it’s a woman,’ Richards said.