Campus Killings

by Oliver Davies

  We were packing up to go when he leaned an elbow on the table and looked at me. “You know what I think, Darren?”

  I looked at him, unimpressed. “What do you think, Seton?”

  “I reckon you’re overthinking it. You want to impress your girl by bagging a big bad guy and playing the hero, right?” He leaned forwards, and the easy-going expression fell off his face, leaving him looking like a shark. “Sometimes girls just go missing, Darren,” he said coldly.

  My heart was pounding, and I couldn’t look away. Even his legal rep looked pale. Stephen had frozen beside me.

  “Sometimes they’re never found,” Will continue in that dead voice, his eyes locked with mine. “They’re not that important, really, are they? There are so many girls who think they’re special, that they’re going to cause waves. But no-one really misses them when they’re gone, or even notices. Not even you, Darren.” He leaned back, and his smiling mask fell back into place, all the creepier after seeing the soulless emptiness it covered. “But I wish you luck, Officers. Let me know if I can help in any way.”

  I felt sick and just turned around and left, leaving Stephen to grab the file and follow me out. As soon as I was through the door and out of Seton’s sight, I fell back against the wall and pressed a hand to my chest, which was painfully tight.

  “Mitchell?” Stephen hurried through the door and spotted me standing by the wall, trying to get breath into my lungs. He swore quietly. “Are you alright?”

  I really wasn’t. Seton was terrifying. He was worse than a shark. He didn’t care about killing because the look in his eyes said that he would not only tear you apart, but enjoy doing it.

  “Darren, breathe, okay? In and out.” Stephen was standing in front of me, his hand on my arm, and I hadn’t noticed him move. My hands felt numb and stinging, like they were buried in blocks of ice. “Deep breath for me,” Stephen coaxed. He was rubbing my shoulder, and I tried to focus on that and not the panic that was making me shiver. “That’s it, good. In and out. Steady, there, you’re alright.”

  My legs felt weak, and I propped myself up against the wall, finally managing to take full, gasping breaths of air.

  “Christ,” I muttered.

  Stephen grimaced. “I know.”

  “Did you hear him?” I said urgently. “All that about girls going missing-”

  “And them not being important?” Stephen finished. “Yeah, I heard.”

  “No,” I snapped. “About them going missing and us not noticing. No-one noticing. Get it?”

  Stephen frowned. “But we did notice,” he said. “He laid them right out- Oh hell.” Realisation dawned. “He’s saying there’s someone we didn’t find.”

  “Someone missing,” I agreed. “Not dead, missing. So they might still be alive.”

  Stephen spat out a curse, quiet and worried. “But he didn’t keep the others,” he pointed out. “They disappeared on the same night they were killed.”

  “He probably realised we were closing in,” I said. “So he kept someone.”

  “I feel sick,” Stephen muttered. “Are you sure? Are we sure? He might just be toying with us.”

  I winced. I was feeling stronger and stood up straight. “Aye, he might. It’s what he seems to be into, making people into puppets. Blackmailing Cal and arranging the dead-” My eyes widened.

  “What?” Stephen said sharply.

  “The scholarship!” I said, too loudly. “He arranged the women into their sports, right? And they had scholarships.”

  Stephen stared me like I’d lost it. “What are you talking about?”

  “He said he had a boxing scholarship. It wasn’t just that they’d gotten on the wrong side of him, but extreme misogyny too. He doesn’t think women are important, and yet they still had their scholarships even after-”

  “He got kicked out for bad behaviour, and had his scholarship stripped away.” Stephen nodded slowly.

  “He’d see it as being robbed of his future,” I said. “And he’s so damn angry that these women still have what he doesn’t.” I rubbed my forehead. “So… if there is another victim, a missing student, she’s likely to have a sports scholarship.”

  We’d started walking down the corridor towards the exit and paused our conversation whilst we had our phones and belongings returned to us. Being out in the fresh air rather than within the grey, oppressive prison walls made me feel immediately lighter.

  “That narrows it down some, at least,” Stephen said as we reached the car.

  I nodded, getting into the passenger seat. I got Gaskell on the phone as we pulled out of the car park and headed back towards the station, and filled him in on the situation.

  “You’ll have checked that the students you know had been targeted are accounted for,” he said. A cold tremor ran down my spine. Abby would be okay, I was fairly sure, but I hadn’t checked in with Taylor for a few days. “He might be messing with us, Mitchell, you know that?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said, a touch sharply. “I’m aware. But we have to assume that there is a student out there that needs help.”

  Gaskell sighed. “Agreed. I’ll leave you in charge of this. Sedgwick can support you if you need it, but he’s best utilised looking for evidence that’ll help put Seton behind bars for good.”

  “Understood, sir. We sent over Cal Melville-”

  “Yes, your interview with him was very illuminating. Sedgwick will be showing him different recordings of male voices, including Seton’s, to see if he can pick Seton’s out of a line-up.”

  I nodded. “That sounds good.” Cal picking Will’s voice out wouldn’t be enough evidence to be conclusive, but it was small pieces of evidence like that that all added up into a larger, more damning picture.

  Gaskell rounded up the call, and I dialled Taylor’s number immediately afterwards.

  “Hello?”

  I relaxed at the sound of her voice. “Hi, it’s Darren.”

  “Oh!” she said, sounding surprised. “Is everything alright?”

  “Aye, it’s all good. I just wanted to check-in.”

  “How’d your head?”

  We fell into small talk, chatting comfortably but with slightly stiff politeness, like old school friends who’d drifted apart.

  “I’ve meant to call, actually,” she said.

  “Yeah?” I said uncertainly.

  She hummed. “I think… I enjoyed spending time with you, and you’ve been a huge support-”

  “Ah,” I said. I could see where this was going. “I understand, Taylor, it’s okay.”

  “It is?”

  “Yeah. I like you a lot, but it’s okay if good things don’t last forever. We don’t need to stretch it out until we start making each other unhappy.”

  I heard her exhale on the other end. “Good, okay.” She laughed quietly, less from amusement than from a release of tension. “I’m glad we’re on the same page. I wasn’t sure if you were looking for something more long term, and I’m focusing on my academic career right now.”

  “And I’m wrapped up with my work too,” I reassured her. “I hope you can still see me as a friend?” I added hesitantly. “If you ever need a hand in the future, I hope you’ll call.”

  “Thanks, Darren. And the same to you. I might not be able to tackle criminals, but I can write a mean CV.”

  I chuckled. “I bet you can.” There was a pause. “Goodbye,” I said finally, a little sadly.

  “Bye,” she returned softly. The phone beeped in my ear, and I set it down in my lap.

  “She was alright, then?” Stephen asked. His voice was quiet, and I knew he’d gathered the topic of the phone call.

  “She’s fine.”

  I gave myself a minute or so to look out of the window and feel sorry for myself, before I refocused back on task. Abby’s number was saved on my phone, and I called her next. The drive back to the station would take a little while, and there was no reason why I shouldn’t make use of the time.

  After calling Abby,
who was safe and well with her parents, I tried the university next.

  “It’ll probably be second or third-year students,” Stephen said as the phone was ringing. “Since first-years-”

  “Won’t have known him,” I finished and nodded. Though, I couldn’t help but think, if Seton had sensed us closing in on him, he might’ve grabbed the first student or young woman he could get hold of, and not have stuck to his pattern. The thought was worrying.

  The university picked up, and I got through to the dean quickly after I’d said who I was and that we were concerned a student was in danger. The dean didn’t know of any students that had been reported missing and seemed affronted when I asked whether he might not have been informed.

  “Anything?” Stephen asked as I hung up. We were getting close to the station now.

  I shook my head. “He says no students have been reported missing.”

  “That’s… good?”

  I tipped my head side to side. “Maybe, maybe not. If Will was winding us up, then yeah. But if he wasn’t and it’s not a student, then finding out who might’ve been taken is going to start looking impossible. The number of missing people in York is a lot.”

  Stephen grunted. He swung us into the entrance of the station and parked up. We headed in, and I jogged up the stairs while Stephen took the lift. I was mid- way through logging onto the system to look for new missing persons reports when Stephen joined me.

  “Maybe we’re coming at this the wrong way round.”

  I looked up from the screen. “In what way?”

  “Instead of trying to find out who was taken and working forwards, how about we start with the end, so to speak?”

  I clicked my fingers. “Where he put them, you mean?” Stephen nodded. “Good idea. I’ll run this search first, and then we can look into that.”

  “Alright. I’ll get you some of your rocket fuel. I think we’re both running on fumes.”

  With all the tension, I’d barely thought about eating, and when I glanced at my watch and saw that it was almost three, I blinked in surprise.

  “Late lunch in a minute?” I offered.

  Stephen snorted. “Hopeless you are.”

  I went back to the search, leaning my head on my hand. Now that Stephen had mentioned it, my stomach was growling. I studied the results the system had thrown up, but there had been no students reported missing in the last week.

  Looking further back, I found two; a guy and a woman. The man had shown up again a week ago, but the female student was still missing. I scanned the report, frowning at the date. She’d gone missing a good two weeks before we’d picked Will up, and I didn’t know if that was reassuring or not. Had he really kidnapped this woman three weeks ago and been keeping her ever since? It didn’t seem so likely, but I couldn’t rule it out. Everything we’d seen so far pointed to Will being a meticulous planner and it was possible that he’d organised this too.

  I looked up the social media accounts belonging to the missing student, Lizzie Adams, and my gut sank.

  Stephen came back with my coffee, and I took an absent-minded sip, barely noticing how it burnt my tongue.

  “Mitchell?” Stephen said. “You found something?”

  I turned the screen to face him and waited while he looked it over. It was pne of her social media pages, with numerous pictures of her playing netball. There was a post from almost a year ago that showed her celebrating her scholarship.

  “What’s this?” Stephen asked, though his expression said that he could guess. “Is she… is she missing?”

  “She’s been missing for three weeks.”

  “And she has a sports scholarship for York?” he asked. I nodded. “Let’s talk to her flatmates.”

  His face had gone pale, and I felt like mine was the same. The thought of the poor student being locked up somewhere by Will didn’t bear thinking about, and I clung to the hope that he was just enjoying pulling our strings. Thinking of him enjoying torturing us didn’t upset me nearly as much as if this turned out to be true.

  Calling Lizzie’s flatmates didn’t lead to any solid confirmation or denial of our theory. They didn’t remember any Will Seton, or Cal Melville, nor any men matching their descriptions, being seen around Lizzie. But they’d also said that it wasn’t like Lizzie to just disappear, and that she’d been a dedicated student and passionate netball player.

  Hearing them talk about her made me feel both increasingly worried, and more determined. We fetched lunch from the shop and then drove over to Will’s bedsit, where we were let in by one of the residents.

  I looked over the small space and shook my head. “The team scoured this place. There’s nothing here. He’s not stupid enough to leave anything in plain sight like that.”

  “I agree.”

  I rubbed a hand through my hair and tried to think where else Will might have spent his time. The victim from the club had been taken away and then driven back; where had Will taken them to?

  “We’ve got his full name now,” Stephen started, and I turned to look at him. “We can find out what pub he worked out, or the tech team can anyway, from his tax forms or whatever.”

  I snapped my fingers. “Good idea. Maybe his colleagues might know something. Give the guys at the station a call on that, and I’ll try his parents?”

  Stephen got on the phone and so did I, both us sitting down at Will’s tiny kitchen table to make our calls. Looking at where he lived, I could see how he’d been bitter. He’d been promised a scholarship and a bright future, and then he’d ruined it all. Now he was blaming it on everyone but himself.

  “Hello, it’s DCI Mitchell,” I said, when Will’s parents picked up. I asked them about Will’s hobbies, about where he might hide out or spend his time outside of the house.

  “He’s not got free, has he?” his mum asked, sounding aghast.

  “No! No, nothing like that,” I reassured her quickly, sorry that I’d worried her. “We’re trying to track down something he’s hidden.” I paused. It was a reach, but it was my view that thoroughness made up for lack of genius policing, and it didn’t hurt to follow up every single lead. “Could you check any outhouses or sheds on your land?”

  “We only have the one shed,” she said, but agreed to check it for me. “He hasn’t been here in so long, though.”

  “I know. Thank you, Mrs Seton.”

  Stephen was done with his call to the tech team, and I sent him a despondent shrug once I was off the phone.

  “What now?”

  “We wait for the tech team to get back to us.”

  We did give Will’s place another look over, and the communal kitchen, too, to be certain, but there really wasn’t anything here. We would have to wait and hope that discovering Will’s old place of employment would open up a new, useful avenue of inquiry because, as it stood, we were stuck again.

  Twenty-One

  The end of the day arrived before the tech team got back to us and, though there were things to be getting on with, there wasn’t any urgent need to stay late. There wasn’t anything we could do, though I knew that Stephen was as uneasy as I was.

  “I suppose you’re off on a run?” he asked as we were heading out.

  “Aye. My head feels fine, so I can’t see that it’ll hurt.”

  Stephen gave me a dubious look. “Well, enjoy it, mate. And don’t go off following any weirdos in the dark.”

  “Alright, alright,” I chuckled. “I’ll make sure anybody I follow is totally normal.”

  Stephen cracked a smile. “Yeah, sounds good.” He stared at my face for a second and I frowned at him.

  “What? Have I got biscuit crumbs on me?” I rubbed my hand over my cheek, which was growing bristly.

  “No, I was looking at your eye. Pretty impressive bruiser.”

  I sighed. “Yeah, ugly. At least Taylor hasn’t got to see it, aye?”

  “That’s one positive.”

  “And it looks bad, but it’s less swollen.” It hurt less when I turned my
head, accidentally brushed against the swelling, and talking and eating wasn’t as uncomfortable.

  “You could try some witch hazel on it?” Stephen offered before he headed off towards the exit.

  “Yeah, thanks,” I called after him. I remembered my mum using witch hazel on my bruised knees as a kid, but I certainly didn’t have any in the flat these days. The number of scrapes I got into, though, maybe I ought to have a better stocked first aid kit.

  I headed off to get changed for my run, eagerly looking forward to going on any kind of run that wasn’t me trying to grab a criminal. I’d ordered new trainers with better grip, but they hadn’t arrived yet, so I settled for my scruffy, old ones for now.

  It wasn’t dark out yet, but the light was getting lower in the sky. I took a looping, winding run home that I’d planned whilst I’d been nursing my head injury, which seemed to be holding up alright. It was more the black eye that had been bothering me, and the gash in my hand that made everything from driving to holding my toothbrush sting a little.

  After having nearly two weeks off, my legs got rubbery much too fast. I was breathing harder than usual, but I pushed on regardless. I’d planned the route out in my head but didn’t realise until I was actually close that the run I’d come up with passed relatively close to Will’s flat. I pulled to a stop at the end of the side road that led to his place and leaned against a wall as I stretched my legs out and got my breath back.

  A car rushed past on the main road beside me and, though it was hardly the only car on the road at this time of day, I turned to watch it drive away as a thought occurred to me. Did Will have a car? I hadn’t thought to ask the tech guys if there was a vehicle registered to his name. Living in York, he could easily have just stuck to public transport, walking or cycling, but he’d also visited his parents, who were so far out in the countryside that a taxi there would’ve cost a fortune, especially for someone who was likely on minimum wage.

  I chewed my lip and set off jogging down the street towards Will’s. It wasn’t dark, and I wasn’t following anyone, so I wasn’t technically doing what Stephen had told me not to. Still, I didn’t like the idea of his friends lurking about the flat, so I ran on the opposite side of the road and tried not to make my interest obvious.