by Eva Hudson
“Are you suggesting Younger is doing the same thing at Loriners? That he’s appointed himself as some sort of benevolent dictator?”
“I’m not sure there’s anything benevolent about that man.”
“But you really think he’s brainwashed the participants of his research program into some kind of… Hitler Youth?”
“There’s no need to sound so skeptical. Not just the participants. The whole of his research group too. It was something you said the other day, about how perfect they all looked in their exclusive purple and green polo shirts. There is something deliberately homogenous about them. They’re part of Younger’s group, fiercely loyal to him and the research program. They’d do anything to protect it, and they shun people who aren’t like them.”
Ingrid now wondered if it really was possible Younger was linked to Lauren’s death. He might not have done it, but maybe she was about to expose him? “And you think it’s gotten out of control at Loriners?”
Tate shrugged. “In California the experiment was halted after five days. God only knows how long it’s been going on at Loriners.” She pulled a pack of cigarettes and an antique lighter from her purse. “Two student deaths and one near miss? Yes—I’d say it was out of control.”
Ingrid took a moment to take everything in, to order the information in her mind.
“Looking at your face,” Tate said, “I would say you’re starting to believe me.”
She was. But unless they could prove a link between the experiments and the suicides, and possibly also to Lauren’s death, there was no point in going to the police. “Do you think anyone you’ve spoken to would be willing to testify?”
“Christ no! I’ve got one or two students who are prepared to break ranks, but they need very careful handling. They’ve effectively been brainwashed into a cult and need to be deprogrammed gradually. If I mentioned the police to them at this stage, they’d totally freak out.”
Ingrid leaned back in her chair and drained the last of her vodka. She would put nothing past Younger. He was sly, he was vain, but she couldn’t just accuse him of involvement with Lauren’s death. Angela Tate waved a hand in front of her face.
“Earth to Skyberg, come in, agent.”
“Sorry.”
“So.” Tate rested her elbows on the table. “Now it’s your turn.”
32
Ingrid stepped off the train in the East Sussex town of Lewes and was immediately struck by the sweetness and warmth of the air. It was the first time she’d left London for months, and it felt good to be out of the city. A big part of her would always be a Minnesota farm girl. Small-town life was in her blood.
In the interests of road safety—she was too badly injured to handle the Triumph on the freeway—Ingrid had opted for the train to convey her to Emily Taylor’s parents’ home fifty miles south of the capital. The journey had given her time to think about what Angela Tate had told her. If Stuart Younger really was running some kind of cult at Loriners, it would fit the charismatic-leader playbook if he was sleeping with his students.
Overwhelmed by the softness and fragrance of the air, she decided she should breathe as much of it as possible and set off on foot from the station as fast as her battered body could carry her. She realized her error when, after following the route suggested by the GPS app on her phone, she encountered a steep cobblestone street rising at an alarming gradient. She drew in a deep breath and started the near-vertical march, taking her time to admire the dinky little cottages lining both sides of the street. Her legs were aching as much as her ribs when she reached the top. Ten minutes later she approached her destination. A middle-aged man dressed in tweed pants and a woolen vest over a crisp white shirt was clipping a neat yew hedge that ran the length of the front yard.
“Mr Taylor?”
The man stopped clipping but didn’t lower the large and menacing shears. He eyed her suspiciously, his lined forehead puckering into a network of deep furrows.
“I spoke to your wife on the phone,” Ingrid continued, countering his grave expression with a much sunnier one of her own. “My name’s Ingrid Skyberg—I work at the US Embassy. I explained everything—”
“Yes, yes, I know. I thought for a moment you might be a reporter. I’ve already seen two off this morning.” He waved the shears at her by way of demonstration.
“John! What do you think you’re doing?” A woman dressed in a wraparound apron appeared at the open front door, wiping her hands on a dish towel. “I’m sorry. He’s just thinking of Emily.”
“Of course—it’s only natural.” Ingrid smiled broadly and followed Mrs. Taylor through the door and into an interior lobby. The place smelled of furniture wax and lavender. As they walked further down the hall, the unmistakable aroma of roast beef filled the air. Ingrid’s mouth started to water. She’d forgotten breakfast again and wished she’d had time to pick up a sandwich at the train station before leaving London.
“I’ll pop the kettle on. Make us a nice pot of tea.” She smiled at Ingrid. “Unless you’d prefer coffee, of course.”
In Ingrid’s experience, all home-brewed coffee she’d been offered in the UK was pretty much undrinkable. “Tea would be perfect.”
After being shown into a light-filled living room, a room that looked out over a backyard stuffed with plants of all kinds and a cherry tree in full pink blossom, Ingrid waited for one of the Taylors to reappear. Finally John Taylor materialized at the door, hovering on the threshold of his own living room, apparently reluctant to be alone with her.
“Your house is beautiful,” she said.
“That’s Julia’s doing. I can’t take the credit for it.”
“The garden too—really lovely.”
He pulled back his shoulders and stood a little taller. “Oh yes. Well. There’s always something to do. Especially this time of year. I can spend the whole weekend tending to it.”
“Your efforts are certainly paying off.”
He offered her a begrudging smile. “I should see how my wife’s getting on in the kitchen.” He started to turn.
“How’s Emily today?”
Taylor flinched as if he’d taken a physical blow. His nose twitched and he stared at the carpet. “Well as can be expected, I suppose.”
“Mind out of my way.” Mrs Taylor appeared at his side, holding a tray. She squeezed past him and carefully unloaded the contents of the tray onto a side table. Bone china tea service and a large round walnut-encrusted cake safely transferred, she shoved the tray at her husband. “Make yourself useful.” She turned back to Ingrid as her husband wandered toward the kitchen. “Has John been bending your ear?”
“We didn’t really get a chance to—”
“I’m teasing you. He’s not great with strangers. Especially not in his own house. He goes into caveman mode: protect and survive.”
Ingrid thought that sounded like a pretty good strategy.
“Though I suppose he’s got good reason to at the moment.” She let out a sigh. “He blames himself for what happened.”
“He does?”
“He thinks he’s been pushing Emily too much to do well in her studies. Putting too much pressure on her.”
“Do you think that’s true?”
“Good grief, no. He’s just a proud dad who wants the best for his daughter.”
“How is Emily?”
Another sigh. “I only wish I knew. She’s been holed up in her room ever since she came home.”
“Do you think she might speak to me?”
“You can try. But like I said on the phone, she’s not really talking to anyone. Not even us.”
“How about her friends?”
Mrs. Taylor shook her head. “All her friends are at uni. I haven’t even heard her speaking on the phone. I suppose she might have been texting them.” She poured tea into one of the neat china cups. “Milk and sugar?”
“Just as it comes. Thank you.”
“Carrot cake? It’s a new recipe I’m trying out.”<
br />
“I’d love some.” Ingrid smiled again. “But first, do you think I might be able to speak to Emily?”
“Why would she speak to you if she won’t talk to her own mother and father?” Mr. Taylor was in the doorway again.
“I’ll show you where her room is.” Julia Taylor led Ingrid out of the room, scowling at her husband on the way. “I really don’t think she’ll respond,” the woman said when they were standing on the second-floor landing. She tapped lightly on a door still adorned with an ‘Emily’s room—DO NOT ENTER’ plaque. “Emily, sweetheart. There’s someone here to see you. She’d like to speak to you about Lauren Shelbourne.”
Ingrid and Mrs. Taylor both held their breath and listened for sounds on the other side of the door. There was a definite creaking of floorboards. Then nothing. Ingrid exhaled.
“May I?” she said. Mrs Taylor stepped to one side. “Hello, Emily. My name’s Ingrid. I’m from the American embassy in London. Did you know Lauren?” She turned to the girl’s mother. “Could I have a moment alone with Emily?”
“Be my guest.” She raised her voice. “I’ll be in the kitchen, if you need anything, love.”
Ingrid watched the woman trudge wearily down the stairs. “I know about the experiments, Emily. There’s nothing to be afraid of. You’re quite safe.” She heard a noise from within the room. A crash of something being dropped on the floor? “Emily? Why don’t you open the door and we can speak more privately?” Silence for a moment followed by the boom of dance music at top volume.
“I did tell you.” Mr. Taylor was standing at the bottom of the staircase. “But you wouldn’t listen.”
Back in the living room, half a cup of tea and a few crumbs of carrot cake later, Mr Taylor was in full stride, berating the welfare services at Loriners College. “Students are in their care. They should be keeping a closer eye on them. One look at her and you could see she’s in a terrible state. Do the tutors just leave them to their own devices? First time away from home, they’re not more than schoolchildren, really. It’s a dereliction of duty. I’ve a good mind to sue.” He paused for breath and Ingrid took the opportunity to broach the subject she’d been avoiding.
“Does Emily have any history of…”
“Depression? Is that what you want to know? It’s none of your bloody business!”
“Don’t be like that, John. Miss Skyberg’s come all this way,” Julia Taylor said. “Emily’s always been a happy child. She never even went through that difficult teenager phase. You couldn’t have met a sweeter girl. I don’t know what happened. She was fine at Christmas. Spent time with us. And her friends. Went out riding on Boxing Day.”
“How was she during the spring vacation?” Ingrid asked, keen not to get sidetracked.
The Taylors looked at her blankly.
“The, ah… Easter holidays?”
“She didn’t come home for Easter. She stayed up in London. She said her friends were staying at college, so she would too,” Julia Taylor said. “They were taking part in some experiment or other. She said it was important she didn’t miss it.”
“Experiment?” Ingrid did her best not to sound too interested.
“Something in the psychology department, she said.”
“Not part of her medical studies?”
“She wants to specialize in neuroscience,” Mr Taylor said. “Apparently, participating in the research program helps with that.” He stared blankly into space. “Though God knows how all this will affect her degree. She might have to repeat this whole year. She should be preparing for her exams right now.”
“Have you met any of the teachers at Loriners? Do you know Professor Younger?”
“Younger?” Julia Taylor said and rolled her eyes. “At Christmas she wouldn’t stop talking about the man. Stuart this, Stuart that. How brilliant he is. Such an important pioneer in the field.”
“And has she mentioned him or the research program since she’s been home this time?”
“She hasn’t spoken about any of it.”
“I’d like to see Younger,” her husband added. “Shake him by the hand. Buy him a bloody big drink. If it wasn’t for him and what he did…” He shook his head. “I can’t even think about what might have happened.”
“The professor hasn’t made contact with you?”
“No—and we haven’t had any luck reaching him. But then if he’s as brilliant as Emily says, I don’t suppose he has much spare time.” Julia Taylor started to clear away the tea things.
“But you’d think he might have made the effort,” Mr Taylor said, “in the circumstances.”
With some difficulty Ingrid got to her feet. “I should let you folks get on with your Sunday lunch. Thank you so much for seeing me.” She handed Julia Taylor a business card. “If Emily changes her mind about speaking to me, please call me. Anytime.”
Back on the tree-lined sidewalk, Ingrid looked up toward the second floor of the building. A drape fluttered at a small side window, a figure in shadow quickly moving away from the glass.
33
“Do you ever take a day off?” McKittrick said when Ingrid approached. Not the response she was hoping for. McKittrick set down the 1950s butter dish she was holding and moved on to the next table of secondhand objects. The flea market, or as McKittrick insisted on calling it, the ‘car boot sale,’ was the biggest Ingrid had ever seen, taking up most of a two-acre high school field in Kentish Town, the district of London where McKittrick lived. McKittrick had invited her to similar events before, but rummaging through other people’s unwanted castoffs was not something that appealed to Ingrid, and she’d always made the excuse of a prior engagement.
“You never know what little gem you might stumble upon,” McKittrick had said, in an attempt to convey what Ingrid was missing. So far they had stumbled on trash fit only for the garbage truck. “So. Why are you here, Ingrid, or do I need to report you to the ambassador for interfering with a Metropolitan Police investigation?”
Ingrid was taken aback.
“It’s a joke.”
“Right.” Ingrid exhaled. “Phew.”
McKittrick gave her a playful slap on the arm and Ingrid winced.
“Serves you right for jumping off buildings.”
Ingrid didn’t know how to respond.
“Think we’re having a communication breakdown here. That was another attempt at humor.”
“Ah.”
As McKittrick browsed the stalls, Ingrid told her most of what she’d learned about Stuart Younger. The inquest into Lauren Shelbourne’s death had been scheduled for first thing on Wednesday morning, and that meant they had sixty hours to present any evidence that would cast doubt on the accidental-death verdict.
“Can you at least go talk to Stuart Younger?” Ingrid asked the detective before McKittrick sifted through the next pile of random junk.
“Why? I’m not sure you’ve mentioned which law he’s broken.”
“You don’t think appointing himself dictator of the research program, setting up controversial experiments that have driven at least one student to her death, is worth investigating?”
“From what you’ve told me, the experiments sound… unscrupulous maybe, unethical at worst. Not illegal. You should report him to the university, but it’s not a matter for the police. Unless you have hard proof of Younger administering Class A drugs to the research participants, or brainwashing them to jump from tall buildings.”
“Hard proof? What about the Canadian student? Are you telling me there wasn’t either LSD or meth… or both in her bloodstream when she died?”
“I can’t tell you that. Not because she did—I’m not saying that—but because I don’t actually know. Like I explained to you before, it wasn’t my case. The Homicide and Serious Crime Command didn’t pick it up. There was no need. It was called as a suicide at the scene.” She wandered over to the next table. “I can have a quiet word with my colleagues in CID, if you like. See if I can get hold of a blood-analysis report.�
�� She turned to Ingrid. “I’m not promising anything, mind.”
“Thank you.”
“But you don’t have any evidence of an affair with one of his students, do you? All you’ve got is hearsay.”
“No, but you could put Faber on the stand—”
McKittrick snorted. “No jury would believe her. She’s obviously got mental health issues.”
Ingrid wasn’t going to be shut down so easily. “In a few weeks, I’m sure Emily Taylor will be up to being interviewed. And you could try talking to Younger’s wife. She might have plenty of evidence of his affair. Wives often do.”
“Alleged affair.”
McKittrick had a point. She picked up an unopened rusty tin of crackers. They looked as if they’d survived the Second World War. “They’d go down a treat with some foie gras and a glass of claret.”
“But if it is true,” Ingrid said, determined to make her case, “the affair could be a motive for murder. What if Lauren was going to expose his experiments?”
“This isn’t an episode of Miss Marple, Ingrid.”
“You really think I’m that…” Ingrid searched for the right word. “Inept?”
McKittrick looked shocked.
“I’m an FBI agent, Natasha. I do know how you build a case, how you need evidence for a conviction, but there’s a clock ticking here. Once the coroner releases Lauren’s body on Wednesday, we’ve lost our chance to… we’ve lost our strongest piece of forensic evidence. Right now, I think there are enough loose ends to put the inquest on pause.”