by Helen Cox
‘I’ve not heard of too many protests taking place at two in the morning,’ said Berkeley.
‘Yes, well, it was a different time.’
‘It was 2009.’
Kitt’s mouth hung part open but no sound came out. It might have been the first time in recorded history that Kitt Hartley was lost for words. Certainly, Grace had never witnessed such an occurrence. She considered capturing the moment on her phone camera but getting into Venerable Bede’s had been no easy task. She’d already enraged the dean once in this meeting and from the looks passing between Kitt and Berkeley she got the impression neither of them would see the funny side.
‘But you’re right in a certain respect, I suppose. The academy was under different leadership then. More lax leadership.’
That was rich, Grace thought. Coming from a woman who had let a student disappear on her watch. She glanced over at Kitt who had regained her composure and was no doubt thinking along similar lines.
‘My predecessor was far too lenient. They didn’t keep the small things in check which is so important when you’re responsible for training the next generation of workforce leaders.’
‘Is that so?’ Kitt said. ‘The new leadership is certainly adept at managing difficult situations, I’ll give you that.’
‘Are you driving at something, Ms Hartley? If so, I’d appreciate you getting to the point. I’m a rather busy woman, in case you hadn’t noticed.’
‘I was merely complimenting you on the way you handled the extremely difficult circumstances surrounding the disappearance of Jodie Perkins. That’s the kind of situation any leader of an educational institution would dread. Losing one of your own like that.’
Berkeley flipped the folder closed. She didn’t speak but it was clear from the distinct tightening of her face that she would have given almost anything just then for Kitt to change the subject.
‘We did our best to control the situation and handle it as sensitively as possible.’
‘Seems to me you did a very efficient job of controlling the situation. Her disappearance didn’t even make it into the alumni newsletter. I read it religiously every year and didn’t hear a thing about it.’ Kitt continued to rub it in.
The dean reached across to a jug of water sitting on the desk and poured herself a glass. Though there were enough glasses for everyone, she didn’t offer Grace or Kitt a drink but focused instead on taking a big gulp of water before speaking.
‘It isn’t exactly something you want to broadcast when the future of your institution relies on young people from affluent families feeling safe enough to come here and study.’
‘But there must be more to it than that,’ Kitt pushed. ‘I mean, it surely wasn’t just about making sure you had enough students to fight another year. I’m sure the loss felt very personal to you, as the one who is ultimately responsible for the safety of students.’
‘What happened to Jodie Perkins is without doubt the deepest regret of not just my academic career but my life as a whole. Nothing like it has ever happened on my watch before or since and it is my mission to make sure nothing like it ever happens again. There’s no other word for it but tragic. Senseless and tragic.’
‘We’re agreed on that score. And since you seem to feel as strongly as we do about the tragic nature of Jodie’s disappearance you’ll be pleased to know there may yet be a way of helping her,’ said Kitt.
Berkeley frowned. ‘Help her? In what way exactly? Some kind of memorial, or a scholarship initiative in her name so that she’s not forgotten? Is that the collaboration you came to speak to me about? It’s a great sadness that we can’t bring her back but, if your institution is interested in some kind of partnership, we could look into something to help her live on in people’s memories.’
Kitt paused before responding. Grace assumed Kitt was biding her time, trying to think up a plausible collaboration between the academy and the Vale of York University but instead she had noticed something that had totally passed Grace by.
‘Excuse me for asking,’ Kitt said with a sharp note in her voice, ‘but do you know something we don’t about Jodie?’
‘What? No. What do you mean?’ Berkeley said, tilting her head.
‘Well, it’s just, I’m not sure a memorial or scholarship in her name is particularly appropriate, given that for all we know she might be still alive.’
At Kitt’s words, Berkeley’s face froze.
Seven
A hard silence filled the room. The dean cleared her throat and took another sip of water before responding. ‘Oh, well, yes. Of course. I wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry. It’s just, she’s been gone for so long and nobody’s had any word from her. Privately, sad though it is to think about it, I’ve sort of accepted that there’s a good chance she’s no longer with us.’
‘I see,’ Kitt said. ‘Unfortunately, you may be right to assume that but that’s where my help might come in. The thing is, although I am a librarian at the Vale of York University, I’ve also had some experience as a private investigator. As such, I’m interested in trying to uncover what really happened to Jodie that night. To give her family and friends some closure.’
Berkeley shook her head, firmly. ‘No, I’m sorry. I understand if you have a personal attachment to the case as this terrible thing happened to a girl who studied at the same institution as you but I don’t think we want to go digging all that up again.’
‘I’m afraid it’s a bit late for that. I’ve already been hired by someone with connections to the academy,’ said Kitt.
‘Who?’ Berkeley said, sitting up in her seat.
‘That’s confidential information, so I can’t disclose it. But their intentions are good and we have no desire to just dig things up. I’m going to solve this case so the matter can be settled once and for all.’
‘Be that as it may, you are not welcome to conduct an investigation of that sort on our campus. Our community has been through enough and we want to put this terrible incident behind us,’ Berkeley said with a dismissive wave.
‘But—’ Kitt tried, though she was soon cut off.
‘Nothing can be gained by dredging that sorry affair up all over again. It’s been difficult enough to make the students feel safe here after what happened to Jodie.’
‘What if they’re not safe here?’ said Grace. As a member of the student population she couldn’t say she felt particularly safe given that nobody was ever held accountable for Jodie’s disappearance. ‘What if the person who did this to Jodie strikes again?’
‘If I say they’re safe, they’re safe. And I will thank you for not saying things that are akin to scaremongering.’
‘I see,’ said Kitt. ‘Are you forbidding me to conduct my investigation?’
‘On academy grounds, yes. What you do outside the academy grounds is none of my concern.’
Grace suppressed a sigh. How was Kitt going to conduct an investigation on Jodie’s disappearance if she was banned from the campus? There were ways around it, of course, but it would make everything a lot more long-winded. Kitt was only here for a few days and with every day that passed the trail only grew colder.
‘Well, I’m very sorry to hear that,’ Kitt said at last, standing from her chair. ‘I had hoped it wouldn’t come to this but I suppose you’ve left me no choice. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Berkeley didn’t quite snap but she came close.
‘Hm? Oh nothing, it’s just that I’ll have to pass the new leads I have on to the police if you won’t let me conduct my business discreetly.’
‘The police? Wait, wait, wait, what new leads?’
‘It wouldn’t be proper procedure to discuss them while the investigation is ongoing – don’t you worry about it. You’ve made your position clear and I can’t blame you. I have contacts in the force. They know my intel is sound and they’ll revisit their findings from before and hopefully get a bit closer to the truth.’
‘Do you really need to go
to the police?’ said Berkeley. Was that a pleading note in her voice? Not quite, but almost. ‘We dealt with all that once last year. If the press get even a sniff of it I’ll have a media circus on my hands all over again.’
‘I was trying to deal with it quietly but you don’t want me around so I’ll have to let the police take over from here, I’m afraid. I can’t just sit on new information when it could mean uncovering what really happened to a missing young girl.’
‘Now wait a minute.’ Berkeley at last rose from her chair. ‘I didn’t know you had new information on this case. That wasn’t clear. If you really have uncovered something that wasn’t known before, then that changes things, obviously.’
‘Oh, does it?’ Kitt said, her eyes wide and innocent enough for Grace to recognize that this had been Kitt’s plan all along.
‘Yes, of course,’ Berkeley said. ‘If it was just a matter of dredging up old material again, well, I wasn’t going to stand for that. It wouldn’t be sensitive to the students who are studying here. Not to mention the staff who worked with Jodie in the short time she was with us. But if you really might be able to draw this matter to a close, quietly, then I suppose that’s a good thing.’
‘It will require the disclosure of some details,’ Kitt said, sitting down again and pulling a pen and notebook out of her pocket.
‘Like what?’ The thin smile on Berkeley’s face disappeared as she also resumed her seat.
‘Firstly, confirmation that Jodie received a letter from you on the day of her disappearance stating that she was expelled from Venerable Bede’s.’
‘Oh, well, yes,’ Berkeley said, looking down at her desk for a moment before meeting Kitt’s eye once more. ‘This is confidential information.’ Her stare then fixed on Grace. ‘I assume you know a little something about discretion, Ms Edwards, since you are, what, assisting Ms Hartley? I can count on the fact that this information won’t be floating around campus tomorrow morning or appear in the student press because you’ve opened your mouth?’
‘I’ve assisted Kitt – er, Ms Hartley on several previous investigations,’ Grace said. ‘And I’m well aware of the need for tact.’
Grace thought she heard Kitt snort at that statement, but if she did she promptly turned it into a cough so as not to arouse Berkeley’s suspicions. All right, so maybe tact wasn’t Grace’s number one quality but if it meant getting justice for Jodie she would double down on it, starting now.
‘Very well. We kept the letter quiet because we didn’t think it would do any good to drag Jodie’s name through the mud after she went missing. As far as the outside world was concerned, Jodie was a model student.’
‘But behind closed doors, you thought differently of her?’ Kitt said, jotting down a few notes that Grace was sitting just too far away to read.
‘I did after one of our caretakers found a large quantity of drugs in her locker during a random search. The rules of attendance here are very strict for scholarship students. Jodie knew that and yet she still violated the terms of our agreement. Not that she seemed to have much discipline. The day she disappeared, she barged into my office without an appointment, ranting about the letter I sent her.’
‘What did she say, exactly?’ asked Grace.
‘I’m ashamed to say I didn’t let her get very far. She was promptly escorted out by security. I thought she was just having a recalcitrant reaction to the letter. If I had known there was some greater web, that she might have disappeared the way she did, I’d have taken the time to listen.’
Grace stared hard at Berkeley’s face. It looked somehow even thinner than it had when they first walked in. Patrick seemed to think that Berkeley was only concerned about the reputation of the academy but from where Grace was sitting her remorse over her part in Jodie’s disappearance seemed genuine. But did her involvement stop at the letter she sent to Jodie? Or was there more?
‘Who discovered the drugs in Jodie’s locker?’ asked Kitt.
‘Elvis McCabe. He was one of our caretakers.’
‘Was?’
Berkeley sighed. ‘He left about six months after Jodie disappeared. I tried to reason with him that Jodie’s disappearance wasn’t his fault. That he had just been doing his job when he brought the drugs to my attention. I was the one who issued an expulsion letter, for Heaven’s sake, not him.’
‘So, he decided to leave his post because he felt guilty?’ said Kitt.
‘Yes.’ Berkeley nodded. ‘He was an excellent employee but I couldn’t persuade him to stay.’
‘I see,’ said Kitt. ‘There’s just one more thing I have to ask, and I’m sorry for any offence caused, but one of the first things I always have to do is establish where everybody involved was at the time of the crime.’
Berkeley puffed up her chest at this. ‘As yet, there’s no evidence there was a crime – except for the drugs Jodie was either taking or dealing. But I had to tell the police at the time so I know exactly where I was the night Jodie disappeared – at a dinner for a charity that supports autistic learners in education. I was there until midnight and then booked a car ride home. I have an alarm system on my house that registers entry and exit. The records confirm I got back at one a.m. and did not leave the house after that. My secretary has the details of the dinner I attended, so if that’s all?’
Berkeley rose from her seat to indicate that this wasn’t, in fact, a question.
‘That will be all for now,’ Kitt said, packing away her notebook and pen.
Grace offered Berkeley a polite smile and followed Kitt out of the room.
The pair paused briefly to leave Kitt’s card with Berkeley’s secretary and asked her to forward the details of the event Berkeley had attended the night Jodie disappeared.
After that, they exited the main reception building and found a spare bench near the lake. The striking lines of the nearby library building reflected in the water in an almost dreamy fashion, caused by the slow dimming of the late-afternoon sunlight.
‘What did you think of that performance?’ Grace asked once the pair were seated.
‘Performance is the right word. She knows something she’s not letting on about,’ Kitt said. ‘She implied Jodie was dead.’
‘I agree she was acting weird but we’re going to need more evidence than that if we want a confession out of her about what really went on. After the amount of time Jodie’s been missing, it’s not unreasonable to think the worst. You were trying to prepare Patrick for that eventuality yourself just a couple of hours ago.’
‘I know. But something’s off. She didn’t want me here and no matter what she says I don’t believe it’s just to protect the academy’s reputation.’
‘Maybe she’s covering for someone. Elvis McCabe, for example. He might have left the academy out of guilt, like Berkeley said, but there might be more to it. Something Berkeley was keen to cover up.’
‘Like what?’
‘Patrick said the drugs didn’t belong to Jodie and she was mortified anyone would think they did. If Jodie was going to reveal a secret about a powerful person, they might have bribed McCabe to plant the drugs and get Jodie expelled. Maybe Berkeley found out about that and McCabe jumped before he was pushed.’
‘That’s . . . a possibility,’ said Kitt. ‘Berkeley was trying to keep a lid on the scandal as it was. If it came out that an employee had a hand in Jodie’s disappearance and possible death the odds are all those rich parents who hand over tuition fees every year would send their child, and their money, somewhere else.’
‘There’s also the fact that the outhouse we were looking at is not very far from the campus grounds,’ said Grace. ‘I wonder if it belongs to the academy? Or if Berkeley has some other connection with it?’
‘Worth trying to find out. Hunting down the owner of that building is number two on my to-do list, after getting in touch with Bertrand Hobbs. I’ll also need to interview people who live and work along the main roads Jodie’s attackers must have taken if they did drive her out
of here around the four o’clock in the morning mark.’
‘Are there really likely to be any witnesses at that time of day?’
‘It’s a long shot but you never know. Never underestimate the observation skills of shift workers and insomniacs. They see the world, and all its happenings, at times the rest of us don’t.’
‘So that’s how you’ve been catching all those cheating spouses?’
‘It has helped,’ Kitt admitted. ‘Can you see if you can uncover what happened to McCabe after he left the academy? If he did receive some big bribe for framing Jodie he might have used it to buy something a custodial worker might not normally be able to afford. A flashy car, a house extension. See what you can dig up?’
‘Happy to make a start on that this evening, but right now I’ve got to get off to my lecture on cataloguing.’
‘No problem. That’ll give me a breather and, more importantly, an opportunity to find a good cup of tea round here. Who’s teaching cataloguing these days, out of interest?’
‘Dr Harriet Lowenthal. Do you know her? She seems . . .’ Grace trailed off. Kitt’s face had darkened in a way she had never seen it darken before. Not even last April Fool’s Day when Grace had thought it a grand idea to adjust Kitt’s office chair and duct tape an air horn under the seat. The look on Kitt’s face when she readjusted her chair and the horn rang out across the entire third floor was priceless but it took her two hours to see the funny side of the incident.
‘What’s wrong?’ Grace asked, trying to forget the air horn incident in case she accidentally started laughing and Kitt took offence.
‘I hate Harriet Lowenthal.’
‘What? Why?’
‘She’s my arch-nemesis.’
Eight
If asked, Grace couldn’t have told anyone quite how long it took her to stop laughing at the revelation that Kitt Hartley had an arch-nemesis. But it was long enough that she only just made it to her lecture on time. Between this and the news that Kitt had been involved in a streaking incident, Grace was beginning to think this might be the best day of her entire life. She had marked the day on her online calendar so that next year she could present Kitt with a cake topped with a candle and christen it ‘Arch Streaking Day’. She could already picture the look on Kitt’s face as she handed it to her. The moment would be golden.