Death Row

by Mark Pearson

  Delaney walked past a number of doors, all black, all well kept, before stopping and tapping on one that was painted bottle green and had a shiny brass knocker. There was a small metallic plaque on the wall beside it. Sally kept her expression neutral but flicked her glance sideways to read it.

  DR MARY O’CONNELL.

  Before she had a chance to ask Delaney if that was his cousin the door opened. A tall woman in her late forties with long honey-coloured hair and sparkling blue eyes looked Delaney up and down critically and then smiled. ‘It’s good to see you, cousin.’

  ‘And you, Mary.’ He gave her a hug.

  ‘Well, you’d best come through.’ She looked at Sally and tilted her chin teasingly. ‘And who is this beautiful young thing with you? I hope you’re not up to your old tricks again, Jack Delaney?’

  Sally blushed despite herself and held her hand out. ‘I’m a detective constable. I work with Inspector Delaney. Sally Cartwight.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you, darling.’

  Mary shook Sally’s hand in a warm grip, clasping the other hand over and patting it.

  Delaney gestured that they should go in. ‘She’s my right-hand woman, Mary, and that thirsty, more importantly, that she can barely speak for the dust in her throat. Let’s get the kettle on.’

  ‘Come in, come in, then! It’s you that’s standing there on the step like a kidnapped garden gnome who’s lost his fishing rod.’ Mary waved them in, laughing. ‘And kettle, you say? Are you sure you’re my cousin? What have you done with him, Sally? Signed him up for the pledge?’

  Sally laughed. ‘Not in this life.’

  Mary led them through into a beautifully decorated and surprisingly large lounge. Large windows looked out onto the street below but the double glazing muted the noise of the traffic so that it barely registered. A young woman stood up from the couch as they walked in. She had thick curly hair that was midnight black and shiny, flawless olive skin and beautiful almond-shaped eyes that seemed to shine. If she was one of Cleopatra’s hand maidens, Sally thought, she’d have probably had her killed.

  ‘This is Gloria, Sally,’ said Delaney.

  The woman smiled and held her hand out. ‘I’m the girl in the boot,’ she said.

  *

  Whitefriars Hall was a brick-built building, constructed sometime in the early 1970s to house the burgeoning population of students in the ever-expanding West London University. The university had several buildings spread throughout the west of the city: old technical colleges, art colleges and a polytechnic that had been assimilated under the banner of West London University at the beginning of the 1990s. The Conservative government’s idea for getting more people into university by simply renaming the polytechnics.

  ‘More universities, that’s what the world needs isn’t it, Kate?’ said DI Bennett as he pulled his car to a stop in the car park outside the halls of residence. ‘Never mind if there’s no jobs for the poor sods when they graduate. Half of them would be better off studying to be mechanics.’

  ‘Is that meant to be a dig?’ asked Kate frostily as she snapped open her seat belt before letting it zip back into place with a definite clunk.

  ‘Not at all,’ said Bennett, enjoying her discomfiture. ‘You are clearly a successful driven woman. It’s not your fault that your car wouldn’t start – you probably flooded the engine.’

  His smile did little to appease Kate. ‘There are jobs to be had and I thought we were supposed to be out of the recession,’ she said.

  Bennett climbed out of the car and sniffed dismissively. ‘Twenty to thirty grand of debt and no job. Where’s the sense in that?’

  Kate closed the car door, tempted, but resisting the urge, to slam it. ‘I take it you didn’t go to university, detective inspector?’

  ‘You take it wrong, then. But I did a proper degree, not some Mickey Mouse degree in media studies or the like,’ Bennett said as they walked toward the halls of residence.

  ‘As in?’

  ‘Criminology.’ Bennett jiggled his car keys in his hand as they walked along. ‘University of Kent. Vocational, linked to work. No debt at the end of it and a job.’

  ‘Some people believe it’s healthy for a culture to have people studying simply for the pleasure of studying.’

  ‘Some people believe little green men from Mars are running our government.’

  ‘They may be right.’

  ‘Did you know you can get a degree in stand-up comedy now?’

  ‘I teach medical students, Inspector Bennett. I know all about stand-up comics.’

  They approached the building, stepping between three white concrete posts just outside the entrance that allowed bicycles through but no vehicles. A high arch bisected the building and led through to a square, surrounded on all sides by separate buildings that provided three floors of accommodation each. Around the arched tunnel, the fourth wall of the square housed the staff quarters and the Dean’s office. A woman in her early to middle fifties bustled up towards them as they came through into the square. She was dressed in charcoal-grey trousers with a matching jacket and a mauve blouse underneath. Silk, Kate thought, and expensive.

  ‘Doctor Walker? I’m Dean Anderson … Sheila,’ the woman said.

  Kate nodded and held out her hand. ‘This is Detective Inspector Bennett.’

  The woman shook her hand and turned to Bennett to do the same.

  ‘Tony,’ he said.

  The Dean removed her glasses. Oliver Peoples, Kate couldn’t help noticing, liking her style.

  ‘I would make some sort of feeble joke, but I am sure you have heard them all and this doesn’t seem the right time for levity, does it?’

  ‘No,’ the detective inspector agreed. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a six-by-four photo of the man lying a mile or so away in the intensive-care wing of the hospital that was attached to this same university.

  ‘Is this him?’

  The Dean took the photo and studied it, dipping her head and blowing out a sigh. ‘Jamil Azeez. Yes, it is.’ She handed the photo back. ‘Do we know what happened?’

  Kate shook her head. ‘He hasn’t regained consciousness yet.’

  ‘And it was you who found him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Last night?’

  ‘Yes. In Camden.’

  The Dean frowned. ‘And what time was this?’

  ‘Just before midnight.’

  ‘What was he doing in Camden?’

  ‘We don’t know,’ said Bennett.

  ‘Especially that late at night.’ The Dean shook her head, puzzled.

  ‘It was a Friday. A lot of people socialise on a Friday night,’ said Kate. ‘Camden is a very popular place for people of his age, particularly at the weekends.’

  ‘But Jamil never drank.’

  Bennett cleared his throat. ‘Forgive me, but as a Dean of the halls of residence how would you know that?’

  ‘Because of his religion. He was very devout. We know because students with special dietary requirements inform us of it, for obvious reasons.’

  ‘He was a Muslim?’ DI Bennett pulled out his notebook.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He wouldn’t be the first Muslim to drink and it may well be that he wasn’t drinking anyway. They do serve soft drinks in the pubs and nightclubs.’

  ‘I get the sense he was pretty devout.’ She caught herself. ‘Sorry, that he is pretty devout. How is he, by the way?’

  The Dean seemed a little embarrassed to be asking that question only now. Kate put a reassuring hand on her arm. ‘He is in a very serious condition. The next few hours are going to be critical.’

  ‘Who could have wanted to hurt him?’

  DI Bennett tapped the notebook in his hand. ‘We don’t know. Is it possible to look in his room, as we asked?’

  ‘If it will help. I’ve sent Arthur to fetch a key.’

  At that moment a stooped white-haired man in a brown overall came towards them. For some reason he reminded Kate o
f an ancient zookeeper. Thinking of some of the students under her tutelage she wasn’t altogether surprised at the thought. He handed the Dean the key with a jerky deferential nod.

  ‘Thanks, Arthur,’ she said.

  Arthur grunted almost inaudibly and turned, walking away slowly.

  ‘He’s long past retirement age but we couldn’t bear to see him go,’ the Dean explained although no one had made a comment. She held the key aloft and pointed to the buildings on her right. ‘Jamil’s on the first floor.’

  The turfed area in the centre of the building was circular rather than the traditional quadrangle of older colleges and in the centre of it there was a tall sycamore tree, some leaves still just about clinging to its branches.

  A youth of eighteen or nineteen, dressed in a workman’s overall with a black baseball cap on his head and a scarf wrapped around his neck, was raking the fallen multicoloured leaves into a large pile. Or was trying to. The wind was gusting, sending swirls of the leaves dancing around the grass like animated creatures of myth. She didn’t envy him his job, a Sisyphean task if ever there was one – not that he would probably get the reference, she thought.

  A young woman’s laugh echoed across the grounds and Kate looked over to the main hall where the laughing woman was emerging, duffel-coated and wearing a bright red scarf, flanked on each side by two young men who were hanging onto her every word. All of them clutching textbooks like badges of honour, their eyes bright with the possibilities of their future. She looked back at the man raking the leaves, wondering if he wished he had studied harder at school, or whether he relished the fact that he never had to study again and could work outdoors in the open, fresh and healing air.

  Kate snapped out of her thoughts as she realised that the Dean had said something. She smiled apologetically back at her as the woman briskly led the way, skirting around the grass and continuing along to one of the blocks of student accommodation through a pair of wire-meshed glass doors that opened onto a concrete stairwell. She walked briskly up the stairs to the first floor. The stairs opened out into a corridor with a small kitchen area with a red plastic-covered sofa, a small table and some chairs around it. Leading left and right from the kitchen was a small corridor with rooms either side. Each corridor led to double doors at the end.

  ‘The rooms are arranged in groups of twenty,’ the Dean explained. ‘Each group has its own kitchen area. With a toaster and a fridge, et cetera.’ She pointed to the kitchen as they passed and turned to the right-hand set of rooms, fitting the key into the lock of the second room. ‘This is Jamil’s one.’

  She opened the door and led them in. It was a small room. A window directly opposite the door with a bed lengthwise underneath. The walls were brick and painted white. Against the wall to their right was a medium-sized pine wardrobe with the doors closed. There was a small rug on the floor and to the left of the door was a desk and chair with bookshelves above. On the desk was a laptop computer and some stacking files that looked to Kate as though they were filled with paper and correspondence. The books on the shelves were arranged neatly. She looked at the titles. All textbooks, law-related. No fiction, she thought. She looked again and corrected herself: one novel, J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. The walls were bare, everything was neatly arranged, not a spot of dust in sight.

  ‘You sure a student lives here?’ Kate asked dryly.

  ‘I know what you mean.’ Sheila Anderson said, looking around the room. ‘Like I say, Jamil is a model student. I’ve never once had a complaint about him or any hint of trouble. Some students, their first time away from home and they see it as a chance to really let their hair down.’

  ‘But not Jamil?’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘He’s a second-year student. Isn’t it unusual to still be in a hall of residence?’ Kate asked.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, when I was at uni, after the first year a group of us on the same course rented a house together. Most second-years seemed to.’

  ‘I’m not sure Jamil has a lot of friends. There’s Malik, of course.’

  Bennett took a book from the shelves. ‘The lad who reported him missing?’

  The Dean nodded. ‘His cousin. Malik Hussein. From Iraq, studying chemistry.’

  ‘Can we speak to him?’

  ‘I already checked. He has lectures until four o’clock.’

  DI Bennett put back on the shelf the textbook that he had been flicking through and turned to her.

  ‘You can think of no reason why anyone would want to hurt him?’

  ‘No, he was a beautiful man.’

  Kate reacted. ‘Odd choice of expression.’

  ‘I meant he had a very spiritual quality. There was something about him.’ The Dean smiled apologetically.

  ‘He is very handsome,’ Kate conceded.

  ‘Like I say, it’s not just that. “Jamil” means charming, you know.’

  Kate shook her head. ‘No, I didn’t know that.’

  Bennett’s phone rang, the strident ring tone echoing loudly in the small bare-walled room. He pulled it out of his pocket and quickly flipped it open. ‘DI Bennett.’ He listened for a few moments. ‘Okay, I’m on it.’

  He closed the phone and nodded to Kate and the Dean. ‘Good news. Jamil has just regained consciousness.’

  Sheila Anderson sighed audibly. ‘Is he going to be all right?’

  Bennett shrugged sympathetically. ‘They don’t know, I’m afraid. He’s still in a very critical condition. They’re keeping a close eye on him. I am sure he is in the best of hands.’

  Kate nodded to the Dean. ‘Thanks for your time.’

  ‘Not at all, if I can be of any more help at all, just let me know.’

  ‘Sure.’

  *

  Bennett fished his car keys out of his jacket pocket and beeped the locks open. ‘What did you make of her – the Dean?’ he asked Kate as they climbed into the front seats.

  ‘Pleasant enough. Seemed genuinely concerned about Jamil.’

  Bennett looked across at her. ‘Your university?’ he asked. ‘Some posh Oxbridge college, no doubt?’

  ‘No doubt at all.’

  ‘Hall of residence during your first year, you said?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Same here. Did you socialise with the Dean of your halls of residence much?’

  Kate shook her head. ‘I don’t think I even talked to him.’

  ‘Nor me. Saw him make a speech on arrivals day as we sipped cheap sherry. And saw him about the place here and there, but never had any occasion to speak to him.’

  ‘So your point would be?’

  Bennett shrugged as he turned the key in the ignition. ‘I don’t know. Something seemed a little hinky about her, is all.’

  ‘Hinky?’

  ‘Yeah, something not right. A little off. She called him a beautiful man.’

  Kate smiled. ‘It’s not a crime for a woman to notice an attractive man. Not since the 1970s, at least.’

  ‘Beautiful, she said – not attractive.’

  ‘So maybe she has a crush on him. Wouldn’t be the first time in a university, would it? Male lecturers have been banging their female students for centuries.’

  Bennett looked at her with raised eyebrows and pretended to be shocked. ‘Banging their students. Do you kiss Jack Delaney with that mouth, doctor?’

  Kate looked across at him coolly. ‘There’s a talent night coming up at the local pub on Wednesday. Maybe you should enter.’

  ‘Nah. I may be called Tony Bennett but I can’t sing for toffee.’

  ‘I meant as a comedian.’

  He started to reply but Kate held up a hand to stop him. ‘Just shut up and drive!’

  Bennett put up his hands in mock surrender, then put the car in gear and steered it towards the car-park entrance. Kate shook her head and looked out of the window to hide a small private smile. The guy Bennett was replacing, Detective Sergeant Eddie Bonner, he’d thought himself a
bit of a comedian too. But then he’d gone up against Jack Delaney and got himself killed in the process. She hoped the new guy would fare somewhat better.

  *

  Delaney balanced the porcelain saucer a little uneasily on his knee and took a sip of his tea. He looked across the room at the young girl he had taken from the boot of Garnier’s car all those years ago. She was sitting next to his cousin on the sofa. Fully grown now, educated, beautiful. The thought of what might have happened to her if Garnier hadn’t been arrested when he was still sent a chill to his heart. He looked across at her and smiled, chasing away the thoughts. She was one of the lucky ones. She had been saved.

  ‘I tried calling you on your mobile this morning, Gloria,’ he said.

  The young woman grinned apologetically. ‘It’s kaput. Haven’t got around to getting a new one. Not top priority with a loan to pay off and I’m between temp jobs right now.’

  Delaney pulled out his wallet. ‘How much do you need?’

  Gloria smiled. ‘Nothing, Jack. Really. I’ve got a new gig starting next week. It’s only a small student loan. I was one of the lucky ones who had parents who supported me.’

  ‘How are Henry and Joan?’

  ‘They’re fine. And I don’t want you mentioning this. They’ve been really concerned since that man started appearing on the news. They want me to go back to Warwick.’

  ‘But you don’t want to?’

  ‘I’ve got work here, Jack. And a home.’ She smiled at Mary. ‘And friends.’ But it was a small, nervous smile and Delaney picked up on it.

  ‘You say you have been getting some flashes of memory, Gloria?’ he asked sympathetically.