Dark Shadows

by Sibel Hodge

  I glanced at the stationary Peugeot. Hoodie Guy was still in situ, his face in side profile, still watching Ajay’s house. By now, the man with the dog had taken his phone from his pocket and was making a call. He would be Jerry McClusky then, the first person to ring the fire brigade. As the upper floor of Ajay’s house was out of camera view, I couldn’t see the flames pouring out of the front window, but from the reports and the damage, I knew that was what had happened.

  About ten minutes later, a fire engine appeared in the frame from the southern end of the street. Before it had time to park, Hoodie Guy had started his vehicle and driven away, disappearing from view.

  I watched the fire personnel leaping from the vehicle and gathering equipment and water hoses from the rig. But by the time they’d forced their way inside, it was already too late for Ajay. A lump formed in my throat as I tried not to think how agonisingly painful the burns must have been before he succumbed to the smoke inhalation that killed him.

  A crowd of onlookers had formed in the street, watching the macabre scene unfold. An ambulance arrived and parked behind the fire engine, but the paramedics had to wait until the fire was contained and the property declared safe before they could enter. And besides, there would’ve been nothing they could’ve done.

  I watched the aftermath for a while, until the paramedics brought Ajay’s body out on a stretcher. They loaded him into the back of the ambulance and drove away. Then I paused the footage.

  Hoodie Guy had sat there for about fifteen minutes before Ajay’s window exploded and anyone realised what was going on inside. What was he doing there? He hadn’t been making a call, having a smoke, meeting a friend, or going to the newsagent. He was waiting for something to happen inside Ajay’s house. It couldn’t have been coincidence that he was there, watching, at the same time Ajay took his own life. But after seeing him twice now in the circumstances I had, my gut wasn’t just slightly suspicious; it was screaming at me.

  Chapter 22

  Toni

  I had back-to-back clients until 11.00 a.m., helping them cope with everything from loneliness and anxiety to eating disorders and homesickness. After the last one had left, I went out to reception and asked Janet if she’d been doing any admin on Marcelina’s paper file—a subtle way of asking her if she’d been in my cabinet and misfiled it. But she said no. She’d just checked the oil burner was off, as requested, and locked up again afterwards. Which meant someone must have been in there for the express purpose of reading Marcelina’s file.

  I wondered what the hell was going on as I stepped back into my office, trying to decide whether to tell Phil I suspected someone had been in here looking at confidential information. I was in two minds about it, because I had no real proof.

  I quickly entered my handwritten session notes from the earlier clients into the database and then called Watford General Hospital to see if there was any improvement in Marcelina’s condition, but there was no change.

  I’d just put the office phone down when my mobile beeped. I had a message on Cipher, the end-to-end encrypted app Mitchell’s friend and cyber expert, Lee, had designed. Mitchell had downloaded it onto my phone so we could send texts, photos, and documents and make calls, but it was highly secure. There were two words from Mitchell…

  Call me.

  I rang him back using the same app.

  ‘How’s it going?’ he asked.

  ‘Okay, thanks. But I think someone came into my office.’ I told him about the misfiled notes, the door being unlocked. ‘Which seems highly suspicious. Marcelina thought she was being watched. What if someone had followed her here yesterday and wanted to find out what she was saying to me?’

  ‘It does sound strange, I’ll admit. But I just got some stuff from Lee concerning Marcelina, and I can’t see anything out of the ordinary. I can send copies through Cipher, but I’ll give you a quick summary. Before Marcelina came to St Albans to study, she was registered with her local GP back in Scotland. Those records show no mental health issues, nor any mental health conditions in her family. There are no substance abuse issues, either. The only medication she was prescribed in the past three years was the contraceptive pill. When she came down to St Albans, she registered with a Doctor Elaine Ford.’

  ‘I know her practice. A lot of the students use that surgery because it’s local.’

  ‘Well, again, there was nothing going on. She’s had two appointments in the last year. Both were for the contraceptive pill.’

  I swivelled in my chair. ‘Okay.’

  ‘Lee also got into Watford General’s database. They did a blood test for alcohol and standard drugs when she was admitted, but she tested negative. She’s also never reported a crime anywhere in the UK.’

  ‘But that doesn’t mean something didn’t happen to her. I know she was scared. If she was being stalked or harassed, maybe there’s some kind of text or call or email evidence on her phone, which I can’t unlock without her fingerprint. I’ll go to see her later if they let me visit and sort that out. I’ve also got her laptop, but it was damaged in the accident, so I can’t turn it on, but maybe Lee can check it for me. He might still be able to get something off the hard drive. I want to find out if there are any references on her phone or laptop to this PK person in her journal.’

  ‘Lee also took a quick look at her finances. She’s got a student loan, and the usual payments going out of her account for her uni accommodation, food, and sundry items. But nothing relating to PK or anything that he paid her for.’

  ‘Which means if that was the case, he probably gave her cash,’ I said. ‘But what for, though?’

  ‘Your guess is as good as mine. But so far, there’s nothing that seems sinister.’

  ‘Apart from the journal entries.’

  ‘Which could be the ramblings of a mixed-up girl. I think you need to just put this down to a terrible accident and let it go.’

  ‘It could be. But I don’t think so. I think she was in trouble. And I’m going to find out why.’

  ‘I think you should stop this.’ His voice was laced with concern. ‘It’s not your responsibility, and you get too obsessed with things.’

  ‘You’re exactly the same. If someone came to you needing help, you’d drop everything to do it. Look at what happened with Maya. With me.’ I wasn’t the only person Mitchell had rescued. When powerful and dangerous people killed his friend Jamie and threatened Jamie’s fiancée, Maya, he’d risked his life to help save her, using his special skill set. ‘So maybe I’m just like you, too. And I can’t just walk away from this.’

  He groaned down the line, probably trying to think of a suitable retort but failing, because it was true. ‘Just don’t tell your mum what you’re up to. She’d be panicking again that something might happen to you, and she’d bloody kill me for being involved.’

  ‘I won’t. No need to worry on that score.’

  ‘All right. Let me know when you’ve got the phone unlocked. If you can’t do it, I’m sure Lee will be able to. And, Toni… don’t do anything stupid.’

  ‘I won’t.’ I hung up then called student admin to find out exactly where Marcelina was living. They gave me the room number for one of the on-campus blocks, so I picked up Marcelina’s handbag and headed over there.

  The only areas where a university ID card was necessary to gain building access were the accommodation blocks and the library. I swiped my card through the entry system to housing block B, walked past a couple of bikes chained to the bottom stairwell railings, and paused for a moment, remembering Marcelina telling me that was where she’d ended up one day, spaced out, with no recollection of getting there.

  I headed up the stairs. Each floor had twenty rooms with en suite facilities and a communal kitchen at the end. Marcelina’s room was on the second floor. I found number thirty-one and hesitated outside her door. Music drifted from the open kitchen doorway at the end of the hall.

  I glanced up and down the corridor. No one was around. And anyway, I had
a perfectly good reason to be there. I was returning Marcelina’s bag to a safe place, even if it was minus her phone, laptop, and journal.

  I unlocked the door with Marcelina’s keys, stepped inside her room, and shut it behind me. I took a look around.

  There was a double bed positioned underneath the window, the covers unmade in a rumpled heap. Along one wall, a small desk with drawers had textbooks and notes scattered on top. A bin in the corner overflowed with scrunched-up food wrappers, a banana skin, and an empty bottle of water. The wardrobe’s doors were open, some clothes piled up on the bottom of it, some still on hangers. I glanced in the en suite shower room. A mixture of toiletries were arranged haphazardly on a single shelf above the sink.

  The place was a mess. A smell of stale air with an undertone of rotten food filled the room. I walked towards the window and opened it a little, taking a look into the student car park below and the identical accommodation block opposite. Could PK be another student? Had someone been watching her in her room from the next block? Marcelina didn’t have voiles or net curtains, just a plain pair of lightweight material ones. If they were open, someone from across the way could’ve easily seen inside. But that didn’t explain the voices she’d said she was hearing or the other symptoms—the blackouts, sleep problems, and nightmares. Did she have an undetected physical problem causing the blackouts, or the start of some mental health problem, like the schizophrenia she was worried about? Extreme stress could’ve also caused strange behaviour, and if someone had assaulted her or was stalking or watching her, that could’ve created just the right amount of stress.

  I turned away from the window and glanced around, unsure what I was expecting to find. I thought again of someone coming into my office to look through Marcelina’s notes. If they’d come in here, too, it would be impossible to tell if this was the state she’d left it in. And if they had, what were they looking for? Something that connected her to this PK?

  I sat at her desk and placed her handbag on the floor. I flicked through the textbooks and some novels, before turning my attention to her notebooks. There was nothing like the journal I’d found in her handbag. All of these were outlines for coursework or notes she’d taken in lectures.

  I opened the drawers, rifling through. I found nothing weird and no drugs. I looked under the mattress then checked through her wardrobe, looking for any loose areas she could hide something behind, in clothes pockets, shoes, and bags. I found nothing until I got to a battered old shoebox and looked inside. There was a hairdryer and a plastic purse in the shape of a cat’s head. Inside the purse was a roll of fifty-pound notes. I pulled it out and counted just over two thousand pounds. Was this the money from PK?

  I put it back as I’d found it and shut the lid, sighing. What was I even doing? I was seriously crossing a professional line. If someone found me in her room, going through her stuff, at the very least, I’d be disciplined, most likely sacked, but that wasn’t going to stop me. I was risking my career before it even got started, but if Marcelina was in danger for some reason, I had to do everything I could to help her—because I’d been in danger once, too, and I couldn’t just abandon Marcelina if she was in trouble.

  I went into the en suite and lifted the toilet cistern. No drugs there, either. Back in the bedroom, I studied the floor. It was carpeted, with no sign that any part of it had been lifted to hide some kind of stash. The skirting boards were all intact. There was nothing else there to find.

  Chapter 23

  Detective Becky Harris

  I called Sutherby on my Bluetooth system as I drove back from the newsagent to the university, but he didn’t pick up, so I left a message. I was just pulling through the uni’s gates when my phone rang, but it wasn’t the chief getting back to me. It was Warren.

  ‘Hola,’ he said. ‘Just checking up on you. Seeing if you got to Marbella safely.’

  ‘Buenos días.’ I smiled. He’d been worried about me recently. Worried I’d been sinking into the same kind of depression about my split with Ian that had consumed him after his wife’s death. But they weren’t the same things at all. He’d lost the love of his life, his soul mate. Ian and I had never really been right for each other. And even though I’d been down, I wasn’t depressed. I just needed to keep busy. It was a blip in my life. A big, sad, expensive blip, but still a blip. And I loved Warren for worrying about me.

  ‘Yeah, everything’s good, thanks.’ I pulled up in a parking bay outside my accommodation block then switched off the engine. ‘I’m just checking out the shops. Then I’ll probably head to the pool for a bit of sun and sangria.’ I winced inwardly as I said it, hating lying to him.

  ‘Sounds nice. What’s the temperature there?’

  ‘About twenty-six degrees. What’s it like there?’

  ‘Actually, it’s hotter here. We’re still having a heat wave.’

  ‘Lucky you. How’s everything going?’

  ‘Good. Fine. The usual.’ There was still an undercurrent of sadness in his voice, even though he was finally moving on with his life and getting to grips with the grief that had floored him.

  ‘And how’s Mrs Pickle Pants?’

  ‘God, that poor cat. No wonder she doesn’t come back when you call her. She doesn’t even know what her real name is anymore.’

  ‘She loves my little nicknames.’

  He snorted. ‘She’s fine, anyway. Eating like a pig, as usual.’

  ‘Thanks again for feeding her. I really appreciate it.’

  ‘What are friends for? Anyway, I’d better let you go and have fun then. Have a sangria for me.’

  ‘I’ll have a whole jug for you.’

  He chuckled. ‘You do that.’

  I hung up and exited the car, heading towards my room. I’d just got inside the entrance hall when my phone beeped with a text. It was from Sutherby, telling me he’d sent through the information regarding Marcelina Claybourn’s RTA outside the university gates.

  I took the stairs two at a time and bounded down the corridor to my room. I doubted it had anything to do with what I was looking into, but I wanted to be thorough. An investigation was as much about discounting possibilities, however unlikely.

  When I checked the laptop, I found Sutherby had sent witness statements, the traffic officer’s preliminary report, and photographs of the scene. Unfortunately, the area wasn’t covered by CCTV.

  I opened the statements first and read through, starting with the driver, whose name was Darius Christakos. He was a Greek national who’d arrived in the UK two weeks before to visit his mum who’d moved to the UK ten years ago and was in hospital due to a stroke. Ironically, he’d just come back from visiting her at Watford General Hospital when he hit Marcelina and sent her straight to the same place. He owned a restaurant in Santorini, and the last time he’d been in the UK was two years previously, so I doubted he knew Marcelina. He certainly didn’t appear to have any ties to the university. He’d said…

  She came out of nowhere. One minute, I was driving along, and then I just saw a blur in my side vision, and my hire car hit her. I didn’t have time to stop or react.

  Five other witnesses so far confirmed the same thing. It was tragic, but I didn’t think it could be related to anything going on here.

  I clicked on the last attachment in the email, which was information that I’d asked for on Professor Cain, but it didn’t raise any particular alarm bells. Cain didn’t appear to have any suspicious associations or radical political or social ideas. No dubious financial transactions. No complaints or allegations against him from students or staff. He seemed like Mr Average.

  I dialled Sutherby as I sat on the bed, jigging my knee up and down, waiting for him to pick up.

  ‘Hi, Becky. I take it you got the email I sent.’

  ‘Yes, sir. The accident’s terrible, but I don’t think it could be related to anything sinister.’

  ‘I agree. And I’ve just got hold of another statement from a witness who the traffic officers visited at the
university earlier this morning, and she says the same thing as the others. She’s a student counsellor there who said Marcelina had just left a counselling session with her in an agitated, upset state. She went after Marcelina to try and see if she was okay, but Marcelina rushed off. By the time she’d got close to her, Marcelina had walked into the road.’

  I thought about that in relation to my enquiries. The coroner’s officer had investigated Ajay’s and Vicky’s mental health status, and the counselling services on site were one of their first ports of call. Neither had visited them for any help, so there was no connection there. Similarly, there was no indication of Natalie having mental health problems prior to the accident until the new subsequent suspicion of schizophrenia.

  I rubbed at my forehead. ‘Why did Marcelina see the counsellor? Do we know?’

  ‘They wouldn’t tell us. Client confidentiality. Besides, I think in light of the fact that it doesn’t seem related, there’s no point in you pursuing it further.’

  ‘I have found some other things that are suspicious, though.’ I told him about seeing Hoodie Guy coming out of the Watling Centre the night before and outside Ajay’s house. ‘I’m going to email a copy of the footage I downloaded at the newsagent. The camera was hidden really well, and unless you studied hard, you wouldn’t notice it was there. I need to know who he is and who the vehicle is registered to. It’s weird because it was like he was waiting outside Ajay’s house for it to happen, but the only way he could’ve known was if he or someone else had put Ajay up to it or had some other involvement in it. That unknown man could be the key linking things together.’

  ‘I’ve also done general background checks on all members of staff, and there’s nothing obvious that raises any red flags. No complaints or allegations against anyone.’