Code Grey

by Clea Simon

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  A Selection of Recent Titles by Clea Simon

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  A Selection of Recent Titles by Clea Simon

  MEW IS FOR MURDER

  CATTERY ROW

  CRIES AND WHISKERS

  PROBABLE CLAWS

  SHADES OF GREY *

  GREY MATTERS *

  GREY ZONE *

  GREY EXPECTATIONS *

  TRUE GREY *

  GREY DAWN *

  GREY HOWL *

  STAGES OF GREY *

  CODE GREY *

  *available from Severn House

  CODE GREY

  A Dulcie Schwartz feline mystery

  Clea Simon

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  This first world edition published 2015

  in Great Britain and the USA by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  19 Cedar Road, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM2 5DA.

  Trade paperback edition first published 2015 in Great

  Britain and the USA by SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD.

  eBook edition first published in 2015 by Severn House Digital

  an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

  Copyright © 2015 by Clea Simon.

  The right of Clea Simon to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  Simon, Clea author.

  Code grey.

  1. Schwartz, Dulcie (Fictitious character)–Fiction.

  2. Book thefts–Fiction. 3. Cambridge (Mass.)–Fiction.

  4. Detective and mystery stories.

  I. Title

  813.6-dc23

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8506-7 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-610-7 (trade paper)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-661-8 (e-book)

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited, Falkirk,

  Stirlingshire, Scotland.

  For Jon

  ONE

  Like any ill-witted Hare trapped in the hunter’s snare, she was caught, her limbs clasped tight about her heaving sides not by a subtly laid cord but by the captor himself. The Treacherous Beast had come upon her from behind, laying hold of her body as her Lungs gasped out for liberty as essential as the very Air. No matter her desperate struggle; ’twas too late. Her corporeal self, Traitor to her will, would not answer, as her cries, stifl’d by the pressure upon her face, subsided painfully to one last startled gasp. The taste of Leather, of a glove, upon her face, holding her and binding …

  ‘Oh, hell and—’ Dulcie caught herself before she said more. ‘Zounds!’

  It wasn’t deadly. It was merely uncomfortable. Merely, well, Cambridge in March, and Dulcie had been reading while she walked.

  Hopping over to a lamp post, Dulcie reined in her temper and pulled off her boot, emptying it of the half-melted slush that had slid in. Even as she had been reading – the text on her cell phone, something she’d sent herself only a few minutes before – she hadn’t been totally unaware of her surroundings. She had stepped off the curve on to pavement, of that she was sure. Except that as her foot descended, the slate-grey solidity below her had melted around it, like something from a Gothic horror tale, resolving itself into that disgusting mix particular to New England at this time of year and slipping, just as inexorably, into her boot. The only good news was that even as she caught herself, newly wet and increasingly cold, and hopped back up on to the slick dry pavement, she hadn’t dropped her phone.

  ‘Bother,’ Dulcie muttered as she pocketed the distracting device. Only an optimist could call this spring, she thought as she slipped her soaked sock back into the boot’s wet interior. No matter what the calendar said, it was hard to consider this anything more than another winter thaw, a tease. An accident of the calendar, her own ‘treacherous beast.’ Because on top of everything else, she was alone, heading home to an empty apartment. This week the university was on recess – ten days if you counted the weekend – and while in the past she had enjoyed the break from classes and students and all the rigmarole that went with being a graduate student, this year the quiet was a bit much. Not only had most of her students taken off for warmer climes, but even her friends had deserted her.

  Not deserted. That was too harsh. Trista was presenting a paper in Texas. Her blonde and multiply pierced friend had successfully defended her own dissertation the year before, but now she was busy scrambling for what she could do once her postgrad fellowship here ended. And after the flood – a burst pipe – had closed not only the English grad students’ office space but also part of the computer labs, Trista’s boyfriend Jerry – an applied math doctoral candidate, like Dulcie’s own sweetie, Chris – had chosen to accompany her to Austin. Then Chris’s mother had practically begged him to come home to New Jersey – something about a failing aunt and family obligations. Dulcie was welcome, too; they had both made that clear. (Chris, in particular, had pleaded.) But if she was going to finish writing her dissertation this year, she really needed to buckle down. Despite the repairs and a flurry of belated maintenance work – most of the buildings in the Yard had antique plumbing – the main libraries had stayed open.

  Not that this mattered now. What mattered was that she was standing in Harvard Yard with a wet foot, dark descending, and no prospects for anything but a cold, cheerless walk home.

  She took a step. Her boot squelched.

  ‘Argh!’ she yelled as the icy wet squirted up between her to
es, and just as quickly she put her mittened hand over her mouth. It was reflex, nothing more. Dulcie wasn’t sure why she was even worried. She was alone. Utterly alone. During spring break, no one can hear you scream.

  Cambridge had it in for her. As Dulcie crossed the street, the wind picked up. A Nordic blast, more suitable for February than this late March day, it hit Dulcie like a slap. Or, no, more like a scrape, as if careless claws had raked her face. Freeing one hand from its mitten, she raised it to her cheek. It wasn’t her imagination. The grit and sand that had been laid down on icy walkways all winter long had been freed by this last dubious thaw as if purposely to pelt her.

  ‘Insult to injury,’ Dulcie muttered, wiping her face as the wind continued to build, chasing her through the arched brick gate on to university property. Whipping around Sever Hall, its unlit classroom windows framed by scaffolding, it howled like some trapped beast as it made its way around the other empty university buildings that filled the Yard.

  That sound – along with the raw scrape on her cheek – gave Dulcie pause, reminiscent as they were of a particularly displeased feline. ‘Please, don’t tell me this is a message, Mr Grey.’ She turned away from the blast, away from the open Yard with its stark and leafless trees, and toward the pale shelter of a wall, the better to evoke the feline spirit who still occasionally visited her. ‘Because if it is, I really think you have better means at your disposal.’

  A loud thud was the only response. By the wall, a sign – ‘Closed for Repairs’ – had fallen over, another victim of the gust. And not, as she had half hoped, the result of a giant, playful paw. Unless …

  At times, Dulcie believed, the elements were more than mere weather. Sometimes, she thought, the kind spirit she knew as Mr Grey would use the outside world to guide her. Today, however, she couldn’t see any rhyme or reason in the pummeling. Even at his worst, the ghost of her late, great pet would never be this ungentle.

  No, this was simply March in full leonine fashion. Only, shouldn’t it be more lamblike by now? Another blast answered that question, and Dulcie turned again to find herself facing the library’s recessed back entrance. The blue security light glowed like a beacon by the brick foyer. It was past time for the stacks to close, but perhaps one of the guards she knew would be on duty. She thought of Ruby, with her welcoming smile, or the new guy, Kyle, who had remained freckled all winter long. Maybe one of them would have an extra pair of socks. Or a space heater, where she could dry off. It wasn’t like Chris was waiting for her at home.

  She didn’t need the next arctic blast to convince her. With a squish, Dulcie turned and raced toward the library entrance.

  ‘Oh! Excuse me.’ Dulcie stopped short. The brick-lined passage wasn’t empty. At her approach, a skinny man had pressed himself flat against the wall. ‘I didn’t see you.’

  ‘Didn’t see. Couldn’t comprehend, more likely.’ The other occupant scowled as he recovered his composure, his face skull-like above his worn tweed overcoat. ‘Unable to fathom the unplumbed complexities. Unplumbed and disemboweled, excavated to extinction.’

  ‘Jeremy? I’m sorry I startled you.’ The scowling man stood a head taller than Dulcie, but she couldn’t be frightened of him. Jeremy Mumbleigh – ‘Mumbles’ to many of her classmates – was one of those unfortunates who inhabit university towns. A one-time scholar who had gone off the rails at some point but still hung around his old haunts, the skinny man was more scarecrow than scary, a silver-haired casualty of the academic battlefield. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘All right, or all left?’ He raised an eyebrow, as if his question made logical sense. ‘Turn right to stay right. Which way are we turning here, for good or for ill?’

  ‘Jeremy, it’s me, Dulcie.’ Unlike some of her classmates, Dulcie felt only pity for the man. In part, that was because she could see how alike they were. Although Chris and certainly Trista would pooh-pooh the notion, Dulcie saw the tall man in the threadbare tweed as a cautionary tale. A reminder to keep her focus, and finally to finish her dissertation. She also saw how he was shivering, his arms wrapped around himself as if to add their poor warmth to that of the worn coat.

  ‘Are you hungry, Jeremy?’ Dulcie didn’t have much of a budget, but she could certainly stand a fellow scholar a bowl of soup. She thought of Lala’s rich split pea, thick with bits of ham, and her own mouth started watering. Besides, the company would do them both good. ‘Would you want to come to dinner with me?’ She kept her voice soft. The man was skittish.

  ‘Dinner, winner.’ He turned away, and she saw that he was scratching on the brick. Writing one of his long nonsense verses, she thought at first, though in this weather his words would probably be erased by the wind. But, no, it looked like he was drawing: she saw ears and – were those whiskers? Yes, it was a cat. ‘Cat’s dinner for a winner. The kind-hearted woman will save the sinner.’ Jeremy seemed to be illustrating his own rambling. ‘It’s a secret. You can’t tell anyone.’

  He turned suddenly, with a look of such ferocity that Dulcie stepped back.

  ‘I wouldn’t,’ she stammered, unsure of what exactly she was agreeing to. Jeremy had never been violent, despite what some of her classmates had whispered. But he had never looked quite so … intent.

  ‘It’s a conspiracy, you know.’ His voice, low and deep, was as piercing as his gaze. ‘And they won’t stop until they’ve gotten it all.’

  TWO

  ‘I’m being careful, Chris. You know I am.’ Dulcie could hear the peevishness creeping into her voice. ‘I promise,’ she added, in a softer tone. Chris was honestly concerned, she knew that. He never liked her going out after dark, and being several hundred miles away with his anxious mother wasn’t helping.

  ‘I got the latest text alert.’ He wasn’t going to be mollified so easily.

  ‘That was about the burglaries.’ Dulcie was trying to be reasonable. ‘The ones we already know about,’ she added, before Chris could worry more. ‘And those were on campus, Chris.’

  She heard a grumble and took a deep breath. The university’s text alerts were, in general, a good thing, warning the campus community about problems or delays. But the latest series, reminding people about a string of robberies, didn’t seem particularly well thought out. She’d gotten one while walking home, the buzzing phone making itself known through all her layers. When she’d seen the message from Chris, she’d known what he was calling about. The general alert had been designed to scare, at least a little. But the information it conveyed wasn’t new.

  The problem lay with those pipes. Originally laid in an ornate maze of steam tunnels that ran between most of the older university buildings, the repairs they required had necessitated the packing up of several freshman dorms, as well as a dozen university offices, and maintenance crews were busy emptying out ancient basement storage units as they searched for the source of the leaks. Dulcie had never been more relieved that English and American Lit had its own headquarters a few blocks away. Although the offices, a tiny clapboard house, were closed for the break, and Nancy – the motherly secretary who staffed it – was enjoying a well-earned week in Aruba, Dulcie’s home away from home was safely away from the ruckus in the Yard. She couldn’t say the same for all the offices in the campus’s busy center. With all the activity, doors would be left unlocked – and possessions would go missing, even if for utterly innocent reasons.

  Still, there was no denying that somebody was taking advantage of the situation. The thieves were targeting empty dorm rooms and offices – places left dark and vacant – and while the university police couldn’t ascertain exactly what was being taken until the students returned and employees could re-enter their offices, it was assumed that any valuables left unsecured were at risk. At least, that’s what the text warned about. Only there was one problem: anybody who had already left for the break couldn’t really do much about security now. The only people around were those like Dulcie, who didn’t live on campus.

  ‘I’m not worried about the
apartment,’ said Chris, sounding quite reasonable. ‘Honestly, Dulce.’

  Dulcie relaxed. Of course he wasn’t. Though they didn’t talk much about it, they both knew that their current cat, Esmé, had more powers than the average house pet.

  ‘I worry about you, Dulcie. You saw someone huddled in a doorway, and you went to join him? What if you had accidentally interrupted a burglary?’

  ‘But I didn’t.’ He wasn’t being logical. ‘It was Jeremy. You know, Mumbles?’

  ‘Great.’ He didn’t sound any happier about that.

  ‘Chris,’ she said. ‘You know he’s harmless.’

  ‘I know you think he’s harmless.’ Despite the miles between them, she could hear the strain in his voice. ‘But, really, Dulcie, what do you know about him?’

  ‘I know he was a graduate student here, same as I am. I know he had some kind of breakdown—’

  Chris interrupted before she could finish. ‘I mean, what do you know of him now, Dulcie? How does he even live? For all you know, he could be the one doing these break-ins. Or maybe, I don’t know, he’s a look out.’

  ‘Chris …’ Dulcie struggled to find the words. ‘You don’t know him. I do. I mean, I kind of know what he’s gone through, you know?’

  ‘No.’ Her boyfriend’s voice was firm. ‘I don’t. And neither do you, Dulcie. You see him as a kind of cautionary tale. A worst-case scenario of what can happen if you don’t finish your dissertation. I get that, I really do. But Dulcie, you’re not like him. You’re going to write your thesis and get your degree, and even if you didn’t, you’d be OK. Mumbles is … well, he’s something else again. For starters, he’s really sick. And Dulcie? He’s not a metaphor – the romantic hobo or a Depression-era poet on the rails, or something. He’s a man, a disturbed man, and it scares me when you’re alone with him.’