Truth or Die

by Katerina Diamond

  ‘Are your parents not in the picture?’ Imogen asked.

  ‘No, apparently being parents was boring and not nearly noble enough, so they skipped off into the sunset together. I think they live in South America somewhere. They’re missionaries or something.’

  That explained her strange behaviour – abandonment issues.

  ‘You don’t have any contact with them?’ Imogen pressed.

  ‘Not for around ten years now. But you know, I’m privileged apparently, so I don’t really deserve their attention. They only have time for Third World children.’ She brushed her glossy black hair behind her ears. The hair was the same colour as her perfectly groomed eyebrows, which almost looked painted on, but they were natural, Imogen could tell. Caitlin was making Imogen self-conscious; she watched as the girl’s striking blue eyes bore into Adrian and no doubt pulled at his heart strings.

  ‘I’m sorry, that must be hard,’ Adrian said.

  Imogen shot him a look; it wasn’t like him to make personal comments like that. There was something a little mesmerising about Caitlin. She couldn’t tell whether it was intentional and manipulative or just the way she was, but Imogen was almost certain it was the former. Imogen was the one with a record for falling for suspects; it was the reason she’d lost the opportunity to get the DI job, because the DCI had found out about her relationship with Dean, which although not entirely illegal was most definitely frowned upon. The truth was that Imogen was a little relieved about not getting the position; she wasn’t sure she could handle the extra responsibility as well as everything else she had going on, on top of losing her mum.

  That fleeting thought of her mother sent a chill through her; she couldn’t call her, she couldn’t go and visit.

  Imogen shook off the impromptu melancholy and stood up.

  ‘We’ll check out your story. If your grandfather is happy not to press charges, you’ll be able to leave,’ Imogen said.

  ‘The uniformed officer will take you to the cell for a little while; it won’t be long though,’ Adrian said gently, taking the edge off Imogen’s words.

  ‘Thank you, Detective Miles.’ Caitlin smiled and blinked slowly, her thick black lashes closing then opening to reveal those eyes, almost in slow motion. There was an aura of ‘trouble’ around her, something Imogen couldn’t quite put her finger on.

  ‘Interview suspended at three fifteen,’ Imogen said and turned off the recorder.

  Caitlin Watts folded her arms and winced a little.

  ‘Is something the matter?’ Imogen said.

  ‘I cut my arm on the window while I was trying to get through it, no big deal.’

  ‘Let me see?’

  The girl pulled her cardigan off her shoulder, locking eyes with Adrian while she did it. There was a gash in the top of her arm, about ten centimetres long, certainly not nothing.

  Imogen held her breath and counted to three before speaking again.

  ‘You need some medical attention. I’ll get hold of the doctor on call to come and see you. I think that’s going to need stitches.’

  Imogen opened the door to see PC Ben Jarvis standing there waiting for instruction. Ben was new to the district and already he had made no secret of his interest in Imogen.

  ‘I need you to take the suspect to holding, then get the duty doctor to check her out,’ Imogen informed him.

  ‘Whatever you need,’ he said, smiling in a way that made her a little uncomfortable.

  He brushed past Imogen – she felt like he was making sure that some part of his body was in contact with some part of hers – before leading Caitlin Watts out of the room.

  Imogen sat on the edge of the table and looked down at Adrian, who was watching the girl leave, not pulling his eyes away until she wasn’t there to look at any more. She thought it was funny how his perception of the situation in that room was so different to hers; she had been preoccupied with Jarvis, he had been preoccupied with Caitlin. He hadn’t even noticed her awkward interaction with the PC. She folded her arms, and her movement made him turn and see her looking at him, his face reddening, as though he had been caught doing something he shouldn’t.

  ‘What?’ he asked.

  ‘She’s pretty,’ Imogen said.

  ‘No. That’s not what I was thinking.’ He tried to hide his smile.

  ‘Then what? You seemed to find it hard to look away.’

  ‘Don’t you think there’s something odd about her?’

  ‘I think there’s something odd about you,’ Imogen said.

  ‘Pot. Kettle.’

  ‘Do you think she’s telling the truth?’

  ‘Not even slightly,’ Adrian said. ‘I mean, the stuff about her grandad? She’s definitely lying, God knows what about. You know those people who just lie about everything? I think she’s one of those. They just can’t help themselves.’

  ‘You think she was trying to steal something?’

  ‘No idea. I don’t think we’ve seen the last of her, though,’ Adrian said, still staring at the door long after Caitlin had been taken through it.

  ‘I’m sure you’re devastated about that.’ Imogen raised her eyebrows.

  ‘I’m not the one who’s into suspects,’ he said.

  ‘Touché,’ Imogen said, unsure whether to take offence or not. But she was uncomfortable having Dean and Adrian in the same headspace these days. She noted a hint of something whenever the subject came up between them, which was thankfully a rare occurrence. Was Adrian jealous? It certainly felt like it sometimes. Maybe she was paranoid, maybe it was wishful thinking. Why did everything have to be so complicated?

  ‘You didn’t tell me how your mum’s funeral went,’ Adrian said, cutting into her thoughts.

  ‘It went. It was tough. Glad it’s over.’

  ‘Was your father there?’

  ‘Still can’t get used to calling him that, but yes, Elias was there,’ she said, pulling the door open; she wasn’t in the mood for talking about herself right now. If she opened up to Adrian, she might start crying and never stop. She wasn’t sure she was ready for Adrian to see her like that just yet; she wanted him to think of her as strong.

  As they left the interview room, they saw Denise walking towards them in the hall. There seemed to be some discomfort between her and Adrian, as they avoided eye contact. Workplace relationships rarely worked out, unless you were lucky enough to find ‘the one’ – an ideal Imogen wasn’t entirely sure she believed in. Most of the time, though, all that was left after the intimacy was resentment and embarrassment. Imogen promised herself she would never put herself in that situation again, which of course meant it was absolutely inevitable.

  Chapter Five

  Adrian lay in Imogen’s bed. His house had felt haunted since he lost Lucy, the girl he had fallen for, the girl he’d barely had enough time to get to know, the girl who had been killed to teach him a lesson. It seemed as though that haunted feeling was following him around though; maybe it wasn’t the house at all. Maybe it was him.

  Behind him, the door opened. Imogen walked into the room and slid under the covers. White T-shirt and bare legs. He turned and stretched his arm out for her to rest her head on. Neither one of them liked being alone and so this filled a need, and they could trust each other with it.

  Adrian was having one of those rare moments of simplicity. He wondered why they felt like they needed to keep this a secret, not just from the rest of the world, their friends and families – but from each other, from themselves. It was as though there was something wrong with this platonic intimacy, as though it were weird because they weren’t ripping each other’s clothes off. It almost made him feel dirty in a way that sex wouldn’t, more complicated, less understandable. Why would anyone want this? They never spoke about it; it was a silent agreement between the two of them. They had yet to acknowledge it even happened outside of this house. This was a moment, in context, that didn’t exist anywhere else. They drifted off together and in the morning one of them would go before the
other awoke.

  Adrian’s phone rang at six thirty a.m., a whole hour before his alarm was due to wake him. He looked at the screen, it was Denise. The bed was empty.

  ‘Denise? Why are you calling me?’ Adrian said quietly before realising that Imogen wasn’t next to him and so he didn’t need to keep his voice down.

  ‘Good morning, sunshine.’

  ‘Get on with it,’ he snapped.

  ‘There’s been a murder up at the university.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The call just came in. I thought you might want to get up there. I tried to call you before the new DI got up there, but DCI Kapoor called him and asked him to deal with it.’

  ‘So, he’s already there?’

  ‘Yeah, him and DS Grey.’

  ‘What?’ he said, managing to soften it a moment before it came out of his mouth.

  ‘She said she tried to call you, but you didn’t answer.’

  ‘I’m on my way.’ He hung up and jumped out of Imogen’s bed.

  Adrian pulled his jeans on and roughly pulled back the sheets, noticing the full mug of coffee on the side table. He picked it up and it was still warm; she hadn’t long left. This was her apology. He drank it and left it on the bedside table.

  At the university it didn’t take him long to find them, and as he walked through the halls of the humanities department, he could hear Imogen speaking before he saw her. He turned the corner to see her standing next to DI Matt Walsh, the newbie in CID. He must have been approaching fifty years old, with white-grey hair, but somehow still quite youthful in appearance. He wore jeans and a blazer, and his hair was thick and floppy, reminiscent of the nineties somewhat.

  As if sensing his presence, they both turned to look at him in unison. He noticed Imogen’s eyes dart away for a second before resuming her composure.

  DI Walsh held his hand out immediately. ‘Detective Miles, good to see you again.’

  ‘Detective Walsh. Please, call me Adrian.’

  ‘Likewise, call me Matt though, not Adrian.’

  Adrian half-smiled. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘Professor of Philosophy found dead in his office.’

  ‘Dead how?’ Adrian asked, annoyed that he was out of the loop and the information was being drip-fed to him.

  ‘Murdered. Looks like he got his head bashed in with a large glass paperweight,’ Matt Walsh said.

  ‘This feels like an episode of Columbo already,’ Adrian said.

  ‘The techs are just in taking photos and logging evidence, but go ahead.’

  Adrian walked into the office, where three crime scene technicians were doing their business. He stayed in the corner and looked around the room. Being there in person was different to seeing photographs; in Adrian’s experience, memories of scenes could be powerful, things could get burned into the mind. Photographs just didn’t give you the same perspective. He had heard of cases in the military where they had to get in and out of a scene without touching it, so they would use special cameras to capture the scene, then use giant 3D printers to recreate it perfectly, just so they could get the perspective and walk through the scene as many times as they needed.

  The professor’s face was hardly a face at all; caved in from the force and weight of the instrument used to kill him, the attack seemed almost frenzied. There were signs of a struggle, with books and papers strewn across the floor. Blood was spattered all up the walls, across the desk, everywhere, and the resin ball lay on the ground near the body. A blue flower was trapped inside, striking against the red of the blood. Someone must have been very angry to commit this level of violence, there was something crazed about it. No effort to tidy up or hide anything either. Adrian couldn’t imagine it was opportunistic in motive at least.

  ‘Any fingerprints?’ he asked the crime scene technicians.

  ‘Hundreds. But it looks like our perp wore gloves, so I doubt we’re going to find any,’ the technician closest to him said.

  ‘Any ideas at all?’

  ‘I’d say with the force used that you’re definitely looking for a male. And the stamina suggests someone young. They mashed his head. It’s going to be nigh on impossible to recreate the skull; it’s in tiny pieces and totally smushed in with brain matter.’

  ‘Vivid, thanks,’ Adrian said.

  Adrian left the room; he’d seen and heard enough for now. Imogen and Matt Walsh were in the corridor, chatting about his previous placement.

  ‘Did you know DI Walsh used to work with DCI Kapoor?’ Imogen said.

  ‘I had heard that, yes,’ Adrian said, almost certain he had discussed it with Imogen before.

  ‘They used to be partners.’

  ‘Interesting,’ Adrian said, playing along with whatever Imogen was doing.

  ‘She’s one of the good ones. You guys got lucky getting her. I was happy to hear a placement opened up here so that I could apply,’ Matt said.

  ‘It’s not weird, working under your former partner?’ Imogen asked.

  Adrian knew she was talking about them – one of them was bound to get promoted one day and he didn’t know how that would work, if it even could work.

  ‘It’s pretty great knowing someone you can trust has your back, actually.’

  ‘Sounds like you’ve been burned before,’ she continued.

  ‘Haven’t we all?’

  ‘Were you two ever … together?’ Adrian asked.

  Imogen shot him a look.

  DI Matt Walsh let out a raucous laugh, completely inappropriate given the situation. It reverberated so much in the room that everyone turned to look at him. There was a momentary pause before normal crime scene hubbub returned.

  ‘Nice to know she hasn’t changed,’ Matt said.

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Adrian.

  ‘She doesn’t exactly talk about herself much, does she?’

  ‘True,’ Imogen acknowledged.

  ‘Well, she’s not exactly into guys.’

  ‘Oh.’ Adrian was surprised.

  ‘I didn’t find out ’til three years in, so you’ve got the jump on me,’ Matt said.

  ‘What do you think of this crime, then?’ Imogen asked, clearly uncomfortable with talking about the DCI’s personal business.

  ‘Messy and inexperienced.’

  ‘A student?’ Adrian said.

  ‘Maybe. Have a chat with some of the faculty in this block, see if they know anything. I’ll go and speak to the dean.’

  He walked away. Adrian liked him already, which was a relief.

  Adrian and Imogen made their way upstairs and knocked on the door to the psychology professor Gillian Mitchell’s office, but there was no response. The hallways started to fill with students getting to their morning lectures. There was a lot of mumbling; news of the murder had obviously got around. They knocked again.

  ‘Can I help you?’ A voice came from behind them.

  They turned to see a blonde-haired woman, standing tall and lean in a brown linen suit. Her hair was almost iridescent in colour.

  ‘Are you Gillian Mitchell?’ Adrian asked.

  ‘Are you here about Hugh?’ the woman said.

  ‘Can we talk in your office?’ Imogen asked her.

  ‘Actually, I’d rather not. I’m waiting for someone to come up and sort out the giant spider I have locked in there. I may never go back in there again. What is it you want to know?’ She smiled.

  ‘Did you know Professor Norris well?’ Imogen said.

  ‘In passing. We weren’t friends or anything. He was a bit too chatty for my liking. Sometimes less is more. You find that with philosophers, though; they always want a bloody conversation.’

  ‘Not psychologists?’ Adrian mused.

  ‘I’m more of an observer.’

  ‘Did he have any enemies?’ Adrian said.

  ‘Absolutely not, he was a nice man.’

  ‘Any problem students?’ Imogen asked.

  ‘Here? Not really. Now and then we get one, but no one springs to mind.’


  ‘Did you teach any of the same students?’ Adrian followed up.

  ‘Sometimes we would guest on each other’s topics, try to show a different perspective, and we run the debating society in this block too. It’s got a big mix of students, mainly philosophy though; they love a debate.’

  ‘I see, and who was close to Professor Norris?’ Imogen asked.

  ‘Doctor,’ Gillian said.

  ‘Excuse me?’ Imogen said.

  ‘Technically he was a doctor, he had a doctorate, so he was a doctor, that’s his official title.’ She smiled, a hint of annoyance at having to explain it crossing her features. It seemed that Gillian might have a bit of a hang-up about her colleague’s status.

  ‘Was anyone close to Doctor Norris?’ Adrian said. Something about this woman was annoying him. Even though she was being pleasant, he found she had a bubbling hostility. It may just have been because they were police officers, or maybe it was something else entirely.

  ‘He always ate alone, seemed pleasant enough, but I never really saw him with anyone in particular. Sorry I can’t help you more.’

  Adrian looked down at his notepad, then flicked back to a previous page, searching for a particular name. ‘What about Helen Lassiter? She’s got an office in this building, hasn’t she?’

  ‘I’m afraid she’s not in today. She’s away with some students on a trip. I’m not sure when she’s back off the top of my head.’

  Adrian felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned to see Caitlin standing next to him.

  ‘Detective Miles.’ She smiled at him. ‘Are you here to arrest me again?’

  ‘You weren’t actually arrested, Miss …’ Adrian said, struggling to remember her name.

  ‘Watts, Caitlin Watts,’ Caitlin replied.

  He noticed how she left her mouth open when she’d finished speaking, moving her tongue gently against her top lip. She was flirting with him. He looked away quickly.

  ‘Excuse me a moment,’ Gillian Mitchell said, ‘I just saw one of the maintenance men disappear around the corner and I really do need to get rid of this damn spider; I have notes in there I need later this morning. If that’s all?’