by S J Bolton
‘Hey, sweetie, it’s me.’
‘Hi, Mum.’
Her mother was so proud of her clever, brave daughter and was always such an effort to speak to because the need to seem fine was more important with her than with anyone.
‘How was your day?’
‘Pretty good,’ lied Evi. ‘Got lots done.’
Evi’s mother had been with her on the skiing holiday when Evi had seriously damaged the sciatic nerve in her left leg. Evi’s mother, the better skier of the two, had talked her daughter into taking a difficult black run. Evi had caught her ski on a rock, lost control and fallen into a crevasse. Any hint now that she was less than perfectly fine would be more than her mother could deal with.
By the time she said goodbye, Evi was getting anxious that the bath was overrunning. In the bathroom, the second thing she noticed was the message on the mirror above the bath. I can see you, it said. The first was that the bathtub was full of blood.
THE NOISE LEVEL outside had picked up by the time I got back to my room. Sleep wasn’t going to happen any time soon. And sharing a bathroom with six other women wouldn’t be the least of the challenges I’d face for the next three months. At eighteen I could have coped – hell, there were times in my life when I’d have given anything to have access to a bathroom of any description – but over the last few years, it seemed, standards of hygiene had crept up on me unawares.
Two messages in my inbox. The first was from Student Counselling Services acknowledging receipt of the completed questionnaire. The second was from Joesbury.
From: DI Mark Joesbury, Scotland Yard
Subject: Field Report 1
Date: Tuesday 15 January, 23.16 GMT
To: DC Lacey Flint
You might want to learn the art of the precise, Flint. If I fancy a novel I’ll visit Waterstones. I’ll make discreet inquiries about the tyre prints, but I wouldn’t get your knickers in a twist. The rain finished around four in the afternoon. Police attended the scene around three in the morning. That’s eleven hours in which any number of inebriated, over-privileged, public-school tossers could take a detour off the road.
Does it bear repeating that you are not there to investigate Nicole Holt’s death, or any of them for that matter, just to be a good-looking fruitcake and observe? Sweet dreams.
Five minutes went by and not a single word passed my lips that could be repeated in church. I was just about to email him back – which, given my mood, wouldn’t have been wise – when the door opened. A purple-haired girl whose limbs looked too thin to hold her upright stood in the doorway.
‘Laura?’ she said, swaying on impossibly high heels. ‘Thank God, a room-mate as old as me. God, I’m rat-arsed. Is there coffee in that mug?’
There was, it was steaming on my desk. She stumbled over to me, picked it up and drank from it. She didn’t seem to notice it was hot enough to scald her.
‘Talaith?’ I said. She was a little older than I’d expected. Maybe twenty-two or three.
‘Toxic,’ she said as a trickle of hot liquid ran down her chin. For a moment, it seemed as if she didn’t much rate my coffee-making skills. ‘Or Tox,’ she went on. ‘Only the vicar calls me Talaith.’ Taking my coffee with her, she flicked the main door shut, staggered across the room, pushed open the door to her bedroom, put my mug on the floor and collapsed face down on the bed. She mumbled something in the pillow that I think was intended to express disbelief at how her evening had unfolded.
I stood up, not knowing whether I was amused or annoyed, and then the drumbeats started.
‘It’s not blood, Evi.’
Evi was sitting at her kitchen table, trying to make polite conversation with a young WPC. DI Castell stood in the doorway.
‘What, then?’ she asked.
Castell shrugged, looked apologetic. ‘Our kit’s not good enough to tell us that, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘We’ll have to send it off. Could be a couple of weeks before we know. But definitely not blood. Some sort of dye or paint would be my best guess.’
‘How did it get in my bath?’
‘Now that we can tell you,’ he said, stepping further into the room. ‘Someone poured it into your header tank. We’ve run it all out and it’s filled up clear again but you should probably get a plumber round to check it out tomorrow. Just to make sure there was nothing corrosive.’
‘I had the locks changed,’ said Evi. ‘No one should be able to get in here.’
For a second, DI Castell just looked back at her. ‘If people were working here today, it’s possible that’s when whoever it was got in,’ he said. ‘We’ll check with university maintenance, see if anyone turned up claiming to need a look at the water system or anything.’
‘Thank you,’ said Evi.
‘That message written in the steam. I can see you. Does that mean anything?’
Evi shook her head.
‘Creepy sort of thing to write in a bathroom,’ said the WPC.
‘Right then,’ said Castell. ‘We’ve checked the entire house, upstairs and down. Nothing out of place and we’ll get SOCs out here in the morning. Are you sure you don’t want me to phone Meg? She can be here in ten minutes.’
Evi shook her head again and thanked him. She stood, found her stick and followed them to the door. Castell hesitated on the doorstep.
‘You know where we are if you need us?’ he said.
She nodded. He’d already given her his card with his direct line and mobile numbers. He’d been both kind and professional, but was she imagining it, or was he finding it difficult to make eye contact? What if he was reasoning that, if she’d bought the skeleton toy herself, maybe she’d put the dye in the tank too?
Ba ba ba boom, ba ba ba boom. Someone was beating out a rhythm on a large drum right outside the block. There were voices too, hardly audible above the drumbeats. Men’s voices, urging each other on; girls’ voices, squealing and screaming. Then something hit my bedroom window. A split second later it happened again. Talaith pushed herself up on the bed and staggered into the main room.
‘They’re not serious,’ she said. ‘Not again.’
‘What’s going on?’ I asked her. She didn’t reply, just muttered something about checking the front door was locked and ran from the room. The drumbeat went on. A bit like a heartbeat. Rather like my own heartbeat, which I could feel getting faster by the second. Stupid to be alarmed: students outside were just pissing about, the way students were supposed to do. They’d get bored and cold before long.
But there was something about that drumming that couldn’t be ignored. It wasn’t just the volume, there was something purposeful about it. Something instinctively intimidating. Not for nothing, I realized, did armies march into battle to the sound of a drum.
I leaned across my desk and opened the curtain a fraction. The lawn immediately below my window was full of people. Fifty students at least, and more appearing all the time. They were being summoned by the drum. I had a feeling they knew what to expect. Around the green, lights were on in every window and faces peered out. A couple of the braver ones jeered down at the crowd, getting abuse in return.
Talaith joined me at the window just as the crowd started to chant. Two words, over and over again.
‘What’s fresh wheat?’ I asked Talaith.
‘Fresh meat,’ said Talaith. ‘I think they mean you.’
A total surprise, that sudden stab of panic in my stomach. I let the curtain fall in place. This was for me?
‘What the hell do you mean?’ I asked the purple-haired, white-faced girl beside me.
‘It’s a stupid freshers’ thing,’ Talaith told me. ‘They did it a lot last term.’
‘Did what?’
‘It’s OK. I locked the front door.’
From the hall outside came the sound of banging and loud voices demanding to be let in. Then heavy footsteps.
‘I think someone just unlocked it,’ I said, still not quite believing this fuss had anything to do with me.
&n
bsp; ‘Get keys, quick,’ Talaith told me, striding towards the room’s main door and pushing it shut. ‘Mine are in my bag.’
She leaned against the door as I turned to find her bag. I had no idea where my own keys were. I’d picked up the small black leather rucksack when I saw the door slide inwards, Talaith’s full weight of something like seven and a half stone proving no barrier at all to the force that was pushing it open. Giving up, she staggered out of the way as three tall figures stepped into the room.
Three men, all of them over six feet tall, all powerfully built. All three were stripped to the waist and their fashionable jeans sat low on their hips. The flesh of their torsos was shiny with oil and had been painted with weird red and gold symbols. Two of them had slicked their hair up with gel to form spikes around their faces. The third had long dark hair that rippled down to his shoulders. All wore simple cloth masks covering their eyes.
Oh, to have been able to laugh, to pull my warrant card from my back pocket and tell them to get the fuck out of my room or I’d have the three of them banged up. Not going to happen. My warrant card was back in my locker at Southwark nick. As was all the authority I’d taken for granted over the past four years. I wasn’t a police officer in this place, just a student like thousands of others. And as the three of them came towards me, I felt something I’d hoped never to experience again, something that was verging on terror.
‘What the hell are you lot supposed to be?’ Talaith found her voice first. ‘Ninja bloody turtles? Get out of – no, leave her alone!’
The long-haired one had grabbed hold of me by the upper arms, the rough skin on his hands scratching my bare shoulders. He spun me round as the second closed in. I took a deep breath, bracing myself to swing both legs up and kick number two in the chest, hopefully hard enough to send him flying. Then before number one realized what I’d done, I’d drive one elbow back into his solar plexus. If he didn’t back off then, I’d go for his balls.
Except that, if I fought these guys with anything other than girly struggling and squealing, I might as well just announce who I really was. Emotionally damaged Laura Farrow would never get physical with three big guys. Shit, I would have to take what was coming with nothing more than a ladylike squirm and a few gasps. ‘Touch me and you’re fucking dead,’ I said, to number two.
OK, maybe a bit of strong language too.
I might as well not have bothered. Number two bent down and grabbed my legs and I was lifted from the floor.
‘Hit it,’ said the one who had my shoulders and we began to move towards the door. I twisted to get free and the third stepped in and grabbed me round the waist.
‘You wankers, it’s freezing outside.’
Talaith’s protests were fading away. By this time my arms were pinned to my side and my face pressed close to the bloke who’d picked me up. His chest hair was scratching my cheek and I could smell both shower gel and sweat. Number three had his arms around my hips and the second was holding my feet together to stop me kicking.
‘Swing it,’ said the long-haired man. We turned at the top of the stairway and began the descent and I had to bite my lip to keep myself from screaming.
The night air hit me like a slap. Another cheer went up as we appeared and the chanting got louder. Fresh meat, fresh meat. I was being carried through the crowd. Faces, pumpkin-orange in the lamplight, were staring at me. I could see eyes gleaming, heads twitching.
No, I could not scream. They were just kids messing around; it was nothing to be afraid of.
We’d reached a space in the middle of the green where the frosted grass was already brown with mud. A heavy chain lay around the central tree. At the front of the crowd I saw boys had formed a line and were passing along buckets from the nearest block. Water. They were going to throw water at me. That was all. It would be unpleasant and humiliating but I had no need to be afraid. I was on my feet, still held firmly from behind, as one of my captors bent down and grasped hold of my ankle. Then I felt something heavy and cold pulling down on it. They’d padlocked the chain round my leg.
The first bucket took me totally by surprise. Freezing cold water hit me full in the face, streaming into my mouth and nose. For a second blind panic hit me when I couldn’t breathe. A moment later I was coughing hard.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the St John’s wet T-shirt competition,’ yelled a male voice as the contents of another bucket hit me. Another cheer went up and I looked down to see that the cotton running vest I nearly always wear in bed was soaked through. And that something like seventy people, standing in a circle around me, knew what my breasts looked like. One of the masked twats actually had a video camera, and for a second fury got the better of fear. This was sexual abuse, plain and simple. Where the hell were university security? Why was no one calling the police?
The bloke with the video camera was closer than the rest and at that moment I really didn’t care if I blew my cover, I was going to land him one. Forgetting the chain, I ran at him. I got three feet and saw alarm in pale-blue eyes before a stabbing pain shot through my ankle. A split second later I found myself sprawled in the mud. More cheers. And voices rising from the crowd.
‘I think that’s enough now, guys. Come on, let her go.’
Whoever he was, they took no notice of him. Six more buckets of ice-cold water were thrown at me while I was on the ground. I’d like to think it was the need to maintain my Laura Farrow cover that kept me lying there, curled into a ball, hiding my head behind one arm, but I’m honestly not sure. I just wanted it to be over. I wanted it to be over before I started to howl. When I couldn’t stop myself shaking I heard several voices shouting that that was enough. Then a warm hand was on my ankle and the cold chain was lifted away. Someone took hold of me under the arms and I was on my feet again.
‘You all right, love?’ said a northern accent. Not one of the masked boys. They’d disappeared into the night.
‘Does she bloody well look all right, you effing moron?’ A bright-yellow coat was wrapped around my shoulders and I was being steered by my tiny room-mate towards our block. I raised my head and pushed hair out of my eyes.
‘Christ, the mud we’re bringing in. Like that lot are going to clean it up. Come on, sweetie, let’s get you in.’ I let Talaith lead me inside. I was walking over linoleum, my feet squelching mud with every step. Talaith was guiding me towards the bathrooms at the end of the hallway. Doors were opening; girls who hadn’t dared leave their rooms before were appearing in the hallway.
‘Is she OK, Tox?’
‘She doesn’t look too good.’
‘She’ll be fine. She just needs to get warm. Can someone make tea?’ We’d reached the door of the bathroom and Talaith ushered me inside. She reached over and turned on the shower. Steam began to rise. ‘Go on, love,’ she told me. ‘You’re filthy. Get yourself warm. I’ll get you some towels. Can you manage? The front door’s locked. They can’t get in.’
She was still talking as the door closed and I was left alone. Without even bothering to take off my clothes I stepped under the hot water, telling myself I was OK, the front door was locked, they couldn’t get in. I was OK.
At my feet mud swirled in the basin. Grass and pebbles were already clogging the drain. I was still shaking. Talaith was wrong. The door to our block was left open all the time. The girls who lived in it, their visitors, the cleaners, came and went continuously. They could get in any time they liked and I was a very long way from being OK.
Berkshire, nineteen years earlier
THE MOTHER STARTED howling as the coffin sank. The father, almost as green as the foliage on the coffin lid, took hold of her more firmly and a collective shudder ran through the mourners. This was always the moment when it hit home. To put someone you loved so much into the ground. To lose your only child. At thirteen years old. How did you deal with that?
‘The days of man are but as grass, for he flourisheth as a flower of the field,’ said the minister. ‘For as soon as the win
d goeth over it, it is gone.’
The seventeen-year-old boy, in the smart, blazered uniform of a good public school, looked at the perfect rectangle of the grave and pictured the still, cold face of the boy inside. I did this, he said to himself. There were thunderclouds overhead and he wondered perhaps if guilt would hit him hard and hot, like a strike from a lightning bolt.
Since the news that young Foster had hanged himself one Saturday morning in the dorm while the rest of the school were watching an inter-house cricket match, he’d been waiting for the guilt. He’d seen the horror-struck faces of his co-conspirators, the ones who’d helped him make Nathan Foster’s life a misery for the past twelve months, but, unlike him, had never really expected it to come to this. They were feeling it already, it was written all over their faces. Shame and contrition that would eat away at them like a parasite in their guts for the rest of their lives.
Any time now it was coming for him too and it was going to hurt. Like a physical pain, he imagined it, a vicious cramp squeezing in on his heart, or maybe like maggots nibbling away at his brain. He knew, from the faces of those who were almost as guilty as he, that guilt was going to be bad.
‘Forasmuch as it has pleased Almighty God of his great mercy to take unto himself the soul of our dear brother here departed, we therefore commit his body to the ground.’
Good God above, his English teacher was snivelling. Who’d have thought old Cartwright had a shred of compassion in him? Around the grave, mourners were throwing handfuls of earth on to the coffin like they didn’t have two perfectly good sextons with ruddy great shovels less than a hundred yards away. One of the undertaker’s staff was standing directly in front of him, holding out the box of soil. No choice but to dip in his hand, take hold of stuff that felt damp and slimy, and step forward for one last look. I did this, he said to himself, as he opened his hand and the soil fell directly on to one perfect white rose.
Shadows were spreading fast around the crematorium garden. The day was getting colder and those with umbrellas were glancing down at them, as though to check they were still there. Maybe guilt would be like a heavy downpour from above, the first drops hardly noticeable, but gradually seeping through him until his entire being was drenched in it. Maybe guilt was slow to begin but relentless, building a momentum of its own once it got going. The boy took a deep breath and waited.