Dying for Millions

by Judith Cutler

  She must be deadly serious: she’d dropped that interogation.

  ‘Must what, Karen?’ Keep the voice calm – that’s what they taught on counselling courses.

  ‘Talk to him! Sophie, I must.’

  ‘That’s not possible at the moment, love. He’s not in Birmingham.’

  ‘He is, he is! I saw him!’

  Where? Where? No – mustn’t scream down the phone at a student. I said nothing.

  ‘I saw him,’ she insisted.

  ‘Are you sure? When did you think you saw him?’

  ‘This afternoon. I saw him. Why won’t you let me speak to him?’

  ‘Because –’ I might as well tell her the simple truth – ‘he’s on holiday with Ruth and I don’t have a clue where.’

  ‘You’re lying! You don’t want him to know how much I love him! You’re jealous!’

  She cut the line abruptly. The phone rang again almost immediately.

  Mags again. ‘Wow! Something seems to have upset her, Sophie. What d’you want me to do? Apart from wring her neck, that is?’

  ‘Would you be an absolute angel and get out her personal file? Oh, hell, you can’t, can you?’ One of the recent funding changes meant that all the students’ files now had to be kept centrally: I wasn’t quite sure how, or why, except that the change was accompanied by an inordinate amount of form-filling. Everything we did for our students was now documented, allegedly so we could claim money for it, but somewhere along the way the notion of instant access had been lost. And it is a truth inadequately acknowledged, that every single tutee in possession of a problem must be in want of comfort outside college hours. ‘I just wanted her phone number, to let her mother know she’s in a state.’

  ‘Are you sure she isn’t eighteen?’

  ‘Doesn’t behave like it!’

  ‘Maybe not, but you can only contact parents if they’re sixteen or seventeen. Rules is rules.’

  ‘Yes, Mags. But it’s all a bit academic, isn’t it, if we can’t find her telephone number anyway?’

  What was the girl’s surname? Harris? There were an awful lot of Harrises in the phone book, and since I’d no more than the vaguest idea of her address – somewhere in Acocks Green, wasn’t it? – that was that. The best I could do was go chasing tomorrow, first thing.

  Next came ActionAid, asking me to do a door-to-door collection. Then a couple of wrong numbers. Ten o’clock – and still no news from Griff.

  At five past I was startled out of the ITN News by a strident ring at my front door. A peep through the spy-hole showed Inspector Stephenson, with Ian two paces behind.

  She said, without preamble, as soon as she set foot in the hall, ‘I have to talk to your cousin. Sergeant Dale tells me you’re not co-operating.’

  ‘Hang on a sec,’ I said, literally scratching my head. ‘Surely you people must know where he’s staying. You had the name and address of everyone connected with the – the incident, didn’t you? You can’t have let us all go swanning off our separate ways without knowing where to find us if things developed.’ I shut the door, and gestured less than politely to the living room.

  Ian stood aside to let her pass. Catching a gust of whisky, I asked brightly, ‘Coffee, everyone?’

  ‘Too late for me, love. Ta all the same.’

  ‘Black, please.’

  Too late for me, too. But I find it’s never too late for a chocolate biscuit.

  By the time I’d made coffee – instant, it has to be admitted – I had given her enough time to work out a response to my question.

  You’re sure,’ she said, taking the mug carefully, ‘that you’ve had no contact with your cousin?’

  ‘Only via John Griffiths. As I’m sure he told you, Griff thought the fewer people who knew Andy’s whereabouts the better. And that included me. What’s the problem?’

  ‘Peter Hughes fell to his death after consuming enough helleborin to cause significant visual and auditory disturbance. Not enough to kill him: it was the fall that did that. We have found no trace of helleborin anywhere other than in your cousin’s flask. We need to establish when and why the helleborin entered the flask. Especially why.’

  ‘So that it would have the same effect on Andy, surely!’

  ‘I’m not sure I understand you, Ms Rivers.’

  ‘Sophie, please. So that he would experience the same symptoms as Pete Hughes. Except – hang on – Andy never goes anywhere near a gantry, does he? He’d have fallen over on stage. It would have looked as if he was –’

  ‘I’m not convinced,’ she cut in. ‘I suspect Mr Rivers may have used illegal substances to energise himself for the concert: herbal ones, rather than the more obvious substances he publicly denounces.’

  ‘Inspector Stephenson,’ I said, with a creditable attempt at patience, ‘do you not recall our telling you about all the other little incidents? The obituary, the vandalism, and so on? You even offered to increase security on the night of the concert. Can’t we return to the theory you appeared to espouse then – that someone is trying to kill – or at very least damage – a man whose sole aim in life now is to improve the lot of countless Africans?’

  The rhetoric wasn’t entirely spurious. I wanted to return her to her mood of Saturday afternoon.

  ‘Remember,’ I urged, ‘that call from the Press Association. Someone had obviously tipped them the wink that Andy was dead.’

  Ian got up and thoughtfully nipped a dying leaf from my winter cherry plant.

  ‘Whatever the reason, I need to speak to him and I need to speak to him now,’ Stephenson said.

  ‘I suggest you try your contact number for him, then.’

  At this point the phone rang; I snatched it up.

  ‘Sophie? Griff.’

  What a moment to choose!

  ‘Any news of our friend?’ I asked.

  ‘Plenty. All bad. Only sodding well slipped his leash, hasn’t he?’

  ‘Leash!’

  ‘Flit the coop. Had a phone call, kissed Miss Jean Roadie goodbye, and said he’d got to see a man about a dog – be back for tea on Saturday. This being Wednesday, he has enough time to see a hell of a lot of dogs.’

  ‘What does Ruth say?’

  ‘Nothing. Voice still out of use. She writes nothing, either. So where does that leave us, eh, Sophie?’

  ‘Helping,’ I said grimly, trying desperately not to cry, ‘the police with their enquiries.’

  Chapter Twelve

  I would try to contact Karen first thing the following morning, Thursday. That meant an A-Level English class from nine to twelve-fifteen – one of the high points of my week since the students, mostly women, were mature and actually wanted to learn. I didn’t like being even a few minutes late for them, since several had organised immensely complicated child-care back-up to ensure they were on time. What I had to do, then, was get in bright and early, find where Karen was supposed to be for her first class, and leave a message with whoever was teaching her saying that I’d like to see her at break. That meant, of course, getting access to her file. Staff room, fifteenth floor; classroom, tenth floor; office where the files were kept, eighth floor. No problem.

  Provided there were lifts.

  At least getting in at the crack of dawn meant I got through the traffic easily and found an accessible parking slot: a distinct plus. But an ominous minus: I was parked alongside not one, but two, lift company cars. The engineers took pity on me and let me go up with them in the last functioning lift as far as the tenth; and then that too stopped.

  Eight o’clock. I could sail through my preparation and still have plenty of time to sort out Karen. There was no point in trying to get access to her file until eight-forty at the very earliest. Administrators were the unsung heroes of William Murdoch, now the Further Education Funding Council Paper Chase was on, but they worked in general normal office hours, not the ad hoc ones visited on the teaching staff.

  Nor was there any point in trying to raise Griff for the latest news on Andy:
he’d made it clear that he would contact me as soon as he heard anything. I could scarcely ring Ian, in case it flushed out Stephenson. All I could tell myself as consolation was that if Andy wanted me, he knew where to find me. He’d even talked his way through college security on one famous occasion, when he had little more than an hour between flights and wanted to give me a fresh pineapple he’d acquired; I never did tell him it shot from being hard as the devil’s head to soggy and rotting with no intervening state of just-rightness. I’d have given a lot to have him appear right now bearing a rotten pear.??? apple. A very great deal.

  If I’d been hoping for some sort of communication from Karen, to save me the pleasures of all those stairs, I was disappointed. There was the usual mess on my desk one of these days I would have to set aside an afternoon to uncover the wood that lurked under all that paper.

  Right: preparation. Dubliners. Entrapment.

  The telephone. Andy?

  No. Nor Griff, nor Ian. A woman’s voice I vaguely recognised but found hard to place.

  ‘It’s Julyarris.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘It’s Julyarris! Karenarris’s mum.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ I prompted her. Then it dawned. Mrs Harris. Karen’s mother.

  ‘I should think you are! If it hadn’t been for you putting ideas into her head, none of this would have happened.’

  Despite myself, my pulse speeded and I felt sick. What had I said? What had I done? Nothing! All I’d ever done for Karen was introduce her to Andy and then have them photographed together – in the company of her mother, moreover. Not guilty.

  I put my voice into cool, professional mode. ‘Let’s start again, Mrs Harris. Firstly, what has happened?’

  ‘She never came home last night. Been mooning around ever since Saturday, she has.’

  ‘Mooning around?’

  ‘You know – all weepy and dreamy. And then she phoned and said she was going to find him.’

  ‘Him?’

  ‘That cousin of yours. I mean, he’s a nice enough lad—’

  ‘She phoned you? When?’

  ‘Last night. She was crying, couldn’t stop crying – and she said she’d phoned you and you’d been ever so unkind.’

  I hoped she didn’t hear my indignant sigh. Unkind? All I’d done was tell her the simple truth.

  ‘I hope you’re pleased with yourself! A young girl looking to you for help and you turn your back on her.’

  ‘What sort of help did she want?’

  But the woman was sobbing.

  Hell. A teenage girl not returning home: everyone’s nightmare scenario. My head was already racing with strategies to find Karen. For one thing, I couldn’t imagine the press letting slip an opportunity to bash an uncaring teacher. Poor Richard. All he wanted was a quiet life for a couple of months. And I’d forgotten I ought to talk to him about Naheeda …

  ‘Mrs Harris? Mrs Harris, have you told the police yet? Because—’

  ‘Police! They’re a lot of use!’

  ‘I think they just might be in a situation like this. Just stay where you are – I’ll get a friend of mine in the force to phone you at once.’

  Ian, solid to the point of being impregnable – he’d be ideal. I had both his home and his work number. Choosing the latter I tapped so fast I mis-dialled and had to start again.

  When at last I got through I explained as tersely as I could what Mrs Harris had said. ‘I know you’re nothing to do with missing persons,’ I added, ‘and normally I wouldn’t dream of bothering you, but—’

  ‘I know. You’d talk it through with Chris if he was here, wouldn’t you?’

  I let that pass. ‘It’s just this obsession Karen’s got all of a sudden for Andy – I’m really concerned. Concerned for her safety, of course.’

  ‘And ever so slightly watching your back in case her family starts making trouble for you at college, eh, Sophie? Come on – I wasn’t born yesterday.’

  Was it just a greyish conscience? ‘Guilty. But most of all I want that kid found,’ I said truthfully. ‘Involvement with a man who’s been receiving death threats sounds dangerous to me. Involvement at any level.’

  ‘Hmm. Now, let me get this straight so I can tell Her Nibs. What’s the connection between you and Andy and this kid?’

  ‘She was with me when I ran into Andy in town the other day. She went doo-lally – you know what kids are. Anyway, she wanted to see his concert and I managed to wangle her a job backstage.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘She was a washer-up. But she spent a lot of time in the kitchen, flirting with the caterers and with Andy’s chef.’ I stopped abruptly: I didn’t want to give anyone the idea I was terribly close to having myself. ‘She left a couple of notes for me to pass to him – and another one asking me to burn them all. And last night she phoned in tears, wanting me to let her talk to him.’

  ‘Which you couldn’t, not knowing where he is.’

  ‘Ian, I may not in the past have been entirely honest on occasion, but I’ve never lied to you or Chris. I wish I knew where he is—’

  ‘OK, love. Give me her phone number. You’re right – this isn’t really my bag, but I’ll either find someone whose bag it is or pretend it’s mine. How about that?’

  ‘No one could ask for more, Ian.’

  So there was no need to hare round looking for Karen. But now I had to update Richard on developments that could only hinder his downhill trundle to retirement. Having a student despatched to Pakistan, possibly as an indirect result of something that happened while she was in our care, was bad enough; losing one through a crush on the cousin of one of your less conventional members of staff was even worse. I couldn’t predict how he’d react.

  He took one look at my face, gestured at the more comfortable of the visitor’s chairs, and poured me nectar from his percolator. Then, as I’d hoped, he fished in his deepest drawer for his treasury of chocolate biscuits. The trouble was, I was braced for a bollocking; to my embarrassment, and even more to his, his unexpected kindness made me cry. The poor man didn’t know what to do. While I burrowed for tissues, I could sense him opening files, rearranging items on his desk, trying to keep an appropriate distance – when what I’d really have liked was a quasiavuncular arm round my shoulders.

  I made an effort. ‘Sorry. You’ll have to stop being nice to me. Did they appoint your replacement yesterday?’

  He blinked at the change of subject, then looked grim. ‘I suppose it’ll become common knowledge soon enough. You remember there were two jobs up? Two Heads of Department, mine for A-Level and GCSE, and Don’s for NVQ and GNVQ? Well, they’ve merged them. One man’s been appointed to run the lot.’

  ‘I suppose it’s logical, the way everyone’s talking about post-sixteen education,’ I said cautiously.

  ‘Of course it is. But to change the job description on the day of the interviews? I don’t know what the boss was thinking of. Worrall usually plays things absolutely by the book. The Principal with principles – you know the joke. Oh, Sophie, the sooner I’ve gone the better.’

  I wasn’t the only one who needed a shoulder to cry on.

  I’d just finished the A-Level class; we’d romped through the story about Mrs Moonie, who dealt with moral problems like a butcher deals with meat – with a cleaver. A couple of women had hung back to talk to me about their last piece of homework, and another wanted to discuss the assignment I’d just set, so I was quite late back to the staff room. Twenty-five minutes before the next class, then a quick dive out to a centre for the disabled, where another of our students was on a placement: but not yet.

  Gurjit was waiting for me outside the staff room: her smile was perfunctory. ‘I need to talk to you,’ she said, ‘on a matter of the most extreme urgency.’

  I could not resist looking at my watch.

  ‘It is extremely serious,’ she said reproachfully.

  We found a room with little difficulty, this being the lunch-break, and I suggested
she sit down opposite me at the teacher’s table. She pulled a student’s chair from behind a table, wrinkled her nose at the graffiti she found on it, and sat down.

  ‘Sophie, it is about my work at the airport. There is a most serious problem.’

  I’d known there would be. But I didn’t want to believe that Mark had committed any sexual offence. I found I was pushing my hands towards Gurjit, fingers up, palms towards her, as if to fend off the truth. No, it had to be confronted.

  ‘Tell me.’ The counselling courses instruct you how to sit: leaning forward companionably. So that was how I sat.

  ‘I believe,’ she said slowly, but not hesitantly, ‘that theft is being committed against one of the organisations using the airport.’

  God help me – I nearly said, ‘Is that all?’ Instead, I pulled myself together. ‘Theft? Why do you think that, Gurjit?’ I mustn’t sound judgemental, disbelieving.

  ‘Because the figures don’t add up. Incomings versus outgoings.’

  ‘What scale of theft?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. One or two items per consignment.’

  ‘Are you sure it isn’t just a mistake? That the missing items won’t be sent on later?’

  She gestured dismissively. ‘The figures suggest – no, I think it’s regular. It’s fraud. I know how it’s being done, but I don’t know who’s doing it.’

  ‘Have you told the airport people? Mark Winfield?’

  Her eyes filled with tears. ‘I – I don’t want—’

  What didn’t she want? To risk having him laugh at her? To risk discovering his guilt? But my imagination was running too fast.

  ‘Don’t want what, Gurjit?’

  She swallowed audibly, and fought to control her emotion. ‘Want to make a fool of myself – if I’m wrong. I – Mark—’

  ‘You value his good opinion of you?’ I asked, as gently as I could.

  Bending over her shoulder bag to hide her face, she nodded. Oh, dear.

  ‘What evidence do you have?’ I asked, all business-like.

  She straightened up again. ‘I didn’t want to print it out. Someone might have noticed, or noticed me bringing it out.’