Dying to Write

by Judith Cutler

  ‘I’ve got Thea to lie down,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘This is for Agnes.’

  Time for you to be responsible, Sophie.

  Then I heard the door from reception whoosh. Without thinking, I turned back. If I could deal with any problem without bothering Shazia I might as well.

  This visitor was oriental, but not Japanese.

  I’m not very good on racial types. Japanese people I’m generally OK with, and I even have a misleading amount of the language. I can greet people convincingly and I can call in a rabbit and swear when it messes the carpet, a form of specialised communication which would have been no use at all in yesterday’s encounter with Brontë-man. This is a result of a live-in relationship with an angora rabbit and his associate, a serious-minded man called Kenji, now long departed to write a doctorate on the dietary habits of sumo wrestlers.

  I smiled at our visitor. He nodded.

  ‘I want to see Mrs Compton immediately,’ he said, in accented but excellent English.

  ‘Mrs Compton?’ Who the hell was that? It’d been first-name terms all round, hadn’t it? And it seemed a long time since I’d typed that list.

  ‘Now.’

  This was clearly a job for Shazia. I’d still no idea who Mrs Compton might be.

  I produced a smile my dentist’s receptionist would have been proud of. ‘If you’d care to wait here, sir, I’ll see what I can do.’

  He started to follow me.

  ‘Would you be kind enough to wait here, please.’

  He continued to follow me.

  I stopped; he tried to push past.

  ‘I will go and ask Mrs Compton if she wishes to see you. Wait here, please.’ This was the formula – and the frigid tone – I use with unwelcome visitors at college. I’d at last placed the name. Mrs Compton was Nyree.

  He tried to push past again. Then he heard the sounds of feet on gravel, turned and, with all the doors whooshing in sympathy, dashed through the front door, colliding violently with the new arrival as he did so.

  So Chris Groom and I were absolutely alone for our first meeting for five months.

  I had the advantage of him; I’d seen him first, spinning on his heel to yell at our departing visitor. I’d taken in how thin he was, how the sun had dried his skin into a dull red with no hint of a tan. There was the start of a stoop about his neck and shoulders that might have been fatigue but was more likely in his case to be stress.

  Then he saw me: heavy-eyed, certainly. And Shazia had been so distressed when she woke me I’d had no time to apply make-up or brush my hair. The T-shirt and jeans he’d expect.

  I wonder how much he noticed after all. Perhaps he was too busy controlling his own face to see anything wrong with mine.

  ‘Hi,’ I said, too brightly, as he stood irresolute on the threshold. ‘Come along and have a cup of coffee and I’ll tell you all about our murder.’

  At last, however, he managed to gather the shreds of protocol, and he said, his voice almost under control: ‘I think I ought to talk to the administrator first. And, of course, you realise the officer who came earlier thinks you’re wrong.’

  I smiled. ‘I hope I am wrong, Chris. Because if Nyree has been murdered, I might be one of the suspects.’

  I would use that as my exit line; it was time to fetch Shazia. I did no more than put my head round the lounge door to summon her. Then I introduced them briefly and watched them retire to her office. One of them shut the door quite firmly.

  Duty called me back to the lounge. I’d have to face them sooner or later. I slipped in quietly. And my ploy worked. I had ten uncomfortable minutes not enduring their questions, as I’d feared, but listening to their complaints about Kate and Matt. And I began to feel that they might after all have some justification. Now Shazia was no longer in the room to support them, they needed someone with some authority. Not me, as I reminded myself again. At least I had enough initiative to do something. Maybe if I rousted them out before an official deputation demanded they get up and teach, I’d defuse the situation. So I slipped out as quietly as I’d gone in, and headed for the staff corridor.

  As I crossed the hall I nearly collided with Matt, hurtling down the stairs.

  ‘Where’s Kate?’ he demanded.

  ‘Still asleep, I suppose,’ I said. ‘Matt, there’s been –’

  ‘No, she isn’t. I’ve just checked her room.’

  ‘But it was locked.’

  ‘Still is, for all I know.’

  ‘Then how –’

  ‘The bathroom doors connect, and no one’s got round to finding a key. Found that out a couple of courses ago when I locked myself out. That was before Shazia’s time, of course – I can’t imagine ever having to tell her anything twice. Ah, here she is. Shazia, my love, I have something to confess!’

  Shazia was plainly concerned; but then she remembered something of much greater importance.

  I wondered if they both realised that Chris, from the office door, was listening and watching.

  ‘Matt,’ she began, ‘something terrible has happened. To Nyree.’

  ‘Got the DTs, has she? Delirium tremens,’ he added, as if Shazia might not understand the term. ‘Serve her bloody right.’

  ‘Nyree’s dead, Matt,’ I said quickly. ‘Shazia couldn’t wake her this morning.’

  He stared at me and rubbed his hands over his face. ‘None of this is making sense,’ he said at last. ‘I need a coffee. Then perhaps you can start at the beginning and tell me what’s happening.’

  Chris stepped forward, nodding at Matt without apparent interest. Matt might have been deceived. I introduced them briefly. Neither seemed much impressed by the other.

  For some reason I led Chris not to my room but into the grounds. We soon found a bench where no one could overhear us. Perhaps it was the sun, now quite warm, but I couldn’t stop yawning; I felt as if I’d had a heavy night of it, but I counted back and couldn’t total more than a glass of wine and half a finger of Nyree’s cherished scotch. You wouldn’t call the air here relaxing, as if it were some genteel spa. It wasn’t any different from the air I always breathe, down the road in Harborne.

  Chris too seemed subdued.

  ‘Jet lag,’ he said briefly when I showed concern. And then he half turned to me as if he were imparting bad news. ‘I really do think you’re overreacting, Sophie. I’ve spoken to young Speller, who’s nobody’s fool.’

  ‘The PC, you mean?’

  He nodded. ‘And then I had a word directly with Gimson. He struck me as the sort of man who might say one thing to a woman and something slightly different to a man.’

  I beamed; this sort of distinction had seemed beyond Chris’s range when we first met, and I wondered if my influence had made him think more subtly. I hoped so.

  ‘Overreacting?’ I repeated, though with undue fire.

  ‘After the spring. Trauma of the sort you experienced must take its toll one way or another. For you even to consider coming on a course like this –’

  ‘Like what, Chris?’

  ‘You know – poetry, writing … I wouldn’t have associated you with anything like it.’

  ‘Please, DCI Groom, sir, I teach English. For my living.’

  ‘But it’s not the same as writing it,’ he said.

  And again I was surprised by his perceptiveness. I might shock him by agreeing for once.

  ‘You’re right, Chris. But to get back to our moutons, Nyree does seem to have attracted a lot of attention from us students and from outsiders. And I’m alarmed at some level I can’t make sense of that no one knows where Kate is.’

  ‘So you think Kate might have killed her and run?’ he said. The serious tone was belied by the crow’s-feet of amusement he couldn’t conceal.

  ‘No. She’d have run in her car, surely, and it’s still in the car park. Are you going to take it away for forensic examination?’

  ‘Not until we have grounds to believe a crime’s been committed. Or should we be alerting all forces
to look for a serial killer?’

  I wished he’d try to be serious. Or perhaps he was. ‘No. I don’t know. God, I hope not. Jesus, Chris –’

  ‘Slow down. I was joking. Tell me, why did that Asian woman – what’s her name?’

  ‘Shazia.’

  ‘Why did she call you?’

  ‘No idea. I don’t even know why she went into Nyree’s room in the first place – do you?’

  ‘To call her to the phone,’ he said briefly. He probably shouldn’t have told me.

  ‘Chris, she must have acquired enemies like other people attract mosquitoes. Please, don’t just assume it was an accident.’

  He looked at me, holding my gaze for longer than I found comfortable. ‘OK. There has to be a PM. I’ll get them to prioritise her. Get the results through quickly.’

  He was doing it to indulge me, not because he believed it was necessary. Today it was easier to let him.

  ‘And, just to be on the safe side, mind, I’ll get the room sealed. So if necessary the SOCO –’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Scene-of-crime officer, Ms Rivers. So he can have a ferret-round if necessary.’

  He grinned and got up. We walked to his car in silence.

  ‘What will you do for the rest of the day?’ he asked at last, as he slipped the key into the ignition.

  ‘Go back to my room and try to write,’ I said. ‘And pray the shock’s unblocked me!’

  Although lunchtime took a long time to arrive, when we gathered in the dining room people were able to talk with remarkable verve. Some played the nil nisi bonum game, but there was a good deal of enthusiastic bitching going on too. Normally I would have joined in gladly, but it was dawning on me that Nyree could not have been a happy woman, and that I had made very little effort to stop her drinking – except, of course, to help share her booze. The other thing that worried me was Kate’s continued absence.

  My usual means of restoring brainpower is to go for a jog. Perhaps it would work today.

  Naukez would no doubt have been the best person to ask about good routes, but he was nowhere to be seen, and I hesitated to disturb him in the staff flat. But Shazia was in the kitchen, and I asked her instead.

  ‘Oh, dear – I’m hopeless at giving directions. Got a piece of paper?’

  As a nonwriter, I had no notepad tucked in my pocket. In desperation she reached down the kitchen blackboard. Really it’s there for people to jot down items that are running out, but she wiped it clean and sketched out a possible route for me.

  ‘That bit’s a bit steep,’ she said. ‘And that part’s quite exposed.’

  I thanked her and went off to change.

  I thought of Toad and chose not my running vest and shorts but a tracksuit. In any case the wind justified it. It was whipping my hair quite fiercely into my eyes. I stopped; there was bound to be a rubber band in my trouser pocket.

  Someone else stopped too.

  No. I was imagining it. Surely?

  I took an unconscionable time to fish out the band and loop my hair through it, but no one moved.

  I started again.

  There was a well-defined track from the house, through scrubland, to the far end of the park. Then, beyond the motorway, were some old pit mounds.

  The twig that snapped was not one I’d trodden on.

  I pretended my lace and come untied: I knelt, waiting for someone to come close, poised to bolt if I had to.

  Two magpies flew up, cackling. Two for joy. I pressed on.

  It was easy running. There was enough of an undulation to make it interesting, but no fierce gradients. The surface was good, too, with no vicious roots lurking to ensnare the unwary. I padded on, perfectly at peace for the first time since I’d arrived. The scientists say it’s all to do with the chemicals you release in your brain by hitting your feet on the ground. Endomorphs? Endorphins? Pheromones? No, one of those is the name for the smell that attracts mates.

  The sound of the motorway was becoming obtrusive. If I could I would turn away. There was nothing down there anyway but some derelict buildings, according to Shazia. I found a narrow track which would take me through the woods. I would have to slow right down but it was better than all that noise. Not that the woods were silent, of course. The birds were busy telling all the others to keep off their patch. Some blackbirds were excavating the undergrowth. An untimely owl hunched on a tree stump.

  And someone was watching me again.

  I stopped, and scanned a hundred and eighty degrees.

  A shadow moved. A twig snapped. Then there was a definite rustle, but the sound might be moving away from me.

  For a moment I wanted to chase whoever it was. No. Much more sensible to head in the opposite direction. I told myself I was there to write, that the sole purpose of my run was to clear my brain so I could write, and that I was heading back to base to write.

  For once I listened to myself.

  I took a path to the right and accelerated. Anyone wanting to catch me would have to be pretty fit. I lengthened my stride. The breaths came easily. Another three hundred yards and I’d be in sight of the house.

  Practically.

  Thirty yards away a figure emerged from the shadows. The ground shelved sharply to my left and I hadn’t noticed him there. I realised, as my feet carried me closer and closer, that I couldn’t reproach myself for not spotting him before. In his camouflage jacket and muddy jeans, Naukez was practically invisible.

  He stared at me as I slowed to a halt. ‘Wrong time of day,’ he said, ‘for the badgers.’

  ‘I’m just going back to the house.’

  ‘Ah. That’s OK then. Wouldn’t want anything to disturb them.’

  We nodded at each other. I set off gently – he wasn’t going to know how much he’d rattled me. But I could feel his eyes on my back the whole way.

  The first person I saw when I’d showered and pottered along to make a cup of tea before trying – again – to write, was Matt.

  He was staring at the kettle as if willing it to boil. I reached across him and flicked on the switch.

  ‘She’s still missing,’ he said. ‘All they do is rabbit on about that stupid bitch Nyree, and I can’t get them to listen. A woman like Kate doesn’t go walkabout, Sophie – does she?’

  ‘Is that what Chris – the policeman – is saying?’

  ‘You know he buggered off hours ago. Nothing to do till they get the PM report on Nyree, he says. And it’s twenty-four hours before they consider someone missing. That’s a long time, Sophie.’

  I made the tea.

  ‘Is anything missing from her room?’

  ‘How should I know?’

  ‘Just wondered. And – Christ, Matt, has anyone fed Sidney?’

  ‘Sidney? Oh, the rodent. Never thought. Come on, bring your tea and we’ll go and see.’

  ‘You’re not keen on rats,’ I observed as we went upstairs.

  ‘It’s their tails. Don’t mind their front ends, and I quite like their starry little feet, but it’s their tails. Come on, we’ll go through my room.’

  The tutors’ rooms were impressive, now I had time to look round. There was a study-bedroom, larger than an average bed-sit and comfortably furnished. Then there was a private bathroom, luxurious with mahogany and brass, with a dense carpet and a proliferation of towels.

  Then Kate’s bathroom, a mirror image of Matt’s, and into Kate’s room.

  Sidney’s cage was empty.

  Matt groaned. ‘Why didn’t I think of that before? The bloody animal’s got out and she’s looking for it!’

  That seemed to be the logical explanation; I wanted to accept it. But I couldn’t stop asking myself: ‘Why didn’t she leave a note – ask us to keep an eye open for him? And surely she’d have been back by now?’

  ‘She may have lost track of the time.’

  ‘She must have left before the Nyree business. It’s – what? – three twenty now. That’s a long time to be hunting a rat with no help.’
r />   ‘So you think she might have gone looking and been taken ill?’

  ‘I wish I knew what to think, Matt. My brain’s still fuzzy; I thought running would help but –’

  In my mind’s eye I suddenly saw Naukez, heard the invisible presence in the woods.

  ‘I think we should talk to Chris Groom again,’ I said.

  Chapter Five

  Although I knew it would be impossible, I tried to make myself write for what little remained of the afternoon. I sat in my room and stared and doodled and achieved not even a kind memory of George. Eventually I gave up and went in search of strong coffee. The kitchen was full, of course: I made myself scarce as soon as I could. But I didn’t want to go back to the silence and the unyielding pen and pad. I went out on the terrace again, to find Shazia with a watering can and a grim expression, staring at Toad’s back.

  ‘And when I want your advice I’ll ask for it,’ she muttered.

  After a moment she started moving regularly across the paving stones. I decided not to make a joke about weedkiller. Instead, without preamble, I launched into my worries about Kate.

  Shazia agreed with me: Kate was simply not the sort of woman to go off for such a long time without telling anyone. As soon as Chris returned – he’d left a message with her saying he’d be back by seven – I should talk to him, she said. With or without her and Matt in support. I was to decide.

  I retired to a bench in the watery sun to think. Somehow. I still felt hazy, as if I were missing on one of my cylinders. It would be terribly easy to drowse off, even now.

  But something was executing a tap-dance on my left foot. I made my eyes focus downwards. Sidney!

  I looked around hopefully: maybe Kate was somewhere in view. She was not.

  Sidney continued to tap.

  His fur was sodden, and lay in dark feathers across his flanks. He must have been burrowing through the wilder parts of the estate – there were bits of grass and a couple of dandelion petals garnishing his head.

  Now it came to it, I wasn’t sure how I felt about picking up a rat. How would the rat feel about being picked up by me? He was even less sure than I was, and struggled. There must be quite a lot of muscle to struggle with, and rats come equipped with needle teeth. But clearly I had to return him to the safety of his cage. I pressed him to my chest.