The girl’s face darkened. “No.” She turned away from him, polishing beer taps that already gleamed.
The man he’d seen earlier appeared through his door and grunted something at her. She pointed to the optics at the back of the bar and he squinted at them, then left again.
“He your boss?” Rhodri asked.
She shrugged.
“So, no Becca tonight?”
She gave him a pointed look. “What d’you think?”
“She didn’t show up?”
The barmaid ran her tongue over her teeth, then shook her head. “I’m not saying anything.”
“I guess she must find things tough, what with what happened to her.”
The girl stopped polishing. “She told you.”
He nodded, watching her reaction. He wondered how many people knew about Laurence raping Becca. How many people might have wanted to see him pay for it.
“Terrible, what he did to her,” Rhodri said.
“That’s one way of putting it.”
“And him, last night…”
“If you ask me, he got what he deserved.”
Rhodri swallowed. “You think so?”
“The guy was a creep. Before all the trouble with Becca, he used to come in here. I had to kick him out more than once.”
“What was he doing?”
“Hassling women. What d’you think? I refused to serve him alcohol.”
“What did your boss make of that?”
“He’s not my boss. He’s just… but he was OK with it. No one wanted Laurence in here.”
“So if everyone knew about it, why did no one go to the police?”
She leaned back. “Who are you, again?”
“Told you. Mature Chemistry student.”
“In Becca’s tutorial group.”
His mouth felt dry. “Yeah.”
“Who’s your tutor?”
“Erm… Professor Drake.”
“Who?”
“She’s new. They changed it last week.”
The barmaid placed a fist on the bar. “I suggest you leave.”
“I didn’t mean to…”
“Look. If you’re a mate of Laurence’s looking to get some kind of sick revenge out of all this, you can fuck off. And if you’re campus security…” She eyed him. “Or a copper. If you’re a copper then you need to know Becca was here all night last night, working her shift. There’s no way she would have had time to sneak off and kill him. If that’s what you’re thinking.”
“You’ve got me wrong.”
“Whatever.” She pointed to his pint. “Why don’t you take that to a nice quiet table, and then leave?”
Chapter Nineteen
Kayla sat at her desk, trying to focus on the words on the page in front of her. She had an essay to hand in tomorrow, on the role of satire in Jane Austen’s novels. She was never going to do it.
She heard the outer door to her corridor open, followed by voices. She pushed the book away, her senses alert.
Ricky was in the corridor, talking to a man. Kayla froze. It was Jenson.
“Is Kayla in?”
“Er, yeah. She’s studying though. Told us not to bother her.”
“I won’t take up much of her time. I wanted to check if she needed any support.”
Jenson was a residential tutor for Boulton Hall. He had a flat on the second floor which he lived in when he wasn’t at the house in Selly Oak, and he was supposed to provide emotional support to the undergraduates.
No one knew she was seeing him.
She closed her copy of Emma and walked to the door. She opened it a crack and gave Ricky a smile. “It’s OK. I’m nearly finished.”
Jenson turned and smiled at her. His pupils were dilated. “Kayla. I came to see if you were OK, after what happened last night.”
She shrugged. “I’m fine.”
“You got a minute? I can give you details of support services?”
Kayla glanced at Ricky. He didn’t seem suspicious.
“Yeah. Sure.”
She opened the door and Jenson walked in, his gait casual. She closed the door and leaned against it while he took a seat at her desk.
“Emma.” He picked up the book and leafed through it. “God, I hated this book at school.”
She snatched it off him. “I love it. What are you doing here?” She glanced back at the door.
“I told you. I wanted to check on your welfare.” His voice was loud; he wanted to be overheard. “I have the details of a helpline for people who’ve been through traumatic events. And there’s the student switchboard, if you need to talk to someone.”
“I don’t need support.” She slumped onto the bed, her voice low. “I just want to forget about it.”
He swivelled the chair to face her. “You were in a bit of a state earlier.” His voice was low now, his lips barely moving. “I wanted to check you hadn’t done anything silly.”
“Silly? What kind of silly are you thinking?”
He shrugged. “Dunno.” He blinked at her a few times. She turned the book in her hand. Jenson had this way of looking at her that made her feel soft inside. But she needed to study.
He slid off the chair and took a seat next to her on the bed, their thighs touching. “I was worried about you.”
“Thanks.” She pushed a lock of hair out of her eyes. “I’m fine.”
He put a hand on her knee. “If you need to talk to someone, you come to me, OK? Not the police. Not the warden.”
“I don’t understand what you think I’m going to go to the warden about.”
“You found a guy dead of an overdose. And not just any guy. I guess you’ll have things you want to tell people.” He moved his hand up her thigh, making her skin tingle. “I’m here for you Kayla, if you need someone to talk to.”
“This morning you thought the answer was to give me drugs.”
His hand halted on her leg. “That’s not quite true, is it sweetie?”
She turned her head to look at him. His eyes were dark and his lashes long. He had pale skin with a smattering of freckles on his nose. She had an urge to kiss them.
“You grabbed that pipe off me,” he said. “You thought it was hash.”
“I won’t make that mistake again.”
“No.”
“I didn’t know you smoked meth.”
He shrugged. “I don’t. Not really.”
“Your pupils are dilated.”
He took her chin in his hand. “That’s because I’m with you.”
She allowed herself a smile as he kissed her. He brushed his lips over hers then worked down her chin and onto her neck. She felt herself shudder as he covered her skin with soft kisses.
“That’s nice,” she said.
“Mmm.”
“Helps me relax.”
His head came up. “That’s the point. It’s my job to look after the undergraduates. And this is how I’m going to look after you.”
Chapter Twenty
Zoe sat in front of the TV, gazing absentmindedly at it. Nicholas was watching some documentary about Turkey. She tried to focus on it, to summon up some interest, but it was beyond her.
“Can we turn this off?” she asked.
“I’m watching it.”
“I just want to watch something easy.”
“It’s only got another quarter of an hour.”
She sighed. “Fine. I’m putting the kettle on. Want one?”
“Tea, please.”
She prised the cat off her lap and shifted it to her shoulder. Yoda, their six-month-old silver tabby, meowed into her ear. She liked being carried around like this, riding on shoulders like a parrot. It gave her a good vantage point to steal food when Zoe tried to put it into her mouth.
She filled the kettle then grabbed her espresso pot. She filled the base with water and scooped yesterday’s grounds out of the filter. Yoda shifted around on her shoulder as she moved, constantly adjusting her weight and keeping her balance.
Zoe stroked the cat as it nuzzled her neck. “You’re too greedy. You’re going to be a fatty.”
As the coffee pot finished its work, the doorbell rang. The cat stiffened on Zoe’s shoulder and she scooped her up and lowered her to the ground.
“Go and see who it is,” she muttered as the cat scooted out of the door.
Zoe poured Nicholas’s tea and her own coffee and went back to the living room, expecting to find Nicholas’s boyfriend Zaf. There had been tension between the two of them lately, but they seemed to be working through it. She was glad: Zaf was a great kid, and he was also Connie’s little brother.
“Oh,” she said as she saw the man standing with Nicholas in the doorway. “What brings you here?”
Inspector Jim McManus turned to her, a hand on his son’s shoulder. “I wanted to talk to Nicholas about the trip to London at the weekend.”
Zoe wrinkled her nose. “Shula and Geordie going too?”
“Of course.”
She turned to Nicholas. “You definitely want to go?”
“Mum, don’t fret. It’ll be fine.”
She knew that Nicholas didn’t get on well with his half-brother Geordie. It was hardly surprising, given Geordie and his mum had known nothing about Nicholas until Geordie was thirteen and Nicholas eleven. When she’d sent Nicholas to stay with his dad last October, he’d complained that Geordie had punched him.
“As long as you’re sure.”
“Course I’m sure. Dad’s bought tickets for Cirque du Soleil.”
Zoe handed Nicholas his mug. “Cirque du Soleil?”
“It’ll be fine,” Jim said. “He’ll enjoy it.”
Zoe eyed Nicholas. She hadn’t known he was interested in that kind of thing, but it didn’t hurt to try something new.
“Good.” She dredged up a smile. “You’ll enjoy it. Maybe I’ll get a chance to take you somewhere nice in the summer, before you go off to uni.”
Nicholas almost spat out his tea. “Mum, you’ve never been on holiday in your life. You’re not about to start now.”
“You never know. If Jim can do it…”
“It’s not a competition, Zoe,” Jim said, his voice low.
“I never said it was.” And besides, you lost years ago, she thought.
She yawned. “OK. I’m going to bed. Early start tomorrow. Big case.” She wasn’t about to tell Jim she was tired because of her grilling in Lloyd House.
“Not all that big,” Jim said. “Not compared to the last one.”
“OK, small case. But the victim’s parents won’t be thinking that when they arrive from Leeds tomorrow.”
Jim grunted. Zoe was reluctant to say more. She didn’t like thinking about a first-year student dead of a drugs overdose when her son was heading off to university in less than six months.
“Let your dad out when he’s done, will you?” she told Nicholas.
“No, I thought I’d imprison him here and feed him to Yoda.” Nicholas looked down at the cat who mewed up at him.
“Whatever. See you in the morning.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Zoe stood in the lobby of the university Chemistry department, watching as staff hurried past and students ambled.
This would be Nicholas in eight months’ time, she told herself. University was a privilege she hadn’t enjoyed: with an alcoholic mum and a dad who struggled to hold the family together, there was no way she’d have buggered off to study for three years. Police college had been enough.
There was no sign of a reception desk or anywhere she could ask for the right person to speak to. She decided to head upstairs, past the lecture halls and towards where she hoped the offices might be.
At the top of the stairs she pushed through a set of double doors and came to an area flanked by low chairs. A couple of students sat in them, laptops on knees: studying, or checking social media, perhaps. There was a wall of glass on the far side with what looked like a reception desk behind it.
Zoe waited for the young woman behind the partition to finish her call, then held her ID up to the glass.
“I hope someone here can help me,” she said.
The woman looked worried. “What’s happened? Did someone call 999?”
“Nothing like that. I’m here about the death of Laurence Thomms, on Sunday night. Early hours of yesterday morning.”
“Sad business.”
“Did he have a tutor?”
“All undergraduates have a tutor. Let me look for you.”
The woman turned to her computer screen and frowned into it. “Here. He’s with Professor Beauman. Was. Sorry.”
“Is Professor Beauman available?”
“Hang on…” the woman raised a finger to stop Zoe going anywhere, not that she was planning to. “She’s in a lecture right now.” She looked up at Zoe. “You can sit in, if you want. Grab her at the end.”
“I’d rather wait.”
“She has a habit of sneaking out for a cigarette after lectures. I’d sit in, if I were you.”
“OK. Where will I find her?”
“Lecture theatre seven. It’s downstairs, second door on the left as you come to the bottom of the stairs.”
“Thanks.” Zoe turned for the stairs.
“Hang on.”
Zoe turned back. “Yes?”
“She’s already started. You don’t want to go in that door. Come with me.”
The woman left the reception area via a door at the end. “I’ll show you how to sneak in at the back. It’s on this level.”
Zoe followed her along corridors, scanning the walls as she did so. They were lined with Chemistry-related posters: graphical representations of chemical reactions, a poster advertising graduate job opportunities, a periodic table or two. Eventually the woman stopped at a door.
She put her fingertips on the door’s surface. “Be careful with this. It bangs. Just take a seat at the back and then you can go down and grab her when she’s finished.”
Zoe nodded thanks and opened the door. She was at the top of a steep bank of seats, at the back of a lecture theatre. Below her, lit by two spotlights, was a woman in her forties who paced the area at the front of the room as she talked animatedly. Between her and Zoe were rows of students, bent over notepads or laptops or whispering to each other.
The door banged behind Zoe and two girls looked round.
“Sorry,” she muttered, and took a seat. The woman at the front, Professor Beauman, paused and looked upwards, a hand shading her eyes.
“There’s an awful lot of you hiding out at the back,” she said.
Muttering began amongst the students. No one moved.
“Not much I can do about it, I suppose. But this isn’t school, you know.”
The professor went back to her lecture. She was using a laptop on a lectern to one side, displaying images that made no sense to Zoe. Zoe watched, more interested in the woman’s energy and enthusiasm than in her subject matter. The students around her seemed less impressed. Two had started kissing and one was asleep.
At last the lecture ended and the students rose with an urgency that surprised Zoe. She waited as they crowded past her, voices buzzing.
Professor Beauman was packing away her notes, unplugging the laptop. She patted her jacket pocket, looking for her cigarettes no doubt.
Zoe hurried down the steps, anxious not to let her get away. When she was three-quarters of the way there, she called the woman’s name.
The professor turned, startled. “Yes?”
“I wonder if I could talk to you.”
“You’ve got a follow-up question? Happy to help.” Professor Beauman leaned against the large desk and smiled at Zoe.
“Sorry, it’s not about that.” Zoe showed the woman her ID. “DI Finch, I’m here about Laurence Thom
ms.”
Professor Beaumont’s face darkened. “Poor kid. Bloody tragedy.”
Zoe nodded. “You were his tutor.”
“Yes.” She bristled.
“I’d like to ask you about him. Who he was friends with, what his habits were.”
“He was a first year. I don’t know much.”
“No?”
“He’d been one of my students for a little more than a term, Detective. I had hardly any contact with him.”
“Surely you had tutorials?”
“My postgrads take some of those. And he didn’t always turn up.”
“That didn’t worry you?”
“If I worried about every student who doesn’t show up for a few tutorials, I’d have no time to do my job.”
“Other students have told me he was a recluse. I’m trying to find out why.”
The professor sighed. “Come to my office.”
They left the room and went back towards the reception area. Before they got there, though, Professor Beauman opened a door and passed through it, with Zoe following half a step behind.
The professor had a large office with a view of Old Joe, the university clock tower. In one corner was a set of low chairs and a coffee table, and near the window was a desk piled with paperwork. Shelves lined the walls: books, ornaments and what looked like models of molecules.
The professor sat behind her desk and motioned for Zoe to sit in one of the two chairs opposite. “I’ll tell you what I can, but it’s not much.”
“Please.”
“Laurence Thomms was a quiet student. He barely spoke in tutorials, didn’t show up for group work, and as far as I could tell he didn’t seem to have any friends.”
“Was he friendly with Becca MacGuire?”
The professor shook her head. “No idea. She’s not one of mine.”
“Sorry?”
“I mean, she isn’t in my tutor group. I do know the name though. High achiever. Nothing like Laurence.”
“You don’t know if Becca and Laurence had any kind of relationship?”
“Sorry. I don’t keep tabs on that kind of thing.” She flicked her wrist to check her watch. “I’ve got a faculty meeting in five minutes, so…”
Deadly Reprisal (Detective Zoe Finch Book 5) Page 7