by J G Alva
She took an equal step back.
“Nothing. I don’t know anything.”
“There must be something.”
“There isn’t.”
She was vibrating. Nervous. Agitated.
What was it?
“Are you studying at the university as well?” He asked.
“Yes. That’s how I met Steve. We’re both on the same course.”
“And what is that?”
“Social Sciences. What does that have to do with anything?”
“I don’t know,” Sutton admitted, smiling. “Where were you when Masters lay dying in the gutter?”
“What?” Fiery anger blazed out of her beautiful eyes.
“Were you here?”
“Yes.”
“Was Steve?”
“Of course he was –“
“But you said he worked nights.”
“Only three nights –“
“Do you have a car?”
“What? No.” Now she was almost smirking. She knew where he was going.
“Does Steve?”
The smirk faded.
“Who are you?” She asked. “I mean, really.”
“I told you –“
“Are you really working for Chris’s sister?”
“Yes, we are.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Call her.”
Vicky crossed her arms over her chest defensively.
“What?” Sutton said. “You don’t have her number?”
“I can get it,” she said. “Who are you really working for?”
Sutton frowned.
“Who else would I be working for?”
She shifted her weight from foot to foot.
“I want you to leave,” she said. And as an afterthought, but with zero warmth: “please.”
He stared at her.
Something had changed, some balance had shifted, and like two people on a see-saw, the girl now seemed to control whether Sutton would fall off or not. She had been defensive from the start, and now he wondered if she were genuinely hiding something, or if she just didn’t believe he was who he said he was.
He turned to Fin and nodded: they should leave. Fin went to the door.
“When does Steve finish his shift?” Sutton asked the girl, moving to the door to join Fin.
“Late.” She was not giving anything away, not any more…not for free anyway.
She was an angry woman.
Sutton wondered if it was because she was forced to dress like a pauper, when she knew she was a princess.
“Then I’ll come back tomorrow.”
“We’re out tomorrow. All day.”
Sutton opened the door for Fin. Fin raised his eyebrows and then stepped outside.
Sutton smiled formally and said, “I’m sure I’ll catch you again at some point. Goodnight, Miss Clapham.”
◆◆◆
“What a bitch,” Fin remarked, when they were on the street again.
“She’s something,” Sutton admitted.
“What do you think?”
Sutton looked up at the building. A dim impression of a shadow moved behind the net curtains on the top floor.
“I don’t know,” he said thoughtfully.
But it felt like she was hiding something.
“What now?”
Sutton looked along the street. A man in a hoodie was moving towards them. A jogger. He gave them a suspicious look but then ran past. Sutton waited until he was out of earshot before speaking.
“I’d like to talk to the boyfriend. Can you find out where he works?”
“Sure.”
“And find out what you can about Miss Clapham. A bit about her background. Do you need a lift back?”
“It would be appreciated,” Fin said, smiling. “Seeing as I have all this homework to do.”
“Come on, then.”
◆◆◆
He’d only been home an hour when the landing alarm sounded.
He’d spent that hour trying to get used to the new dimensions of his flat, but with little success. He kept returning home, and it kept feeling like he hadn’t really returned home at all.
After the cult had burnt it to the ground, re-designing it with provisions for future attacks seemed like the smart thing to do. Now he wasn’t so sure. He had lost his home, and despite the quick turnaround from the construction company, he hadn’t gotten it back. Not really.
Then the alarm rang out.
He waited. Longer than ten seconds without a knock, and the visitor’s intentions were usually less than benign.
Six seconds later, he heard a polite tapping.
He went to the door and looked through the peephole.
He couldn’t believe it.
Lisa Hopkins.
His heart started pounding.
He opened the door.
She looked at him, and she couldn’t stop her face from expressing how she felt. Like she had been sucking on a lemon.
He didn’t know what to say, but as she had to come to him, he thought it best to let her talk.
“Can I come in?” She asked, finally.
◆◆◆
CHAPTER 6
Thursday, 2nd June
Lisa had been married to his good friend Freddie Hopkins. Freddie had died at the hands of the Cult. They had followed him home, after he had been to visit Sutton. Sutton had been out. If he hadn’t been, his friend might still be alive.
Now she was a widow, and Sutton had suffered a loss too. Not as sharp perhaps, but just as sweeping.
She stopped in front of the balcony doors and turned to him. She wasn’t going to stay; what she had to say wouldn’t take long. She was in a smart brown leather jacket, short, with a handbag over her shoulder. Her hair was slightly longer, and just about covered her ears. She was still very attractive, still only five foot three, still very slim…slimmer in fact. Her face was drawn in. It made her look ill, older, and harder.
She looked at him, but she couldn’t meet his gaze for long. Too angry. She looked down at the floor.
“I didn’t want to come,” she said.
“What changed your mind?”
She half-laughed. Bitter.
“Freddie, I suppose. He wouldn’t want me to blame you.”
At his silence, she looked at him again.
“Even though it was your fault.”
He did not speak.
“Couldn’t you have warned him?”
Sutton shook his head.
“I couldn’t have guessed he would get involved.”
That was no answer, and she knew it.
He said, “I didn’t…anticipate that something like that would ever happen.”
“Doing what you do, I would say it was only a matter of time.”
“No. But…this was different.”
“How?”
He shook his head again.
“I can’t talk about it.”
“Why not?”
“Because other people are involved.”
“Not even to me?”
He shook his head once more.
“You fucking sanctimonious prick,” she burst out. She was shaking with anger. She quickly turned away, covering her mouth with a hand; regretting the outburst.
But Sutton knew that one would follow shortly after. There was no acceptance of what had happened, no dampening of emotions; they ruled her; she was their hostage. It led him to wonder why she had come here at all. If it was only to vent…
But he didn’t question it. If she wanted to vent, then he would stand here and take it. He would take it all.
“I came here to forgive you,” she said, with her back to him. “No. I came here to see if I could forgive you. For Freddie.” She faced him once more. “You’re not making it any easier.”
“You’ll either decide to forgive me or you won’t,” he said. “Nothing I say will change that. Nothing I say will change what you feel.”
“How about an apol
ogy?”
“I can give it, if it will help.”
“How about telling me exactly what happened, exactly why it happened, and exactly how much of it was your fault. Then we’ll see if I can forgive you.”
“I told you, I can’t do that.”
“Can’t? Or won’t?”
“Can’t.”
She laughed, but it was more an exhalation of shock, of incredulity, then an expression of mirth.
“Did you even like Freddie?”
“You know I did.”
“Then tell me.”
He shook his head.
“Lisa –“
“If it’s not going to be an explanation, then don’t bother wasting your breath,” she said, holding up a hand to stop him. She dropped the hand, and looked him up and down as if he were an errant child. “God. I knew what you were the first time Freddie introduced me to you. Self-important. Self-obsessed. Sanctimonious. Holier than thou. Nothing anybody ever did could be as important as what you did, as what you do. Your one man crusade to rid the world of the bad guys. Do you know what? It’s a joke. You’re an artist, for God’s sake.” She indicated the easel in the corner. “And not even a good one at that. Yes, I’ve seen some of your paintings. You gave some to Freddie, remember? I know all about you now. I know everything. After…what happened, I became interested. Who was this man claiming to be my husband’s friend? Who was this man who got him killed? What did he really do for a living? I probably know more about you than you do yourself.” She counted the points off on her fingers. “The dead mother. The cold father. The father’s friend, the locksmith, who took you in after he died. The trouble you got into, when you were young. The loony bin. The married woman, and then the art teacher…I know everything about you. Everything. And do you know what I think? Do you know what I think about the great Sutton Mills?”
He waited.
Like waiting for a lorry to hit him.
“That you matter to no one,” she proclaimed, as if driving a nail into his coffin. “That you’re trying to be important because you have no one. And do you know why you have no one?”
He did not respond. She didn’t want him to anyway.
“Because you’re not worthy of anyone. You’re too selfish. Too self-absorbed. Too caught up in your own tragic life. You think no one will understand you, that no one could have had things as tough as you and therefore can never know what you’re going through…and you think that makes you better than everyone else. More world-aware. Because you’ve suffered. Oh, poor poor you. Well, it doesn’t. It just makes you smaller. Less interesting. God, I can smell the loneliness and desperation on you like sweat. It’s disgusting. You’re disgusting.”
She stopped. She wiped her mouth. She had been spitting.
The colour was high in her cheeks. For some bizarre reason, it made her more attractive. As if she was aroused. She was, but not in that way.
She took two steps towards him, but didn’t dare to come any closer.
Her voice dropping to a whisper, she said, “just…tell me what happened. I need to hear it.”
He should have relented. He should have told her. He should have explained everything, should have given her all of it; at least that way he could be absolved of all responsibility, in her eyes.
But instead he began to get suspicious.
He didn’t know why he was suddenly suspicious. It was just that something she was doing wasn’t quite right. Something didn’t add up. Some expression – either on her face or something she had given voice to – felt just slightly…off. He couldn’t explain it. He supposed his subconscious could, if ever he were ever able to sit down with it.
Instead, all he had was a mental alarm, clamouring somewhere in the back of his mind.
He grabbed her handbag. He was too quick for her. He had it off her shoulder before she even knew what he was up to.
By the time she had reached for it, had grabbed the straps to reclaim it, he had found her phone…and also found that she had set it to record their conversation.
The ultimate revenge.
He knew why she had come to visit him now. It wasn’t to forgive him. It was the opposite. She would use her grief to get him to implicate himself in her husband’s death, so that he could be tried in the British Justice System. She was a Criminal Defence Solicitor after all. She knew what she could do inside the confines of the law. And if their conversation was recorded without his permission, well…no doubt she could find a way to get it entered into his trial as evidence.
He held the phone up for her to see.
She looked at it, and then looked at him.
There was no guilt in her eyes, no embarrassment, no shame.
He stopped the app from recording anymore and dropped the phone back into her handbag.
She went for it, but he held it out of her reach.
Her eyes flashed hotly.
“I don’t expect to be forgiven,” he said. “But I think I would have preferred it if you had come in here with a gun, rather than trying to get my confession on tape. This seems so much more…contrived.” He threw the handbag at her, hard. She caught it, but stumbled back a step. “Get the fuck out of my flat.”
She put the straps over her shoulder, and with one last bright look of hate, she said, “you’re being investigated. And you will go down. I’ll make sure of it.”
“Good luck with that. Now get out.”
She speed-walked out of his flat, slamming the door shut behind her.
◆◆◆
“Are you okay?” Lucia asked, examining his face.
She stood on the landing, a sweet and delectable woman-shape in a gold dress and a light, long white coat.
He tried to smile. For her.
“I brought vodka,” she said gaily, holding it up and waving it in the air.
He shook his head.
“Not tonight, Lucia.”
She dropped her hand.
“Me? Or vodka?”
“Just the vodka,” he said, looping an arm around her waist and pulling her inside.
◆◆◆
CHAPTER 7
Friday, 3rd June
The Bristol University of Science, Technology, Business and Art was a new university. Relatively speaking. It was located on the edge of Kingsdown and Cotham, and built on the site of an old chocolate factory. All told, Busbar – as the students affectionately called it – was spread over three acres. The bulk of it was housed in a newly built seven floor glass tower; an investment in the future, it had to look like the future…and it did: a tall rectangular spacecraft that had landed in one of the older parts of the city. It was almost rude. A number of annexes were dotted around the central building, in converted terraced houses. Trees lined the front of the new building, and around the back – beyond the staff car park – there was a pleasant green area called Cotham Park. It wasn’t really a park, just a grassy knoll. A lot of students took their lunch there, sitting on blankets when it was sunny and eating their couscous…or whatever it was students ate these days. Something organic, with lots of vitamins. Avocados, probably.
Sutton pulled into the visitor’s car park. He was alone. Fin didn’t do well with confrontation, and although Sutton didn’t expect anything like that, he had advised him to stay at home. He was deeply immersed in his homework anyway, digging through databases to find out all he could about the oddly behaved Miss Clapham, and Sutton didn’t want to disturb him. And Victoria Clapham was hiding something, that much was obvious…what wasn’t obvious was whether it was to do with her friend’s death, or whether it was to do with something completely unrelated.
An appointment had been made with Chris Masters’ boss, but Sutton still had to wait ten minutes in the sterile Bauhaus style lobby before she arrived.
A stout middle-aged lady, she gave him a thorough disapproving inspection before finally addressing him.
“Mr Mills?”
He rose.
“Miss Tammers?”
“Yes. Would you like to follow me? We’ll talk in my office.”
Miss Tammers’ office was on the third floor, at the end of a lot of corridors, and through a lot of other departments. He didn’t see any classrooms; instead, he was treated to a tour of the human mechanism that kept the university running: the administration, IT, service and HR departments. The walls were glass; in fact, very few areas were deemed private. Sutton looked into busy offices and empty conference rooms without ever entering any of these places themselves. It was a voyeur’s paradise.
There was a considerable amount of staff employed by the university, more than he would have assumed were needed. Those they passed deferred to Miss Tammers. She was obviously something of a senior figure in the university machine. Also, Sutton gathered that she didn’t tolerate any nonsense, as there was a barely perceptible stiffening of the spine when she entered the room. She was a drill sergeant, but she wore a dress.
It seemed ironic that she had one of the few offices that were private. Wood walls. It wasn’t particularly big, not particularly lavish, but perhaps she valued privacy above other luxuries.
She shut the door behind him and indicated a seat opposite her desk. It was aluminium, with puffed grey cushions. Sutton sat. Comfortable, he thought. An unnecessary consideration for a guest. Sutton was suddenly struck with the idea that Miss Tammers was a deeply lonely woman. He didn’t know where the idea came from. Maybe it was the chair, so unnecessarily inviting, that made him think that the older woman was a solitary individual, and not by choice.
“His sister called me,” Miss Tammers said. She was stout, and the desk was too close to the wall for it to be easy for her to negotiate. But eventually she sat. “I met her a couple of weeks ago, when she picked up Chris’s things. She said I’m to help you. That you’re looking into his death. Are you a private investigator?”
“I don’t have a license.”
“That hardly seems trustworthy.”
“Well. They don’t really give out licenses for the sort of thing I do.”
“I see. So you’re a rogue. And you do this for money?”