Dead Scared (16 page)

And it was hardly a priority. Twenty dead kids were my priority. Or was it nineteen? Bryony wasn’t exactly dead. Either way, it didn’t feel right that they were still just numbers for me. How could I investigate anything if I didn’t even know who my victims were? And I knew what Joesbury’s answer to that would be. You are not investigating anything, Flint. You are a pair of eyes and ears. Not a brain.

Well, they should have sent somebody else. Twenty dead kids, nineteen, strictly, was too many for me. Now there was a thought. Was my invisible list actually complete? What if there were other Bryonys out there? Other students who’d attempted suicide but failed? They belonged on this list too. I sent a quick email to Evi, asking her for details of failed suicide attempts over the last few years. That wasn’t giving me a good feeling. If I added failed attempts, my suicide list could get a whole lot bigger.

‘NICK, IT’S EVI.’

Nick Bell pushed his phone against his ear, held it in place with his shoulder and beeped open his car. ‘Hi, Evi,’ he said. ‘You OK?’

‘Fine, thanks. Is this a good time?’

‘I’m just getting into my car,’ said Nick, as he did exactly that. One dog on the rear seat looked up and waved its tail in greeting. The other didn’t even open its eyes. ‘I have to set off in five minutes so unless you want to be responsible for me committing an illegal act, that’s how long you’ve got.’

‘You can get hands-free systems now, you know,’ Evi told him.

‘Had one. Dog ate it. What can I do for you?’

‘How would you feel about releasing information on suicide attempts over the last five years?’

Nick slipped the key into the ignition. ‘You mean amongst patients at the practice?’ he asked.

‘I know you can’t give me names, but numbers of cases and a rough idea of the dates would help.’

‘It’s still bothering you, then?’

‘It is, yes.’

‘Let me run it past the partners. I’ll get back to you. Now are you sure you’re OK? You don’t sound too …’

‘I’m fine, thanks, Nick. Talk to you later.’

WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON AT
most UK universities is set aside for sports and Cambridge was no exception. After lunch, students emerged from their residential blocks and courts dressed in sports kit of various kinds and went off to be athletic. I spent the first couple of hours in a quiet corner of St John’s library. Slowly, the invisible list of twenty students was beginning to assume substance.

I’d run a Google search of student suicides at Cambridge and had found news coverage of several. I knew about law student Kate George, who’d dropped a plugged-in hairdryer into her bath, and about Nina Hatton, who’d been studying zoology until she’d slashed her femoral artery. Photographs accompanying the stories showed attractive, happy girls.

Peter Roberts had found the demands of his mathematics course too much to deal with and had hanged himself in 2005. That same year the grieving mother of another student suicide, Helen Stott, told reporters that she had had no hint of her daughter’s despair. Along with Nicole, Bryony, Jackie and Jake I now had eight names, twelve blanks remaining.

At three o’clock I’d had enough. So far I’d worked non-stop on the case; now I was going to find time for a small personal vendetta. I got my coat, hat, scarf and gloves and went out in search of the Ninja turtles.

Oh, I knew I was being unprofessional, allowing my focus to be distracted away from my main reason for being here, but what had happened the previous night had knocked me for six. Most would see it as an unpleasant but harmless prank. To me it had been one of the worst things I could imagine.

There was an incident when I was younger (which even now I can’t bear to think about) that pretty much shaped who I am. Being set upon, finding myself helpless in the hands of an adrenalin-fuelled gang, had brought it all back. If I was going to function here, I had to wrestle back some sense of control and that meant I had to know who those boys were.

All three had been big blokes. As they’d been half naked, I’d got a pretty good look at their physiques. None had had the wide-shouldered, slim-hipped build of swimmers, or the lean strength of soccer players. They certainly weren’t track and field athletes. If I’d had to put money on it, I’d have said rugby. One of them had a mass of black curly hair. He’d be the easiest to spot.

I asked George the porter where I was most likely to find rugby matches and he directed me to three different sports fields. I went on my bike and was at the first pitch in minutes. Concentrating on the Cambridge squad, I figured perhaps there were two possibilities. I took photographs of both men then cycled to the next pitch.

This game took longer because it was an inter-college match: Magdalene versus King’s. By the time I’d finished I had three possibilities. I took photographs and moved on.

The game on the third pitch was just finishing when I arrived and it wasn’t so easy to get a good look at the players. By the time they started walking back to the changing rooms I’d spotted four vague possibilities, but taking photos would have made me very conspicuous.

It would be Saturday before I got another chance to stake out any more matches, and if the temperature continued to fall the pitches were likely to be too frozen for play. Ah well, they do say revenge is a dish best served cold.

I took the long way home, following the trail of one of the more popular walks in Cambridge. Once over the Cam I turned south to make my way around the Backs. The sun sank lower in the sky and
the
taller of the old buildings to my left began to gleam as though lit from within.

The Backs is the land between the Queen’s Road and the riverside colleges: St John’s, Trinity, Clare, Trinity Hall, King’s and Queens’. Some of it is laid out to elegant lawns or formal parkland, some is grazing land for cattle, other stretches are wildflower meadows.

Pushing the bike now, I walked on, relishing the quiet but getting lonelier by the second. Three days here and already my sense of well-being, not especially robust at the best of times, had sunk. The case Joesbury and I had worked on just a few months ago had been as bad as they come. A serial killer had struck London fast and hard, barely giving us time to blink before each new victim was found. That would have been bad enough, but as the crimes multiplied they seemed to be getting closer, until it looked as though I was the fat, juicy fly the intricate and bloody web was being spun around.

It was over, the killer caught and locked away, but as any officer who deals with violent crime will tell you, emotional closure doesn’t happen overnight.

I’d thought I was coping. The truth was I’d kept myself so busy I hadn’t had time to think of it. I’d been staying up late, only risking sleep when I was exhausted; I’d been exercising hard because being in control of my body had given me the illusion of being in control of my life. Now, the support structure of routine and familiarity had been stripped away and I was drifting in a sea of vague concerns and half-formed problems. I was getting too much time with no company but the contents of my own head.

I was starting to get seriously cold by this time and decided to head back. I turned round and stared, almost in awe.

The day had been cold and the sky clear, and the sunset was the dark orange of ripe fruit, an unbroken wash of colour that stretched as far as I could see. The river in front of me shimmered like light on a polished old sovereign. Breaking the two swathes of gold were the silhouettes of the trees on the far bank, layer upon layer of deep brown, glossy black and soft charcoal. Beyond the trees and directly ahead of me, like a castle from a fairy tale, were the four pinnacles of King’s College Chapel.

As I watched, a boat drew up alongside me; a long, narrow sheaf of fibreglass that couldn’t possibly be strong enough to support the two men perched on top of it but somehow was managing to do so. The oarsmen – they had two oars each so I guess, strictly, they were scullers – slowed the boat and then, with the grace and precision of a ballerina, turned it on the spot. They barely disturbed the water.

And I remembered. Rough, calloused hands on my bare shoulders.
Hit it
, he’d said, meaning let’s go and then
swing it
, meaning we’ve come to a bend and have to turn. Both were rowing terms. The long-haired bloke from last night was an oarsman.

I’d have to hurry. I cycled back towards college and found my car. Ten minutes later I was making my way on foot down to the St John’s boathouse. Only one crew, the women’s coxed fours, had returned.

The men’s coxed fours came back next, glowing pink with the cold and the exertion. They drifted to the bank, climbed out and lifted the boat from the river. None of them was the man I was looking for.

The women’s eight came back and then the men’s appeared from round the river’s bend. They came at a fast pace, only letting up at the last second, and the boat struck the bank hard. One by one they climbed out, visibly tired, hair dank with sweat. I got up and slipped away to the front of the boathouse where I knew that, eventually, after showering and changing, they’d emerge.

I’d found him. The hair, even slick with sweat and river water, was unmissable. He’d rowed in stroke position, at the front of the boat, the team member who was traditionally the strongest and who set the pace for the entire boat.

Twenty minutes later, when I’d spent so much time clenched up and shivering I was in pain, he came out. He was wearing jeans, suede boots and a thick hooded sweater. His hair was dry now and looked exactly how I remembered. What I hadn’t realized the previous night was that he almost certainly wasn’t an undergraduate student. This man was in his mid to late thirties, a post-graduate, possibly, more likely a tutor or a lecturer. I watched him walk up the road, climb inside a red Saab convertible and drive away.

I followed, allowing at least two cars to stay between us. In the city, I had to concentrate hard to keep up with him but once we left town it became easier.

Would a lecturer really dress up like Zorro, break into student accommodation and assault a young female just for fun? Somehow, that didn’t strike me as too likely.

We were heading east out of Cambridge along an A road and I was just starting to wonder how long I could reasonably tail him when he indicated left and turned off the main road. I followed and, a few minutes later, saw the red Saab turn into the main road of an industrial estate.

It was early evening by now and I pulled over by a large sign listing the various units housed on the estate. A quick count told me there were around fifty or so. The Saab had turned into a smaller side road a couple of hundred yards ahead.

Most of the units I could see around me had been constructed in the last ten years. They were warehouse-type spaces mainly, with corrugated steel walls and gently sloping apex roofs. Most had massive cargo doors. Several had windows at second-storey level, indicating office space or possibly showrooms. Some of the units were brick-built, shabby and obviously much older. Peeling paintwork and faded fascia signs told me a few were probably vacant.

I set off again, turned into the side road and slowed to a crawl. The Saab was parked at the far end. I watched the long-haired oarsman stride the few steps to the front door of the unit and let himself inside. I turned the car and drove back to the sign at the estate’s entrance. My quarry had gone into Unit 33, JST Vision.

There was a small cul de sac just a few yards away, one used for turning lorries, I guessed. I reversed my car into it and was almost hidden from the bigger road by some overhanging trees. Behind me was a sign leading to a riverside public footpath. I waited thirty minutes and decided, personal vendetta or not, I couldn’t really justify spending my evening in the car. So I pulled out my phone.