“From last year,” Mills muttered, noting the date in the upper right-hand corner. “Why would he keep these from last year?”
“I’m guessing whoever he was talking to is the reason for that.”
“Most likely one of his friends,” Mills pointed out. “Charlie or Freya, perhaps. But why keep them?”
“Some people do hang on to things like that,” I said. “Sentimentality.”
“You didn’t go to his room this morning and bring these back on suspicion of sentimentality,” Mills said pointedly as I parked in the campus car park.
I switched the engine off and turned in my seat.
“What if it’s Billie?” I asked resignedly. “We knew they had some classes together. One of them is from a psychology lecture, which we knew Billie took. She said they were close. Maybe he kept them because of her.”
“Because he missed her as his friend or because he wanted to keep them as a reminder?” Mills asked. “Like Billie with her threats, she wanted him to remember what happened. This could have been him doing it himself. Clinging onto the past.”
“A perfectly plausible theory, Mills. One that only Billie will be able to prove or disprove.”
“Could we ask someone else?” he suggested. “See if they recognise whose handwriting it is? This might not mean anything to Billie, they’re just scribbles. And even if they are hers, him still having them doesn’t tie anything back to her.”
It didn’t, I knew that it didn’t, but it stuck me with. The feeling of guilt, the self-torture Mills quoted from the book before. If Edward was making himself feel bad, was holding this guilt over his head, then that changed what had happened with Stella. That might mean we learnt the truth about what happened that night. Only it could very well mean that someone got there before us. Someone who decided Edward had to pay for it. And as much as that person could be Billie, she’d had months, over a year, to think about that revenge. Why would she resort to something so desperate? Someone else was tied into all of this and figuring out what Edward knew was our best hope at learning who that person was.
I said as much to Mills, and he nodded in agreement before opening the car door and climbing out, holding onto the bag of findings securely. It was always so much easier when we were on the same page, and luckily for us, we often were. I couldn’t say the same for other sergeants I’d worked with in the past. Naming no names, of course.
We strode along towards the old building Professor Altman was situated in, a cold breeze blowing against our faces. Rain was due at some point this morning, had been hovering around the sky waiting for the right moment when someone hung their washing out or left their umbrella in the car. A student walked out from the door to the building, and I jogged forward to take it, holding it open for her and then for Mills, who gave me a dashing smile as he walked past. We began the tedious climb up and up and up to the attic and the office inside, my legs aching as we went.
I needed to work out again properly. Something with lunges before I shrivelled up into an old man and groaned every time I got up from a chair. It was already happening sometimes, early in the morning, and I was just glad nobody was ever really around to hear it apart from Liene, who slept like the dead, anyway.
Professor Altman’s office door was slightly ajar, two low voices murmuring through the gap as we approached. I knocked, making sure I didn’t push the door fully open with the force of it and took a second to catch my breath. The voices stopped, someone inside moved, and then Altman’s voice called out.
“Enter!”
I pushed the door aside, Mills on my heel, surprised to find Professor Greenberg also in the room, sat on a stool against the bookshelves. Professor Altman sat at his desk, leaning back in his chair, watching as we walked in.
“Inspector,” he stood up and offered me his hand. “And sergeant. This is a surprise. How can I help?”
“We wondered if we might run a few things by you,” I said, holding my hand out to Mills. He passed me the bag, and I carefully placed the contents on Professor Altman’s desk. “We borrowed a few of these things from Edward Vinson’s room, and most of these materials are more your expertise than ours.”
Professor Altman cleaned his glasses before shoving them back on his face, and Professor Greenberg slipped from her chair.
“I’ll leave you to it, shall I?” she said, heading for the door.
“That’s quite alright, Professor. You might be able to help as well. Unless you have a student waiting for you?”
She shook her head and drifted over to the desk, standing beside Yosef Altman as he peered over the things from Edward’s room.
“None of this was his assigned readings,” he told me, “but I did suggest a few to further broaden his research.”
“What exactly was he working on, Professor?” Mills asked.
“Forgiveness, for the most part. Looking into the different ways and opinions people have on the matter. From cultural standpoints, philosophical, moral, all of those things. Was quite fixated with it, actually. How much a person can forgive and whether forgiveness itself is a moral thing to do.”
“A curious thing for a young man to be fixated on,” Professor Greenberg muttered. The two of them glared at each other for a second, then turned back to the books. She picked up the journal, opening it up to let the loose pages fall onto the desk. As she flicked through Edward’s sketches, Professor Altman picked up the pages of notes.
“Talking through the lectures,” he clicked his tongue disapprovingly. “The cheek.”
Professor Greenberg was staring at a page, but she looked over when he spoke and frowned, taking the pages from him.
“Do you recognise the handwriting, Professor Greenberg?” I asked her.
“Angela, please. And I do. It’s Billie’s.”
“Belinda Helman?” Professor Altman asked, surprised, pushing his glasses back up his hooked nose.
Angela glowered at him. “Her name is Billie, and you’d go by that too if someone named you Belinda. And it’s hers,” she added, looking at me. “Always had such lovely handwriting.”
“They took a few classes together then?”
“Definitely one of mine,” Angela said, putting the pages down. “Another one, history.” She tapped the sheet in question. “Not sure which professor they had, though.”
“That’s alright. The two of you know them both well enough,” Mills assured her.
I watched Professor Altman as he looked through some of the books, things Edward had circled and underlined, quotes he had copied down, his expression clear that he was familiar with a lot of the works and authors Edward had been interested in.
“Professor Altman?” I prompted him.
He looked up at me and sighed, lowering himself into his chair.
Angela touched his shoulder, “Yosef?”
“The morality of forgiveness,” he said, “has been argued about for centuries. Can we forgive a murderer? Should we? And does that make us better people or worse people? Edward wanted there to be an answer. Yes, we can forgive this person. Yes, they deserve forgiveness.”
“Guilt,” Professor Greenberg said clearly. “He wanted to know if he would be forgiven and was happy to punish himself if he couldn’t.”
“Punish himself?” Mills inquired, though I knew he understood her meaning.
She looked at the notes between Edward and Billie, looked at the drawings he’d done over time. “Your expertise is the same as mine,” she said to us, meeting my stare. “Better, perhaps. You know the way people think and act when they feel guilty. Edward’s obsession was with forgiveness, what sort of person he was.”
“He wanted to know if he would be forgiven for what he did,” I said stoically. “For what he did to Stella.”
The words hung in the air for a while, broken by Professor Altman, who took his glasses off, placed them on the desk and rubbed at his face with a groan.
“And what he did to Billie,” Mills added, nodding to the notes.
>
“I should have seen it/” Professor Altman sighed. “Should have trusted you,” he added to Angela.
“You deal in the hypothetical,” she said comfortingly. “This,” she gestured to myself and Mills, “this is not your area of expertise.”
“Thank god for that,” he muttered. “I’d be awful at it.”
“It’s a learning curve,” I told him diplomatically, looking to his shoulder where Angela’s hand still rested. She followed my gaze and pulled away, tidying up the collection of things.
“Would anyone else have been able to tell all that?” Mills asked Professor Altman. “Would have looked at these the way you have and seen what Edward was fixated on?”
“You think that someone learnt the truth,” Professor Greenberg interrupted, her eyes brightening. “That they learnt the truth about Edward and Stella and acted?”
“Perhaps,” I deliberated, wanting to hear what she thought.
“Explains the brutality of it,” she said, “and the rush. Billie has always thought he was guilty from the off. But someone who believed in him, trusted him…”
“That’s the sort of person who’d show such a violent, betrayed reaction,” I finished for her.
Professor Greenberg nodded along to my words and breathed in deeply. “You boys have your work cut out for you, don’t you?”
I gave her a grim smile. We did, but we also knew the people who had believed in Edward’s innocence, whose betrayal might have stung a whole lot more than Billie’s, with her weeks and months of coming to terms with everything, ever did.
“Can you think of someone?” I asked the question again. “Someone he knew who might have put this together?”
“All of his friends are brilliant students,” Professor Altman said. “Any of them might put a few of these pieces together, but none of them are students of mine. Unless they do readings like these in their own time, I couldn’t tell you who to look to.”
“Nor me,” Angela Greenberg added. “I only taught Edward and Billie and had neither of them this year.”
That was annoying that they had no one in particular to offer, but it was a long shot, anyway. Someone had pieced it together, though, pieced together was Edward had tried to conceal and get over. He felt guilty for what he did to Stella, and someone realised exactly what that meant.
I picked up the books and placed them back in the bag, nodding to both professors. “Thanks for your help.”
“Sorry we couldn’t be more useful before,” Professor Altman said, standing up and shaking both of our hands again.
“Our minds aren’t always our friends in times like these,” I answered, shaking Professor Greenberg’s hand next.
“Have you seen Billie?” she asked.
“We have. Saw her yesterday.”
She nodded, a look of worry flashing across her face, and I took my cue to leave, jerking my chin to Mills, who followed me from the stuffy, hot room.
When we were far enough way, going back down the monumental stairs, he said, “Fancy seeing them together in one room. Thought they weren’t friends.”
“I don’t think friends is the right word there, Mills,” I replied. He laughed, and I went on. “I know what you mean, though. It worried me a bit that a man as smart as Professor Altman couldn’t see what Edward was saying right in front of him. How many other people believed him wholeheartedly?”
“I don’t understand,” Mills said thoughtfully. “If he really was guilty, felt as bad as he appeared to, why not speak up? Say something, admit the fault.”
“Maybe he wanted to avoid the punishment. Maybe…” I paused for a moment on the stairs. “Maybe he did speak up. Admit the fault. We don’t know what he said to Stella that day in the park. It could be that he wanted to get forgiveness from the only person who could grant it to him.”
“I wonder if she gave it,” Mills murmured as we started walking again, all the way down and out into the cool air. The rain had come, a sad sort of drizzle that would hopefully stay that way until we got into the car.
We climbed in, and I shook the droplets of rain from my head, starting the engine up and flipping the windscreen wipers on. Mills turned the heater towards himself, dropping the bag down by his feet.
“I’m wondering if it’s worth paying Freya another visit,” he said quietly. “Seeing what she might know about any of this?”
“If anything,” I replied. “But it’s worth a shot, and she might be able to tell us about what sort of relationship he had with Billie since I get the feeling she won’t do that herself.”
“Can you blame her?” Mills asked, scruffing his hair to dry out the damp strands. “She’d want nothing to do with him at all, not even the memories of him.”
I grunted in agreement, thinking about the notes between the two of them. Teasing, almost flirtatious sometimes, and wondered if that sort of conversation happened outside of the lecture hall as well, where we wouldn’t have any useful copies on hand to ask her about.
My image of Edward wasn’t clear. On the one hand, there was the manipulative, wealthy young man who had dodged a sexual assault allegation without a scratch and had more or less thrived ever since. And then there was the guilty, scared student searching for forgiveness from the people he had hurt, the friend he had betrayed. It made it difficult to form much of an opinion on him, though I supposed I didn’t really need one. I would probably solve this case better without one, in fact. But I didn’t like the uncertainty, and if Freya was a way to make things a bit less murky, then it was better than nothing.
Twenty
Thatcher
I was about to drive us back to the station so that we could get in touch with Freya, but when I put the car into gear, Mills tapped my arm and pointed to a figure crossing the car park towards us. She cradled a stack of books against her chest, her raincoat hood flipped up as she hurried along, but she looked up long enough for us to see her face. I climbed from the car, waving Freya down and walked round the boot, hoping that I had left an umbrella inside and was successful. I opened it up as Freya reached us, the umbrella just big enough for the three of us to stand under. Freya pushed her hood back, her face tired looking, with dark shadows under her eyes, her skin a little pale, but she managed to give us both a smile.
“Hello, Freya. You’re back?” Mills asked, tucking his hands into his pockets.
“I’m back,” she said with a nod. “Couldn’t just sit at home and stare at the walls any longer. Plus, I have assignments to get finished, and I just sort of wanted to feel more normal, you know?”
“Makes sense to us,” I replied.
“Why are you here?” She asked, looking us both over a touch cautiously.
“We had another look through some of Edward’s things. He was a big book lover,” I commented. Freya nodded, dropping her gaze down to the wet floor.
“And art,” Mills added. “We found his photography kit the other day.”
Freya’s face looked back up at ours, something dawning on her, eye wide, and she gasped slightly. “I can’t believe I forgot! I’m such an idiot!”
“I’m sure that’s not true,” I told her, “but go on.”
“Edward had a studio,” she said, wiping the rain from her face. “A little place away from here and his mum and dad’s.”
“A studio?” I repeated, adjusting my weight and frowning. “Where is it?”
“In the city,” she muttered, awkwardly tearing off a scrap piece of paper before fishing a pen from her pocket. I made sure the umbrella was fully covering her as she scribbled down an address and passed it to Mills. He glanced over it and looked up at me. Somewhere new to visit, that couldn’t hurt.
“I’m so sorry,” Freya was saying as she shoved her pen back into her bag. “I should have remembered earlier.”
“You’ve had a lot on your mind,” I assured her. “Coming to grips with it all is a lot to deal with. But we have it now,” I smiled, “so let’s hope it can help.”
Freya gave m
e a grim smile and nodded. “I think he would have secretly liked all this,” she said mournfully. “Being a mystery, having everyone talking about him.”
“Let’s hope he doesn’t remain mysterious for much longer,” Mills remarked. Freya mirrored his smile, then glanced down at her watch and grimaced.
“I should get going. Wouldn’t be good to be late to my first lecture back.”
“Of course. Thank you for the help, Freya,” I said. She nodded and ran off into the rain, waving over her shoulder as she made for the safety of a nearby building.
I turned around, quickly shoving the umbrella back into the boot, and slid into the warm, dry car. Mills was sitting forward, looking at the address.
“We don’t have a key,” he pointed out. I groaned and pulled out my phone, pulling up Smith’s number, raking my damp hair back from my face as it rang.
“Smith. Hello, sir.”
“Hello. Are you busy?” I asked, turning the engine on.
“Not terribly. Why?”
“Do me a favour. Go look through Edward Vinson’s things, see if we have a key somewhere in all of it.”
“Shall I call you back?” She asked, already moving.
“Stay on the line,” I ordered. I could hear the station around her, muffled and faint as she walked to our evidence room. Mills turned the radio down for me as Smith shuffled through boxes, something landing heavily on a table. She whistled lightly as she sifted through, then her voice was back in my ear.
“I’ve got a set of keys, sir.”
“Brilliant,” I cheered, putting the car into gear, “mills is sending you an address. Meet us there now.”
“Right, sir.” I hung up and passed Mills my phone, letting him type in the address, reading it aloud, so I knew where we were going. He propped my phone in the cup holder and looked around as we left the campus.
Guilty Conscious Page 16
