by Mel McGrath
‘I know,’ she says, then taking a breath, ‘we’re going to the police, Luke.’
The cigarette drops from Luke’s mouth. ‘What?’
‘The man you saw leaving our flat. I thought it was Mark Ratner but it wasn’t. It was Christopher Cullen. We’re going to the police to tell them.’
Luke is waving his hand in the air. ‘Hang on… Satnam was involved with the Dean?’
‘I think so. They had some kind of arrangement. Swapping sex for grades.’
She watches Luke’s face contort in shock. ‘No! Why would you even think that?’
‘Because it’s what Ratner was doing with Tash and Jessica. And because the Dean tried to do something similar with me. Taking me out to lunch, telling me I was in line for a first. Only in my case I don’t think he was trying to get me into bed. I think he was trying to get me onside so I wouldn’t ask awkward questions about Satnam.’
There is a pained expression on Luke’s face. ‘But Satnam would have told you, wouldn’t she?’
‘I think she wanted to protect me from it. Looking back I realise she was trying to tell me on the bridge. She’d got in too deep. She said she’d had enough.’
‘Enough of what though?’
‘The situation. Think about it. One minute she was struggling with her coursework, coming to me all the time to help her, and then all of a sudden it stopped. That wasn’t because she got better at the maths. I saw her paper, remember. It was full of errors. I assumed her grades were improving because she told me she was working really hard, putting in the hours in the library, but I was always in there and I never saw her. Not once.’
Luke yelps and shakes his finger where it made contact with the business end of his cigarette. He says, ‘None of that sounds like Satnam.’
‘I know, and that’s why we didn’t see it.’
‘You think the guy she said she cheated on me with was the Dean?’
‘Most likely. But I don’t think she ended it with you because she didn’t want to be with you any more. I think she just felt too ashamed.’
Luke groans. ‘I really loved her, Nevis. I still do.’
‘She told me something else, and I just didn’t connect the dots till it was too late. This is going to be hard to hear, but I still think I should tell you, because then you’ll understand.’
Luke nods an OK.
‘Last summer, after her parents found out about you, they found her a match, some guy from Birmingham. She refused to meet him. She wanted to be with you. At the start of the academic year she came to an agreement with her parents that, if she began doing better at uni, they would let her graduate and find a job. She was afraid that, if she had to drop out, she wouldn’t be able to resist the pressure they would put on her to get married.’
‘So she made sure she wouldn’t have to? Didn’t she tell you on the Sunday that she was thinking about leaving Avon though?’
‘Think about it. She was trapped. She couldn’t live with doing what it took to remain at Avon, and she didn’t want an arranged marriage. By transferring to another university she was hoping to free herself from her situation. But I think that, by the end, she’d just decided that the world was better off without her.’
As Luke takes this in, his mouth contorts and the flesh of his cheeks reddens. I should comfort him, Nevis thinks, slinging an arm awkwardly around his shoulders.
‘What Jessica told me was that Tash had started dating an ex of hers, a married man. At the Valentine’s Day party, the one where Tash took that selfie with her and Satnam and Jessica, Satnam threatened to make trouble, to “spill the beans” Jessica said. I’m wondering if Satnam was about to blow the sex for grades thing out of the water? But the whole situation actually suited Tash. She might already have been in love with Ratner by then anyway. So she felt threatened by Satnam. I honestly think Satnam wanted to do the right thing, but Tash wouldn’t let her.’
The warmth of his body seeps through her peacoat. A few weeks ago she would have hated this. Too close, too much contact. But that is the past and, as someone once said, the past is a different country.
‘If she did do that stuff with the Dean, it was done for the best of reasons, Luke. Because she wanted a life of her own. We all deserve that, don’t we?’
Luke is sitting very quietly now, staring out across the dimming sky.
‘When Satnam wakes she’ll tell the truth, she’ll give Cullen away.’
‘I wouldn’t be surprised if he has a plan to make sure that Satnam doesn’t wake.’
‘Nevis, that’s mad.’
‘Is it? First Jessica goes, then Tash. Why wouldn’t Satnam be next? The university would continue to deny any responsibility. If pushed, they could blame suicide contagion. That way it’s just a sequence of events, a dark chain reaction, no one’s fault, just one of those things.’
Luke takes a minute to consider this, then throwing his cigarette on the ground grinds it with his foot. ‘Fuck.’
Chapter 49
Cullen
He rises from his bed unrested, passes Veronica’s dressing room and sees the empty spot where her hairbrush usually sits.
I have been a fool, he thinks.
All night he has been turning over the implications of a divorce; the loss of Veronica and his child. He loves Veronica. More to the point she is his route out of all the old ignominy, his ancient obsessions. The mad visit to the hospital seems like years ago now, his fixation with Satnam an odd, strange delirium that he can now clearly see was merely a replaying of the old stuff, the odd, unwelcome reprise of a greater, longer lasting obsession, his first, last and singular love. He’d seen something in the girl the instant she arrived on campus, had picked her out from the gaggle of lanky boys and giggling lasses. She was only moderately pretty and no intellectual and – though you couldn’t ever say this in today’s world – he wasn’t generally drawn to ethnic girls and yet he found it hard not to look at her. He had been so puzzled by his attraction that it was easier just to deny its existence. And so it went under the radar where it should have stayed. He made sure she was never in his seminar groups and kept his distance at faculty events. It was months before the problem of her magnetism resurfaced at the remedial maths class he’d run during the summer. His growing fixation unsettled him terribly. Still though, the class was short and he was able to restrain himself, in part because his attraction remained such a puzzle. It was Veronica who’d nailed it at the faculty Christmas drinks party. His wife was the first to remark on the resemblance between Satnam and Maddy Ince. And when he looked closely, he could see it too. From that moment two things happened. First, his obsession grew, even as he understood that, just like Maddy, Satnam would only ever be a poor stand-in for Zoe. Secondly, he became aware that Mark Ratner was screwing his students. Which meant that, so long as Cullen was discreet, there was no reason he shouldn’t join in the fun. Ratner wasn’t likely to snitch on him.
It was he who had first suggested an arrangement. Taken Satnam to lunch at Luigi’s, laid out in some detail, without actually using the words, how she could sleep her way to a first-class degree. There were conditions. He demanded absolute discretion. If anyone else so much as suspected anything the deal would be over. Secondly, during their encounters he would only ever refer to her as ‘Zoe’. When she demurred, he piled on the pressure by taking her coursework grades down a notch or two. At the same time, he believed, her parents were also pressuring her to give up her studies and marry. When she finally conceded he waited until she slept and took a few ‘glamour shots’ in the room at the Travelodge as insurance. He didn’t for one moment consider where their affair would go or when it might end. He was living a fantasy that had to be realised. For the first time in years, decades perhaps, he felt truly alive.
All that is over. The bubble has burst. He recognises that. Veronica is his only future now. Not his one true love, but no matter. Perhaps for a man as sensitive as Cullen there can only be one great love affair in a life. With Ve
ronica there might be a future in a life where all too often only the past has seemed real. There might be some solace to be found in a normal life with a wife and, soon, a child. He could clear his debts. Ask Veronica’s father for the money. The imminent arrival of a grandchild would make it impossible for his father-in-law to say no. Veronica is my only ally, he thinks. The one person who will stand by me. Without Veronica I am condemned to live with the ghosts of the drowned and the dead.
Perhaps there is still a chance to win her back? If she has spared her parents the ugly details, they may yet root for him. True they never really gelled but with a child on the way perhaps they might see the sense in their daughter remaining with her husband. Perhaps I could lay it all out before her and beg for her forgiveness? He thinks about it. She will see, she will understand. Yes, that’s it. I will go over to her parents’ house now and I’ll take her out somewhere fancy. I’ll revisit the old days in Manchester, the times we were both happy. I’ll mention the house, how much she longed for it, remind her that we were happy there for a while and that we could be happy there again. I’ll lay it all on the line. I’ll say, ‘It wasn’t my doing. I was seduced into it, drawn into something much bigger and darker than myself that I did not recognise and was powerless to resist.’ Quick, quick, yes, that’s it, that’s exactly what I’ll do.
Feeling unexpectedly buoyed by this thought, he hurries out into the hallway, grabs his coat and picks up the keys to his Volvo, too absorbed to notice the shadows of two people through the milky glass of the front door until he is almost upon them. Who can this be? Not thugs collecting debts, as he has staved them off for now with the proceeds of his mother’s bracelet. Oh of course! It is a couple of carers from the nursing home, come to tell him regretfully of his mother’s death. Ha! Little do they know that the moment they are gone he’ll go straight to the cellar and open the bottle of twenty-five-year-old Macallan he has been saving for that very purpose. He stops for a moment, his hand on the door, feeling strangely hollowed out. Odd how you can hate someone but not quite enough to stop loving them.
He takes a breath and opens the door to find a man and a woman, both in their thirties, conventionally but inexpensively dressed, standing on the front path, just shy of the doorstep, wearing serious expressions. The man steps forward and introduces himself. Cullen hears the word ‘detective’ and nothing more. The woman opens her mouth but he cannot catch anything she says at all, for the loud buzz in his head. What he does understand is that both the man and the woman are expecting to be let inside.
‘I wonder if it can wait? I have an appointment to get to.’
Shakes of the head. Lips resolutely pressed. He senses that there’s no way out of this one without looking as if he has something to hide. Which he does, obviously. When the police officers promise they don’t need much of his time, he fakes a smile and waves them in, hoping that whatever it is they want they’ll be quick about it.
‘We’ll go in here,’ he says, ushering the officers into his study and inviting them to sit.
‘Lovely house,’ the woman says, looking around.
‘Yes. Regency,’ he says.
‘Must take quite a bit of upkeep. Tough on an academic salary,’ she says. There is something in this, he thinks, a suggestion that the police may know more about his financial dealings than they are letting on.
‘My wife has family money,’ he says, doing his best to sound unrattled though his whole body is battling to remain calm. He coughs. ‘I don’t mean to rush you, but perhaps we could get on to why you came?’ He has already considered his moves and decided that at this point a feint is what’s required. ‘I’m guessing it’s about Satnam Mann?’
The policewoman’s head snaps round. ‘Why would you think that?’
‘Oh, I assumed you’d come with the news that she had sadly passed away.’
The two police eyeball each other in a way that makes Cullen feel slightly panicky. ‘I mean, because I am the Dean of the faculty.’ The woman frowns as if struggling for comprehension. Desperately playing for time, he says. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your names?’
‘I’m DC Linda Worsley and this is DC Mo Hassan. We’re here about another of your students, Natasha Tillotson, the young woman who was found up at Three Lakes. Just a few routine questions.’
He takes a step back and tries to shake his hand free of pins and needles without the police officers seeing. For a moment he feels he might suffocate.
‘About what?’ he says, doing his best to seem genuinely baffled. Somewhere nearby he hears the sound of a car alarm going off. ‘I mean, of course, absolutely, whatever you need, naturally.’
‘We’re wondering how well you knew her?’ This from DC Hassan.
‘Natasha?’ he says, as if momentarily forgetting. ‘Not well, I’m afraid. An average student, a bit unstable as I recall. One of the unhappy ones.’ He wonders whether to say that she’d been asked to leave then decides it’s best not to give away anything he doesn’t have to.
‘Can you tell which of your students are unhappy?’ This from DC Worsley.
‘Not always, but Natasha seemed the anxious type, you know, the sort who might have to take something to steady herself, get through the day.’ He is thinking on his feet now. ‘You’d be better off talking to my colleague…’ he corrects himself, ‘…former colleague, Mark Ratner. He had more to do with her than I did. My role as Dean means that my teaching load is lighter and I generally focus on my area of expertise.’
‘Which is?’ asks DC Worsley.
Why are they asking me this, he thinks, they must know already, surely? All it takes is a quick google.
‘The application of mathematics in the life sciences. Statistics, probability, modelling, that kind of thing,’ he leans back in his office chair, feeling suddenly rather more at home.
Looking up from his notebook DC Hassan says, ‘Can you tell us about the last time you saw her?’
For an instant Cullen’s mind toggles back to Zoe. He blinks away the thought and takes a deep breath, staring at the ceiling in a simulacrum of remembering, then looking first at Hassan and then at Worsley, he says, ‘I’m not sure when that would have been exactly. Oh, wait a moment, yes. We were obliged to hold a fitness to study meeting with her.’
‘We?’ asks DC Hassan.
‘Yes, the head of student welfare, Dr Lea Keane, and myself. When a student is struggling academically, we request a meeting to talk about how to improve things. Unfortunately Natasha had proved herself to be unsuited to the rigors of Avon. As I remember we suggested a transfer to another, less academically exacting, course at another university. She wasn’t very happy about it. I hope we didn’t inadvertently set the stage for what was to come, but I’m afraid that, these days, quite a few students come to us who really aren’t well suited for the academic life.’
‘And Natasha was one of those?’ asks DC Worsley.
‘Yes,’ Cullen says, decisively, then when neither of the pair responds, he goes on, ‘I can show you her academic record if you like. Very poor.’
Another exchange of looks between Hassan and Worsley. What are they plotting? The thought suddenly arises that they may have spoken with Nevis Smith. But they wouldn’t be minded to believe anything she said, would they? Hassan and Worsley are probably not the sharpest tools in the box but even they would see Nevis’s claims for what they were, the delusions of a girl with a crush on her teacher. His mind steps back to that lunch at Luigi’s. He blinks to rid himself of the memory. Focus, that’s what’s required here. Outwit the enemy.
‘You might have come across the phenomenon of suicide contagion, officers?’ He pauses long enough for the word officers to bed in. ‘Unfortunately this is what I believe was going on here. Natasha was a good friend of another of our students, Jessica Easton. As you might know, Jessica very sadly took her own life a couple of weeks ago. Before that there was another incident, very likely a suicide attempt, by Satnam Mann, who was also a friend of the other tw
o. It starts with one student and spreads to their friends. There was another incident of it, if you remember, at Midland University a good while back now. Four or five suicides that time, I believe. And a plague of copycat suicides in America in 2015, as I recall. Shocking but very difficult to predict or prevent. Studies…’ he tails off, wary of sounding rehearsed.
‘We are aware that copycat suicides can happen, yes,’ says DC Hassan. ‘But…’
Cullen raises a hand to continue. So long as I’m talking, he thinks, they can’t do anything. Can’t arrest me or even ask me questions. He takes a deep breath. ‘It goes without saying that after Jessica…’ he searches in his mind for a delicate expression ‘…left us, the university did all it could to reach out to anyone who knew her, other students, her friends…’ he fleshes out the university’s student welfare policy, its reputation for student satisfaction. Before him, the police officers listen in respectful silence, nod, occasionally glancing at one another. This is going very well, he thinks, very well indeed. ‘So, as I say, you’d be better off speaking to Mark Ratner,’ he says.
The police look blank and say nothing, which is unnerving. Eventually DC W— the woman anyway, he can’t recall her name – cracks a slow and unconvincing smile and says, ‘Your former colleague.’ She checks her notes. ‘Dr Mark Ratner. He’s heading to Thirsk, we believe.’
Cullen blinks, and coughs to buy himself a little time. Have they already been looking into Ratner? He is sure that he hasn’t mentioned Thirsk. They must already know it. Who else have they spoken to? Feeling very rattled indeed, he takes a deep breath. Nothing for it but to talk his way out of this one. ‘If you must know, I think Dr Ratner may have quite a bit to answer for. He is, shall we say, quite one for the young ladies.’ Be careful, he thinks, you don’t want to incriminate yourself here. ‘I don’t know for sure, but it’s possible that he had an eye for Natasha and for Jessica. It’s not unknown for Mark to go off piste, as it were.’
