“To drop off a dead bird,” Stephen said grimly.
“Yeah, precisely. Plus, a student would have more reason to target other students, don’t you think? It’d be more personal, and murder usually is personal.”
Stephen pulled an unconvinced face. “One-off murders usually are,” he agreed, “but serial killers? They have a type, not personal relations with the victims, you know? We could be looking at some forty-year-old who has a thing for sporty students.”
I grimaced in disgust, my stomach twisting. “Thanks for that, Stephen.”
“Sorry,” he said. “I’m just saying.”
“Aye, I get the picture,” I said, a little shortly. I wasn’t naïve. I knew that people could be monsters, but I didn’t appreciate having all the worst possibilities playing out in my head when there wasn’t the evidence for them yet.
“Why the arranging, though?” I murmured, when we were getting close to the university. “It was like they were deliberately pointing to the women’s sports. I don’t understand why they would intentionally direct us to the link between the victims.”
Stephen was silent as he pulled in and parked us up. “Yeah, that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. They wanted us to know, I guess, because it was important to them somehow. Something to do with their motive?”
“I guess. It’s sick.”
Stephen sent me a sympathetic look. “I know. Come on. Let’s go look through these records and see if we can find anything. You’re right, the chance that the perp is or was a student is fairly high, so don’t let my pessimism put you off.”
I was feeling pretty down, but I mustered a smile. “I never listen much to you, don’t worry.”
“I’m deeply wounded,” he said, a hand to his heart, but the lines beside his eyes wrinkled up.
We met with Dr Ngan, who was a polite, middle-aged man and who seemed every inch the scholar, in some indefinable way made up of the way he spoke, dressed and moved. He vibrated with intellectual energy and a certain air of eclectic knowledgeability.
He unlocked a door in the admin centre and took us through to a room full of filing cabinets.
“No high-tech computer systems?” I said, surprised.
He gave me an apologetic smile, flashing a crooked tooth. “No, I’m afraid not, officer. Holding paper records aids the security of the documents, and there is a great deal of information that would have to be entered.”
I tilted my head in acknowledgement. “And how do we sort students that have been expelled, or otherwise disciplined?”
Dr Ngan’s apologetic expression deepened, and I sighed internally, guessing that this wasn’t going to be simple. “Expelled and other trouble students’ files will be edged with red tape. For specifics, though, you’ll need to read through the file itself.”
I sighed aloud. “Alright,” I said.
“Can I fetch you two gentlemen some sort of refreshment?” the professor offered. “I sense you may be here for some time.”
“I think you may be right,” Stephen said. “Whisky for me.” The professor looked startled, and Stephen chuckled, waving his hand. “I’m kidding. Tea, if you’d be so kind. Milk, no sugar.”
Dr Ngan nodded with a faint smile and turned to me.
“Coffee,” I requested. “Black, strong as you can.”
“No problem. I’ll return shortly.”
Dr Ngan left us to it, and by the time he’d come back with our drinks, we hadn’t gotten very far. Perhaps sensing our frustration, he set the drinks down and retreated, a wise move.
“We should start with current students,” I decided. “Look at ones who’ve been expelled this year, if there are any. Then any other expulsions or suspensions in recent years. Just, anyone who might have a reason to be vengeful against the uni, I suppose.” The memory of Will, the ex-student who’d bothered Taylor, returned to me again. I wanted to find his file, but I didn’t know his surname. I could have called her, but I wanted to avoid upsetting her, especially as we would find him in time if we worked methodically.
“This academic year? Or the calendar year?” Stephen asked.
I pulled a face. “Good point. This academic year, and the last one, since we’re barely into this one.”
Stephen nodded, and we settled into work, plucking out any files from the cabinets marked for this year that had red-taped edges. Then, sipping our lukewarm drinks, we looked through them, looking at their degrees for anything animal-related, and at what the students were disciplined for. There was nothing that immediately jumped out at me, and it was frustrating. I’d started to hope that, with the slight forward movements we’d made recently, we were in touching distance of a breakthrough, but not yet, it seemed.
“That’s weird,” I muttered, as we reached the end of the pile, which had been slowly increasing as we widened our search criteria. We’d gone through all the expulsions and suspensions in recent years, and yet there had been only one student called William, and Taylor hadn’t been mentioned in it.
“What’s weird?”
I looked up and winced at the stiffness of my neck. Rotating my arm, I stretched out my sore back and shoulders as I spoke, “Taylor and I had a run-in with a nasty ex-student of hers.” My shoulder gave a satisfying crack as I rolled it back. “She told me he was expelled for his behaviour, but I can’t find him.”
Stephen looked intrigued. “What was his name?”
I shrugged. “Will. I don’t know his surname.” I sifted through the pile of folders we’d built up and passed him the only one belonging to a student called either ‘Will’ or ‘William’. “There’s nothing in there about Taylor,” I said.
Stephen frowned down at the file for a minute, before setting it down, his face thoughtful. “Two options,” he said, holding up two fingers. “One, Taylor was lying.”
I immediately bristled, opening my mouth to protest. “Hey-”
“Woah.” Stephen held up a hand. “I think we can both agree that that’s very unlikely,” he said pointedly. “She’s got no reason to, and you trust her. So what’s the other option? The file’s missing. Either mislaid by the uni, or gone missing by other means.”
I blinked. “Oh. Yes.”
“Or, actually, third option,” Stephen said, holding up a third finger. “The file hasn’t been marked by red tape, by accident, and it is here somewhere.” He waved at the filing cabinets. “You could ask Taylor if she remembers his surname?”
“Good idea,” I muttered, pulling out my phone to do just that while Stephen looked pleased with himself. I sent off a text to Taylor, half wishing that I could just ask her about her day, rather than dragging up a past which had clearly been upsetting and scary for her.
“We should check the academic staff, too,” Stephen offered once I’d sent the text, and I nodded.
“Their files are probably stored elsewhere,” I sighed. “We’ll have to wait for Dr Ngan to come back.”
In the meantime, we widened our search for students with violent or stalkerish behaviour and put aside the ones who seemed likely. It took most of the afternoon. It was getting towards the usual time that Stephen would head home, and I saw him check his watch a couple of times.
“We’ll wrap up soon,” I promised. “Let’s finish with the ones going back five years, then that’ll be all. No-one usually waits more than five years for revenge, do they?”
Stephen shrugged, still scanning the files as he said, “Honestly, it’s not usual for the killer to have waited months between threatening or marking out the victims before actually killing them. That does suggest patience.”
I groaned. “You couldn’t just agree with me?”
He rolled his eyes, going back to his reading. My phone buzzed, and I hurriedly picked it up, hoping it’d be from Taylor. I’d been a little concerned that she’d not replied in the couple hours we’d been here since I texted her, but then, I didn’t know if she was teaching, or out, or just taking a nap.
I read the text which was short and to
the point, and nodded to myself. “Taylor says she’s pretty sure his surname was Seton. William Seton.”
Stephen hummed, standing up from where he’d been sitting on the floor, surrounded by folders. His joints clicked audibly, and he groaned as he stretched upwards. I reckoned I’d be the same when I tried to move, so I was putting it off. He ambled over to the right filing cabinet and looked through it for ‘Seton’ while I watched.
“Ah-ha!” He plucked out a folder and opened it up, his face falling from excitement to disappointment and finally into a heavy frown I couldn’t quite read.
“What is it?”
Stephen held the folder up, showing me that there was only one sheet of paper in it. “There’s nothing here,” he said. “Just basic information about when he attended. Nothing else.”
I rubbed my eyes tiredly. “So he’s smart enough not to take the file completely,” I said slowly. “But he’s gutted it of anything that would help us figure out whether he might be tied up in this.”
Stephen looked a little dubious, but he conceded that it was a possibility with a nod.
I held out a hand for the file and Stephen handed it over. He was right, there wasn’t anything to see. He’d attended the university around the time that Taylor had told me he had, and he’d studied History, which was Taylor’s subject. The only thing that might be useful was that there was an address listed there, which I took a picture of on my phone. Closing the folder, I ran a finger down the side with a frown.
“Mitchell? Can we wrap it-?”
“Look,” I said, pointing to the side of the folder. Stephen gave me a confused look but humoured me as he took the folder back and obediently looked where I’d pointed.
“What am I looking at?” he said.
“The cardboard’s been torn up. Think, Stephen. Where does the red tape on the folders usually-?”
“Oh Christ,” Stephen said, nodding. He ran his finger over the torn bit of cardboard, exactly where the red tape would have been stuck. “He’s torn it off.”
“Aye,” I said, pleased with myself. I took it back to take a picture of the side and then put it back in the cabinet. I’d taken pictures of a couple of other folders that looked like they might have some relevance, but none of them fitted exactly.
We packed up efficiently, with Stephen eager to get home, and Dr Ngan turned up as we were finishing.
“And did you find what you were looking for?” he asked politely.
“Not really,” I said. “Have you got CCTV for the records room?”
The man looked surprised. “I have no idea, I’m sorry, but I could enquire for you?”
“Thanks, that’d be helpful.”
We headed out, back to the car. I drove us home, Radio 2 playing in the background.
“What now?”
I glanced at Stephen. “Now, you head home to your missus and kids.”
“Yeah, yeah, tomorrow, then?”
I scrunched a hand through my hair, the curls gone flat, and sighed. “We’ll go see about this address of Will’s, and then check out the other couple of fellas that looked likely, I suppose.”
Stephen grunted. “Okay.”
We pulled up in the station and got out, heading inside to log the car back in and fetch our things. I hadn’t brought my car in today and was planning to run home, so I waved Stephen off when he hovered to wait for me.
“See you tomorrow.”
Stephen tipped an imaginary hat at me. “You will, for sure. You’re stuck with me now.”
I snorted, shaking my head at him as he walked off with a grin. I headed down to the changing rooms and got ready. The light was beginning to fade into dusk, but that was alright. I’d got a high-viz jacket and a head torch if it got really dark.
Running home, my feet pounding the pavement and transferring all that pent up frustration into motion, gave me the space in my head to turn things over. I was worried for Taylor and Abby, and worried for the other women this killer might target in their absence. I wasn’t confident that going to Will Seton’s listed address would lead us anywhere, nor that the other students on our new list would be who we were looking for, but we didn’t have much else to go on.
We would have to make do with the leads we had until something more solid turned up.
Fourteen
Other than Will Seton, who had really only come to my attention through a coincidental encounter, the main student we were interested in, was still living here in York. For ease, Stephen and I headed over there first, pulling up outside a nice-looking terrace house with a row of colourful flowerpots outside the door, though the flowers had started to die off. There was a pumpkin that had been cleverly carved to look like the silhouette of a witch flying on a broomstick, and Stephen paused to take a picture.
“Is that for evidence?” I asked wryly.
Stephen shot me a sheepish smile. “Nope. Pumpkin inspiration for when we do the carving with the kids.”
I shook my head in exasperation. “Come on.” He came over to the door with me, and I knocked smartly.
It was fairly early, so I wasn’t surprised that it took a few minutes for someone to answer. The woman who opened the door was dressed in office wear and had a harried expression on her face which shifted into a frown when she saw us.
“Hello?”
I took out my badge, as did Stephen. “Hi, we’re looking for an Andy Smith, is he home?”
She blinked. “Yeah, yeah, he’s in the kitchen,” she said, taking a couple of moments before she stepped back to let us in. “What’s this about? Is it his family or something?”
I noted that she’d not jumped to thinking that Andy had done anything wrong, which either meant that she had no idea of his past, or that he’d been on the straight and narrow recently.
“We’ll need to discuss that with him,” Stephen said evenly, and she nodded.
“Well, I need to rush out. I’m late for work,” she said haltingly as she led the way down the narrow hall to the small, tidy kitchen at the back. “He’s in here. Andy, honey?”
A beanstalk of a man with a mop of blond hair turned around and almost dropped the plate of toast he was holding. He slid it onto the counter and pressed a hand to his chest, sending us a sheepish grin.
“God, you guys gave me a shock.” He looked over at the woman I assumed to be his girlfriend, since she wasn’t wearing a ring. “You couldn’t have warned me, love?”
“I’ve gotta dash, I’m sorry,” she said apologetically to both us and Andy.
Andy waved her off. “Go, go,” he said, before glancing to us. “That’s okay, right?”
I nodded. “We may need to talk to you at a later date,” I said to her, before turning to Andy, “but for now we just need to talk to you.”
The woman moved to kiss Andy on the cheek, still shooting us worried looks. “Call me if you need me, okay?” she told Andy quietly. “I can take a day off-”
“No worries, go on, you’re running so late.” He tapped his watch, and she grimaced.
She headed out, closing the front door behind her, and Andy’s face fell from the easy grin of earlier into something heavier. I noticed how well he’d concealed his emotions from his girlfriend, and from us and narrowed my eyes at him.
“Come and sit through here,” he offered, his voice polite but flat. “Mind if I eat my toast?”
Stephen waved his hand in permission, and we sat down in the sitting room while Andy chewed his toast, although he didn’t look like he was particularly hungry anymore.
“Is this about my uni days?” he said finally, after a long pause. His leg was bouncing with apparent agitation, but his expression looked tired and almost resigned. “Or is it something else?”
“What happened in your uni days exactly?” I asked, wanting to hear his take on it.
Andy grimaced. He swallowed a mouthful of toast and then set his half-finished breakfast aside. He was only wearing a ratty t-shirt and a pair of boxers. He looked somewhat vulnerable whe
n he put his face in his hands for a moment, before scrubbing his fingers through his sleep-rumpled hair.
“I behaved awfully, is what happened,” he said flatly, looking at the floor rather than us. “Lindy doesn’t know the details, but she knows I didn’t get up to any good.” I assumed Lindy was the woman who’d just left, and I nodded for him to go on.
“Look, I got myself addicted to alcohol. And I’m… it really brought out the worst in me. I felt bad about myself, and I wanted to make everyone feel as terrible as I did, you know?” He looked up, briefly meeting our eyes. He breathed out a harsh breath. “I… stalked three other students while I was there. I wanted to scare them. I was sick of how everyone seemed to be having the time of their lives while I was-”
He broke off, swallowing audibly. I watched him closely, not sure what to think exactly. He looked up, his shoulders straightening as he sat up.
“I got help, okay? The uni kicked me out after one of the girls reported me. Rightly,” he added hastily. “Like, honestly, her ratting on me was the best thing that could’ve happened. My parents realised I was up to my neck in it and drowning and they got me help, after, you know, I did all the community service stuff.” His gaze flicked between us. “I haven’t done anything like that since. I’m in a good place. I don’t want to hurt anyone, alright?”
Stephen made a noise of acknowledgement beside me. He’d been taking notes of Andy’s confession, so I’d been free to study his expressions. I was inclined to believe his story of his apparent redemption, but I also remembered how his expression had so completely changed once Lindy left the house.
“When you said you wanted to scare these students,” I said, deciding to start with the part that linked best to our case, “how did you go about that exactly?” There’d been some details in his case files, but I wanted to hear it from him.
But Andy was frowning. “Look, I’ve told you my part. Why’re you here, really? Do you really think I’ve done something or what?”
Campus Killings Page 15
