Campus Killings

by Oliver Davies

  The man’s dark silhouette lurched forwards as he aimed a kick at my head, which I barely avoided by curling up in a tight ball. The guy’s boot didn’t pass me by entirely, but struck me viciously hard on the shoulder, startling a yell out of me.

  But my senses were returning, the back of my skull throbbing badly enough that I realised I’d been hit on the head, and I weakly grabbed at the man’s knee, trying to stop him kicking me again.

  “Get off,” he snapped gruffly. My grab had thrown him off-balance, and he tried to pull back. I released him abruptly, leaving him staggering, before trying to roll to my feet.

  The movement sent a wave of sickening dizziness through me, and I very nearly fell over again. He came at me and grabbed me by the shoulders of my running jacket, trying to throw me to the ground. Slow though my reactions were, I jabbed my hand up into the small space between us so that the hard tips of my fingers caught him right in the throat.

  He coughed hard and shoved me back. My balance was completely off, and I tumbled to the ground with a groan, my elbow and back hitting hard stones.

  There was a sudden flash of white lights up ahead, closer to Halifax, and I blinked dizzily, half-blinded. I saw, through my teary vision, my assailant throwing up his hand to protect his eyes.

  “Hey!” I heard a voice call out, higher than the man who’d attacked me, but still male.

  The guy bolted, and I twisted around to watch him go. I wished I could get up and follow, but my eyesight was still tilting from side to side. I didn’t think that I’d get ten yards if I tried to get up now.

  As he ran away, I saw him crouch briefly to grab something white off the ground and, when it crinkled audibly, realised that it was the plastic bag I’d seen him take out of the car.

  The lights turned out to belong not to the police, like I’d foolishly hoped, but a small group of students. I could hardly send them chasing after a rugby-player sized bloke who’d almost knocked me out.

  “Hey! Are you okay?” one of them said. Their torches were blinding.

  “Can y’ put th’ lights down?” I managed to say, my throat achingly dry.

  “Sorry.” They did as I asked, one of them coming over to crouch at my side.

  “Do you need an ambulance?” a female voice asked gently, sounding concerned.

  I groaned as I sat up fully, reaching behind my head and wincing at the pain there. My hand came back sticky with blood.

  “Need to- need to call my partner,” I mumbled, patting my pocket until I found my phone, but I was struggling to operate it, my vision swimming. I glared at it in annoyance.

  “Uh, I think we should get you some medical help, ‘kay?” one of the students said.

  I hissed a breath through my teeth and tried to think through the throbbing in my head.

  “I-I’m DCI Mitchell,” I forced out. “That guy- the man who just ran off. I need to call my partner, tell him to go after him.”

  In the light of my phone screen, I could see the face of the young woman still crouched at my brow. I thrust my phone at her and told her my lock screen password.

  “Find ‘Huxley’ in the contacts,” I told her tightly. The pain radiating through my head was making me want to curl into a ball, and I had to fight to focus. “Call him. Speakerphone.”

  “Okay, okay,” she said quietly. An indeterminate amount of time later, I heard my phone ringing. It took painfully long for Stephen to pick up.

  “Yeah, Mitchell?” His voice came out of the phone sounding tinny. His tone was concerned, but also distracted. “What’s wrong?”

  “Got attacked,” I managed, cutting my sentences into short chunks. “Think it was Will. Check y’r texts. Send a team af’r the car. Got it?” I could hear myself slurring like I was drunk but couldn’t make it stop.

  “What?” Stephen said, and I grimaced, preparing myself to have to repeat it all again, but Stephen got himself together quickly. “Send a team after the car, right, okay? Are you hurt? Where are you?”

  “At t’ campus.”

  I couldn’t find the words for much more, and as Stephen kept talking, the student beside me took over answering him. I wasn’t aware of too much more after that, only brief flashes of clarity as the students helped me limp towards Halifax reception and, though I think I resisted, called an ambulance for my still bleeding head.

  The paramedics wouldn’t listen to my protestations that I just needed to sleep it off and loaded me inside. I slipped into a foggy state of awareness again, and I didn’t properly come to until I was in the hospital, reclining on a hard bed with a doctor leaning over me. Tiredness and pain ganged up on me after that, and as soon as the doctor confirmed that I was okay to pass out, I closed my eyes and let it all fade away.

  Seventeen

  The smell of coffee woke me up, and I blinked, confused by the bright whiteness surrounding me.

  “I knew that’d wake him up,” Stephen said smugly.

  I turned my head, wondering why the hell Stephen was in my flat, but the movement jarred something, and the agonising pain radiating from the back of my skull put a stop to any thoughts. I groaned, my hand coming up to my head, instinctively trying to protect the wounded area.

  “Easy, Darren, it’s okay, it’s okay,” someone else said, a woman’s voice.

  I kept my head still and the pain, though still awful, became bearable and I opened my eyes again.

  “What the hell?” I muttered.

  Taylor was on my left, frowning. She took my hand and gently squeezed it. Stephen was on my right, and I looked to him for an explanation, even as the memories were beginning to return. My run, following that huge guy through the dark car park, the fight in the undergrowth, and getting found by a bunch of students.

  “Did we get him?” I said, my dry throat turning my words into a creak.

  Taylor brought a cup of water up to my mouth as Stephen said, “They did, yeah. You just focus on getting better, you idiot.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Idiot? Bit harsh.” My eyes were already closing again. Every tiny movement, even talking, hurt my head and passing out again didn’t sound like a bad idea.

  “You got hit on the head with a rock. Almost cracked your skull open.”

  “Eh, I’ll live,” I protested.

  Taylor gave a huff of surprised laughter. “Yeah, you will,” she agreed. “Rest up now, okay?”

  I forced my eyes back open and found that Stephen was getting up. “You going back to work?”

  He turned around, looking faintly guilty. “Yeah. We’ve got to get something out of him.”

  I grimaced. “Who’s it? Is it Will?” The man I’d followed had been so tall and broad that I would’ve bet fifty quid on it being Will, but I’d never actually seen his face.

  To my vindication, Stephen nodded. “Yeah, mate, it was Will. I’ll fill you in properly when you’re better, alright?”

  “How long’s that gonna take?” I grumbled. It if wasn’t for the waves of pain that made it almost impossible to think or talk, I’d already have got up and headed for the station. It seemed so unfair that I couldn’t be there, when the bloke who did this to me was getting questioned. I deserved it, dammit.

  “The doctors are monitoring you, mate. I don’t know for sure. You took a serious hit to the head, it’s not something to be taken lightly.”

  “Yeah, alright, dad.”

  Stephen snorted, and my eyes had drifted closed again, but I could perfectly picture his expression. If he said anything else before he left, I didn’t hear it as I fell back into a deep sleep, Taylor’s hand still holding mine.

  When I came to again, I felt considerably more lucid. Neither Taylor nor Stephen was there. I tentatively tried moving my head, relieved when the pain was more of a dull ache than blinding stabs. I shifted onto my side to pick up the cup of water on the side table and drank it down greedily, feeling like my mouth had turned into a desert. Probably the blood I’d lost, I thought.

  Groaning quietly, I eased myself
up to a seated position and carefully lifted a hand to my throbbing head. The lump was about as bad as I could’ve imagined, and I grimaced when even the lightest touch over the top of the bandage left me feeling slightly sick.

  Taylor came back in and was delighted to see me up and awake.

  “Oh thank God,” she said warmly, coming over to give me a careful hug. “We were worried about you.”

  “I’m okay,” I said, not too reassuringly, I’m sure, considering the bandage wrapped around my head. “Any news from Stephen?”

  She looked unsurprised at my question and nodded. “He said you’d ask as soon as you were up,” she said. “He’s been texting me. They finished interviewing, er- Will,” she hesitated, the conflicting emotions easy to read on her face. “They haven’t found much to pin him down. At the moment, it’s just the attack on you that they can attribute to him for certain.” She was frowning now, and I sighed.

  “Was there a bag in the car?” I asked, wincing when turning my head elicited a spike of pain.

  Taylor shook her head. “He hasn’t mentioned it. They searched the car.”

  I swore, teeth gritted, and then clutched my head. “Dammit, he probably threw it out the window.”

  “Stephen said he’s been refusing to say anything without a lawyer.”

  “He’s smart,” I muttered, frustrated that I might’ve gone through all this and have little to show for it. Well, at least he was in custody and, if he was our killer, that was a very reassuring thought. Committing GBH on me wouldn’t improve his chances of making bail any time soon either. Still, Gaskell was going to be furious with me, because Stephen was right; I had been foolish to follow Will in the dark, with no backup and no weapon.

  “Fingerprints?” I asked. We’d gotten a couple of solid prints from Abby’s room, and while one of them had turned out to have been Abby’s, the other had remained unidentified.

  Taylor shrugged. “Not sure, I’ll ask.”

  “Thanks,” I said, before looking at her properly. “Seriously, thanks, Taylor. You didn’t have to come here.”

  She blushed and ducked her head. “It’s no problem. Stephen let me know, and I wanted to see for myself that you were alright.” She winced a little, her eyes drifting up to my head. “Or on the mend, anyway,” she amended.

  I laughed quietly. “Yeah. Sooner rather than later, would be my wish.”

  She gave me a fond look. “You’re probably the most driven person I’ve ever met. I reckon you’d rather chew off a finger than give up policing.”

  I acknowledged that with a nod and then pulled a face at the ache. Taylor noticed and gave me a sympathetic look. “You want me to get the nurse?” she offered.

  The pain was bad, but I decided I’d rather put up with it than be dosed up on meds. “I’d love something to eat and drink. Coffee, for example?” I said hopefully.

  Taylor shook her head at me, in exasperation rather than refusal. “I’ll go see what you’re allowed, back in a minute.”

  I settled back against the hard pillows after she’d slipped out, closing the door behind her. I could hear the everyday noises of the hospital through the thin walls, though I’d been lucky enough to be given a private room, and I wondered if the station had had anything to do with that.

  I was already restless, though, and even Taylor returning with food and coffee didn’t calm my itch to be up and doing something. I wasn’t one to sit around a lot without anything to do. Sometimes I had to stay glued to my desk at the station, of course, but usually, I was at least busy with paperwork and could go for a run afterwards. Despite the pain in my head and tennis-ball-sized lump, I was desperate to be doing something, even if it was just research.

  The doctor came by later, after Taylor had had to head off back to teach her classes at the university. The doctor dashed my hopes of being able to return to the station soon, and sternly told me about the dangers of a hit to the head like I’d had, and how they’d been worried for a period whether I’d have brain damage. It put something of a damper on my drive to get up and going again, but it didn’t last very long.

  I was playing with the channels on the little TV, bored and irritable, when Gaskell came in. I perked up and turned off the TV.

  “Sir.” I was happy to see him just as a break from the boredom. God, I’d only been here a day and a half, and I was already sick of it. Gaskell was probably going to tear me a new one, but at least it’d be something to do that wasn’t staring at the walls.

  “Mitchell,” he said, looking his usual stern self. He shut the door behind him and came to sit in the chair that Stephen had vacated. “You’re a reckless fool. I hope you know that.”

  I winced. “Sorry, sir.”

  He fixed me with a glare that faded away after a minute, and he clasped my shoulder. “I’m glad you’re alright, you pillock. We’re all relieved. It could’ve been much worse.”

  “Yeah, I know,” I sighed. “I misjudged badly, sir.”

  He nodded, before asking a little awkwardly. “How’re you feeling?” He wasn’t a man for small talk, and I had to hold back a smile.

  “I’m alright. Bored stiff.”

  He grunted, standing up. I expected him to head off, then, and resigned myself to another few hours of boredom and dozing before Stephen, Taylor or one of the medical staff came back. But I was pleasantly surprised when he just took off a satchel bag that I hadn’t noticed and sat back down again.

  “I was in hospital for a week, a few years back,” he told me as he gave me the bag. “I know how awful the boredom is.”

  I unzipped the bag and grinned at the sight of my laptop, and a couple of books packed in beside it.

  “Thanks, sir.”

  He gave me a nod. “Hurry up and get better, eh?” he said, getting up. “We could do with you back at the station, lad.”

  I pulled a face. “Can’t wait to be back,” I said genuinely. “Soon as the doctors release me, I’ll be there.”

  Gaskell nodded and patted my shoulder again. “I know you will.”

  “Did we get anything on Will Seton, sir? Apart from his attack on me?” I asked, as he was turning to go. “Stephen said there wasn’t much…”

  Gaskell’s mouth pulled down at the corners. “We’ll need your statement when you’re well enough, and I hope that that’ll be enough to hold him,” he said. “His fingerprints don’t match the one you got from the student’s flat, and we haven’t got anything else from him.”

  “He was carrying a bag when I followed him-”

  Gaskell shook his head. “There wasn’t anything useful in the car. I’m sorry, Mitchell.”

  I sighed. “I can give my statement whenever,” I said. “My head hurts, but I’m lucid.”

  Gaskell nodded. “You certainly as annoyingly persistent as ever,” he agreed, giving me a tired smile.

  I returned it. “I’ll take that as a compliment, sir.”

  “You should.” He cleared his throat. “Well, I’ll send a pair of constables over to get your side of things. Seton denies everything still.” His lip curled in evident disgust, before he focused back on me. “You heal up.”

  He headed out, and I was left alone, though at least I had my laptop and some reading material now. I was amused to find that Gaskell had given me one book that was clearly a brutal crime thriller, whilst the other was a Charles Dickens. Light, cheery reading, the pair of them. But it was so like Gaskell that it made me laugh quietly.

  A nurse came in and caught me laughing to myself. Her only reaction was to raise an eyebrow before she announced that she was here to help get me cleaned up.

  “The way I smell, I need it,” I agreed. The blood had been cleaned out of my hair at some point, but lying in bed whilst in pain had made me sweaty, and I was glad to get clean.

  The day slowly bled away in between meals, surfing the net, watching awful daytime TV, and brief visits from Taylor and Stephen. The doctor kept an eye on my head wound, and my dressings had to be changed, which was painfu
l enough that I sacrificed lucidity for a painless haze for a while.

  Time passed slowly, but I was apparently healing well. They moved me to a less serious ward the next day, and a day after that, I was released to go home. Stephen sternly repeated the doctor’s orders when he came to pick me up, that I wasn’t to go back to work for another week, nor do any sort of strenuous exercise. I’d begrudgingly agreed just so that I could get out of the damned hospital, and, even though I was facing another week of being cooped up, I enjoyed the breeze through my hair as Stephen drove me away from the hospital and back to my flat.

  Eighteen

  Stephen slapped me heartily on the back and grinned when he saw me . “Good to have you back, mate.”

  “Good to be back.”

  Stephen laughed. “I really can’t imagine you sitting on your backside for a week straight. Me, on the other hand, I wouldn’t mind a little holiday. Maybe I should get thumped on the head sometime.”

  I rolled my eyes at him. “I didn’t sit around all week.” Ticking the items off my fingers, I said, “I cleaned the oven, had a clear out, baked bread, vacuumed the place, planned Christmas presents, ironed my shirts, planned some new runs-”

  “Christ Mitchell.” Stephen shook his head at me, looking partly aghast and partly just amused. “It’s a miracle you healed at all. Haven’t you ever heard of having a lazy day?”

  I wrinkled my nose. “Nope. Sounds dull as hell. Now, get me up to speed.”

  “You say that like you haven’t been badgering me every day for updates. Nothing new has happened since you last called, mate. Will is on remand and cooling his boots over at Full Sutton. We still can’t link him to any of the killings, just aggravated assault on you.” He shrugged, looked frustrated. “He probably would’ve got out on bail if it weren’t for his history of shifty behaviour.”

  I rubbed my head. “Great.”

  Stephen followed my movement. “How is your head? Hurt still?”

  “Not really.” I guessed that he wanted to see the damage, so I turned around and pushed my hair out of the way to show him where I’d had the stitches put in. They’d shaved a small area, but it was mostly covered up by my frizzy curls and wasn’t too obvious.