This Is a Dreadful Sentence

by Penny Freedman

  ‘Because you made me feel bad about that letter,’ I snap. ‘I was so relieved to get it and thought the panic was over and then you came up with all that stuff about it being written under duress and delivered by her kidnappers and me being in danger and God knows what else. I didn’t want to get their hopes up if she wasn’t actually safe.’

  ‘OK,’ he says, and cuts me off.

  When I go in to teach the Two-Year Masters’ class at twelve, it is clear that there won’t be any teaching going on today. In place of the eerie normality that followed Ekrem’s death, there is disarray. The women are huddled at one end of the table, heads together, round a weeping Irina. At the other end of the table, Farid and Atash are looking awkward and discomfited; Denis is pacing the corridor outside. It is astonishing to see Irina weep – as astonishing as my own tears earlier this morning. She is no more practised at it than I am, snuffling noisily and wiping her face clumsily with the flat of her hand. Yukiko is offering a handkerchief and Desirée tissues, but they are waved away in the vigour of her grief.

  I talk to Farid and Atash, give them the comprehension exercise I’ve prepared for this session and suggest that they find an empty seminar room and work on it there, taking Denis with them if he wants to go. Then I sit down to talk with the women.

  Gradually they give me the details David denied me. Valery, I’m told, lived in the same hall as Ceren, though on the men’s corridor one floor down. At about three thirty that morning, students in the neighbouring rooms had been woken by the sounds of gunshots and running feet. By the time they had roused themselves and got out into the corridor, they caught sight only of a man disappearing down the stairs at the far end. Seeing Valery’s door open and the light on, they went in and saw him lying bleeding on the floor. One of them called security and another called an ambulance. The night porter arrived and phoned the police. When the ambulance came, Valery was declared dead. All the students in Hawthorn Hall had been made to stay in their rooms until they had been searched. Another Russian student had called Irina with the news.

  The tale is told piecemeal, each of them contributing their bit. Irina quietens as the story unfolds and, as it finishes, she turns to me.

  ‘Police ask me to identify Valery,’ she says, as if in explanation for her tears. ‘He was not boyfriend, but he was friend. He was good for me. I don’t understand this. I never thought this would happen. He always said he was safe here. I am safe, he said. This is UK isn’t it?’

  It has been a very long morning and I would love a drink, but no alcohol is served in the SCR (though, ironically, it is served freely in the Student Union). I content myself with more coffee and my usual cheese and coleslaw sandwich. The rest of the English Language staff gather in my corner and I tell them what I have learnt. We are subdued, apprehensive and weary. We just want this to stop.

  I return to my office, log on to my e-mails and find a message from the Principal’s secretary.

  Please complete the attached forms asap and return to me, it instructs me curtly, but when I open the attachments I can see that they’re not going to get completed in a hurry. First I am asked to estimate student numbers for the next academic year. Since it is only March and overseas student applications generally come in much later than those coming through UCAS, this is impossible and Norman Street knows it.

  Second, is a form requesting me to define my department’s admissions policy. I am required to give clear criteria, both academic and other for the acceptance or rejection of applicants. Has Janet been made to knock up this form this morning specially for me? Have all directors of studies been sent one? I think not. Street knows the answer to this one too: we accept anyone who’s got enough money to pay the exorbitant overseas students fees and enough English and academic competence to get through the course. And he wouldn’t want it any other way. I can imagine his reaction if we started turning away students with the money in their hot little hands because we didn’t think they were very nice.

  Finally, and most threateningly, comes a clutch of forms for me to complete, showing 1) exactly how many hours each of my staff spent a) in teaching, b) on admin over the past two terms, and 2) how those hours might be reduced to save time and money in the event of student numbers being lower than expected next year. Please bear in mind, it adds in bold, that the Director of Studies may be required to teach a full teaching schedule in addition to administrative duties.

  I phone Judith Roth, the UCU rep.

  ‘I’ve begun keeping a record,’ I say. ‘I think it’s started.’

  ‘Well, if you will go shooting your students,’ she says, ‘what can you expect?’

  26

  THURSDAY: Investigation Day Fifteen

  When the phone rang, he incorporated it into his troubled dream. He was in a library, which was on fire. He knew it was his job to clear people out, but no-one was paying any attention and he couldn’t make himself heard however loudly he shouted. They milled about, laughing and chatting, among the constantly moving stacks, ignoring the strident alarm which rang and rang and rang.

  When he surfaced and grabbed the receiver, he heard Mark Tyler’s voice.

  ‘I’m at the College, sir,’ he said. ‘There’s been another death.’

  He arrived at Hawthorn Hall at the same time as Lynne McAndrew and they surveyed the body together. Valery Tarasov lay on the floor near the bed, dressed in pyjamas, with one bullet wound in his head and another in his chest. As Scott straightened up from leaning over the body, he saw two holes in the wall beyond, where bullets had missed their target. Not a really professional job, then, he thought: not a crack shot and possibly wasn’t wearing gloves.

  ‘Any idea about the gun?’ he asked Lynne McAndrew.

  ‘At first glance, I’d say a 9mm semi-automatic, but I’ll need to do the autopsy to be sure.’

  ‘Can you make that a priority, Lynne? Time’s going to be crucial with this. We’re probably already too late with the road blocks. This guy will do a runner. ‘

  Leaving her to get into her scrubs, he went back into the corridor. Tarasov’s room was at the end of the corridor farthest from the stairs. It was a long way to run after firing a gun; no wonder the guy had done it when even night owl students were likely to be sound asleep. A couple of students were hovering in the doors of their rooms, their pale faces betraying both shock and excitement. Scott spoke to them.

  ‘Have you given your names to DS Tyler? Good. Then I’d like you to wait in your rooms, please. Someone will be along to interview you shortly. And I’m afraid you won’t be able to leave the building until we’ve searched your rooms.’

  They would learn, he thought, that violent death was not that exciting for those caught up in it; it was mainly inconvenient. He went downstairs to where Tyler was talking to the SOCOs.

  ‘… and for God’s sake don’t fuck it up,’ Scott heard him say before he turned at the sound of his approach.

  ‘Thank you, DS Tyler,’ he said. ‘You took the words right out of my mouth.’

  Then, as always, it was a waiting game. Statements were taken from Tarasov’s neighbours, who had raised the alarm but they had seen nothing but the back of a running man wearing a black padded anorak; fingerprints were taken from them and from the ambulance personnel who had answered the 999 call; Lynne McAndrew confirmed that the weapon was a Smith and Wesson 9mm semi-automatic, so common it didn’t suggest any particular type of killer. It was someone in the criminal world, though – someone who knew where to buy a gun. Road blocks netted no-one but a couple of drivers over the limit, who had thought they were safe at that hour of the morning.

  At eleven o’clock Scott’s phone rang and he answered it eagerly, hoping for news, but it was Gina, on the scavenge for information, and he was in no mood to give it to her. She was at her most unreasonable too, and for once he felt he couldn’t be bothered with her.

  In the late morning, Tyler called him with news about fingerprints and he went down to the Incident Room.


  ‘The SOCOs got clear thumbprints,’ Tyler told him, ‘and partial index and middle finger prints on the inside and outside handles of the door to Tarasov’s room. We’ve ruled out his neighbours and the paramedics, so it looks like these might belong to our man. We’re checking the database now.’

  ‘And I’ll bet you good money you won’t find a match,’ said Scott gloomily. ‘If he’s a Turk or a Russian, the chances are he’s got no record here. He’ll be out of the country in twentyfour hours and without a name or a description there’s nothing we can do to stop him.’

  ‘They’ve checked the prints against the knife handle, by the way. No match, I’m afraid.’

  ‘That’d be too neat, wouldn’t it?’ Scott said sourly.

  ‘Isn’t it worth alerting ports and airports, though? If we’re sure about the Turkish/Russian connection, we could put an alert out for Turkish and Russian men travelling alone – and we’ve at least got the black anorak for description. They can take them out and rattle them a bit - take their bags apart.’

  ‘And we can risk being accused of harassment or racism. I’m tempted though.’

  Boxer, who had been locked in communion with his computer screen and hardly seemed to be aware of these new developments, suddenly swung his chair round with a triumphant cry of ‘Yesss!’

  ‘I’ve got it,’ he shouted. ‘I’ve finally got it. Yilmaz’s police record in Turkey. And it makes some reading. Come and look.’

  As Tyler and Scott came over to join him, he said,

  ‘It’s been like pulling teeth getting it. He’s obviously got protection from the Turkish Secret Service and their police didn’t want to play ball with us. But I finally got hold of the guy who was prosecuting officer in the 2003 case, when Yilmaz and Belenki got off on drugs charges. He’s obviously pretty pissed off that they got protected by people higher up the food chain and the judge ordered some of the evidence inadmissible when, according to him, it was sound as a bell. It’s taken a while because he doesn’t speak English and I had to use an interpreter. Then, when he sent the stuff, I had to get it translated. Anyway, here it is, and worth waiting for.’

  Scott and Tyler stood either side of him, watching the screen, as he scrolled up to the start.

  ‘It starts in 1994,’ Boxer narrated. ‘He’s twenty-one and he’s picked up for pimping and supplying drugs. When you get into the detail, you find he was actually trafficking women from Eastern Europe: promising them jobs, getting them hooked on heroin, putting them to work in brothels in Ankara.’

  ‘Was he convicted?’ Scott asked.

  ‘That time, yes. Sentenced to six years but mysteriously released after two. Compassionate grounds.’

  ‘Any detail on that?’

  ‘Not really. A very vague medical report which says his health is not strong enough to withstand a prison regime.’

  ‘Lynne McAndrew found no signs of previous ill-health,’ Scott commented.

  ‘I don’t suppose she did,’ Boxer said. ‘Look where we find him next. 1998, he’s a student at the University of Ankara and giving evidence against some fellow students involved in Kurdish separatist activities. They were each sentenced to nine years in jail.’

  ‘So we think he was released from jail early and sent to university on condition he worked undercover for the Secret Service? I wonder why they picked him from all the other traffickers and dealers they have in their jails.’

  ‘I can tell you that,’ Boxer said. ‘He graduated from high school.’

  ‘And you don’t find many Turkish high school graduates who choose organised crime as their preferred career?’

  ‘Exactly. He can pass as a student, and it becomes his speciality. After Ankara, he moves to Istanbul, where he crops up as a trial witness a couple more times – in 2000 and 2001. Both times his occupation is student. But he’s getting on a bit now. He’s thirty. He can’t pass as a student much longer, so they make him a lecturer. I don’t know if he ever got a degree, but now he’s a lecturer – in Turkish History. He’s sent to Samsun, on the Black Sea coast and that’s where he is in 2003, when he’s prosecuted for drug-dealing, along with Mikhail Belenki. Belenki was bringing the Afghan opium in and Yilmaz was passing it on to labs in Turkey to be turned into heroin, ready for the European market. The police got a tip-off and rounded up the whole ring. My contact said it was the best bust of his career. No wonder he was pissed off when Belenki and Yilmaz walked.’

  ‘And we can assume plenty of others were pissed off too, though they’re all sweating it out in jail,’ Scott said.

  ‘They’ll have friends on the outside ready to take their revenge for them,’ cut in Tyler. ‘And they’re ready to take out Tarasov too, for what his father’s done.’

  ‘What happens to Yilmaz after the trial, Steve?’ Scott asked. ‘Anything to suggest a connection with Anton Tarasov?’

  ‘Nothing. He seems to have gone to ground. No prosecutions, no witness statements. I can try and find out where he went, though. I’ll bet Anton Tarasov was in with Belenki at his end of the drug route. There was a falling out and Tarasov informed on Belenki. Our friend Yilmaz will be in there somewhere.’

  ‘You know what, sir,’ Tyler said. ‘I wonder what we’re doing here. Yilmaz was a piece of shit and no-one’s sorry he’s dead. Yet we’re pouring resources into finding his killers when we could be out looking for our own villains. Don’t you ever wonder what’s the point?’

  27

  FRIDAY: Present Progressive

  Term has ended. With everything else that has been going on, this has somehow sneaked up on me. Officially it doesn’t end till today, but we’ve accepted that no-one turns up to classes on the last Friday, so there is no teaching today. Annie’s term finished yesterday too, and she is off to York today for an Open Weekend for prospective students. At the end of it, she’s to meet Andrew at Leeds-Bradford airport and fly with him to The Hague, where he has work to do. This attempt at fatherdaughter bonding so late in the day is a bit of a puzzle, but I assume he wants to impress Annie with the exciting life of the legal eagle just in case she’s tempted to backslide. Ellie has offered to drive her to York (which terrifies me), giving herself an excuse for going over to Manchester for the weekend. I hardly need to tell you who will be holding the baby.

  Although term has ended, it not actually very convenient to be in charge of Freda today as I’m taking the train out to the seaside – to Dungate where, bizarrely, there is a Greek Orthodox church. One of my students is having her son baptized there and has invited me to attend. Out of politeness, affection and curiosity, I have accepted. Afrodite, my student, is a captain in the Greek army; the army is paying for her to take a Master’s degree in Business Administration and she is here with a toddler, a baby and a husband, who is also taking an MBA. She is intelligent, humorous and determined, a thoroughly modern young woman, but she wants her baby baptized before she flies home with him for the vacation because she fears that if the plane crashed and he died, his unbaptized soul wouldn’t get to heaven.

  Afrodite has assured me that it will be fine for Freda to come to the baptism, so I set out for the station with the buggy and a bag of nappies, wipes, bottles, rusks, assorted toys and a change of clothes (for Freda, that is, though it’s possible that I shall need a change myself before the end of the day). Freda is wearing the outfit she wore to the wedding but she is also enclosed in a fleece-lined bag as it is bitterly cold. I am not wearing my silk suit but a sensible full-length coat and kneelength boots. I also have a scarf which I can drape over my head if need be. I meant to research the protocol for a Greek Orthodox church but there hasn’t been the time.

  As I stand on the platform waiting for the once-an-hour train, I watch passengers getting off a delayed train from London. Journalists, many of them, I’ll be bound. The media scrum started yesterday, as soon as the news of a second murder was out. Interest in Ekrem’s death has been muted – partly, I think, because of the way the news leaked out: an unexplained death, first of
all, possibly accidental, and then later the murder inquiry. Perhaps his age makes him less interesting too: he doesn’t fit the conventional student stereotype – doesn’t press the right buttons. Valery’s death is a different matter: a young man, a Russian, shot in his bed in a college hall of residence, has all the makings of tabloid drama. Most of the papers have already got hold of the story of Anton Tarasov’s murder, I see from a scan of the front pages at the station news stall, and the Daily Mail’s headline speaks for all: RUSSIAN MAFIA MENACE HITS UK. A good day to be off campus, I would say.

  I spot Yukiko coming down the platform, evidently bent on the same errand as me, as she carries an immaculate parcel – a present for baby Serafin, I guess. (My own gift, an awkwardly-wrapped teddy bear, is lying, hopelessly squashed I fear, among the nappies). I wave.

  ‘Going to a baptism?’ I call as she approaches. ‘How do you know Afrodite?’

  ‘We both go to Italian class,’ she says. ‘Wednesday lunch time.’

  ‘Italian class!’

  I’m amazed. On top of an MBA and two tiny children, Afrodite goes to Italian classes?

  ‘Why does she think Italian will be useful?’ I ask.

  ‘Not useful.’ She smiles reproachfully. ‘She thinks it’s nice language. So do I. Excuse me, I must just -’

  She gets her phone out of her bag and texts a message with that lightning thumb action I so much admire.

  On the train, we chat amiably and avoid, without difficulty, the subject of murder. We start with babies. I look at Yukiko’s parcel, with its neatly printed gift tag, and she tells me it’s a book of Japanese folk-tales written in English. She asks me what Freda’s baptism was like and I make a bit of a production out of describing the Naming Ceremony Ellie concocted in our back garden, involving home-made poems read by Freda’s secular godparents, followed by cake, ice-cream and beer. I also describe Ellie’s christening in Marlbury Abbey, though I don’t tell Yukiko how forcefully I was press-ganged into it by Andrew and his parents, nor how bitterly I resented it. Neither do I tell her that by the time Annie came along, Andrew seemed to have lost interest in the idea and how, perversely, I resented that too, on Annie’s behalf.