“Let’s just say it was out of character. And he was last seen at this college. The police have ruled out any connection, but I’ve a feeling they couldn’t be bothered to investigate properly.” Or had been told by a higher power not to push the college.
“Well, I’d like to help you, young man, but I don’t see what I can do.” She glanced at her monitor. “Ah, the young lady’s details have just come through. I’d better print these out for Mr Davies…” She looked back at Andy. “I tell you what. If I hear anything, find out anything that might help you I’ll let you know. How’s that?”
“That would be great,” Andy smiled warmly.
“What’s your email address?”
He paused. “A phone call or a text might be better. Here’s my number…”
As he wrote it down he thought this is bloody ridiculous. What’s Pearce thinking, sending me off to be Mike Hammer?
He must’ve known Andy would stick out like a sore thumb. Physically he was instantly recognisable. His history meant that he would not be forgotten by certain people in Cambridge no matter how many years passed.
And it was obvious that no one was going to remember Michaels, or have any trace of him within the college. For Christ’s sake, most of the college had gone home for the Christmas break. What was he going to learn from people who weren’t here?
Pearce must have had some other reason for sending him up here. But what?
Perhaps a call tonight will shed some light, he thought as he handed the piece of paper over to Judith. Not much else I can do until then.
“Thank you…Judith.”
She smiled warmly. Almost motherly, he thought, before adding, “And have a Merry Christmas.”
As he headed for the staircase he wondered why her smile had frozen.
* * * * *
Rob shook his head as he flicked his Mayfair stub into the hole. The darkness swallowed the orange light, extinguishing it more effectively than stubbing or crushing underfoot could do. He stepped back from the barrier with its ribbons of hazard warning tape and wondered again at the bizarre ritual the college of All Souls saw fit to enact year after year.
The hole was near the ornamental fountain on the lawns of Old Court. A good six feet away, to ensure that the excavation didn’t interfere with any of the pipe-work of the fountain which was still active. Rob wondered at the cold water jetting into the fast approaching twilight. Why bother? Must have no end of problems with freezing pipes. And why no shoring on the hole. Christ, it’s six foot deep…
The hole was a grave. This was where the cremated carcass of the boar would be laid to rest.
“Nutty bastards,” he growled as he lit another cigarette. “What d’you reckon, shitbag?”
Jasper didn’t answer. He was too busy inspecting the fountain. Cold water sprayed up his nose and he snorted wetly. His back legs got a little too close to the hole, so Rob pulled the lead gently.
“Ease back, boy. Don’t want you vanishing as well…”
He stared at the crumbling facade of the single Hall of Residence opposite him. Like the rest of the buildings that surrounded Old Court the rooms were in darkness. No lights shone through the drawn curtain blinds. There was no way Emma would be there now. He sighed and checked his mobile again. No new messages, no calls. The hangover had gone now, and although he wasn’t completely alert he was more convinced now that Emma’s disappearance was not down to her disgust at his behaviour last night.
So where the hell is she? He wished he’d known her parents, perhaps he could’ve called them and found out…no, if she had disappeared that would upset them even more.
He forced himself to accept an uncomfortable fact. The last place Emma was seen was All Souls College. The last place Geoff Michaels had been seen. Vanished, just before the 21st of December.
No coincidence. And neither was Andy Hughes’ presence in Cambridge. Rob wondered if Andy knew more than he was letting on - or if he was in the dark as much as he was.
Jasper cocked his leg against the octagonal base of the fountain, and a golden sprinkle provided a colourful contrast to the clear jet of water shooting upwards from the stone basin.
Steam rose and the snow turned yellow before melting and dripping into the black hole of the boar’s pit. It seemed an age before Jasper finished. He lowered his leg and sniffed the darkened stone base of the fountain with a sense of pride.
Rob saw movement in the corner of his eye. He turned quickly and saw a bulky figure in black exiting J stairway.
Simon Davies froze. His fleshy jowls dropped in disbelief at what he saw. He shouted something that Rob could barely hear. Rob grinned and shrugged.
The Bursar turned in disgust and reached for his mobile. Rob heard him bellowing into the handset. He sighed.
“Well done, Jasper. Dropped me in the shit again. I bet he’s grassing me up to Franklin as we speak…”
Jasper grinned at him. He was squatting, his tail raised high in the air. He licked his lips, eyes half-closed, and then…
“Shit.” Rob closed his eyes. Here we go again. Twice in two days. “What’s wrong with you, boy? First the kitchens, now the lawn.” He pulled out a small black bin bag from his jacket pocket. After yesterday’s episode, he wasn’t taking any chances.
“Shouldn’t be on the lawns, anyway. The Cambridge Grass Police shoot you on sight for even walking on the lawns, let alone dumping on them.” Behind him, in the distance, he could hear the sound of a door opening and slamming shut. Heavy footsteps crunching through the snow.
Jasper growled. His ears went flat, lips drawn back in a snarl of fear. Rob turned to see what was spooking him. A cold lump of bile rose from his stomach at the sight of the head porter advancing purposefully towards him.
Not now, please. I really don’t need this. He raised a placating hand, swallowing nervously.
“Look, I’m sorry about this, chap. I’m just about to clean it up…”
Franklin paid no attention as he stepped over the low chain link fence and onto the grass. He didn’t reply, didn’t even look at Rob. His attention was fixed solely on the dog.
Franklin grabbed Jasper’s collar with a swift movement of his left hand and dragged the helpless and now terrified Jasper off the ground. Holding him at arm’s length with no effort, watching the collie’s paws scrabbling in the air as the collar began to cut into his windpipe.
Franklin lifted him higher, the dog’s hind legs a clear two feet above the snow covered lawn. His struggles increased: his pain and terror voiced by his muted, strangulated whines.
Rob was frozen with horror and disbelief at what the head porter was doing. Franklin just stood there without a single visible trace of exertion. No sweat, no reddening of the features.
Not even anger. Instead, the eyes glinted and the corners of the mouth creased upwards.
“No control of your bowels, laddie? Perhaps you need a lesson in housebreaking.”
Rob moved quickly, his frozen stature shattered and galvanised into action by the sight of Franklin’s right hand clenching into a fist, huge hairy knuckles bulging and whitening. Fresh blood began to seep from his bandaged finger. Rob saw the arm moving backward, saw where the fist was going to land. Had to get there before it -
He was inches away from Franklin when the fist shot forward with lightning speed into the dog’s soft belly. Jasper tried to howl, a terrible, strangulated cry of suffering. He twisted and jerked in the head porter’s relentless grip like a gallows victim.
Jasper was dropped to the floor, left to convulse in agony in the snow. Franklin had seen Rob coming, and wanted both hands free to deal with him.
Rob ran into the head porter with a speed and momentum that knocked both of them to the floor. Rob felt the solid, muscular bulk of the man give way before his charge, heard a satisfying grunt of surprise. He raised his knee and powered it into Franklin’s groin as he reached for the neck with both hands.
He felt the steel-like muscles in his hands, tried to dig h
is nails into the flesh.
But Franklin wasn’t about to give in so easily. His arms, splayed outwards on the ground, folded in sharply, his hands transformed into devastating pile drivers that crashed into Rob’s ribs.
Rob felt his lungs explode, his whole body struck numb and powerless by the double blow. He slipped from the porter’s body to join the still-convulsing Jasper. His vision clouded, black fog threaded with fine lines of red and blue, and through it he could make out a huge, blurred bulk rise from the ground, towering over him. He twisted on the snow, the frozen, close-cropped blades of grass beneath like needles in his skin. He fought the urge to vomit.
He saw a booted foot come into focus. Black, leather-coated steel toecaps, aimed at his mouth. Pulled back, ready to launch.
Rob felt Jasper twitching behind him, a warm canine body growing colder. He could see Franklin’s grinning face leer down at him in gleeful anticipation of the pain about to be inflicted.
“Franklin!” The shouted name echoed around the frozen medieval confines of the Court. It had the desired effect. Franklin’s foot remained where it was. The grin remained though. More mocking: contemptuous even, as it turned to face the man who had interrupted his work.
Rob raised himself off the grass, tears of pain streaming down his cheeks. It was a while before he could feel relief at the vision of David Searles and Phil Lotson hurrying to his rescue.
* * * * *
“So what did you learn, Phil? Anything juicy?” Rob winced as he climbed into the driver’s seat and slammed the door shut.
Phil’s eyes blazed as he held Jasper in his arms and slammed the passenger door shut. “All Souls College? Arseholes College, more like.”
Rob lit a cigarette. The tobacco drew racking coughs from his pulverised chest. Jasper whimpered softly.
He’d stopped convulsing after Searles had pulled Franklin away but was still in a lot of pain. When his coughing faded Rob put a concerned hand on the collie’s speckled head. The dog licked it slowly, the tongue trailed rather than attacked with its usual ferocity. Rob felt rage building in him, a rage that was far colder and darker than the winter night now drawing in.
“I can’t believe they let a man like Franklin work in such a position of authority,” Phil fumed. “The man’s a psycho! No wonder his poor son flipped out if that’s the only male role model he had.”
Rob looked in the side mirror, back to the Master’s Lodge. Andy came out, slamming the door behind him in disgust.
Shame you were too late to witness it, Andy, Rob thought. You’d have made that bastard suffer…
But Andy had heard about it. Coming from J staircase, seeing Rob and Jasper in obvious agony. Seeing Phil scream in fury at the smirking Franklin. Seeing Searles stand motionless, a curiously distant look on his face.
Andy wrenched open the passenger door. He was breathing heavily, deeply, his eyes narrowed.
“Nothing’s going to be done, Roberto. He’s not doing anything.”
“Of course he isn’t,” Phil said. “Searles is terrified of Franklin.”
“Why?” Andy snapped.
“Jump in, Andrew. Let me explain. Robert, are you sure you’re fit to drive?”
Rob nodded.
“Who’s the Master, who’s the servant? Who runs the college, Searles or Franklin?”
Phil smiled grimly at Andy’s question. “It’s always been said that it’s the porters who run Cambridge colleges. When Searles contacted me I was under the impression he was scared of something - or someone. I think now I know who that someone is…”
Rob and Andy listened intently as Phil told them about the meeting with the Master. Rob twisted the key and engaged first gear, anxious to be away. In his side mirror the cloistered college buildings shrank and vanished into winter darkness.
The headlights didn’t seem to make much impact on the last barrier to their exit from All Souls. The trees seemed thicker somehow, the branches longer. They trailed down to the ground and across the driveway, the last of the snow falling to the floor.
A vague memory of something black and monstrous looming from the shelter of the trees stirred in his mind. A memory of last night.
His hands shook on the steering wheel. The memory was vague, but he knew now this was where he’d collided with the boar.
He flicked the lights onto full beam to battle the enshrouding gloom of the wood. At the other side of the cab Andy was silent. Still breathing deeply, eyes narrowed in anger - and thought.
He’s planning something…or is he scared? Does he feel out of his depth for once? “Cos I know I fucking do!
It felt like a long time before the trees thinned out sufficiently for him to see the rush hour traffic building up on Queen’s Road.
CHAPTER TEN
The darkness outside the window told Judith Cox it was time to call it a day. She glanced at her watch. Six thirty. Yes, definitely home time. Not that there was much of a home to go to, but at least it was away from here.
She took off her half moon glasses and rubbed her eyes wearily. The throbbing in her temples had increased and she felt utterly exhausted. Low blood sugar hadn’t helped. She eyed the untouched tuna salad sandwich with its curled corners of wholegrain bread. A lunch forgotten and ignored thanks to her workload and the deadlines set by Davies.
Davies. God, at times she felt like she was in a Dickens novel. The office was small and cramped, the inevitable result of modifying a section of the older part of the college for business use. Sometimes it felt like the roof was conspiring with the walls to close in on her and crush her. And if they failed, Davies could do the job just as effectively.
Hard to believe that he’d been such a gentleman at her interview for the post of Bursar’s Secretary. She glanced at the calendar, noting the date. Good grief, was it really only two months ago? It felt like years. Davies had smiled apologetically as he took her to the top of J stairway, the autumn leaves following them in on the chill October breeze. Not an ideal working environment, I’m afraid. But your duties will be much lighter than those employed in the main College Office. That should have been a blessing. With no Praelector or Dean in the Fellowship, the traditional duties of Senior College members were spread unevenly - and it was the admin staff who shouldered most of the burden. She herself was employed to provide secretarial support to the Bursar, handle incoming calls and the filing.
That soon changed. Over the following weeks it became clear to her just how much work she was expected to do. The Bursar was hardly ever in the office, but each morning an email would be waiting for her, listing her duties for the day. And they weren’t just the usual secretarial chores. Invoices were to be queried, spreadsheets updated, cashbooks reconciled. All Souls queried every single invoice it received, holding off payment for as long as possible, finding any excuse to demand a credit note or a full refund. This morning was a classic example, Judith being ordered to withhold payment to a catering supplies firm because of the wrong type of flour delivered to the kitchens - even though it had been the Catering Office who had messed up the order.
It hadn’t taken long for Simon Davies to show his true colours. The smiling, friendly gentleman at her interview, the one who had sympathetically listened to her harrowing life story and assured her that she would receive nothing but full support and co-operation from the Fellows and the admin team, was a brutal taskmaster. The workload increased, the deadlines were tighter - and she was expected to stay behind to cope. Last week she’d refused to stay behind to complete a mailshot for the college alumni, the annual invitation to the Founder’s Feast. It had brought Davies out in a rage. He’d slammed his coffee mug down on her desk, leant over and shouted in her face.
Why d’you think you’re being paid so well? Did you really think you’d just be doing the odd bit of filing and answering the telephone? For Heaven’s sake, woman, if you can’t cope you can bloody well leave and let me find someone more capable!
She shuddered at the memory as she shut the PC
down and turned off the monitor. She felt a hard ball rise in her throat, obstructing her breathing. The tears would follow soon. The psychiatrist had told her that she had to give in to them, never suppress them. They were healing tears.
But it was hard. When the tears began she was instantly transported back to the school reception. The same shuddering, wracking cries: the sensation of the world spinning out of control. She was convinced it would happen again, despite the advice the bereavement counsellor and God knew how many support groups had given her.
She glanced out of the narrow window: saw the cold full moon rising in the sky. I could’ve told him what to do with his bloody job. Why didn’t I?
She took her coat from the hook on the door and pulled it on. The face in the moon sneered at her, as contemptuous and knowing as Davies’ had been when he’d laughed in her face.
Go on, then! Walk out! See if you can find anything better. How long has it been since you’ve had a full time job, Ms Cox? How many of your job applications and CVs have been binned because of your admittance of mental health problems? Just be grateful this college has given you a chance that no other company would…or ever will!
The tears rolled freely down her cheeks now. She had come along so well, had made such progress. No one who was unaware of her past illness would ever have suspected that the strong, forthright personality emanating from the diminutive middle-aged frame was a painfully built construction. Even she had sometimes forgotten. The clinical psychiatrist who regularly assessed her had been impressed by the strength of character. No longer weak and self-effacing, now more confident and prepared to stand her ground, fight her corner…and with a few harsh sentences that strength had evaporated, dissolving in the acid of the Bursar’s words.
She sniffed, wiped her tears away with the cuff of her coat. That attack wasn’t just uncalled for, it was callous, cruel. Davies had listened with such sympathy and understanding at her interview, shaking his head sadly as she relayed the details of her descent into clinical depression and mental illness after her marriage collapsed. He’d clucked his tongue at the history of Steve Cox and his womanising, angered by the man’s lack of love and respect for the woman who had supported him during his frequent bouts of unemployment with her pittance of a school secretary’s wages. The Bursar had been as kind and concerned as the psychiatrist who had charted her inevitable decline towards nervous breakdown.
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