Dead Scared

by S J Bolton

  The first of his two companions to step on to the roof was wearing the navy, red and yellow scarf of one of the more famous Cambridge colleges. He shook his head. ‘I won’t change mine,’ he said. ‘You’ve no idea how much clearer it’s all been since we decided. Like a massive weight just gone.’ He turned to look back at the stairs. ‘I can’t go back down there,’ he said, and there was the gleam of tears in his eyes. ‘I just can’t.’

  ‘Got to, one way or another,’ said the third boy. Then he glanced anxiously at each of the other two. ‘Sorry,’ he said. His pupils were enormous in his pale face and seemed to have lost their ability to focus. His hands were shaking. He was smaller and thinner than his two companions, a boy bred for indoors.

  The long-haired boy rested a hand on the smaller one’s shoulder. ‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘We deal with it how we can.’

  ‘So how do we do this?’ asked the third boy, speaking faster than seemed natural. ‘Hold hands and count to three?’

  ‘Let’s just go look,’ suggested the boy with long hair. ‘I want everyone to be sure.’

  ‘I’m sure,’ said the one wearing the Trinity scarf. ‘Thanks for being with me, guys. Whether you come with me all the way or you don’t, I couldn’t have made it this far without you. You’ve been good friends.’

  He held out his arms and, in turn, the other two stepped into them. The hugs were brief, blokesy, little more than mutual back-patting.

  Together they walked across the roof to the parapet. A yard or two away, the third boy held back. The first two either didn’t notice or pretended not to. They reached the stone edging and sat down on it. Not taking their eyes from each other, they swung their legs over the edge until two pairs of shoes were dangling.

  ‘Good luck, mate,’ said the first.

  ‘Love you, man,’ his companion replied.

  A strangled scream from behind. The third boy was running at them, his mouth open, fists pumping. He reached them, sprang up on to the parapet and leaped.

  Silence for three, maybe four seconds. Then a crunch. Silence again.

  Both boys on the parapet had leaned forward to watch the moment of impact. Moving as one, they straightened up and turned to each other.

  ‘You know, Iestyn, even if he hadn’t, a bloody good push would have done it,’ said the long-haired boy.

  The one wearing the Trinity scarf, Iestyn, shook his head. ‘No good,’ he said. ‘Trust me, takes all the fun out of it.’

  Still moving as one, they smiled, raised their right hands and slapped a noisy high five.

  Friday 18 January (four days earlier)

  ‘YOU’RE LATE.’

  The denim-clad bottom wiggled itself into a comfortable position on the leather passenger seat and its owner ostentatiously raised her left wrist.

  ‘Your watch is fast,’ she said, without looking at him. ‘I’m bang on time.’ Joesbury released the handbrake, checked the rear mirror and pulled out, just as Chris Evans announced that they were listening to the Friday show and that it was nine thirty-two on Radio 2.

  ‘Guess the BBC’s watch is fast too,’ he said.

  ‘How was the traffic?’

  ‘Not bad, considering,’ he told her, which pretty accurately described the five-minute trip from the central multi-storey car park to the spot on the Queen’s Road, some way down from the college, where he’d agreed to pick her up. Because of the email he’d sent at the crack of dawn she thought he’d driven up from London.

  She was looking round, into the back seat, up at the ceiling. ‘This isn’t your car,’ she announced as he turned on to the Huntingdon Road. Heading north out of Cambridge the traffic was busy but moving steadily. On the radio, a James Brown track started.

  ‘Isn’t it?’

  Now she was in it the car smelled gorgeous; like sweet oranges and tiny white flowers on a tropical evening, and what the fuck was he now, a poet?

  ‘When I knew you last autumn you had a poncy green convertible. A real ladies-who-lunch wagon.’

  ‘Sweet of you to remember.’ There were lights ahead and Joesbury eased his foot off the accelerator. If they came to a standstill, he could look at her. Otherwise, it really wasn’t responsible. He pursed his lips to keep the smile at bay, wondering if there was a penalty for driving under the influence of Lacey.

  ‘Mind you, when I knew you last autumn you had a right lung that hadn’t been ripped open by a bullet. I guess life moves on.’

  ‘Ouch,’ said Joesbury. Nope, he was not going to look.

  ‘Does it hurt?’

  That didn’t sound like concern in her voice – more like hope – but it was hard to tell without looking at her.

  ‘No, it’s actually a pretty comfortable drive.’

  The lights stayed on green, the suburbs started to fade away and the speed of the traffic picked up. Out of the corner of his eye he could see she was looking directly at him. He glanced round before he could stop himself and his stomach did a little flip-flop. She hardly ever wore make-up. For a moment, he found himself grinning inside at the thought she’d dressed up for him. Then he remembered she was undercover. As the glamorous albeit drippy-as-an-old-tap Laura Farrow.

  ‘I still own the ladies-who-lunch wagon,’ he told her, as they neared the dual carriageway. ‘This vehicle is registered to a company in Essex that ceased trading two years ago.’

  ‘Wow, a real spy car.’

  He faked a sigh. ‘Flint, are you taking this a hundred per cent seriously?’

  She wiggled a bit in the seat, like an over-excited child on an outing. ‘Too right I am,’ she said. ‘I missed two lectures to come out on a jaunt with you, you know. So where are we going?’

  ‘Lincoln,’ he said, pulling into the outside lane and picking up speed. The instrument panel told him the temperature outside had fallen to zero degrees. ‘To meet Danielle Brown.’

  Silence for a second and then, ‘Why?’

  ‘Because she’s a former Cambridge student who attempted suicide and who, prior to that, claimed sexual abuse by assailants unknown.’

  She ran a hand through her hair. ‘I know that,’ she said. ‘I told you that last night. I mean, why are we going to see her? Sounds an awful lot like investigating to me and I’m not here to investigate. You were very clear about that.’

  ‘Are you going to keep this up the whole trip?’ he said.

  ‘Probably. And the way back too. And why get you involved? I thought you were on light duties. You know, making tea for important people at the Yard.’

  ‘I guess the important people at the Yard thought driving you a hundred miles and watching you interview a nice young lady counted as light duties. They clearly don’t know you like I do.’

  When he glanced across again, she was smiling. An unfamiliar ache in his cheekbones told him he was too.

  Megan had been right. Fifteen years ago, when Evi Oliver had been a first-year medical student at St John’s College, shiny-haired and sound of limb, five students had taken their own lives.

  Evi, in her consulting room at the SCS offices, sat back, her left hand going automatically down to her thigh to try to massage away some of the ache there. She remembered one of them, the one Nick had mentioned on Wednesday evening, a boy who’d jumped off the tower of one of the older churches. The area at its base had been closed off for over twenty-four hours and then strewn with cheap flowers for days afterwards. And now she’d learned about four others, none of whom she could remember. Maybe such things had been hushed up in those days. She went back to the stats on the screen.

  Nothing else remarkable at all. One suicide in a year, two suicides, none at all some years. Absolutely what you might expect. Except for the blip when she’d been an undergraduate and what was happening now, Cambridge’s record on student deaths was bang on normal.

  With one eye on the clock, knowing she had a departmental meeting in fifteen minutes, Evi accessed the archived site of the university newspaper. She entered suicide into the search facility and
a few moments later had details of the five young people who’d died in her first year.

  Four boys, one girl. One jumper, one wrist-slasher, three overdosers. Three of them had been medical students, one in his second year (jumper) and two in their first (wrist-slasher and overdoser). Evi looked at the clock again and picked up the phone.

  ‘I ran a check on your friend Nick Bell,’ said Joesbury, as they reached the A1.

  ‘Anything?’ asked Lacey, her head flicking in his direction just a fraction faster than he would have liked.

  ‘Clean as a whistle, but we’ll keep an eye on him.’

  ‘I could accidentally bump into him. Try to get to know him a bit better?’

  She was winding him up. At least he hoped she was. ‘Keep your mind on the job, Flint. You can resume your unusual love life when we pull you off the case.’

  She didn’t reply. When he glanced over she was staring straight ahead, pink-painted lips pursed just a fraction. Sulking. He hadn’t realized how plump her lower lip was.

  ‘We can also get someone into the practice he works for to check out his computers,’ Joesbury said, bringing his eyes firmly back on to the road. ‘If he’s been on any dodgy internet sites we’ll soon know about it.’ She was still staring at the dashboard. ‘It’ll take a week or so to sort out.’

  ‘How?’ She’d turned to look at him again. ‘You can’t just turn up on someone’s doorstep and ask to inspect their hard drive.’

  On the radio, Michael Bublé began to sing about how it was a new dawn and a new day. Not his favourite cover but a good song. Joesbury reached forward to turn the volume up a tad. And was he going to let that last one go? Probably better if he did.

  ‘First of all we send ’em a hard-to-trace virus,’ he said. ‘Just enough to toss a few gremlins into the system. Then we reroute their telephone calls out of the building to pick up the one to their IT support when they call for help. We send someone along that afternoon.’

  ‘That’s sneaky.’

  ‘You did look up the dictionary definition of covert operations before you took this job, didn’t you, Flint?’

  She gave a soft exhalation that might even have been something approaching a giggle and he was getting that feeling again. The one he always had when he was with her, even when the biggest load of shit ever was being fanned in all directions. The one that told him there was nowhere else in the whole world he’d rather be.

  ‘Meg, did I wake you?’

  Silence on the other end of the line. Then the sound of fabric moving together. Something creaking, and, possibly, a yawn. Meg was still in bed.

  ‘Nope, wide awake,’ she replied, in her usual gravelly early-morning smoker’s voice. ‘Just not completely alert. It’s my day off and I’ve not had my caffeine fix yet. What’s up, Evi?’

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t realize. I can call you next week.’

  More sounds of sliding fabric, a tiny grunt. ‘No, go on.’

  Evi named the year both women had been students at St John’s, Evi in her first year, Megan in her third. ‘Five suicides,’ she said. ‘Only time other than the last five years when anything out of the ordinary in that respect has happened here. You mentioned it the other day. How much do you remember?’

  Silence for a second, while Megan was thinking, and pushing herself up in the bed.

  ‘Not a lot, to be honest,’ she said after a moment. ‘But Evi, fifteen years ago, it was very early days for the internet. The sort of online bullying and goading you’ve been talking about wouldn’t have had a chance to get going. I don’t see how it can be relevant.’

  She had a point. ‘That’s true.’

  A small sigh. ‘Look, Evi, I’m really not sure this is what should be occupying your head right now. You’re far from well yourself. Let me pass this on to John. His team can follow it up if they think it’s important.’

  Something in Megan’s voice suggested she found that last idea amusing. ‘Is he there?’ asked Evi.

  Pause. ‘Might be,’ said Meg, with a definite smile in her voice.

  ‘OK, OK, I’m out of your hair. Enjoy the rest of your day, Meg.’

  ‘I’ll let you ladies chat,’ said Joesbury, walking to a dining table at the far side of the room and pulling out one of the chairs. Earlier he’d bought a copy of the Daily Mirror. He turned to the sports pages and dropped his head into his fingers. Now he had a good view of the two women, and would look like he was reading.

  Danielle Brown was a mess. No other way of putting it, really. At twenty-five, she could have been a decade older. She was about four stone overweight, riddled with acne and scratched herself constantly. An hour and a half earlier, he and Flint had arrived at the small solicitors’ office where she worked as a legal clerk. They’d introduced themselves and asked to talk to her during her lunch break. She’d agreed willingly enough, almost seemed to welcome the unexpected attention. At one p.m., they’d driven her to the house on the outskirts of town where she lived with her parents.

  The house was a big 1930s semi, with large rooms, high ceilings and art deco-style windows. The massive open-plan living room (two rooms knocked through) was full of photographs of Danielle as a schoolgirl and a young student. She’d been slim and athletic, with long, glossy brown hair. The hair was short now, cut for ease of care rather than to flatter. She could have been a different woman.

  ‘I read about that girl,’ she was saying to Lacey as she picked at some dry skin on the inside of her wrist. ‘The one who self-immolated at the end of Michaelmas. Is she dead?’

  ‘She was very badly hurt,’ said Lacey. ‘Her recovery isn’t certain.’

  ‘And the one this week. The papers didn’t give any details. What happened to her?’

  ‘We suspect she may have deliberately crashed her car,’ said Lacey. ‘Danielle, I’m going to ask you some questions that you might find difficult to answer. I’m truly sorry to cause you distress but I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important. Is that OK?’

  Out of the corner of his eye, Joesbury saw Danielle nodding her head, looking wary but also, he thought, intrigued. He looked down again, waiting for the inevitable question about the alleged sexual abuse.

  ‘Danielle,’ said Lacey, ‘when you were at Cambridge, were you ever scared?’

  Joesbury realized he hadn’t turned a page in twenty minutes. Danielle was getting a whole load of free therapy from Lacey, who’d clearly missed her vocation in life as a student counsellor, but otherwise they’d made little progress.

  He’d known before they arrived, because he’d been through Danielle’s file in some detail, that she’d struggled to cope with life at Cambridge. She’d missed assignments, forgotten to attend lectures and tutorials, frequently overslept. Her work had suffered to the point where the authorities were considering taking action. He’d already seen the files from the Student Counselling Services and knew about Danielle’s unsubstantiated claims of sexual abuse in her room at night. What he hadn’t known, in fairness, was what Lacey had unearthed. The fact that, before hanging herself from an oak tree, Danielle had been scared.

  ‘One of the lines we’re pursuing,’ Lacey was saying, ‘is that vulnerable students are being encouraged to harm themselves by some sort of online bullying. Did you ever visit any sort of suicide website or chat room while you were at Cambridge?’

  Danielle nodded her head. Joesbury sat further back in his chair and watched her. From where the two women were sitting, Lacey could see him, Danielle couldn’t.

  ‘I just needed to know there were other people out there who felt as bad as I did,’ Danielle said.

  ‘Did anyone tell you about these sites?’

  Blank look.

  ‘Did these sites find you, in any way? Did you get any emails, or did they pop up in your search engines, or anything like that? How did you know about them?’

  ‘I Googled suicide,’ said Danielle, with a faintly contemptuous tone to her voice. ‘It wasn’t hard.’

  ‘Were any of the sites
Cambridge-specific?’

  Again, Danielle shook her head. ‘Most of them seemed to be based in the United States from what I can remember,’ she said.

  Quietly, Joesbury stood up and walked to the window. The garden outside was mature and well cared for. Even in winter it was attractive, with grasses and evergreen shrubs gleaming with frost. He’d give them ten more minutes then bring it to a close. There was still time for lunch, maybe a chance to talk about something that wasn’t police work. Had they ever actually done that before?

  Over on the sofas Lacey and Danielle were talking about the event itself, the morning Danielle had ridden her bike to some nearby woods, thrown a rope over a branch and hanged herself.

  ‘How did you reach the branch?’ Lacey was asking. ‘If it was high enough for you to hang yourself, it must have been too high to reach from the ground.’

  ‘It’s all a bit fuzzy,’ said Danielle. ‘Even the next day I couldn’t remember it too clearly. The police said I’d had the rope ready looped and just thrown it over.’

  ‘You must be good with knots,’ said Lacey. ‘I’m hopeless. Can never sort out my reefs from my bowlines.’

  No response.

  ‘So how do you make a loop in a rope?’ asked Lacey. ‘And then, how do you get the knot round your neck right? So that it tightens as it should? I wouldn’t have a clue.’

  Joesbury gave up all pretence of admiring the garden. He turned round to face the two women.

  ‘I don’t remember,’ said Danielle. ‘I’d taken something, according to the doctors. It’s all just a blur.’

  ‘What had you taken?’

  A shrug. The girl’s face had stiffened. Defences were coming down.

  ‘What did you usually take?’

  ‘Nothing. I didn’t take drugs.’

  ‘Just on the morning you tried to kill yourself?’

  ‘DC Flint,’ said Joesbury, stepping forward.