It was up to the police to sort all that out. Perhaps that patronizing desk sergeant would take this more seriously. When she tried to tell him about the unsolicited goods and the pizza, it was all too clear that he had her down as a neurotic woman overreacting to student games. She had more or less been told that in her position she ought to realise that she was fair game. Perhaps if she brought up the caretaker and he could back up her story, they might pay more attention.
On second thoughts, if it became general knowledge in the college that she had even implied someone had deliberately tried to cause her to have a bad accident, it would fuel the rumours of her imminent mental breakdown. It was such a preposterous idea that someone would deliberately try to injure her that some people might even imagine that she had been the one who put the wire there as part of her paranoia. Was that the idea? For her to make a complete idiot of herself?
If only Matt had been more sympathetic over the display cabinet business, she could have taken it straight to him.
Trying to think about all this more rationally, it was difficult to see how Nathan could have engineered the computer glitches and memos about meetings. True he was a computer expert and might just possibly have found a way to hack into her PC but that did not explain the misplaced files. She had to concede that her tormentor was more likely to be someone who worked in the college.
Unless the books and CD were nothing more than coincidences, he must know her preferences pretty well. Not that it had to be a man. Her recent contretemps with Eunice would seem to indicate that she should not rule out anyone. After all the petty sniping and running to Sir Richard behind her back, if anyone was likely to overreach the bounds of reason, Eunice was as likely candidate as any. No, the idea was ridiculous. Surely even she wasn’t capable of such malevolence? For all the petty griping, it was difficult to image how any of her colleagues would go this far. And why? At least she could cobble together some sort of motive for Nathan, but what had she done to provoke this escalating chain of events?
There was no way she was going to sit back and let this happen. She could at least check who was still around.
The reception desk closed at five and there was no one in the entrance area when she stepped out of the lift onto the ground floor. Despite her dislike of enclosed spaces, she had reasoned that negotiating the unlit stairs would be foolhardy. She hurried along to the Student Services section and rapped on Eunice’s door and tried to turn the handle. Locked. She checked there was no light coming from under the door. It was a step too far to imagine the woman could be hiding in the dark?
Both David and Tom also had offices in the main building although, as neither of them were models of dedication to the job, it was no surprise that both had long gone as she had expected. The engineering block was in darkness as she approached and, when she walked round the side of the building, there was no light from Dev Sharma’s office. Frank had to be on the premises as it was his duty night but, marching into his room, she found it empty although the light was on and the screen saver was flickering on his PC. The most likely hidey-hole he would disappear to was in the computer suite so she climbed up two more floors.
A couple of the part time tutors were already in, setting up for their evening classes but, given the mood she was in, she didn’t trust herself to ask them if they’d seen Frank. She walked through to the series of work bays towards the staff room.
She could hear Alistair Benedict’s voice through the half-open doorway followed by Frank’s rumbling laugh.
‘So this is where you’re hiding.’
Frank spun round to face her.
‘Sarah?’ She was obviously the last person he had expected to walk in.
‘Surprised to see me?’
‘Umm.’ He nodded. ‘I am actually.’
‘And why, may I ask, is that?’ She felt like a triumphant cat that had succeeded in cornering its prey.
He took another slurp of his coffee, presumably to give himself time to think. ‘Thought I saw you driving out ages ago.’
‘Nice one, Frank.’
From the corner of her eye, she saw Alistair sidle across to the window out of the firing line.
Frank gave her a puzzled look and shrugged his shoulders. ‘What on earth’s got into you? Am I missing something? What’s going on here?’
‘You tell me,’ she snapped. ‘I’d love to know.’
He gave a wide-eyed look across at Alistair and pulled a face to indicate that he thought she had completely lost it.
‘It obviously wasn’t my car you saw.’
‘But yours isn’t in the car park.’ Alistair was looking out of the window.
‘What!’
She hurried over to join him. All three of them stared down at the half dozen or so vehicles still sitting on the tarmac below. Even in the poor light, it was all too evident that her distinctive convertible was nowhere to be seen.
‘I’d like to report a stolen car.’
Sarah could hear the clack of computer keys as the details were entered into the system. She was just about to mention the wire trap on the stairs when the officer broke off with a sudden, ‘Would you mind holding the line a moment?’
It was a couple of minutes before he came back to her. ‘Can I take it you are still at the college?’ The marked change of tone from the earlier rather offhand, faintly bored voice to something much more clipped and formal, did not escape Sarah.
‘Yes. I’m in my office.’ A flicker of unease chilled her spine.
‘Would you mind waiting there until someone comes to talk to you?’ It was an instruction not a request.
‘Of course,’ she said trying to keep the surprise out of her voice.
‘And the person you mentioned who spotted it being driven away,’ there was a pause while he checked his records, ‘Mr Wagner. We would like to talk to him too. Is he still there?’
‘He’s on duty until nine o’clock. Has my car been found?’
‘It has.’ Another long pause.
‘And?’ she prompted.
‘DI Parson will be able to tell you more about that when he gets to you. He’ll be there in fifteen minutes.’ He rang off before she had a chance to ask anything further.
She called Frank and told him what to expect.
‘They’re sending an inspector? That sounds a bit OTT for a missing car.’
‘My thoughts exactly.’
‘Do you want me to come down and wait with you?’ Frank sounded surprisingly solicitous. No doubt, the same thoughts of injured joyriding students were flashing through his mind as they were through hers.
‘I think I can cope. The old girl’s not as helpless as rumour would have it.’ She managed to sound light-hearted even if she was fighting off a deepening sense of foreboding.
He laughed companionably and told her to give him a bell when he was wanted.
As she put down the receiver, it occurred to her that, if nothing else, she ought to tell the duty caretaker about the broken light bulb on the stairs. At least, now she’d be able to point out the wire to the police when they arrived, but in the meantime she’d better make sure that no one tripped over it in the dark.
When she got down to the caretaker’s office, the room was empty. Why was no one where they damned well ought to be this evening? No point in getting bad tempered. The man had probably been called out to open some door or fetch equipment for one of the classes. That was what he was there for, after all.
As she stood in the doorway irritably surveying the empty room, she noticed a large torch perched on one of the shelves. Just what she needed to inspect the wire. She turned back to the lift but changed her mind and walked resolutely along the corridor to the stairs.
Half way up she thought she heard a scuffling above. She stopped and listened but there was only an eerie silence. Treading as softly as possible, the heavy torch balanced in her hand as a weapon, she peered round each bend up the stairwell as she went. That soft swish of a door closing was probabl
y nothing more than her imagination. She must not let the tension get to her. Before she mounted the final flight, she switched on the torch. She didn’t need to go right to the top to see that the evidence had already been removed.
She swore softly. If only she had kept a watch instead of charging around the college, she might have caught him at it. Sitting on the top stair, she inspected the railings, sliding her fingers up and down the bar at the point where she judged the wire had been, trying to find a groove. She shuffled across to the window side and repeated the procedure. Again, she could feel nothing but, glinting in the light from the torch, she found small scratches in the black paint through to the bare metal.
At least that was something but she did not relish the idea of having to persuade this Inspector Parson to take her story seriously. She straightened up with a deep sigh. Time to get down to Reception. No point in getting off to a bad start by keeping them waiting.
Chapter 26
For some reason, she had expected a middle-aged, irascible character in an Inspector Frost-type mackintosh, but DI Parson turned out to be a young, tall, eminently attractive man who looked more like he’d stepped out of a television commercial for some trendy new shampoo than a hard-pressed working policeman. He gave her a warm smile as he introduced himself and his colleague, DS Harper. The sergeant, a much more dour individual, with the thickset build of a nightclub bouncer and with the same vacant expression, nodded but didn’t shake her hand.
‘Can I get you some coffee, tea?’ Sarah asked as they settled themselves into the easy chairs in her office.
The inspector shook his head and got straight down to the matter in hand. ‘Can you tell me what time you last saw your car?’
She wanted to ask what had happened to it, but the questions, though pleasantly put, kept coming until all the details she had given over the phone had been checked. At last, she could wait no longer.
‘Does the fact that you are here imply that my car has been involved in an incident of some kind?’
A silence hung in the room. She was the first to break it. ‘So was it joy riders? Did you catch them or did they crash it?’
Eventually, DI Parson said slowly, ‘The car isn’t badly damaged.’
‘But was anyone hurt?’
Another agonising pause. ‘The car was found abandoned only a few streets from here.’
Apprehension was rapidly turning to frustrated anger. She could feel her jaw tightening, but the way the two of them studied her every reaction made her frame her next question politely. ‘I assume that senior officers, especially detectives, aren’t sent out to investigate abandoned cars, so can you tell me what this is all about?’
The inspector hesitated then asked brusquely, ‘Eunice Robinson. I understand she works here at the college?’
‘That’s right. She is our Head of Student Services. You are not telling me she took…’
‘Miss Robinson has been involved in an accident.’
‘How is she? I must…’ Sarah was half out of her seat before he waved her back down.
‘I’m sorry to have to tell you that she died before the ambulance could get there.’
‘What!’ She was on her feet before he could stop her. ‘I don’t understand. Why didn’t you tell me before?’ They must have stood inches from each other. Sarah, clenching and unclenching her fists – the inspector, staring impassively down while she regained her self-control.
‘How? What happened?’ She sank back onto the chair.
‘I’m afraid it was a hit-and-run.’
His steely eyes stared back into hers. It took a moment or two for realization to kick in. ‘My car?’ she asked incredulously.
‘We can’t confirm that at this stage but it looks a strong probability. A witness described a pale car with a black soft-top very similar to yours.’
‘Dear God.’
‘When did you last see her?’
‘Earlier this evening. She came to my office. It must have been just before six when she left.’
‘She was knocked down at ten past on Broad Avenue so presumably she went home immediately after.’
‘She doesn’t live far from there. Her house is only a few miles from the college. She likes to be on hand...’ It was difficult to stop thinking of Eunice in the present tense.
Before she could recover her composure, he was firing questions again. ‘Can you tell me what you talked about?’
Sarah recounted as much of that last conversation as she could recall. Inevitably that led to her having to account for her movements from the time Eunice left her office to when she had discovered that her car was missing. It was not quite the way she had intended to inform the police about the wire across the stairs.
When she told them all the evidence had been removed, they seemed to lose interest. In the light of the death of a close colleague, it did not seem appropriate to insist they at least take a look or even to talk about a deliberate trap set to injure her. From the sceptical look on the sergeant’s face, it was all too clear that he thought she was trying to divert attention from the matter in hand with some ridiculous story. This was not the time to justify herself with lengthy explanations about the escalating campaign of harassment.
The subject suddenly switched back to her car and how someone had managed to drive it out of a busy car park without arousing suspicion.
‘I take it you’re not in the habit of leaving your keys in the ignition?’
Sarah did not trust herself to answer civilly and by way of reply fetched her handbag, took out her car keys and laid them on the table between them.
The officers exchanged looks and, changing tack, the inspector asked her about her usual route home. She was aware that the sergeant had been making notes throughout the interview but it was not until then that she fully appreciated why. From the moment when Eunice left until Sarah had gone into the computer suite an hour later, Sarah had not seen or spoken to anyone so there was no one to confirm that she had been in her office all that time.
She was staring at the list of telephone numbers in front of her when the phone went.
‘You’re still here then.’
‘I’ve been ringing round the rest of the senior staff to let them know what’s happened. I don’t want them to come in unprepared tomorrow.’
‘I’m coming over.’
‘It’s all right, Frank.’ He had already put down the receiver.
There was a knock at her door a couple of minutes later and he swept in without waiting for her to answer. ‘You look dreadful.’
‘Thank you, kind sir. I take it our friendly neighbourhood bobbies have left?’
He nodded then slumped down onto the chair in front of her desk.
‘I feel like I’ve been put through the wringer. All those questions! How did I know it was your car when it was dark already? I ask you, how can you miss it? It is the only bloody soft top in the place. Then, if I could recognise the car, why couldn’t I see who was driving it? He made me go over my story so many times; you’d think he was trying to catch me out. Then he started grilling me about how well I’d got on with Eunice. When I told him what a bloody difficult woman she was, he wanted chapter and verse plus details of her relationship with the rest of the staff. What that’s got to do with anything, God only knows. Still, it’s time we both went home.’ He gestured to the paper under her hand. ‘Have you managed to get through to everyone?’
‘Not quite. It took some time to track down Sir Richard. There was no answer from David, and Tom’s still out. I spoke to his wife. She’s expecting him soon after ten. I couldn’t just leave a message so I said I’ll ring back then. Which just leaves Barry.’
‘You try David again and I’ll ring Barry on Lucy’s line and then I’m going drive you home.’
‘It’s good of you Frank but it’s gone half nine already. I’ve got to wait until Tom gets back anyway so there’s no point in both of us staying here.’
‘And how do you propose getting hom
e without a car? You’re not hanging around for taxis at this time of night. Do as you’re told, woman. You can phone Tom from your place.’
Ten minutes later she was sat, head in hands, elbows propped on the desk.
‘You look dead on your feet.’ She had not heard Frank come back in.
‘I’m fine. I was just wondering if I should get in touch with Eunice’s sister.’
‘Have you met her?’
‘No. I’ve no idea where she even lives, but no doubt Personnel will have her next-of-kin details. And I ought to give some thought to what we do as a College. Some sort of tribute.’ She shook her head. ‘That came out all wrong.’
‘I know what you mean. It hasn’t really sunk in yet.’
‘She wasn’t the easiest person in the world to get on with, but no one deserves to be mown down and just abandoned. Perhaps if the driver had stopped and got help…’
‘We can’t do anything to change what’s happened so there’s not a great deal of point in tearing yourself to pieces over it.’
‘I have this awful feeling that things are going to get a lot worse before they get better.’
Although in ways very different from those she was imagining, she had no way of knowing then, just how prophetic her words would prove to be.
Chapter 27
By the time she’d got home and phoned Tom, Sarah decided she was too exhausted to tackle anything else sensibly. Sorting out a replacement car and all the other problems, major and minor, could wait until tomorrow. What she really fancied was a good stiff drink but, as all she could find was a miniature of some obscure liqueur of doubtful mid-European origin and the remnants of an ancient bottle of port, which had never been her tipple, she decided it would have to be a cup of tea. It wasn’t until she stood waiting over the kettle that she realised that all she’d eaten since breakfast was a cheese roll and an apple. The last thing she wanted was food.
‘You’re lucky there’s no one around to nag,’ she told herself out loud.
Despite her words, it had to be admitted that, at times of trauma, it helped to have someone to talk to. It was the first time she and Frank had a conversation that hadn’t ended with one of them sniping at the other although they’d probably revealed too much of their softer interiors to make their next meeting a comfortable one. It was too late to pester Elizabeth and, after, their last little fracas, she did not want to speak to Matt. And anyway, what would she say? If only Nathan were there to talk to.
All in the Mind Page 17
