She laughed again. It was a pretty laugh, I thought. I spied a coffee shop set back down a small alley as we passed. ‘Would you like to get a drink?’ I asked on the spur of the moment, gesturing towards it.
Emily peered down the alleyway suspiciously.
‘It looks a good place. Good coffee.’
‘Okay,’ she said making up her mind. We sat upstairs, opposite each other, in a bay window. It was one of those places that have sprung up everywhere these days. Wooden floors, chalked-up blackboards, artisan bread – whatever that means – but the smell of ground coffee has always pleased me. Even if it never tastes as good as it smells.
Emily ordered a skinny latte. I had a double espresso. She didn’t even offer to pay – girls like her don’t. I didn’t mind, though.
‘So how are you finding it?’ I asked, not sure where to put my legs under the tiny table. If I bent them, the table would lift an inch off the ground. I stretched them out instead, crossing my ankles to the side of Emily’s chair. The sweat which sheened my body had now cooled and dried, and I could taste salt on my lips.
‘It’s really good. Joyce has some nice people. A few weirdos.’ She smiled shyly.
‘How’s the course?’
‘The course? Oh, you know. Boring.’ She played with an end of her hair, twirling it around her finger. She looked out of the window. ‘I joined the hockey team. Try-outs for the uni squad are on Wednesday.’
I nodded, not knowing what to say to that. I liked running and occasionally watched the snooker, but that was about as far as my sporting ambitions went. Emily breathed in rapidly as if remembering where she was.
‘And you? How’s Nightingale apart from the weird roommate?’
‘Yeah, good. Just finding my way around.’ The sun had made its way in through the window and now hit me in the face, leaving me squinting somewhat as I looked at her. ‘The food’s awful but the bar’s okay. Have you been? To the Nightingale bar?’
‘There’s a crawl on Friday. Some of us are going. I think it’s in drag.’
I must have looked puzzled, as she laughed.
‘You know, guys as girls, girls as guys. Stupid, really, but fun, I guess.’
I sighed.
‘What’s up?’
‘Oh, it’s just. Well, I find all that a bit …’
‘A bit what?’
‘Childish I suppose.’
Emily straightened in her chair. ‘But we are children, aren’t we? Isn’t that what university is?’ She laughed slightly nervously. ‘A big playground?’
‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘But I suppose I was hoping it would be more experimenting with new things. Trying things out. Not getting hammered and wearing a woman’s dress around town.’ I coughed awkwardly – this wasn’t going the way I wanted. ‘Don’t worry, I know it’s good fun and everything.’ I smiled at her. ‘You’ll have a great time on Friday.’
Emily relaxed somewhat. ‘You’re right, it’s stupid. But you know, everyone’s doing it.’
I nodded. ‘Yeah, well, enjoy yourself. Be careful too.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Oh, you know. Make sure you’ve got someone to walk you home at the end of the night. I’m just looking out for you. Don’t want you stranded in the middle of town by yourself.’
She smiled at that. I could see that she liked to be protected.
‘I will.’ She swallowed the dregs of her latte. ‘Be careful, that is.’
She stood up to leave, and I followed her down the stairs and back out into the street.
6
Monday 22 May, 10.06 a.m.
Annabel watched the police and bodies dressed in white go into Emily’s building. She waited for a while, as the light flicked on in Emily’s room, watching the figures move across the window. She jumped a little to keep warm on the spot of her observation point, behind a van on the opposite side of the road. She looked again at her mobile phone and tapped in a number for the umpteenth time. No answer from either of them. Where were they? One of them had to pick up.
Giving up for a moment, Annabel tucked her hands under her armpits, tears glittering in her eyes as she thought about what she had seen that morning. That yellow tent on the riverbank. The police crawling everywhere. The weir frothing in front of them all, none of them knowing her, none of them caring. The sun still rising, even though Emily was gone. Gone. She shook her head. She couldn’t believe it.
She’d been with her at the boathouse yesterday afternoon. They’d lain on the grass, in the late-spring sunshine, drinking plastic pints of Pimm’s, listening to the band. Emily was fine. She’d rolled on to her stomach, laughing about something. Nick had been in touch. Everything was fine.
‘It’s all coming together, Belles,’ Emily had said with one of those hard smiles she sometimes gave.
‘What is?’
‘Oh, Belles. Always one step behind, my lovely. I mean, they’re all falling into place. These boys. Just where I want them.’
Annabel had laughed, still uncomprehending, hiding the dislike she had for Emily at those moments. Which were more and more frequent these days. Always better to hide your dislike. Until you were pushed, that is.
But things had gone too far now. She had to stop things. She’d said things she regretted and now she wanted to take them back.
The door to Emily’s building opened, and Annabel shrank back behind the van as the red-headed police woman stepped out. She wasn’t in uniform, but Annabel could tell she was police. She had that aura about her: nosy. The policewoman seemed to look directly at her. Annabel didn’t take any chances and ducked into a doorway of a student house on the other side of the road. As she left, her fingers tapped again at the keys in a now familiar rhythm. Come on, please. Please pick up the phone.
Detective Chief Inspector Butterworth was already at the front of the Major Crime Unit incident room when Martin walked in. The room was packed with bodies, ostensibly lounging on chairs or looking at computers, but she could feel that crackle of energy, the buzz and urgency of the officers, the feeling you only got when there was potential homicide on the books. Butterworth stood with assurance in front of a whiteboard, in the centre of which was Emily’s photo, her face displaying the innocuous smile people give in passports or student cards. Martin stood quietly for a second, considering Emily’s face when it had been alive. Her features were even, her shoulder-length blonde hair curling slightly at the ends. Her brown eyes so different in expression from when Martin had last seen them, staring vacantly at her in the tent down at the weir. They were calm in the photo – wide-spaced, giving her an air of innocence, making her look younger than her years. She was pretty, Martin observed, not beautiful.
Butterworth coughed and gestured for Martin to come and stand next to him, to face the squad. She pulled her eyes from Emily’s photo and moved her way through the room. She was at once aware of the volume of people there, taking comfort for the moment in Butterworth’s support for her, his backing of her move to Durham. Sam Butterworth and she went further back than either of them sometimes cared to remember.
‘This is Operation Limestone.’ Butterworth looked around the room. ‘As you know, DI Martin joined us a couple of weeks ago from Newcastle CID. She’ll be Senior Investigating Officer on this and will be running the show here.’
Martin looked at her team as of now, her heart thumping as the room settled. She knew some of their faces, but most were strangers. She noticed how some of their eyes flicked to her legs. Wondered again how far her looks would take her before they realized she would rather break their balls than use what she looked like to get decent work out them. She took a breath and a step forwards, an inch past Butterworth.
‘Simon Rush gave an oral statement this morning, which we’ve now got in writing, where he has confessed to the murder of Emily Brabents.’ She wouldn’t do the niceties. They’d seen her around the last couple of weeks. She could play nice in the pub. ‘The medical examiner has seen him and said he’s good t
o go. He’s now in custody and under arrest. However,’ she paused with a mild expression of frustration. ‘Rush’s dad is some hotshot criminal silk. He’s on his way up here from London to represent his son, so Rush stays where he is until we can interview him with his dad. Given his odd behaviour in the college, it’s probably worthwhile anyway.
‘We should get the post-mortem results later today, but until then I’m treating this as a homicide. And even though we’ve got a confession; that might not be all there is to this sorry tale.’
Martin watched herself from above as she doled out tasks to the team, interviews to be conducted, statements to be taken, the riverbank to be scoured. She needed the SOCO analysis of the crime scene, particularly the ripped-off note on the door; Emily’s MacBook would be sent off to forensics. Her social media needed analysing: who was she friends with? What was her relationship with Rush? And all the time Martin spoke and instructed and ordered, a whisper drummed in her head. Who killed Emily? Who killed Emily Brabents? She pointed at people, allocated tasks to these people for whom she was an outsider, who didn’t know her, didn’t trust her.
‘Forensics need to look at Rush’s computer, and I’ll come with the search team to Rush’s room. I want to see it before I interview him,’ she said, aware of Butterworth smiling behind her like the politician she knew he had to be.
‘What about the victim’s family, boss? Should we focus on them?’ Jones asked.
‘It’s a possibility. We certainly need to know where they were at the time of the murder. They don’t live far: they’ve got a place in a village about an hour’s drive away.’ Martin looked down at her notes. ‘So a quick trip up here last night isn’t out of the question, and they need to be checked out. Then there’s the boy in the photos in Emily’s room.’ She pointed at the whiteboard, where pictures of the unknown boy were tacked next to one of Simon Rush. ‘Any news on that?’
‘Yes. Student Admin has a photo of him on their system. Nick Oliver,’ Jones answered. ‘Second-year law student. Lives in a house down by the Viaduct.’
Martin knew where that was at least. An enclave of miner’s cottages now inhabited by students who moved out of the college environs in their second and third years, paying cheap rent for walls tacky with Sellotape and no central heating. ‘Good. So let’s get busy. The more evidence we have about Emily and her mates, the more we’ve got to establish whether what Rush says is true.’ Martin exhaled loudly. ‘A young girl is dead. We need a good and clean result. The city won’t like this, the university even less so.’
‘And I think it goes without saying,’ Butterworth interjected, ‘that we all need to work fully as a team with DI Martin and help her settle in to how we do things in Durham.’
You’re right, Martin thought, it did go without saying. But now that you’ve made a big deal of the fact I’m new and know nothing about how things are done here, let’s get on with it. She flashed a quick smile at her superior and at her team before walking briskly out of the room.
7
I became acquainted with Annabel soon after I met Emily. She reminded me of a bun. All curves and chest, wrapped in cashmere, soft and inviting but with a creamy ooziness about her that I found slightly offputting. She had met Emily at the hockey club, where they had both qualified for Durham’s third team. Emily was bedazzled by this. ‘The thirds!’ she had exclaimed to me. ‘And I’m only a Fresher!’ Annabel was also a Fresher, at Keats. I had seen the two of them walking arm in arm around the hockey field like excitable rabbits, practically bouncing on their heels with joy at being allowed into this exclusive club.
Annabel lived in a house with another girl called Cat and two mysterious boys who I never saw in person but who were represented throughout the house by the largest shoes I had ever seen outside of a circus. Annabel was delighted to have been placed in one of the houses Keats owned in the city of Durham itself, as opposed to rooms in the college building. ‘You can get more in with the living-out set,’ she had confusingly relayed when the three of us had gone for a drink at the pub at the bottom of her road. ‘You know, the second and third years,’ she had explained in response to my perplexed expression as to what this ‘living-out set’ consisted of.
The pub was tiny, not much more than a single room with a burning log fire and a world-weary landlord who tolerated the money of the students but would never warm to them. I sat with my back to the fire. It was a Sunday night, always quiet in Durham, the clubs shut, the pubs closing early, everyone steeling themselves for the week ahead of more drinking and revelry. I had an essay due the following morning on The Wings of a Dove. I had laboured over it for the whole of the previous week and was now even more fed up to the back teeth of James. I had called Emily on the off chance she felt like a drink and she had invited me along to meet up with Annabel. I suspected this friendship was as much based on Emily’s good looks – and how Annabel could use those to her advantage in meeting the right type of people – as it was based on their love of hockey. Both girls drank vodka and soda – the most slimming drink, according to Emily. I had my usual Guinness. They were in raptures this evening about the possibility of a hockey social later on in the month.
‘It’ll probably be at The Sun,’ Annabel said knowingly.
The Sun was a large pub in the middle of the city which had a boutique hotel attached to it. This was the favoured choice of residence for parents coming to stay in Durham in order to celebrate graduation, and the venue had a sort of panache for that reason.
‘The last social was held there, Shorty told me. It was wild,’ Annabel laughed.
Emily sipped her drink. ‘Do we take dates?’ she asked. ‘Or is it just each man for himself? So to speak …’
‘The latter, I think,’ replied Annabel. ‘We can go together, no?’
Emily nodded eagerly. ‘Of course.’ Then she looked at me, slightly uncomfortable. ‘Um, I hope …’
‘Oh, don’t mind me,’ I came to her rescue. ‘Couldn’t imagine anything worse than standing round all evening getting drunk with a bunch of hockey players.’
This may have come out harsher than I intended, as both girls looked slightly uncertain as to whether my judgement painted them in a negative light.
‘What I mean is,’ I said somewhat more pleasantly, ‘I’m not offended in the slightest that you don’t want me as your date to this auspicious occasion. I will just wish you a great evening and look forward to the gossip.’ I appeared to be turning into some sort of camp agony aunt. I swallowed my pint loudly in an attempt to appear more manly. ‘Who wants another? My round.’
They acquiesced, and the evening wore on. The landlord eventually rang the bell for time, and we three stood, hefting our thick coats on over our shoulders. As we walked out of the door, the wind bit into our faces, and the girls involuntarily turned towards me, to shelter. This was more like it, I thought, floating my hand behind their backs, guiding them down the street. We walked Annabel to her door, and then Emily and I began the longer walk over Prebends Bridge and down the Bailey to Joyce. Emily seemed lost in thought to begin with and would occasionally let out little sighs, puffs of icy cloud which dispersed before her face in the dark of the night as we walked.
‘Are you okay?’ I asked after a while.
Emily turned to me and shrugged. ‘Yes, I’m fine, thanks.’
I nodded. The more time I spent with Emily, the more I liked her. Yes, I thought she was pretty, that went without saying. But it was more than that. Something in her made me feel like I was all right, after all. I hated to admit it to myself, but being with her, talking to her and listening through her to what went on in everyone else’s lives made me somehow feel as though I belonged. It wasn’t just that I found her attractive, although of course I did, it was more that. With her, I was stronger, I was endorsed.
‘Everything all right at Joyce? Any romance to report?’ I laughed softly.
She was silent.
‘There is something?’ I questioned. ‘But we’ve
only been here a couple of weeks.’ I gave another weak laugh, trying to disguise my disappointment.
She dug her hands further into her pockets. ‘It’s nothing. No romance.’ She turned to look at me. ‘Honestly. It’s just, there’s …’ She stopped.
‘Someone you’re keen on?’
‘Well, yes. Sort of. Not that he’d notice me. He’s a second year. Plays hockey, sometimes subs on the cricket team.’
‘Hmmm,’ I pondered, knowing exactly what sort of idiot this would be.
‘He just seems nice, you know?’
I didn’t, no.
‘Oh, anyway, it’s not worth bothering about. He’s probably got a million girlfriends.’
Indeed.
‘Do you think?’ She looked so sweet as she turned her face to me then. She so wanted to be reassured. I couldn’t not do as she asked even though I hated the words as I said them, wanting in all honesty to crush any hope she might have. I took a breath.
‘Of course he won’t have. Won’t have time, with all that sport he’s playing. Just – just take it easy, I guess, Emily. We’ve only just started. You should take your time. Don’t get hooked into anything you may want to get out of in the future.’
She sighed again. ‘I know. I’m being lame.’
I chuckled sadly. ‘No, you’re not. It’s perfectly normal. Here we are anyway.’ I looked up at the shadowed outline of the pale buildings of Joyce. We stood before the metal railings which lined the street. Emily unexpectedly gave me a hug.
‘What was that for?’
‘Oh, you know. Just for being there for me.’ She darted into the building, waving goodnight. I turned to walk back the way I’d come, up the hill to Nightingale. I beamed the whole way there.
8
Monday 22 May, 10.48 a.m.
Simon Rush’s room was dark and musty, filled with the ubiquitous adolescent smell of hormones and body odour. Martin strode across it and abruptly pulled open the curtains, letting light stream into the large oval-shaped space. Officers from the MCU began to fan out around the room, removing books from shelves, dusting for fingerprints.
Bitter Fruits: DI Erica Martin Book 1 (Erica Martin Thriller) Page 4
