Bitter Fruits: DI Erica Martin Book 1 (Erica Martin Thriller)

by Clark-Platts, Alice

  ‘Shall we talk about that, Emily?’ she had asked, gesturing towards the scars.

  Tears had flooded from Emily’s eyes. ‘I can’t,’ she had sobbed. Stephanie had said nothing. Eventually the crying had ceased, and Emily had sniffed loudly, her tissue a sodden ball in her hand. She had taken a deep breath.

  ‘I do it because I deserve it,’ she had said.

  ‘Why do you deserve it?’

  A shudder had passed through Emily, and she struggled to keep control.

  ‘Because of what I’ve done. With the photos. Bringing all this disgust on myself.’

  Stephanie had remained silent.

  ‘I know, I know. I haven’t really brought this on myself.’ She had scoffed. ‘Whatever. I have, though, because I did it. I’m the one who’s responsible.’

  ‘And Nick?’ Stephanie had asked quietly, after a pause.

  Emily had shifted in her seat, pulled her sleeves down further.

  ‘Yeah, yeah. I know he’s responsible too, But they don’t care about him. It’s all right for boys. If I had just kept control, I wouldn’t be in this mess. I wish I was just normal. A normal girl who’d never slept with anyone.’

  ‘Is that what normal girls do? Not sleep with people?’

  ‘It’s not just that, though, is it?’ Emily had said. ‘It’s like, it’s not enough, you know? To have them talk to me. To know they like me, or they fancy me or whatever …’

  Stephanie had spun her pen slowly between her fingers, waiting for more, as Emily’s brown eyes had flittered from the counsellor to the window, trying to pin down the meaning of it all. Then Emily had looked closely at her hands, at her nails. She had spoken in a near whisper.

  ‘If they don’t like me, then I’m nothing. If I can’t get them to want me. And …’ Her eyes lurched violently to Stephanie’s, seeking a lifebelt which the counsellor refused to toss. At bay, Emily had continued, forcing the words out. ‘And that’s why I cut.’ She had swallowed. ‘Because I’m so disgusted at my neediness.’ Swallowed again. ‘You know Annabel, right?’

  Stephanie had inclined her head. Annabel Smith was also a student she saw regularly. A prim girl with a closed mouth which she prised open once every two weeks to spit angry words inside this office because she couldn’t bring herself to direct them to the people she claimed to hate. Stephanie had said nothing of this to Emily; knowing that one of the targets of Annabel’s vitriol was Emily herself.

  ‘She’s supposed to be my best friend, right? But I know she’s slagging me off behind my back. They all do. On Twitter or Facebook or whatever. They hide behind the screen like it’s a fucking … a … a … ?’

  ‘Shield?’

  ‘Yeah, right, a shield. ’Cause they know they won’t get caught. Annabel pretends to be on my side and be my friend, but if Nick clicked his fingers, she’d be getting off with him before you could blink twice.’

  ‘And how does that make you feel?’

  ‘How do you think it makes me feel?’ Emily had sobbed. ‘It makes me feel like shit. Like I can’t trust anyone, can’t rely on anyone apart from myself. Nick says he likes me, or whatever, and then he sits around looking at porn on the net, laughing at women. It’s frigging disgusting.’

  The image of that had hung in the air, causing Stephanie to shudder a little. She had pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders.

  ‘But then … ?’

  Emily had looked at her. ‘Then why did I take the photos?’

  The counsellor had said nothing.

  ‘Because I knew it would get his attention.’ Emily had given a smile older than her years. ‘Because I’m a fucking idiot.’ At once, she had seemed to shake it off, had given a silly giggle as if she were speaking in front of her friends in the college bar – she’d been too serious and said too much. Emily had become mute and stared silently into space, through the window, where a vista of trees and spring-green leaves danced in the wind.

  Stephanie had seen the time and called it, and Emily had gone home for the holidays. When she’d returned, she’d seemed better, more sure of herself. And yet …

  Now Emily was dead. Stephanie shivered. A vague notion of guilt lay within her. Could she have done more? She glanced down at her mobile phone. She had had a missed call from Annabel that very morning, which she had yet to return. These students were spinning around her like a cloud of electrons encircling a nucleus. The police would want to talk to her. And she certainly didn’t want that to happen. What was she going to say? Yes, the poor child was being bullied. Yes, she cut her arms to ribbons as a plea for help. No, she didn’t know who had murdered her, but maybe it was one of the bastard phantoms who were telling her to kill herself on a daily basis online.

  No matter what anyone says, hurt comes with words; that was the truth. In a way, it didn’t matter who was saying it. Those words represented the world’s view of Emily Brabents. Which was that she was a slut.

  She rose to her feet and looked at the Picasso poster on her wall. Innocuous primary colours put in a space either to soothe or to lull into a state of distraction – better for winkling out of their shell their thoughts and their fears. The police were bound to look at her in judgement. She had let Emily down.

  Stephanie had come to Durham after a three-year spell in Hong Kong, where she had followed her husband and his fund managing, training as a counsellor to quell the need for – what? For something at least. Her husband’s company had relocated him to the north-east, and so she had applied for a job here. She had thought it cosy, undemanding; a place where she could stretch her wings and find out what the job meant. It had been nothing of the sort. Stephanie had been bombarded with cases from the moment she set foot over the threshold of the university eighteen months ago. She was based in the main administrative building down on New Elvet and would watch the students stream along the pavements day in, day out and wonder, in God’s name, when would it all end?

  She dealt with anorexia, bulimia, alcoholism, self-harming, drug addiction, failing in all subjects, criminal assault, theft – for pity’s sake, she had students who had stolen. Nothing was off limits. It was a cornucopia of debauchery, a Pompeii for our times. The problem was, she thought to herself as she sat at her desk, that nobody was relishing their freedom. They were, in fact, abhorring it. They turned in on themselves to destroy it, destroy themselves. Sometimes Stephanie thought that segregation was better. Let’s be truthful and let the elite have their time. Let the men rule the roost. Bring women – girls – into the mix and there’s a confusion. You’ll have sex and messy sex at that. And the girls will think they have a right to something, which of course they’ll learn in the real world means nothing, and the boys will resent them for strutting around, tossing their hair like ponies, spouting nonsense about their so-called rights. It was no good, thought Stephanie. No good at all.

  Ah, it was the end of a long day. She switched off her computer and picked up her bag. A late burst of spring sunshine burned valiantly at the window, as if putting her into a spotlight. She would go home and forget about this for now. She would try to put all of these nightmares outside of her mind.

  THE DURHAM CHRONICLE NEWS WEBSITE ‘PURPLE PROSE’: THE SOCIAL COMMENT COLUMN BY SEAN EGAN MONDAY 22 MAY

  Pop band Bastille have it right in their song ‘Pompeii’: the walls have come tumbling down.

  There is a violent disease sweeping the student community. And it’s not something you get after a drunken liaison in the alleyway behind Sixes.

  The disease is fame, and the cure is the internet.

  Anyone can get it – it’s remarkably easy to catch. If you’re eighteen or nineteen, chances are, you already have. All you need to do is switch on a variety of ON buttons – on your TV, your computer or iPhone – and the disease could steal into your brain.

  Tragic victim Emily Brabents (18) had it. She had been parading herself online for months before her senseless death. She craved attention, was desperate to be popular. So she put photos online
of her in sexual poses I suspect her mother would have been ashamed to see. In doing so, she became the latest victim of a culture of abuse and trolling that our children are all too familiar with these days.

  The police are struggling to solve this dreadful crime which has terrified our community. It will prove a hard task – not just because they haven’t got a clue how it happened, but because of the sheer volume of online abuse Emily was suffering at the time of her death. In reality, if the cause of death is revealed to be murder, the perpetrator could have been any one of those trolls.

  A culture has been growing for too long, its mould seeps up the walls of the oldest, most respected colleges here in the university. It degrades, not only female students, but boys too. It involves nude pictures online; videos of sexual liaisons and, perhaps the worst aspect of all, an ethos of students anonymously abusing each other.

  A source who wishes to hide their identity told me, ‘It’s the law of the jungle. If you don’t join in, you’re seen as boring or weak. Basically, you might as well not exist.’

  I think back to my university days (yes, Ed, I did go!), where we drank coffee until 3 a.m., listening to jazz. It all seemed so simple then.

  ‘If you don’t troll, they’ll get in first,’ my source said. ‘I’ve got a stash of material on tons of people – I don’t want to say who – but it could blow the roof off the place.’

  These are interesting times, readers. Be aware of it. The world is different from the one my generation grew up in – it’s a battleground. And not just globally, but here, under our noses, under our skin. Clearly there will be more to come, more will be said. But in the meantime, the tragedy of Emily Brabents remains.

  Speaking of which, it will be interesting to see how the new detective inspector takes to the challenge of solving things for the community. Particularly, so I hear, when (Ssssh! Allegations only of course!) it seems an old romance may be lurking backstage …

  For details of the proposed memorial service for Emily, please see the website at www.durhamchronicle.co.uk.

  For any information regarding the above, tweet or email me at @seganjourno or segan@durhamchronicle.co.uk.

  15

  Monday 22 May, 5.15 p.m.

  Jones met Annabel Smith in the small, overheated room at Joyce College which the MCU had been given for the task of interviewing the students. Annabel was a rounded girl; demure, Jones thought. Bottle-green cords and a cream cashmere jumper, she had thick caramel-coloured hair pulled into a low ponytail, tiny pearls in her earlobes and brown heeled boots pushed as far back as she could manage against the base of the leather club chair on which she sat. She looked as if she were posing for a school photograph, albeit one where she had red-rimmed eyes and a constant sniffle. From outside, signs of continuing college life from the nearby refectory trickled into the room: the clank of plates being stacked; the smell of peppers frying; the low rumble of voices.

  ‘Annabel,’ Jones said gently, ‘I know this is hard for you, but we need to find out as much as we can about Emily’s life, who she was mates with, what she did. You were friends with her, right?’

  Annabel sniffed. ‘Well, I, um, I don’t know if you’d describe us as best friends. We were friends, yes. But I’ve got lots of those.’ She tossed her head imperceptibly. ‘Emily was one of them. We hang around in a group, you know?’

  Jones looked down at the notes she held in her lap. ‘I do. But it seems from what other people say, what we’ve seen online, that you and Emily spent a lot of time together.’

  Annabel brought her hand to her mouth and began chewing on a nail. A deep frown appeared between her eyes, and she pulled her knees closer to each other. There was something childish in the movement, Jones observed. ‘What do you mean, what you’ve seen online?’ Annabel asked.

  ‘What we’ve seen on Facebook, Twitter. All of it.’

  ‘So, you’ve seen … ?’

  ‘The photos? Yes we have.’ Jones leaned towards the girl. ‘Why don’t you tell me about that, Annabel?’

  Tears began to drop from Annabel’s eyes. She shook her head, squeezing them tight, clasping her hands on her lap. ‘Of course you would,’ she muttered. ‘Fuck …’

  ‘What’s upsetting you about that, Annabel? You didn’t have anything to do with the photos, did you?’

  ‘No!’ She opened her eyes at once before fixing her mouth into a flat line, a mulish stripe of obstinacy. Something in her had retreated behind high walls. Jones tried a different tack.

  ‘Okay, tell me about Joyce, then. What’s it like being here?’

  Annabel gave a miserable laugh. ‘It’s all right.’

  ‘Only all right?’

  Annabel moved her eyes away from Jones and fixed them on her lap, twisting a silver and turquoise ring on her middle finger. An internal debate flickered across her face.

  ‘What it is …’ she began.

  ‘Yes?’

  She lifted her chin. ‘You don’t know what it’s like. It’s hard, you know? Being a Fresher. Everyone expects so much of you. You need to fit it all in.’

  Jones made a sympathetic face: I get it, and the girl seemed to loosen up. She unclasped her hands and rolled her eyes. ‘I know – First World problems, right? But sometimes …’ her hands now fluttered in the air, searching for the words, ‘it’s hard to be yourself, you know?’

  Jones opened her mouth to speak, but Annabel was on a roll. ‘Like, online, right? I mean, like what you say on Twitter, for example, or what you might email someone, well, perhaps what I say isn’t necessarily what I mean. But people take it as gospel, you know? And then it gets churned out and said back to you as if you’re the only person who’s got a view. And then someone might think that those things were coming from you. When all along, you’re only saying what everyone else is … because, you know, it’s like, that’s what you do here.’

  Jones took a breath. They would need to check out Annabel’s online output. But she seemed to be implying something else. It hung in the room like a bat with open eyes but firmly closed wings. Jones thought fast.

  ‘So, right. Are you saying that you’ve said something online has been taken out of context?’

  ‘Well, not exactly. Nothing I can completely point to,’ Annabel said, dipping her eyes. ‘But, you know, there’s been some press. And I wouldn’t want you to think that I’d been talking to anyone. Certainly not in the press,’ she said quickly.

  Meaning, Jones thought, that she had indeed been talking to a journalist.

  ‘Okay, Annabel. Well, moving on. Just a few more questions. Did you see Emily down at the boathouse on Sunday? Were you with her?’

  ‘Yes. We were drinking Pimm’s on the grass for a few hours. Then Emily headed off after seven.’

  ‘Do you remember the exact time?’

  ‘Twenty past? Something like that?’

  ‘And did you see anyone go with her? Had she arranged to meet anyone on the way home?’

  Tears sprang again into Annabel’s eyes, and her face crumpled as she shook her head. ‘I tried to call her later, but she didn’t answer.’

  ‘So she definitely had her phone with her when she was at the boathouse?’ Jones asked, making a note.

  Annabel nodded miserably. ‘Yes. We were taking selfies with it. She emailed me some, and I posted them that night. I can’t bring myself to look at Facebook now, though.’

  ‘Was Emily dating Nick Oliver? What was going on there? Having seen the photos with him …’

  Annabel wiped her face. ‘He’s just a wanker. Emily … well, I don’t know what she was doing. But he took advantage of her. Oh, I don’t know.’ She looked exasperated. ‘It’s so confused. One minute I think it was him that was playing her and the next I think she was the one playing everyone.’ She began to cry openly. ‘I just can’t understand why she’s dead.’

  ‘I know. I’m really sorry, Annabel. Just one more thing, though, and then you can go.’

  Annabel was sniffing repeatedly, her face
brackish with tears.

  ‘Do you know Simon Rush, the college president? I know he’s a third year, but have you had many dealings with him?’

  Annabel chewed her lip and looked down at her lap. ‘No.’ She shrugged. ‘I mean, I know him by sight. Everyone does.’ She gave a self-conscious giggle. ‘He’s gorgeous, right? And everyone likes him. Emily was always flirting with him. We had a drink with him once, ages ago. But, no. I don’t know him as a friend.’ She glanced up at Jones. ‘Why do you ask?’

  Jones straightened in her chair and gave a brief smile. ‘Thank you, Annabel. That’s all. We’ll be in touch if we need anything else.’

  Martin looked at her wristwatch as she scrolled down Emily’s Facebook page again on her computer. She had got back to the station after giving a short, prepared statement to the press. No questions or information about the murder or Rush’s confession: just an appeal for witnesses.

  Jones had returned from interviewing Annabel and was tucked in, next door in the incident room, coordinating the cross-referencing task she was so keen on getting stuck into. Looking at the scope of the comments, it would be a hard task. And now Jones seemed to think that Annabel had been talking to the press about life at the university.

  Mervyn Rush, Simon’s father, had asked to see her before the interview took place. And after it, she would need to brief Butterworth. With every step of this investigation, she felt she was getting further and further away from Rush. It was as if she were in one of those dreams where you were running through treacle, obstacles popping up preventing you from getting to where you must go. She had to drown out everything else. Who was Rush? Had he been the one to murder Emily?