anyway.
‘Who told you about the… appointment?’
‘Mr Calder… Joe, the head of form. He was coordinating my campaign with… Ben.’ She gave in to emotion; her chin sunk onto her chest and she returned to the couch, head in hands. The blonde put a hand on her leg. She had very big hands; I figured she was the one playing the quasi-male role in this relationship. I almost sniggered at my lack of political correctness. Knew Hod was storing up a power of strap-on jokes to come.
‘Ben was working on your campaign?’
‘Yes… why?’
‘No reason. Just trying to form a picture.’
‘Surely the two incidents aren’t related.’
I coughed on the back of my hand. ‘Probably not.’
‘Then why ask?’
I felt my lungs call for nicotine; my stomach was calling for something else. ‘Gillian, if I’m to get to the bottom of this case, there will be a lot more questions… some of them pretty uncomfortable.’
The blonde patted her back, clasped her hand tightly. As she leaned in closer I saw her belly button was pierced with a silver bow.
‘I understand, I understand,’ Gillian nodded.
‘To that list… can you add all the campaign contacts, university staff especially.’
She nodded again.
‘Of course. I’ll let you have all those details, Mr Dury.’
Hod rose at my side; we’d covered all the ground we could, for now.
On the way to the door I had a Columbo moment: ‘Oh, one more thing…’
‘Yes?’
‘How much clout at the university does this post of yours carry?’
‘I’m sorry… what do you mean?’
‘I mean, is it honorary, or can you throw some weight about?’
She flustered, ‘Erm, I have some core responsibilities… It’s mainly for profile, but I do get to sit on a few committees.’
I buttoned up my tweed, said, ‘That might be very useful to me.’
Chapter 6
I TOOK MYSELF OFF FOR a tab whilst Hod presented the paperwork to Madam; had a feeling this wasn’t going to be one of his better working relationships. Something about being lorded over by a snooty-nosed actress that got his goat. Call him picky.
The tweed was uncomfortable, had me shuffling shoulders to try and make the bastard wearable. I imagined a cloth-capped trail of my ancestors queuing up to chuck in the road. Christ Almighty, I’d be in brogues next, or worse, imperial collars and a dickie bow. What was I doing mixing it with posh twats? How little a fuck did I give for the loss of one more chinless rugger bugger with a trust fund and a silver spoon up his arse?
Thought: Not the attitude, Gus. I’d seen the look of hurt, real grief, on Gillian’s face and it touched me. The woman deserved justice – however much she had in the bank. Blood was blood, and the loss of it wounds us all.
Hod was hurting too. This was a payday for the man who had saved my arse more than once. I needed to screw the nut, put aside all my class prejudices and go to work. One thing was for sure: something wasn’t right here. And that did have my attention. Call me creeped out by the whole lesbo affair thing, but that dirty blonde in there was hiding something. Pound to a pail of shite she’d sussed I was on to her as well.
Hod appeared. ‘Right, let’s mush.’ He looked none too charmed. Pissed, even.
‘Who stole yer toffee?’ I said.
He marched off down the road, headed for the bus stop. There was no sign of the contract.
‘Well, are we in business or not?’
‘Y’wha’?’
I put a hand out, stopping him in his tracks. ‘Are we on Her Ladyship’s books?’
Hod knocked my arm away, slumped off again. ‘Like fuck.’
‘Eh? She didn’t sign the contract, then?’
A grunt, bit of a tut. ‘What do you think?’
‘I’ll take that as a no.’
Hod spun, fronted me, ‘She’s running the contract past her lawyer.’
‘Well, what did you expect?’
‘A bit more professionalism.’
‘Sounds fair enough to me… Think because you get a few cards printed up yer Duncan fucking Bannatyne? Grow sense, man.’
Hod took off again. ‘Yeah, well… that’s the good news.’
Didn’t like the sound of that. Had been put to me as a done deal, easy money. Suddenly that image collapsed like a house of cards.
‘Good news? What’s the bad?’
‘She didn’t go for the expenses either… and our retainer’s only two hundred a day.’
‘Fuck.’
‘Exactly.’ Hod took out his phone, pressed it to his ear. ‘I did push for a bumped-up bonus, though. Might be an idea to flush out a speedy result, Gus.’
Speedy result. This was a suspicious death we were talking about, not some fucking shunt and punt for Tam’s Hot Car Lot. There was no quiet road to the truth, I knew that from bitter experience. This was added pressure I could do without.
‘Yo, Mac,’ Hod barked into the phone, ‘get yer skanky arse down here and give us a lift, eh.’ He gave out the location, hung up. ‘He’s on his way.’
Didn’t fancy bussing it again, felt relieved. Sparked up a Lambert and Butler and watched swirls of smoke make for the sky. The sun peeked out through the clouds, put a few rays about. Felt unnatural. But the city always did at Festival time. Could almost feel the crusty carnival spreading down from the Mile; the rattle of piercings and Home Counties accents a heady mix.
Hod calmed, seemed deep in thought. He didn’t look as if he was thinking about the case. It was a
Chugged on the tab, said, ‘What about that performance in there, then?’
Hod scratched his chin. Held schtum.
I went on, ‘Yon Tina’s playing her cards close to her chest.’
He laughed, ‘Like she’s a choice… her arms are only three feet long!’
I welcomed the return of humour. ‘You get the impression she’s…’
‘Got something to hide?’
‘Yeah. Or maybe, I dunno, is pulling on an altogether different set of levers to Gillian.’
Hod put his back against the wall, sighed. ‘So, what you thinking?’
I was thinking we didn’t have much to go on, that I didn’t know where to start. ‘The university’s gonna be pleased to see us.’
‘They won’t welcome any digging around, that’s for sure. Stuffy old place like that, they’ll not be putting out the red carpet.’
‘Far fucking from it.’
Hod turned. ‘You think they’ll be awkward?’
I knew for sure they’d be that; what I didn’t know was how I was going to get around it. All my previous encounters with academia had ended in abject failure; I’d have to work smarter – the nick of me, harder sure as hell wasn’t an option.
