said ‘honestly’ twice, which she knew he regarded as a sure indicator that someone was lying through their teeth. And his response sounded heavy and sad, as if he was very disappointed, and of course the whole thing had been clumsy and stupid.
‘Suzanne, this is an ongoing murder investigation. Like it or not, you are associated with me. You can’t just go calling on witnesses at a time like this.’
He sounded exasperated, as if he’d never imagined he’d have to explain such a thing to her. Which of course he didn’t, except that she had a life too, and she hadn’t exactly engineered this. She wanted to promise to have nothing more to do with the Warrenders, but she couldn’t quite do that. When she’d got home last night she’d looked up her old friend Angela Crick on friendsreunited. co. uk, and found her details listed with other old pupils of St Mary’s Grammar School for Girls. And that morning, during a lull at the shop, she’d emailed her and they’d arranged to meet. They could hardly do that without talking about Dougie Warrender.
•
Kathy, too, was reluctant to let this go. She felt annoyed. Brock wasn’t usually like this, checking her every move. And she wondered why Sophie Warrender had been so defensive. It was all very well Brock telling her to get on with something else, but her mind had ideas of its own. She turned over the note about the American university and was checking the international code when Brock rang her again.
‘Tina Flowers,’ he said. ‘That’s Marion’s friend, yes?’
‘Yes.’
‘Forget what I said. Drop what you’re doing. There’s a car outside for us.’ twenty
L ily Cribb was a mature-aged Open University student, and was feeling quite numb. Perhaps you should expect this sort of thing to happen when you come up to town, she’d told herself, but still, she hadn’t felt as shaken since her dad had dropped dead outside the pub.
She had been sitting at one of the desks in the Humanities Reading Room. The desk was rather splendid, made of oak with an inlaid green leather top and lit by a specially designed reading lamp, and it was still hardly marked by use. Despite its craftsmanship, Lily hadn’t quite come to terms with the newness of the building and its fittings; she harboured a secret prejudice that really great libraries like this should be old and venerable, like the circular domed reading room of the old British Museum library which this building had replaced. She would admit, though, that the new structure was quite magnificent. She thought the main entrance hall with its wave-like ceiling very grand, rising up to the glass cube in which the King’s Library was housed, and she did admire the care that had been taken over every detail, like the little light on the built-in console in front of her, which had begun flashing to tell her that the book she had requested was now available at the desk. She remembered the thrill of anticipation that flashing light provoked; the book was a memoir of life in East Anglia in the closing years of the nineteenth century, which she had managed to track down with some difficulty, and which she hoped would give her some crucial insights into the social impacts of the Great Eastern Railway, which was the subject of her thesis. The thought of what she might discover was so exciting, in fact, that she’d thought she’d better visit the loo first.
There she encountered more thoughtful design, with a nice balance of functionality and restrained elegance which she noted approvingly. Her eye travelled around the room, checking the basins and taps, the lighting, the tiles, wondering if she could learn something for her own bathroom makeover, which was germinating in her imagination. Her eye stopped at the door of one of the toilet cubicles, beneath which a shoeless woman’s foot was jammed.
A heart attack? A drug addict, even here? She tapped on the door. ‘Hello? Are you all right?’ Silly question. She thought she heard a faint moan, but the door was locked, so she hurried out to get help.
‘After that it all happened so fast,’ she told Brock, who was sitting opposite her, listening patiently. She felt he was a sympathetic interrogator, a still centre in the middle of the panic her discovery had provoked. ‘As soon as they opened the door I realised who it was.’
‘You knew her?’
‘Tina? Oh yes, I’ve met her here before. The first time she was lost-it was her first visit and she didn’t know her way around. She looked so young and bewildered I felt sorry for her. She was looking for the India Office Records, I remember, and though I hadn’t the faintest idea where they were, I did know how to set about finding them. After that we bumped into each other a few times. She was doing a research project for her university course-cultural studies, whatever that means.’
‘Did you ever see her talking to anyone else?’
‘Let me think… Yes, I did see her one day in the cafe in the forecourt-what they call the “piazza”-at the front of the library. She was with several other people. I took them to be university students too, but I’m afraid I can’t remember anything about them.’
‘You’ve been very helpful, Mrs Cribb. I’ll give you my card in case you think of anything else, no matter how trivial.’
His benign smile was like a blessing, she felt, but his eyes were very sharp.
•
Kathy was outside the main entrance of the library, in the forecourt Lily Cribb had described, by the cafe ominously called The Last Word. ‘One of the waitresses remembers Tina being here about an hour ago, at that table over there, and thinks she saw someone standing talking to her. A man, she thinks, but she’s not sure. No one else seems to remember anything, and there are no cameras covering the area where she was sitting.’
Brock looked around. The day was overcast, a sharp, cold wind whipping the people hurrying across the piazza. They were wearing scarves and hats, collars turned up against the chill. If Tina was poisoned here her attacker would have been captured on a camera somewhere nearby, but it might be impossible to get an image of their face. ‘Where have they taken Tina?’
‘UCH,’ Kathy said, remembering that it was the same hospital they’d taken Nigel Ogilvie to. ‘At least we were able to tell them to look for arsenic poisoning.’
Behind them uniformed officers were trying to take statements and answer questions as people milled around in confusion, their routines disturbed by the dramatic arrival of ambulance and police cars. Brock drew Kathy aside.
‘Look, this changes things, Kathy. We now have a pattern-two women students in the same university department, until recently living in the same building. Maybe we’ve been sidetracked by the mysteries of Marion’s life. Maybe it’s more straightforward-another student, perhaps? Or someone who works at the student flats?’
Kathy thought about Andy Blake, the science student who had known them both. Had she accepted his story too readily? Or the disapproving Jummai? She said, ‘I had my money on their tutor, Dr da Silva.’
‘Hm. I think this is beginning to look like what Sundeep first feared, a serial psychopath who likes watching women die painful deaths in public view. Surely da Silva wouldn’t be so stupid as to pick his own students. Do we have his picture?’
‘I can get one sent over. So, I’m back on the case?’ Kathy said.
‘I don’t think you were ever off it,’ he replied dryly.
•
As Kathy moved away she saw Donald Fotheringham waving to her from a knot of people standing with the uniformed police. She went over.
‘Donald. You’re here too? Were you with Tina?’
‘Aye.’ He was pale, quivering with agitation. ‘Emily and I were with her over there, having lunch with her at the cafe. We left her on her own. I walked up the road to Euston station to find out about getting a train back to Glasgow. As I was coming back I saw the ambulance leaving the library. I never imagined it might be for her. What happened for pity’s sake? Nobody seems to be able to tell me.’
‘She collapsed, Donald. It looks very much like what happened to Marion.’
‘Oh, dear Lord.’
‘Show me where you were sitting.’
They went over to the cafe, surrounded now by police tape. A scene-of-crime team was unpacking their gear, a detective talking to a couple of waitresses.
Donald pointed out the place where they’d sat, the same table the waitress had said, and tried to recall the people at nearby tables without much success.
‘I’ll show you some pictures later, Donald. Can you tell me what Tina had to eat and drink?’
‘Well, the sandwich I bought her-turkey breast salad, it was. And a black coffee. She already had a bottle of
