head.
'Nothing like that, I assure you,' he said. 'At least, not directly.'
'What's that mean, not directly?' said Flint warily. With Wilt, nothing was ever direct.
'Well, he was the first to be told that Miss Lynchknowle had taken an overdose but he went to the wrong loo.'
'Went to the wrong loo?' said Flint and bared his teeth in a mock smile. A second later the smile had gone. He'd smelt trouble. 'Miss who?'
'Lynchknowle. That's what I mean about...well, the need for discretion. I mean...'
'You don't have to tell me. I know, don't I just,' said Flint rather more coarsely than the Vice-Principal liked. 'The Lord Lieutenant's daughter gets knocked off here and you don't want him to...' He stopped and looked hard at the V-P. 'How come she was here in the first place? Don't tell me she was shacked up with one of your so-called students.'
'She was one of our students,' said the Vice-Principal, trying to maintain some dignity in the face of Flint's patent scepticism. 'She was Senior Secs Three and...'
'Senior Sex Three? What sort of course is that, for hell's sake? Meat One was sick enough considering they were a load of butcher's boys, but if you're telling me you've been running a class for prostitutes and one of them's Lord Lynchknowle's ruddy daughter...'
'Senior Secretaries,' spluttered the Vice-Principal, 'a very respectable course. We've always had excellent results.'
'Like deaths,' said Flint. All right, let's have a look at your latest victim.'
With the certainty now that he'd done the wrong thing in asking for Flint, the Vice-Principal led the way across the quad.
But the Inspector hadn't finished. 'I hear you've been putting it out as a self-administered OD. Right?'
'OD?'
'Overdose.'
'Of course. You're not seriously suggesting it could have been anything else?'
Inspector Flint fingered his moustache. 'I'm not in a position to suggest anything. Yet. I'm asking why you say she died of drugs.'
'Well, Mrs Bristol saw a girl injecting herself in the staff toilet and went to fetch Wilt...'
'Why Wilt of all people? Last person I'd fetch.'
'Mrs Bristol is Wilt's secretary,' said the V-P and went on to explain the confused course of events. Flint listened grimly. The only part he enjoyed was hearing how Wilt had been dealt with by Miss Hare. She sounded like a woman after his own heart. The rest fitted in with his preconceptions of the Tech.
'One thing's certain,' he said when the Vice-Principal had finished, 'I'm not drawing any conclusions until I've made a thorough examination. And I do mean thorough. The way you've told it doesn't make sense. One unidentified girl takes a fix in a toilet and the next thing you know Miss Lynchknowle is found dead in the boiler-room. How come you assume it's the same girl?'
The Vice-Principal said it just seemed logical.
'Not to me it doesn't,' said Flint. 'And what was she doing in the boiler-room?'
The Vice-Principal looked miserably down the steps at the door and resisted the temptation to say she'd been dying. That might work with the Principal but Inspector Flint's manner didn't suggest he'd respond kindly to statements of the obvious. 'I've no idea. Perhaps she just felt like going somewhere dark and warm.'
And perhaps she didn't,' said Flint. 'Anyway, I'll soon find out.'
'I just hope you will be discreet,' said the V-P, 'I mean it's a very sensitive...'
'Bugger discretion,' said Flint, 'all I'm interested in is the truth.'
Twenty minutes later, when the Principal arrived, it was all too obvious that the Inspector's
