There were plenty of students on the purpose-built campus at this time of day, which was a blessing. It was also a blessing that the university — unlike the older institutions in the country — existed largely in a single location, on the top of that hill outside of the city proper.
The two women continued to talk as they walked, heads bent together, sharing an umbrella. Alatea had her arm through the other woman’s. She slipped once, and her companion steadied her. They seemed to be friends.
They didn’t stop in their progress through the campus. They consulted no map. They didn’t ask directions. Deborah felt a flicker of excitement at this.
Her mobile rang. She said into it, hurriedly, “We’re on a central path, a sort of walkway. It goes straight across the campus.”
“Deb?”
Tommy’s voice. Deborah winced and called herself a fool for not having looked at the incoming caller’s identity. She said, “Oh. Tommy. I thought it was someone else.”
“Obviously. Where are you?”
“Why d’you want to know?”
“Because I know you. I saw that expression on your face in the car park yesterday, and I know exactly what it means. You’re doing something we’ve asked you not to do, I take it?”
“Simon’s
“He’s asked to meet for a coffee in Newby Bridge. Deb, what’re you doing? Where are you? Whose call are you waiting for?”
Deborah considered not only whether to lie to him but also whether she could carry off a lie. She sighed and said, “Lancaster University.”
“Lancaster University? What’s going on?”
“I’m following Alatea Fairclough. She’s come here in the company of a woman from a disabled soldiers’ home. I want to see where they’re going.” She didn’t give him time to consider what this might mean, instead continuing with, “This entire situation has got to do with Alatea Fairclough. Something’s not right, Tommy. I know you can sense it.”
“I’m not sure I sense anything other than the distinct possibility that you’re walking into trouble, Alatea Fairclough or not.”
“There can hardly be trouble in my following them. They don’t know I’m behind them. And even if they work that out…” She hesitated. To tell him more would risk his telling Simon.
He was shrewd as a fox. He said, “You didn’t answer my other question, Deb. Whose call are you waiting for?”
“The journalist.”
“That bloke from
“I see nothing worse happening than my photo appearing on the front page of
He was silent for a moment. Ahead, Deborah saw that the women had come to their destination, which was a modern upended box of a building constructed of brick and concrete in the unattractive fashion of the 1960s. Deborah gave them a minute to enter and to get themselves out of the lobby and into a lift. In the meantime, Tommy said, “Deb, have you any idea what it would do to Simon if something happened to you? Because believe me, I have.”
She paused at the building’s front door. She said gently, “Dearest Tommy.” He made no reply. She knew what the question had cost him. She said, “You’re not to worry. I’m quite safe.”
She heard him sigh. “Take care,” he said.
“Of course,” she replied. “And please. Not a word to Simon.”
“If he asks me — ”
“He won’t.” And she rang off.
Immediately her mobile chimed again. Zed Benjamin demanded, “Who the hell were you talking to? I was trying to ring you. Where the hell are you?”
Deborah told him the truth. She was talking to a DI from the Met. She was standing in front of… Well, the building was called George Childress Centre and she was about to go inside and see what was housed here. He could join her, but she wouldn’t recommend it since, as before, he was rather more difficult to camouflage than she was.
He seemed to see the sense in this. He said, “Ring me when you know anything, then. And this better not be a double cross of some kind or you’re in the paper tomorrow morning and the gaff is blown.”
“Absolutely understood.”
She flipped the phone closed and went inside the building. There were four lifts in the lobby as well as a security guard. She knew she couldn’t bluff her way past the guard for love or money, so she looked round and saw that to one side of the lobby and between two languishing bamboo plants, a glassed-in notice board was hung on the wall. She went to this and studied its information.
It identified offices, surgeries, and what appeared to be laboratories, and above all of these was something that made Deborah whisper, “Yes!” For the building itself fell under the aegis of the Faculty of Science and Technology. When she saw this, Deborah searched the list feverishly and found what she knew at heart would be there. One of the laboratories was dedicated to the study of reproductive science. Her intuition had been correct all along. She was on the right path. Simon had been wrong.
NEWBY BRIDGE
CUMBRIA
When Lynley rang off, he looked at his friend. St. James had watched him the entire time he’d been speaking to Deborah, and there were few people Lynley knew who were more adept at reading between the lines than St. James, although there actually wasn’t much reading between the lines that St. James would have had to do. Lynley had framed the conversation with Deborah in such a way that her husband would understand where she was and with whom without Lynley overtly betraying her.
St. James said, “She can be the most maddening woman.”
Lynley raised and lowered his fingers in a gesture that indicated his acceptance of this idea. “Isn’t that the nature of women in general?”
St. James sighed. “I should have put my foot down in some fashion.”
“Good Lord, Simon. She’s an adult. You can hardly drag her kicking and howling back to London.”
“Her point exactly.” St. James rubbed his forehead. He looked as if he hadn’t slept during the previous night. He continued. “It’s unfortunate we needed two hire cars. I’d have been able to give her a clear choice otherwise: Come with me to Manchester airport or find your own way home.”
“I doubt that would have gone down very well. And you know what her reply would have been.”
“Oh yes. That’s the hell of it. I do know my wife.”
“Thank you for coming up here, Simon, for lending a hand.”
“I would have liked to give you a more definitive answer. But it all stacks up the same way, no matter how I look at the facts: an unfortunate accident.”
“Despite the plethora of motives? Everyone seems to have one. Mignon, Freddie McGhie, Nick Fairclough, Kaveh Mehran. God knows who else.”
“Despite,” St. James said.
“And not the perfect crime?”
St. James glanced out of the window at a copper beech hedge aflame with autumn as he considered this. They had met in a rather crumbling Victorian hotel not far from Newby Bridge, where in its lounge they were able to order morning coffee. It was the sort of place about which Helen would have happily declared
