insistence that she was being abused by mysterious night-time assailants. I was just a little less willing to write her off as delusional than everyone else seemed to be.
Around the room the four girls looked interested but puzzled.
‘Coming into her room?’ asked a dark-skinned girl called Jasmine.
I nodded. ‘To be honest, I wasn’t sure what to make of it,’ I said. ‘She seemed pretty worried about it, though.’
Still puzzled. Shrugs. Hair tossing.
‘She did have quite noisy bad dreams but she never mentioned that,’ said Flick.
‘Coming in and doing what?’ asked a thin, pale girl called Lynsey.
I squirmed a bit on my chair, tried to look as though what I was about to say was making me feel uncomfortable. ‘Well, touching her,’ I said. ‘While she was asleep. To be honest, she made it sound pretty creepy.’
Three of them were very interested now. A few bottles of wine and some spooky stories. Not a bad way to spend an evening. The fourth girl, Lynsey, looked worried. ‘She never said anything to me,’ she said. ‘But she got very odd towards the end.’ She looked at the others. ‘Do you remember?’
A couple of heads were nodding. ‘It started in October, didn’t it?’ said Flick. ‘When she disappeared.’
Someone was banging on her door. Evi still hadn’t got used to how loud the round brass doorknocker was. The disabled physics professor had probably been half deaf as well.
‘Hi,’ said the tall man on her doorstep. The last person she’d have guessed.
‘Nick?’
Nick Bell gave an apologetic smile. ‘Sorry to pounce on you like this, Evi. I can come back another time.’
‘It’s fine, really,’ said Evi, stepping back to release the chain and open the door. Nick stepped inside, bringing a scent of cold January air with him. He was in his usual jeans and oiled-wool blue sweater, the only clothes she’d ever seen him wear when he wasn’t at work. She was pretty certain she remembered the sweater from their student days. Men who looked like Nick didn’t need to make an effort and, as far as she could remember, he never had. ‘I won’t keep you,’ he said. ‘I just didn’t want to do this over the phone.’
‘Now I’m intrigued,’ said Evi. ‘Coffee? Glass of wine?’
‘Thank you.’
Evi made her way to the kitchen, hearing his footsteps following behind. He took the glass of red wine she held out and she leaned back against the counter, wondering if he was going to tell her off for drinking alcohol. It really wasn’t a good idea with the combination of painkillers she took.
‘I ran your request past the other partners,’ Nick said. ‘Megan was pretty relaxed but I didn’t get a particularly encouraging response from the others, I’m afraid.’
Evi shrugged. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t really expect you to.’
‘They want you to put it in writing, at the very least,’ Nick went on. ‘They also want to know if you have Ethics Board approval. If you get anything out of us, officially, it’ll be months down the line.’
Evi nodded. Exactly what she’d expected. ‘Thanks for trying,’ she said.
She waited. Nick hadn’t touched his wine yet. He looked as though he had more to tell her. ‘Let’s go and sit down,’ she said.
‘Beautiful house,’ Nick said, as he followed her into the room. ‘You were lucky to get it.’
‘I never thought of it that way,’ she said, crossing to the chair at her desk. ‘I assumed I got it because I’m disabled.’
Nick stopped in mid-stride. ‘Open mouth, insert foot,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘You should see my bedside manner.’
Evi couldn’t help a tiny smile. He saw it the same second he realized what he’d said. ‘You see, I just can’t help myself,’ he went on. ‘I knew I should have gone into research.’
Evi indicated an easy chair close by. He sat, cradling his wine glass in both hands.
‘You could have told me on the phone about the partners,’ she said.
He raised the glass to his lips then put it softly down on a side table. ‘True,’ he said. ‘But I was curious enough to have a look at the records myself. And something occurred to me.’
Evi pursed her lips and raised her eyebrows.
‘A patient of ours who self-harmed would invariably be recommended a period of counselling,’ Nick told her. ‘They don’t all take up the offer, of course, and there’s a pretty high drop-out rate, but it’s rare for them to refuse the initial referral.’
‘That makes sense,’ said Evi. ‘Self-harm is often a cry for attention. Counselling provides that.’
Nick nodded his head at her. ‘If a student patient of ours self-harmed, we’d invariably refer them to you and your team,’ he said. ‘I rang round a few other GPs in the area, just to find out what their policy is. It’s the same. So, I think it fairly safe to assume that a student in the city who attempted suicide would be referred to you.’
‘We’ll have them on record,’ said Evi. ‘We’ll have the information I was looking for ourselves. Why didn’t I think of that?’
‘If your database will allow you to search according to reasons for initial referral, you can probably find them very quickly.’
He was right. When she had time, she’d be bloody annoyed with herself for not thinking of it first.
‘Give me a sec,’ she said, turning to face her screen and typing in the login name and password that would access the Counselling Services database. A few more seconds and she’d typed
‘Here they are,’ she said, scanning through the entries. ‘Nine in the last five years. Seven of them women.’
From: DC Lacey Flint
Subject: Field Report 2
Date: Wednesday 16 January, 21.17 GMT
To: DI Mark Joesbury, Scotland Yard
Greetings from Starbucks, DI Joe. (Oops. Sorry, Sir, spent the last hour breathing in Prosecco bubbles and they’ve quite gone to my head.)
Anyway, here’s the big news. Nicole Holt disappeared late last October for four days. According to the girls on her corridor, she went off to lectures on Friday and didn’t come back all weekend. They’re pretty certain about the time because they remember she missed the Halloween party. Her friends weren’t too worried at first, they just assumed she’d gone to stay with her boyfriend in Peterhouse, but then on Sunday evening he turned up and he hadn’t seen her all weekend either.
You’re going to ask if they reported it, aren’t you? They didn’t. Bloody numpties! It was difficult, apparently. They didn’t want to make a big fuss and risk embarrassing her if she’d just gone off with someone. They phoned round a few of her friends but no one had heard anything. Then, at two o’clock in the morning, when they were starting to think that perhaps they should report it –
‘In the stairwell?’ says me, in astonishment.
‘Yes, indeed, the stairwell,’ they reply. ‘Obviously she couldn’t have been there all evening or someone would have seen her. She was half asleep. Really dopey.’ (Not the only one, I’d suggest!)
So, my new best mates, Winkin, Blinkin and Nod, found a drugged-up, semi-conscious girl on the stairwell, couldn’t get any sense out of her, and were just about to call an ambulance when she came round. She was still a bit woozy, apparently, but basically seemed OK.
So, where had our friend Nicole been, you’ll be asking. So was I. So were they, surprisingly enough. Trouble was, Nicole had no idea. She didn’t know what day it was. Couldn’t tell them where she’d been, what she’d been
