‘Nick Bell,’ he told her. A second later, he glanced down. She was still holding his hand.
‘So do you want to reconsider?’ she asked him, looking from him to me and then down at herself. ‘Cos in the Cripps Building we like to offer a choice.’
‘Get out of here, you tart,’ I told her. ‘And let go of his hand. You’re scaring him.’
Tox stepped closer to Nick, still clinging on to him. ‘She called you a stinky old fellow,’ she said. ‘She’s not polite.’
‘You’re a scream,’ he said, his smile faltering just a fraction.
‘That would be blood-curdling,’ I said, glaring at her. ‘We should go. She’ll only get worse.’
I turned for my coat as Tox finally dropped Nick’s hand. ‘Earrings!’ she yelped.
She took them from me and, not without a few painful jabs, shoved them into my ears. Luckily, because she didn’t check, they have been pierced.
‘You can’t see them,’ she wailed and raced back into her room. I looked at Nick. He shrugged. Tox came back and started grabbing my hair by the handful. Five seconds later she pushed me in front of the mirror.
‘There,’ she said. ‘Rock chick meets postmistress meets …’
‘Deranged poultry keeper,’ I finished for her. Powder-blue feathers hung from my ears. Half my hair had been twisted up and secured in place by combs, all with more powder-blue feathers. ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘I owe you.’
Tox waved us off, trilling like a real mother sending her baby girl off on a first date, wishing us a lovely evening and insisting Nick didn’t keep me out too late.
‘I’ll take these out in a minute,’ I said, as we walked down the stairs. I was acutely conscious of pieces of dead bird sticking out of my head at all angles.
‘I kind of like them,’ he replied. ‘Makes you look less serious.’
*
‘Know this place?’ he asked me, as the waitress settled us down at a table on the mezzanine level, above the main room of a restaurant called the Galleria. We’d walked for ten minutes through the thickening snow to Bridge Street and to a brick building almost on the bridge itself. Outside the windows the river gleamed at us like oil against the snow-frosted banks.
I’d been in Cambridge less than a week. There had hardly been time for fine dining. I shook my head. ‘No, but it looks lovely,’ I said, thinking that was a suitably Laura thing to say.
The room was large and light, the table linen white, the cutlery and crystalware very simple. Diners who’d arrived in the last few minutes had left trails of melted snow across the wooden floors.
Nick put the wine list down. ‘So what happened to the dog?’ he asked me.
‘Staying with a friend until its owner can be traced,’ I said. ‘Which reminds me. I heard the weirdest noise last night at your place. Just before Sniffy showed up.’
‘What sort of noise?’ he said. ‘And Sniffy?’
‘It’s what she does,’ I said. ‘A very scary noise,’ I went on, remembering how freaked I’d been. ‘A bit like a scream and a bit like something being strangled. And a bit like a wild animal about to attack.’
Nick had been frowning. His face relaxed. ‘Muntjac,’ he said. ‘Almost certainly. Most people get alarmed the first time they hear one.’
‘And a muntjac is …’
‘Small, stocky deer,’ he said. ‘Generally considered a bit of a pest in these parts.’
‘Do you shoot them?’
‘If they don’t run too fast. What are you going to have?’
I picked up the menu. ‘Do they do muntjac?’ I asked.
‘You should come out with me,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow afternoon, just before the light starts to fade. The duck in Chinese spices is excellent, by the way.’
A second date in as many days? This guy worked fast. Or did he have other reasons for wanting to get to know me better?
‘Duck it is,’ I said, closing the menu. ‘And don’t you want to see how the evening goes first?’
‘Oh, I’m smitten already,’ he replied. ‘How do you get on with Evi?’
‘Very well,’ I said. ‘Old friend of yours?’
‘We studied medicine here together, although she was a couple of years behind me. I tipped her off when her current job came up.’
‘She’s worried about the number of student suicides the university has seen in the last couple of years,’ I said, deciding to risk taking the conversation up a level.
He was nodding at me. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘She’s had a bee in her bonnet about it for a while now.’
‘Do you think she’s worrying unnecessarily?’ If he tried to make light of Evi’s fears, it could suggest he didn’t want anyone else taking them seriously.
He shook his head. ‘Sadly, no,’ he said. ‘I think she’s probably right to be concerned. Which makes it only a matter of time before the national press gets wind of what’s going on and media attention will make it a dozen times worse.’
‘She thinks there’s an unduly influential subculture of glamorizing self-destructive behaviour,’ I said, slightly smug at how easily I’d embraced psychobabble.
Our starters arrived, giant prawns in citrus butter for Nick, tomato and basil salad for me. ‘And,’ I went on, ‘that someone could be feeding it.’
He looked puzzled, so I explained the websites I’d found where suicide wasn’t just glorified but positively encouraged. Where people in despair were taunted, coaxed and cajoled into acts of self-destruction. All the time I was talking I was watching his eyes, for just a flicker that might tell me he was more involved than he should be. Nothing. Either he was genuine, or a very cool customer. I could probably push him a bit more.
‘I’m supposed to know a thing or two about psychology,’ I said. ‘But the truth is, I don’t get it. I don’t get why people want to harm others that they don’t even know.’ I stopped and shrugged. There was a tiny patch of stubble on his right cheek where he hadn’t shaved too carefully. And he had just a smattering of grey hairs an inch or so above each temple, so few I could probably count them.
‘Well, there are any number of textbooks on the psychology of evil,’ he said. ‘But ultimately, I guess it all comes down to power. We do it because we can.’ He broke off to pick up his bread roll. ‘When I was studying here one of the other students told us a story about a kid whose father committed suicide when he was young. He shot himself in the head. The kid’s three-year-old sister found their father’s body. Traumatized both of them for years.’
‘Well, it would,’ I said, as the waitress took our starter plates away. ‘So what happened to him?’
‘Well, as I remember, at school he got in with a crowd of bullies. They plagued the life out of a classmate. One of the younger ones. Made his life an absolute misery until one day he hanged himself in his dorm with a ripped sheet.’
‘Nasty story,’ I said. ‘And was that the end of it?’
‘If only. The ringleader got a real buzz out of it, apparently. The feeling of power was like nothing he’d ever experienced. It made him want to do it again.’
A story of fifteen years ago, being told in quite some detail. I found myself wondering if Nick had a sister.
‘And this was somebody you were studying with? Someone who came here?’
He shook his head. ‘The guy I studied with told the story,’ he said. ‘Supposedly about someone he’d once known.’
‘Supposedly?’
Nick shrugged. ‘He was an odd chap, to be honest. Thin, a bit geeky. Dropped out at the end of his third year, I think.’
‘Remember his name?’
Nick sat back in his chair. ‘Why?’ he asked, and looked at me carefully through narrowed eyes.
Shit, I was close to blowing it. Why on earth would Laura want the name of a geeky Cambridge dropout who’d once told a good story about suicide?
‘Evi told me a similar story,’ I lied, making a mental note to tip her off the next day. ‘Only she seemed convinced the guy was talking about himself. She mentioned a Scottish name, McLean or McLinnie or something.’
