‘So I’m a token gesture to keep her happy?’ I interrupted.
‘Not entirely. We also need you to immerse yourself in student life and report back on anything out of the ordinary. You’ll pay particular attention to the online websites and chat rooms that fly around the Fenland ether. You’ll be our eyes on the inside.’
I was silent for a second or two.
‘We need you to be the sort of student who might be thinking about suicide,’ Joesbury went on. ‘Needy, a bit vulnerable, prone to depression. We also want you to get yourself noticed, so you need to step it up a bit with the appearance. Good-looking fruitcake. That’s what we want.’
‘So, absolutely nothing suspicious came up at Bryony’s post-mortem?’ I asked, more because I was playing for time than because I needed to know right there and then.
‘There hasn’t been one.’
I waited while Joesbury flicked through the stack of photographs, pulled one out and turned it to face me. It showed a figure lying on a hospital bed, beneath a transparent tent, grotesquely swollen and so completely enveloped in dressings it resembled an Egyptian mummy. Both arms were stretched out from her body at right angles. A spaghetti-like mass of wires and tubes seemed to be growing out of her.
‘She’s still alive?’ I said, without the faintest idea why that should be so much worse, only knowing that it was.
‘This was taken twenty-four hours after she was admitted,’ said Joesbury. ‘Nobody really expected her to survive. Three weeks on, she’s managed to fight off infection, avoid going into shock and hasn’t suffered respiratory collapse. She may even recover. How much she’ll be able to tell us though is a moot point. Her tongue was burned away.’
Not a lot you can say to that. ‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Read the file,’ he replied. ‘Think about it. Dana wants you to call her. She’ll be trying to talk you out of it.’
I looked up. ‘Will you be going?’ I asked. ‘To Cambridge, I mean.’
Turquoise eyes narrowed. ‘Not necessary at this stage,’ he said. ‘I’ll be popping in and out to keep an eye on you, but 90 per cent of the fieldwork will be down to you.’
It was how SO10 worked. Junior officers were sent into situations first, often for a year or more, to gather intelligence and report back. As a clearer picture emerged, the heavier guns got deployed.
‘Can you see me as an eccentric don?’ Joesbury was saying. ‘Bow tie and tweeds? Long flowing gown? Untidy wig?’
With his muscular frame and scarred face, Joesbury always reminded me of a half-tamed thug. He was smiling at me again. It was always the smile that was hardest to deal with. Better by far just not to look at it. Better to leave now. Business was done. On the table, the file had been closed, its contents hidden from view. The orange wig was a few inches away from me.
‘It’s very soft,’ said Joesbury. ‘Want to stroke it?’
I raised my eyes. ‘What are we talking about exactly?’
His grin got even wider. ‘God, I’ve missed you,’ he said.
Silence. Still staring at each other across the table. I really had to go.
‘Want to get some dinner?’ he asked me.
So now it could be a date.
‘Actually, I have plans.’ I looked at my watch. ‘I should get going.’
Joesbury leaned back on his chair, his grin gone. His right hand reached up and he began to rub the scar at his temple. ‘Would the plans include a trip across town to Camden, by any chance?’
When I’d first met Joesbury, Camden had been where I’d gone most Friday evenings. To meet men. I hadn’t been near the place since a certain night last October. And my plans for the evening were a Chinese takeaway and an early night with a Lee Child paperback.
‘Something like that.’ I got to my feet. ‘I’ll get back to you over the weekend.’
He watched me pick up my bag and slip the file into it. I let my eyes fall to the right side of his chest, to the exact spot that, last time I’d seen him, had been soaked in blood.
‘I’m glad you’re OK,’ I said. And left.
HALF AN HOUR later I was home, eating Singapore noodles from the takeaway carton and opening the Bryony Carter case file. The photographs I pushed firmly to one side, except the only one taken of Bryony before the fire. It showed an exceptionally pretty girl with strawberry blonde hair, pale skin and bright blue eyes.
First I read the CID report. It was dated three days after the incident and seemed thorough enough. At 9.45 p.m., just as coffee was being served in the great hall of St John’s College, a figure covered in flames had staggered in. A quick-thinking man called Scott Thornton, whom the report described as a senior member of the college, had grabbed the closest fire extinguisher. When it was empty, and Bryony was lying on the floor, he’d ordered the other guests to bring water. From jugs, bottles, ice buckets, even glasses, he’d encouraged everyone in the room to tip water over poor, prostrate Bryony while he summoned an ambulance on his mobile. Scott Thornton had almost certainly saved Bryony’s life. Whether she’d thank him for it was another matter.
After the seriously injured girl had been taken away, uniformed police had conducted a thorough search of the college and its grounds. A petrol can had been found in a shadowed area of a space called Second Court and the ground around it was soaked in petrol. Bryony’s fingerprints, and hers alone, were on the can.
Her room a few hundred yards away was neat and orderly. She’d done her laundry that day and returned several books to the library. A typewritten note to her mother was on her bedside table. The receipt for the petrol can was found amongst various other receipts in the pencil tray of her desk drawer. On her bedroom floor were the pipe, mesh screen and funnel bowl she’d used to inhale the fumes of a powerful hallucinogenic drug.
Her room-mate, a girl called Talaith Robinson, had said in interview that Bryony had been unhappy and unsettled for a while, but that she really hadn’t anticipated her taking such a drastic step. The report had been prepared by a detective sergeant and signed off by his senior officer, a DI John Castell.
It’s become customary, I learned as I read, to conduct an in-depth investigation into the state of mind of suicide victims. As Bryony’s recovery was still very much in doubt, CID had requested a psychological report be prepared in her case too. Dr Oliver, as the psychiatrist with overall responsibility for Bryony’s mental health, had produced it.
Dr Oliver’s summary note at the front told me that Bryony Carter was a young woman who felt a strong need to be loved and taken care of, who wanted to surrender responsibility for her own life to another, kinder and stronger partner – a soulmate who would take care of her. The report talked about a strained relationship with both parents. The father, who had a time-consuming job, was rarely around and the mother never seemed particularly interested in Bryony, the youngest of her four children. Bryony had grown up believing herself to be the family nuisance.
The insecure, unhappy child had grown into a passive woman, aching for love and attention. Although bright and pretty, Bryony was clingy and vulnerable in relationships, even friendships. At Cambridge, she suffered from insomnia and bad dreams. Towards the end of term, she’d been missing most of her classes. She’d been prescribed the antidepressant citalopram by her GP, a Dr Bell.
The summary was followed by several pages of notes made during individual counselling sessions. I got up, took the empty carton to the sink and poured myself another glass of wine.
I skimmed through the medical report on Bryony’s condition, mainly because most of the technical detail meant nothing to me. A brief reference to the drug that had been found in her system caught my eye. Dimethyltryptamine, or DMT. I’d never heard of it but a quick Google search told me it was just about the most powerful psychedelic drug known to mankind. A class-A drug in the UK, the substance is normally inhaled and produces short but very intense experiences in which perceptions of reality can significantly alter. Users reported
