As silence fell inside the chapel, Joesbury caught the look on my face and stepped closer. ‘I’m sorry about this morning,’ he said.
‘I stand corrected,’ I snapped, glaring at him.
A tiny twitch at the corner of his mouth. ‘Setting aside for a moment the fact that you’re a completely loose cannon who wouldn’t know the rule book if it jumped up and bit you on the arse, you’ve actually done quite well,’ he said.
There was a sudden need, on my part, to sit down.
‘The stuff you’ve been emailing me about Nicole and the other girls has been pretty helpful,’ he went on. ‘The only reason you’ve been kept in the dark and why we’ve been telling you repeatedly not to get involved is for your own safety.’
In the chapel a beautiful, soothing voice was reading prayers. I looked up into turquoise eyes that I knew I’d never tire of. ‘There’s more,’ I said.
Another twitch. Any second now he was going to smile at me. ‘Go on,’ he said.
He listened while I told him the theory that Evi and I had come up with. Sometimes almost shouting in his ear, to compete with the choir and congregation, sometimes dropping my voice when silence fell, I told him about the bogus questionnaire. That, armed with immensely private information on girls’ innermost secrets, someone was devising a targeted campaign of bullying and intimidation, feeding on their worst fears. That, when the girls were close to being nervous wrecks, the abuse became physical, aided by a powerful and highly dangerous cocktail of hallucinogenic and sedative drugs.
I went on to say that I was especially worried about Evi herself, that it looked as though she too had become part of the campaign of intimidation, not because she matched the vulnerable-young-woman profile, but because she’d been poking her nose in where someone didn’t want it.
As music that seemed too good for this earth rang around the court, I told Joesbury I suspected the girls were being abducted, for a purpose I couldn’t begin to imagine but didn’t have any good feelings about, and that, shortly after being released, they were pushed, probably again with the assistance of drugs, into taking their own lives. I told him that Bryony hadn’t bought the petrol that nearly killed her.
‘You’re sure about that?’ he interrupted me.
‘Absolutely. And does it bear repeating that Nicole’s wasn’t the only car on the road the night she died?’
‘No, I got that loud and clear. Go on.’
Only yards away, people sang of God’s wonders and glory. In the real world, I told my senior officer that we were looking for a group of people with both medical and IT skills and that three such people in town had been at Cambridge fifteen years ago, the last time a spate of suicides had occurred. His face didn’t flicker when I named Nick Bell, Scott Thornton and Megan Prince as possible suspects. I told him about Iestyn Thomas.
‘Bell has always taken more of an interest in Bryony than medical protocol demands. And Megan Prince is a psychiatrist, one who knows Evi very well. Thomas sounds like a twisted individual who has, very conveniently, fallen off the grid. The only one we have anything tangible on though is Scott Thornton.’
He frowned at me. ‘What?’
I told him how and why I’d discovered Thornton’s identity, and about seeing him going into a unit on the nearby industrial estate. When I got to my stake-out of that afternoon, he raised one eyebrow and shook his head.
‘I’ll have them all watched,’ he said. ‘And get this Iestyn Thomas character traced. I’ll also have someone keep an eye on the industrial unit. That could be important.’
‘I could drive out there and …’
His eyebrows lifted. ‘Don’t go anywhere near it. I mean it, Flint. Now promise.’
I’d have promised him anything. ‘Is there any possibility of you telling me what’s going on here?’ I asked.
‘Yes.’ He broke eye contact to look at his watch. ‘But not now. I have to get your phone and laptop to the Yard.’
‘Because …?’
In the chapel, the organ sounded up again. It was taking on a personality of its own for me, that instrument, swanky and loud, like an annoying boy in the school playground. ‘Your cover’s almost certainly been compromised,’ Joesbury said. ‘From what you’ve just told me about that questionnaire, it’s probably been done electronically. Someone could have hacked into your files, maybe read the emails you’ve sent to me. They could know exactly who we are and what we know.’
‘Christ, I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be. If you’d been properly briefed, you’d have been on the lookout for that sort of thing. Lacey, don’t worry about it. These people are bloody clever and I may be wrong. Either way, we’ll know tonight.’
‘And if we are blown?’
‘It won’t be the end of the world. We have other people here. And, partly thanks to you, we’re a lot closer than we were.’
‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Stay in college for a few more hours and act normal. Well, as normal as possible for you,’ he said. ‘An added complication is that we think the police are involved in what’s going on here. We don’t know yet whether it’s a couple of bent local coppers or whether it even reaches the Met but you are not to trust anyone but me. Is that understood?’
I nodded. People were leaving the chapel now, the organist playing them on their way.
‘There are roadworks on the M11 so I’ll have to take the long way round, but I’ll be back before midnight all being well and I’ll call you. Do you know a hotel called the Varsity?’
Another nod. ‘I think so. Just round the corner, small, concrete place. Looks very trendy.’
‘That’s where I’m staying,’ he said. ‘I’ll text you with a room number when I’m back.’
One of the porters left the lodge and crossed the court towards us, nodding to a few members of the departing congregation as he did so. As I watched him approach, the choir left the chapel. They were mostly boys, some of them barely in their teens, with black robes and bright-red collars. Red and black tassels on their funny, flat little hats.
‘You on your way out, sir?’ the porter asked Joesbury. It was George.
‘Yes thanks,’ Joesbury replied, before turning back to me and lowering his voice. ‘One more thing,’ he said. ‘About Bell.’
I’d been so caught up in the sheer joy of being on good terms with Joesbury again that for a second I thought he was talking about a large bronze thing that went ding-dong. ‘If he’s in the clear when this is all over, I’m fine with it,’ he said. ‘He seems like a nice bloke. Just stay away from him and keep your eye on the case for a bit longer, OK?’
Suddenly there was a large and heavy lump where my tongue used to be.
‘I’m looking forward to finding out exactly what this case is,’ I said, because I had to say something and what sprang to mind didn’t seem appropriate somehow.
Joesbury put a hand behind my head in a brotherly gesture that made me want to hit him. Or weep. ‘Sweetheart,’ he said. ‘When you do, you’ll wish you hadn’t.’
He got into his car, George opened the gates and he drove away.
Cambridge, five year earlier
‘
