‘We don’t want to put you to any trouble,’ Winsome said. ‘Professor Stoller at the college said you were Adrienne’s best friend, that we should talk to you.’
Neela nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry I was so rude over the intercom, but I just didn’t feel like talking to anyone.’
‘We’ll be as quick and painless as we can,’ said Banks.
‘It’s all right. I’d like to help if I can. I just can’t understand any of this, what happened to her. It doesn’t make sense. The papers mentioned she was in a car or something, had an overdose of drugs. That wasn’t like Adrienne. She didn’t take drugs.’
Banks and Winsome exchanged a glance. Again, the incompetence of the local paper was warping people’s perceptions of what had happened. Banks thought he might have to have a sharp word with Adrian Moss. Not that Moss wrote the rubbish, himself, but he was supposed to be their media liaison officer.
‘It wasn’t what you’d call a drug overdose,’ Winsome explained. ‘I mean, nobody’s saying she was a regular drug user. The doctors think she died of an overdose of sleeping pills.’
Neela’s eyes opened wide. ‘Sleeping pills? Adrienne? You mean, like, accidentally?’
‘We don’t know for certain,’ said Winsome, glancing at Banks. ‘But at the moment, we don’t think it could have been an accident.’
‘You mean she... she took them herself? On purpose?’
Winsome nodded. ‘That’s the thinking. I’m sorry.’
Neela shook her head violently. ‘No way. I don’t believe it.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because she wasn’t the kind of person who’d do something like that. Kill herself. Not Adrienne. She loved life. She was saving up to go on safari in Africa after her finals the year after next. She wanted to go to a game park, climb Mount Kilimanjaro, see the big five and all the rest and then get a job with VSO. She would never kill herself before doing that. It was her dream.’
‘People can change, you know, Neela,’ Banks said.
Neela shook her head vigorously. ‘No. Not Adrienne. Not without my knowing.’
‘Do you know if Adrienne had any problems lately, anything weighing heavily on her mind?’
‘No. Not as far as I could tell. Nothing that serious. Oh, sometimes she’d been feeling a bit down lately, you know, but that happens to all of us. She had her moods. And she could get sulky.’
‘Did you ask her what was wrong, why she felt down?’
‘I might say, “What’s wrong?” or something like that, you know, but she’d just shrug and say, “Oh, nothing” and flash that little smile of hers. I don’t know what it is you want me to say, but there was really nothing odd or unusual about Adrienne lately. Or different. Maybe her moods were a bit more frequent or lasted longer sometimes, and she was more subdued than last year, but basically she was still Adrienne. She hadn’t undergone a personality change or anything.’
‘Was she seeing anyone, a counsellor, therapist or psychiatrist? Someone like that?’
‘No. Why would she?’
‘If she was troubled by something, depressed or anxious.’
‘But she wasn’t. Like I said, she got a bit blue sometimes, like the rest of us. And maybe she’d been a bit distracted recently, off in her own world, but I didn’t realise it was a such bad place that she was in.’
‘Distracted by what?’ Banks asked.
Neela looked at him as if assessing whether to answer or not. ‘I don’t know if there was anything in particular,’ she said. ‘Certainly there was nothing she told me about. All I mean is that I hadn’t seen as much of her as I used to. She’d been stopping in more on her own, said she had to work. She became a bit sort of withdrawn, maybe less enthusiastic about going out and having fun and doing stuff. She seemed a bit anxious, nervous, you know. I suppose distracted isn’t quite the right word. But not depressed or suicidal. Once or twice she seemed sort of frightened. No, that’s not really right. More apprehensive.’
‘About what?’
‘I don’t know. Nothing in particular.’
‘Perhaps she really did have to work?’
Neela nodded. ‘We both did. It’s a hard year academically and exams are notoriously tough. You worry about things like that. It’s a big cause of stress. But they’re a long way off. Like I said, it was nothing, really. She had her moods. We all do.’ Neela sniffed again and blew her nose.
‘Do you know if she was taking any prescription medications?’
‘Not that she ever told me about. I mean, it’s something that might have come up, you know, if she had been. We talked about all kinds of stuff. Or we used to. But she didn’t have any problems with her health. She went to the gym twice a week and worked out. She went swimming most mornings. We both did.’
‘When did you see her last?’
‘Just before last weekend. Friday morning. We went swimming.’
‘And after that?’
‘No.’
‘Is that unusual?’
‘A bit, I suppose. But it was only the day before yesterday I heard... you know... about what happened. That was only Wednesday. She hadn’t turned up for our tutorial with Professor Stoller.’
‘Weren’t you worried?’
‘No. We didn’t live in each other’s pockets. Not seeing her from Friday to Wednesday wasn’t a big deal.’
‘What about weekends?’
‘I never saw her much then, anyway. She worked at that animal shelter and usually stopped over with friends in Darlington.’
‘Do you know their names?’
‘No. They weren’t uni people. Just people she knew from the shelter, like.’
‘Did you talk on the phone often?’ Banks asked.
‘We mostly texted. But not so much lately. She seemed to have lost interest.’
‘Was Adrienne very attached to her mobile?’
‘Well, she used to use it a lot. I mean, we all do. Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and Spotify, or whatever classical streaming service she used, but she wasn’t a slave to it. Me, neither. We used Snapchat and WhatsApp mostly to keep in touch, send selfies and stuff, but again, not so much this term.’
‘Would she go out without it?’
‘Not usually, no.’
‘Was she forgetful? Might she leave it behind in her flat when she went out somewhere?’
‘Are you saying that she didn’t have her mobile with her when you found her?’
‘It was in her bedsit.’
Neela shook her head. ‘That’s odd. Even though she seemed a bit off it lately, I don’t think she would normally leave home without it. I mean, would you?’
‘Do you know if she ever used Internet dating? Tinder, that sort of thing?’
‘Not as far as I know, she didn’t.’
‘You said earlier that Adrienne didn’t take drugs. Are you sure about that?’
Neela looked down at her hands clasped in her lap.
‘Neela, it would be best if you told us everything,’ Banks said.
‘All right. She took E now and then. We all did. OK?’
‘All?’
Neela nodded. ‘But only now and then. Nothing bad ever happened. It’s not like she was addicted or it was dangerous or anything. Besides, you said she died of an overdose of sleeping pills. E isn’t a sleeping pill. Adrienne said it took her out of herself a bit, made it a bit easier for her to socialise.’
‘When did you get this E? Where?’
Neela paused before answering, ‘At The Cellar Club.’
‘Who from?’
‘Just someone who hung out there. Not a student.’
‘I saw The Cellar Club mentioned on a poster on my way to see Professor Stoller,’ said Winsome.
A few nightclubs had sprung up around the college campus since the expansion, most of them simply back rooms of pubs fitted with a loud sound system and a few flashing coloured lights. But The Cellar Club was far more sophisticated. It consisted of a large cellar that used to belong to an old carpet sales centre and warehouse, now an arcade of student boutiques and used bookshops. Like the famous Cavern of old, it was dark and dank, with arches and walls of stone and brickwork plastered with concert posters. Though Banks had never been there on a busy warm night, he imagined sweat dripping down the walls as the strobe lights flashed and the beat pounded away mercilessly. But he had been there. They advertised raves. Not the old-style raves or the more recent illegal parties, where hundreds of people, alerted by phone or social media at the last minute, congregated and orgied all night in abandoned warehouses, but just dances that went on really late. The fire brigade had been out there once or twice on overcrowding issues. And The Cellar Club was a known magnet for drug dealers and users. Since its expansion, Eastvale College had become a target for dealers from Leeds and Manchester.