“The other call, some bloke, he said for you to ring back. Soon as you could.”
“Great.”
“What?”
“Telling me when I got in.”
“Forgot.”
“Yes. Too engrossed in that appalling book.”
“No,” Silver said. “‘S’not that bad.”
“This bloke,” Resnick said, “any chance he left a name?”
“Skelton,” Silver said. “Wrote the number down somewhere. Lessee.” He fumbled through his pockets. “Know I got it here somewhere.”
But Resnick had already switched off the water and was stepping out of the shower, reaching for the towel; the number he knew by heart.
The hall of residence was built around a central courtyard, dark pointed brick and uniform windows, a path that wound down towards it through a meadow of grass from the university itself. Only the police vehicles parked off the inner ring road suggested anything less than ideal. Resnick nodded at one of the forensic officers who was leaving, followed the directions of the constable standing inside to keep any of the curious at bay.
“DI in shot,” grinned the scene-of-crime officer with the video camera. Resnick held his ground while the man zoomed in hard on the bed and then out. Stick a camcorder in their hands and suddenly they’re Alfred Hitchcock.
“Sorry, sir,” said Resnick. “Came as soon as I could.”
“Not to worry, Charlie.” Skelton dropped the pair of white cotton pants he was holding into a plastic envelope and left it to be labeled and sealed. “Just about through.”
The room looked as if it had been in the eye of a storm. Bookshelves had been torn from the walls, books strewn over the ground. Bedclothes were almost anywhere but on the bed. Shoes, a sports bag, articles of clothing; a tube of toothpaste caught inside a trainer. A4 file paper bearing orderly writing in purple or green ink, diagrams designed to give comparative readings in levels of employment, take-up of housing benefit.
“Lucky the girl found her when she did,” Skelton said, crossing towards him. “Even so, she lost one hell of a lot of blood.”
Resnick hadn’t needed telling, evidence of it enough on the striped duvet, sheets of paper, a pillow; a splash of it like paint someone had flicked against the porcelain of the sink.
“This done after or before?” Resnick asked, still surveying the mess.
“During. She put up quite a fight.”
“Is she going to be okay?”
Skelton shook his head. “Let’s go outside.”
They stood in the courtyard, two middle-aged men in raincoats, Skelton still wearing his gloves, heads together, talking. From different parts of the building, a handful of students stared down at them through glass. Not long from now, Skelton was thinking, my Kate could be one of these. He did not allow himself to think she could have been the one they were discussing.
“How long,” Resnick was asking, “between when it happened and she was found?”
“Not less than two hours, likely not more than three. She was due to play badminton, four o’clock. When she didn’t show, her friend came looking for her.” Skelton glanced at Resnick and then off towards the middle distance, trees glimpsed against the horizon, dark against darkening clouds. “She was found around half four. Last anyone had seen her before that, as far as we can tell, far as we’ve been able to check, about half twelve she walked up that path to the university.”
“No one saw her come back?”
“Apparently not.”
Resnick turned in the direction of the room. “No matter how quick that all happened, somebody must have heard.”
Skelton shook his head.
“There must be-what? — sixty students living here. More.”
“Most of them home for the weekend. Those that weren’t, out somewhere. Shopping in the city. Working in the library. Just out.”
“Any sign of the weapon?”
“Not so far.” Skelton stood looking out across the slope of meadow. “If it’s out there somewhere, we’ll find it but it’ll take time.”
“The wounds,” Resnick said, “were they …?”
“Not too similar to the hospital incidents, if that’s what you’re thinking. More random. Frenzied. Whatever she was cut with, my guess is that it was a heavier instrument altogether, a thicker blade.”
Or whoever attacked her was angrier, more frightened. Frenzied-the superintendent didn’t throw words like that around carelessly. Resnick looked directly at Skelton and Skelton read the question in his eyes.
“I don’t know, Charlie. From the visual evidence alone, it was impossible to tell. But only the upper half of her body was clothed.”
“She could have been dressing when whoever it was broke in.”
“Or while he was there.”
Both men knew the other alternative. Until she was well enough to give an account of what had happened, or there had been time to examine all the evidence more closely, reconstruct as best they could what had taken place, they would not know.
“God help me, Charlie,” Skelton said, “I know nothing good can hope to come of this, but something’s been nagging away at the back of my brain denying any connection with all that other business; this isn’t another Tim Fletcher, another Karl Dougherty. Poor woman, at least she was a student and not a nurse.”
“Was, sir?”
Skelton lowered his head. “Figure of speech, Charlie, slip of the tongue. Let’s pray it’s nothing more than that.”
Resnick nodded. Amen to that.
Patel was sitting in the common room opposite Cheryl Falmer, notebook on his lap. The curtains had been drawn part way across and no one had thought to switch on the lights. It had been made clear to her that she could make her statement later, when she was feeling stronger, after she had recovered from the shock. But if you waited for that, you might be waiting forever.
Patel had been patient, letting the words fall out in broken clusters, content to piece them into sentences, a picture, a sequence of events. First she had knocked on the door, knocked again and turned to go away, and for no reason she could think of now she had gone back and tried the handle. She did this and then she did that. Yes, Amanda had been inside.
“Would you like me to get someone to take you home?” Patel asked, when the story was finally told.
Cheryl shook her head. “I think I’d like to sit here for a little longer.”
“All right.” Patel nodded understanding and sat with her, waiting as the shadows claimed the room.
The faces had disappeared from the windows. Lights burned behind several, illuminating photographs of families and boyfriends, posters for Greenpeace. A few TV sets or radios had been switched on. Those students who were in residence either sat on their beds stunned or got ready to go out for the evening. Saturday night. The search for a weapon had been abandoned and would be resumed at first light. Resnick had no excuse for not returning to his car and as he did so he was intercepted by a constable who had just taken a message on his personal radio: Resnick knew from the officer’s expression that Amanda Hooson was dead.
Thirty
He wanted Ed Silver still to be there, reading his borrowed book with rapt attention and complaining about every paragraph, every other word. It was a night for company, conversation, a little controlled drinking: it was not an evening Resnick wished to spend alone. There were cups and glasses, unwashed, in the sink; upstairs Resnick’s wardrobe door stood open and he wondered which of his clothes would come home next morning stiff with puke and cold. He thought of all the people he might call on the off chance and the list did not amount to much. Graham Millington had said to him, a month or so back, you must come round again and have a meal, the wife was asking. But Millington was parked in some motorway service area, a lorry park off the Al, cold and getting colder, asking himself over and over if all he’d joined the Force for had been this.