A Murderous Mind Read online

  ‘You could see someone enter the one to the building,’ Sam said. ‘If you stood and watched, you might be able to see that, but … the one on our floor?’

  Tess wondered how often the key codes were changed. The university building used identity cards to open doors to staff areas and post rooms but so far as she could ascertain, all the student residences relied on key pad entry and physical security guards who patrolled and in some cases actually had control posts within the larger blocks. Penfold House was relatively small and shared security with three others on the same street, but there was no one on duty at that time of the morning. By then overall control had passed to the campus security night shift and they were based a half mile away in one of the main buildings.

  ‘And this morning,’ Tess asked gently. ‘What happened this morning?’

  Ginny’s hands tightened around the mug she held. It was almost empty, but she clutched it like a lifeline and her hands still shook. ‘We’d got an eleven o’clock lecture. Leanne was always late getting up but this morning she was really late. I’d knocked twice and then when she didn’t answer me or anything when I knocked again, I thought I’d better go in and wake her up.’

  ‘Did you have to do that often?’

  Ginny nodded. ‘Sometimes, yeah. She wasn’t usually as late as this, though. I mean …’

  ‘So you knocked,’ Tess prompted.

  ‘And then I opened the door. She didn’t usually bother locking it. We none of us did unless, you know, we really didn’t want to be disturbed.’

  ‘And you went inside?’

  Ginny shook her head. ‘No, it was like … there was this awful smell. It hit me as soon as I’d opened the door and then I realized that I like, caught a whiff of it earlier, but it wasn’t strong enough that I’d taken much notice. But when I opened the door, it was … it was just horrible. Like a butcher’s shop, but worse. And I called out to her, but I didn’t go in and then Sam came into the kitchen and I told him, something was wrong.’

  ‘And then?’ Tess switched her attention to Sam.

  He shrugged. ‘I went over. The room was kind of dark, but not totally dark. We could see the bed and a heap of something on the bed. I thought it was her duvet.’ He swallowed nervously. ‘And then Ginny switched on the light and we could see her.’

  Two bright spots of colour burned on Ginny’s cheeks as she tried hard not to start crying again. By contrast, Sam was white, the blood drained so even his lips were faintly blue.

  ‘I was scared,’ he said. ‘I wanted to get out. We went on to the landing and I closed the door and called the police and Ginny ran downstairs to see if we could get some help. We didn’t want to be on our own.’

  ‘I tried the caretaker’s office,’ Ginny said, ‘but he wasn’t there and then I ran down the road towards where the security people have their office, and then I saw that police woman. The community … community—’

  ‘Support officer,’ Tess said.

  Ginny nodded. ‘We used to always say hi to her when we went to our eleven o’clock. She was usually about then, with the other one. Lizzy. She was on her own today though.’

  ‘And what did you tell her?’ Tess asked.

  Ginny looked away from her. ‘That Leanne was dead,’ she replied. ‘And that there was blood everywhere.’

  A few minutes later they were interrupted by a member of campus security. He had a young woman with him; Tina Sanders, the final housemate. Her boyfriend had texted her but not before she’d already returned home to find the police outside and a crowd gathered. Now she knew what had happened and was utterly distraught. A security officer had volunteered to escort her to her friends.

  Tess made a mental note to reprimand whoever was in charge of the crime scene. The girl should have been taken by a police officer not a civilian – however well meaning. Tina rushed to Ginny and the two girls hugged and wept, while Sam looked on and Tess could see that he’d have liked to have been included in the hugging and the weeping but didn’t quite know how to ask and then the door opened again, this time to admit a uniformed officer and two people that, when Sam scrambled across the room to get to them, Tess realized must be his mum and dad.

  She drew Vin aside. ‘I’m going to head back to the office,’ she said. ‘You finish up here, see if there’s anything else to be learnt and wait on the other parents.’

  Vin nodded. Sam’s parents had now drawn the two girls into their little circle and the hugs and comfort were being spread around. Tess spoke to the liaison officer and then slipped quietly away, leaving things in Vin’s capable hands.

  The lecturer took up her position behind the computer console and set down her notes. She waited until the tiers of students had quietened down and all eyes fixed on her.

  ‘You’ll have heard rumours,’ she said ‘and seen the police cars and I’m so sorry to tell you that the rumours are essentially true. A young woman, a student at this university was found dead by her housemates this morning.’

  A ripple of gasps and horrified whispers travelled across the room and she waited for stillness before she continued. ‘I can’t give you names. For one thing, I don’t have them and even if I did, the police would not want anything made public until the family has been informed. All I can tell you is that the police presence will continue on campus for the next few days, at least. That this is a serious, terrible incident and I’m sure all your sympathies go to the family and friends of the student involved.’

  ‘This was on Curzon Street. Penfold House?’ Someone urgently wanted confirmation. Patrick looked to see who it was but the speaker was a girl he only knew by sight and not from any of his seminar groups.

  ‘Curzon Street, yes. Hence the police cordon. One more thing I have been asked to tell you is that the police are looking for any witnesses who might have been in the area between midnight last night and six this morning. Anyone you might have noticed, anything unusual. They have also asked if any of you have noticed people hanging around the student accommodation on campus. People you’ve not recognized or who looked out of place …’

  Like a killer would make certain they looked out of place, Patrick thought. Murderers didn’t wear a badge. They didn’t stand out.

  ‘Anything unusual, however small or insignificant. I have a number you can call. Or if you feel awkward about speaking directly to the police, then go to your tutor or a member of staff you feel comfortable with. There will also be counsellors on hand for anyone that wants to talk. I know this is going to be a difficult time for everyone, but we are here for you. We will get through this. Together.’

  ‘Like fuck we will,’ someone muttered.

  Patrick looked down at his notebook. He could hear someone had started to cry. A soft, despairing sound and the uneasy murmur of voices from further down the row of seats. ‘I’m going home,’ someone whispered. ‘I don’t want to stay here.’

  Daniel nudged him and Patrick turned to look at his friend. Daniel just shook his head; now he had Patrick’s attention he couldn’t think what to say.

  The lecturer was trying to reclaim their attention, directing them towards the image now projected on the electronic whiteboard but Patrick doubted anyone would remember anything she said.

  They all struggled on for the next half hour, some actually taking notes, most staring at the screen or whispering to one another until even the lecturer gave up and dismissed the class with ten minutes of lecture time to go.

  Patrick shrugged into his coat and headed for the ground floor, the rear entrance closest to Curzon Street.

  ‘Are we going to look?’ Daniel asked. Patrick had barely registered that he had followed.

  ‘I just need …’ Patrick couldn’t quite explain. Daniel just nodded.

  They stood at the end of the road close to the cordon, gathered together with a little group of fellow students. The shocked, the concerned, the few detached enough to be just a little thrilled by it all – thrilled and more than slightly scared.

  Pa
trick watched the blue-clad CSI move from van to entrance and disappear inside again. There were two Scientific Support vans on site and a couple of police cars. Several officers at each cordon, others in the street. Patrick saw no one he recognized as friends or acquaintances of Naomi or Alec.

  ‘I think I might go home,’ Daniel said. ‘You bothering with the seminar?’

  ‘I think so,’ Patrick said. His father would still be out at work and Patrick didn’t fancy going back to an empty house.

  Daniel seemed to guess this. ‘You can come back to mine,’ he said.

  Patrick thought about it for a moment, then shook his head. ‘We’d best go to the seminar,’ he said. ‘We’re supposed to be seeing the rest of our group. I told Sam I’d give him those pictures of the bridge. Anyway, someone might know something.’

  Daniel shrugged. ‘OK,’ he said and the two of them made their way back to the applied arts building.

  A small group had already gathered before they got there and Patrick and Daniel settled at their usual table to wait for the rest of their study group to turn up. The tutor arrived, his face grave. Hank took his place at their table. But no Sam, no Leanne, no Ginny. Patrick realized that all three of them were watching the door, that the tutor, looking at his register, looked uneasy and concerned. It was Hank who voiced what they had all begun to think.

  ‘It’s one of them, isn’t it?’ Hank said. ‘They all live in the same block, on the same floor. They share the kitchen, they …’

  His face was pale and his eyes wide with shock and Patrick just knew that Hank was right. One of their friends from the study group was the victim. Sam or Leanne or Ginny was gone.

  Another member of staff, Paul Metcalf, who was Hank’s tutor, came in and spoke to the seminar leader and then came over to Patrick and his friends and gestured for them to follow.

  ‘Who is it?’ Patrick demanded. ‘Sam or Leanne or Ginny. They’re not here and they live …’

  ‘I’ve been asked to come and find you all,’ the tutor interrupted. ‘You need to have a quick word with one of the police officers, tell them when you last saw …’

  He broke off, gave up on the official and controlled display. Patrick could see that Paul was also close to tears. ‘It’s Leanne Bolter,’ he blurted the words out, ‘I’m so sorry. Ginny found her dead this morning.’

  EIGHT

  ‘Excuse me, Inspector, could I have a word?’

  Tess looked up from the computer and smiled at Sergeant Briggs. ‘Sit down. What can I do for you?’

  Alfie Briggs had been around for as long as Tess could remember. He’d joined up long before she had and, she recalled, was only about a year off retirement. Most of his career that had been spent in uniform with occasional spells on secondment to CID. A good deal of his working life had been spent as a community officer. He was good at it, calm, efficient and with a genuine interest in the people he served and an absolutely encyclopaedic knowledge of both the petty and the monumental when it came to misdemeanour.

  ‘You know I’ve been based at Conning Street this past year?’

  Tess nodded. Conning Street was on the university campus. The uni helped to fund the small office out of which Briggs and a couple of constables operated, sharing premises with the university security team. It was an arrangement which had grown out of a cost-cutting exercise, but one which seemed to have worked out surprisingly well.

  ‘When the girl was found this morning, I went to the flat, with two colleagues from campus security.’

  Tess grimaced. ‘I didn’t realize you were FOA,’ she said.

  ‘Well, strictly speaking I wasn’t the first officer in attendance. The girl who found Leanne Bolter, Ginny, she’d rushed out to try and get help while her friend called the police. She’d spotted one of our Community Support officers. I think she knew they patrolled that time of the morning because she’d have seen them on the way to lectures. Anyway, Linda, that’s the CSO, realized this was a bit above her pay grade and didn’t get any further than the kitchen, for which I think she’ll be eternally grateful.

  ‘Anyway, she got the two young people out of the way, took them downstairs to the caretaker’s office and she made sure the scene was secured. She’d got the keys off Ginny and locked the main flat door. We arrived a couple of minutes later and went inside.’ He paused. ‘I went ahead and when I saw what we were walking into I ordered the two campus security out.’

  ‘Good,’ Tess approved. The less people who had to live with what she had seen that morning the better.

  Briggs smiled. ‘They didn’t take much persuading,’ he told her. ‘Anyway …’

  ‘Go on.’

  Now that he’d reached the important point, he seemed very reluctant to go on.

  ‘Anyway,’ he repeated. ‘Inspector, the fact is I’m sure I’ve seen something like that before. Fact is I’m certain of it.’

  Tess felt her belly start to cramp. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked cautiously. ‘Briggs, I’ve heard of nothing like this. Certainly not around here.’

  He was shaking his head. ‘No, you wouldn’t have. You weren’t even out of school then. I’m talking, what fifteen, sixteen years ago, maybe a bit more than that. But you ask your friend Alec Friedman. He was either on his probationary year or just finished it. Either way, he was green and I suspect it gave him a few second thoughts about staying in the force. It was a murder that caused a stir at the time, but a lot of the details were kept out of the media. It was reported, publicly, as a stabbing and it’s still an open case, so far as I know.’

  ‘Still open?’ Tess frowned.

  He nodded. ‘Unsolved, just gone cold. But the thing was, it was part of a group of killings, all unresolved, all, they thought, down to the same man or possibly same group of men. There was trace evidence of two others at a couple of the scenes, I think, but I don’t know that any conclusion was reached as to whether these were accomplices or not, or if it was just trace carried by the killer.’

  Tess stared at him. Are you sure? She wanted to ask, but she only had to look at Brigg’s face to know the answer to that. You’re talking about a serial killer, she thought, but somehow saying the words out loud was beyond her.

  ‘Can you dig up the reports,’ she said, ‘and Alfie, who was the lead on that other murder?’

  He looked uncomfortable. ‘Well that’s the thing. It complicates matters even more I suppose. The lead was Inspector Joe Jackson and we all know what happened to him.’

  NINE

  Patrick and his friends were taken into one of the empty classrooms on the next floor up. A young woman in uniform smiled at them and invited them to sit. A second officer arrived a few moments later. Paul Metcalf stood close by. He looked awkward and out of place as though suddenly uncertain of his role or what he could do to help.

  ‘If you want someone here. Parent, your personal tutors … I can get them,’ he said.

  ‘This isn’t a formal interview of any kind,’ the female officer reminded him gently. ‘We’re just trying to talk to friends of the victim. It’s just routine.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ Patrick said, not sure if he was trying to reassure himself, his friends or the tutor. ‘We want to help. We’re OK.’

  ‘What happened,’ Daniel asked.

  ‘And you are?’

  ‘Daniel. Danny Goldman. This is Hank Miller and Patrick. Patrick Jones.’

  Their names, it seemed, were already on her list and she ticked them off. ‘This must be very hard for you all,’ she said gently. ‘We’ll be asking the same questions of all … all of you.’

  ‘You mean all friends of Leanne’s,’ Patrick said.

  Paul Metcalf looked embarrassed and the policewoman frowned at him. ‘Mr Metcalf—’

  ‘We’d guessed, sort of,’ Patrick said. ‘It wasn’t his fault. Ginny, Sam and Leanne are all in our seminar group. They all live in the same student flat. None of them turned up to class and none of them have been answering texts or calls. It had to be one
of them, didn’t it?’

  ‘I have to impress upon you—’

  ‘That we don’t say anything.’ Hank’s voice was flat. ‘We won’t, but we won’t be the only people to have worked it out, you know. Have her parents come up yet?’

  ‘I believe so. I understand they got here an hour ago.’

  ‘God,’ Daniel said. ‘They’ll be …’ He shook his head. He didn’t know how they’d be, Patrick thought. Patrick had some idea. He didn’t want to think about it.

  ‘So, what can we tell you?’ he asked. ‘Hank knows Sam quite well, but the rest of us, we just happen to be in the same group. We’re doing an assignment together, but—’

  ‘Has Leanne seemed her usual self in the past few days?’

  They looked at one another, not sure if they’d really know what Leanne’s usual self might be. ‘She seemed happy enough,’ Hank said at last. ‘We all met up in the café on Highcross. The Duck,’ he added. ‘It used to be a pub but it changed into’-

  ‘She was fine,’ Patrick interrupted. ‘She and Sam had already organized tasks and we pretty much agreed. She seemed really … involved with it all. I think she liked organizing things.’

  ‘Sam said she did,’ Hank agreed. ‘She was good at it, I guess.’

  ‘What was the assignment about?’ the second officer asked.

  Daniel and Hank looked at Patrick.

  ‘It’s about changes in architecture along a specific bit of road. What it tells us about changes in society and environment,’ Patrick managed. ‘Sort of contextualizing the buildings, I suppose.’

  ‘I see.’ The officer nodded and the policewoman cast him an impatient glance.

  ‘When was this, exactly?’

  They told her, guessing how long their meeting had lasted.

  ‘And was that the last time you saw her?’

  ‘No, she had a class with me, three o’clock yesterday. Sam and Ginny would have been there too,’ Hank said. ‘Then Sam and Ginny went out with a crowd of us last night. Leanne had an essay to finish so she stayed home. Ginny and Sam took pizza back with them. They got extra for her; Sam said she was bound to be up.’