Dead Scared (28 page)

We were out of the door, heading across the side courtyard.

‘Have you registered with a GP yet?’ he asked me, when we were ten yards from the car and I was sure I could see eyes gleaming at me from the back seat.

‘Why, are you touting for business?’ I asked, catching the flick of a white tail. Oh, I was so busted.

‘On the contrary, I was going to ask you not to register with us,’ he said.

‘Why?’ I said, which wasn’t too bright, I grant you, but there was a white paw on each of the front seats and a long white nose was pointing right at me. Any second now …

‘Because if you’re my patient, I can’t ask you to have din—What the bugger?’

Dog and man were eyeballing each other on either side of the passenger window. Given that one had tried to shoot the other minutes earlier, the other was looking remarkably pleased to see the one.

‘Please tell me this isn’t …’ He stopped and just looked at me. I had to admit, he was cute. Joesbury’s height, but not quite so bulky. Not that I’d ever really gone for the body-builder type.

‘Well, I’d like to,’ I began. ‘I’ve just never been a particularly good
liar.’
Which in itself, I suppose, was a lie. I’ve long been an excellent liar.

‘Do you know how many thousands of pounds of damage a dog can cause in a field of pregnant ewes?’ he asked me.

‘He didn’t though, did he?’ I said. ‘There wasn’t a speck of blood on him. That dog hasn’t killed anything.’

He opened his mouth, closed it, looked round, opened it again. I think he might have been the only man in the world to make such a gormless act look appealing.

‘Do you also know that I, and several other men in that house, are quite within our rights to shoot it right there in your car?’ he said.

‘You’ll have to get the keys off me first,’ I said. ‘And no, you’re not.’

He blinked and ran one hand through his hair, making it stand upright on his head. ‘Excuse me?’ he said.

‘If a dog is attacking livestock, and the only way to make it desist is to shoot it, you have a defence in law if the dog’s owner takes issue with you,’ I said. ‘You do not have any right to put down an animal without the owner’s permission. Only a judge has the authority to make that happen.’

‘What the hell are you, a lawyer?’

OK, I was on dangerous ground now. Not only was I being Lacey again, I was demonstrating knowledge that Lacey, not Laura, would have.

‘An animal lover,’ I said, which was another lie. There’s hardly been time for animals in my life. ‘Oh, look, I’m sure he didn’t kill any sheep.’

‘The entire bloody field could miscarry during the night.’

I looked down, then peered up at him again through my eyelashes. I think I even dropped my head to one side.

‘Well, aren’t you more likely to get compensation from the owner if the dog is delivered home safe and well?’ I said. ‘I’ll take it to the nearest dog shelter in the morning. I’ll also report it to the dog warden. Sorry, I’m just a bit soppy about dogs.’

‘And if it’s a stray?’

I shrugged. Pouted a bit. ‘It’ll be in the dog shelter,’ I said. ‘Can’t get up to much in there.’

He looked as though he were about to argue again and then shook his head. ‘I give up,’ he said, but he was close to smiling now. ‘If I agree to say no more about it, will you have dinner with me tomorrow night?’

Joesbury would kill me. Or might not give a toss. Either way. ‘Seems churlish to refuse,’ I said.

‘I’ll pick you up at eight,’ he said, properly smiling by this time. I waved cheerfully at Nick in the rear-view mirror as I drove away. Well, they do say to keep your enemies close.

ON THE QUEEN’S
Road Joesbury found an empty parking space and opened his laptop. He connected to Scotland Yard’s central computer system and typed in a six-digit code. A few seconds later he was looking at a map of Cambridge. A red dot travelling along the A1303 told him his quarry was getting close.

He pushed the seat further back and closed his eyes for a second. He should have left for London half an hour ago. People were expecting him and God knows he was tired. He’d go, just as soon as he’d seen her.

When he opened his eyes again the red dot was very close. He could see her headlights approaching from behind. He watched, half hoping she’d see the reflection of his eyes in the mirror and stop. She didn’t. She drove on before reversing into a space just five yards or so from his. He heard the engine die, saw the headlights disappear and felt a moment’s exasperation. What the hell was she thinking of, parking this far away from the buildings? Any old low-life could be hanging round.

Joesbury smiled to himself. Any old low-life was probably exactly how she’d describe him.

The driver’s door opened and she got out. She was wearing tight jeans tucked into flat-heeled boots and a bottle green military coat. He knew, because he’d seen the receipts she’d submitted, that the
coat
had cost twenty-five quid in one of the bigger supermarkets. Even in daylight it wouldn’t look cheap on her. Nothing ever did.

She’d opened the rear door and was leaning inside, as though talking to someone on the back seat, and if she’d brought some half-drunk kid home for a quick shag he might just blow his cover and land the git one.

She’d got a dog.

A dog, the size and shape of a greyhound, but with the white markings on its legs, face and tail that gave away its collie parentage, had jumped from the car and was wagging its tail as if it had been reunited with its owner after years of separation. She’d fastened something round its collar to act as a lead and was bending into the car again.

Joesbury rubbed his eyes. He’d been on some stakeouts in his time.

She was out of the car again and the dog was beside itself with excitement. Joesbury watched as Lacey bent down and pulled a small square Styrofoam box from a large paper bag. She opened it, picked something out with her finger and thumb and popped it into her mouth. The rest she put on the ground and let the dog help itself.

Three minutes later, when the dog was licking the grease off the empty box, Lacey reached into the car again and brought out a half litre of bottled water. She poured some into the carton and let the dog lap it up. When it had done, she walked it up and down the small patch of grass until nature took its course and the dog stopped and squatted.

OK, that was it. If she left it there he was arresting her for allowing her dog to foul a public space and to hell if it blew both their covers. She didn’t. She bent, scooped the shit up into the takeaway carton, and dumped it in the nearest bin before disappearing with the dog into the college buildings.

Perfect excuse to follow her, ask her what the hell she thought she was doing sneaking livestock into a Cambridge college. He’d invent some reason for still being in town. She’d offer coffee, try to talk him round. They’d be alone. Joesbury’s hand was on the door, the ignition key in his hand, when he came to his senses.

He replaced the key and started the engine.

SMUGGLING A LARGE
, over-excited dog into a college bedroom wasn’t the easiest challenge of my career but I managed it. I bumped into three boys at the foot of the stairs but none of them looked sober. ‘Mascot,’ I said to them, when they stared at the dog. None of them thought of an answer in the time it took us to run up the stairs and disappear along the top corridor.

Joesbury, it went without saying, would be livid if he knew what I’d done. He’d argue that drawing attention to myself without good reason was stupidly compromising my cover. I could always counter, of course, that students were known for doing daft things, and if anything it could even cement my cover. Whatever, I really didn’t care. I just didn’t want the dog to be shot. The following morning, I’d report it to the dog warden and drop it off at the local dog rescue centre.

Talaith wasn’t in our room, no surprise there, and the dog spent ten minutes exploring the various smells before turning on the spot three times and settling down on the rug in front of my desk. I made myself tea and spent an hour updating Joesbury on everything that had happened that evening and, in particular, my worries about Evi. Then, more because I wanted to show willing than because I believed I’d find anything, I started my daily trawl around the Cambridge websites. Someone called Jessica hadn’t been back to
her
room for the past two nights and her friends, Belinda and Sarah, were wondering if they should let her tutor know. Otherwise, nothing.

All the time I was working, the dog didn’t once take his soft brown eyes off me, as though he found every movement of my fingers on the keyboard completely fascinating. Oddly, it was comforting to have him there.

When I’d been on every website I knew of, I sat back to think some more about Danielle Brown. As soon as I’d prompted her to use the word scared, it seemed she couldn’t stop. Danielle had spent her last weeks at Cambridge afraid. Scared of failing, she’d told me, of letting down her parents who’d been so proud that she’d got into Cambridge. Scared of not keeping up with the others. Of being proved not good enough. Ironically, it seemed, the more scared she became, the more her work suffered and it all became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Not really thinking what I was doing, I typed
Danielle Brown
and
Cambridge
into Google and pressed Return just to see what would happen. Several references came up, some of which were from newspaper archives I’d seen before. One was about her being part of a winning sailing team in her first year. One reference was on YouTube. Not really expecting anything I clicked on it.

This footage has been removed as it breached YouTube’s publishing code
.

Mildly intrigued, I typed
Danielle Brown
and
YouTube
into Google and pressed Return again. I found one chat-room discussion, mainly about YouTube’s policy on removing offensive material, with a brief reference to the case of video footage, taken on someone’s mobile phone, of the attempted suicide of Cambridge student Danielle Brown.

Earlier, Joesbury had speculated that Danielle’s suicide might have been a practical joke that went too far. That the kids who’d cut her down and phoned for help might actually have helped string her up in the first place. So had they filmed her dangling before stepping in? I sent another quick email to Joesbury asking him if he was aware that Danielle’s attempted death had been filmed.

At half past midnight I brushed my teeth, took my make-up off
and
went to bed. Sniffy-Dog followed me into my room, gave everything a good checking out with his nostrils and then settled down on the rug next to the bed. Realizing I was actually quite glad of the company, I let him stay.

Shortly before I dropped off, someone screamed outside. It was followed by giggles, a yell and running footsteps. Youthful high spirits, nothing more, and certainly nothing like the scream I thought I’d heard earlier at Nick’s farm, but it meant that, as I fell asleep, the sound of a woman screaming for help was uppermost in my mind.

Just after one o’clock in the morning, Joesbury walked into his office in Scotland Yard. Not entirely to his surprise, the room wasn’t empty. Two of his colleagues, currently assigned to other cases, worked quietly at their desks, a third was on the phone. His boss, DCI Pete Phillips, whom everyone called PP, but only behind his back, was in his glass-walled room in the corner. He glanced up as Joesbury settled himself at his desk and held up one hand, fingers splayed. He was asking for five minutes. Joesbury opened his laptop.