Dead Unlucky (12 page)

Emily Roberts was a cautious woman. When a man purporting to be a police officer named Hart had rung her a couple of days earlier, she took his number and promised to call back, but not before ascertaining that he really was phoning from a police station.

In addition to being naturally careful, the Dean of Admissions at St Matilda’s College, Cambridge was also objective and mentally strong. Emily was Miss Dreamwrecker, the person who told hundreds of young people each year that they wouldn’t be joining her university. For some of them, that was the only goal they had ever set themselves in their developing lives. The only goal that had been necessary because it was the only goal whose realization guaranteed success. Parents had spent hundreds of thousands of pounds buying their children an education that enabled them to trample on the backs of poorer teenagers so they could clamber up to take their rightful places among the nation’s elite. And some families
expected
their offspring to go to Cambridge, or at least to the Other Place. It wasn’t simply their destiny. It was their ancestral right. A right that was handed down through the generations. When some young people received the letter that denied them their birthright they suffered a trauma that lived with them for the rest of their days. Indeed, Emily knew better than most that there were families out there who, although it may be unspoken, now expected nothing more from their sons and daughters than that they would be second-class citizens leading second-class lives. Because of the unreasonable and unfulfilled expectations that had been dumped on their young shoulders they felt rejected, shamed, inadequate, embarrassed, stupid. Dreams permanently wrecked at eighteen.

Of course, not all families were so obsessive and, in Emily’s view, perverse. And on her desk sat the details of a young person who was clearly a model of rationality and reason. Emily hadn’t really needed to check the file even once, and here she was poring over it again. This application was one of those submissions that stood out in her memory like a silk Dior at a jumble sale.

Naturally, Nicola Brown’s past exam grades had been the top ones, as were her predicted results. With the exam system now designed to make everyone feel good, rather than provide insights into their ability, that was a given; Emily knew she must have rejected applicants with first-rate minds simply because they didn’t have the opportunity to stand out – second-rate minds had been achieving first-rate grades for years. But there was no use feeling guilty about that, it was the politicians who made the rules, not her. This candidate had also become involved in plenty of activities beyond purely academic ones, and was successful at them as well, but that too was no more than standard fare for a good applicant. However, her personal statement was extraordinarily incisive and it combined with her other credentials to lift her to the top of the pile.

Nicola Brown had stated clearly why she would love to go to Cambridge, and what she felt her presence would give to the university. Nothing smarmy or ingratiating, she had just set out her reasons logically and was spot on in her estimations of what she would give and get. She had obviously got herself up to speed on the latest developments in the branches of medicine which most interested her. She had stated that it wasn’t a duty for her to do this, but a pleasure, and she had the knack of writing in such a way that Emily felt she really meant it and wasn’t just tritely declaring what the admissions panel would like to read. And then she explained what she would do if her application failed. How bravely and cheekily refreshing! It wouldn’t be a disaster. Cambridge wasn’t the only place that enjoyed the presence of great minds, and she would seek them out elsewhere. Failure would be a hiccup, not a fatal coughing fit. She was tougher than that.

Nicola was from Highdean, a school St Matilda’s was very familiar with. But she had only attended for the past three years. Before that she had studied at anonymous places. Certainly she hadn’t had the advantage of a prep school to guide her in the wily arts of getting into universities where the mediocre intellect has no right to be. There was no mention of foreign travel in the application. No love of pleasures like skiing or wine or collecting art. No silver spoon in the maternity ward when Nicola Brown came into the world, then. More like iron, but Emily had the feeling it would have been polished as shiny as mum and dad could make it. This was the sort of applicant the Dean of Admissions admired, and there was nothing grudging about that admiration. Nicola was someone who had made it through brilliance, hard work, determination. Everything about her screamed that her Bio-Medical Admissions Test and interview would have made her shine even more brightly.

But, of course, her application didn’t get that far. What a shame this girl threw it all away. At seventeen years of age. Within a few weeks she would have received the letter welcoming her to the University to read medicine. She was one of the biggest certainties Emily could recall. How very, very sad.

But Nicola Brown clearly wasn’t the model of rationality and reason she had appeared to be, decided Emily Roberts as she closed the file for the final time and placed it into her out-tray with a sigh. How on Earth a person of Emily’s experience could have been hoodwinked into believing this was a marvellous application, truly exceptional, she didn’t know. Looking at the file again, she still didn’t see it, couldn’t find the clue she should have spotted. But deceived she must have been. After all, rational and reasoned people don’t kill themselves, she concluded as she picked up the phone to dial the police officer to repeat what she had told him the day before. Not unless there’s something really got them down. Like a terminal illness. Or, though heaven forbid it would be something so shallow, trouble with a boyfriend.

But, as Emily was so often reminded in her job, the brightest are sometimes the oddest.

Mrs Emmer answered the door immediately the bell was pressed and ushered Hart and Redpath inside. Her red and baggy eyes seemed pleased to see them, as though she feared that it may be somebody else who had come to visit her house. They were shown into the living room, its curtains drawn to keep out the prying eyes of nosey neighbours and callous reporters, so its lights still blazed as brightly as they had when Hart and Kanjaria had called during that awful evening three days before.

Sebastian’s sister was sitting on the sofa, using the remote to flick off the television as the guests came into the room. Although she was fourteen she was a timid little thing and looked about ten. Mrs Emmer explained her presence, apologising for her daughter playing truant. ‘Rebecca didn’t want to go to school today. Everyone will be all happy and that, just before Christmas.’

‘Of course,’ said Hart as he lowered himself into Clive Emmer’s chair. ‘How are you both bearing up?’

‘It’s not easy, Mr Hart, but we’re doing the best we can. And people have been very kind. We’ve even had visitors come over from the school; teachers, you know. Even Mrs Hargreaves herself popped in to say how sorry she was about everything.’

‘I’m sure many people are terribly saddened by what’s happened. Of course the loss is greatest for yourselves, but there will be many teachers and friends who feel it, too.’

‘Would you two gentlemen like a cup of tea?’

‘Mrs Emmer, that would be absolutely splendid,’ replied Hart. ‘I’ve not had a cuppa all morning and I’m absolutely gasping. Here, I’ll give you a hand,’ and he followed the dumpy woman into the kitchen.

Hart filled the kettle while she got the cups and saucers from the cupboards above the work surface and Redpath hunted for the teabags.

‘Becky. Tea, Love?’ shouted Mrs Emmer to her daughter.

‘No thanks. Can I have a Coke instead, Mum?’

‘Go on then. But don’t tell your dad.’ Mrs Emmer turned to Hart and whispered, ‘Clive would go mad if he found out she’d been drinking Coke at this time of day.’

When they returned to the living room, Hart handed the child her cola and then got cracking on the purpose of his visit as soon as he sat down.

‘The reason we’ve come round, well, two reasons really, is to see how you’re getting on of course, and also to ask a few questions about Sebastian. Was there anybody who wasn’t too keen on him? Anybody at all?’

‘No one,’ replied Mrs Emmer. ‘He has lots of friends, more like.’

‘Did they come here to your house a lot?’

‘Not really. Well, perhaps one did. Timothy his name was. He came round a fair bit.’

‘Had Sebastian had any arguments recently? It doesn’t matter how small; it’s amazing how these tiny things can sometimes lead on to more important clues.’

‘No. None at all.’

‘Mum, that’s not true!’ Rebecca Emmer startled them all with the vehemence of her interruption.

‘I’ll pour the tea,’ said Mrs Emmer. She leaned forward and tipped tea into the three flowery cups on the coffee table in the centre of the room.

‘Go on, Rebecca,’ said Hart, declining the offer of sugar with a small shake of the head.

‘They were nothing at all, Mr Hart,’ explained Mrs Emmer. ‘Just the odd little spat. No more than all families have, I’m sure.’

Hart received his cup and saucer with a smile. ‘That’s okay. Don’t forget, every little piece of information helps.’

Rebecca began her story as her mother turned a tad pink.

‘Sebastian and me were always rowing. He just wouldn’t leave me alone, picked on me all the time. He could have his music player on, turned right full up, but if I just wanted to listen to mine quietly with my bedroom door shut, he just came in and took the disc out and threw it on my bed. I wasn’t hurting him, he just didn’t want me to have any fun, that’s all.’

Rebecca started to sob, but not hard, a mixture of frustration and anger spilling from her, rather than a wretched outpouring of grief.

‘I come down to watch the TV and he says he wants a different programme on, but he doesn’t, he just wants to stop me watching the things I like. So he gets the remote and changes channels. It’s not fair, he’s got a really good telly in his room but he says he wants to watch the one down here.’

And it wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair for Rebecca Emmer to have to suffer such a contradiction of emotions, to have to bad-mouth her brother at the same time as mourning him. But she couldn’t help it and, in some strange way, it was a relief for her to let the bile surge out.

‘Did he ever hit you, Rebecca?’ asked Hart.

‘Never,’ stated her mother eagerly. ‘Sebastian would never do a thing like that.’

Rebecca carried on as though Mrs Emmer had not spoken. Her words were gushing now and the flow wouldn’t be stopped.

‘He didn’t hit me, but it was somehow worse than that. If I had something in my hand he wanted, or pretended to want, he would take it. But always by twisting my wrist or bending my fingers, just to hurt me. And he would stick his face right up to mine and knock my forehead with his and say horrible things about me, things like I was going with boys or my friends were slags and stuff.’

‘Was he like this at school?’ asked Hart, sipping at his tea to try and make it all seem like a cosy chat rather than an interrogation.

‘They don’t go to the same school,’ volunteered Mrs Emmer. ‘Clive said it was too expensive to send them both to Highdean and so Becky goes to the local one, just round the corner.’

Rebecca hadn’t finished. ‘He was horrible to you too, Mum.’

‘No, he was just being a boy, that’s all, Love.’

‘What about last weekend? He came home on Friday and you made his favourite for dinner, that fish thing in yucky sauce that I hate. You told him on the phone he was going to have that for his tea, something special for him to look forward to. You got it out of the oven all proud and stuff and put it on the table. I remember you standing back all pleased, waiting for him to say something nice to you but he just walked off and said he wasn’t hungry. I looked in your face, Mum, and I just wanted to cry because he hurt you so much.’

And then Rebecca did cry herself, properly this time, because her unadorned despair simply boiled over and out of her. Her mother wrapped her arm around her back and pulled her close on the sofa.

Redpath looked at the clock on the sideboard to give his eyes something to do, somewhere to point; whenever people started crying he always just wanted to get back in the car.

Even in the few minutes he had been there, Hart had learned what he had wanted to know about Sebastian Emmer, learned more than he had bargained for, and it was nearly time to leave them with just their misery for company. There was still a little more work to be done, however.

‘How did Mr Emmer relate to Sebastian?’ he asked.

‘He just let him do what he wanted,’ came the muffled reply from Rebecca as she nuzzled into her mother’s cardigan. ‘If he wanted something like a phone or a watch, Dad just gave him the money. He could have everything.’

Hart thought back to the tatty stuff in the girl’s bedroom and the stylish electronics and clothes in her brother’s and noted that she didn’t follow up her observation with
and I didn’t get anything
, and he admired that lack of self-pity, that uncomplicated goodness, in her.

‘Where does your husband work, Mrs Emmer?’

‘He’s got his own business. It’s importing goods from abroad. He gets things cheap from overseas and then sells them here. Makes a good profit, he does, which is why we can afford to live here.’

And send one, but only one, of your children to a very expensive school
, thought Hart.

‘Where does he get his goods from?’

‘All over, I think. Asia, South America. It’s furniture and rugs mainly, that sort of thing.’

‘Thank you very much, Mrs Emmer. And you, too, Rebecca. We’d better be on our way.’

But before the policemen had time to lift themselves out of their seats, a key rattled in the lock of the front door and Clive Emmer was in the living room within a moment; he had presumably noticed Hart’s car outside. His eyes burrowed into the stranger sitting in his chair. ‘So that’s okay, I’ll just sit on the bloody floor then.’

‘You’re home early, Dear. I didn’t expect you back at this time,’ said Mrs Emmer.

‘I haven’t been hanging around at my office, I called in at the undertaker’s. The funeral’s next week and you needn’t think any of you lot are going.’ He ignored his wife, making certain his unsolicited comments were aimed at Hart. ‘You should be getting out and finding the bastard who killed my son, not swanning around my family poking your nose into our business.’

Had his wife or daughter wanted him to stay away from the funeral, Hart would have considered it. But he wasn’t going to allow this man to speak on the whole family’s behalf.

‘Mr Emmer, any member of the public has the right to attend a church service, whether it be a wedding, christening, funeral, or midnight mass. No invitation is necessary and nobody can be refused, unless they are deemed to be a public nuisance,’ he countered, a bit more primly than he’d intended.

‘Yes, well you are a bloody nuisance.’

‘Thank you for the tea, Mrs Emmer. We’ll see ourselves out.’

As they reached the end of the hall, Hart and Redpath were surprised that Rebecca was just behind them and beat them to the latch to twist it and open the front door.

‘Look after your mum,’ whispered Hart as he crossed the threshold.

‘I will,’ replied the little girl, and she held the door ajar as she watched them get into the car.

‘Seems a nice lad, our Sebastian,’ observed Redpath as they drove out of the close. ‘Like father, like son, I suppose.’

‘Yep, a real pair of charmers,’ agreed Hart with an equal dollop of irony. ‘I wonder what sentence little Becky will have to serve for committing the crime of supping Coke at this time of day.’

‘Makes you wonder why we bother, Sir. I mean, all these resources, all this effort, all on behalf of someone who seems to have taken a malicious pleasure in bullying his mother and his sister.’

‘But it’s not for him, Darren. He’s dead. He won’t know whether or not we catch the person who whacked a chunk of his skull into kingdom come. It’s for those who knew him and, believe it or not, loved him. He may have been as kind and considerate as a fox in a henhouse, but he was a brother and a son. They’ll want the person caught, all right, and they won’t know peace until he is. That’s if they’re ever lucky enough to truly know peace again.’