Dying to Write (25 page)

‘How authentic do you think it is?'

‘What's its provenance?'

‘For Christ's sake, Sophie, stop hedging. I have photo-copied the first piece of serious evidence we may have found, and all you do is fend me off. Do you think Kate might have written this letter to Matt?' he asked, speaking very slowly, as if to an idiot.

‘It would seem odd to me – but remember, I'm still a neophyte as far as computers are concerned – to write a love letter using a word processor or whatever. But I'm sure other people use them. You could polish each phrase, couldn't you? Get it absolutely right. And no spelling mistakes, either. Hey, have you come across that American Christian program which won't let you use rude words? It rejects things like “bastard” and “piss” and –'

‘Well, that is a help. We know for certain that this wasn't written using that program, then. I take it the rest of the letter was too fruity for your maidenly eyes.'

‘I just don't like the thought of reading other people's letters.'

‘Especially if the incriminate their recipients.'

‘How does this incriminate Matt?'

‘We found it in his room this morning, Sophie. He denies ever having received it, of course, and he says –'

‘Go on.'

‘No. I want to hear what you say. Do you think Kate would have written that letter to Matt?'

I looked at it again. From the little I knew of Kate I would have expected her style to be economical to the point of self-effacement. And what was that about fixing Nyree? She had dealt more than adequately with Nyree, whose antics had clearly repelled poor Matt. Surely she was too sane to worry about Matt's resistance for a mere week when she had – apparently – longer-term plans for him?

Slowly, I shook my head.

‘Why not?'

‘Instinct.'

‘Bloody hell! Is that all you can come up with?'

‘Chris, you know as well as I do it is possible to make a very good guess about the authorship of something by comparing two pieces of work. Experts do it all the time. Lit Crit, it's called. I'm not a lit critic, but I'd say Marlowe didn't write Shakespeare. If I were to read Kate's stories and her novel, I might be happier about speculating. For what it's worth, though, as an English lecturer, I'd say this is not the work of someone who wins prizes for her prose. What do you think?'

He looked embarrassed. ‘It did strike me as being … not very original.'

‘Not even very grammatical.' I sat staring at the letter. The second letter I'd read in this room in the space of a week. ‘Have you found out anything else about my little billet-doux?' I asked. ‘Like the printer that was used?'

He shook his head. ‘No trace of one in Eyre House.'

‘How does it compare with this?' I tapped the paper.

The expression on his face was comical. ‘Another Canon. Or the same one! Jesus bloody Christ!'

‘Careful,' I said. ‘You'll have the American Christians on you. You haven't checked? OK, there's still time. And before you start beating your breast and apologising for being inefficient, tell me how much sleep you've had since Tuesday night. And how long it takes to get over jet lag.'

‘I should have spotted it, Sophie.'

‘Hang on – we don't know yet it if is the same printer. But if it is, it ought to clear Matt.'

‘Not necessarily. He might have a printer somewhere else.'

‘Like where?'

‘Anywhere except Eyre House! He wouldn't need mains electricity – these things run off batteries, don't they? Sophie, I just don't know where to start looking. We've searched the grounds, we've been over the house, we've bloody occupied the stables: still no further forward. Someone nicks tampons and asthma sprays and antihistamines. Biscuits disappear. A rat pops in and out like a jack-in-the-box.'

‘And all you want to do is sleep. Chris, did you ever find Kate's notepad and printer? Computer notepad, I mean – not her scribbling block.'

He shook his head again.

‘Wouldn't you just bet that these things were printed on it?'

‘Is that just a guess, or would you have any evidence?'

‘I can't even remember the make of either the computer or the printer. I saw Matt carrying them, and spent about ten minutes sitting beside them. Matt might know the make.'

He heaved himself to his feet. ‘Better go and ask him, hadn't I?'

‘Why you and not someone on the spot? Why not treat yourself to an early night?'

‘You know something, Sophie? When I've asked him, that's exactly what I'll do. I shall go home and put myself to bed.'

I got up and patted his arm. ‘That could be the most sensible thing you've said today. Mind you do it, eh?'

‘Wild horses couldn't stop me,' he said, and was gone.

Supper must have been the grimmest meal ever taken at Eyre House. Hugh refused to eat with the students, saying he needed time to read the work that had piled up outside his room. Shazia was hardly speaking to what I suspected was the group who'd demanded their rights – Gimson, Toad, Mr Woodhouse and Tabitha.

I thought that if I kept quiet while I picked my way through overcooked beef (they'd been too busy fussing to cook properly), I might pick up the odd smidgen of carelessly dropped information. Would Gimson suddenly weep contrite tears? Or Toad confess that he could keep his secret no longer? Not on your life. All the talk was about writing. What Hugh would say about this paragraph, how he'd feel about the new opening. The sci-fi student was discoursing about Matt's inadequacies in that genre. Tabitha had gone so far as to write a short story and was anxious about it.

I was a complete outsider.

At last, their structures and metaphors and outlines and treatments exhausted, they turned to me for entertainment. But they didn't get it. I quelled any attempts to question me with the erroneous but convincing statement that everything was sub judice.

Eventually Toad got up, saying that since everyone was so bad tempered – I suspect he looked in my direction – he was going to practise his viola for a while. Gimson shuddered and, without leaving the table, ostentatiously started to read a
Times
he'd removed illicitly from the library.

I left the dining room. The two constables in the student corridor nodded courteously. The older one asked if I was all right after the morning's little upset.

‘Fine, thanks. Just a bit tired. And I'm stiff.'

‘That'll be your bruises coming out from last night. You want to look after yourself a bit, miss.'

I nodded. I was very tired, now I came to think about it. A couple of hours' sleep before going up to Hugh's room was a most desirable prospect. But it was one I'd better turn my back on. Hugh had found Matt a solicitor; I wanted to help find the real murderer.

‘I thought,' I said, ‘I might go for a quiet walk. Just in the grounds. I might look for Sidney.'

‘That rat? Ade was saying one of the students saw him, not far from the stables. Didn't try to catch him, of course. Just called a policeman,' he concluded, in an ultra-respectable voice. ‘Make you bloody sick, some of these types.'

He was clearly ready to embark on a quite justified diatribe against people who wanted others to help but were never prepared to do a hand's turn themselves. But I hadn't time to listen. It had just occurred to me what I ought to be doing.

‘Quite, quite,' I agreed in the sort of voice I use to soothe irate principals. I almost spoiled it by laughing when I saw the poor man's face – if I had a reputation, it was obviously not for being a quietly acquiescent type.

I popped into my room, collected a jacket and casually set off for my ostensible walk. The constables nodded affably. I didn't immediately leave, however. I slipped into the Library for something to read – today's
Guardian
and a copy of
The Rivals
, a set text for A level next year. If Gimson could ignore house rules, so could I. I tucked them under my jacket and walked at what I hoped was an unobtrusive pace to where George's van was parked.

I got in but made no attempt to start it. I huddled down, wishing for something warm to wrap my hands round. August, yet, and hot and humid enough for thunder, but my hands felt cold. If it got any worse, I'd put on the extra jacket I'd slung over the passenger seat.

Doing obbo was what detective fiction told me was the right term. One day I'd ask Chris what it was really called. Certainly it was boring and cold. When the idea had come to me, it had seemed quite neat. Someone, I was sure, was keeping Kate hidden somewhere not all that far from Eyre House. Someone who stole biscuits and tampons. One of the women? None of them had the sort of build I'd associate with using force, though of course Chris said there was no evidence of violence. To my shame I'd made no effort to get to know any of them, so I'd no inkling of whether they might have any motivation. Dared I narrow the field down to the men in the group?

I could only act on what might be a poor instinct; if one of the men tried to leave the building, I would tail him. I would dearly have loved it to be Gimson, but my reasoning dismissed him. Easier to imagine was Toad. But as I'd passed his door I could hear him starting his practice.

I certainly didn't want it to be Naukez. He was the first out, calling something over his shoulder to Shazia as he set off to the Land-Rover. He reached a giant umbrella from within, shook it at her, replaced it and got in. She waved him out of sight.

I fished out the
Guardian
. That should while away a tedious half-hour. Even at nine, however, it was too dark to read easily. The sky was brown with the gathering storm. A car radio would have been an asset, and a cassette player. George had always insisted that anything electric was an obvious invitation to break in, but I might buy one of those systems you can unplug and carry with you. Not that I'd be doing this sort of thing very often. But company – if you wanted it – was not such a bad thing. Perhaps I wasn't such a puritan as George. No, indeed. Not if I could indulge in a fairly erotic fantasy in which Hugh and I went camping together. I imagined the azure sea, golden sand, blue skies and a brown Hugh. Naked.

And then I saw someone leave Eyre House. In this light, and with the hooded top up, it was hard to tell the gender. Perhaps the walk suggested a man. He walked unhurriedly across the car park. As soon as he could no longer be seen from the house, he broke into a steady jog. I watched him until he merged with the darkness. Then I started the van and headed up the drive. This meant I might overtake him. I'd have to take the risk. If he turned and recognised me, I could simply turn right at the gates and give up altogether.

What I meant to do was not necessarily foolish. All I could hope to do was get some general idea of where he went, and then encourage Chris to concentrate his search there. I certainly didn't mean to tackle him with my bare and bruised hands; I didn't think the rest of my body was up to heroics either. Keeping fit is one thing; being Superwoman at thirty-five is another. Damn it, I teach English, not PE.

I was in luck. Just before the main gates, he struck off left, down the path which runs parallel to the wall, and thus to the lane outside the grounds. If I waited at the end of the lane, perhaps I'd get another sighting. I waved to the duty PC and drove off rather faster than courtesy suggested.

At the end of the lane, where it dwindles into a bridle path, I pulled the van on to a wide verge on the far side, tucking it under some trees. Despite the rain earlier in the week, the ground still seemed firm: perhaps the trees sheltered it from the worst of the rain. It would be embarrassing to have to trail back to Eyre House on foot to demand a tow.

Again, I was in luck. After I'd waited some seven or eight minutes, a figure hauled itself over the wall. The man set off down the bridle track: I wouldn't risk taking the van down that. I valued the sump and springs too much. I could have followed on foot. And done what? I told myself the most sensible thing to do was to stay put.

Instead I got down quietly from the van and followed. And lost him after about thirty yards. A stile one side, a gate the other. At this point I saw sense. If Ade could lift footprints from carpets, he'd certainly be able to follow the prints made in mud by trainers. I turned back to George's van. Sanctuary.

One day I might fit it out as George intended, with a tiny kitchen, even a loo in a cupboard. Since as yet I had no loo, and I did have, what with the fear and the excitement, an urgent need to pee, I squatted behind a bush. As I got up, I sensed, rather than saw, someone by the van. He opened the driver's door and the interior light came on for a second. Darkness again. And movement. What was he doing at the back of the fan? Suddenly I could see him. A torch? The light flickered too much for that. And then I knew. He'd made a firebrand from the paper I'd brought. Or from the book. And he was going to shove it, whatever it was, into the fuel tank.

Diesel. How fast does diesel burn? Petrol, I'd not have a chance. Petrol, he might not have a chance either.

And what, Sophie, did you want a chance to do? Put out the flames? How? Pee them out, like Gulliver? If he found me, he'd throw me into the van, and no one would be there to save me.

While thoughts chased haphazardly through my head, I heard the crepitation of paint burning. Soon the whole thing would be alight. He'd be able to see me.

There were two choices. To stay and wait till I saw where he was before making a move. Or to risk it now, and maybe bump into him.

A sudden whoosh of flame. The driver's seat, perhaps. And there he was, his back to me. A rumble of thunder stopped me hearing him. But I could see his shoulders shaking with laughter.

I picked my way slowly to the lane. As gently as I could, I started to pad away. Over the wall? I had a better chance of dodging across country. Or the lane? Safer, surely, to stick to the smoother surface? And there were policemen at the gate. I could call, I could scream.