What She Left: Enhanced Edition (34 page)

From @EmmaIrons7

So much for me never joining the Twitterati – I’ve landed! Can’t wait to see u next month. Bring your dancing shoes!!

January 29, 11.39 a.m.

 

From @EmmaIrons7

You’ll LOVE the dress I bought yesterday BTW.

January 29, 12.04 p.m.

 

From @EmmaIrons7

Why you not replying to my much-slaved-over tweets???

January 29, 18.31 p.m.

 

From @AliceSalmon1

Much soz, Ems. Been ploughing thru work ahead of weekend. Party party x

January 30, 17.55 p.m.

 

From @Carolynstocks

Good luck with the article this week. Go knock ’em dead

January 31, 08.50 a.m.

 

From @AliceSalmon1

Aw thanks, Cazza. Bricking it x

January 31, 09.16 a.m.

 

From @NickFonzer

In your part of town tomoz and owe u dinner if u fancy grabbing bite to eat? That Italian u like?

February 1, 15.44 p.m.

 

From @AliceSalmon1

Be ace to see you, but will struggle this week – next week?

February 1, 15.55 p.m.

 

From @AliceSalmon1

Early nite tonite for this crime-busting gal ahead of big weekend in my old hood. Stay safe x

February 3, 19.37 p.m.

 

From @AliceSalmon1

When will I ever learn?

4 February, 20.07 p.m.

 

From @GeordieLauren12

You lightweight, we’re never gonna let you forget this, bailing out early on a reunion!

4 February, 23.05 p.m.

 

From @AliceSalmon1

Say hello, wave goodbye.

4 February, 23.44 p.m.

 

From @Carolynstocks

Answer your flippin’ phone, Salmon …

5 February, 11.09 a.m.

 

From @MissMeganParker

Can’t get hold of @AliceSalmon1 either. Prob nursing monster hangover somewhere!

5 February, 13.34 p.m.

 

From @Carolynstocks

You been kidnapped? Am sending out search party if you don’t call me back soon.

5 February, 14.04 p.m.

 

From @MissMeganParker

Also been ringing @AliceSalmon1 with no luck – assuming her phone’s dead, she never charges it!

5 February, 14.22 p.m.

Hello again, Larry,

‘It’s going to be bitter, don’t be late back,’ Fliss had instructed me, when I informed her at 4 p.m. I was nipping out for my constitutional.

At six, a text enquiring when I’d like supper. At seven, a phlegmatic ‘Where are you?’.

But I couldn’t pass up an opportunity such as this. You see, old chap, Alice was in town. A gift from the gods.

It wasn’t hard to locate her. Initially via her digital trail then, the scent picked up, I was on to her in the flesh. Like a bloodhound, I was. The melee enabled me to go unnoticed relatively easily; it merely necessitated selecting suitably distant vantage points from which to monitor her – the challenge was staying in close proximity. She soon had me puffing; ran me ragged, she did. That was to be the night, Larry. I was determined to exorcize a few ghosts, come clean about the night of the anthropology bash.

She was in a group of four, a fluid tetrad that expanded and contracted, her three friends dropping out of sight then reappearing; others, joining them, staying, melting away, breezing back. Inevitably there was a cavalcade of men, vying for her attention. Not that I objected to them plying her with alcohol; it would gird her for the conversation I intended to have with her. City lads, some of them, hoodlums. ‘On a reunion,’ I heard her shout to one over the din. Others, students: boisterous and badgering my party into drinking games. Much frivolity.

As you’ll have ascertained, Larry, I’ve been back over the events of that February evening in intricate detail,
deconstructing Alice’s movements and conversations. You see – and you’ll have to bear with me on this one – but the authorities have got it wrong. My suspicion is that someone close to Alice wished her ill. You’ll understand if I don’t elaborate at this stage. Going public on a hunch can be a dangerous business for an academic; reputations have been ruined by less. I’m afraid this will have to be an exception to our rule: for now, a secret between us.

‘Worried about you,’ Fliss texted me.

None of those philistines would have been alert to it, but behind the alcohol-propagated happiness, Alice wore a veil of sadness. It was so reminiscent of Liz I had to restrain myself from tramping over and marching her out of those places. She was about the same age that her mother had been when our paths crossed. Mid-twenties.
Ripe
.

Another fellow on the scene at one point. A well-heeled sort. I’d edged closer; his hand might have been on her arm. She laughed so violently at one of his wisecracks that her head rolled backwards and the strip light made her hair look identical to her mother’s. I’d been intending to explain about my association with Liz, too, when we had our discourse later, but feared that might be too much for her to hear in one go. I feared there’d be a scene.

Alice’s response to him I couldn’t decipher, but I did catch his. ‘Whoever he is, he’s an idiot for letting you go.’

‘Tell him that,’ she said.

‘Give me your phone and I will.’

This
, I thought, with a swirl of melancholy,
must be ‘chemistry’
.

Another text from Fliss: ‘Are you safe?’

I actually made a record of the events of that evening upon my return home: locked myself in my study and
logged them while they were fresh. Subsequently, I’ve repeatedly anatomized the constituent parts. One’s training teaches one to amass a watertight case. Heaven knows, there have been plenty of digressions in this case: attention-grabbing deviations. Sideshows, the lot.

At one point, this boy inverted his empty pint pot on his head, then deposited it on the table and punched both arms skyward and she liked that, Alice did: she howled with laughter. I could see why; if he’d been at my school, I’d have had a crush on him: those shoulders rigid from rowing, an easy, insolent smile: intelligent but a lack of application. I’d encountered plenty of boys like that, Larry. I’d scuttle along in their slipstream, perversely grateful for their contempt and cruelty. If I had to pinpoint it, that was where my misanthropy was gestated: against a backdrop of rugger boots clicking on changing-room floors and the drilling of Latin declensions and conjugations. The abiding conviction that every last damn one of them was against me.

‘Ever indulge in a dab of the old charlie?’ he asked her.

‘No. Or hardly ever.’

‘Which is it?’

‘The latter, hardly ever.’

‘Tonight’s hardly ever,’ he said.

Another text from Fliss. ‘What the hell are you playing at?’

Alice turned and it was tricky to make out if she was peering back towards her group or the chalkboard on the wall with its rainbow of lettering: 8 SHOTS, £7. ‘Suppose you only live once.’

‘Attagirl,’ he said. ‘Attagirl.’

From: Anthony Devereux

To: Charles Whittaker

Status: Urgent and strictly confidential

 

Charles,

I’m unable to reach you by telephone, but we need to speak as a matter of urgency. I expect you’ll be up to speed regarding the situation with the English tutor Elizabeth Mullens. You may have more information at your disposal than that to which I’m currently privy, but my understanding is that she attempted suicide earlier today. It appears one of the cleaning staff alerted the emergency services having discovered her, whereafter she was rushed to A & E. I gather her condition was dire. Clearly a personal tragedy, but with my professional and commercial hat on, I’m mindful of the wider implications. The press are bound to pick this up – especially given that a cleaner’s involved; they’re clinically incapable of discretion – so we need to thrash out a statement. Much sadness, shock, that sort of tone. Wouldn’t hurt to hint at a few personal ‘issues’ and with a fair wind they’ll join the dots re her penchant for a drink. If it had been off-site it wouldn’t be so damaging. Since the incident, rumours about Mullens and Cooke in anthropology have been brought to my attention. If the two of them are/were in a relationship that will complicate matters. Cooke is older than her and married and neither of those facts will escape notice. The last thing we need is a scandal, Charles. A lecturer killed himself at one of those dreary, provincial
northern polytechnics last year and the newspapers had a field day; it ended in resignations. My instinct – and I write this in confidence, because our association dates back over twenty years – is that Cooke is devoid of talent so this could be a germane point at which to reappraise
his
future. That may also go some way to satiating the newspapers’ bloodlust. It might be prudent for you to send Mullens flowers. Thank heavens the students are on vac – can you imagine the febrile environment we’d be attempting to contain were it term?

 

Yours as ever,

Anthony

 

PS: On an unrelated note, might you be free to join us on the evening of the 24th for our business in practice round table? One of the guests is an IBM director whose premise is that home computers will soon be as common as TV sets.