Dying Fall Read online

  ‘Why don’t you get a neat little electronic alarm clock like everyone else?’ I asked, as I followed her and her ticking burden upstairs.

  ‘Never trusted them: batteries always fail just when you need them most. In any case, this old thing helps me go to sleep.’

  I could hear it through her closed door and mine. It did not help me sleep.

  There was someone in my living room. In that twilight between waking and sleep I heard him: then I heard my door catch, and Tina breathing, rather than whispering, ‘Sophie? You awake? I’m going down. Stay there.’

  ‘OK. Be – be careful.’

  I could see her gun, outlined against the lighter patch of the open door. Whether she was abnormally silent on her feet, or whether I was deafened by the blood rushing in my ears, I heard nothing of her descent. Then came her voice – strong, authoritative. Then silence. I strained for the sound of a struggle.

  Silence.

  I don’t know how long it took her to come back upstairs.

  ‘I thought I told you to stay put,’ she snapped.

  ‘I had to know –’

  ‘Nothing to know. Unless you’ve got a bloody ghost. I heard him; you heard him. Nothing there. Fucking hell!’

  We stood petrified on the landing. Perhaps he was still trying to dig his way in.

  She dropped her voice again. ‘Bit difficult to tell where the sound’s coming from when you’re three-quarters asleep.’

  I nodded.

  ‘How quietly do your windows open?’

  ‘The double-glazed ones at the front are OK.’ The frames at the back were the original wood, to be replaced when I had my next pay rise.

  ‘Right.’ She padded into the little boxroom and reached for the window catch. I followed. She glared, then shrugged.

  ‘Hold this, then,’ she said, passing me her gun, so that she could brace her hands against both frames, opening a fraction of an inch at a time. Then she leaned out. She pulled her head back. ‘God almighty, Sophie! Look at this little lot.’

  Together, we watched the foxes circle. One broke from the group, running hard towards the house. For twenty or thirty seconds he scraped at the wall. Then he dropped back. Another came, scratching at the brickwork, then another, and another.

  ‘Go away!’ I shouted at last, unable to bear it any longer. ‘Just clear off! Leave me alone.’

  Their posture, the expression on their faces, said quite clearly, ‘Who’s going to make us, then?’

  They dropped back perhaps fifteen yards, in a semicircle in the road. And waited.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  ‘So why does your front garden smell of curry powder?’ asked Chris, with distaste.

  Tina told him about the foxes.

  ‘But curry powder?’

  ‘Well, Chief Inspector, sir,’ she said pertly, ‘I couldn’t get the garden centre to sell me any of them pellets you’re supposed to use, not at three in the morning.’

  ‘In any case,’ I added, ‘It’s not curry powder. I wouldn’t give the stuff house room. What you can smell is hing, otherwise known as asafoetida. You put a pinch in vegetable curries. It’s supposed to reduce – er, flatulence. Aftab put me on to it.’

  At the mention of Aftab, Chris looked at me coldly: I was obviously in disgrace for failing to mention the photocopy of Wajid’s file. But then inquisitiveness took over, and he asked, too casually, ‘What were the foxes after, anyway?’

  ‘No idea. All I know is they were trying to get into my living room.’

  ‘Stay here,’ he said, and went outside. Tina and I exchanged a look: this morning we would not risk following. My pulse was uncomfortably fast already. But he was soon back, throwing a word over his shoulder to an officer whose silhouette we could see through the front door. ‘How long,’ he asked me, shutting the door behind him, ‘have you had a loose airbrick?’ He wiped his muddied trousers, ineffectually, with his handkerchief.

  ‘Didn’t know I had,’ I said, passing a box of tissues. ‘Well, the whole place needs repointing, so I suppose –’

  ‘Surely it’s the sort of thing your average householder would notice?’

  I looked at him. I wished anxiety wouldn’t make him sound so much like an irritated academic.

  ‘It’s usually hidden by flowers, and to be honest I haven’t had much chance to tidy the garden and examine the fabric of my little castle, have I? You wouldn’t let me start pruning in the back garden, even, so I didn’t dare start out at the front.’ And my anxiety made me sound defensive and uncooperative.

  He glared at me, and spoke into his radio. I waited until he had finished – such was our relationship this nasty Monday morning – before asking, in as quiet a voice as I could muster, ‘What was that you were telling your colleague about getting up my floor? I’ve only just finished putting everything back after last week’s visitors –’

  ‘Do you or do you not want to find out if some enterprising soul has managed to insert a listening device under your floor? Or maybe a time-delayed bomb?’

  ‘How many floorboards do you want to get up?’ I asked, drearily.

  It was the sort of weather that would have driven me to public transport: rain that was not particularly heavy but falling with the sort of determination that convinces you it will never to stop. This morning, of course, I would be late going in to work. Nothing would have kept me from Khalid’s tricks with the police computers, and it was obviously pointless asking Chris to defer the experiment.

  I would probably have been late for work anyway. The main roads were completely snarled up with traffic – one person per car as usual – and Ian took to the highways and byways, not to elude a possible tail, but simply to get there at all. When Chris spoke, it was to remark on the number of big Volvos and Peugeots cluttering up the roads outside schools, parking regardless of yellow lines so that the rain wouldn’t touch their delicate little burdens. A more enterprising Mercedes enlivened the proceedings by reversing on to the far lane of a main road.

  At last we reached Lloyd House, police headquarters: for some reason they’d chosen to hack from there, not Rose Road. More aspiring boffins, perhaps. They kitted me out with a visitor’s label, found us all coffee, and sat on desks to await the arrival of Khalid.

  ‘Where the bloody hell is the man? Didn’t anyone send a car for him?’ Chris paced up and down the open-plan computer room like an expectant father. I fiddled with my ID. Tina came into the room. ‘He’s on his way all right. Robbo’s collected him. But Bristol Road’s solid. And all the roads that have to cross it. They think some tanker’s been leaking diesel, and there are no end of minor crunches.’

  ‘All we bloody need. Any ETA?’

  ‘Robbo says should they winch him up into the chopper they’ve got on traffic surveillance?’

  ‘Why not? It might as well do something useful. Let’s have a bit of drama. And invent some story to feed to the press. On the other hand, where could we drop him? Better wait.’

  Suddenly he caught my eye and grinned. But neither of us seemed to have anything worth saying.

  ‘What did the Principal say when you said you needed me?’ I asked, not specially because I wanted to know. I hoped he’d be furious and demand my instant return, so Chris could enjoy himself denying it.

  ‘He said it was a good job someone did,’ said Chris.

  No one else laughed.

  When the phone rang, it was more pounced on than answered. A minion passed the handset in Chris’s direction –‘Sir!’

  We all watched him, but his face gave little away. And all we heard were little grunts to prompt the caller. Finally he yelled, ‘Take him into custody, of course,’ and slammed down the phone.

  But he wasn’t angry. The crow’s feet round his eyes refused to go away, and his mouth wouldn’t take itself seriously. Did I dare catch his eye?

  ‘You’ll no doubt be relieved to learn, Miss Rivers, that we have completed our investigation of your foundations. No listening or explosive devic
es. All clear.’ He was willing me to ask about the arrest.

  Just to humour him, and to fill in time because it was still raining incessantly, I said, ‘But you said something about custody. Have you found –?’ And I allowed a touch of hysteria to creep into my voice.

  ‘My officers found,’ he said, impressively, ‘and have duly apprehended, a small male hamster. We believe it may answer to the name of Eric, since one of that name was reported missing last week.’

  ‘Not my neighbour’s little girl? She’s got a hamster.’

  ‘That’s right.’ His face started to relax. ‘Any idea why it’s called Eric? I’d have expected Hamlet or Henry or something.’

  I gave the answer I’d been given. ‘Because he’s a hamster,’ I said.

  And then there was a stir – Khalid had arrived. He was greeted with what might have been slightly derisory cheers, and I could see that he didn’t make an impressive figure amid all these tall, broad-shouldered people. He’d always been slight, and his TB had left him slightly hollow-chested. But there was something about the way he sat down at a computer that silenced them, the way Alfred Brendel draws everyone’s attention when he walks to his piano.

  I wish that watching Khalid at work had given me an object lesson in hacking. I suppose if I’d known enough to follow it would have. All I could do was watch, fascinated but confused.

  I suppose asking how he could do it without a modem wasn’t particularly sensible. Clearly everyone thought I should have known that this sort of computer had one built in.

  ‘What he’s doing now,’ whispered Tina, ‘is getting into Dialing Directory.’

  ‘So I see. Why does it have only one “I”?’

  She didn’t bother to reply. Whatever Khalid was doing, the computer was producing odd little noises. First a dialling tone, like on a telephone. Then one ring. Just one.

  ‘What’s that whistling?’

  ‘The modem taking over.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘See – the call’s connected.’

  Khalid typed very rapidly.

  ‘That’s the user name and password.’

  ‘Where’d he get that from?’

  ‘Wajid’s notes, of course.’

  Each of my questions had been greeted with ironic sighs from the knot round the screen. Khalid alone spared time to grin up at me at last. ‘Still in the dark ages, aren’t you? Never mind, I’ll take you through it slowly another day.’

  ‘No, you bloody won’t,’ said Chris. ‘What you’re doing is illegal.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll find somewhere else to hack into. I often use other universities’ systems. Ah.’

  There were occasional bips like those from a computer toy. Figures moved – or were moved – across the screen.

  ‘Ah,’ Khalid said again. ‘Ah-ha!’

  The gasps from the police computer experts were like those of a Wimbledon crowd watching a crucial point being disputed by two champions.

  ‘This is where it gets a bit trickier,’ said Khalid.

  The others nodded, leaning closer to him, pointing, murmuring.

  ‘There’s this time trap, see. You have to do it at exactly the right speed, or it closes down on you. I used a metronome eventually. If you could just count out the seconds?’

  ‘One – two – three –’

  I think all of us were counting under our breath in time with Tina, who had clearly elected herself his assistant. The screen emptied.

  ‘Shit,’ someone said aloud.

  ‘No. Wait. It seems like for ever, but just wait.’

  A phone rang. A constable answered it, and gestured to Chris.

  ‘Later!’ he snapped. And he turned, as we all did, to the screen.

  Contact, from Birmingham, with somewhere in Bogotá. And lists of all sorts for us to stare at, the little white cursor summoning us on deeper and deeper into some very private files.

  ‘There! Narco traficantes,’ I crowed.

  ‘What’s that?’ It was Tina’s turn to expose her ignorance this time.

  I translated. ‘And there we are: Inglaterra.’

  People were cheering and hugging each other. Chris put a swift arm around my shoulder but remembered and took it away as if it burnt him. One name stood out. Harding, Julia. Birmingham. And her address.

  ‘Chris! What about Dean?’ I was gripping his arm. Chris stared at my hand, and then at me. At first there was that painful, vulnerable expression; but he soon replaced it with tart irritation. The irritation turned to anger when I stammered out my fears. ‘Was that him on the phone?’

  ‘Later. You don’t know it was Dean, but I’ll get someone to phone him, on the off chance. Come on: first things first.’

  ‘He promised to call me. He promised.’ Jools. She might have saved him once because it suited her to, but you couldn’t rely on her generosity. But Chris was relieved to be doing something, and to be doing it well. ‘Ian, we’ll go and get Harding. Oh, unlawful killing, I should think. Or illegal substances. OK? And you get out a general call – her motorbike or her car.’

  They didn’t have to ask for addresses or registration numbers.

  ‘Killing whom?’ I asked.

  Perhaps he hadn’t heard. Khalid’s new fans were escorting him noisily to the canteen.

  ‘Killing whom?’ I repeated, more loudly.

  Chris turned and stared at me as if I were an idiot. ‘George and Wajid, of course.’

  I shook my head. ‘And what about Dean? And what –’

  ‘We’ll get him afterwards.’

  ‘And what about me? Do you propose to leave me on the loose among all these computers, or are you going to return me to William Murdock?’

  ‘You’ll be easier to keep an eye on at home. Tina, do the honours, would you? Oh, book a mobile out, of course.’

  ‘But, Chris –’ Tina bleated.

  Poor Tina – to be denied a piece of the action.

  Then I saw an aspect of him I’d never seen before, though I suppose I must have known it would be there. He didn’t speak: just looked at her.

  From Lloyd House one of the quickest ways to Harborne is, oddly enough, an indirect one. You go through the Queensway underpasses on to Bristol Street, the route Khalid had taken the other night. Then you turn right at the big McDonald’s and explore the leafier parts of Edgbaston. It was not such a good choice this morning because the traffic was still messy, and Tina flicked the radio in irritation to the police wave-length. I hardly listened. I’d found the tunnels claustrophobic.

  ‘Vincent Drive?’ she said. ‘Here, Sophie, isn’t Vincent Drive near you?’

  ‘Not specially. It runs between the university and the medical school.’

  ‘How far from you?’

  ‘A mile or so. Why?’

  ‘Sounds like there’s summat up. Shall we take a look?’ And she swung the car around with an ease that Tony or Chris would have approved and put her foot down. Hard. The nearest cars could get was Somerset Road; but when Tina spoke to the constable redirecting the traffic he waved us on into Pritchatts Road. It was where Farquhar Road crosses Pritchatts Road and becomes Vincent Drive that the accident must have happened. She threw the car half on to the verge, behind a couple of patrol cars and a fire appliance.

  ‘Stay there, Soph,’ she said over her shoulder, as she slammed the door.

  But I’d heard the ID over the radio too, and I couldn’t. Chris found me as I was retching up nothing in the gutter. I’d got rid of everything in the previous bout of vomiting.

  ‘Serves you right,’ he said. ‘I left orders you weren’t to come anywhere near.’

  ‘No one told me,’ I said, groping for a tissue.

  He helped me to my feet and steadied me. Just for once I didn’t shake him off.

  ‘Will the bus driver be all right?’

  ‘Should be. Eventually.’

  We looked again at what remained of his cab. The impact that had torn his arm so badly had sheered the metal back. But it was hard to see deta
ils because, like the rest of his bus, it was charred and twisted. There was a grotesque mess Chris said was a motorcycle. Then they started to erect screens.

  ‘Funny,’ he said. ‘I came to pick her up – and they’ve had to scrape her up.’

  I looked at him sharply. But his face told me he was only trying to cope with it his way.

  ‘She was my friend,’ I said quietly.

  ‘How would she have survived all those years in gaol?’

  ‘Oh, Chris.’ I thought of the flat; her money; her love of music, however limited compared with George’s. ‘All the same.’

  ‘Very, very quick. Quicker even than George’s or Wajid’s.’

  ‘What was that they were saying about an explosion?’ I asked.

  He gestured: there would be, wouldn’t there?

  ‘But I heard someone say – I know I did – the poor driver insisted there was an explosion. Impact, explosion, more destruction.’

  He looked at me and was about to speak when a colleague summoned him. He was to talk to the press. Tina was on the other side of the road, looking pale. Perhaps Chris had already found time to tell her what he thought of bringing me here. If he hadn’t, now was perhaps time for a judicious retreat. In any case, I wanted to bounce ideas off someone. I caught her eye and we went back to the car.

  ‘If the bus driver was right,’ I said, fastening my seat belt, ‘why would there have been an explosion?’

  ‘Fuel,’ she said promptly. ‘Look, Sophie, I know she was a friend of yours and all but she wasn’t a nice lady. I’ve seen what drugs do to kids. Slow death. Not a nice quick one. And their families and all.’

  I nodded: I’d lost precious students that way. ‘But why should she choose to explode on a road leading to the university?’

  ‘Why not? Good place – awkward road junction, they’re always having accidents there. And diesel, perhaps, on a wet road. Visibility poor. Textbook, our Soph.’

  ‘But why here? Not in Erdington or Moseley, but here. On a road leading to the university where Khalid was supposed to do his hacking.’

  ‘Bloody hell, don’t be so – so …’

  ‘Paranoid? But just because you’re paranoid it doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.’