Dying to Write Read online

  I’d never spoken to Chris like that before; I wondered how he’d react to such a change of gear.

  ‘I wish I could say you’d soon be over it,’ he said. He looked me straight in the eye. ‘But you won’t. Not if my experience is anything to go by.’

  Then his radio spat out a rude summons, and he was gone.

  One day I’d ask him what he meant by that. Meanwhile my mind was full of George. I felt closer to him than ever before. Maybe, if I couldn’t reach out with my hand, I could reach out with whatever part of my brain and write about him. Kate had recommended lying on the floor. I would lie on the floor.

  It was not George’s face but Courtney’s that appeared before my inner eye. Courtney, camp and funny; Courtney, succumbing to hysteria; Courtney, taut and silent at supper.

  I was on my feet and halfway down the corridor. Number six? Number seven? Number seven!

  Yes, and he was in there. I could hear the scrape of a drawer, the suppressed mutters of someone wrestling with uncooperative inert matter.

  I tapped the door. Sudden and complete silence.

  ‘Courtney? It’s only me. Sophie. Can you let me in?’

  I tapped again.

  This time there was a metallic sound, ugly in its implications.

  In the moment before he flung the door open I had time to wonder whether he’d gesture me in with what I was sure was a gun or would merely threaten me once I was inside.

  It was the former. And since what I’d heard was presumably the safety catch being slipped, I was terrified to see he was shaking as much as I now was. I slid in and sat heavily on the bed. I knew this was a mistake – I wouldn’t be able to make a quick dash. But I wouldn’t anyway. I’m not up to that sort of heroics. If I were to survive – and if I were to get Courtney out of this too – I had to use my brain.

  For a moment he took his eyes off me, but it was only to lock the door. The gun was wobbling around all over the place. Poor Courtney!

  ‘The key’s on the floor,’ I said, as prosaically as I could. ‘Just by the waste bin. Near your sock, Courtney. The one by your shaving kit.’

  He bent, the gun still pointing roughly at me, picked up the key and straightened. But he couldn’t fit the key with his left hand. And he needed the right to hold the gun.

  ‘Oh, put the bloody gun down,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to go anywhere. I came to see you – remember?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because – oh for goodness’ sake, put the gun away. Lock the door if you like. Just to ruin my reputation.’

  He forced a half-smile. ‘With me, dear? You’re joking!’

  ‘Everyone knows you’re a very handsome young man, Courtney. Does anyone besides me know you’re gay?’

  ‘I might be ambisextrous,’ he said, and this time smiled properly. ‘OK. Why’d you come and see me?’

  ‘Intuition. I suffer from it sometimes. I just had to come. You tell me why I had to come.’

  He pushed the gun towards me, then retrieved it and ejected the clip of ammunition. He balanced the gun in one hand, the clip in the other. I watched his face. He was relaxing.

  ‘I was going to flit, Sophie. Because of that Freeman woman going walkabout. Everyone’ll think it was me.’

  ‘Why should they?’

  ‘Oh, not the people here – I wasn’t saying you’ve blabbed, Soph. The filth. They know I’m on parole and what for, they know her job, they can look up the trial records and even they can put two and two together.’

  ‘Flitting would convince them if nothing else did.’

  ‘So I wait for them to do a room search – sure as God made little apples that pig’ll get a warrant if no one comes forward clutching Nyree’s pills in their hot little hand.’

  I couldn’t deny it.

  He got up, shoved the gun casually into an open holdall, and flipped the ammunition on to the bed beside me.

  ‘Not supposed to have a gun, am I? Not a con on parole. Straight back into the nick, that’s what’ll happen.’

  ‘It’ll certainly happen if you flit and get caught or wait for the fuzz –’ I couldn’t get any more colloquial – ‘to search your room.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Courtney, you have to accept I’m saying this in good faith. I may be making a terrible mistake. But I think you ought to talk to Chris Groom. He’s a decent man.’

  ‘You’re out of your sweet mind!’

  ‘Have you any better ideas?’ I allowed a certain astringency to permeate my voice.

  ‘No –’

  ‘Give me your ammunition, perhaps. That’d prove you didn’t want to use the gun. And let’s tidy this lot up – there’s no point in advertising that you intended to do a runner. Courtney, I can’t guarantee you won’t be back in Durham before you can say knife, but any other way guarantees you will. And for a few extra years.’

  ‘Give me more time to research for my screenplay,’ he said, with a dry laugh.

  ‘Is that what you’re writing?’ It was the first time he had talked about writing with me.

  ‘Yes. That’s why I was in such a tizzy when I recognised the Freeman woman, and why I was in an even bigger tizz when she took herself off. Did you see that thing she had on TV the other week? Really powerful, it was – all about this man who survives a plane crash by imagining he’s somewhere else. And I wanted her to teach me.’

  I smiled.

  ‘So you work it out: would I kidnap or kill the woman? OK?’

  ‘OK,’ I laughed. ‘Tell you what, I’ll put these things safely in my bedroom and we’ll go and have a nice cup of cocoa to celebrate.’

  Chapter Seven

  He unpacked the last pair of socks from the holdall, zipped up the gun, and went in search of the constable on duty in reception.

  ‘Now, I’d like you to be a real sweetie and tell the DCI I have to speak to him.’

  The constable looked doubtful. ‘Sorry, sir, he’s out with the search party for that writer lady.’

  I should have expected it, I suppose. Chris hated delegating.

  Courtney tutted, but pushed his holdall into the PC’s arms. ‘Well, you’ll have to look after this then. Ms Rivers here is guarding the key with her life: she’ll give it to her pal the DCI tomorrow. Night-night.’

  We left before the PC could argue.

  We celebrated with wonderfully gooey cocoa and a plate of biscuits, then Courtney escorted me ceremoniously back to my room. He watched me, embarrassed, while I fished out my key. Any minute now he would try to thank me. I put my arms round him and hugged him. Mr Woodhouse scuttled by, carrying, no doubt, his spongebag.

  ‘There: that’s your reputation shot to buggery,’ said Courtney, hugging me back.

  He set off down the corridor; then, as I unlocked my door, he turned.

  ‘There’s something else,’ he said quietly, ‘I want you to know.’

  I gestured him into my room, and shut the door – he’d spoken in that sort of voice.

  ‘I’ve had the test, Soph, and it was negative. You know, sweetie, the test. HIV. And I wanted you to know because – well, because.’

  I took his hand and squeezed it. ‘Thanks,’ I said.

  ‘Well,’ he said, camp again, ‘all the goings-on in the nick – all those queens, darling. And I promised my mum I’d keep myself pure.’ His voice returned to normal. ‘A nice lady, my mum. You’d get on. Now, I must be trotting: we need our beauty sleep, you and me both.’

  He blew me a kiss and was gone.

  I ought to have tried to sleep, but I stood by the window, watching. One by one the lights in the other student rooms had gone out. But out there the police were still searching; I could hear occasional shouts. I was left with my blank sheet of paper, my unused biro and a smelly rat. I wondered if rats got bored with cage life; presumably when he was with Kate Sidney spent his time roaming round, but I didn’t relish giving him that sort of freedom. I fished him out and dumped him in his litter tray. He responded, and consented to be returne
d. Then he consumed the last of the bread, and had a thorough wash and brush-up.

  That seemed like a good idea. A nice warm bath might make me sleepy. But I felt edgy, too nervous suddenly to want to scoot around the dark and empty corridors, even with my torch poised for action. I tried lying on the floor again. Still no poem. I went to bed.

  Perhaps because he was indeed bored, Sidney decided to imitate an entire symphonic percussion section. My bedside light showed he was swinging on his water bottle.

  I removed it.

  What if he needed water? How often did rats have to drink? What if he were dehydrated, dying, in the morning? What time did vets start work?

  I replaced the water bottle.

  He turned his back on it, and arranged an apology of a bed from a few wisps of tissue.

  The meagreness of my own bedding made me feel for him. I thrust a handful of paper hankies into his cage.

  The sounds of his assembling his new bedding were strangely soporific. My socks were warming my feet. My thick tracksuit – the one I’d been wearing when I first met Nyree – was dealing with the rest of me. Any moment now I would drift into oblivion, any moment …

  A car door? At this time of night? Here? I was up on one elbow, alert.

  Silence. The profound silence of a country park, despite the motorway on its distant boundary.

  Go to sleep, Sophie.

  Sleep?

  It must have been about three when the question I ought to have asked myself finally formed itself into words: why had I slept like one dead the previous night?

  Wednesday morning dawned early. At least, I presume it was early. Five-ish feels early to one who never wakes before seven. By six I was bored with lying on my back resenting not sleeping. Not writing either. When tears for George trickled across my temples into my ears, I knew it was time to do something.

  An early jog was clearly the answer. I changed tracksuits, bade a tenderish farewell to Sidney, with the promise I’d find him some breakfast as soon as I could, and padded off.

  I was doing some stretches in the sun on the terrace when I realised I was not alone. Four eyes were staring at me: a pair on Toad’s T-shirt, and Toad’s own. He too was dressed for a run.

  ‘You have to be so careful about running shoes,’ he observed to the world at large. ‘Getting the fit right. And everyone trying to sell you the most expensive ones without worrying if they’re going to hurt you.’

  ‘Hurt you?’

  ‘Well, I have this trouble with this tendon here.’ He prodded the back of his heel. ‘If I buy shoes with proper support, like they say, they rub summat shocking.’

  He started to unlace his shoe.

  If there is one thing that really appalls me about the human anatomy it is the average male foot. A woman’s foot – unless it’s been damaged by fashion shoes – looks like something designed for walking: springy and neat. But walking is the last thing I associate with the male ambulatory appendage. Plates of cold spaghetti, maybe, or the sort of string mops our college cleaners use.

  And he was going to show me his, any moment now. I clearly had to find a diversionary tactic. Particularly as he’d no doubt suggest that we should run together.

  ‘Tell me,’ I said, ‘was it you I heard playing the viola?’

  He smiled coyly.

  ‘Such a difficult instrument,’ I pursued. ‘I’ve always loved it.’ Here was my chance to find out more about him. But I didn’t want to.

  He spread his hands. They were as broad as the rest of him, but well-shaped, with long fingers.

  Go on, Sophie.

  ‘Why did you choose the viola?’ I asked.

  ‘Don’t know, really.’

  ‘Do you play in an orchestra?’

  ‘Not really.’

  That puzzled me.

  ‘Do you play anything?’ he asked.

  I didn’t want to tell him anything about my musical activities. ‘Not really,’ I said, forgetting my Grade Eight on the piano and my singing. ‘Look,’ I continued, ‘we’re both getting cold. I know the sun’s bright, but it hasn’t much strength to it yet.’

  ‘You going for a run?’

  ‘No, not yet. I like to do my Canadian Air Force exercises in the open air if I can. What about you?’

  ‘It’d be nicer if you came too.’

  ‘Another time, Garth. And I’d love to hear your viola properly some time.’ Thank goodness for that mysterious some time which never comes. I waved him brightly out of sight.

  I’d just finished exercising when Gimson came into view. He was carrying today’s Telegraph and a new packet of cigarettes. We hadn’t spoken since yesterday morning, when I’d watched him bolt from Nyree’s room.

  ‘Before you ask, Miss Rivers, I know nothing about yesterday’s events. Less than you, perhaps, given your relationship with the chief inspector.’

  I let that pass. ‘I bet you surmise a great deal, however,’ I said.

  ‘Surmise?’ He appeared to relish the word. There was a glimmer of a smile.

  ‘Hmm. Surmise,’ I agreed.

  ‘Like stout Cortez?’

  Did he hope I’d recognise the allusion? Or did he hope to catch me out? I returned his serve, as it were: ‘Perhaps Eyre House is less dramatic than a peak in Darien. You must excuse me, Mr Gimson. I’m getting cold.’ And I turned and jogged to the kitchen. Bread for Sidney, a quick shower before breakfast, then I’d have to help Courtney brave Chris.

  Matt was boiling the kettle when I opened the door. He looked desperately tired.

  ‘What do I do, Sophie?’

  ‘Do?’

  ‘About the course. I mean, all these people have paid good money – but how can I do the work of two?’

  ‘Reorganise your schedule. You’ve got plenty of time to do it before everyone else gets up. Toad and Gimson apart, that is.’

  ‘Don’t even know where to start.’

  So I ended up – at the ungodly hour of seven in the morning – on the floor of Matt’s room, a large sheet of paper in front of me. I divided it up neatly and fairly with names against each time slot.

  ‘There. When all else fails, have a timetable,’ I said. But he didn’t want a timetable, however efficient. He wanted to talk to someone. I stood up, hoping the crack in my knees hadn’t been as audible as it felt, and waited.

  I might have to wait some time. I moved across to the window.

  As you’d expect in a house this age, it was a sash window, deeply recessed. But whereas every other comparable room I’d seen had wooden shutters or panelling between the wall and the windowframe, this had a long, narrow mirror let into the woodwork.

  ‘Interesting idea,’ said Matt, coming to stand beside me. ‘Apparently old Eyre had a daughter who was bed-bound or chair-bound. He fixed those for her so she could keep in touch with the world. Like a car mirror, I suppose. See without being seen. See who was coming to visit. Watch the comings and goings from the stables, over there. Try it.’

  I sat at the desk; I could see down into the staff car park. A Land-Rover – presumably Naukez’s – Kate’s Peugeot, a faded Fiesta and a spruce Renault Five.

  ‘There’s a moral there,’ said Matt gloomily. ‘If you try to make a living by your pen, you end up with a W-registered 900-cc model. If you make your living harassing people for bringing in too much brandy, you get a snappy little number like Kate’s – and, moreover, you can afford to insure it.’

  ‘Does Kate still work for Customs and Excise?’

  ‘No. Took very early retirement on the basis of her writing and a convenient legacy. And to be fair to the woman, she wasn’t on the luggage-searching end of the job. Much too senior for that. A very bright woman. She likes you,’ he added.

  ‘I like her. I’m worried about her. They can’t have found anything, Matt, or Chris would have let me know.’

  ‘At this hour?’

  ‘At whatever hour. Good news or bad.’ I trusted Chris.

  ‘So where does that leave us?’
r />   ‘With a lot of questions to answer. And a few to ask.’

  ‘You mean, you want to ask some.’

  ‘Only to clarify my thinking, which seems to have been singularly cloudy for a couple of days. Can’t work it out, Matt. I’m always a light sleeper, until I really go dead to the world. I hardly slept at all on Sunday night, or last night, for that matter. But Monday I was out cold for hours.’

  Matt rubbed his hands over his face as if trying to iron out the creases.

  ‘Do you know something? I was so knackered on Monday I fell asleep on the sofa. Spark out. And you saw what time I woke up. But last night … I know she’s in some sort of trouble, Sophie. I know. But I don’t know what sort and I don’t know where.’

  I nodded. I had the same intuition. I felt she was still alive. I certainly knew that George was dead before I had any evidence, though I didn’t know the moment he’d been killed. But if I started talking intuitions and presentiments, I’d get sidetracked. I liked Matt, wanted to believe he knew as little about Kate’s disappearance as I did, but wanted most of all to find Kate.

  ‘Why did a woman as talented and successful as she was want to come on a course like this?’ I asked. I could compare their answers.

  ‘Because she wanted help, I suppose. There was a big problem with the way her novel was going. She couldn’t spot what it was and trusted me to. She was a bit superstitious, too: I’ve always had a hand somewhere in what she’s written – oh, only as a critic, don’t get me wrong. And she felt showing it to me was like touching wood. And we’re friends.’

  I reflected on the inflexion of ‘friends’. It didn’t sound as if it were a euphemism. But there again, it didn’t sound quite straight. I glanced at him. He turned away.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me her rat was back?’ he asked.

  ‘I didn’t not tell you. You weren’t in your room when I brought him back. That’s how I got into Kate’s room for the cage: through the bathrooms. Which reminds me: maybe it’d be safer if you kept your room locked. Just in case, as it were.’