Текст книги "Scarred for Life"

Автор книги: Kerry Wilkinson

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Текущая страница: 2 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

‘You’re with me today,’ Jessica told him.

‘Wanna brew first?’

He really was the perfect appointment.

Jessica nodded. ‘Make Izzy one too and see if the canteen’s got any fried bread on the go. We’ve got a busy day.’

Archie pushed out his bottom lip, spinning to head back the way he’d come. ‘Sorted. They had some barms on yesterday.’

For a moment, Jessica thought he was going to add ‘luv’ but he just about clung onto the final word. During his first fortnight, he’d managed to get himself into trouble by calling almost everyone – male, female, sergeant, inspector and everyone else alike – ‘luv’. It was part of the vocabulary where he’d grown up and he’d kept hold of it through his days in uniform. It didn’t go down quite so well when he told the chief inspector that he’d ‘be there in a minute, luv’. After apologising, when it was just him and Jessica, he blamed the guv for not being up on Mancunian dialect.

Izzy was smiling as Jessica turned back to her. ‘He’s going to get himself into trouble one of these days.’

‘He’s all right.’

‘Only because we know him. Dave’s got a man-crush on him.’

It was Jessica’s turn to smile. Detective Constable David Rowlands had spent the past few weeks barely concealing his admiration for the new DC. Jessica figured it was because Dave believed Archie was a younger version of him. The difference was that, with Archie, the casual boasts about girlfriends were actually confirmed by other officers. With Dave, even when he’d been younger, they had always been questionable to say the least.

‘Where is Dave?’ Izzy asked.

‘Bin duty with Jane and a couple of the others.’

‘Joy Bag?’

Jessica nodded. Jane’s unfortunate nickname was also something that preceded her around the station, a product of finding a pile of used condoms under a flower pot during another fingertip search.

‘She’s going to have it in for you even more than before,’ Izzy said. ‘Still, “Bin Boy” and “Joy Bag” have quite the ring to them.’

‘If you have no luck catching our tattooed robber, you have my permission to spend the day trying to get that to stick.’

Izzy laughed. ‘What happened with your pickpocket thing?’

Jessica had almost forgotten about it. The crimes were so minor that they weren’t high on their unsolved list. She shrugged. ‘No luck – it was only a long shot. Adam moaned all evening about having to dress up.’

‘You should’ve taken Archie – he’s up for anything that gets him out in public where there might be girls.’

That was true – but Jessica hadn’t exactly treated the Piccadilly stake-out seriously. ‘Did I ever tell you the first thing Arch said to me?’

‘No.’

Jessica grinned. ‘Someone had just introduced me as an inspector, so he shakes my hand, looks me in the eye and goes, “Are you a red or a blue?”’

‘What did you say?’

‘I thought he was talking about politics and said I don’t vote for any of those bastards. He looked at me as if he’d just eaten lasagne from the canteen, then said, “I meant footy. City or United?” I sort of shrugged and said I wasn’t into football. For a moment he seemed confused, as if he couldn’t believe it, then he nodded and said: “At least you’re not a bitter.” That’s a Man City fan, apparently. The next week, he was asking if I could swing the rota so he was off for a United game.’

‘I said he was going to get himself into trouble.’

As Izzy finished speaking, Archie waltzed through the door again, carrying a grease-soaked paper bag and three polystyrene cups with steam seeping through the lids. Jessica wanted to disagree but from the way Archie nodded towards the car park, she couldn’t help but feel that it was only a matter of time before he was too casual with the wrong person.

Manchester’s weather was continuing to be predictably unpredictable. After the coldest May and wettest July on record, this November was unseasonably warm. Jessica skirted through the streets of the city in a creaky pool car as Archie glanced through the passenger’s side window at various women wearing low-cut tops.

‘Will you stop doing that?’ Jessica said.

‘What?’

‘Doing an impression of the Exorcist girl every time we pass a woman.’

‘It’s not my fault the sun’s out. I’m only looking. There are blokes for you, too.’

Jessica glanced across to where Archie was pointing. An overweight man wearing jeans and muddy boots had his shirt off and tucked into his back pocket. ‘Are you joking? He’s got bigger boobs than me.’

Archie puffed between his teeth dismissively. ‘What I don’t get,’ he said, ‘is why this Damon kid was at Salford Uni. His parents live out in Wilmslow, so they must have a few quid about them. He could’ve gone anywhere but he chose Salford. One of the Manchester ones, maybe, but Salford?’

Jessica wasn’t sure if his annoyance was due to his Manchester bias and the fact that Salford was a separate city, but he had a point. Salford wasn’t a bad university – but if you had money and a choice, it probably wouldn’t be the first one.

They got their answer fairly quickly after meeting Damon’s father. Francis Potter had made his money building up a haulage firm and was a director for four other companies – all based locally, all full of cash. Not that his large house and three cars on the driveway made up for the loss of his son. Francis, clearly devastated, told them that Damon had gone to the University of Salford to study Business and Management because their family was committed to the area. He had an accent more profound than Archie’s. The plan had been for Damon to complete his degree, work for a master’s, and then to set up his own company with his father’s help. From everything Francis said, his son’s career path had long been mapped out, with grades less important than the fact that Damon was studying locally.

He answered the rest of their questions but didn’t seem to know much about his son’s current life, perhaps not a surprise as Damon had chosen to live in student accommodation rather than at home.

Jessica and Archie left the house knowing little more than they did before arriving. As they were heading for Salford, her phone rang with the cause of death. Damon had choked on his own vomit and had cocaine and high levels of alcohol in his system. From the initial examination, there was no sign of a struggle but it had likely happened sixteen to twenty hours before his body had been found.

It seemed such a waste. He wasn’t the first young person to die in such a way and wouldn’t be the last – but if it was simply a case of an accidental overdose, then why would someone go to the hassle of dumping the body in a bin?

4

Jessica and Archie’s next visit was to the head of Business and Management at the University of Salford – a thrilling job that someone had to do. Professor Robert Harper was what Jessica considered to be a stereotypical lecturer: cord jacket, elbow patches, balding, barmy. The strands of what was left of his hair appeared to be independent of each other, jutting off at unrelated angles like the straws in a game of KerPlunk. His office made Jessica’s look as if there was actually order to it. Hers might have files, papers, crisp packets and who knew what else strewn around the floor and desk but his had the contents of at least one rainforest. Books were piled on top of each other, covering an entire wall, with extra shelves running around the rest of the space overflowing with more tomes. The computer keyboard on his desk was buried under a pile of papers, with a printer burring in the corner, spitting page after page into a plastic tray.

After insisting they call him ‘Bob’, Robert invited Jessica and Archie into his office, muttering about how awful everything was regarding Damon’s death. The body find had led the local news that morning, even though the exact details of the location hadn’t been revealed. Officers would be flooding the campus that morning to talk to classmates and anyone else who might have known Damon – but Jessica wanted to talk to a few key people herself.

‘Very bright, very bright,’ was the professor’s first assessment after being asked what he thought of the dead student.

‘How long have you been teaching here?’ Jessica asked, taking a seat but being careful not to move too much in case it brought the nearby tower of books crashing down upon her. Death by hardback would be one unforgettable way to go.

Call Me Bob sucked on his teeth and glanced up to the ceiling. ‘Let me think . . . I was at City, then I did two years at John Moores, then I came here, so that’s eight, nine, twelve years here; a bit over twenty in total.’

The printer in the corner finally stopped spitting pages out, leaving a moment of silence before Jessica filled it: ‘Roughly how many students do you teach a year?’

Apparently unaware of the meaning of ‘roughly’, Call Me Bob started hunting through the papers on the keyboard, holding up the lists of students before giving Jessica an exact number, then explaining that he didn’t teach all of them, simply that he was head of department. Jessica could feel Archie tensing next to her; she didn’t think down-to-earth Mancunians and erratic university lecturers would ever be the best of bed-fellows.

As she glanced across to him, Archie caught Jessica’s eye, leaning in and whispering into her ear behind the back of his hand. ‘Who the fook’s called Bob nowadays?’

Jessica nodded knowingly, as if he’d raised a good point. In many ways he had but she still wondered what he was up to.

Call Me Bob’s eyes flickered between the two of them, wondering what had been said.

‘If you don’t teach all of the students,’ Jessica said, peering back at the professor, ‘how come you know who Damon is?’

Leaning back into his chair, Call Me Bob stroked his chin. ‘When you’re head of course, you tend to know the students at the very top and very bottom. Those who do exceptionally are the ones the staff always talk about, of course, but there are also the students who miss classes, deadlines, or end up dropping out. The others, who turn up regularly and get middle-of-the-range grades, are the ones you tend to gloss over and perhaps don’t know the details of.’

‘Was Damon at the top or the bottom?’

The professor nodded enthusiastically. ‘Oh, the top, definitely. His father is well known in business circles around the city, so it was a name that jumped out when I saw this year’s admissions list. He was immediately one of the exceptional students, though. I was getting reports back straight away to say he was one to watch. I teach the introduction module – something to keep my eye in each year. All the students take a test in their first fortnight. It’s nothing too serious and has no bearing on their final mark; it’s more to assess their initial knowledge. He had one of the highest scores since we brought the test in.’

‘And Damon continued in the same vein?’

‘Yes. I don’t think he missed a class in the couple of months he was here. His work was always on time and the marks were consistently in the top two or three in the year. In the introductory class, whenever I asked a question, his hand would usually be in the air.’

‘Did you notice any changes in him in recent weeks?’

Call Me Bob shook his head, hair flapping wildly in a breeze Jessica couldn’t feel. ‘I took a class with him on Tuesday and he was the same as ever – hand in the air, taking notes and so on. If anything, he seemed more enthusiastic than usual.’

Archie leant in again, whispering into Jessica’s ear behind his hand. ‘Is it me or is this guy’s head on upside down?’

Jessica’s eyes flickered up towards the professor. Now Archie had mentioned it, the flapping strands of hair on his head would have made more sense as a beard. She nodded thoughtfully and made a ‘hmm’ sound as Archie leant back. Call Me Bob peered from one officer to the other but said nothing.

‘Is that attentiveness unusual?’ Jessica asked.

Call Me Bob tried to flatten his hair but only succeeded in making it more static, then he scratched his shoulder. ‘When I first got into teaching, all the students were interested and wanted to learn. Now everyone goes to university. Tuition fees slowed things down a little but there was a period where courses were accepting any old body – people with Ds and Es at A-level, just to make the numbers up and keep government funding. Then you have all these offshoot, new-fangled courses – herbology, hairdressing and who knows what else. It’s not like the old days, so it’s nice when you have students who want to learn.’

Jessica clarified a few further points, taking the names of the other lecturers who taught Damon. At some point they would need to be spoken to, but someone else could do that. As they were standing to leave, the professor stood too. ‘Do you think you’ll find out what happened to him?’ he asked.

She began to answer but was interrupted as Archie sent a pile of papers tumbling from the desk. ‘Shite, oops, sorry mate,’ he said, hunching to help pick things up. Together, they tidied everything back into a stack but Jessica couldn’t help but notice the metal hip flask which had previously been hidden. Still, if she had to spend every day surrounded by hormone-riddled teenagers, she’d probably have a sly drink every now and then too.

Jessica told Bob that they’d do their best to find out why Damon had died – as if she could say anything else – and then they headed along the student-filled corridors in silence, following signs to the cafe.

‘You’re buying,’ she told Archie, sitting in a low-backed wooden chair, taking in the room. Compared to the greasy spoon places round her way and most of the cafes in the surrounding Salford area, the university one could have been built for a king. Clean tables were a start but there was also a spiral staircase linking two floors of the teaching building, with bright stainless steel coffee machines behind the counter whooshing intermittently as a line of students queued for their skinny lattes. Archie might well have fitted in with the locals but he couldn’t stop himself standing out among the student population. His posturing and pigeon chest made him look like a particularly short students’ union bouncer.

He arrived at the table with two cups of tea and a scowl. ‘Fooking students,’ he complained. ‘Girl behind the counter tried to serve me some shite with peppermint in it.’

Jessica sipped from her cup. ‘Is camomile more your thing?’

Archie was about to spit out a ‘no’ when he caught Jessica’s eye and grinned instead. ‘Aye, and that green shite.’

‘What was going on upstairs with you whispering to me behind your hand?’

He shrugged slightly. ‘Dunno, he seemed a bit iffy. I was seeing how he’d react. Did you see the flask on his desk?’

Jessica was surprised Archie had spotted it. ‘Yes.’

‘I saw it early on but thought I’d knock those papers off in case you hadn’t. Then there’s the books.’

‘I was afraid to move in case they came tumbling down.’

Archie blew into his cup. ‘Not that; there were all these textbooks but then he had these general poetry books at the back.’

‘So?’

‘He’s a business professor – not even English professors read poetry.’

‘Perhaps he likes poetry?’

‘Leave it out – there’s no way he’s read everything in there. It’s all bobbins – all for show. Give me Cooper Clarke any day.’

‘Who?’

‘John Cooper Clarke – punk and poet. Manc lad – well, Salford, but you can forgive him that.’

‘You’re into poetry?’

Archie finished swilling tea in his mouth and swallowed. ‘Not really, but I know someone trying it on when I see it. Takes one to know one.’

Jessica took a mouthful of her own drink, wondering if he was right. In her younger days she might have been the one storming in to put the proverbial up people just to see how they’d react. Now she was supposed to be sensible and clamping down on it. The hip flask was likely doing no harm; still, if Archie had spotted it before her and had bothered to scan the spines of the books – something she hadn’t done – then perhaps he wasn’t just the Manc loudmouth everyone thought.

5

Tea drunk and students slagged off, Jessica double-checked the address with Izzy at the station and then headed half a mile down the road to a bright red-bricked student accommodation block. When Jessica’s friend Caroline had been a student in Manchester, it was all rundown houses covered in blankets and bean bags, reeking of stale cigarette smoke and spilled alcohol; now it was custom-built flats and studio apartments, with free WiFi and coffee shops on the ground floor. Archie’s ‘tsk’ as they rang the buzzer made his feelings clear too.

Damon’s roommate, Alistair, buzzed the door open and then met both officers on the stairs. He took two or three steps at a time, his gangly legs getting him to the third floor just as Jessica was rounding the corner from the second. As he waited in the doorway of a flat, she could see the blankness in his face. He was tall and thin but appeared cowed, having discovered Damon’s fate. He pushed open the unlocked front door and let both officers in without a word, leading them into a living room that had two leather sofas, a large flatscreen television fixed to the wall, a games console on the floor and any number of other expensive-looking electrical devices at intervals around the room.

Jessica and Archie sat next to each other, with Alistair slumped on the other sofa, elbows on knees, staring at the floor. ‘When the police came round last night, I thought they were joking,’ he said. ‘Well, not joking, but you know what I mean. I couldn’t take it in.’

‘When did you first meet Damon?’ Jessica asked.

‘September. These are private halls – they do anywhere between two and five people per flat, then you share a kitchen, living room and bathroom.’

‘But this flat was just you and Damon?’

‘Yes, you pay an extra tenner a week but you get more space, so it’s worth it. The company who owns this place puts lads with lads and girls with girls, unless you’re moving in with people you know. There’s this complicated form. I ended up with Damon but we didn’t know each other before that.’

‘Did you get on?’

Alistair looked up from the floor, glancing between Jessica and Archie. ‘Pretty much from the moment we met. Do you know his dad?’

‘Yes.’

‘So you know he’s got a few quid, then – except you’d never know by being around him. I didn’t find out until we’d been hanging out for a couple of weeks, then we were at a pub and a girl from his course was there. She made some remark about it and he ended up telling me that his dad ran a company and so on. Apparently he was ready to go away and start a business when his course was over.’

‘Was he happy about that?’

Alistair seemed surprised: ‘Why wouldn’t he be?’

‘Some people don’t like the feeling that their life is already mapped out. They want the freedom to make their own choices.’

‘If he was unhappy then he never said. He was only in year one but was already talking about how the final project for year three was to create a viable business plan. He had a few ideas because that’s what he wanted to go and do afterwards.’

‘Were you his best friend at university?’

Alistair shrugged. ‘Dunno. He hung around with a few lads from his course, and liked going rowing, of course.’

Jessica had been waiting for Alistair to steer the conversation round to the rowing club so that it felt more like a natural topic of conversation. ‘How often did he go?’

‘Three or four times a week, depending on the weather. He tried to get me into it but it’s not my thing.’ He sighed, pursing his lips. ‘To be honest, I’m not sure it was his either. He liked the competitive thing and said he was decent at it – but he would never have put it before his course.’

‘Do you know any of the people at the club he was friends with?’

‘No, I think it was more of a social thing for some of them but he actually wanted to race. That was pretty much the only thing he ever said about it. He was always exhausted when he got back from practice – we’d sit in front of the TV and have a drink.’

‘Was he a big beer drinker?’

Alistair shook his head. ‘Not really.’ Jessica raised her eyebrows but he didn’t wilt. ‘Well, sometimes we’d go out and have a few but it was never ridiculous. Beer wasn’t his thing anyway. He might have a cider but was more into spirits.’

‘Drugs?’

The reply was instant: ‘No.’

‘There were substances in his system when his body was found . . .’

Alistair gulped, peering between her and Archie, weighing them up: ‘Okay, we sometimes do a little bit of weed, but it’s less harmful than cigarettes, isn’t it? It’s only the odd rollie now and again, I’m not a druggie – neither was he if that’s what you’re asking.’

Jessica waited, wondering if there was anything else. When Alistair didn’t reply, she added: ‘Ever done anything harder?’

‘No – honestly.’

‘What about Damon?’

‘No . . . well, I don’t think so. If he has, he never said and we never did anything like that together. He was into his studies – we only had the odd joint to relax at the end of the day. I don’t think he would’ve wanted to do anything that would risk his place on the course.’ Alistair peered down at the floor again. ‘I’m not in trouble, am I? It’s only a bit of weed.’

He sounded more pathetic than aggressive.

‘Where does the cannabis come from?’

‘Er . . .’

‘I’m asking because if someone was dealing drugs to Damon then he could’ve been into something more serious than you knew. If you tell the truth, you won’t be in trouble.’

Alistair’s head popped back up again, eyes showing slightly more clarity after being told he wasn’t about to get nicked. ‘It’s someone I know, he’s, er, some lad—’

‘All right,’ Jessica interrupted, ‘let’s not go digging any holes. If you can assure me it’s just some small-time arrangement between you and a mate, we’ll pretend this part of the conversation didn’t happen.’

‘It is.’

‘Fine.’

The truth was, Jessica didn’t have the time, manpower or inclination to pick up some small-time campus cannabis dealer when he’d be back out in twenty-four hours, fresh with an eighty-five-quid fine and a criminal record that would likely get him kicked out of university.

‘Did Damon have any enemies?’ Jessica asked. ‘Anyone he’d fallen out with?’

A shake of the head.

‘Girlfriend?’

‘Not as such.’

‘And what’s he been like this past week or so?’

‘Fine, if anything, he’s been happier. He was getting up earlier to go rowing.’

Call Me Bob had said something similar.

‘Any idea what he was happy about?’

Another shake of the head. ‘No idea. We’d have a drink and go out now and then but we didn’t really talk about too much . . . y’know . . . girly stuff.’

Jessica had to stop her eyes rolling – presumably that meant relationships. She glanced sideways towards Archie, who almost imperceptibly raised an eyebrow. In an instant, it was gone again and Jessica knew what he meant, as if she had read his mind.

‘I need the toilet, then I’ll brew up,’ Jessica said, getting to her feet.

‘Tea bags are—’

‘Yeah, under the sink, over the sink, in a cupboard somewhere. I’ll find them. Be right back.’

Archie had wanted a few minutes alone with Alistair. Although the student didn’t seem the blokey type, sometimes men were happier talking to other men. Archie would turn on the lad-about-town charm, bang on about a few of the better clubs and pubs in the centre, and then see if he could get some real information out of Alistair. Meanwhile, Jessica went for a poke-around.

She went through the kitchen into the hallway, leaving herself three doors to choose from. After finding the toilet at the first attempt, Jessica closed the door quietly and moved on to the next one.

The police’s search team had been in the night before and cleared anything from Damon’s bedroom that could be classed as evidence, leaving the space eerily empty. The bed had been stripped, exposing a plain blue mattress. Wardrobe doors were hanging open, coat hangers limply clinging to the rail, while there was a dusty patch on the desk in front of her from where a computer had been taken. At this very moment, someone at the forensics base in Bradford Park would be picking over the hard drive. Damon’s mobile phone records would be checked, and everything in the room would be examined meticulously in case there was a clue. Occasionally they’d come up with something; usually it was a lot of work for no reward.

Jessica tried the final door, Alistair’s room, and was hit by the toxic whiff of aftershave. She hadn’t noticed it on him in the living room but it was as if he bathed in the stuff, the rampant pong almost making her sneeze. Taking a breath of cleanish air from the hallway, Jessica crept into the bedroom.

Above the unmade bed, a large poster of a barely clothed model with breasts the size of her head was pinned to the wall. Jessica lifted the duvet onto the mattress and used her phone to light the space underneath the bed.

Dust, fluff, a crusty tissue – ick – some football magazines, a pair of trainers marginally less stinky than the aftershave, and a bong.

Jessica sniffed it but could only get the faint whiff of marijuana. Putting it back where she’d found it, she next tried the bottom drawer of the cabinet next to the bed.

Socks, boxer shorts, a jock-strap – ick – a mucky mag – double ick, didn’t they have the Internet for that nowadays? – a flattened baseball cap.

Middle drawer: pyjamas, red checked lounge pants, a toilet roll, a Mars bar, packet of chewing gum.

Top drawer: more boxer shorts, a belt, two ties, a paperback Kama Sutra – seriously? – the back panel of a mobile phone, some batteries, and a small polythene bag containing black, vaguely green, flakes.

Jessica had a sniff and finished checking through the drawer just in case. She then had a poke around the dressing table and wardrobe before convincing herself that the hardest drugs on the premises were as Alistair claimed. She had believed him anyway but it was worth the search.

Back in the kitchen, Jessica could hear Archie’s and Alistair’s voices drifting from the living room. She couldn’t make out the words but they seemed to be having a back-and-forth conversation. In the cupboards were packets of couscous, dried risotto and some fancy seasoning. It was all a far cry from baked beans, Cup-a-Soups and noodles.

Jessica gave it a few moments and then returned to the living room, holding her phone in the air. ‘We’ve got to go,’ she said, looking at Archie. ‘Sorry, Alistair, unless there’s anything else, we need to be elsewhere.’

Alistair exchanged a glance with Archie and then shrugged. ‘I’ve told you everything.’

Back in the car Archie was swaggering as per usual. ‘Come on then,’ Jessica said.

‘He reckons Damon had a girl or two on the go – nothing serious, just a Friday-night fumble. Lucky sod.’

‘He’s not that lucky . . .’

‘Oh right, yes, er, sorry . . .’

‘Any names?’ Jessica asked.

‘I can pass them on to Louise at the station. It didn’t sound like much.’

‘Anything else?’

‘He reckons Damon was popular because he had money and would buy drinks on a night out. It doesn’t feel like he was killed for money, though, does it? If he’d been coked up and robbed, they’d only be able to steal what he had on him because everything else is in his dad’s name or in a bank account. At most they’d have got a few hundred quid, perhaps a thousand if we’re pushing it.’

Jessica agreed – Damon’s financial situation was worth keeping in mind but it didn’t seem like it was a legitimate motive, plus it would be a strange way to kill someone if it was a straight robbery. Why go to the hassle of dumping him at the back of the rowing club?

‘Did you find out why he’s apparently been happier in the past week?’

‘No idea,’ Archie replied with a barely concealed smirk.

‘What?’ Jessica asked.

‘I did find out what he was up to the night before last.’

‘The night he died?’

‘Aye – those rowing jessies were all getting bevvied at that club of theirs.’

6

The rowing club looked significantly different in daylight compared to the night before. What had appeared to be gentle black waves from the river lapping at the shore was in fact a browny liquid clattering into the rocks, with empty beer cans bobbing on the far side of the bank. The grass surrounding the building was muddy and soft, the white front of the clubhouse greyer and dirtier. The bins and their contents had been taken somewhere else for Rowlands, Joy Bag Jane and the rest of the fingertip team to check over. There were wheel marks on the ground where they had been pushed up the slope.

Jessica and Archie headed across the decking towards the front of the clubhouse for her second meeting with the student president.

‘Afternoon, Holden,’ she said, entering the clubhouse and making him spin with such surprise that he almost fell off the stool. As he composed himself, she took a moment to take in the enormous room. Aside from a wall at the far end with one door marked ‘changing rooms’, another labelled ‘office’, and the small bar area in the far corner, the rest of the giant area was given over to a single hall.

‘Nice of you to leave the door open,’ Jessica added, walking towards the bar. Above it was a row of plaques, trophies, medals and certificates. On the wall to the side was a roll of honour, with a list of competitions the club had won.

Holden got up and glanced between Jessica and Archie, waiting for an introduction that she didn’t provide. He had been alone in the large room, using the bar as a table and working on a laptop.

‘There was a bit of cleaning up to do here,’ he said.

Jessica was about to reply when her phone buzzed. It was a text message from Rowlands: ‘The bastards are calling me Bin Boy. Joy Bag’s furious too.’

She could feel Holden watching but Jessica took the time to reply: ‘She’s not going to get any happier if you keep calling her Joy Bag, is she? Stop moaning and find something.’

‘Sorry,’ Jessica said, peering up. ‘Important police business. I arranged to meet you here because I wanted to ask a few more questions about the club’s hierarchy. You’re student president, so what does that let you do?’

Holden’s brow furrowed as he stared at Jessica. His hair was fairer than she’d thought the night before. ‘Am I under arrest?’