‘I want you to help me find them. I’ll pay you.’
‘No. No payments—I retired.’
There was one of his pauses, even more disconcerting on the phone. She waited for him to continue and when she realized he wasn’t going to, she said, ‘But you will help me find them? I thought you could . . .’ He interrupted.
‘Don’t say any more. What room are you in?’
‘I’m in Radstone Hall on the campus. Room D76.’
‘I’ll be there as soon as I can.’ Another pause, but after a few seconds he added, ‘I’m glad you called. Bye.’
‘Bye.’
She smiled to herself as she hung up the phone. What had her world come to, that speaking to Lucas could leave her feeling more calm and at peace than she’d felt in months? During most of the time she’d spent in his company, he’d seemed like the manifestation of her problems. But for all his failings, he’d been her salvation, he’d been true, and now he’d be the weapon with which she would avenge her family.
Part Three
Chapter Eleven
He didn’t see much of the campus from the taxi, just a general overview, a sprawl of modern buildings lost in the rain. Even so, the sight of it produced a twitch of excitement in him; he’d never been to a college before, and it was the one thing he regretted about his youth, that the opportunity had never been available to him.
He ran the twenty yards from the taxi to the archway that led into Radstone Hall, an irregular quad with flower beds and picnic benches, abandoned and wet. There was a building map on the wall of the archway and he stopped to look at it.
Two girls came out of a doorway and passed him before one stopped. ‘Are you lost? Can I help?’
He smiled. These were the kind of people to be found at college.
‘Thanks. I’m looking for D76.’
‘That staircase over there. Third floor.’
He thanked her and walked on. There was another short burst of cold rain, and as he ascended through the floors, a collage of noise, music, voices—all people unseen, a tantalizing suggestion of the hermetic world he was skirting. He felt like a ghost, enviously looking out on a future it could never know.
Ella’s door was closed and there was no response. He strolled along the corridor, the only room open apparently unoccupied, and into a mess of a kitchen where a guy was sitting on an easy chair. He didn’t seem to be doing anything and for a moment he looked expectantly at the opening door, losing interest once he saw Lucas.
‘Hi, I’m looking for Ella Hatto.’
‘Thanks for letting me know.’ The response and the tone caught Lucas off guard; he couldn’t remember the last time anyone had spoken to him with that kind of insolence, and he was annoyed because it was happening here, in a place where he didn’t want to think badly of anyone.
He walked further into the room so that he was only a few feet away. Lucas noticed now that there was a bad smell in there, like food waste, and he couldn’t understand how anyone could sit there and not be bothered by it.
Giving it a second try, he said, ‘Do you know where she might be, where I might find her?’
‘Probably being a miserable bitch somewhere.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Excused.’ Lucas was still finding it difficult to take on board how rude and arrogant this guy was, and how stupid. It was shattering his whole image of academia that there could be people like this within it.
‘You should be careful who you’re rude to.’
‘Did I ask for advice? What, am I meant to be scared? Are you one of her drug-dealing cohorts or something? Well, I’m not impressed, so why don’t you just fuck off and leave me alone.’
It wasn’t good. This was why he lived the way he did, removed from the world, because it was tough becoming the person he wanted to be when so many other people were this unpleasant.
Lucas smacked him hard in the face, not hard enough to do any real damage but enough to knock him off the chair. It was clear from his expression that the punch had come out of the blue, that the guy had no idea what he might have done to invite it.
He scuttled clumsily across the floor, clutching his face, and backed into the wall.
‘What the fuck was that!’
‘That was a punch. And this is a gun, pointing at your head; lucky for you I’m trying to renounce violence.’
He started towards the door, but the guy shouted after him, saying, ‘I’ll have you fucking crucified for this!’
Lucas turned at the door and said, ‘I just knocked you across the room for cheeking me. You really want to take this further?’