Helena hears a door slam somewhere in the corridor, brisk footsteps, and her heart quickens at the prospect of someone coming in. She sits upright, brushes at her skirt, but the footsteps clack past the door and drift away. She slouches again. They are keeping her waiting deliberately in this empty room with only a Formica table with metal legs and blue plastic chairs – two on the other side of the desk to where she is sitting, so presumably there will be two of them. Outnumbered by detectives. She’s never met a detective before.
‘Hello,’ she mouths, picturing herself half rising and putting out a hand. ‘I’ve never met a detective before.’ Then she catches her reflection in a pane of brown-coloured mirror set in the wall, her lips moving soundlessly (or like a psychiatric patient, depending on who’s watching). Is anyone watching?
‘I wanted to get Edith home safely,’ she murmurs, her eyes flicking to the mirrored wall. ‘I never imagined that home wouldn’t be safe, that something could happen to Edith after I had dropped her home to George Street.’ No, saying that seems to implicate Will. She must phrase it some other way. Just go back to the beginning. Keep the narrative simple.
Edith had shouted, ‘Geronimo!’ and tipped back another tequila shot, one of many she drank at The Crown that night. Then the barman rang last orders.
Helena told Edith they should go, it was 11.30 p.m., they’d miss the bus back to Huntingdon otherwise. And anyway, she was tired – hot, tired, and fed up. The Crown was heaving; she was jostled by the crowd – townies, rowers, Corpus postgrads like herself and Edith.
‘What are you studying, Miss Reed?’ she imagines being asked.
‘Psychology. I’m a psychology fellow. My PhD is on gratification and its links to obesity.’
The door opens and a woman walks in – dishevelled, with a mass of curls. Behind her is a young man, about Helena’s age, with an open face and friendly, sticky-out ears.
‘Sorry to keep you waiting,’ says the woman, holding out her hand. ‘I’m Detective Sergeant Manon Bradshaw; this is Detective Constable Davy Walker. We just need to ask you a few questions.’
‘No, I mean, yes, of course.’ Her heart beats so hard she fears it might be audible. While they set down notepads and fiddle about with a recording device, Helena puts a hand to her cheek, hoping the heat she can feel there is not visible. ‘I don’t know anything,’ she blurts.
‘If you just wait a moment,’ says DS Bradshaw. ‘We can begin once I get this machine set.’
A long beep is emitted from the recording device.
‘Most postgrads live in Cambridge, don’t they?’ asks DS Bradshaw.
‘Yes. Most, but not all. There are apartments for married couples and single rooms provided by the college, but we – Edith and Will, and later myself – moved out towards the end of our undergraduate degrees. To Huntingdon.’
Edith and Will, and later myself. It would be foolish to mention how they teased her about her own move to Huntingdon. Edith was always teasing.
‘It’s cheaper,’ Helena remembers saying to them, rather defensively. ‘And I like the quiet, y’know? Being in halls can be so … claustrophobic. I’ll definitely get more work done here and the commute’s easy-peasy.’
‘It’s all right, Hels,’ Edith had said, not even looking up from chopping vegetables. ‘We know you’re our stalker.’
‘Wouldn’t your Christmas do normally be in the college? In Corpus Christi?’ the detective asks.
‘Well, yes and no. The graduate bar can be a bit damp. Jason – Jason Farrer, he’s an English PhD like Edith – wanted something a bit livelier. They can be a bit socks-and-sandals, the postgrad lot.’
‘Socks and sandals?’
‘Yes, you know, drilling down into the minutiae – sex life of chives, that kind of thing. All very nerdy. They’re not the best at letting their hair down. Jason arranged the Christmas do – he chose The Crown.’
‘And Edith, how did she seem?’
‘Well, drunk, to be honest. She wanted to do karaoke. She was doing tequila shots. I told her we should go – this was about 11.30 p.m., last orders.’ Helena stops.
DS Bradshaw waits. ‘How did Edith react? Did she want to leave?’
Helena thinks back to Edith sticking out her tongue in Helena’s direction, then swivelling on the balls of her feet to the makeshift dance-floor-cum-karaoke stage.
‘Miss Reed?’
‘Yeah, no, she was fine. She gave us a terrible rendition of “Use Somebody” by the Kings of Leon.’ Helena stops again. She must be careful where this ventures.
DS Bradshaw is looking intently at her, waiting. ‘Something you’re remembering? About the evening?’
‘I’ll tell you who was sniffing around that night,’ says Helena. ‘Graham Garfield, Edith’s Director of Studies. Asked me where Will was. Bit predatory.’
‘Predatory how?’ asks DS Bradshaw.
‘Well, he’s always hanging around the students, y’know? Even though they’re half his age. He was watching Edith, watching her singing, and he just had this look. He saw how out of it she was.’
‘And what did you tell him?’
‘I told him Will was away for the weekend, but that things were – are – solid between them. Edith and Will, I mean.’
Manon