Dying Fall (16 page)

‘Miss Rivers is to take over my job when I retire at Easter,' said Tim. ‘I want to make sure she's properly trained.'

They nodded in appreciation. I smiled hard. Perhaps they wouldn't see my clenched teeth.

I started by asking simple questions – how long they'd been taking on students, and from which schools and colleges. They answered courteously and in full, even if they were surprised by my apparent naivety.

Then there was a tap at the door. A young woman in
kameez
and
salwar
brought in tea. It was thick, sweet and milky, the sort Shahida had taught me to enjoy. My acceptance of a second cup seemed to earn me Brownie points.

I was able to move the conversation round to the work Wajid had done. It seemed he'd caused a little irritation by insisting on wearing jeans. The designer jeans, no doubt. But he'd made up for it by the work he did with computer records. He'd had such skill and enthusiasm for his inputting that there'd been talk among the management of offering him a holiday job and possibly a full-time post.

An odd little silence followed that. Almost as if someone had spoken out of turn.

He'd learned other skills – answering the phone, filing. He'd shadowed the manager at a couple of meetings. The bank had clearly been conscientious in their approach to training. The men bowed dismissively when I said so.

Then I stepped up the conversation a gear: had Wajid had access to classified information?

‘All bank information is confidential,' said the man without a title.

I decided to turn his implied reproof. ‘Then you are all the more generous to have trusted him,' I said. ‘Do you ever have students who betray this trust, and try and pry into private files?'

‘Never.'

‘So you have to supervise them all the time?'

‘A bank relies on trust. Your college sends only students worthy of that trust. In any case,' he added with almost a grin, ‘any particularly sensitive information would be accessible only by means of a password.'

‘So you'd be happy for someone like Wajid to work on his own.'

‘Of course.'

His voice suggested that my welcome might be wearing slightly thin. Never mind. I pressed on.

‘What opportunities would be open to someone as hardworking and talented as Wajid if he came to work for you full-time?'

A gesture from the deputy manager implied that the sky itself was hardly a limit. ‘We are, after all, a truly international organisation. Wherever large numbers of Asian businesses are to be found, you'll find us. The Indian subcontinent, of course. East Africa.'

‘America?'

‘Certainly. North and South. And we'll be developing further still.'

I nodded my admiration. Tim caught my eye. It was time to go. We were both teaching in half an hour. We smiled and shook hands and promised more students as good as Wajid and made it back just in time for me to phone the police. Ian took the call and promised to pass on the message. And he'd make sure I had a lift home, he said, almost as an afterthought.

I suppose I had expected Chris to be waiting when I emerged from the college at six. I felt my weekend's reading and my visit that afternoon had given me some pointers he might use. But it was only Ian, looking weary in an elderly Maestro.

‘Appearances can be deceptive,' was all he said when I commented on it. Then he explained that Chris was having his jabs but might be round later.

‘Jabs?'

‘For India. Didn't he tell you? He's off to Delhi on some exchange scheme. A month or more. And he's being sensible for once – having his jabs against hepatitis and typhoid and everything.'

‘Are you going too?' I could scarcely ask if Chris would be kept here in Birmingham until he'd sorted out the murders. Not to mention the murderers.

‘Too old, too lowly. Not that I mind, Sophie – don't think that. I never did like the heat. And it's good for Chris's career. He's a good lad. The best. I didn't take kindly to the idea of some whizz kid as boss, I can tell you, and I don't think I'd have stomached anyone except him. There's this DCI in charge over Solihull way and I tell you – you wouldn't have to look for the murderer: it'd be me.'

I let him talk on. I found I was shaken that Chris hadn't chosen to tell me something I'd have been interested to know. Most of the time we seemed to be functioning as friends, after all. I'd ignore Shahida, who was inveterately romantic when it came to me and my sundry relationships. In any case, fancying and keeping quiet about your future seemed pretty incompatible.

I asked Ian to stop off at Safeway: Gavin and his predilection for cheese had quite made me forget a load of things on Saturday, and I felt like an evening in the kitchen. Ian insisted on pushing the trolley for me, dismissing Gavin's tastes in wine and proving an expert on sherry, not, alas, my usual tipple. His wife, he said, used Sainsbury's, and he preferred Tesco's amontillado. As he watched my selection of vegetables, his expression changed. I deduced that his wife's trolley did not normally include chillies, okra or ginger. I winced at the price of fresh coriander, but bought two plastic boxes holding about a quarter of the bunches you could buy on Soho Road and at twice the price. I'd cook a curry. If I couldn't escape to India, it'd still be authentic. The father of Bashurat Ali had celebrated his son's unnaturally good results by feasting all who'd taught him at his restaurant – and by teaching us to cook what we ate.

On Ian's instructions I locked myself in the house. And yes, I would try a glass of sherry before I set to work in the kitchen.

I had got no further than opening the bottle when Chris arrived, greyish and sweating.

‘Ian said you thought it was important,' he said, lurching into the living room. ‘No, I'm not infectious. They said I'd get a reaction. Feels like flu and a half.'

I poured water on three aspirins and thought of a different recipe.

The sight of him asleep on my sofa brought another problem sharply to my mind. Amid my preparations for the coming evening with Stobbard I'd forgotten one small but essential item. In today's etiquette, whose job was it to buy the condoms? When the rabbit-loving Kenji left my life, I went off the Pill, and we were, after all, now in the era of
AIDS
. So prudence dictated I must arm myself, and must organise – it was horrible that even the simplest visit took on the proportions of an expedition – a trip to a pharmacy. Not my local one, either, whatever his expertise in suggesting remedies for teacher's throat. And I needed someone's expertise. Surely someone must have written a Woman's Guide to the things. They come with a wide enough variety of unhelpful names – Arouser, indeed, or Fetherlite. I plainly needed something called Toughasoldboots or Safeashouses. Or, of course, I might need nothing at all. Chris might even insist on a police escort.

‘You know, Sophie,' said Chris an hour later, chasing the last grains of rice round his plate, ‘you really are a brilliant cook. But I still can't see what Wajid's work experience had to do with his getting knifed.'

I passed the fruit – I'm not very good at puddings – and waited till he'd chosen his apple.

‘Wajid, according to Philomena, used the Computer Suite telephone. He shouldn't have, but he insisted it was for his computing project. When he used the phone he used a modem. I suppose you haven't found one among his things?'

‘No, but that doesn't mean anything. He could have borrowed one, or it could have been stolen by whoever killed him. Go on.'

‘He couldn't dial long distance. He'd have had to go through the switchboard for that, and –'

‘But he might have done. I'll –'

‘I've already checked. The Finance Section have computerised records which show the destination of every phone call we make. All they could find for the Computer Suite extension was a regular, very long call to a bank. Does the International Commercial Bank mean anything to you?'

He shook his head, then winced, as if the movement hurt him.

‘I think it's got something to do with his work experience there. Look.' I showed him the report Tim had meant to bin. In his present state of health he'd rather not know about my visit.

‘Not much different from his college reports – keen, hard-working, prepared to come into work early …' Chris's voice tailed off.

‘And which department was he mostly based in?'

‘Computer inputting.' He rubbed his hands over his face.

‘Exactly!'

‘Sophie, just spell it out, will you? I feel so bloody …'

I poured him more water, and then ferreted through the pile of photocopies which had so amused him the night Stobbard had called round. ‘Here, read this. All about hacking.'

‘Jesus!' Chris looked like a drooping plant shot a particularly potent fertiliser. ‘So you think he spent his time at the bank hacking into someone's system –'

‘– and needed to get into their international network to continue doing so once he was back at college.'

‘Why should he be killed for doing that?'

I dropped another article on the table. ‘It could be something like salami fraud – slicing bits off some organisation's bank account and salting them away in his own. But killing someone seems a bit excessive for something like that. I'd have thought a call to your Fraud Squad more likely. So what I wondered was could he have found more than just money? Chris? Chris!'

And he passed out gracefully on my table.

‘What you been up to, eh, Sophie? All night partying, eh? You got real big bags under your eyes: I bet you have a good time!' Philomena cackled gleefully as she opened the Computer Suite for Josiah and me.

‘No such luck.'

‘What you been doing then?'

‘Looking after a friend who wasn't very well.'

This was, after all, the truth. Once I'd revived Chris with his own smelling salts, I'd had to sleep, since he was too tall for anywhere except my bed, on the sofa. He still occupied my bed, to the best of my knowledge. Ian and I had decided to leave him there while Ian ran me to college. Chris's car, the large executive Peugeot, slept on outside my front door. The wheels were still in place and no one had yet removed the aerial. Only my reputation was not intact: I'd noticed the ripples along a whole bank of lace curtains even as I'd got into Ian's car – a Montego, this particular morning.

In my driving days I'd preferred to cross the Hagley Road at the Ivy Bush junction, but today Brummie accents on Ian's radio told of an RTA and he kept on Harborne Road till we reached the Five Ways island. He was in the inner lane since he wanted the second exit. This is the island I always cycle under. Up above, it's just a matter of time before you become an accident statistic.

Even Ian.

There are peak-hour traffic lights to control the mayhem. Normally they give you a few yards to get on to the island. This morning, of course, they were out. Each set. That meant there was a continuous line of traffic on the island, moving faster than could possibly be safe. If you knew the buses' numbers and routes you knew when you had a chance. The numbers 103 and 10 would pull off in front of the hordes ravening up from Islington Row. A couple of cars from Harborne Road might be able to make it.

Sometimes there were no buses, of course. So there wasn't a gap. You had to make one.

Ian waited patiently.

Then there was an outburst from someone's horn. And someone else's. Then a regular chorus.

I peered round. Some poor motorcyclist had broken down just behind us. He was rapidly acquiring a massive tailback.

Ian was now almost at the head of the queue. I could feel him tensing, ready to urge the car forwards. If he urged too much, of course, he'd find the Rover driver in front had had second thoughts and he'd end up embracing the Rover's boot and losing his no-claims bonus.

The Rover pulled away smoothly.

Ian's turn.

The Lada alongside him was ready for the same gap. We surged out together.

So did the motorbike. Heading straight for the passenger door. My door.

I didn't have time to cry out.

The Montego was no longer in the left-hand lane, but in front of the Lada on the inner lane. Inches, incidentally, from the exhaust of a cement mixer, trundling round the island at a more sedate pace. Another foot – I covered my face with my hands.

‘No point in that,' said Ian. ‘If I'd hit him, you'd have lost more than your looks. Lost your head, more like.'

‘Literally?'

‘Literally.'

He calmly signalled, found a gap, and left the island. There was another tailback opposite the Children's Hospital – people wanting to turn right for cheap Tesco's petrol. He dodged that, neatly changing lanes again.

The last few hundred yards were uneventful. He parked exquisitely.

‘Do you think that was – coincidence?' I asked, releasing my seat belt.

‘Lot of mad drivers around,' he said.

‘You saved my life.'

‘Worth keeping your eyes open when you're driving,' he acknowledged.

A horn sounded loud and long.

‘Who the hell does he think he is?'

‘Just the Principal. But you are parked in his space.'

Philomena enjoyed that bit. But as if to trump me she produced from her overall pocket a creased sheet of paper.

MEMO

To: All Personnel

From: James Worrall, Principal

Re: Enhanced Security

Following the recent lapse in security, staff are reminded that all rooms must be locked at all times unless under the active supervision of an authorised member of staff.

‘So how do I get authorised, I wonder?'

‘Don't ask me. I only Philly the cleaning lady. Philly don't know nothing. She jus' know she love to get she hands on Mr Carpenter's memos and correct them first. “Re”, indeed!'