Only Darkness (24 page)

To her surprise, Tim Godber wasn’t one of these. She didn’t see him until the Monday of her first full week back, the last week in January. Her morning class had been no ordeal. The students came from another course, felt no allegiance
to Debbie and were probably unaware of what had happened. She took them briskly through some exam practice, and reminded them about the deadline for finishing their coursework. She was on auto pilot.

At midday, she went back to the staff room. Her desk was awash with paper. Louise had tried to sort and organize it so that it wouldn’t present her with too daunting a pile on her return, but there was still a lot to get through. She put the marking from her morning class into the folder for attention at the weekend, and was trying to sort the paperwork into degrees of urgency, when Tim came into the staff room. ‘Debbie,’ he said.

She wasn’t too pleased to see him. ‘Hi, Tim. If you’re looking for Louise she’s in a meeting.’

‘I wanted to see you. I just wanted to say how sorry I was about your mother.’

That was nice of him, to come down specially. Debbie nodded her acknowledgement. ‘Thanks, Tim. It was a terrible shock. Everyone’s been really good, though.’

‘Is there anything I can do?’ He looked at her anxiously, apparently sincere. It seemed to matter to him.

‘No, everything’s dealt with, thank you. But thanks for the offer.’ Debbie thought he looked downcast at her refusal. Maybe he saw this as a way of making up for the article.

‘Are you OK for company in the evenings? Are you getting out? Let me take you out for a drink.’ He smiled hopefully at her, giving her that mock-hangdog look he used to give her when apologizing for minor misdemeanours.

‘Oh.’ Debbie’s alarm bells rang. She didn’t want to offend him, but she didn’t want to go anywhere with him. ‘Thanks,’ she said, after too long a pause, ‘but I’m really busy at the moment. Some other time, maybe?’

He looked a bit put out, but took it with grace. ‘OK. Will you let me buy you lunch, then?’

Debbie laughed. He was persistent, but she genuinely couldn’t go. ‘I’ve got far too much to do,’ she said. He seemed happier with this and hung around for a few more minutes, chatting, before he left. Debbie returned to her pile
of paper. What would happen, she wondered, if she put the lot in the bin.

Tim Godber was in the administration section of City College, talking to Jean Glossop, the personnel officer. They got on well, and she was a useful contact to cultivate. Despite his confident words, he was by no means certain that his job was secure, and he was putting a few safety lines in place. ‘I’m thinking of reducing my contract, anyway,’ he was saying, as he managed to pull the talk round to the topic of the college crisis. Jean could be indiscreet, but she didn’t take kindly to being pumped. Tim knew from previous experience that he’d have to offer her opportunities, and then she might tell him things he needed to know.

‘Oh?’ Jean was filing some staff records. ‘Why is that, Tim? We’ll miss you.’

‘I’ve got so much freelance work. It’s time I made the decision, really.’ An exaggeration, but one that could be usefully passed back to management. Human nature tended to want to keep what was valued elsewhere. ‘Either I’m a journalist, or I’m a teacher. At heart, I think I’m a teacher, but you’ve got to go where the work is.’

‘That’s true.’ Jean looked depressed, and it occurred to Tim that her job might be on the line as well. She seemed to be one of a large crowd in the college whose job was to move paper around. He couldn’t see that the place would run any less smoothly without her.

He smiled at her. ‘Well, whatever happens,
you’ll
be all right.’

‘What makes you say that?’ The look she gave him made him wonder if he’d overplayed his hand.

He made himself look surprised. ‘Personnel. The college can’t manage without a proper personnel officer.’

‘Oh, can’t they?’ She went back to her filing.

‘Jean? You’re not at risk, are you? I’m sorry, I didn’t know. I’ve been going on about my job, and you …’ He wondered whether to put his arm round her, but decided that might complicate things too much. They were well established as friends.

‘Oh, I don’t know. I’m just worried. Everyone else seems to be getting out, and I don’t know if I could find such a well-paid job anywhere else. Well, not round here.’ She closed the filing cabinet, and stared out of the window. She looked a bit pink around the eyes. ‘With the kids, it’s so difficult. It’s just my salary, you see. I don’t see how I could manage on less.’

Tim forced himself to listen patiently and make soothing noises as she gave him the single-parent lament. He’d get her back on track in a minute. After she’d mopped her eyes and apologized, he patted her on the shoulder. ‘Coffee,’ he said. ‘I’ll make you a cup.’ He turned the kettle on, and took two cups from the tray. ‘But you don’t know?’ he asked. ‘You haven’t seen anything definite.’

‘Oh, no.’ She blew her nose. ‘They’re playing their cards very close to their chests. I know that they’re looking at the teaching staff in humanities – but don’t worry, Tim, they want to expand your GNVQ work.’

He poured water in the cups. ‘Sugar?’

‘Put one of those sweeteners in. Thanks.’ She took the cup from him and smiled gratefully. ‘Really, Tim, I do think you’re safe. You don’t have to give up teaching if you don’t want to.’

‘Well, that’s a relief.’ Tim mulled this over. If he could keep his full-time salary for another year, he could build up his freelance work to the point when he could opt out. If he never saw another student again, it would be too soon as far as he was concerned.

Jean was still talking. ‘It just got me down, you saying you were going. Trish Allen, she’s off, and Rob Neave …’

Tim became alert. ‘I didn’t know about Trish,’ he said, carefully. ‘I’m not surprised, though. She’s been looking for work in higher education for a while. I’d heard about Rob Neave. Where is it he’s going, again? I’ve forgotten.’

‘He didn’t say much. You know what he’s like. I didn’t know he’d told anybody. He’s got a job in Newcastle.’ Jean sipped her coffee. ‘He’s off in a couple of weeks.’

‘Oh, yes.’ Tim waited a moment, but there was nothing else. ‘I heard a rumour that Debbie Sykes was off as well, but she hasn’t said anything to me.’

Jean looked surprised. ‘Well, she hasn’t handed in her notice. I think she’s had some job applications in because they took up reference from Barnsley, but then there was that awful business with her mother.’

‘Well,’ Tim said, ‘I can’t see Debbie moving away from South Yorkshire.’ His visit to personnel had been more useful than he expected. He looked at his watch. ‘I’d better be off. Keep hanging in there, right?’ He closed the door on Jean’s grateful smile.

He’d got rid of his class that morning, given them an unofficial reading break. He found that he could get away with that sometimes, as long as he didn’t overdo it. No one had caught him yet.

He’d been out with Lizzie, his plump police clerk a time or two, and it had proven very rewarding. He was about, he hoped, to reap some of those rewards today. The other rewards had been worth it as well. Like a lot of women who thought they were unattractive, she was very appreciative of sexual attention and was an enthusiastic and inventive lover. Tim rather liked plump women, though supermodel waifs were better for his image.

It was his talks with Lizzie that had sent him to the archives at the local paper. He had no trouble as a well-established freelance in getting access to these. Lizzie was discreet, and rarely talked about her job. He’d managed to get this information by talking about the female DS on the Strangler case, Lynne Jordan. As he suspected, Jordan wasn’t too popular with the clerks. Tim had met her once in his role as a journalist and found her bossy and overbearing. Lizzie had said something about her coming back with some photographs looking pleased with herself. He’d teased Lizzie –
It’ll be pornography for the senior officers, a bit of bondage for Berryman
– and she’d let slip that the photographs came from the local paper.

The next stage had been chatting up the librarian in the archives, who’d told him, in response to a lucky question, which microfilm copies had been taken. She didn’t say that it was the police that had them, but Tim was pretty sure from the dates that this was what Jordan was so pleased about. He went to the shelves to see what was missing, and now he was
here in the local library looking to see what had got her so worked up.

It took him a couple of hours, but when he finished, he felt a prickle of excitement run up his back. He’d done the same count that Lynne Jordan had done, he knew what kind of time scale was operating. He had copies of the photographs now:
Karen-Can; Broughton’s Winning Team; Sheffield Students in Protest to Minister; True Lovers Love the Spring!
He puzzled over the discrepancy with Julie Fyfe’s photograph. The other pictures had appeared about six to eight weeks before the killing. Why the gap?

He had one more picture. It was dated from six weeks earlier. He thought that Lynne Jordan might not have realized the significance of that last one – but then she didn’t have the information he had. He looked at it. Debbie smiled.
I saw the face of the Strangler.
‘I know you did, sweetheart,’ he murmured to himself.

Neave had some decisions to make, and he didn’t want to make them. His quixotic dash to Debbie when Louise had phoned him had surprised him. He had done it almost instinctively – if he’d thought about it, he would have foreseen the consequences. And done what? The same, probably. And now they’d been effectively living together for the past fortnight. He could feel the tendrils of dependency – his own, not hers – creeping through him. He found himself thinking about her when he wasn’t with her, the way she looked, the way she felt, the things she said. He was starting to need to be with her – and he didn’t want that.

His mind skipped on to another problem, and he opened his desk drawer. The crumpled photograph of a teenage girl in a bikini. He’d put it into a plastic wallet, but Debbie had handled it, and so had he before she’d told him where she’d found it, why she was showing it to him. He ran his hand over his face, trying to concentrate. He should have passed it over to Berryman, but – a drawer with photographs spilling out, a woman who may have been upset, an unnoticed photograph on the floor, trodden on, kicked under a piece of furniture. It didn’t mean anything. He could imagine what Berryman
would say. He put the wallet back in the drawer. He’d drop it off later. He paused, as a thought struck him. Protocol. He’d better go through Cave. Right, he’d drop it off at Goldthorpe tomorrow.

He pulled his mind back. His plans were made. He was leaving City in a fortnight, and he had about four weeks’ grace before he had to be up in Newcastle permanently. He had to disentangle himself, he had to tell her, and he had to make sure that someone was watching out for her, someone who took the – admittedly tenuous – threat seriously. He’d been there, watching, waiting. There had been no sign of anyone, any threat, any danger. Still, he wouldn’t feel confident that Debbie was safe until the Strangler was caught, or until he’d shown in the only way he could that Debbie was not his target.

He’d start the process of disentanglement by going back to his flat tonight instead of staying with her. He was giving her a lift home, but they’d agreed for the rest of the week she would just make sure she had someone to travel with if she went on the train. Enough of the staff at City used the train for that not to be a problem. It was important to get out of the pattern of staying with her every night. Thursday nights were different. Neave knew the station weekday evenings. It was deserted. The commuters travelled between five and six, the shoppers during the day and early evening. People from Moreham wanting a night out in Sheffield travelled between eight and nine. No one travelled at half past nine from Moreham to Sheffield. Thursday night, he would take her home. And then …? He ran his hand over his face. It was all a mess. He didn’t know what to do.

Now it was starting to come together, Tim realized he needed to do some careful planning. What did he want from this? He wanted his story, he wanted to show everyone, in the scoop of the decade, that he’d got there before Berryman. He knew who the Strangler’s next victim was to be. The problem was, how could he write his story? He needed proof that Debbie was being stalked by the killer, and his only proof – well, his only evidence – had gone. He couldn’t
have used that anyway. The fact he’d kept it quiet wouldn’t have sat too well with the heroic image he planned to cut for himself. He thought about the headlines – he enjoyed putting himself in headlines –
Journalist Jousts with Death.
He needed to witness the stalker, he needed to get close enough to Debbie to watch, but not so close that the Strangler would be aware of him. He frowned, running the permutations through his mind. Where and when was the Strangler likely to attack? Obviously, the station. That made Thursday nights a high-risk time. Would the Strangler watch Debbie at the station? He was bound to. He needed to know her movements.

That reminded him of another complication. He’d been in his car in the car park the other day, and she’d come out of the college with Neave. Tim had watched as she got into Neave’s car, watched the way they talked, looked at each other, watched as the car had swung out of the car park. He’d got it wrong when he’d thought there was nothing going on. And it was going to get in the way of his story. If Debbie changed her pattern, if she stopped going on the train, if she stopped to-ing and fro-ing predictably … He’d have to do something about that.