All These Perfect Strangers (31 page)

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Walking deep in the trees, I heard a rustle of leaves. A twig snapped. I listened but could only hear the blood pounding in my ears like the sound of the sea. I walked on three steps but then stopped, and this time I heard a definite patter continue on, an echo of my feet.

‘Who's there?' I called.

Everything was still.

The hairs on the back of my neck told me I was being watched. I turned. Took a step forward. Peered. A black shape between the trees.

Two eyes in the darkness.

And I ran, blindly forward, cutting through the trees, getting back to college by the most direct route, forgetting about not needing to be seen. I wanted people around. Someone to stop and say I shouldn't be by myself at night, to insist on walking me home.

The feet were gaining on me, the tread heavier, not bothering to be quiet now. The noise seemed to change direction, not behind me any more but running alongside, between me and the campus. I was being herded deeper into the bush.

Twisting around, I could see a figure moving past a tree but the face was covered. I tripped on a tree root and nearly fell. A branch scratched my cheek in an instant splinter of pain that I pushed aside, focusing everything on the way ahead. Lungs bursting, legs screaming, I still kept running. Almost there, I pushed past the last tree out into the open, Scullin directly in front, hundreds of haphazard rectangular room lights like an elaborate dot-to-dot.

Except that it wasn't.

Disoriented, I turned around. Back behind me, over to the left, I could see it. I had been driven away from safety. No more than a five-minute run but too far. Panic flooded through me as I pitched forward onto the ground, spent.

Dragging myself up, I turned around to face him. I didn't know what was going to happen next but I was prepared to kick, claw and scream. My breath laboured in my chest. Adrenalin raced. Swinging my head wildly from side to side, I waited for a figure to burst out of the bush.

No one.

My breath began to slow. It was impossible that I'd lost my tracker. Perhaps the person had run ahead of me, guessing where I was going, unwilling to attack out in the open.

Numb, exhausted, I stumbled the rest of the way home.

Someone was sitting on the steps outside the main entrance. I was noticed moving under the streetlights and the figure jumped up and came towards me.

‘How did the interview go?' asked Rogan. ‘What did the police ask?'

He was wearing a dark, long-sleeve t-shirt over black jeans, Doc Martens scuffed with grass.

He frowned when I didn't respond. ‘How did it go?'

I wondered how long he had been here. He didn't seem out of breath. Any relief I felt at getting back safely curdled.

‘What are you doing out here?' I asked.

‘Just been waiting for you.' The aw-shucks kind of smile that he put on was supposed to be cute.‘So, what happened?'

‘Want to know if I kept lying for you? Guess you'll have to wait and see.' As I moved away, he put his arm out to stop me, gently held me around my middle and pulled me back to where I had been. A practised move, a sexy one, but the result was still that he prevented me from leaving.

‘C'mon, no need to be cross. Let's go for a walk and you can tell me.' The lovely smile again. Beautiful lips. A kissable mouth. ‘Somewhere we won't be interrupted.'

I smiled up at him and his face relaxed. He thought he was going to get what he wanted, as usual.

‘What are you so worried about, Rogan? You didn't kill her, did you?'

I wanted to puncture his cosy world to match the jagged holes in mine. He grabbed me by the shoulders, a violent, quick move. Shook me roughly so that my head jolted back. His face twisted in shock.

‘What do you know?' But he was interrupted by a voice coming out of the darkness.

‘Let go of her!' It was Michael, running towards us, hair wild, eyes wide. He got between us, two hands shoving Rogan. Stumbling backwards, Rogan stared at both of us, then abruptly turned away and left. We watched him go.

‘I saw him from my room. Are you all right?' asked Michael.

I didn't know the answer to that. I didn't know the answer to anything. I wanted to be alone.

‘Rogan doesn't care about you, not like I do.'

I ignored him, turned and began trudging back towards college.

A small bundle lay forgotten on the ground next to the stairs near where Rogan had been sitting. A black woollen shape. Dried leaves and twigs caught in the stitches. It felt damp, a warm sort of damp as if it had just been worn. It unrolled in my hand, two eye holes I could stick my fingers through. A balaclava. Revulsion shook me.

Michael put his arm around me. It was clumsy, with none of Rogan's polish. A teenage boy moving in for the first kiss and ending up with a slap.

I said to him the words that had been rattling in my head for Rogan.

‘Leave me alone. I hate you.'

A siren wail woke me. As more sirens joined it, I imagined Nico's body being found and all the fingerprints I had left. A trail of evidence that would link another dead body back to me. I shut my eyes tight and put a pillow over my head, trying to block out the awful things beyond my room. Hours seemed to pass before the noise stopped and I began drifting into an exhausted numbness that was almost sleep until the fire alarm went off.

I got out of bed and stuck my head into the corridor. Kesh was already up and, wearing a yellow plastic Deputy Fire Warden hat, banging business-like on doors. There was a determined grimness to her as she ordered people out of their rooms. I could barely remember the shy girl Rachel used to torment, who blushed as often as she spoke.

Catching sight of me, she said, ‘Head out to the car park and find Toby to get your name ticked off. False alarm, I expect.'

I quickly ducked back into my room and as I grabbed a cardigan to put over my pyjamas, I saw the balaclava lying on my desk where I had left it. It was evidence of something, what I wasn't sure, but it felt important. It wasn't going to go missing like my Rohypnol. I tucked it into the waistband of my pyjamas.

The stairs were full of people in various stages of dress. No one else seemed particularly worried. There had been a spate of false alarms, though never this late before. I caught parts of the conversations around me.

‘It will be someone pulling an all-nighter deciding to make toast in their room at two o'clock in the morning,' Annabel said, walking in front of me.

‘Shouldn't take long anyway,' said Tess. ‘Not with half the fire brigade on campus already.'

‘I went up to the Gulag,' said Annabel. ‘Completely destroyed. The smoke was toxic. One of the firemen said if anyone had been in there, they wouldn't have had a chance . . .'

I thought of the Marchmain boy and his camp stove. A surge of panic. I had to get outside and see for myself.

‘Sorry,' I mumbled, pushing past.

‘What's the rush? Where's the fire?' someone called out and I heard people laughing at the joke.

‘Are you OK?' asked Annabel, but already she sounded far off as I elbowed my way down.

I got to the bottom of the stairs and along the corridor which was even more crowded as the people from the other tower joined the flow. Pushing my way towards the door, there was a definite haze and the smell became stronger, a mixture of a bonfire and something more acrid. When I got outside the night was tinged red.

A fire engine was parked on the grass out the front of our college, a police car a little further away.

The Sub-Dean, attempting to get people into their floor groupings, directed me to where the car park met the road. Toby was sitting on a bench with a list in his hand.

‘There you are,' he said, ticking off my name.

‘I'm going up to the Gulag.'

‘Why? Not much left to see. Lucky no one was inside.'

‘No one?' I asked, my heart racing.

‘The firemen had time to go through the buildings and they didn't bring anyone out. They seemed pretty relaxed. Paramedics sitting around doing nothing.'

I sat down next to him. The boy in the kitchen must have got out. But what about Nico? They should have found his body and now his building was destroyed. Maybe it wasn't just me who was worried about evidence.

‘This'll be a false alarm,' said Toby, looking up at our building. A fireman came out of it and started to talk to the Sub-Dean. ‘Maybe the smoke from the Gulag set it off. It's strong enough.' He held the list up to his face, the words difficult to read in the hazy light. ‘Who else? Seen most of the others.' He scanned the document. ‘Only Joad.'

I was about to say that Joad was locked up in a police cell somewhere, when Toby said, ‘There he is. That's everyone.' He jumped up yelling, ‘Bingo!' and wandered over to the Sub-Dean. I turned to see Joad standing there, staring in the direction of the red glow. Not arrested. He must have cooperated with the police, whatever that meant.

A rustle behind me and I felt as if I was being watched. Turning, I saw him.

‘I wanted to say sorry . . . about before . . . the way I acted,' said Rogan.

Instinctively, I jumped up and moved away from him.

‘Don't be like that,' he said and instantly the apology changed to impatience.

‘What do you want?'

He gave an angry shrug. ‘To say sorry, that's all.'

There was no one close enough to hear our conversation but people were close enough to keep me safe. He couldn't do anything to me out here.

‘I think you need to say a bit more than that.'

‘Like what?'

‘Like telling me exactly what has been going on.'

Rogan shook his head. ‘You don't want to know.'

‘Don't tell me . . .' I began, but the Sub-Dean began clapping his hands and then his voice cut through the crowd.

‘I have been informed that we are able to go back inside. Stay in the dining hall until the college has officially been given the all-clear.'

Rogan used this interruption to walk away, not even waiting for the end of my sentence. He moved through the crowd, joining the queue to go inside. All I could feel was anger. It was OK for me to lie to the police for him but it wasn't all right for me to know exactly what I was lying about. He had chased me through the dark for no good reason at all. And now this patronising dismissal. It wasn't until we were walking past the telephone cubicles that I caught up with him. I was going to confront him with the balaclava and see what he said.

‘What?' he snapped, as I grabbed his arm.

‘I hadn't finished,' I said.

He pulled me into a cubicle as we waited for the people to pass us by. Voices were quieter now. Some were threatening to head straight for bed. But it was only talk. Everyone was heading into the dining hall as they had been told.

‘So, what's so important?' But almost immediately the door opened.

‘Gotcha. I thought I saw you making a dramatic exit.' It was Toby. ‘Now, you two, I'm all for kinky sex but there's a time and a place and I have to be invited. You heard the man, into the dining hall.'

‘Go away, Toby,' I said angrily.

‘Don't be so touchy,' Toby began, but was distracted by something along the corridor. ‘Who's that with Marcus?'

Marcus was talking to men in suits. Suits I recognised. Suits that looked even cheaper after a long day and night.

‘Homicide detectives,' I said. ‘I saw them this afternoon.'

‘What would they want with him in the middle of the night?' asked Toby. ‘Is he being arrested?'

I felt Rogan sway beside me. Without thinking, I put a hand out to steady him. He pushed it away.

They began to walk towards us, Marcus behind the two policemen. The detectives moved past, but Marcus stopped when he saw us.

‘Tobias, Pen, I was wondering if you would assist me.'

‘Of course,' said Toby, his camp cockiness momentarily evaporating.

‘Good, good.' Marcus was being his usual smooth self. ‘Could you be so kind as to let the Sub-Dean know that I have gone to the city police station for a discussion with these two gentlemen? He should contact my lawyer to meet me there.'

Neither of us moved, shock delaying our response to his request.

‘Straight away, if you don't mind.'

‘Of course,' Toby said again. He turned the corner quickly, heading towards the dining hall. The noise from there had a fractious quality to it now as if the party had gone on for too long. I started to follow, but then turned back to tell Rogan that we weren't finished yet and that's when I saw it.

It was only a look. Nothing was said. But Marcus had waited for us to leave and the detectives to walk ahead before he turned to Rogan and gave a slow, controlled nod. I knew it was a deliberate signal. A command. The older detective turned back, and Marcus gave another of his charming smiles, and joined them to continue walking up the corridor as if he was escorting them rather than the other way around.

‘Are you coming or what?' asked Toby.

‘You go, I'll catch you up.'

Toby left, impatient to share the news.

I stayed close to the corner, watching Rogan. He had not moved. In fact, his body was so tense he could have been frozen, until he took a long breath and began to turn. I huddled close to my corner so he couldn't see me. I wanted to know what he was going to do next. He passed by, his face strained.

He moved quickly, almost running, up the corridor towards Marcus's office. I followed at a distance, listening, aware of the gentle slap of my bare feet against the floor. He must have had a key for the office because as I got closer I could hear a door open and then close. But in his hurry, he hadn't snibbed it properly, and the door swung back just a fraction. I peeked in.

Rogan had sat down in Marcus's chair and switched on the lamp. A puddle of muted yellow light spilt over the desk and illuminated a nearby vase of lilies. He dragged down the sleeve of his top over his fingers and began opening drawers. He took out two packets of white powder from the second drawer and laid them on the desk. The next drawer had some pills. He then moved out of sight, and I could hear a rustling sound. Trying to see where he went, I pushed the door open a little further. Suddenly it jerked inwards, and I fell into the room. Rogan slammed me against the wall and pressed a sharp point at my throat.