Bone Machine (22 page)

Turnbull.

She returned the phone to her pocket, looked again at the Prof. ‘You were saying?’

He shook his head. Whatever it was, the moment had passed. ‘Nothing. That file. If it is the same one, that’s all long in
the past.’

She sighed, stood up, tried not to let her agitation show.
Handed him a card. ‘Give me a ring if you think of anything. Should be like old times.’

The Prof said nothing.

Outside the office she felt angry with herself. Regretted her parting line to him. It had been a cheap and unnecessary shot.
She shook her head, phoned Turnbull’s number. Got his answerphone, left a terse message telling him to phone her, walked away.

Demented
.

Teen Temptress
.

The Body Snatchers
.

She felt she had missed something, but she didn’t know what.

Peta opened the door to her house in Walker. They stepped in, shook off the cold and the dark.

‘It’s late,’ she said. ‘Might be better if you stay here tonight rather than driving back to Northumberland. Jamal’ll be OK.
He’s at Amar’s.’

Donovan agreed. He hadn’t felt like being alone, and Peta’s company was better than most. And he enjoyed being in her house.

It was relatively small – two up, two down, with a small back yard – and she lived there alone, but she had worked hard to
make it comfortable. It felt like a home. In the front room, where Donovan dropped his holdall, kicked off his boots and shed
his jacket, the sofas were soft and welcoming, the shelved books wide-ranging and interesting, the art prints striking, the
lighting tasteful and subdued. It was the kind of room where a couple could have curled up together, either on the sofa or
the rug, shared a bottle of wine and watched a DVD. Something witty but adult.
Lost in Translation
, say, or
Sideways
. Donovan corrected himself. Not wine. Coffee, perhaps, for Peta. Hot chocolate to be daring.

‘You’re not leaving them there, are you?’

He looked up. Peta was pointing to his bag, boots and jacket.

‘No, Mum,’ he said, standing and scooping them up. ‘Where d’you want me to put them?’

‘Upstairs,’ she said.

He looked at her. She looked at him. Neither spoke.

‘In the spare room,’ she said eventually, her face reddening slightly. ‘I know it’s my office, but there’s a futon in there.
You can have that.’

She turned away. Donovan took his things upstairs, deposited them in the spare room. Went back downstairs again and went into
the kitchen. Peta was taking things out of the freezer, looking at them. An unplunged cafetière of coffee sat on the side.
Donovan took over, got mugs, milk and sugar out, made the drinks.

They settled back in the living room, waited for microwaved lasagne to thaw, cook and ping.

‘How d’you feel?’ she asked.

Donovan slowly shook his head. ‘I don’t know … Relieved? That it wasn’t him? Then guilty for feeling relieved. Then thinking
of that other boy …’ He sighed. ‘I dunno. I really don’t know.’

Peta nodded understandingly. Then stood up. ‘I’d better check my messages.’

He heard her out in the hall, listening to her answer-phone. He was right: he didn’t know how he felt. He didn’t know how
he was supposed to feel. Emotions churned painfully inside him, like a washing machine full of bricks on a fast spin. He heard
Sharkey’s voice filtering in from the hall. Picked up the remote and pointed it at the TV. The news was on. Something about
global warming, a condemnation of Bush’s wilful ignorance and downright lying in allowing the situation to become so bad.
He should have been angry, he thought, but he just didn’t have the energy. Then the next item made him sit up.

‘Peta,’ he called, ‘get in here.’

She did. Just in time to hear the news about Jill Tennant.

‘Oh, my God …’ She looked at Donovan. ‘I knew her … Oh, my God …’ She sat down next to him. ‘Oh, fuck …’

Fenton’s face appeared next, looking drawn and tired. He made the usual noises, but neither Donovan nor Peta were listening.
They were still letting the shock sink in.

Peta moved close to Donovan. She began to cry. Donovan looked at her, surprised. This wasn’t like her, he thought. He gently
placed his arm around her and she folded into him, sobbing quietly. They sat like that for a while, the bouncing rays from
the TV illuminating the dimly lit room, an island of warmth.

‘That was Sharkey,’ said Peta eventually. ‘He’s got some work for us.’

Donovan said nothing.

‘Janine Stewart wants us to find Michael Nell.’ She sat up, stared Donovan in the eye. Her tears seemed to have hardened,
crystallized to sharp, freezing icicles. ‘Let’s find him, Joe. Let’s fucking find him.’

Donovan watched the shape of her mouth change with each word she formed, the movement a sensuous, undulating riff on the letter
‘o’. Expensive, expertly applied gloss gave her lips a rich, crimson lustre, the teeth glimpsed behind a perfect white. Again,
he was fascinated and again he figured that was the intention.

‘So that’s the situation,’ Janine Stewart said. ‘My client has disappeared, another abduction of a young, female student has
taken place. And they are also trying to link the death of a prostitute to him from last year.’

‘And Paul Turnbull’s gone too, I hear,’ said Donovan, proving he was following her this time. ‘Becoming a regular Bermuda
Triangle around here.’

Janine Stewart graced him with a smile of enough dazzling power to light up a small town, showing off her expensive dental
work in the process.

She sat back in her chair, seemingly waiting for him to
speak. She reminded Donovan of a beautiful queen in one of those old Hammer lost-world epics from the 1960s: beautiful, much
desired, but with a core of ice.

He spoke. ‘And what’s my part in this?’

‘We want to track down Michael Nell before the police do. My client has always maintained his innocence. We’re worried the
police may have a slightly skewed version of this.’

‘Right,’ said Donovan, slowly nodding. ‘Father Nell’s had another change of heart, has he? Decided to dip into the old handbag
again?’

‘The father–son bond is a very strong one. And very glad we are of it too,’ she replied, seemingly immune to his sarcasm.
‘As should you be. Since you’ll also be benefiting handsomely from this.’

‘What d’you want me to do?’

She passed an envelope across the table. The same size as before but heavier than the last one. Donovan guessed what it contained.
‘More of his models?’

Stewart nodded. ‘The full portfolio. If you could track them down, see if they know where my client is. See if any of them
are harbouring my client.’

‘And if they are?’

She shrugged. ‘Negotiate his safe passage back to us.’ She straightened her body in her chair, smoothed down her blouse and
skirt. The effect wasn’t unpleasant. ‘Since Michael Nell has not been charged with any crime, we have to assume his innocence.
We just want what’s best for our client.’

They discussed money, how impressed the company had been with Donovan’s previous work with them, and then it was time for
him to leave. Janine Stewart stood, offering her hand to be shaken. Donovan did so, finding it, unsurprisingly, cool and smooth.

He left the building, stood in the street and looked around. He hadn’t thought about David for nearly an hour. He looked at
the envelope in his hands.

Grateful for the diversion.

The university looked the same but felt very different.

Radically different.

She walked over the main square, coat and scarf pulled close against the biting wind, bag over her shoulder, ready for her
afternoon seminar. The tension all around her was almost palpable, a physical constriction in her chest making her unable
to breathe. Students eyed each other warily; girls walked in pairs and stared at boys with outright hostility. No one was
smiling. Home-made, quickly assembled banners had been tied to the walls:

Some girls were sporting quickly manufactured badges with the same slogan.

There was an increased security presence from bought-in guards. All ages, shapes and sizes, with their uniforms smartly pressed
and their erections almost visible, they strolled, eyes darting around corners, into doorways, anyone caught in their cross-hairs
vision a potential troublemaker, rapist, murderer. Demanding ID as they performed illegal stop and searches. Peta noticed
that the black and Asian students were primarily singled out for this treatment. No one stopped these rent-a-cops, questioned
their actions. No one wanted to be singled out as a troublemaker, a protester with too much to hide, a target inviting a thorough
investigation of their life.

The university was a society in microcosm, a society with
fear and anger in the ascendancy. Never a good way to live, she thought.

She reached her building, showing her ID to a security guard on the door, unwinding her scarf and opening her jacket as she
did so. He glanced idly at her photo, his eyes more interested in trying to see down her top. She felt the anger rising, couldn’t
stop herself.

‘Had a good look?’

The man was middle-aged and small. Bespectacled. His eyes widened as if he had been jolted out of a pleasant reverie.

‘And you’re supposed to stop us being abducted, raped and murdered, is that it?’

The guard reddened. ‘I don’t … don’t know what you mean …’

She gave an angry shake of her head. ‘Pathetic.’ She strode off.

Still angry when she reached her classroom, she almost missed the notice on the door informing her that the day’s seminar
had been cancelled. She wasn’t surprised. She should have phoned before coming in.

She sighed, anger subsiding. She thought of Jill. Sighed again.

‘Bit old for this lark, aren’t you?’

Peta turned quickly. DI Diane Nattrass stood behind her. Peta was too surprised to speak.

‘I’m not stalking you,’ said Nattrass. ‘Saw your name on the register. Gone back to college?’

‘Yeah.’ Peta didn’t feel like explaining. ‘Unfinished business.’

‘Know what you mean. Happiest days of your life.’ Nattrass almost smiled. ‘Or they were mine.’

‘Not for Jill Tennant, though.’

‘No. Did you know her?’

‘She was in my year,’ said Peta, pointing to the classroom. ‘First-year psychology. Got on well with her. She was a nice girl.’

‘Don’t say “was”, Peta. Don’t make my job any harder.’

Peta nodded. ‘How’s it going?’

‘We’re looking at several lines of enquiry, following several leads. That sort of thing. I’m sure you remember the drill.’

Peta nodded. ‘And you don’t tell the public what they don’t need to know.’

Nattrass gave a sad smile. ‘Exactly.’ She frowned, looked around before speaking, made sure they were alone. ‘I’m glad I ran
into you. Want to ask you something.’

Peta felt wary. ‘What?’

‘Your lecturer. The Prof. Is that what he calls himself?’

Her sense of wariness increased. ‘What about him?’

‘What d’you make of him?’ Nattrass tried to make the question neutral, casual, even. Peta wasn’t fooled. She had asked the
same kind of question in the same kind of tone many times.

‘Is he a suspect?’

‘Would he be walking around free if he was?’

‘If you didn’t have enough to bang him away, yes.’

Nattrass sighed. ‘That sounds like Joe Donovan talking.’

Peta smiled. ‘Taught me everything I know. And Northumbria Police, of course.’

‘You haven’t answered my question.’

Peta thought. ‘He’s … a one-off. Hopefully. Eccentric, certainly. But you’re asking me if he’s capable of abduction and murder?’

Nattrass looked at Peta. Her blank face gave nothing away.

Peta returned the unyieldingly blank look with interest. ‘I doubt it,’ she said.

Nattrass kept her eyes on Peta as if checking her words for veracity. Eventually she nodded. ‘Thanks, Peta.’ She looked around,
ready to leave. ‘I’ll be off. Which way out?’

Peta showed her. Nattrass walked away. Peta watched her go. She opened her mouth to call out, stop her, talk to her, confide.
But she didn’t. Instead she pulled her jacket about herself, rewound her scarf, readied herself to leave. Nattrass had gone
through the door, closing it behind her. Peta turned the other way, not wanting to bump into her again. She began walking.

Music echoed around the walls of the near-deserted corridor, got louder as she walked. She looked around. The Prof’s office
was directly in front of her. The sounds emanated from there, seeped out from under the door. She couldn’t place it; something
dark and sinister; twanging guitars, baleful drums, mournful saxophone. A voice intoning, imploring over the top. Something
to do with fires and eyes, blood and poison. She couldn’t be too clear. She stopped, glanced in.

There were no lights on in the room and for a second she thought it was deserted. She looked closer. The Prof was sitting
at his desk, head down, hands propping his chin up as if studying something, brow furrowed. He hadn’t seen her. She continued
to watch, fascinated. He still didn’t move. The music played on, crescendoed and crashed into some apocalyptic cacophony.
Still he didn’t move. Energy spent, the song died away. She watched him sigh heavily, move his arms to the side, ready himself
to get up.

Not wanting him to see her, she moved quickly away from the glass. Hurried down the corridor without looking back. Behind
her, the music started again. She found the door, pulled it open and was outside.

The cold air hit her like an icy slap in the face, the winter daylight interrogation-room bright. She stood for a few
seconds getting her breath, thinking. She considered going to the refectory, seeing if there were any of her fellow students
there. But decided against it. She couldn’t see the point. Besides, she had work to do. She set off across the quadrangle.

She kept her eyes straight ahead, tried to avoid eye contact with anyone else in case their paranoia infected her, bubbled
up into fear, broke out as anger. As she walked, she couldn’t lose the feeling that she was being scrutinized by unseen eyes,
that she was being followed. She tried to shake the feeling off, dismiss it as irrational. But she walked faster, trainers
squeaking and scuffing, almost running.

She reached the corner, turned around. No one behind her. She sighed, let go a breath she didn’t know she had been holding.
Looked around again. Saw the old security guard she had argued with on her way into the building. Even with the square between
them she could see he was staring at her. She could sense the anger coming off him in waves.

She turned around, ready to walk back over there, mouth open to let fly some insult, give vent to her own anger. She stopped
herself. She couldn’t see the point. Insulting a pathetic old man hiding behind a uniform. Instead she turned around, kept
walking.