Scarred for Life (4 page)

‘And Damon continued in the same vein?’

‘Yes. I don’t think he missed a class in the couple of months he was here. His work was always on time and the marks were consistently in the top two or three in the year. In the introductory class, whenever I asked a question, his hand would usually be in the air.’

‘Did you notice any changes in him in recent weeks?’

Call Me Bob shook his head, hair flapping wildly in a breeze Jessica couldn’t feel. ‘I took a class with him on Tuesday and he was the same as ever – hand in the air, taking notes and so on. If anything, he seemed more enthusiastic than usual.’

Archie leant in again, whispering into Jessica’s ear behind his hand. ‘Is it me or is this guy’s head on upside down?’

Jessica’s eyes flickered up towards the professor. Now Archie had mentioned it, the flapping strands of hair on his head would have made more sense as a beard. She nodded thoughtfully and made a ‘hmm’ sound as Archie leant back. Call Me Bob peered from one officer to the other but said nothing.

‘Is that attentiveness unusual?’ Jessica asked.

Call Me Bob tried to flatten his hair but only succeeded in making it more static, then he scratched his shoulder. ‘When I first got into teaching, all the students were interested and wanted to learn. Now everyone goes to university. Tuition fees slowed things down a little but there was a period where courses were accepting any old body – people with Ds and Es at A-level, just to make the numbers up and keep government funding. Then you have all these offshoot, new-fangled courses – herbology, hairdressing and who knows what else. It’s not like the old days, so it’s nice when you have students who want to learn.’

Jessica clarified a few further points, taking the names of the other lecturers who taught Damon. At some point they would need to be spoken to, but someone else could do that. As they were standing to leave, the professor stood too. ‘Do you think you’ll find out what happened to him?’ he asked.

She began to answer but was interrupted as Archie sent a pile of papers tumbling from the desk. ‘Shite, oops, sorry mate,’ he said, hunching to help pick things up. Together, they tidied everything back into a stack but Jessica couldn’t help but notice the metal hip flask which had previously been hidden. Still, if she had to spend every day surrounded by hormone-riddled teenagers, she’d probably have a sly drink every now and then too.

Jessica told Bob that they’d do their best to find out why Damon had died – as if she could say anything else – and then they headed along the student-filled corridors in silence, following signs to the cafe.

‘You’re buying,’ she told Archie, sitting in a low-backed wooden chair, taking in the room. Compared to the greasy spoon places round her way and most of the cafes in the surrounding Salford area, the university one could have been built for a king. Clean tables were a start but there was also a spiral staircase linking two floors of the teaching building, with bright stainless steel coffee machines behind the counter whooshing intermittently as a line of students queued for their skinny lattes. Archie might well have fitted in with the locals but he couldn’t stop himself standing out among the student population. His posturing and pigeon chest made him look like a particularly short students’ union bouncer.

He arrived at the table with two cups of tea and a scowl. ‘Fooking students,’ he complained. ‘Girl behind the counter tried to serve me some shite with peppermint in it.’

Jessica sipped from her cup. ‘Is camomile more your thing?’

Archie was about to spit out a ‘no’ when he caught Jessica’s eye and grinned instead. ‘Aye, and that green shite.’

‘What was going on upstairs with you whispering to me behind your hand?’

He shrugged slightly. ‘Dunno, he seemed a bit iffy. I was seeing how he’d react. Did you see the flask on his desk?’

Jessica was surprised Archie had spotted it. ‘Yes.’

‘I saw it early on but thought I’d knock those papers off in case you hadn’t. Then there’s the books.’

‘I was afraid to move in case they came tumbling down.’

Archie blew into his cup. ‘Not that; there were all these textbooks but then he had these general poetry books at the back.’

‘So?’

‘He’s a business professor – not even English professors read poetry.’

‘Perhaps he likes poetry?’

‘Leave it out – there’s no way he’s read everything in there. It’s all bobbins – all for show. Give me Cooper Clarke any day.’

‘Who?’

‘John Cooper Clarke – punk and poet. Manc lad – well, Salford, but you can forgive him that.’

‘You’re into poetry?’

Archie finished swilling tea in his mouth and swallowed. ‘Not really, but I know someone trying it on when I see it. Takes one to know one.’

Jessica took a mouthful of her own drink, wondering if he was right. In her younger days she might have been the one storming in to put the proverbial up people just to see how they’d react. Now she was supposed to be sensible and clamping down on it. The hip flask was likely doing no harm; still, if Archie had spotted it before her and had bothered to scan the spines of the books – something she hadn’t done – then perhaps he wasn’t just the Manc loudmouth everyone thought.

5

Tea drunk and students slagged off, Jessica double-checked the address with Izzy at the station and then headed half a mile down the road to a bright red-bricked student accommodation block. When Jessica’s friend Caroline had been a student in Manchester, it was all rundown houses covered in blankets and bean bags, reeking of stale cigarette smoke and spilled alcohol; now it was custom-built flats and studio apartments, with free WiFi and coffee shops on the ground floor. Archie’s ‘tsk’ as they rang the buzzer made his feelings clear too.

Damon’s roommate, Alistair, buzzed the door open and then met both officers on the stairs. He took two or three steps at a time, his gangly legs getting him to the third floor just as Jessica was rounding the corner from the second. As he waited in the doorway of a flat, she could see the blankness in his face. He was tall and thin but appeared cowed, having discovered Damon’s fate. He pushed open the unlocked front door and let both officers in without a word, leading them into a living room that had two leather sofas, a large flatscreen television fixed to the wall, a games console on the floor and any number of other expensive-looking electrical devices at intervals around the room.

Jessica and Archie sat next to each other, with Alistair slumped on the other sofa, elbows on knees, staring at the floor. ‘When the police came round last night, I thought they were joking,’ he said. ‘Well, not joking, but you know what I mean. I couldn’t take it in.’

‘When did you first meet Damon?’ Jessica asked.

‘September. These are private halls – they do anywhere between two and five people per flat, then you share a kitchen, living room and bathroom.’

‘But this flat was just you and Damon?’

‘Yes, you pay an extra tenner a week but you get more space, so it’s worth it. The company who owns this place puts lads with lads and girls with girls, unless you’re moving in with people you know. There’s this complicated form. I ended up with Damon but we didn’t know each other before that.’

‘Did you get on?’

Alistair looked up from the floor, glancing between Jessica and Archie. ‘Pretty much from the moment we met. Do you know his dad?’

‘Yes.’

‘So you know he’s got a few quid, then – except you’d never know by being around him. I didn’t find out until we’d been hanging out for a couple of weeks, then we were at a pub and a girl from his course was there. She made some remark about it and he ended up telling me that his dad ran a company and so on. Apparently he was ready to go away and start a business when his course was over.’

‘Was he happy about that?’

Alistair seemed surprised: ‘Why wouldn’t he be?’

‘Some people don’t like the feeling that their life is already mapped out. They want the freedom to make their own choices.’

‘If he was unhappy then he never said. He was only in year one but was already talking about how the final project for year three was to create a viable business plan. He had a few ideas because that’s what he wanted to go and do afterwards.’

‘Were you his best friend at university?’

Alistair shrugged. ‘Dunno. He hung around with a few lads from his course, and liked going rowing, of course.’

Jessica had been waiting for Alistair to steer the conversation round to the rowing club so that it felt more like a natural topic of conversation. ‘How often did he go?’

‘Three or four times a week, depending on the weather. He tried to get me into it but it’s not my thing.’ He sighed, pursing his lips. ‘To be honest, I’m not sure it was his either. He liked the competitive thing and said he was decent at it – but he would never have put it before his course.’

‘Do you know any of the people at the club he was friends with?’

‘No, I think it was more of a social thing for some of them but he actually wanted to race. That was pretty much the only thing he ever said about it. He was always exhausted when he got back from practice – we’d sit in front of the TV and have a drink.’

‘Was he a big beer drinker?’

Alistair shook his head. ‘Not really.’ Jessica raised her eyebrows but he didn’t wilt. ‘Well, sometimes we’d go out and have a few but it was never ridiculous. Beer wasn’t his thing anyway. He might have a cider but was more into spirits.’

‘Drugs?’

The reply was instant: ‘No.’

‘There were substances in his system when his body was found . . .’

Alistair gulped, peering between her and Archie, weighing them up: ‘Okay, we sometimes do a little bit of weed, but it’s less harmful than cigarettes, isn’t it? It’s only the odd rollie now and again, I’m not a druggie – neither was he if that’s what you’re asking.’

Jessica waited, wondering if there was anything else. When Alistair didn’t reply, she added: ‘Ever done anything harder?’

‘No – honestly.’

‘What about Damon?’

‘No . . . well, I don’t think so. If he has, he never said and we never did anything like that together. He was into his studies – we only had the odd joint to relax at the end of the day. I don’t think he would’ve wanted to do anything that would risk his place on the course.’ Alistair peered down at the floor again. ‘I’m not in trouble, am I? It’s only a bit of weed.’

He sounded more pathetic than aggressive.

‘Where does the cannabis come from?’

‘Er . . .’

‘I’m asking because if someone was dealing drugs to Damon then he could’ve been into something more serious than you knew. If you tell the truth, you won’t be in trouble.’

Alistair’s head popped back up again, eyes showing slightly more clarity after being told he wasn’t about to get nicked. ‘It’s someone I know, he’s, er, some lad—’

‘All right,’ Jessica interrupted, ‘let’s not go digging any holes. If you can assure me it’s just some small-time arrangement between you and a mate, we’ll pretend this part of the conversation didn’t happen.’

‘It is.’

‘Fine.’

The truth was, Jessica didn’t have the time, manpower or inclination to pick up some small-time campus cannabis dealer when he’d be back out in twenty-four hours, fresh with an eighty-five-quid fine and a criminal record that would likely get him kicked out of university.

‘Did Damon have any enemies?’ Jessica asked. ‘Anyone he’d fallen out with?’

A shake of the head.

‘Girlfriend?’

‘Not as such.’

‘And what’s he been like this past week or so?’

‘Fine, if anything, he’s been happier. He was getting up earlier to go rowing.’

Call Me Bob had said something similar.

‘Any idea what he was happy about?’

Another shake of the head. ‘No idea. We’d have a drink and go out now and then but we didn’t really talk about too much . . . y’know . . . girly stuff.’

Jessica had to stop her eyes rolling – presumably that meant relationships. She glanced sideways towards Archie, who almost imperceptibly raised an eyebrow. In an instant, it was gone again and Jessica knew what he meant, as if she had read his mind.

‘I need the toilet, then I’ll brew up,’ Jessica said, getting to her feet.

‘Tea bags are—’

‘Yeah, under the sink, over the sink, in a cupboard somewhere. I’ll find them. Be right back.’

Archie had wanted a few minutes alone with Alistair. Although the student didn’t seem the blokey type, sometimes men were happier talking to other men. Archie would turn on the lad-about-town charm, bang on about a few of the better clubs and pubs in the centre, and then see if he could get some real information out of Alistair. Meanwhile, Jessica went for a poke-around.

She went through the kitchen into the hallway, leaving herself three doors to choose from. After finding the toilet at the first attempt, Jessica closed the door quietly and moved on to the next one.

The police’s search team had been in the night before and cleared anything from Damon’s bedroom that could be classed as evidence, leaving the space eerily empty. The bed had been stripped, exposing a plain blue mattress. Wardrobe doors were hanging open, coat hangers limply clinging to the rail, while there was a dusty patch on the desk in front of her from where a computer had been taken. At this very moment, someone at the forensics base in Bradford Park would be picking over the hard drive. Damon’s mobile phone records would be checked, and everything in the room would be examined meticulously in case there was a clue. Occasionally they’d come up with something; usually it was a lot of work for no reward.

Jessica tried the final door, Alistair’s room, and was hit by the toxic whiff of aftershave. She hadn’t noticed it on him in the living room but it was as if he bathed in the stuff, the rampant pong almost making her sneeze. Taking a breath of cleanish air from the hallway, Jessica crept into the bedroom.

Above the unmade bed, a large poster of a barely clothed model with breasts the size of her head was pinned to the wall. Jessica lifted the duvet onto the mattress and used her phone to light the space underneath the bed.