AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“There’s five of these rooms to a flat,” Tom said. “Each flat has a kitchen, and there’s communal space on each floor.”
“It’s minute,” Eddy said, and Charlie silently agreed. Maybe there were downsides to university life. He couldn’t imagine wanting to spend long in the tiny dark space.
Kaylan’s desk was piled high with sketch books, and boxes of what looked like crayons. An unrolled paintbrush roll lay to one side, and there were two blank canvases, each about three feet square leaning against the wall next to the window. The desk wasn’t tidy, but Charlie could separate the individual items, one from another. The easy chair was piled high with a mishmash of clothes, shoes, books, empty crisp packets and mobile charging cables. The smell of cleaning products competed with the odour of sweat and cheese powder.
“How would we know if anything was missing?” Eddy asked and all Charlie could do was shrug.
“Cleaners come on Thursday for this block. Students are supposed to strip their beds and tidy up, but the cleaners do their best whatever state the room is in. The fresh duvet cover and so on would have been left last Thursday” the Campus Services Officer said. “So he hasn’t been back since then.”
“He could have been sleeping in another student’s room,” Charlie said. “I think we may need to talk to the cleaners.”
“I’m sure we can arrange it,” Tom answered.
They trooped out of Kaylan’s room and into Rico’s, which by contrast was tidy as well as clean. The cleaners had presumably been able to vacuum and dust. It also had a set of bedlinen on top of a carefully folded duvet. The desk was neat, with a pile of sketchbooks next to a laptop. Paintbrushes, paints and pens were stored in a set of see-through plastic drawers, also on the desk. Rico had evidently used the drawers as his personal noticeboard. Clipped to the front was a copy of his timetable, a credit card and a couple of pieces of printed paper. Charlie looked closely. They were tickets to a gig at the Student Union, and a voucher for a curry night — both dated in the next two weeks.
Eddy was looking in the cupboards and bathroom. “He didn’t take his toothbrush, Sarge, or anything else, by the looks of it. Wash bag is still here, and his duffle. These guys are definitely missing.”
“We need these rooms left untouched,” Charlie said. “No cleaning, no one to enter except the police.”
“Unless they come back,” Tom said, but he didn’t sound hopeful. He led them back to his office in silence.
Tom’s secretary produced the student records for Rico and Kaylan.
There were photographs as well as home addresses (in Los Angeles and Chicago respectively) and next-of-kin. Rico was dark haired with light brown skin and brown eyes. Kaylan was a yellow blond with lots of long curls pushed behind his ears.
“Around half our intake are international students,” Tom said, looking at the photographs. “Many Americans come to study here. These won’t be the only two.”
“How do they know to come?” Charlie asked. “I mean, who in Los Angeles or Chicago has ever heard of Wales, let alone Llanfair?”
Tom looked at Charlie with astonishment, eyes widening. “This place has an international reputation. Just because you’ve never heard of it …”
“Well, they’ll have heard of it now,” Eddy said. “If not for good reasons.”
The colour drained from Tom’s face.
“Yep,” Eddy carried on. “And if you start losing students … and the parents start making a fuss in the media …”
Maybe I’m not the only one holding a poisoned chalice here.
Tom held his hands out, fingers splayed in a gesture of surrender. “Point taken. Let’s find them. What can I do to help?”
“We need to know everyone they were in contact with,” Charlie said. “Their friends, the people in their residence, the other students in their study groups, their tutors. We’ll look at buses, taxis, hire cars and so on—ways they might have left Llanfair.”
“Can we keep it out of the press? Please? Because this will finish us off. Seriously,” Tom said. If anything, his face was even paler.
The door to Tom’s office burst open, and a man in a grubby boiler suit walked in. It was the man who had been telling the students to look, really look, at the college wall. His brown hair stuck out from his head in big curls, and he had a brown curly beard to match. He wasn’t a big man, but then bull terriers are not big dogs. This was a bull terrier of a man, and he was on the warpath. Tom’s secretary was right behind him, apologies pouring from her lips. “I did tell him you were busy,” she said.
The man flung his arm out, cutting the woman off, preventing her entry to the room. “I came precisely because you were busy, Tom. Busy covering up another piece of damage wrought by the elite of the art world…”
“That would be the elite institution paying your wages, Vitruvious?” Tom stepped up to face the man, who thrust his chest out in response.
“Like you’d understand, most esteemed Principal.” He bowed and then flung his arm out again, closely missing hitting the secretary in the face. "Big surprise that they chose you, with your wallpaper for the wealthy and your fellowships to New York.” There was a tiny pause. Charlie watched with interest as the man took a deep breath and began to declaim like an amateur Shakespearean actor. “Rich students come here with the red carpet rolled out, while the poor die on small boats in the English Channel! That’s the system your sort is upholding.”
“Oh, for fucksake, V, get off your high horse before you fall off. You’re hardly living on your uppers, with a place at Maes y Coed and driving a Jag. They appointed me because I was away while it was all going on. You know it as well as I do. You think I want this?”
“Power corrupts, Tom, power corrupts.”
“V, these are police officers. We are discussing your missing painting students. Perhaps you’d like to give a statement?”
