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He showered and shaved at warp speed, got dressed and was peering through the archway by seven-thirty. He was tired, but he was comfortable, and his head was clear.
The breakfast was everything promised by Tom. There were four small wooden tables laid with startlingly white tablecloths. Only one was laid for service, with white china, though another had coffee drips and crumbs showing where someone had already eaten. There was a small table bearing cereal, tea bags, an urn of hot water and jugs of orange juice and milk. The coffee machine was one Charlie had been lusting after for some time. He put one of the little pods into its slot and pressed the button. The coffee was hot and strong, with a layer of crema covering the surface. He vowed to drink it quickly so there would be time for another. Charlie helped himself to orange juice. The two drinks alone would finish the job of waking him up.
When Dilys asked him what he wanted for ‘proper breakfast’ he remembered Hayden the day before.
“What I would really like is a bacon sandwich,” he said. Dilys grinned. It seemed to be her default expression.
“Coming up,” she said and disappeared through a door into what must be the kitchen.
If anything, the bacon sandwich was even better than Hayden’s.
He couldn’t imagine his mother making bacon sandwiches at the whim of a guest. She offered a Full Breakfast, take it or leave it. Requests for no mushrooms or an extra tomato were always fulfilled, but with pursed lips and an icy stare. Yet a bacon sandwich was much less effort than the combination of items his mother insisted on cooking. Anything uneaten was regarded as a personal affront. Charlie shook his head. If his mother wanted to martyr herself, that was her choice, and he had work to do. He left his crusts, because he knew Dilys wouldn’t mind. She’d just put them out for the birds. It was a tiny act of rebellion against his mother’s disapproval, but it felt good. Some people get on top of this stuff when they’re still teenagers, he thought, but then those people don’t have to deal with my mother.
At the police station, Charlie found Eddy staring at the video of the assault. Charlie looked over his shoulder. There was a pop-up box in the corner of the screen. It looked like a newspaper headline. Eddy minimised it before Charlie could read what it said.
“If we could get an image of the bloke, we could show it to the other victims and see if it’s the same guy. I don’t have the skills to do it, but I know a woman who does.”
“I’d like the image, but I’m not sure about showing it to the other victims.” Charlie said, “No, what we need is to show it round the college and the town. Someone knows who it is. So can you get this woman to work her magic?”
“Sorry, Sarge, you’ll have to ask DCI Ravensbourne. It’d be better coming from you.” Charlie didn’t see how it could make a difference, but he took the number anyway.
“I’m going over to the college,” Charlie said. “I want to check that the students have been warned, and I’ll have another go at Kaylan.” Eddy opened his mouth to speak, and Charlie held up a hand to stop him.
“I want you to check whether there is any possibility that his story is true. That he could have lost a week of his life. Natural causes, drugs, concussion, look at them all.”
“Tell me you don’t believe that load of bullshit.”
“That isn’t the point. We have to check.”
Eddy turned away.
“Eddy. We have to check. And while you’re checking, could you find out everything you can about Harrington-Bowen? Because I still don’t know whether he left those videos by mistake, or someone planted them.”
This time Eddy nodded, though the camaraderie they’d enjoyed yesterday seemed to have departed. Out of the corner of his eye, Charlie saw another pop-up appear in Eddy’s screen. Again, Eddy minimised it, before saying,
“We also need to get a bead on the gardener’s apprentice. Mags and Patsy were supposed to have a look for him yesterday, but I don’t know how far they got. See if he was Molotov cocktail guy. The fire brigade might be worth another call, too.”
“Stick it on the list.”
“What about you, Sarge?”
“I’m hoping that if I see Kaylan on his own, on his own turf so to speak, he might be more forthcoming. I also want to talk to Vitruvious. Something about that guy doesn’t ring true.”
“You ask me, none of that art college crowd ring true. I wouldn’t trust any of them.”
“We can trust Tom. He wasn’t here.” Charlie said what he was thinking and got a snort of disdain from Eddy.
“All right for him to go swanning off to New York. Obviously wasn’t worried about leaving his teenage daughters behind with a pervert on the loose. So, either he didn’t care about his family, or he didn’t believe those women who reported assaults. Some father he is.”
Charlie hoped the shock didn’t show on his face. He had met Tom in a gay bar, where he appeared to be well known. Tom had wanted to kiss him last night, Charlie was sure of it, and he’d definitely tried to pick Charlie up in the bar. Tom had appeared genuinely anxious about the women students on campus—worried enough to visit the student’s Union, and worried enough to want to walk round the college after dark. But if he was a family man playing away from home, what else had he been lying about?
Kaylan’s room in the hall of residence was still a mess, just a re-arranged mess. The mess that had been piled up on the chairs was now scattered all over the floor. The art materials on the desk had been pushed to one side, in favour of an expensive laptop.
“The cleaners come on a Thursday. Wednesday night I pick it up. It’s mostly OK until the weekend,” he said, turfing a pile of miscellaneous items from the easy chair onto the floor. “Have a seat.” Kaylan himself sat on the un-made bed and pulled his knees into his chest, wrapping his arms around them.
“It’s not very big, this place,” Charlie said to break the ice.
“Not very big, unbelievably expensive, but at least I don’t have a roommate. All the places I looked at in the US were shared.”
