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“Possibly. It depends on this David Smith. Pepperdine’s paperwork shows he paid the money into the regular college accounts. If Vitruvious stole it, he must have had inside help. But there’s no sign of the money anywhere. Someone has been very creative with the books. Vitruvious himself began by accusing Kaylan Sully of stealing, and then denied everything and anything. He’s got himself a good solicitor, and I expect he’ll be released pending enquiries later today. If David Smith coughs, we might get him, otherwise it’s going to be a long slog.”
“But Kaylan as good as admitted he’d made the money disappear.” Charlie said. “He was taunting Vitruvious about it.”
“It appears that Kaylan is a much cleverer young man than he appears—at least where computers are concerned. Where guns are concerned, not so much. We’ve charged him with shooting you, and with kidnapping Tom Pennant and Vitruvious. But he’s not talking. We’ve been talking though. To the Chicago police, and Kaylan’s High Schools, plural. He has a sealed juvenile record according to the Chicago police. He was expelled from one school for stalking his history teacher and posting compromising photographs of him online. He was expelled from a second one for hacking into the school computer and creating chaos. In that case, the school’s bank accounts were emptied, and the money has never been recovered.”
“He wasn’t charged with any of this?”
“If they could prove it, our Kaylan would be in a very secure prison somewhere in the USA with no access to the internet. But they can’t. I’m going to be talking to the FBI later, because the Chicago cops said the FBI were very interested in young Sully. There’s also the matter of where he acquired a gun and a silencer.”
“You’re saying he might get sent back to the states?” Charlie asked.
“He shot a police officer. He’s not going anywhere until he’s done his time for that. Which brings us to Rico Pepperdine.”
“I’m guessing neither Vitruvious nor Kaylan is admitting anything about Rico’s death?” Charlie asked.
“Not a single word.”
There was a commotion outside the door to Charlie’s room. The nurse he had been talking to earlier opened the door and slid in, closing it behind her.
“It’s like Piccadilly Circus out there,” she said. “There are two giants arguing about who gets to drive you home, and would you believe a couple of reporters? How they all got in, I have no idea.”
“I’ll sort it out,” Ravensbourne said, and followed the nurse into the corridor. The commotion stopped instantly, to be replaced with the insistent sound of Charlie’s phone. He found it in the little cupboard under the bedside table, by which time it had stopped ringing. It had been a call from his mother. Her latest explanation of Charlie’s character failings could wait, possibly forever. The little cupboard also contained what was left of his clothes: all bloodstained except for the socks; the shirt and sweater hanging in shreds. He was contemplating the underwear when he heard the door open, and dived back under the sheets, wrenching his wound and wishing he'd had the sense to move slowly. But it was Ravensbourne, and she didn’t need to see him dressed in a hospital nightie.
“The giants are Tom Pennant and Eddy. I’m taking Eddy back with me,” she said, “so you get Tom Pennant. I’ve told the reporters that if I see either of them one more time, they won’t be invited to any Police Clwyd press conferences ever again.”
She left and her place was taken by Tom, looking tired, but no longer spattered with blood. He had a small hold-all.
“Clothes,” he said. “I went to see Dilys, and we found you some clean things. I brought one of my zip-up fleeces though, because I thought you wouldn’t want anything to touch the wounds.” He put the hold-all on the bed, as if he wasn’t sure he’d done the right thing.
“Thank you so much,” Charlie said, because the thought of putting on any of the bloodstained clothes was revolting. It was bad enough that he couldn’t have a shower; he smelled of sweat and blood and something hospitally. Someone had done their best to clean him up, but there were still bits of dried blood on his skin.
“Do you need a hand?” Tom asked, and Charlie shook his head. The idea of getting naked in front of Tom wasn’t abhorrent, but not like this.
“I’ll wait for you outside,” Tom said.
Charlie did need a hand, or ideally several, because almost any movement set his ribs twanging, and he had the horrible feeling of sore skin rubbing on sore skin. By sitting on the chair, he got socks, underwear and jeans on, and his good arm into the sleeve of the oversized fleece. The other arm and his shoes were beyond him. He shuffled over to the door and peered round it. Tom stood leaning against the far wall.
“Help,” Charlie said, and Tom smiled. Tom always seemed to smile at him. In a good way.
For such a big man, Tom was gentle. There was no way Charlie could bend his arm backwards to get it down the sleeve, so Tom, pulled the fleece until it was in the right spot to slide into place. The shoes were no problem.
“I collected your prescription,” Tom said. “We can go. Dilys wants you back at hers, though I said I have a spare room. She doesn’t appear to think that I can look after you properly, and maybe she’s right.” Charlie saw Tom blush. “The thing is, my predecessor, Sir John of the hideous miniatures, has resigned, and the Governors have asked me to stay on as principal.”
“I hope you agreed,” Charlie said.
“I’ll need to go back to New York for a couple of days to pack up my things, but otherwise yes. I made them promise to redecorate the office as a condition though.”
As they talked, Tom led Charlie through endless hospital corridors until they reached the entrance with its card, magazine and gift shop, florist, coffee bar, and racks of leaflets about all manner of illnesses.
“Do you want to wait here, while I get the car?” Tom asked.
“No way,” Charlie said. He didn’t want to be inside the hospital for a second longer than necessary. “I can walk, I just can’t bend. The difficulty isn’t going to be getting to the car, it’s going to be getting into it.”
And so it proved. Luckily it was a smallish Renault SUV, so Charlie didn’t have to bend too far, and Tom did the honours with the seatbelt.
“Thanks,” Charlie said, and then, “how are you doing? You must have some bruises, at the very least. Being kidnapped and threatened by one of your own students is hardly an everyday thing for an art tutor.”
Tom concentrated on driving until they were out of the hospital and onto the road back to Llanfair.
