reading

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Acknowledgements

Follow Penguin

1

The body was found in the icy coffin of the weir. The cathedral loomed above, its shadow stretching flat across the dark waters which had played with her hair. It streamed out behind her body in the flaky current, turning this way and that. Damp tendrils stuck to her face, her eyes open, knowing. She wore a university T-shirt, purple and clinging. Tight jeans hugging her splayed legs in the lapping water; fingers teasing the weeds in which she had become entangled.

A heron plopped its foot in the water. It turned its head slowly to one side, considering. Grey-bearded clouds bumped into each other above, sagely taking on board the crime scene below. All that could be heard, aside from the swishing of the universe, was the sucking of the air pocket beneath the small of her back: fnuck, pause; fnuck, pause; fnuck, pause. Steady and meditative, the heron spread his wings and took flight.

Monday 22 May, 5 a.m.

A fluorescent glare from Martin’s phone stabbed into the darkness of the bedroom. Awake already despite the untimely hour, she was quick to sit up and put it to her ear, murmuring softly to avoid waking the sleeping form next to her. The blue of a cold sunrise inched through the cracks in the curtains as she finished the call and swung her legs off the bed. She looked across the room to the mirror which hung above a chest of drawers, her reflection becoming clearer as more light entered the room. Her red hair was mussed, her mouth and eyes still drowsy with inaction.

‘What is it?’ Jim asked, stirring to life beneath the covers. His hand touched her back for a moment before being withdrawn. Martin considered this retreat for a second before she answered.

‘Work,’ she said, twisting round to look at her husband, who had pushed himself up on to his elbows. ‘Could be something … I might not be home for a while.’

Jim gave a querying look. Martin touched his hand briefly and then stood, rolling her shoulders back, setting her chin.

‘A body’s been found down by the weir,’ she said in the quiet, reaching for her clothes.

Martin found her way to the crime scene thirty minutes later. Approaching the gate on the track leading to Prebends Bridge, the car headlights swept the thick line of trees bordering the slope down to the riverbank. Darkness was lifting to reveal dank cobwebs of mist spun through the air. Martin parked her car next to the gate and jumped out, taking a pair of white rubber wellingtons from the car boot and replacing her ballet pumps with them. She pulled on a plastic raincoat, shoving the arms of her parka bulkily through the polyester sleeves. She walked down past the gate and on to the bridge. From there, drifting over the water, she could see the lights of the response unit and the dayglo outline of the tent being used to house the body. The river stretched on beyond the morbidity, blackish navy and glistening, its banks sloping upwards to where last night a thousand students had caroused in bars. Martin jogged down the steep path which led to the river and flashed her card at the constable on the cordon.

‘I’ll take you to Doctor Walsh, ma’am,’ he said, turning away from her.

‘Don’t bother. I’ll find him. You’d better stay here and watch for marauders.’

‘They’ll all be sleeping off their hangovers, this early in the day,’ the constable sniffed.

Martin carried on past him and headed to the tent, briefly acknowledging the various SOCOs who stood around, waiting for the call to start the minutiae of their investigation. As she pulled on her protective shoe covers and plastic gloves, she noticed the outline of what must be a boathouse further up river, bunting flapping forlornly from its roof, detritus of some sort scattered in front of it over the dewy grass. Martin bent to open up the tent flap before peering inside.

‘DI Martin?’ The man who spoke was crouched over the shape of a girl. He considered Martin with a frown as she edged inside stiffly where body heat fused with the dank smell of sodden ground. ‘When DCI Butterworth said you’d be the SIO, I assumed he meant a man. Sorry.’

He didn’t sound sorry, Martin thought. Perhaps if she was called DI Flowers, she could prevent the continual assumption that she was male – although why her sex actually mattered, she wasn’t entirely sure. She chose to ignore the stab of irritation this caused and turned to look at what faced her. The body stared upwards, her head crooked to one side and her palms spread, as if she were shrugging. She looked abandoned, Martin thought. The girl’s mouth was twisted in condemnation, indelibly taken aback by what had happened to her. Her chin was high and her blonde hair, dirtied by the mud of the riverbank, coiled around her neck in wet strings. A tiny black leaf stuck to her cheek, a beauty spot gone wrong.

‘Doctor Walsh,’ she said to the doctor, giving a curt nod. ‘Has she been moved?’

Walsh nodded. ‘Couple who found her dragged her up here. Tried to give her mouth to mouth.’ His eyebrows lifted at the futility.

Martin breathed deliberately, steadying her instinct to move fast, the loud clock of the crime scene ticking relentlessly within her. The scent of mildew cloyed in the enclosed space, and she could feel the beginnings of a headache as the infinite possibilities crowded her brain; those possibilities more tortuous for someone like her than an empty trail.

‘Could be a baptism of fire for you,’ Walsh continued, gently moving the girl’s hair to reveal dark wine-coloured bruises bisecting the line of her throat. ‘Might be drowning I suppose, but these marks are nasty.’

Martin bent over double to ease herself further into the tent, awkwardly shuffling on her haunches up to where the body lay. She swallowed, wanting to hear her own voice, to normalize the scene.

‘I wish they’d make these things bigger. They know average-sized human beings will have to work in them.’

‘Better ones in Newcastle, were there?’ Walsh said without looking at her, shifting in his squat to the left to give her access to the body. She ignored him, looking intently into the girl’s face.

‘Young.’ She paused. ‘Suicide, do you think? You must get a few around exam time. Unlikely with those marks I guess.’

The girl’s eyes stared back at Martin. Glazed but judging. Walsh leaned forwards and closed them.

‘Hard to drown yourself,’ he said. ‘Not unheard of, I suppose. As I say, we don’t know yet.’

‘Time of death?’ Martin risked.

Walsh narrowed his eyes. He backed out in as dignified a manner as possible, his head the last bit of him to leave the tent.

‘I’ll be in touch when the post mortem’s done.’

Martin bent her head again to the body and breathed softly, the sound of it a comfort in the overly warm stillness of the tent. There was a tenderness to the girl’s face, a peacefulness now that her eyes were closed. Martin knew, though, that if the girl had been strangled, there would have been no serenity at the end. She would have battled. And she had lost.

Martin’s eyes travelled down the girl’s body. Why was she only wearing a T-shirt at this time of night? Even though it was May, the evenings were cold and the wind in the north-east was unkind to those not hardened to its charms. Martin studied the girl’s limbs, which were already taking on a marble-ish sheen. She turned the girl’s left arm over, and her fingers hovered over the scars running in neat horizontal lines from her wrist to her elbow. Funny to wear a T-shirt too, she thought, if you were a self-harmer. In her experience, those scars would be desperately covered up for fear of discovery.

Martin let her eyes linger on the girl’s face for a last moment, knowing that she would soon be moved, that the clues to her death would be disturbed. Who was she? What had she seen before the end? Martin moved her lips, the words of a long-forgotten prayer coming to her briefly. Shaking it off, she crawled out of the morbid fug of the tent into the air and stood, stretching her back and flexing her fingers to the sky. She turned her head and lowered her arms as she saw a female figure approach.

‘Morning, boss,’ the woman said. ‘DS Jones. I don’t think we’ve been formally introduced.’

Martin nodded and shook the proffered hand. Her promotion to Detective Inspector as head of the Major Crime Unit, moving here from Newcastle, had taken place only three weeks previously, and she had still to meet all the members of the force. She appraised Jones, a square sort of girl whose innate cheeriness was clearly being held in check with a frown and firm mouth, a seriousness represented further by her stolid laced-up shoes.

‘Good to meet you, Jones. Have we got any ID yet?’

‘Student card in the back pocket. Name’s Emily Brabents. She was at Joyce College. First year.’

‘Joyce. That’s on the Bailey?’

Jones nodded.

‘Anything else on her? Phone or bag?’

‘Not so far.’

‘We need to inform the next of kin. We’d better get ourselves up to Joyce and see the principal. Get someone to call him or her. Tell them we’re on our way.’

Jones spoke rapidly into her radio, and Martin indicated to the SOCOs that they could begin their work. The women turned from the tent, walking together up the slope, away from the water, their feet crunching on the wet and pebbled ground. Martin looked up at the fading crescent of the moon as they approached the stone ramparts of the bridge. ‘How long have you lived in Durham, Jones?’ she asked.

‘All my life,’ Jones answered, shoving her hands into her pockets.

Martin glanced across at her. ‘This was Regatta weekend, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes. It’ll make initial enquiries messy,’ Jones commented. ‘The amount of people traipsing along here over the last couple of days.’

Martin nodded, the eyes of the dead girl still emblazoned on her brain. She stopped and circled back for a second to look at the river as it wended its silvery way between the verdant bush of the trees framing the riverbank. As the morning mists began to clear, Martin could see at last the vast, pale shape of Durham Cathedral emerge above the old mill on the right bank. Despite her short time in the city, the cathedral seemed to Martin to be ever-present, an unyielding frown buttressed by the might of its own endurance.

A sullen breeze huddled the tops of the trees, a crowd of crones bending to observe the crime scene and all its activity. The white-suited bodies of the SOCOs began to spread out along the bank, fingertipping the ground. Martin inhaled sharply, watching them, thinking it through. ‘A murder of a student is bad news. Bad for tourism, university morale. Press interest.’

Jones remained silent with her head down, falling in with Martin as she resumed walking.

‘What’s it like between the students and the locals here? Any tension?’

‘Some. Nothing out of the ordinary. Friday and Saturday nights are for the local kids to come out and play. The students mainly stick to weeknights. But the Regatta’s always on a Sunday.’ Jones looked at Martin, who seemed deep in thought. ‘Some of the uni lot might’ve been rubbing the town’s faces in it.’ She shrugged. ‘It happens.’

Martin nodded. ‘Is there CCTV along the riverbank?’

‘Nah, boss.’ Jones shook her head. ‘The council won’t even approve proper street lights on Prebends Bridge.’ She smiled a little. ‘Technology is seen as the devil in some parts of the city.’

The women reached the car, and Martin began to take off her boots. ‘Do you read books, Jones?’ she asked as she put her pumps back on, divesting herself of the polyester jacket. The day was brighter now, the sun clawing its way through the clouds, scaling the grey sky.

Jones was nonplussed. ‘Uh, yes, I suppose so, guv. I like the odd murder mystery.’ She watched her new boss closely. Martin seemed different from the usual lot here. She took things in her own time, it was plain. Jones was less a thinker, more a grafter. But there was something about Martin she liked. She had a certainty about her, something you could trust. ‘My gut’s telling me this is murder, boss,’ she chanced, wanting to have Martin agree with something she said.

‘Save your gut for the Christmas party, Jones,’ Martin answered. ‘We don’t know anything yet. Stick around, though. Someone who reads murder mysteries will be good to have along.’ She winked at Jones and got behind the wheel.

2

Monday 22 May, 7.30 a.m.

Martin considered the stone façade of Joyce College from the cobbles outside. Built in the nineteenth century, the college sat on the Bailey, the street which once enclosed the Norman walls of Durham Castle. Opposite it was Keats College, housed in the castle itself. These were the aristocracy of the collegiate system at Durham. Martin knew that direct paths lay to them from Eton and Harrow, from Uppingham and Benenden. Within their walls, the next editor of The Spectator drank in the college bar; the next Chancellor of the Exchequer lay on his bed dreaming of poetry; the next high-jumping gold medallist pounded the track circumnavigating the sports field, a few miles down the road from the ancient buildings. She shook her head a little, shaking off the pomp which seemed to bear down on her from the rooftops. It was only a building, after all.

The river mists had risen with the morning sun, but the inside of the college was still snug in comparison with the chilled air. Martin pushed through the entrance door with a show of confidence she at a stroke didn’t feel, pleased to find Jones keeping pace. New to the way they did things in Durham, she would need someone on side with this investigation, an ally she could rely on. The pathologist at the riverside was right. If this was murder, it would be a baptism of fire. Martin’s first case as a detective inspector, performed under the glowering stare of the university.

The interior of Joyce was a study in mahogany, with brocaded walls and a grand staircase which arced round, out of sight to the casual visitor. The carpet was a deep green, patterned with gold swirls. A vague smell of cabbage intermixed with freshly baked bread hung in the air. ‘God, it smells like school,’ Martin said, sniffing disparagingly. She looked to her right, where a cubby hole was positioned in the wall, a sign declaring it to be the reception. Martin tapped the accompanying bell and waited, shifting on her feet. Jones patrolled the opposite wall, reading the raft of notices tacked to the board there. After a moment, a middle-aged woman with short hair, dyed a vivid red, appeared at the cubby hole’s window. Martin flashed her ID at her with a friendly smile.

‘Oh the police,’ the receptionist said in reply, with a buttonholed misery. ‘You’ll be wanting Principal Mason I expect.’

‘Detective Inspector Martin and Detective Sergeant Jones, Ms … ?’

‘Mrs Earl. I’m the receptionist here. As you can see.’ She walked out of sight and then reappeared through a doorway along the wall. ‘I’ll take you to him,’ she continued, starting up the stairs. ‘Don’t suppose you’ll tell me what’s going on?’

‘I’m sure there’ll be an announcement at some point, Mrs Earl.’

‘Yes, I’m sure,’ the receptionist said as she made her way down a carpeted corridor along which several large doors faced a mahogany balustrade looking down on to the entrance hall. She paused outside one of the doors and seemed to steady herself before knocking.

‘Come in,’ answered an authoritative voice within.

Mrs Earl poked her head around the door, saying, ‘There’s police here, Phillip. I think you’re expecting them?’

‘Yes, of course.’

Mrs Earl pushed the door wide, opening the view to a large office with a desk in front of a bay window. Phillip Mason was a man’s man, Martin thought, albeit with the long, delicate fingers of a piano player. In his fifties, he had the hard physique of a tennis player, tall and lean, with a buzz cut of grey hair and cool blue eyes. His shirt was unbuttoned at the top and he wore no tie. He had a distracted air about him but stood up as the policewomen walked in.

‘Detective Inspector Martin,’ she said again, holding out her hand as they approached the desk.

‘DS Jones.’

‘Phillip Mason, as you know,’ he said, waving a hand to the chairs in front of the desk. ‘Thank you, Julia.’

Mrs Earl left the room despondently, calling out as she left, ‘I’ll be downstairs if you need anything …’

They sat. Mason placed his hands in front of him on the desk in a prayer position, the tips of his index fingers grazing his chin. A steaming mug sat on his desk, and the aroma of just-brewed coffee hung in the air. He offered them nothing. He was the type of man in a position of power she’d seen before, Martin surmised, a man who would let a door slam in the face of the person behind him because he would always be unaware that there was anyone else in the world at that moment but him. She stored that thought and looked over at Jones, who leaned forwards.

‘We have a preliminary identification of a body found down at the weir past Prebends Bridge. I believe you’ve been informed of this … ?’

Mason looked at Jones for a moment before moving his gaze in studied dismay to his desktop. ‘I was told the body of a student had been found. I haven’t been told who it is.’

‘Her name was Emily Brabents,’ continued Jones.

Mason looked up, frowning. ‘Emily?’

‘Did you know Emily?’ questioned Martin.

Mason shook his head, apparently bewildered. ‘She’s a Fresher.’ He stared at Martin, swallowing. ‘Was a Fresher. I wouldn’t have expected it …’ The principal appeared shocked. ‘She seemed very popular. I don’t know what to say.’ He paused. ‘How awfully sad.’

Martin remained silent, giving the principal the opportunity to fill the quiet.

‘We have a big community spirit here. The Joyce spirit …’ the principal floundered. It sounded as though he were reading from the college prospectus. ‘It was the Durham Regatta weekend,’ the principal looked up at Martin, ‘as I’m sure you know. I remember seeing Emily only yesterday, down at the boathouse. She looked like, well, she just looked very happy, and everything was, you know, normal.’

‘Who was she with, when you saw her at the boathouse?’

‘Oh,’ the principal spread his hands out over the desktop. ‘Her usual crowd. Hard to say, there were lots of people milling about.’ Martin noticed a tiny twitch pulsate in the corner of Mason’s left eye. ‘You might want to speak to the college president of Joyce. He’s reading Politics here. I know he was down there for a while. He might know who she was with.’

‘What’s his name?’ Martin asked.

‘Simon Rush,’ answered Mason. ‘His rooms are just down the road. In the same building where Emily lives actually,’ he paused uncertainly. ‘Uh, lived. He’ll be there now, given the early hour, I expect. Shall I get Mrs Earl to bring him here? I suppose, well, I should probably be with him when he hears the news.’

‘Thank you, yes.’

The principal picked up the phone and muttered briefly into it. ‘She’ll go and find him,’ he said to the women afterwards.

‘We’ll need to interview all the students who knew Emily. Those on her course. Her friends. Enemies.’

‘Enemies?’ Mason laughed. ‘I don’t think she would have had any of those. I mean,’ he halted. ‘Why would that be relevant?’

Martin and Jones were silent.

‘You’re saying her death was an attack? Not suicide?’ Mason searched the policewomen’s faces for clues.

‘Why would you think Emily would want to kill herself, Mr Mason?’ Martin asked, but the principal looked blank as he processed what he’d heard. ‘We’ll understand more after the post mortem,’ she continued eventually. ‘In the meantime, we have to cover all possibilities.’ She paused. ‘I should warn you that the press may come knocking on your door about this.’

‘My door?’ Mason gave a quick frown.

‘Well, the university’s door,’ Martin replied. ‘A young girl has died in a public place. Whether or not it’s under suspicious circumstances, there may be talk. Particularly given Durham’s academic reputation.’ She altered her position in her chair. ‘I just want to prepare you for that, sir.’

Mason stared at her in a continuing reverie as a knock came at the door and an extremely tall – six foot three or four – wiry-framed boy came in. He had close-cropped dark hair and vivid green eyes behind silver-framed John Lennon-style glasses. He looked fresh, as if straight from the shower, although Martin could detect an underlying aroma. What was it? It may have been the reek of self-assurance as he came forwards and stood before the principal’s desk, resting both of his hands by their thumbs in the belt loops of his jeans. He wore sandy-coloured desert boots, bulky in contrast to his general leanness.

‘You wanted to see me, Phillip?’ he asked the principal.

Martin frowned. His attitude was overly easy towards someone with the principal’s clout in the university.

‘The police need to speak to you, Simon,’ Mason gestured to behind where the boy stood. Rush turned to look at them and gave a lopsided smile. Martin felt oddly uncomfortable being seated while he stood looking down on her. She shifted in her chair but couldn’t stand without relinquishing power to him.

‘Do you know Emily Brabents, Simon?’ she asked.

‘Yes, I know Emily well,’ he answered, still smiling with only one half of his mouth.

Is he smirking? Martin thought, puzzled. Something wasn’t right here. She looked across at Jones, who was studying Simon Rush closely.

Mason coughed softly. ‘I’m afraid, Simon, that I have some bad news.’ He leaned forwards over his desk, as if he wanted to hug his student. His hands stretched empathetically over the leather top. ‘Emily has, Emily was …’ He paused, seemingly stricken but with hard eyes. His words hung soft and close in the air. Mason’s lips were dry, Martin noticed. He and Rush were locked into each other, each set of eyes clamped on the other man’s.

‘Emily is dead, Simon. I’m sorry.’ Martin broke the silence at last. Rush appeared to inhale with a faint judder, wrenching his eyes away from the principal. Then he looked at Martin and Jones steadily in turn.

‘Emily is dead,’ the boy repeated tonelessly.

‘Yes, Emily is dead.’ He continued to stare down at them in their chairs.

Martin could hear the tick of the clock on the mantelpiece. Something about the boy’s reaction was a playact; it didn’t ring true. The silence continued. ‘I’m sorry if this is a shock for you,’ she forced herself to say, trying to wade through the swamp of quiet which seemed to have engulfed the room. Her voice sounded too loud within it. Keep calm, she thought. Let it unfold.

Simon swallowed deeply, his Adam’s apple shifting visibly. His face changed, and at once a noise shot from him, the scream of a laugh. Martin jerked involuntarily, her hands instinctively reaching for the arms of her chair, ready to leap up and restrain him.

‘Oh, it’s not a shock,’ he said, barking laughter for a few seconds as he saw the effect of his behaviour on the women. He snapped the smile off his face. ‘It’s not a shock in the slightest.’ He tapped himself on the head violently with both hands. ‘It’s not a shock,’ he repeated for the third time, now staring again at Principal Mason. He began to move his head weirdly from side to side like a caged animal. As he did, the lenses of his glasses gave the illusion of turning white, their reflection bouncing back the light in the room, leaving him for a second eyeless, with blank spaces where the windows of his soul should be. He splayed his hands towards Martin and licked his lips. ‘Because I’m the one who killed her.’ His eyes seemed to bore into Martin’s. ‘And then I dumped her in the weir, just as she deserved.’

3

I came to Durham on a cold October morning, on the first train out of London. My mother had come with me to King’s Cross Station to see me off and she carried on standing forlornly at the ticket barrier, long after the train had pulled out of the station. I don’t know that she did this as I couldn’t see her, of course. But I imagine her doing it. It’s the type of thing she would do. Since my father had died of a stroke, she had whittled herself down to something constantly sad. She seemed even diminished in height, and the lines of her face cragged more heavily than ever before. She had turned-down cow eyes much of the time, often brimming with tears, which would drip into the teacup held in her lap as she watched daytime television more faithfully than any other activity she undertook in her life.

By the time the train pulled out of the station, I had put on my headphones and was being blasted by indie rock, guaranteed to quell even the smallest emergence of sympathy for Mother. I couldn’t afford to be sympathetic to her any more. I had to escape. I was already a year behind my peers in starting university, thinking I would have to delay indefinitely to look after her. My sister, married with three children and living on an estate in a village twenty-five miles out of London, was no use to me or my mother. She had barely registered the sacrifice I was making when I rang her a year ago, shouting it down the phone over the rabble noise at her end. Sighing, I had put the phone down and reconciled myself to endless copies of New! magazine and cups of builder’s tea. I considered taking up smoking, but this seemed an unnecessary expense – even for someone who wanted to pretend they lived in Paris while living in Walthamstow.

Mother and I bumbled along during that year. I took a part-time job in a local pub to make some money and contribute to housekeeping. Mother carried on watching overly tanned middle-aged men sell things for other people, and so it went on. Every Saturday, I would pop into the newsagent and put five pounds down for five lottery tickets for her. And then the unimaginable happened. She won. Two hundred and seventy-three thousand pounds on a rollover week. I was free. I was free.

Mother paid off the mortgage on the house, and I employed a cleaner to come every day with some shopping. Evie would pop in for a cup of tea and she would watch Cash in the Attic with Mother before doing a cursory swish around the house with a duster. It was the company Mother needed, and once I could see they were friends, I made the call to Student Services. They were really very good about it and said I could start that October with the new Freshers. I would be a Fresher, I said to myself while looking in the mirror one morning. It didn’t seem real. I was travelling two hundred and fifty miles north of London. Away. It clenched in my stomach. Away!

The train rattled on, and I nodded off to sleep for a bit. When I woke, it was almost dark outside. It wasn’t yet midday but a thick bank of cloud had built up in the sky, and the gloom pervaded the train carriage. The lights came on inside, warming us within – the calm of the carriage whistling through the wild and woolly landscape. I could see my reflection in the train window, the collar of my coat upturned, the briefest whisper of stubble on my chin. My hair was short with a sort of quiff at the front. I thought this effective.

I began to look in my backpack for my book. I was obsessed then with Graham Greene and was two-thirds through The Power and the Glory. While not a Catholic – in fact, my parents had abhorred any mention of religion in our house – I had always been attracted to its rituals, romanticized those who gave up their life to accept its austerity. The martyr in me, recently demonstrated by my care for my mother over and above my own needs, relished its severity. I was gripped by Greene at this time and opened the book eagerly.

It took some time, therefore, for the noise of crying to seep into my brain. It wasn’t loud sobbing, more a persistent sniffing accompanied by long sighs which caught at the beginning of each fresh bout of downpour. I sat up in my seat and looked around, straining my neck to look over the seats in front of me and behind. Two rows ahead was a girl about my age. She was sat at a table and faced me. She had shoulder-length blonde hair and wide-spaced brown eyes, which gave her a look of innocence. This enhanced her attractiveness in my opinion. She was wearing a pink button-down shirt with the top two buttons undone. She had an Alice band in her hair, black velvet as I recall. Her hair was thick and curled at the ends. She sat, looking down, crumpling tissues over and over again in her hands. The table displayed the discarded tissues like a monotonous collage.

I sat back in my seat heavily. What was I to do? Should I just ignore her? I looked at my book in dismay. Yes, I would ignore her. I picked up the book. The priest was seeking refuge at Padre José’s house. It was a tense moment. The girl began to cry again, slightly louder. The diminuendo had altered, rising to an agitato. I saw her looking at her mobile phone in her hands. I sighed and rose from my seat. I sidled into the seat opposite her at the table and looked at her kindly.

‘I’m about to go to the buffet car. Looks like you could do with a cup of tea. Can I bring you one?’

The girl glanced up at me in surprise, her crying stifled by my interruption. Her nose was red, and her face completely wet. She pushed the back of her hand across her face in a valiant attempt to rid it of dampness. She blinked slowly at me.

‘Oh, I don’t know. I’m sorry …’

‘Don’t mind me. Can’t bear to see a damsel in distress, you know,’ I said to her, somewhat awkwardly. ‘Tell you what, I’ll get two teas and then, if you want one, you can have it. No questions asked. You just drink it on your own.’

I stood up in the aisle, rocking slightly along with the movement of the train.

‘I’ll get you lots of sugar. Sugar’s good for a shock.’

I returned some time later. There had been a reasonably sized queue, and the woman behind the counter was typically moronic. I placed a polystyrene cup before the girl along with three packets of white sugar, two miniature cartons of milk and a white plastic stirrer.

‘There you are. Nice and hot. That’ll make you feel better.’

I returned to my seat, picked up my book and tried to immerse myself back in the world of Greene. A few minutes later, however, the seat next to me shifted as the girl pulled herself in to sit beside me, holding the tea in one hand. I drew down the table tray for her, and she put the cup upon it.

‘I’m Emily,’ she said. ‘Thanks for the tea.’

‘Daniel,’ I replied. ‘Daniel Shepherd.’

She smiled at me sadly. ‘It isn’t a shock.’

I looked at her.

‘Why I’m crying. It’s not that I’ve had a shock. I’m being silly really. I’m just on my way to something new and I think …’ She sighed again, and her body juddered with the effort of battening down the sob.

‘It’s all right,’ I said, patting her clumsily on the arm. ‘You don’t have to say. I don’t want to intrude.’

‘No, it’s not that. I don’t mind. I just feel like an idiot, that’s all. It’s just that I’m going to miss my home. My family.’

‘Ah,’ I said, ‘I understand,’ although of course I didn’t because I had raced out of my family home with all the excitement of a spaniel about to be taken on a three-hour walk across muddy moors. Then it dawned on me.

‘Are you starting at Durham?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ she nodded miserably. ‘I’m going to be in Joyce College.’

I knew the name of Joyce. It was one of the colleges on the Bailey, in the heart of Durham. I had trudged up it when I had visited the city for my interview. My own college was up and out of the tiny city on a hill with the other newer colleges, a much less salubrious environment. It would certainly have more state school applicants than this Emily would be meeting in her new surroundings.

‘I’m at Nightingale,’ I offered.

She smiled broadly. ‘You’re going to Durham too? That’s awesome!’ She beamed at me.

‘What are you reading?’ I asked.

‘French and History,’ she grimaced. ‘I only really wanted to do French, but Daddy said that was just an excuse to go travelling for a year and unless I wanted to end up as a primary school teacher, I’d need a subject with backbone.’ Her eyes twinkled. ‘His words.’ She took a sip of her tea. ‘This tastes awful,’ she said happily. ‘How about you? What are you reading?’

‘English.’ I shrugged, acknowledging the book turned face down on the table. ‘Anyway,’ I said, wanting to steer the conversation away from myself, ‘why are you sad? We’re going to have a great time. Everyone says university is the best time of your life.’

Emily looked downcast again, as if she’d forgotten the reason for her sitting next to me. ‘Yes, I suppose so.’ She paused. ‘Do you think it’ll be awfully cold there? Mummy says the rooms won’t be heated. She made me pack all kinds of thermal underwear.’

I laughed again. ‘I’m sure you’ll be fine. They definitely have central heating these days. I’m sure of it.’

She smiled in response. She was pretty, I thought. Her lips were small, like a bow. I liked her, despite the fact she was nothing like me. She was the antithesis of me. She would be popular – you could see it in her bones. She would go out with the captain of the rugby team; she would start to turn her collar up instinctively; she would play some kind of team sport – lacrosse maybe.

We continued to talk until the train shunted slowly in to Durham. As the station sign came into view, I felt a mixture of excitement and apprehension, a growing knot in my stomach that would harden in me as time went on. Emily and I stood in the train corridor with our bags in our hands, our suitcases waiting to be hefted out of the luggage compartment nearest to the train doors: mine a terrible grey fabric – hers was some kind of designer label, I could tell. The train jolted to a stop beside the platform. The last of the day’s early-autumn sun streamed valiantly through the grimy plastic roof overhanging the tracks. I helped Emily down out of the carriage with her luggage, and then we trundled towards the taxi queue together.

‘Shall we share?’ she asked me.

‘Okay, if you’re sure,’ I answered, grateful not to have to fork out the cost on my own. ‘We’ll drop you first.’

We stood for a few minutes in the queue, in the biting north-east wind, in from the sea and the salt marshes. I could smell brine on the air and a vague scent of petrol, of bitter fruits. I could smell the working classes nestled in the hills surrounding the station, hosting these young brains, funded by older money. I could smell that too.

I asked the taxi driver to drop Emily up at Joyce first and then on to Nightingale. With his reply, I had my first taste of the accent I would come to love. At that time, however, it was incomprehensible to me, and Emily and I looked at each other in cahoots as I gave a small shrug. It was a surprise to us both, then, when the taxi stopped first at the bottom of the hill, outside my new home, and not Emily’s.

‘Why have you stopped here?’ I asked.

The driver looked steadfast out of the windscreen, refusing to attempt to communicate with us kids any more. I looked apologetically at Emily.

‘Don’t worry,’ she said kindly, patting my hand. ‘I’ll be fine.’ She rooted around in the handbag on her lap. ‘Let me take your number and I’ll give you a text later to say I’ve arrived.’

I gave it to her and then reluctantly shifted out of the cab. The driver popped the boot and I retrieved my case before handing in some money to Emily through the passenger window. ‘Good luck,’ I said uncertainly.

She smiled bravely, her chin up in the air. ‘You too!’

The cab sped its tyres, off and up the hill, leaving me in its wake. Nightingale College, to my left, waited for me to enter.

Alice Clark-Platts

BITTER FRUITS

PENGUIN BOOKS

Contents

BITTER FRUITS

THE BEGINNING

1

Monday 22 May, 5 a.m.

2

Monday 22 May, 7.30 a.m.

3