The Runaway. Ali Harper
straining to avoid body contact. After glancing out into the corridor, Professor Kendrick closed the door and returned to perch on the edge of her desk. She folded her hands across her knees. ‘Take a seat.’
Jo sank into one so I took the other. This gave Professor Kendrick an even bigger advantage and she loomed over us. Her white shirt tucked in at the waist, emphasizing her slender frame. ‘Now, what’s this about?’
‘Matt’s missing,’ I said. ‘No one’s seen him since a party on Saturday night.’
‘Then I suggest you talk to admin and see whether they’d be willing to contact his parents. You can leave—’
‘We’ve spoken to his mother,’ Jo lied.
Professor Kendrick raised her voice and continued speaking as if Jo hadn’t interrupted, ‘Your number with me, and if I see him, I would certainly be happy to pass it on. Although I suspect he may be in hiding.’
‘In hiding? Who from?’
She pulled her glasses down to the brim of her nose. ‘From whom?’ She peered at me over the top of the frames. ‘Well, from me I suppose. It’s the deadline for his dissertation. We were supposed to be having a final run over it on Monday afternoon and he didn’t show. Not like him, I must say. I intend to email him.’
I didn’t like the feeling of claustrophobia that had settled over me as soon as Professor Kendrick had closed the door. I like always to know my escape route, and as we were on the eleventh floor, she’d just sealed the only real option.
‘Any concerns about his work up until this point?’ asked Jo.
‘No, he’s a committed student. One of my best. More or less on target, as on target as any of us ever are. But he’s not the first student to go AWOL in the month running up to submission. What did his mother say?’
‘She hasn’t heard from him,’ Jo said, and even I wouldn’t have known she was making this up. ‘That’s why we’re here.’
The professor stuck out her bottom lip. ‘She’s hired a firm of private investigators to find him? As far as I’m aware she hasn’t contacted the university. I’m his supervisor, I’d expect that message to come to me.’
I pretended my interest had been caught by the poster about climate change pinned to the wall.
‘You said he was popular,’ said Jo. ‘What did you mean by that?’
Professor Kendrick’s grey hair fell forward to partially obscure her glasses. She flicked it away with the back of her hand. ‘You’re not the only ones looking for him.’
‘Other people are looking for him?’ I asked.
‘Other women.’
‘How many other women?’
She smiled. ‘I am perhaps exaggerating for dramatic effect. Forgive me, a knee-jerk reaction to reading the musings of my undergrads.’ She nodded at the pile of papers that towered on her desk.
Jo raised a single eyebrow. ‘How many?’
‘Undergrads?’
‘Women looking for Matt.’
‘Two, that I’m aware of.’
‘Of whom you are aware?’ I couldn’t resist.
‘Who?’ asked Jo, shooting me a look that left me in no doubt I should shut up. I went back to the poster.
‘I’m not sure it’s any of my business.’
I’d had enough of the professor, and I worried the oxygen supply was depleting. I’d never survive working in this rabbit hutch. Books lined the walls, giving it an underground bunker-like feel, despite its high-rise situation. ‘People are worried,’ I said.
‘What did they look like? The two women looking for him?’ asked Jo.
‘One had hair like rattlesnakes.’
‘Dreads?’ said Jo. She turned to me. ‘Nikki.’
‘Nikki?’ asked the professor.
‘His girlfriend.’
Professor Kendrick nodded. ‘I’ve seen her hanging about before.’
‘What about the other one?’
‘Well, I’m not one to gossip, and there might not be anything in this.’
‘We’re professional private investigators,’ said Jo. She showed our police-issued identity card. ‘It’s not gossip, it’s helping with our enquiries. Anything you tell us will be treated in the strictest confidence.’
The professor’s brow creased as she took in the badge. ‘The police are involved?’
‘They’ve been informed,’ Jo lied again.
‘And?’
‘They share your view – nothing too ominous in a student disappearing the week before his dissertation is due.’
Professor Kendrick put Jo’s ID down on her desk. ‘There was an incident. A strange incident. Not strange, that’s too strong. Was it yesterday? What’s today?’
‘Wednesday.’
‘Yes, must have been. I wasn’t in Monday, not in the morning. Yesterday morning, Sally from the office came to see me to say she’d caught a young woman taking mail from the pigeonholes. The student pigeonholes. She’d asked said young woman what she was doing, and, she said, the woman had seemed,’ Kendrick paused, searching for the right word, ‘flustered.’
‘Did she stop her taking the mail?’
‘Of course. Not that any of it would be of any interest. Hell, it’s not of interest to me and I wrote most of it. The system is mainly used for hard-copy submissions and leaflets about forthcoming symposiums, information we can’t email. To be honest, hardly anyone uses them anymore. I can’t think why on earth—’
‘It was Matt’s pigeonhole?’
‘She may have thought she’d find a timetable, perhaps.’
‘Where’s Sally now?’
‘Probably her office.’
Jo got up, filling the air space between me and the professor. I wondered again whether there was enough oxygen in the room to support three people. If anyone was going to keel over, like the sacrificial canary in the coal mines, it was going to be me.
‘Can we talk to her?’ Jo asked.
‘Follow me.’
*
Sally was housed in a much bigger office, but she shared it with at least three others.
‘Could we have a word, please,’ said Professor Kendrick, indicating to the middle-aged woman to step outside the room.
‘These two young women are private investigators,’ the professor said to Sally once we were all standing together in the corridor. ‘They want to know more about the woman you saw interfering with the pigeonholes yesterday.’
Sally’s cheeks reddened but I didn’t read anything in to it. The smallest hint of official enquiry can cause some people to colour up.
‘I didn’t recognize her so I asked her what she was doing.’
‘Professor Kendrick says you thought she was flustered.’
‘She struck me that way.’
‘What did she take?’
‘Nothing. I didn’t let her. I asked her what she was doing and she said she was on the wrong floor. She left very quickly.’
‘Can we see the pigeonholes?’
Sally glanced at