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‘How could he tell? Wasn’t it masked and wearing a cloak?’
‘Women move in a different way,’ says Tanya.
‘Do they?’ says Nelson. He is dimly aware that he is in dangerous territory. If only he hadn’t left the course on ‘how to avoid gender stereotyping’ at lunchtime. ‘This masked figure is very odd. It’s not in any of the police reports.’
‘Tom and Amber both said they mentioned it,’ says Tanya. ‘Maybe it wasn’t thought to be important.’
‘Cathbad said he mentioned it too. Of course, he thought it was old Grim Garden himself.’
‘The god Grim,’ says Tanya. ‘I thought there was something odd about the way Leo talked about him. The hooded one, he called him.’
‘There was something about Grimsby too,’ says Bradley. ‘I didn’t follow it all but it was definitely weird. Mark Oldbury said the figure had horns too. No one else mentioned that detail.’
‘Horns,’ says Nelson. ‘Jesus wept.’
‘Oldbury thought it might have been one of Leo’s ex-students,’ says Bradley. ‘I’ve asked the college for a list of all his personal tutees.’
‘Good work,’ says Nelson. ‘By all accounts, Leo’s got form for getting too involved with his students.’
‘He kept going on about what a special relationship it was,’ says Tanya.
‘Mark was an ex-student too,’ says Bradley. ‘I thought he was a bit odd.’
‘In what way?’ says Tanya. Judy would have asked this too and Bradley colours, as if he knows he sounded unprofessional. But instincts are important, as Nelson could have told him if he hadn’t wanted to avoid one ofthoselooks from Tanya.
‘He didn’t blink much,’ says Bradley. ‘And he called Emily a “little girl”. I mean, she was twenty.’
Bradley says this as if it’s a great age but, then, he’s only in his early thirties. To Nelson, twenty is still almost a child. Katie will be twenty in eight years. But Bradley’s right, ‘little girl’ sounds distinctly creepy.
‘Is Oldbury married?’ asks Nelson.
‘No,’ says Bradley. ‘And doesn’t seem to be in a relationship. He said it was just him and his dog.’
Nelson is about to park this in his mental ‘suspicious’ file when he realises that it describes his own living arrangements exactly.
‘Not the same dog that he had twenty years ago?’ he says.
‘No, this one’s a rescue greyhound, apparently.’
‘And what about Leo and Emily kissing that night?’ says Nelson. ‘Did anyone else mention that?’
‘No,’ says Tanya, ‘and Amber shared a tent with Emily. You would have thought she’d have heard her leaving.’
‘Did Oldbury mention it in his original statement?’ says Nelson.
‘I asked him,’ says Bradley, ‘and he said he didn’t. Said he didn’t want to upset Emily’s parents. Maybe he didn’t want to upset Ballard either. After all, he was his boss.’
‘What about the last morning?’ says Nelson. ‘Do the accounts differ?’
‘Not really,’ says Tanya. ‘Amber left early. Leo took her to the station and then came back for Emily.’
‘Why not take them together?’
‘He had a two-seater car, apparently.’
‘Of course he did.’
‘Amber had to catch an early train,’ says Tanya. ‘Tom said the rest of them packed up and Leo took Emily to the station at about eleven. Tom and Emad went back to Cambridge in Mark’s van.’
