Guilty Conscious by Oliver Davies (best ereader for students .txt) 📗

could see on that route. Maybe the killer followed Edward, and they might have been hiding somewhere as he walked.

Mills nodded, and Dr Crowe gently pulled the sheet back up over Edward’s body.

“He’s off to be incinerated, I heard,” she told us conversationally as we all left the lab, and she locked the door behind us. “His parents will probably keep the ashes.”

Thinking about his parents, I had to agree with that theory.

“You’ve got everything you need?” I asked her as we walked back upstairs.

“I do. I’ll leave my report on your desk for when you get back,” she said, nudging me with her elbow and taking off towards Sharp’s office.

I shook my head at Mills when he pulled his car keys from his pocket. “It’s not far a walk,” I told him. I hoped that the fresh air and a bit of exercise would help me wrangle my thoughts in order, and Mills seemed of a similar mind, as he put his keys away with another word and followed me through the doors, his hands tucked into his pockets.

The streets were quiet, the slightly dreary weather keeping people inside working, and we passed only a few people as we walked towards the university. Students milled around with rucksacks and books in their arms, laughing and boisterously jostling each other as they walked from class to class. Security had been upped, which was nice to see. Security guards roamed around with radios on their hips. We headed to the reception building, showing our warrant cards so that we could walk around without causing too much trouble. The woman at the desk directed us towards Professor Altman’s office, in an old, tall building on the far side of the campus.

We stood outside, looking up at the red brick building, students coming in and out, and Mills muttered,

“What’s the bet that he’s on the top sodding floor?”

“High,” I replied, catching the door before it could close behind two students and walked in, finding the board with the room numbers listed and scowling.

Yep. Professor Altman, top floor.

I looked up at the winding, old staircase and grumbled, Mills with a dour face behind me as we began the steep climb, all the way up until we stood in the attic of the building, the sloping ceiling making me duck as we stopped outside his door, catching a breather.

“So. Edward Vinson leaves this room at… let’s say six? We know he calls his parents soon after. Ready?” I asked Mills.

He nodded, a grimace on his face, and we walked back to the stairs.

“Professor Altman said he left in a bit of a huff,” Mills said beside me, “so he probably didn’t hang about leaving the building.”

We sped up a bit, jogging down the stairs like we were young lads with annoying professors, bursting out into the open air.

“Just been in a boring meeting,” I muttered, “checks the phone.” I pulled it out from my pocket and loitered where I stood. “Answered some messages to his friends, called his parents back.”

“Probably walked a bit,” Mills said, “especially if we know he was a bit annoyed during the call.”

I nodded and paced along the path slowly, meandering, ending up close to a tree.

“Call didn’t last long,” Mills said, and I put my phone away, “so he carried on.” We walked the most obvious route to his room, a clear cut across campus, through to the courtyard, police tape still stretched before the building.

I paused there and looked around the space, at the windows overlooking us. “If the killer was waiting for him, there are not many places they could hide,” I pointed out. It was an open space, and if Edward saw someone strange, saw Mr Helman or Billie, he’d have been able to clock them as he approached.

We carried on, walking to the front door of the building and checking our watches. It had taken us fifteen minutes.

“That leaves a long amount of time,” Mills pointed out. “We know he goes in, showers, but even then, that still leaves the better part of an hour for our killer to have gotten in and out before Freya arrived.”

I nodded and turned from the door, looking back towards the way we came. “Maybe he took another route? A longer one.”

I scanned the buildings. “They must have been long gone by the time Freya arrived,” I said, rubbing my jaw. “The place is fairly wide open, and the only ways out are through the campus where we came out via the gate, neither of which are very discreet.”

“I’m guessing that our killer knew that, so they found a different way out. And since we don’t think any of this was planned,” Mills went on, “it’s safe to say that they’re familiar with the campus.”

“I think so.” I propped my hands on my hips and looked around. “These timings don’t add up,” I muttered. “When did Freya say she was going to meet him?”

“Just before seven,” Mills recalled. “Said it gave them a bit of time before she got the bus home.”

“But she was late,” I said. “So, she would have missed her bus?”

Mills shrugged.

“If she’d been on time,” I mused, pacing a small circle, “she probably would have seen our killer. Her being late was lucky for them, so I’m putting this more in the middle. Half six, quarter to seven.”

“Sir,” Mills said slowly, reaching up to rake his fingers through his hair. “Their friends would be likely to know what time they meet. Know when Freya usually gets the bus home.”

“Yes?”

“Including Billie,” he said in a sad, dark tone.

I stopped my pacing and turned to face his grim expression, swearing in a sigh under my breath. He was right. She’d have remembered that, surely. Knew that Freya didn’t live on campus, for sure.

“Let’s take a look into the local bus routes,” I said. “See if we can get a more accurate time for Freya’s comings and goings and see if there’s one that would have suited Billie. Although,”