Behind Dead Eyes (DC Ian Bradshaw #2) - Howard Linskey Page 0,66

helps me with an important police matter.’

The youth didn’t seem to know if this was a question or an order so he simply mumbled, ‘Sure,’ while Bradshaw indicated Megan should follow him to a table in a far corner.

When he told her why he was there, she said, ‘Well I didn’t think it was cos I hadnae paid my council tax but I’ve already had the polis asking me about Sandra, and her disappearance had bugger all to do with me.’

‘And we are going over old ground so we don’t miss anything.’

‘Good luck with that,’ Megan said sarcastically. ‘Who sent you my way.’

‘Some girls that knew both of you. They said you might be able to shed some light on the reasons for Sandra Jarvis’s disappearance.’

‘Was it Tweedledum and Tweedledee?’ Though he was poker-faced in response Bradshaw knew she was referring to the two Julies. ‘I bet it was. Why the hell would I know anything about it?’

‘They thought Sandra may have confided in you, since you were such good friends.’

‘Did they now? Well she didn’t and we weren’t that close.’

‘Why did they think you were then?’

‘No idea – except they probably thought we were bestest buddies because we were the only two girls on our course who weren’t posh and minted.’

‘Really?’

‘Well, I don’t see anyone else doing bar work to survive. There are girls here who spend five hundred a month just on clothes.’

‘That must be annoying.’

‘It is what it is,’ Megan said as if she didn’t care but she evidently did.

‘Did Sandra work here too?’

‘We did some shifts together at weekends during term time. She worked in a place in Newcastle during the holidays,’ she thought for a second, ‘the Pirate?’

‘The Highwayman.’

‘Aye, that was it.’

‘Did she like bar work?’

‘There are worse ways to get by but you only do it for the money. I’d rather be on this side of the bar but there you go. Sandra felt the same.’

‘And when you did these shifts together, when you had a drink afterwards or went for a fag break, she never told you anything about herself?’

‘Not really. Certainly nothing that would make me understand why she suddenly disappeared like that,’ said Megan. ‘If she disappeared.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘I mean, if she had just upped and left wouldn’t someone have found her by now?’

‘Not if she didn’t want to be found. You think something happened to her? Someone hurt her, maybe?’

‘Well it seems likely, doesn’t it?’

‘It’s certainly a possibility but who would want to harm Sandra?’

‘How should I know?’

Bradshaw was beginning to seriously question the wisdom of interviewing Sandra’s college friends. It seemed the missing girl hadn’t bothered to open up to anyone.

‘I don’t suppose there’s anyone you can think of who might know something about Sandra that nobody else does.’ He was clutching at straws.

Megan shook her head. ‘You’ll have already spoken to her room-mate,’ she said, as if that was obvious.

‘She had a room-mate?’ The case files hadn’t made that clear.

‘She shared a room in halls with Olivia Barrington but that only lasted for the first term.’

‘Why? Did they have a falling-out?’

Megan shook her head. ‘Olivia wasn’t used to sharing things, was she, so she kicked up a fuss until they moved her and she got her own room.’

‘I see,’ said Bradshaw, ‘so where does this Olivia Barrington live now?’

‘The Castle.’ Megan said the words quickly and her strong Scottish accent led Bradshaw to assume he misheard her.

‘I’m sorry, for a second there I thought you said she lived in a castle.’

Helen had to walk down Dean Street to get to the pub on the Quayside, a road so steep she was forced to tread carefully to avoid accidentally stumbling into a run. She almost walked past the Crown Posada at first, an ancient, Victorian watering hole with a stone façade, dark stained-glass windows and a single sign above the door to denote its presence.

Once inside the pub, she headed for the bar while scanning the room for any sign of Brian Hilton. She spotted him soon enough. He was sitting on his own in an alcove not far from the front door. Though they hadn’t met, Hilton was one of the few journalists at her paper who merited his own photo byline and, except for a few extra lines on his face since it was taken, he looked exactly like his picture. The unfashionably long mane of silver hair was recognisable enough even in the subdued light of the Crown Posada’s wood-panelled bar. Helen ordered