Evanly Bodies - By Rhys Bowen Page 0,32

them as they came through the doors.

"Excuse me a minute," he said. "Are any of you students of Professor Rogers?"

The young man who was leading the group looked around uneasily. "We all are," he said. "Everybody gets the head of department at one time or another."

"I know what this is about," a girl said. She had that startlingly red hair found in the true Celt and bright green eyes. "He's been killed, hasn't he? I saw it on the telly last night."

"That's right, I'm afraid," Wingate said. "We're police officers; and if you've got a moment, we'd like to ask you some questions."

"Fire away," the first boy said. "I'd love a good excuse to be fifteen minutes late for Humphries."

"The 'Black Death'?" Wingate asked with a grin. "I thought that class was supposed to be fascinating."

"The subject is, but she's boring as hell. She drones on and on and on. Half the people who signed up for that class have already dropped it. So what did you want to know about Professor Rogers?"

Wingate glanced at Evan.

"We wondered whether any of you knew if he might have had a recent run-in with any of his students," Evan said.

"He was a miserable old sod," another boy commented, putting on his anorak hood against the wind. "He was one of the faculty members on the site council, and he was always vetoing anything he didn't approve of. You know, the gay/lesbian dance, that kind of thing. Very old-fashioned and prejudiced."

"He was really stodgy," a girl agreed. "Totally behind the times. If you showed up at one of his lectures in a skimpy top, he'd make you put your jacket on."

"But you don't kill your teacher because he makes you put your jacket on, do you?" Wingate asked.

They looked at him with wide-eyed horror. "Who said anything about killing?" the first girl asked. "He was annoying. My dad's annoying sometimes, but I don't think about killing him."

"Exactly," Evan said. "It has to be a life-or-death situation to make you want to kill someone in my experience. So I wondered, has there been a case where Professor Rogers might have pushed a student to the edge. Maybe he had failed somebody or was going to fail somebody?"

They looked at each other, considering this.

"There was Simon last year," the red-haired girl said at last, checking with her friends for confirmation in voicing this opinion.

"Simon?" Evan asked quietly.

"Simon Pennington. He graduated in June. He was very bright, probably one of the best students in his year. He thought he should have got a first, but he only got an upper two. He was really angry, and he thought it was all Professor Rogers's fault. Apparently Professor Rogers had assessed his special project as competent but not original. His family went to the dean and demanded a reassessment, but the dean wouldn't do it."

"He came back here to see old Rogers a couple of weeks ago, after term had started," a boy said. "He was yelling that Rogers had ruined his life, and he was never going to get into the Diplomatic Corps now."

"And where would we find this Simon Pennington?"

They looked at each other and shrugged.

"The registrar would have a contact address. He lived near London, didn't he?"

"I think so. He was definitely not Welsh anyway."

This got a laugh from the Welsh members of the group.

Evan left the university with an address in Surrey for Simon Pennington, but a phone call to that address indicated that Simon was currently traveling abroad and wouldn't be back for another month.

"Great alibi, don't you think?" Wingate asked Evan, as they headed back to the station. "There's nothing to stop him from popping back into the country, shooting the professor, and then going back to the Continent again. They never really check EU passports these days, do they?"

"We should definitely keep him in mind," Evan agreed. "Should we find more students to interview or get back to Bragg?"

"Much as I hate to face him this early in the day, I think he'll probably be expecting to see our keen and eager young faces sometime soon."

They made their way down the path to the waiting car.

"At least the university meter maids didn't have the nerve to ticket us," Wingate said.

"I bet they don't even set foot outside in this weather." Evan smiled.

A call to Bragg revealed that he was still at the Rogers's house.

"I want you two over here right away," he said. "We're giving the place a thorough search."

"Looking for what