He wasn’t sure why he’d been so stubborn about visiting the allotment. His snack and drink were long gone. A fat lot of good the doughnut had done him. He should have taken a whole bag of them.
It was a blessed relief when he reached the parade of shops near to the university. Even though a drink would be welcome, he didn’t stop for fear he’d never start again. Once he was back, he planned to crawl into bed and remain there for as long as possible. He might even find he was able to sleep after his long jaunt.
When Clive turned into the lane that marked the start of the campus, his mind was slow to react when he spotted the lights in the laboratory were on. He’d not been so stupid to leave them on like that, had he?
Letting himself in, Clive jumped when there was a complete stranger sitting at the desk. He held a hand to his chest. His heart rate needed to settle and quick. He didn’t want his heart to weaken again.
‘Everything okay?’ Clive asked, as if it was normal to be entering a private laboratory coming up to midnight.
‘You must be Clive.’ The young gentleman stood and held out a hand for Clive to shake.
Friend and not foe then. ‘Indeed. And you are?’
‘I’m Rob. Lucy’s boyfriend. I’ve learned tonight that apparently we live together.’
‘Is everything okay?’ Clive repeated. He’d not expected any visitors and certainly not at this time of night. His thoughts flickered to Lucy and how unwell she’d been.
‘Have you spoken to Keisha yet?’
‘No.’ Hearing her name was making him strangely emotional after repeating it so many times on his way here. Keisha meant he’d made it home.
‘She’s been trying to get hold of you.’
‘Why has she been trying to get hold of me?’
Right at that moment, Keisha made her entrance and told him herself.
‘You need to contact the police.’
27
Keisha
I want to quit. I want to quit spreadsheets and numbers that mean nothing by themselves. I want to quit work so I can spend all day at Lucy’s bedside until they make her better. I want to curl up in a ball and wait until everything has perspective again. I’ve got myself into this mess and I can’t see my way out of it.
I’ve never been in the laboratory in the middle of the night. There’s a bleakness to this place when there’s no daylight in the room. The colourful gym balls and exercise bike are all grey inanimate objects at this hour of day.
Clive is currently on the phone and Rob and I are hiding in the kitchenette trying to be quiet, while listening intently. When we got here and there was no sign of him, panic set in. He hasn’t told me he’s able to come and go as he pleases. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but it would have been nice to know. If I’d have known I would have supplied him with a cheap pay-as-you-go mobile phone so that in an emergency, such as this, I would have been able to get in touch with him. Instead, at the time, we decided I should scour the campus and Tess should drive to the allotment in the car. Rob stayed put in case he came back. As luck had it, Clive turned up twenty minutes later.
He looks decidedly dishevelled on his return, his jacket is off, a spider’s web is attached to what there is of his grey hair and there is a flush to his cheeks that’s so bright he may well have a fever. His excuse that he’s back from popping to the shop doesn’t sit right with me and now it’s making me question everything.
‘Right, yes, okay, I’ll see you then,’ Clive responds on the phone.
It’s impossible to hear the other end of the conversation. I’m curious to know what’s being said, even though, strictly speaking, it’s none of my business. But then again, at some point it’s become my business, I realise. I care for Clive.
‘Uh-huh. Will do,’ Clive says.
I open the fridge door to pop my head in there briefly to cool myself down. There are a few items in here to keep Clive going, along with his beetroot juice with their uniform labels on the bottles, and behind them, what I recognise to be a jar of pickled onions. I’ve no idea when he snuck that in here. After a minute, the plastic-pig fridge magnet that Lucy installed to