Dying to Write by Judith Cutler Page A

mean?’
    He nodded. ‘And then I had a word directly with Gimson. He struck me as the sort of man who might say one thing to a woman and something slightly different to a man.’
    I beamed; this sort of distinction had seemed beyond Chris’s range when we first met, and I wondered if my influence had made him think more subtly. I hoped so.
    â€˜Overreacting?’ I repeated, though with undue fire.
    â€˜After the spring. Trauma of the sort you experienced must take its toll one way or another. For you even to consider coming on a course like this –’
    â€˜Like what, Chris?’
    â€˜You know – poetry, writing … I wouldn’t have associated you with anything like it.’
    â€˜Please, DCI Groom, sir, I teach English. For my living.’
    â€˜But it’s not the same as writing it,’ he said.
    And again I was surprised by his perceptiveness. I might shock him by agreeing for once.
    â€˜You’re right, Chris. But to get back to our
moutons
, Nyree does seem to have attracted a lot of attention from us students and from outsiders. And I’m alarmed at some level I can’t make sense of that no one knows where Kate is.’
    â€˜So you think Kate might have killed her and run?’ he said. The serious tone was belied by the crow’s-feet of amusement he couldn’t conceal.
    â€˜No. She’d have run in her car, surely, and it’s still in the car park. Are you going to take it away for forensic examination?’
    â€˜Not until we have grounds to believe a crime’s been committed. Or should we be alerting all forces to look for a serial killer?’
    I wished he’d try to be serious. Or perhaps he was. ‘No. I don’t know. God, I hope not. Jesus, Chris –’
    â€˜Slow down. I was joking. Tell me, why did that Asian woman – what’s her name?’
    â€˜Shazia.’
    â€˜Why did she call you?’
    â€˜No idea. I don’t even know why she went into Nyree’s room in the first place – do you?’
    â€˜To call her to the phone,’ he said briefly. He probably shouldn’t have told me.
    â€˜Chris, she must have acquired enemies like other people attract mosquitoes. Please, don’t just assume it was an accident.’
    He looked at me, holding my gaze for longer than I found comfortable. ‘OK. There has to be a PM. I’ll get them to prioritise her. Get the results through quickly.’
    He was doing it to indulge me, not because he believed it was necessary. Today it was easier to let him.
    â€˜And, just to be on the safe side, mind, I’ll get the room sealed. So if necessary the SOCO –’
    â€˜Sorry?’
    â€˜Scene-of-crime officer, Ms Rivers. So he can have a ferret-round if necessary.’
    He grinned and got up. We walked to his car in silence.
    â€˜What will you do for the rest of the day?’ he asked at last, as he slipped the key into the ignition.
    â€˜Go back to my room and try to write,’ I said. ‘And pray the shock’s unblocked me!’
    Although lunchtime took a long time to arrive, when we gathered in the dining room people were able to talk with remarkable verve. Some played the
nil nisi bonum
game, but there was a good deal of enthusiastic bitching going on too. Normally I would have joined in gladly, but it was dawning on me that Nyree could not have been a happy woman, and that I had made very little effort to stop her drinking – except, of course, to help share her booze. The other thing that worried me was Kate’s continued absence.
    My usual means of restoring brainpower is to go for a jog. Perhaps it would work today.
    Naukez would no doubt have been the best person to ask about good routes, but he was nowhere to be seen, and I hesitated to disturb him in the staff flat. But Shazia was in the kitchen, and I asked her instead.
    â€˜Oh, dear – I’m hopeless at giving directions. Got a piece