Only Darkness. Danuta Reah

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СКАЧАТЬ who had no more desire than Debbie to get involved in student fights, looked relieved, but continued to watch the situation with interest. ‘Machismo fascismo,’ he said, ‘wins out every time.’ Debbie looked at him. ‘Your friend the ex-policeman. The one laying down the law over there.’

      He did look a bit authoritarian, actually, but Debbie was damned if she was going to agree with Tim about it. She liked Rob Neave. ‘I don’t think he’s laying down the law. Why should he be doing that? He’s just sorting them out. Is he an ex-policeman?’ Debbie thought that she ought to have known it.

      Tim knew everything. It was partly his journalist’s love of gossip, and partly his connections at the local newspaper. ‘That’s his job. Security, antivandalism, keep the buggers down. You remember that business with the lift last term?’

      Debbie shook her head. Tim’s story gradually came out about how some students at the end of last term had vandalized one of the lifts in the Moore building so badly they’d jammed it, trapping themselves inside. When they pushed the alarm button and summoned a rescue party, Neave, working the situation out, had delayed the rescue for two hours, claiming they couldn’t get the lift moving. The caretakers had stood around outside the lift, threatening to light a fire in the shaft. By the time the pair were released, they were pretty subdued, and the college authorities, faced with a bill for the lift repair, weren’t in any mood to listen to complaints. Debbie laughed as he got to the end of the story. Tim was a good raconteur. ‘Anyway,’ he went on, ‘the railway strangler has struck again.’

      ‘What?’ Debbie dropped her fork.

      ‘Didn’t you hear? It’s been all over the radio this morning. It’ll be in the paper as well, I should think. They found a body on the line last night.’

      Debbie felt cold. ‘Where? When last night? Who was it?’

      ‘On the way to Mexborough, I think. They haven’t given a name and they haven’t said it’s him again, but it must be.’ He picked up one of Debbie’s chips and ate it. ‘You’ll get fat.’ He ate another.

      ‘Not at this rate. Look, Tim, this woman, she wasn’t killed in Moreham, at the station, was she?’

      ‘Don’t know, shouldn’t think so for a minute.’ He began to look at her more closely. ‘Why? Come on, tell me.’

      Debbie found herself telling him about her encounter at the station last night, and the way the strange figure had made her feel. ‘He looked sort of, well, dangerous,’ she finished, lamely. ‘It’s nothing.’

      ‘No, go on, it’s interesting.’ She had his attention now, and he plied her with questions she couldn’t answer. Had she really heard the sound of breaking glass coming from the station? Not from anywhere else? What did he look like? Was she sure he didn’t catch the train?

      ‘Perhaps you saw him – the strangler,’ he said, half seriously.

      ‘Rubbish! If it was over at Mexborough it can’t have been anything to do with what I saw.’ Debbie was annoyed because she felt uneasy.

      ‘It’s the next stop up the line.’

      She thought about it, and then saw what time it was. ‘Oh, God, I’ve got to go. I’m teaching in five minutes.’

      Tim smiled at her encouragingly, and as she left was getting out a notebook and pen. ‘I’ll just stay here and get some work done. It’s quieter than in our staff room. See you later.’

      As she left the canteen, she saw Rob Neave leaning against the wall watching the students with a conspicuously bleak expression. He caught Debbie’s eye and winked. As she went past him, he said, ‘It’ll be nearer five than four-thirty. Is that OK?’

      ‘Yes, it won’t take long. It’s nothing much.’

      He looked sceptical. ‘Your last nothing much took half my budget,’ he said, referring to the time when Louise and Debbie had decided to take advantage of the fact that the college had actually appointed someone with responsibility for security. They’d campaigned for better lighting in some of the isolated parts of the campus, assuming that the boyish face and easy charm of the new appointee meant he would be a pushover. He’d proved to be a tough negotiator, who was, fortunately, on their side. They’d got their lighting.

      Debbie noticed as she looked more closely at him that he was tired and drawn. She wondered if he was another person who’d had a sleepless night. She almost told him about her experience at the station. She felt in need of expert advice.

      Debbie’s Friday afternoon A-level class distracted her and she forgot, for the moment, about the incident at the station. The students were studying ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’, and making heavy weather of it. Debbie had asked them to think about the lines: God save thee, ancient Mariner!/From fiends that plague thee thus!/Why look’st thou so?’ With my crossbow/ I shot the Albatross. Why, she had asked them, did the mariner shoot the albatross that had brought good luck to the ship? Somehow, the discussion had got hijacked into an animal rights argument that was interesting, but not what Debbie wanted them to do.

      ‘Anyway, it’s cruel,’ said Sarah Peterson, who had been following the discussion closely. Debbie sighed. Sarah rarely contributed, but it was typical that when she did it was with the wrong end of the stick securely in her hands. She could see Leanne Ferris, one of the brighter members of the group, about to deliver a sharp rebuttal, and she pulled them back to the poem, and began to work them around to thinking about a less literal interpretation. She saw Sarah diligently writing down the points she was making.

      Sarah was Debbie’s particular concern that year, a different kind of student from Leanne. Leanne, quick-minded and confident about her own ideas, would sail through anything the exam system threw at her, as long as Debbie could persuade her to do a bit of work. Sarah worked very hard, but didn’t understand. She had no confidence in her own ideas and opinions, so she wanted someone – Debbie in this case – to tell her what she should think. She didn’t want to know why the answers were correct, what they meant or what the implications were. She just wanted the answers, as her palpable puzzlement when answers weren’t offered made clear.

      After the class, Sarah waited until the others had gone, and then asked rather diffidently if there was time to discuss her last essay. ‘The one I did on Othello. I didn’t get a very good mark.’ She rummaged in her bag and produced the essay which looked rather crumpled, and a can of Coke. ‘I’ve got to go straight to work,’ she said apologetically, gesturing at the can. Sarah, like a lot of students at City, could only afford to stay at college by working. She had a job at a pub on the outskirts of Moreham.

      They discussed the essay, or at least, Debbie did, while Sarah wrote things down. ‘Have another go at it,’ Debbie suggested. ‘Once you’ve got one good essay, it gives you a model for others. Let me have it on Monday, OK?’

      ‘Thanks, Debbie.’ Sarah smiled and briefly met Debbie’s eyes before hurrying out. Debbie collected her things and headed back to her room.

      When she got there, Rob Neave was leaning on the windowsill beside her desk, flicking through the pages of one of her books – a collection of Auden’s poems. He usually showed some interest in her books, though she sometimes found it hard to tell if he really meant it. His face could be difficult to read. He looked up as she came in. ‘Deborah.’ He was one of the few people who used her full name. ‘So what’s this nothing much problem?’

      ‘Do СКАЧАТЬ