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Disappointed, A
The bloody nerve of him, having her on the carpet like that. He knew she hated that sort of thing. A
A
Christian or not, every Christmas had been a festive time for A
Shrugging off the past, she walked on to the Jolly Roger.
Eastvale didn’t have a large student population, and the college itself was an ugly mess of red brick and concrete boxes on the southern fringes of the town, surrounded by marshland and a couple of industrial estates. Nobody wanted to live out there, even if there had been anywhere to live. Most of the students lived closer to the town center, and there were enough of them to turn at least one pub into the typical student hangout, and “the Roger,” as they called it, was the one.
On first impression, A
A
“I’ve been told you might know this couple,” she said to the young man behind the bar, who looked like a student himself. “One of our lads had a word yesterday.”
“Not me, love,” he said. “I wasn’t on yesterday. That’ll be Kath over there.” He pointed to a petite blonde busy pulling a pint and chatting to another girl across the bar. A
“Any more thoughts on who this might be?” she asked, after introducing herself.
“I’ve given it a bit of thought,” said Kath, “but I can’t say as I have. I know I’ve seen them here, but I just can’t place them.”
“Let’s have a look, Kath,” said the girl. She didn’t look old enough to be drinking, but A
She looked at A
“That’s fine,” said A
“I’m Sam. Short for Samantha.”
A
“Lousy picture,” Sam commented. “That from the Big Brother video?”
“Yes,” said A
“Talk about an invasion of privacy,” the girl began. “You know-”
“I’d like to spend some time arguing the pros and cons of city center CCTV with you, Sam,” said A
“Yeah, I heard,” said Sam, looking away. “It’s a fucking shame a woman can’t go anywhere by herself these days.”
“Any idea who they are?”
“Course I do.”
“Will you tell me?”
“Did they do it?”
“I very much doubt it. But they might have seen something.”
“It’s Alex and Carly. Alex Pender and Carly Grant. Carly and I do art together.”
“Know where they live?”
“They’ve got a flat on Sebastopol Avenue, you know, one of those big old Victorian terraces. Landlords divide them up into poky flats and rent them out for a fortune. Talk about exploitation.”
“Do you know the number?”
Sam told her.
Knowing now the reasons for A
Perhaps it wasn’t even jealousy, but envy: he couldn’t have A
First, he sent DC Templeton off to get copies made of the photo of Clough he had got from Craig Newton. It was a good shot, candid or not, and Craig had cropped it so that it showed only Clough in full, mean face. When that was done, he would send a team out to check every hotel and guest house in the area to see if Clough had been staying there recently. He would also have Jim Hatchley and Winsome Jackman show it around Daleview and Charlie Courage’s neighborhood. In the meantime, information had started trickling in now the working week had begun again.