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  “And you’re saying he put them there?” asked DC Kendrick. “Two days before they were stolen?”

  “No, he didn’t. He’s not a nice bloke, and I really wanted to believe he had, but Anna swears he couldn’t have done. The bag he turned up with wasn’t big enough to conceal them, and she was with him pretty much every minute of the whole weekend.”

  “Right - well, this isn’t getting us anywhere.”

  “But I’ll tell you who did.”

  The policeman sighed.

  “Go on.”

  “One of the other students. She’s out there now. You’ll see her in the common room. You can’t miss her. Bright red hair. Her name’s Sophie. Sophie Webb. And if you look in her room, I suspect you’ll also find some of the other things you’re looking for.”

  “Sorry, Danny, or whatever your name is, you’re wasting our time.”

  “I’m not, trust me.”

  “Look, we know Sophie. We’ve spoken to her. She didn’t go anywhere near the Polytechnic that night. She was here, ill. The lad Jason gave her an alibi.”

  “I know. And I agree. She wasn’t there.”

  “Jesus.” He looked at his colleague, who nodded. “Right, I’ve heard enough of this. Ms Burgin, you’re coming with us.”

  “But I can tell you how she did it,” said Danny.

  The policeman stopped and turned towards him, assessing for a moment.

  “Go on.”

  “Okay. The cameras weren’t stolen when the break-in happened. The break-in was a decoy. The cameras were already here. I spoke to Anish at the storeroom and he confirmed everything.”

  The detectives looked at each other then both sat down on the bed.

  “Go on,” said DC Kendrick again.

  “We had a party on Saturday night,” I said, feeling it was time to add my input. “We all had to take a door. I know that sounds stupid but it seemed funny at the time. I took the door off my wardrobe.”

  “And you’re saying that’s when she put the cameras in? That’s not possible, because they were signed out in use at the Polytechnic on Monday morning.”

  “I know,” said Danny, “but it’s when Sophie got the idea. She knocked on Anna’s door to tell her that the party was starting. When Anna opened the door, Sophie would have been able to see straight into her wardrobe.”

  “It was never the tidiest,” I confessed. “There were clothes piled up on the bottom.”

  “We noticed.”

  Danny continued.

  “On Monday, as you say, the cameras were signed out in the morning but returned and signed back in on Monday afternoon. I checked with Anish at the storeroom. But he also told me that Sophie had been to see him that afternoon, just before closing time, complaining of feeling unwell.”

  “She was ill that night at the restaurant too,” I added. “Todd had to bring her home.”

  “The fact is,” said Danny, “she wasn’t ill at all. She asked Anish to get her a glass of water. Crucially, therefore, she was alone for perhaps a minute. The cameras had just been signed back in, and were still out on one of the returns shelves, waiting to be put away. That’s when she stole them, slipped them straight into her bag. Anish returned with the glass, then sat with her for a few minutes. It was the end of the day. He decided he’d sort out the equipment in the morning. He locked up and then walked her down to reception to make sure she was okay.”

  “As far as he was concerned, the cameras were in there when he locked the door,” I added.

  “Okay,” said DS Matthews. “But how come they still ended up in your room? Why would she do that? And who broke into the storeroom?”

  “This is where she’s tried to be clever,” said Danny. “She staged the break-in to make it look like it happened overnight, but I’ll come on to that. As you know, it’s not the first time things have gone missing. I think she realised things were heating up and you’d be investigating. So she hid the cameras in Anna’s room and made sure you’d find them, so you’d then pin everything on Anna. She’d lose those two but it was a small sacrifice to have the blame for all the thefts shift onto someone else.”

  “And how did she get them in there?”

  “On Monday night, Amelia came and asked me if I’d like to go to dinner with them,” I said. “I popped down the corridor to the bathroom to, well, freshen up, before setting off.”

  “Which means Anna’s room was unlocked for about two minutes,” Danny continued. “Sophie seized her chance, and stuffed the cameras under the clothes while Anna was in the bathroom. Then all she had to do was make it look like Anna was the only possible suspect by making sure she was in the Polytechnic building that night.”

  “She pretended to be ill at the restaurant,” I said. “She’s on my course so she asked me to pick up some books from her locker for her. She said she wouldn’t be in the next day.”

  “But she was,” said Danny. “She got down there first thing. One of the others from here, Jason, went with her. Anish normally gets in first but they got there about a minute before. I checked with Terry. She raced up to the storeroom and jemmied it open with a screwdriver then hid in the stairwell. Anish turned up a few seconds later, having been delayed by Jason, and noticed the door. He confirmed Sophie was the first person to arrive straight after.”

  “She pretended to be shocked,” I added, “and said it must have happened overnight. He didn’t have any reason to doubt her. He’d seen her arrive in reception just before he did. She didn’t have a bag, and even if she had, she hadn’t had time to break in, find things and steal them. She only just had time to break the door.”

  “Jason didn’t realise he was involved,” continued Danny. “His only part in this was to ask Anish something to delay him a moment at Sophie’s request. Once Anish got upstairs, he confirmed Sophie came from the stairwell. He remembers now, and said it seemed odd at the time, but he hadn’t given it a second thought in all the shock of finding the break-in. The stairs are right by the lift, but nobody ever takes the stairs, especially to go up.”

  “And after that, she came straight back here, and went back to pretending to be ill,” I said, in conclusion. “But to go back to what Danny said earlier, if you go and look in her room, we think you’ll find some of the other things you’ve been looking for. Unless she’s already sold them.”

  The two detectives looked at each other.

  “And she’s been stealing stuff off this floor for ages, too. She used this as an opportunity to pin all that on me. That’s why everybody hates me.”

  “Which one’s her room?” asked DC Kendrick, after a moment.

  “802,” I said. “Two doors down.”

  18

  THERE was something strangely therapeutic about seeing Danny proved right and watching Sophie being taken away in a police car instead of me, but I still felt the whole thing was so terribly sad. It transpired she did have a violent dealer to pay, and when the police asked to inspect her room she broke down in tears. It wasn’t long before she confessed to everything. I heard later, from Jason, that she’d also had her eye on Todd, so getting me out of the way would have other benefits there. I couldn’t see that happening now, but if it did, they’re welcome to each other.

  I took Danny out for yet another meal, but this time to celebrate. I booked a table in a small restaurant, close to his house in Kentish Town. I wanted to thank him, not just for all of his hard work, but mainly for being the only person who believed in me, even when I’d started doubting myself.

  “I still think it was Todd that beat you up,” I said as we waited for the food to arrive.

  “Unquestionably,” he said. “But I think he was just jealous. He’d obviously seen us talking together and got the wrong end of it - especially if you’d not been getting on.”

  “Are you going to press charges?”

  Danny shook his head.

  “There’s no point. I couldn’t prove it. But he knows, and we know. I think he’ll leave us alone now.”
r />   “One thing does bother me, though.” I found it hard to suppress a smile.

  “What’s that?”

  “I spent a whole evening at your house, and still haven’t seen any actual evidence of the existence of the mysterious Shelley. Not even a single line of verse.”

  “God, not this again.” Danny laughed. “Okay, I’ll make a confession.”

  “She doesn’t exist! Ha! I knew it.”

  “No, she’s coming down for the weekend. She’s very keen to meet you. Actually, I left a note with Gary to tell her where we were, so she could come to meet us here.”

  As if on cue, the restaurant door opened. A statuesque young woman with gorgeous blonde hair, looking about as far removed from me as possible, looked over in our direction. Danny waved. She started approaching. I suddenly felt very small indeed.

  “Oh fuck,” I said. Danny just winked. He stood up.

  “I’ll make introductions,” he said. I stood as well, not quite knowing what to do with myself, but feeling excruciatingly embarrassed. I’d lost my heart to her boyfriend, pact or not. I’d slept in his bed. I’d doubted everything about her, and yet here she was.

  “You must be Anna,” she said, before Danny had a chance to speak. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  “And me you likewise,” I said, offering my hand for her to shake. I was overcome by guilt.

  “Really?” she said. “That’s odd.”

  I could see Danny’s face cracking up.

  “Anna,” he said. “I’d like to introduce you to Jill. Gary’s girlfriend.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “I’m not stopping,” she continued, giving me a funny look. “I’m just passing on a message. Shelley phoned and said her bus is running about two hours late, but she’ll see you this evening. And the landlord’s been round again. Wedge still hasn’t paid his rent. Apparently if he doesn’t clear the backlog by Monday you’re all getting evicted.”

  “Shit, I thought that would happen,” said Danny.

  “Anyway, I’ll leave you to it, Maybe see you later?”

  Danny nodded. She turned and left us to it.

  “You enjoyed that,” I said. “Bastard.”

  Danny reached across and held my hand. I didn’t try to stop him.

  “Seriously, it still hurts to laugh,” he said. “Your face, though...”

  Luckily, the waiter turned up before I had the chance to respond.

  19

  The final years

  I DID get to meet Shelley eventually. She wasn’t at all like I’d expected. She was lovely in her own way, but quite quiet at first. I think I made her nervous. She was pretty too, annoyingly, in a classically fresh-faced girl-next-door kind of a way. But then as we got to know each other, over the course of the evening, she warmed up and I began to see her smile. She had irritatingly perfect teeth, too.

  Danny and Shelley escorted me back to my hall of residence, but didn’t take me up on my offer of tea. I suspect they had better things to be getting home to, having not seen each other for nearly a week. But what a week it had been.

  Amelia and Sara were in the kitchen when I arrived on the eighth floor. They both tried to apologise, and I accepted with reasonably good grace, but I knew things would never return to normal. Jason apologised too. He was mortified that he had been an unwitting accomplice. He’d only gone with Sophie because he was convinced she was ill, and he was desperately keen to make sure she was looked after.

  Over the weekend, I had a lot of time to myself, and decided to make fundamental changes. I’d start by looking for somewhere new to live for next term. It was time to leave the security of the hall, and branch out on my own.

  I didn’t see Danny all weekend and missed him terribly. I was suffering from the agonising effects of a crush, made worse by my imagination conjuring up all sorts of unwanted imagery about what might be happening in his lovely double bed. My heart leapt when he phoned me on Monday evening, asking if I’d like to meet for a drink. I knew that if I accepted I’d be fooling myself, but I did so anyway. I’ll never learn.

  “So how was your weekend,” I asked, once we were together. “Shelley get home okay?”

  “She did, yes. And it was good, thank you. Lots of fun after a stressful week.”

  “Are you using the word fun as a euphemism?”

  “Euphemism for what?”

  I gave him a look.

  “Actually, don’t tell me. It’s best I don’t know.”

  “How were things in the hall?” he asked, changing the subject. I kind of did want to know, but only to confirm that they hadn’t been up to anything. That wasn’t going to happen.

  “Frosty. I’ve had a lot of thinking time. I’m going to move out after Christmas. God knows where, but it’s time.”

  “Don’t even start me. We’ve just been evicted.”

  “No!”

  “Yup. Wedge owed three months and the landlord lost it. He’s giving us to the end of term but then we’ve got to go, too.”

  “Could he not just evict Wedge?”

  “It’s all three of us on the same contract. He’s had it with students, apparently. He’s going for young professionals as supposedly they ‘treat the place with more respect’, which basically means they have the money to pay the rent on time.”

  “Shit. I’m sorry to hear all that. What’ll you do?”

  “Look to find somewhere new. It’s all we can do.”

  “Well, if you need a new flatmate, let me know.”

  I said that before I’d really had time to think about it, but as time moved on, that’s exactly what happened. We started sharing house-hunting stories, until, in the end, we both came across the same place, in Chalk Farm, sharing with four other students. It wasn’t far from either Camden or Danny’s old place and it was perfect. We moved in together - albeit in separate rooms - the following January. Our friendship, based on mutual respect and my undying devotion, has only prospered ever since.

  Shelley came to stay for a few weekends until the inevitable messy break-up. I told Danny he should have listened to me, but he was inconsolable for a while, and I don’t think my hard-earned sageness helped. That said, I tried a few more disastrous dalliances of my own, but they rarely progressed beyond the invitation-to-dinner, back-for-coffee, what-on-earth-was-I-thinking next morning stage.

  In general, though, it was a good period. Ever more of my free time was taken up helping Mark Colby at his photographic studio, learning all about the techniques and business of high-end fashion photography.

  I went from tea girl to lighting assistant, and then, when he went on glamorous foreign trips, he started to trust me enough to let me use his equipment to build my own portfolio. My friend Colette was an aspiring model, so we worked together, exploring ideas, experimenting with sets, outfits and lighting, until I began to develop a style of my own. There was huge excitement when one of our shoots was accepted by an underground fashion magazine. Colette went on to be a star, and I’ve done okay. When I graduated, I set up my own studio and called it Passion Fruit, partly because I wanted to make sensual, passionate images, and partly as a nod to my first paid commission of a supermarket’s fruit bowl. I’m now reasonably in demand, although it’s a hugely competitive industry and you can never afford to stop learning.

  Danny’s wish came true when he finally got to meet his idol, Clare Woodbrook from the Daily Echo. She was booked as a guest lecturer in his final year. God - I’ve rarely seen him so excited.

  He was up ridiculously early to make sure he’d be there first, desperate to bag a front row seat in the lecture theatre. He’d prepared dozens of questions for the inevitable Q&A, which I suspect just irritated all the other students, who would have been much more interested in getting to the bar.

  At the end, he told me he’d hung around to introduce himself, and apparently - perhaps out of some kindred spirit of northern-ness - she was only too happy to chat. In the end they went to the college canteen where she bought hi
m a cup of tea, before giving him her office number and an open invitation to visit her building on Fleet Street to see her in action.

  That was it, then. He was deeply in love, although I don’t think he was ever brave enough to tell her - or me - in quite as many words. It’s the same old thing really: why risk what you have for something else that may be unattainable. I’m sure there’s a proverb about that. Something to do with a dog with a bone in its mouth, seeing its reflection in a river, and opening its mouth to catch the reflection, but losing the real bone in the process. Sometimes I think I should be the writer, haha.

  Clare became Danny’s mentor. They kept in touch throughout the rest of his final year, and I’d often get bored, hearing him bang on about how much she’d taught him. Not that I’m the jealous type, obviously, but really? At least Mark, who was fulfilling a similar role for me, had the forethought to be gay. To Clare’s credit, she was as good as her word, and when Danny graduated she offered him a full-time job, as her researcher.

  Before I knew it, they were going out to swanky awards dos together and he was flying off on research trips, hunting down master fraudsters. He loved the job, and I was very pleased for him, and proud when I saw his name in print. I met Clare a couple of times, and even offered her my photographic skills, but I don’t think she took me seriously.

  By the start of 1993, both Danny and I were building up our careers. We moved to a new flat for just the two of us, in Rochester Square in Camden. Our friendship was deeper than ever, built on mutual trust, admiration, and understanding. I hoped those days would never end. But then one morning Clare arranged to meet Danny for lunch. She didn’t turn up, and her car was found abandoned on the M25. And that was the day everything changed.

  Thank you for reading In The Frame. I hope you enjoyed it!

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