Page 63 of M for Murder

During dinner, Miranda made plans to go over to the student bar on the other side of the campus. Jennifer didn’t want to go. Like most of the other students, she had come to realise that she was safer if she stayed in her room after dark. Miranda was being bull-headed though and said she would go even if it was by herself. Remembering that they were supposed to be watching out for each other, Jennifer reluctantly agreed to go with her.

As the two of them got ready in their room, she kept wondering if she had made the right decision in staying. After all, why should she be made to feel guilty about Miranda? If she wanted to, she should have gone home. As usual, Jennifer had been weak-willed enough to give in. She made a decision there and then that she would have to try to be more assertive in the future. That was if she was going to have a future after being dumb enough to stay.

The student bar, like most of the bars in town, was dead and Jennifer would have been surprised to find it any other way. Only half a dozen of the tables were occupied, and she didn’t recognise any faces from her own dorm. She guessed that most of the students there came from the dorms situated close by the bar. Nobody else would be foolish enough to wander further given the circumstances.

That was with the exception of her and Miranda of course.

Although Jennifer didn’t recognise anyone, Miranda spotted a couple of guys that she knew over at one of the tables in the corner, and she dragged Jennifer across, introducing them as Mike and Jason. Both were second-year students and seemed good fun. Mike appeared to be entranced with Miranda and flirted with her continually, while Jason, who made clear that he had a girlfriend and wasn’t coming on to Jennifer, turned out to be a master of one-liners and kept her amused with witty anecdotes and jokes. The four of them were on their second round of drinks when Jennifer looked up and saw him: the senior from Friday afternoons.

Lawrie.

She knew his name now, having overheard a conversation he’d been having with a friend one afternoon, and she watched him for a few minutes, only half paying attention to the story that Jason was recounting, as she tried to figure out if he was with anyone.

Lawrie sat on a bar stool, dressed in a black shirt and black jeans, chatting to one of the guys serving behind the bar, but he appeared to be pretty much alone. Needing to pee and knowing that to get to the bathroom she had to walk past the bar, Jennifer made her excuses and squeezed past Jason. She wasn’t too sure what exactly she planned on doing when she got to the bar, considering that in the last couple of months she hadn’t actually managed to pluck up the courage to speak to the guy, but she hadn’t seen him there before and, with her courage fuelled by the alcohol, wasn’t about to waste an opportunity.

Instead of approaching him straightaway, she squeezed past him unnoticed to the bathroom first, wanting to pee and check her appearance before she made her move. Judging by the full bottle of beer he was holding, she felt pretty confident that Lawrie wasn’t going anywhere just yet.

The bathroom was empty. Jennifer used the only one of the three stalls that didn’t have a broken door, washed her hands, ran a comb through her hair and touched up her lipstick. She smiled at herself in the mirror, trying to build up her confidence.

‘Go out there and knock him dead,’ she told her reflection in a low voice.

The couple of drinks she’d had were already making her feel a little lightheaded and she was feeling pretty good about herself. Pushing open the bathroom door, she headed straight for the bar, still not having a clue about what she was going to say.

Lawrie’s bar stool was empty.

Disappointed, Jennifer looked around to see where he’d gone and crashed straight into Professor Boone.

‘Oh my God!’ she yelled, almost jumping out of her skin. ‘Jeez! Sorry, Professor, you startled me.’

Professor Boone smiled at her and put a hand on her shoulder. ‘No harm done, Jennifer. Accidents happen.’

‘Yes, I guess so.’

She watched him walk away thinking how strange it was that Professor Boone was in the student bar. Sure, there were plenty of professors who frequented the place, but it didn’t seem to be Boone’s scene, and he kind of looked out of place.

Unable to see Lawrie anywhere, she headed back to her friends. At the table, she noticed one of them was missing.

‘Where’s Miranda?’ she asked.

Jason pointed to the door.

‘You’ve just missed her, she left two minutes ago.’

Jennifer looked at the door, wondering what had happened to Miranda’s plan for them not to split up. She checked her watch and saw that it was ten forty. Chewing her bottom lip, she deliberated over what to do. The bar would be closing in twenty minutes and she didn’t feel that she knew Mike and Jason well enough to ask them to walk her back to her dorm. If Miranda didn’t return soon, it looked like she was going to have to do the walk by herself.

24

W hen Jennifer stepped out of the door of the student bar, she spent a moment glancing around at the stone-grey buildings that flanked her, in the hope that she might see Miranda. The bar, which opened onto a square, was on the older part of the campus and stood facing the library, while two buildings either side had both been converted into dorms. It was possible that Miranda had gone to pay a friend a visit. If she had though, Jennifer had absolutely no idea which of the dorms she might have gone into and wasn’t about to waste her time looking.

Personally, she didn’t like this part of the campus. Although the old buildings had more character than the purpose-built modern blocks that she and Miranda lived in, they were also far creepier. The stairs creaked and the rooms echoed, and it often seemed as though there was a ghostly presence stalking the hallways. Of course, it was probably just her imagination, but with the knowledge that a killer was running loose on the campus, she didn’t need anything else to add to her jitters.

As she started to make her way across the square to the archway that led past the library, she looked up at the hundreds of windows that looked down on her. Many of the lights were turned off; a few were on, but of those most had the blinds drawn. Jennifer realised that anyone could be watching her from one of the darkened rooms. Maybe someone she knew from class or someone who had been in the bar. Possibly even Miranda.

Or perhaps the killer.

Swallowing hard, she picked up her pace, the clatter of her heels creating a loud echo as they hit the stone path. She reached the other side of the square and found herself swallowed by dark shadows for a brief moment as she passed through the archway. Emerging the other side, she was relieved to see the familiar beam of the first of the many street lamps that illuminated the main campus path.

How could Miranda ditch her like this? So much for watching each other like hawks.