Chapter Three
Despite her sore body, Vespa dragged herself out of bed early the next morning and reviewed the text messages that she had received the previous evening. The colonel had sent her one while she had been suffering under Miss Holly's expert hands and she opened it, pleased when she read that his daughter, Helena, had agreed to see her at half past ten. Apparently, she had a lecture at noon but she could squeeze Vespa in before it at her hall of residence. After having another bath to ease her soreness, Vespa went down and opened up the gym, telling her young assistant, Mark, when he arrived ten minutes later, that he was in charge until lunch time.
"Make sure that nobody overdoes it on the weight machines, Mark!" she instructed him before she went back upstairs and had breakfast.
At ten, Vespa slithered painfully into her leathers then headed off for her meeting with the colonel's daughter at the university. Having a bike meant that parking was much easier and she found a space just a few yards away from the campus then strode into the grounds, carrying her helmet under one arm and her backpack under the other. Following the signs, she soon found the right hall of residence, a monstrous ten storey block of concrete that looked as if it had been designed by a three year old playing with Lego bricks. What was it with modern architects? Why couldn't they create something that was beautiful to look at? Groaning as she found both lifts were out of order, Vespa made her way up the stairs, trying not to hiss in pain as the welts on her skin stretched and moved with every step. Fortunately, she did not have to go to the very top, just up to the sixth floor where she left the stairwell and found Helena's room, number one hundred and seven lurking in the corner of the tower block.
"Bit different from home, Helena!" Vespa remarked with a grin when the young girl opened the door, dressed in a pair of skinny jeans and a tight top that was emblazoned with some weird band name.
"Which is why I wanted to live on campus, Vespa. Can you imagine mum and dad letting me do just what I wanted every evening if I had been living at home? Dad would have wanted a breakdown of every minute and scared off any boys with his shotgun and mum would have still been doing my washing! University is about being independent and experiencing new things, isn't it?" responded Helena as she stepped back and invited Vespa inside her room.
"I wouldn't know! I went and joined the army instead!" replied Vespa as she walked over and sat on the tatty armchair that faced the single bed.
Helena sat down on her bed, wrinkling the duvet and fixed her bright blue eyes, inherited from her father, on Vespa.
"I know you are only doing this as a favour for my father but please take it seriously," she began. "Astrid would never give up her place on the course without a very good reason and I am sure that she would have told me if there was a problem. I've already asked around to see if anyone has seen her recently but nobody can remember seeing her for the last two days."
"Just two days? I thought it had been longer?"
"It might be as much as three but I definitely saw her on Monday because we had a lecture together. I even checked her Facebook page and she hasn't updated it since Monday morning."
"So?"
"Come on, Vespa, you must know that most of the world is hooked on updating their pages every hour or so. Just because you like to ignore all the social media stuff! Astrid was always posting things on her wall and adding photos of things that caught her eye around the city. She loved taking photos and told me that if she hadn't been a doctor then she would have wanted to be a photographer instead!"
"Okay, okay, I'll accept that it is unusual for her not to update her page. Have you got a photo of her?"
"I printed this one out earlier and I'll send you another to your phone if you give me your number."
Vespa leant forward and took the photograph from Helena, studying the slim but full-breasted figure of the missing girl as she told the student her number. A text buzzed into her phone a few seconds later as she looked at the typical Scandinavian girl, blonde hair down past her shoulders and blue eyes staring out at the camera lens with subtle amusement.
"Hmm, anyone would certainly notice her," Vespa observed thoughtfully. "What about a boyfriend? A looker like her would have attracted plenty of admirers!"
"She didn't have anyone at the moment. Astrid was only really interested in her studies at present. She wanted to get a really high grade in the exams that are coming up so she did not want to be distracted by a man...or a woman!"
"So she might have swung both ways?"
Helena flushed and shrugged non-committally before saying, "Perhaps. The truth is that I have never seen her with a boy or a girl, Vespa."
"Did she have a room here?" inquired Vespa as she wondered if Helena had fancied Astrid. She certainly could not remember the university student having any boyfriends round at home when she had visited the colonel.
"No, she lived off campus. She was sharing a flat with another two girls but they were working, not students."
"Have you got the address?"
"Twenty-five B Market Street."
"Thanks. I'll call round there later when the other two might be home from work or uni and see if I can discover anything. In the meantime, you keep asking your friends and the other students on your course if they have seen her. You can also keep an eye out on that Facebook thing and let me know if she updates it."
"Okay, Vespa, and thanks!"
"Don't thank me, thank your dad as he's paying!" answered Vespa with a grin as she stood up, leathers creaking slightly; a noise that covered her little groan of pain. "Let's hope that she is fast asleep in bed recovering from the flu or something similar!"
"That's not very likely, Vespa. She would have texted me to take notes for her at today's lecture if she was just feeling ill." remarked Helena in exasperation.
"Okay, okay, don't worry too much. I am sure there will be a simple explanation," replied Vespa, trying to calm the colonel's daughter down even though she was beginning to doubt her own words. If Helena was correct then it did seem quite peculiar that the hard working student had simply vanished into thin air.
After returning to her gym and overseeing a couple of female fitness classes, something that made her realise how bruised her bottom cheeks were after her encounter with Holly, Vespa manoeuvred her way skilfully through the building traffic of the rush hour and arrived at Astrid's shared flat at just after five. She rang the doorbell and waited for a minute or so but nobody opened the door so she decided that she was a little early and leant against the wall of the building, scanning the street every so often.
It was nearly a quarter of an hour before a woman, dark-haired and stocky, bustled along the pavement, swinging a Tesco carrier bag nonchalantly in her fingers. She turned up the steps to the flat then came to an abrupt halt as she nearly ran into Vespa. A frown creased her forehead and she stared quizzically at the leather-clad intruder.
"Can I help you?" she asked haltingly in a foreign accent, fiddling her keys out of her handbag.
"I'm looking for Astrid," answered Vespa.
"I haven't seen her for a couple of days but she might be back now."
The door opened and the woman stepped inside the flat then beckoned Vespa to follow her.
Vespa walked into the small living room and looked around. It was furnished with an old sofa and a leather armchair that had definitely seen better days. A few posters decorated the walls, hiding the damp patches or so Vespa thought as she wrinkled her nose up at the smell. There was only one small window and so the room was quite dark already even though it was still light outside.
"Astrid, there's someone to see you!" called out the dark-haired woman, setting the carrier bag down on a tiny gate-leg table. There was no answer so she shrugged her shoulders as she turned to Vespa and said, "It looks like she is still not here, I'm afraid."
"So when did you last see her?"
"Monday morning, I think. I was going off to work and she was eating her breakfast at the table. Why?"
"Because her friends are a little worried about her, Miss...?"
"I am Maria, from Portugal," responded the woman, dark brown eyes staring at Vespa thoughtfully.
"So you haven't seen her since Monday? As far as you know, she never came home Monday evening, Maria?"
"No. Juanita and I thought it was strange but we decided that she might have met a boy."
"Juanita being your other flatmate?"
"Yes, that's right."
"Did Astrid often stay out all night?"
