The Evidence

by Christopher Priest

  After another five minutes the woman disappeared from the party to return moments later. She said the audience was seated and ready for me to begin. It seemed the crowd of partygoers were not the audience, or not entirely. Several people were drifting away in the direction of the auditorium, but most appeared to be staying on at the drinks party.

  The couple led me to the platform, where three red leather chairs and a lectern were waiting. There was a good if polite round of applause. I was introduced twice: the woman spoke knowledgeably of some of my books, and the man gave a brief summary of my professional life and various achievements and awards.

  I stepped forward to the lectern. The remote control for the slideshow presentation was in place: I had forwarded the software a week earlier, and someone from the Society had replied to say that it had been tested and was working. It was too late now to make certain of that.

  ‘The Role of the Modern Crime Novel in a Crime-Free Society,’ I announced, hearing my voice amplified, but perhaps not by enough. I moved closer to the microphone. I took a pause, apparently to gather my thoughts, but in fact because I wanted to gain some idea of the size of the audience. This was not vanity. It is a mistake, I have learned, to think of an audience as a single entity. They are individuals spread out across the auditorium, an unmeasured space if the speaker has not been there before, and usually one undefined by limits if the place is not full. A speaker addresses them as a whole, sometimes in the plural, but they listen as single people. You need to know how best to address them. Some are further away than others.

  The house lights were dimmed, but I could still see that the auditorium was large and banked, with an upper layer. No one was up there. The audience was spread all over the ground floor stalls, with at a guess about a quarter of the seats taken. A few more people were coming in, finding somewhere to sit. It struck me as a good-sized audience, compared at least with some of the ones I had travelled to in the past.

  I pressed the remote, then turned my head to make sure the first image was up on the screen. It was, and in focus too. So far so good.

  I launched into my lecture.

  What did I say in my speech? If I were to claim that the whole thing was unique, inspired by the challenge of the occasion, it would be untrue. Every year I am invited to give about three speeches, talks or lectures. They are given in response to suggestions or requests from the group or organization inviting me, and most of them are informal in approach. Sometimes I am asked to speak generally about the crime-writing genre, and what I think about it. At other times people want me to talk about my most recent book, or about earlier ones. The talks vary in length and intensity, depending on what I expect, or hope, the kind of audience it will be. The main point is that because I am usually working on a new book I do not have the time or energy to think up something original every time. I recycle past efforts.

  I therefore have a sort of template which I use as a basis for any talk. This makes certain points about thrillers and mysteries that I always wish to state, because I believe in them. I see them as a rationale not only for the books I have written but also as a way of evaluating the work of other writers in the genre.

  The template is the bare bones for the rest of what the speech contains: I always reshape, sharpen, bring in ideas more directly relevant to whatever I have been asked to speak about. This is the difficult part.

  In this case, the Historical Society had proposed an idea to me that I had not considered before: a crime-free society. Thinking about it I was struck not only by the possibilities but also by my ignorance of the subject.

  While still at home I had tried to work this out calmly. I had never visited Dearth, had barely even heard of it. None of the reference books I usually looked in even mentioned the place. Online encyclopaedias were not much help. Dearth was treated as an anomalous island, secretive, run by a hardline seignioral family who were rarely seen in public. They encouraged industrial expansion and the performing arts, but restricted personal freedoms of both the vassal class and the citizen serfs. It was described as a stimulating but challenging place to visit. The mountainous wilderness on the eastern side was said to be ideal for activity holidays. The island was the site of several gravitational nodes which had erratic side effects. The idea of a crime-free state on the island of Dearth was described as ‘alleged’. Alleged by whom? I wondered. There was still an active police force.

  I sensed a risky subject.

  One approach suggested itself. I could discuss the impact such a policy might have on my own work, whether it were real (I suspected it was not) or aspirational (more likely). I make no pretentious claims for what I do. I write crime fiction, pure and simple, and make my living from it. I am a commercial writer. I complete about one novel a year, sometimes with a couple of short stories written when inspiration on the novel temporarily fails.

  Thrillers assume crime is a reality in the world, that murder is an intermittent but common event, that every killing or grand larceny needs to be dealt with firmly. A police force is therefore a requirement to catch the wrongdoer, as is a system for punishing or rehabilitating the offender. Crime should be discouraged. Mysteries need to be solved. Justice must be done.

  But how would that sort of fiction work if the reader, as well as the writer, lived in a world without crime? What would be the point of fiction assuming the presence of something that no longer existed?

  It was enough to suggest a few ideas for my lecture, and I worked them into the draft. With that done I set it aside and took another look at it a week later. This was about a month before I was due to depart for Dearth. During the remaining time I went back to it occasionally and gradually expanded it, changing the order of words a little, adding more ideas, deleting passages here and there, thinking up other examples to illustrate the theme. I read it aloud twice.

  Then there was the visual presentation, the slideshow. Cause for much extra thinking and sighing! In recent years many audiences have grown to expect a slideshow of images, which ostensibly illustrate the talk but in reality either duplicate what the speaker is saying or distract from it. The software is widely available and easy to use, so no excuse there.

  But I continue to dislike it. At one talk I gave three years ago I illustrated it with some stunningly graphic scene-of-crime images taken by police photographers. Halfway through I noticed that most of the people in the front row were staring glassy eyed at the screen, no longer listening to what I was saying. That was not the idea at all! Ever since then I have tried to assemble images that complement what I am saying, but are neither too interesting nor distracting.

  The Historical Society said they saw a slideshow as an important part of my presentation, so I put together what I hoped would be some appropriate accompanying images.

  I had timed my speech to last three-quarters of an hour. That was longer than I would normally aim for, but Professor Wendow insisted in one of his communications that the conference required at least that much material. The longer of my two practice readings had come in at forty minutes, so I planned to pause briefly between paragraphs, take sips of water, and so on.

  I noticed that Professor Wendow still had not shown up, or at least was nowhere in sight of the podium.

  So, I began. I proceeded slowly. I had removed my wristwatch and placed it on the lectern where I could see it. After twenty minutes I was halfway through, more or less on target. Once when I paused to take a sip from my glass of water I was able to half turn towards my two interlocutors, and received reassuring smiles from them both.

  The next time I paused I glanced down at my wristwatch and was disconcerted to discover that in the few minutes since I had last looked the watch seemed to have stopped working. Although it has a quartz movement the display on the face is analogue sweep hands. The second hand was stationary. I shook the watch, in the way you are not supposed to shake electronic devices, then realized that of course I was being observed. I put down the watch again. I noticed that some of the
people in the front three rows, the ones closest to me, were also looking at their own wristwatches, or in many more cases glancing at their cellphones.

  I pressed on. Time was not of the essence. I had minutes to spare. Briefly distracted by the problem with the watch I read my speech more quickly, but soon realized what I was allowing to happen, and refocused. The slideshow was now two images behind the plan, so I swiftly brought that up to speed. In control of my material again I headed with a feeling of confidence towards the conclusion.

  The applause at the end seemed genuinely enthusiastic. I smiled at and acknowledged the audience, sorted the pages of my speech into a neat pile, collected my wristwatch, and headed back to the red leather chair. My two introducers were on their feet, and they applauded and congratulated me as I sat down.

  Questions and answers followed. A familiar pattern. While the third ‘question’ was drawling along (in reality it was, of course, a long and only half audible statement from someone in the audience, who would doubtless conclude with the polite challenge ‘what do you have to say about that?’), I slipped my wristwatch back on my arm. I had time only to notice that the second hand was moving normally again, but that the time shown was more than two hours later than I thought. Two hours had gone by?

  I essayed a brief answer to the statement-cum-question. The young woman sitting beside me called for the next one.

  Three more questions followed, or it might have been four or five. My energy was low. It was hours since I had eaten a decent meal. I was having difficulty hearing some of what was being said: there was a local accent, or maybe people were shy of speaking up. My mind was starting to drift. I did not want to seem dismissive or rude. Somebody asked me about crime and religion, someone else asked about my feelings on capital punishment. While this continued several people in the audience left their seats and headed for the exits, their arms full of thick outer wear.

  I turned to my interlocutors, hoping for a sign that they too thought we should wrap it up. To my relief the young man instantly sprang to his feet. He made a brief speech of thanks for my invaluable and fascinating speech, one which he was sure would provoke much discussion in the days ahead. There was another ripple of applause, the house lights came on and most of the audience began to drift away, pulling on thick windcheaters and hoods.

  It was over.

  Not quite. Four people came forward to the platform with copies of some of my books. Fatigue was blurring me. I signed these copies as quickly and politely as I could, answered some friendly questions, showed interest. These were people who actually bought copies of books: a small but valuable race of beings, in my view. When one of these people leaned forward to hand me his copies, I happened to notice that the wristwatch on his arm was showing the same time as mine, the wrong time, more than two hours ahead. I said nothing, but the next books came from a young woman, and making some kind of pleasantry I made a point of turning over her arm to see the time on her watch. It was the same. She appeared to understand my interest, and muttered something good-natured about not taking any notice of it. I was happy with these people and felt inadequate in the face of their encouraging and polite remarks. I wished I had the energy to say more, to find out a little about them.

  Then it really was over.

  Backstage I located my outer garments and my computer case, made myself ready for the cold dark outside. By the time I had everything ready to go I was just about alone in the place. I found my way to the main exit, and trudged slowly down the steep hill to the Dearth Plaza Hotel. It was further away than I remembered.

  4

  Lights in a Darkened Room

  As soon as I was in the hotel elevator I began removing the winter clothes, starting with the drawstringed leggings. I found my room, entered, switched on some of the lights. It was warm and well ventilated in there. I felt exhausted: the two-day train journey, the stress of delivering a lecture and above all the lack of food. I threw off the rest of the bulky clothes then lay down on the soft quilt of the bed. I was on my side, stretching myself in the way my cat Barmi often did – arms and legs straight out, back arched, eyes closed. Then I rolled up into a foetal huddle, making myself breathe steadily.

  Five minutes later I realized that the tiredness was really a result of hunger, which I could readily put right. It was a relief to be myself again: not play the role of celebrated visiting guest, nor a pseudo academic, nor a lecturer, and so on. I sat up, temporarily refreshed.

  I booted my computer and logged on to the hotel wifi. This was swift and painless, but I did glimpse a message that appeared as a clickbox at the bottom of the page of Terms and Conditions:

  I accept and understand the conditions of Broadband Mutability. The risk level is currently 6 per cent. To proceed click here.

  I clicked there, and after a welcome screen and some options about long-term use, which I did not need, all went ahead normally. I glanced at incoming email, at the Salay news feed, at the web pages and social media I always scanned, then contacted Jo by email. I simply wanted to reassure her I had arrived and all was OK, but there were difficulties from the start. When I typed the word ‘Dearth’ the email server would not for some reason accept the letter ‘h’. ‘All OK, here in Deart,’ I was forced to type, even after several attempts. Jo did not appear to notice, and did not comment in her reply. The letter ‘h’ appeared normally in ‘here’ and everywhere else I needed it. As I was signing off, the letters ‘d’ disappeared from my name: ‘To’.

  I closed down. I wanted dinner. I put my computer on to battery recharge. I freshened up, combed what is left of my hair after forty-seven years of male life, then left the room.

  I was halfway along the corridor towards the bank of elevators when I remembered I had not switched off all the lights. I went back.

  Inside the room I read again the message on the door. I wondered what the usual charge was they warned against, for breaking this rule. I also wondered how the hotel would know what I had done. Did they have a camera? A meter?

  Next to the message was a special holder, containing a tall, narrow booklet entitled What You Need to Understand about Horizontal and Vertical Mutability. I riffled through it, thinking about dinner, but the print was small, there were words and phrases I did not immediately recognize, and the important stuff was summarized in big letters on the last page. These said in effect: always turn out all the lights and every electrical appliance when you leave the room. (The air conditioning and heating were specifically exempted.)

  I took it literally. There was a master switch on the wall just inside the door, but I went around and switched off every light I had earlier turned on, and I disconnected the computer recharging cable. The television was showing a standby light: I turned that off too. I then used the master switch in case there were other electrical devices, such as timers, sensors or thermostats I didn’t know about.

  Whole plots can turn on details, or missed details. That was something I understood, even when I missed them.

  I hurried down to the grill room. It was an airy place of subdued or indirect lighting, quiet background music and comfortable tables within discreetly lit booths. The menu was extensive and varied, the service prompt, courteous and helpful. The restaurant was not full. From where I was sitting I could see other diners at about six tables, small groups or couples. I was the only one eating on my own, but halfway through my meal a woman with grey hair came in by herself and was shown to a table on the far side of the room.

  Not at that moment caring whether or not this meal was included in the cost of my overnight stay, I ordered three courses, appetizer, main course and dessert, taking my time, savouring the excellent cooking. I drank a half bottle of red wine, one imported from Salay Tielet, the third, the volcanic winegrowing island in my home group. I ended the meal with a small brandy and a cup of coffee.

  I felt pleased and full. The only shadow that remained was the knowledge that I had a long return journey to start in the morning, two more days
on the sleeper train back to the airport at Tristcontenta Hub.

  I returned to my room, restored the lighting, put my computer and (now) my cellphone on to charge, and sat in the soft and enfolding armchair to pass what remained of the evening. Ten minutes later I was bored. I switched everything off again, picked up my cellphone, and returned to the ground floor. I had noticed there was a bar.

  I ordered another glass of the delicious Salay Tielet wine, and sat contemplating it pleasurably in a seat close to an immense wood-burning stove. Logs were smouldering steadily. My body glowed with warmth. Twenty minutes passed – I ordered another glass of wine.

  Then: ‘I believe you are Todd Fremde?’

  It was a woman who had come up to stand beside me, holding a smaller glass that was almost empty. I turned, stood up.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I had the privilege of being at your lecture earlier this evening. I found it most interesting. I wonder – might I join you for a few minutes?’

  Of course she could join me. I was glad of the company. I welcomed her to the table, signalled to the barkeep that her drink should be refreshed. I waited while she took the chair closest to the fire, then slid it a short distance further back from the direct heat. I remembered as she sat down that I had noticed her briefly during dinner: her hair was a splendid iron grey.

  ‘I understand you have travelled here from Salay,’ she said.

  I confirmed this, and briefly described the long journey on the train.

  ‘I was actually born on Salay,’ she said. ‘Salay Hames.’

  ‘The fifth,’ I said, the habitual way we had of confirming where someone meant in the island group.