by E. J. Kay
“We do, but not on this site. The Technology Faculty is on another part of the campus across town.” Joseph scratched his head. “You keep saying ‘they’. Is that to avoid the gender trap or do you think there was more than one of them?”
“A bit of both. If what we’re discussing did happen, or something like it, it would take some planning. Maybe one person could do it, I don’t know. I can’t get a clear enough picture yet. And in any case, this is all still hypothetical. If I have real suspicions I shouldn’t be talking to you about them. After all, you may have done it.” She didn’t smile.
“Hey, my alibi checks out, remember?”
“But you’re a very clever man, Dr Connor. And one who provokes considerable loyalty, I suspect.”
“I thought you couldn’t share your suspicions with me.”
Kelly looked right into his bright blue eyes. “Touché!” I wonder how much older than me he is. About ten years? He looks good on it. “OK, what about motive then? Jealousy, financial gain, religious zealotry or an affair of the heart – the latter being a euphemism we use for shagging.” Joseph looked a little embarrassed. “Sorry. I mean, was Dr Whickham involved with anyone?”
“No, he wasn’t. Well, not that I know of. Alec was always quite private about his relationships with women.”
“Any with men?”
“Again, not that I’m aware of. I can’t help feeling that the arrangement of Alec’s body, the wound, the shellfish; they all seem to be aimed at making a point.”
“What point?”
“Well, that’s just it. I don’t know. But it would seem that whoever did it wanted to make it look like it had something to do with the fossils and Alec’s work on them.” Joseph paused and looked sheepish again.
“Is there something else you want to tell me?” asked Kelly.
“We found a recent paper Alec had written about his theories on human evolution.”
She looked at him over her coffee. “We? Found?”
“My colleague, Mike Osewe, and I found this paper while we were looking for the blog postings. Sorry, but this is part of the earlier offence so you’ll forgive me if I don’t feel guilty all over again. We did only hack in the once.”
“Go on.”
“The thing is, the paper doesn’t read like it’s all Alec’s work. It’s like his writing style in places, but it doesn’t sound like Alec all the way through. More like a collaboration. But there are no other attributions on the paper. He’s the only named author. Here, see.” He pushed the paper across the table to Kelly and took a large gulp of his coffee. She glanced at the attribution line.
“Well it’s a bit thin for a murder motive, but I’ll bear it in mind.” At that moment her mobile started to vibrate, gyrating across the table. “Sorry, excuse me a minute.” She picked it up.
Robson’s voice crackled over the poor connection. “We’ve got some news on the blog postings.”
“Well done, that was quick.”
“Well, we’ve made some progress. The blog provider gave me the IP addresses for those comments, so I called the IT guys at the university to see if they meant anything to them. Get this. All four comments were made from university computers, in the Humanities Faculty library. They can’t tell exactly which computers they came from, but they do have the records of who was logged onto computers in that library at all four of those times and dates. So, we have the names of two students and one member of staff. “
“I’m coming back now. We need to see these people quick.”
“Sure do.”
She rang off and turned to Joseph. “I’ve got to go. It seems your blog postings came from the university.”
“Who from?”
She stood up. “I don’t know. And I wouldn’t tell you if I did. Thanks for the coffee and the chat. I’ll be in touch, Dr Connor.”
Chapter 11
Kelly met Robson outside the university’s main entrance. “OK, who have we got as the phantom bloggers then?”
“A couple of American students studying geo-something. A Jo Delgado and a Grant Franklin. Oh, and you’ll love this, a divinity lecturer. Doctor Luke Thackray.”
“No prizes for guessing which of those I want to see first.”
“The good doctor is in the divinity department. It’s in the building just round the corner. Follow the signs to the humanities faculty they said. The two students are researchers, apparently, so they’re staying in residences here.”
Kelly nodded. “OK, let’s see if we can track down the Doc first.”
They walked around the side of the building into the teeth of a swirling wind that eddied around the courtyard. Just at that moment the sun came out from behind a cloud, dazzling them with the sheer, astonishing joy of the sight that met them. It was an exquisite garden. At its heart was a large chestnut tree in the centre of an immaculate lawn, surrounded by spring flowers that created a riot of colour in the borders; daffodils, hyacinths, polyanthus and forsythia blazed yellow, pink and orange, framing the lawn in a ring of fire. It had been the garden for the inmates of the old hospital when it was still a mental institution in the late 1800s, and the benches around the edges of the lawn were all dedicated to past philanthropists who had made donations to the hospital; a form of insurance for their immortal souls. Kelly and Robson both felt the uplift to their souls too, and smiled involuntarily. They walked up to the door marked “Humanities Faculty” and pressed the buzzer on the door control.
“Yes?” came a disembodied voice.
“Police, could you let us in please?” The door clicked open.
Kelly walked to the reception desk, took out her ID and asked the receptionist to contact Doctor Thackray, while Robson walked over to the notice board that covered most of one wall of the waiting area. He scanned the flyers and notices. Language courses; help for student finances; art exhibitions; a meditation group. The typical ponsy stuff, he thought. He’d missed the chance of a university place by one ‘A’ level and had decided to apply directly to join the police at the age of nineteen. Now in his early forties, he’d begun to notice a receding hairline, a little less comfort on the waistband of his trousers and an increasing tendency towards sour grapes. All signs of ageing, apparently. Isn’t there a cream for that?
Kelly walked back to him. “He’s not here but they have his home address. Let’s go.”
They walked out of the building and back through the glorious garden to Robson’s car. “OK, where are we going?”
“Fifty-three Church Road,” Kelly replied.
“This just keeps getting better.”
----------
Church Road contained an eclectic mix of houses, spanning High Gothic to Arts and Crafts. They cruised down the road looking for Thackray’s house, past black and white timber frame frontages and herringbone brick detail. Then they saw number fifty-three and Robson parked right outside.
Thackray’s house occupied a space, physically if not stylistically, between a typically Victorian detached house and an Arts and Crafts villa. All the houses on this side of the road were accessed by steps up through their well-kept front gardens, but the garden visible through the wrought iron gate of number fifty-three was just a few remnants of an old lawn and a sad-looking contorted willow bush. A brick wall about nine feet high abutted the pavement and access to the house was via one of two gateways. One had the wrought iron gate set into it, but the other was protected by a studded wooden door that looked more like it belonged in the porch of a medieval manor house. There were two replica arrow slits between the gates and short, spiked railings protruded from the top of the wall.
They could see through the wrought iron gate that the building itself was of a bizarre design, resembling a castle keep more than a family house. It was two windows wide all round and four storeys high, with a flat roof and thick chimney breasts that ran right up both side walls to terminate as wide chimneys. The house was built with brick of a dark ginger colour; the bay window surround to the right of the
front door was of cream stone and retained the original timber-framed, outward-opening casements windows. The second, third and fourth floor windows had stone surrounds to the original wooden sash windows, under curved decorative brickwork features in herringbone bond. The front door was unusually wide; large and traditionally panelled, it showed signs of many coats of wood stain. The name “Panolbion” was carved into an ornate stone lintel over the front door.
They got out of the car and as they surveyed the building the warm feeling generated by the Humanities faculty garden began to fade. Kelly murmured, “Arts and Crafts, with more than a tinge of paranoia”.
“What?”
“Arts and crafts movement. Late nineteenth, early twentieth century?” Robson looked blank. “Never mind”, she said. I could get used to working with Joseph Connor.
“No car outside the house. He might not be in,” said Robson.
“Or he might not have a car,” Kelly replied. “So, which deadly portal gives access to this place of doom, do you reckon?”
Robson walked up to the wrought iron gate and pushed it. It was locked. He tried the wooden door but with the same result. “How the hell do you get up to this house?”
“I think the idea is that you don’t,” Kelly replied. Then she spotted a large metal rose to the left of the wooden door with a button in the centre. She pressed it. They didn’t hear a bell, so just stood there waiting and thinking what to do next. Kelly was just about to delve in her bag for her mobile when a clean-shaven, balding man opened the front door and walked down the garden steps to the wrought iron gate. He peered through. “Yes?”
“Doctor Luke Thackray?”
“Yes. Can I help you?”
“Police,” said Kelly, as she and Robson showed their ID cards. “We’re investigating the death of Dr Alec Whickham and we’d like to talk to you. May we come in?”
“Oh, yes, of course. I heard about that. Terrible business but I’m not sure how I can help you.” He made no move to open the gate.
Kelly tried again. “Could we come in and talk to you please? It won’t take long.”
Thackray unbolted the gate and showed them up the steps to the house and then into the hallway. He smiled thinly as he turned and directed them into the front parlour. The room smelled old; musty, with overtones of furniture polish and tobacco smoke. And it felt profoundly cold. There were four chairs and a dark wooden table in the window bay, a dark wooden dresser against one of the walls and three large leather armchairs around an open fire grate. The grate showed no sign of a fire having been lit for some time and there was no other obvious form of heating in the room. Kelly shivered a little, partly due to the low temperature but also because the room had a feeling of death about it. She could imagine generations of house owners and their families being laid out here, in the ‘best room’. The only thing missing was an aspidistra.
“Please, sit down. Would you like some afternoon tea? Or a coffee?”
“No, thank you, I’ve just had one,” Kelly replied, before Robson was able to say anything. He shot her a look. “I’m Detective Inspector Kelly and this is my colleague, DS Robson. As I said, we’re investigating the death of Doctor Alec Whickham and we’d like to talk to you about some postings that appeared on his blog a couple of weeks before he died. They seem to have been posted by someone who has strong feelings about evolutionary theory. Do you know anything about this?”
Thackray shook his head. “Nothing at all. I don’t even know what a blog is. I’ve heard of them, but that’s all.”
“I have to ask you this, Doctor Thackray. Where were you on the evening of the tenth of April?”
“Erm, oh, that was last Tuesday wasn’t it? It was the day of the parish council meeting, which I attended. It began at seven o’clock and finished at around nine o’clock.”
“Can anyone verify your movements that evening?”
“Well, the members of the parish council certainly can until nine o’clock, but after that I’m afraid I was alone here.”
“No Mrs Thackray?” asked Robson.
“Alas, no. My wife died five years ago. She was killed in a road accident, whilst riding her bicycle. The roads are really too dangerous these days. Very overcrowded.”
“I’m sorry,” said Kelly. “I expect that’s put you off cycling for life.”
“Well, yes, it has I’m afraid. I did have a bicycle, but ... well, after my wife died I lost the enthusiasm for riding. I walk a great deal now and use public transport.”
“You don’t drive, then?” asked Robson.
“No. Strange as it may sound in this day and age, I have never learned to drive. I never really saw the need to.” Thackray’s brow furrowed. “ But I’m sure you haven’t come here to talk about my modes of transport. How can I help you about Dr Whickham?”
“What is your opinion on evolution, Doctor Thackray?” asked Kelly.
A cloud passed over his face. “Heretical claptrap.”
“Did you ever discuss this with Alec Whickham?”
“No. I never met the man.”
“But you knew about his work?”
“One could hardly escape it these past weeks. It’s been all over the local and national news, and the university has been crowing about it at every opportunity. Dr Whickham seemed to be a very dedicated man, but ultimately misguided in my view. I would never wish him harm, though.”
Kelly smiled. “I wonder if I could change my mind about that cup of tea?”
Thackray was momentarily taken aback. “Oh, of course. And you Sergeant?” he asked, turning to Robson.
“Yeah, white with two sugars thanks.”
“And how do you take yours, Inspector?” he asked, rising from his chair.
“Black, no sugar please”.
“I’ll make a pot then.” Thackray walked out of the room.
“Why the tea?” whispered Robson.
“We need some time with this guy. There’s something ... I just want more time to talk with him and I need to think first.”
Robson took the hint and didn’t reply. He looked around the room. The wallpaper was old anaglypta that had been buried under many coats of emulsion. It was now a dark cream colour and the paintwork was not much brighter. The ceiling was also stained with light brown patches, and the smell of old pipe tobacco was unmistakable. Bookshelves obscured two of the walls, but on the wall opposite the window was a large picture of a medieval monk. It looked like a stained glass window.
“He looks a bit worried about something,” said Robson.
“I think I’ve offended him,” Kelly replied.
“No, the monk in that picture.” Robson got up from the creaking leather chair and walked over to take a closer look at it. As he got near the dresser he noticed two dried dark spots on the wooden floor. He bent down and rubbed at them. They were reddish brown. “Hey, I think this might be blood.” Then he heard Thackray rattling back down the hall with a tea tray. Robson straightened up quickly and looked intently at the painting, just as Thackray came through the door.
“He’s William of Ockham. Quite a hero of mine,” said Thackray, putting the tray down on the large table. “A Franciscan friar and great thinker and philosopher of the fourteenth century. The picture is a reproduction of a recent stained glass window in All Saints Church at Ockham in Surrey. I wrote a biography of William in 1999 and the local historical society very kindly presented me with the picture when the window was completed a few years ago. You have heard of Occam’s razor?”
“I’m a Gillette man myself,” said Robson under his breath. Thackray either didn’t hear him or chose to ignore him. He poured the tea.
“Simple is best, as I understand it?” said Kelly.
“An effective application of the razor to its own definition, Inspector. The principle is more commonly stated that when there are two competing theories that make exactly the same prediction, the simpler one is the better. More correctly, it’s the application of the law of parsimony; that entities s
hould not be multiplied unnecessarily. Although William never actually wrote the razor down, it’s a principle which pervades much of his writing. Of course, he borrowed heavily from Aristotle and many other philosophers down the ages, and the principle was commonly applied in the medieval period. So he didn’t invent it, as it were. But he did develop it very astutely. It’s the principle that guides my belief in creationism. Evolution seems to me to be simply too complex and unlikely. Why strive for a more complicated explanation when we have the truth staring us in the face? We don’t need anything else but God. We can use the razor to shave away all other explanations.”
As he passed a cup to Kelly she noticed a plaster showing through his shirt sleeve.
“Have you hurt yourself, Doctor Thackray?”
He looked down at his arm. “Oh, yes, I cut myself.” He turned to Robson. “I’ll leave you to put in your own sugar.”
“Do any of your colleagues share your belief in creationism?” asked Kelly, as Thackray sat back down in his armchair.
“There is a small group of us – just half a dozen or so. We meet up every now and then, but it isn’t anything formal.”
“I’d like the names of the people in your group, please, Dr Thackray.”
His irritation was evident as he got up and went to the dresser, opened a top drawer and took out a sheet of paper and a pen. Kelly sipped her tea, whilst Robson downed his in one and got himself a refill. Thackray wrote the names of the creationist group regulars on a sheet of paper and handed it to Kelly. “I am quite sure that none of them are murderers.”
“I’ve no wish to offend you. I simply have a job to do.” She took the paper and handed it on to Robson. “By the way, do you use the computers in the Humanities Faculty library?”
“On occasions, yes.”
“And you are sure that you have not used them to comment on Doctor Whickham’s blog?”
“No. As I say, I don’t really understand what a blog is. I haven’t written anything about Dr Whickham’s work anywhere. Why do you think I had anything to do with it?”
