by J G Alva
Sutton tried not to laugh. This old man was offensive in a way you didn’t often see in modern society…and although he shouldn’t be laughing, there was something so terrible about him that he couldn’t help but be amused.
“Is she?” He asked, trying to keep a straight face.
“Probably,” Wilkes said, with a wave of his hand, dismissing the subject. He looked around at the sea of boxes as if weighing an opponent. “You wanted to talk about Chris?”
“Yes, I did,” Sutton said.
“What for?”
“His sister asked me to look into his death.”
Wilkes gave him a long, confused stare.
“Why?”
“It’s the sort of thing I do.”
“Like a private investigator?”
Sutton shrugged.
“More like a favour for a friend.”
“Well, he was a good lad,” Wilkes said, steadily moving boxes out of the way to clear a path down the corridor.
If only you knew what he was really like, Sutton thought.
Wilkes continued.
“A lot more sensible than the rest of his fucked up generation. They’re all in a dream world, walking around with their fucking ipods and ipads and iphones and igadgets. They’ve got no idea what’s going on around them.”
“You knew him quite well then?”
“We had some chats,” Wilkes said, nodding. “Some good conversations. We’d occasionally pop to the White Bear for lunch. Just around the corner. Maybe fit a pint or two in.”
“What did you talk about?”
Sutton couldn’t for the life of him imagine what these two completely different men had in common.
Wilkes shrugged, and then hefted another box.
“Just the usual.”
“What’s that?”
Wilkes paused, thinking.
“Family. We talked a lot about family. We both have older sisters. Now that can be a pain in the ass.” Wilkes pulled on a box and it ripped down one side, the contents spilling out on to the floor. There were documents, letters, and what looked like ledgers, and suddenly they were everywhere. “Fuck a duck!” He exclaimed, bending down to scoop them all up. “And our fathers were both cunts,” he added, almost as an afterthought. “And we talked about the state of the world. How things are getting meaner. How too many people means not enough people who give a shit.” Wilkes pulled that strange face again, that was meant to be a smile. “So it turned out we had a lot to talk about.”
“What was he like just before he died?”
Wilkes had succeeded in returning the items to their original box. He looked around, bent down, and produced a tape gun from behind him. He began repairing the tear in the box.
“What do you mean?” He asked.
“Was he nervous? Worried about something?”
Wilkes stared off down the corridor while he thought about it, and then finally nodded. He pushed the broken box – now haphazardly restored with irregular lines of tape – to one side with his foot, and started another tower of boxes next to the first.
“Yeah. He was worried.”
Sutton felt a tingle of excitement.
“Did he tell you what about?”
Wilkes shook his head sadly. He looked bothered by it.
“Nope. He never told me. But he was worried sick at the end. I mean, really sick – he called in sick a lot in those last weeks.”
“And he didn’t talk to you about what was worrying him? Forgive me, but it didn’t seem like he had many friends.”
Wilkes shook his head again.
“No. Nothing. He was a quiet boy, and kept things to himself. I like that. I admire it, I mean. I don’t want to talk about other people’s problems all the time, and other people shouldn’t make me. That stuff’s private. Plus it’s fucking boring. But Chris…I would have helped, if I could have. If he’d asked. I’m fifty two years old, there’s not much I haven’t seen in this world. But…he never came to me. I don’t think he went to anyone. I think he tried to solve it himself. And that’s why he’s dead.”
Sutton was surprised.
“You don’t think his death was an accident?”
Wilkes shook his head.
“No, sir.”
“What makes you say that?”
Wilkes shrugged.
“It just doesn’t make any sense,” he said. “Yeah, alright, if Chris was one of these iphone junkie fuck-ups then I could understand it – they spend their lives walking around with their little white earphones in their ears listening to what they laughably call music and they’re too dazed – or too dumb – to know what’s going on half the time. They might just have walked out into the road not knowing what they’re doing because they’re just assholes, basically. But Chris wasn’t like that. He was smart. A smart boy. Smarter than most of the professors in this building, I might add. Did you know he taught a computer course here in the evenings? Only a small class, mind, only about fifteen kids, but he was good at it. I went once or twice, to see if I could work out how the hell to use one of those infernal things. But I learnt very early on that me and those kinds of technologies just don’t want to get along. Fuck ‘em. As if I need ‘em in my life.” Wilkes lifted a box high, so that he now had a tower that came up to his chin. He leaned on it with both arms. “And something’s been happening at the university. Something bad. I don’t know what it is, but I can feel it. It’s so bad it’s actually making me want to move on. And I hate looking for a new job. Fucking hate it. But I reckon sometime soon now I’ll hand in my notice. The place has just…gone bad. Sometimes it happens like that. Then you move on, whether you want to or not.” He shrugged again. He nodded at Sutton. “What’s your theory then?”
“Theory?”
“Yeah. That killed him.”
Sutton thought. Did he tell him the truth? Was there any reason to?
Or would it just upset the old man?
“Same as you,” he said finally.
“Murder?”
“I think so.”
“Who?”
Sutton shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
“Do you know why?”
“Not yet.”
“You don’t know a fucking lot, do you.”
Sutton conceded that with a nod.
“It’s a work in progress.”
“Alright.” Wilkes started on another tower of boxes. “If you find out who’s behind it, then think about giving me a call, won’t you,” he said. “I got some tools in my garage that could do some damage to a person. Chris was a good lad. Better than most. If I had a son – God forbid – and he turned out like Chris, I wouldn’t be disappointed. And whoever killed him should suffer. And I’d be prepared to put some hours in – unpaid, mind – to that end.”
◆◆◆
There was a map of the building in the lobby, with a helpful YOU ARE HERE sticker.
He was looking for the Social Sciences classroom. He thought it might be prudent to check with William T Mackenzie while he was here, and see if he couldn’t find out more about Vicky and Steve before tonight. Steve was meant to be at the bar, and they would be having a nice chat.
His phone rang.
He took it out of his pocket and looked at it.
“Miss Eaves,” he said, answering it. He found he was smiling.
“Mr Mills. I thought I’d call. In case you forgot.”
“Or was too busy.”
“Of course. And how are we progressing?”
Sutton looked around. Students in twos and threes milled about him, going about their business. There was the gentle murmur of interested conversation. Just another day in the sticky web of mother education.
“I have a lead but I won’t know more until tonight.”
“Who?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Why not?”
“Well. You might send tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum in and mess things up for me.”
“Whoever
do you mean?”
“You know who I mean. Your hired muscle.”
“We’re hardly likely to do that.”
“Still. I’ll keep it to myself for now. It may not pan out…so let’s not get ourselves worked up until it does.”
“You’ll call?”
“If you don’t hear from me by eleven, then you’ll know something’s happened. So send the cavalry.”
“How will we know where you are?”
“Miss Eaves,” Sutton said, as if suddenly offended. “With all the resources your associates possess, I’m sure you’re already tracking the location of my phone. Just come racing as fast as you can to its location.”
“I’ll make a note.” He could hear the smile in her voice; as good as an admission.
“But not until then.”
“Of course.”
“Do you do anything other than sit by your phone?”
“I do a lot of things, Mr Mills.”
“Drink?”
“It’s very important to stay hydrated.”
“Do you allow interested parties to buy drinks for you?”
“Mr Mills –“
“Sutton.”
A pause.
“Sutton. It’s unwise to mix business with pleasure.”
“We won’t always be in business together. And you have to stay hydrated. So…”
Another pause.
“Goodbye, Mr Mills. Sutton. I’ll not distract you from your work any longer.”
“Miss Eaves. Julia. It wasn’t a distraction. Or at least, it wasn’t an unwelcome one.”
Another pause, and then she hung up.
Sutton found he was grinning.
◆◆◆
Social Sciences lived in one of the converted residential buildings that surrounded the newly formed central annex.
Sutton left this tall glass edifice by a rear door and crossed the service entrance to the rear car park. Immediately in front of him was a block of four houses, each one a large comfortable home in its own right. They faced out toward the main road, like four old men on a bench admiring the view. There was a large entryway in the back of the first house, with a wheelchair ramp for disabled access. Some students sat on a low stone wall outside, idly talking.
Inside, the air was cool and quiet. A long corridor traversed the house. Converted rooms on his left were obviously the main classrooms, but no one was in them. Stairs on his right led up to the next floor, with more rooms converted into classrooms; these too were empty. A final set of stairs led up to the last floor, a smaller affair: smaller rooms, lower ceilings, and narrower passageways. The windows were smaller too, allowing less light to enter, so the atmosphere altogether was darker and more oppressive. The main corridor was filled with closed wooden doors with name plaques centred on each one. Mackenzie’s office was the last one on the right. The door was open, but no one was inside.
Sutton stepped in and looked around.
It was a bare office, functional but impersonal. No photographs on the desk, no personal oddities, quirks or foibles evident in any items – or arrangement of items – on the desk or on the walls. A small bookcase filled with texts on the subject he taught yielded no surprises. The desk drawers were locked. There were papers on his desk but they were all work related: forms pertaining to the function of the university. A pile of student papers sat on one side, ready for marking.
The man was a cypher.
Sutton heard a door open in the corridor, and quickly left the room to see who it was.
An older man with glasses was locking his office door, some books and loose printouts held to his chest. He wore a dark suit and a white spotted red tie.
“Excuse me,” Sutton said.
The man turned to him with surprise.
“Yes?”
“I’m looking for William Mackenzie.”
“Ah. Unfortunately he called in sick today.”
“Oh.”
“Stomach bug, I think.”
“Okay. Thank you.”
The older man nodded and left, and shortly afterward Sutton followed.
◆◆◆
Sutton found Alastair in one of the auditoriums at the back of the main building.
There were two under the cafeteria – so he was told – but he was assured by several students that Alastair was holding court in the one on the left. Sutton had to go down a gentle ramp, to where two large doors – one near, and one all the way at the far end – had been placed at angles to the main wall. The walls were black, and the carpets were the grey of gun metal. There were no windows, so all illumination fell to the wall mounted lights high on either side of the wide hall; they very nearly weren’t up to the job. It was like picking a screen door for a cinema.
Sutton heard Alastair’s voice long before he turned into the auditorium; the door at the far end had been chocked open, and it floated out. It was the Big Voice, the one he rolled out at parties when he had a particularly adroit thing to say…or a visceral cutting remark to strike someone down with.
The design of the auditorium was not dissimilar to that of a Greek amphitheatre, with the audience rising in tiers in a semi-circle around the stage. Facing them, an impressive pull-down screen now played host to projected images of the Masters. Alastair was discussing the formulation of One Point Perspective – projected on the screen was Rafael’s The School of Athens. There was a lectern on the stage, in the centre, but Alastair didn’t use it; instead, he roved the rest of the stage, energetically using a laser pointer to highlight certain parts of the image that were of interest, or relevant to his talk. Sutton had never seen one of his lectures, but he thought he was pretty good: engaging, funny, at ease in his role…and a little more human because of that. The auditorium was almost full, and most of the students seemed engaged.
“…Can you imagine what it must have been like? To see images suddenly with depth. I imagine that it had the same shock factor as 3D films have for audiences today. The illusion of depth gave the sense that whole vistas, whole worlds, were at home inside a two dimensional object, a parchment, a canvas, a wall. I’m hard put to impress on you the relevance, the impact, of such a device. It…well. It must have seemed like magic.
“Contrary to what you might have been told, perspective was present in Medieval art, but it was during the Renaissance – and thanks to Brunelleschi’s instinctive sense of the world around him – that gave us the One Point Perspective system. A vanishing point. Of course it was not formally laid out until Leon Battista Alberti wrote De pictura. Alberti based all his formulations on Euclidean geometry, all of which are still used today. I doubt there is a student in here who does not know how to employ this method.
“Well. I think I’ll finish today with a quote from Plato. He always makes me sound wiser than I really am.
“Thus (through perspective) every sort of confusion is revealed within us; and this is that weakness of the human mind on which the art of conjuring and of deceiving by light and shadow and other ingenious devices imposes, having an effect upon us like magic... And the arts of measuring and numbering and weighing come to the rescue of the human understanding – there is the beauty of them – and the apparent greater or less, or more or heavier, no longer have the mastery over us, but give way before calculation and measure and weight.”
There was silence a moment in the auditorium.
“Well, ladies and gentlemen,” Alastair said, looking at his watch, “I think that’s all we’ve got time for.”
And no sooner had he said it, than an electronic buzzer sounded, both in the auditorium and in the hall.
At their own pace, students began gathering up their things: closing books, packing away stationary, zipping up backpacks, checking mobile phones. Sutton waited inside the door as they filed out, some students studying him openly, others oblivious to his presence. The Porter’s words came back to him, but his own opinion of the younger generation was not so derogatory. There were more distractions, that was all. Who was t
o say that if ipads and iphones had been around when he was young, that he wouldn’t have been similarly distracted?
“Given up on the Social Sciences, have you,” Alastair called over happily. He was gathering papers together on top of the lectern. “Want to join my class instead. I can’t say I blame you. Social Sciences is so bourgeois.”
“Actually, Social Sciences is why I’ve come to you,” Sutton said, advancing into the auditorium. “Seeing as Bill isn’t here.”
“Ah.”
“He’s ill, apparently.”
“So I’ve been told.”
Something in Alastair’s tone alerted Sutton.
“But he’s not,” Sutton guessed.
“No.”
“How do you know?”
There was a leather satchel leaning against the lectern, and Alastair picked it up and transferred the papers to it.
“I was reliably informed otherwise,” he said.
“What’s going on?” Sutton asked.
“Why do you need to know? Is this to do with the thing you’ve been looking into? The death of that man in admin?”
Sutton nodded.
Alastair debated, and then said, “close that door.”
Sutton was surprised.
“Really?”
“In my old job, the faculty had a saying: students ears are finite, but they have mouths aplenty. So close the door. Then we can talk. I don’t want this spreading.”
Sutton closed the door, knocking the door stop out with his foot. The door was on a retaining arm, and took a good thirty seconds to close, and Alastair dutifully waited until it had done so before speaking.
“He’s not ill. He’s on leave. Forced leave. Take a seat.”
Alastair indicated one of the seats in the front row, where he himself now sat. Sutton joined him.
“What happened to your eye?” He asked.
Sutton touched it. Still sore.
