Long Time Dead

Pushing past him, I went over to the cabinet and retrieved the bottle to top up my glass. I was a bit overenthusiastic: my hand trembled as the whisky reached the brim and tipped over. I clawed it back, took a good pelt and prodded Louis Bolton back to his chair. He was far too malleable; even in my condition I could see this. There was no way I should be pushing him about so easily. It unsettled me. He was hiding something, deffo. Only the guy’s social skills were so sub-Rain Man that he didn’t know how to conceal it. He was conforming to type: the real world was out there, beyond the quadrangle… not somewhere Joey Boy often set foot. This was either going to be very easy, or next door to impossible. I knew if I pushed this loser too hard that he was going to cave, completely fold on me, and that would be it: no more from him.

The whisky settled my cravings, put my gut back a notch or two on the cement-mixer setting it had adopted earlier. I was functioning. Yep, that was the word, heard it all the time, I was a functioning alcoholic. Only, I knew it. I figured those jakeys on the street didn’t have a scooby the nick they were in; I had that going for me, I had the nous to know I was fucked. F. Scott Fitzgerald described a first-rate intelligence as the ability to keep two seemingly opposed thoughts in your head at the same time; never really sussed what he meant, until now. By God, I knew there were conflicting emotions and thoughts flying around inside me: I had the case to be getting on with, Hod to be dragged from the shit, and my insides crying to be put out of their misery, finished off… and, also in the pot, the deep knowledge that something wasn’t right here. That there were people, people I didn’t like much, covering up.

I had no pretensions to a first-rate intelligence as Fitzgerald described it – fuck, if I did, I wouldn’t be in this kip – but I knew where he was coming from. I screwed the nut, tight.

‘Okay, Joe, let’s start in the low gears, eh?’

His eyes widened. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t quite understand.’

‘I think the phrase is… take it from the top.’

‘You’re talking about Benjamin.’

I managed a wry smile. ‘That’s right, tell me about the night Ben… died.’

He eased himself back in the chair; the castors squealed out. The noise seemed to unsettle him, forced his palms together. He laced fingers, unlaced them, then wrung his hands out. ‘I wasn’t here, of course.’

‘Of course…’

His eyes came up to meet mine. ‘I mean I don’t live on campus.’

I nodded, trying to appear calm, reassuring. ‘Go on.’

He sighed. ‘There was a call in the night, can’t even remember who it was from… one of the security staff. They said the police were here and wanted to speak to someone.’

I kept my tone calm. ‘That would be you.’

‘Yes, well… someone had to.’

‘Go on.’

‘I came down and there was a phalanx…’ he drew a line in the air, ‘a wall…’

Was on my mind to say I know what a bloody phalanx is, but went with, ‘The police?’

‘Yes, they’d sealed off the route to the Grand Hall.’

‘Why?’

‘That’s where they… found him.’

‘And then… what?’

‘Well, nothing… that was it, really. They told me there’d been a death, they had a name, and I identified him as one of the student body.’

Sounded very clinical, if not perfunctory. Could just be plod jumping to conclusions, looking for a quick wrap-up, but then again, none of this looked good for them… or the uni, the city, anyone. Lifting the carpet and sweeping it all under was never more appealing. Said, ‘No one questioned you?’

Calder looked as though he’d been hit with a brick, ‘Good God, no… Why would they…? What do you mean?’

I finished my drink, reloaded, moved round to the front of the desk, eased myself down. ‘A young lad was found dead… hanging from the rafters. You’d think questions would be asked… of someone.’

He got out of the chair. ‘Are you implying…?’

I wasn’t implying anything. Wondered where the theatrics had sprung from. I pulled it back. ‘Sit down, Joe… we’re only talking here. A boy has died, smack bang in the middle of your manor. I’m guessing you’d like some answers as much as me… as much as his mother.’

The mention of Gillian put some steel in his spine. He found some reserves of cool. ‘Yes, of course… it must be very difficult for the family.’

It seemed a cold thing to say, like it was the first time it had even crossed his mind. ‘The woman has lost a son… she’s finding it a bit more than difficult. She doesn’t think Ben’s hanging was as straightforward as the police and you want to believe… She wants answers.’

‘Yes, I understand.’

‘Do you, I mean do you really?… Gillian Laird is a very wealthy woman, she has influence and she has power, and that combination greases a lot of wheels in this town, Joey Boy.’

He scratched his head, turning that lank hair of his behind his ear again. ‘I just don’t see what I can do. I mean, I’ve told you all I know… I just work here. I’m not privy to every aspect of human interaction that takes place, I’m just a lecturer! I mean, what do you want me to say?’

He’d said plenty.

I could see Calder wasn’t for caving on this first meet, but he’d said enough to let me know there was far more in the tank. He had something to say, and he’d be saying it, even if it had to be dragged out of him. I planned to stick around, keep a close eye on him. Knew he wouldn’t like that, but fuck him, he wasn’t the one with the hands on the levers. Said, ‘Gillian tells me she sits on the recruitment board.’

He turned down his mouth. ‘I think so… yes.’

‘Say you were to appoint a new janitor… what would be the recruitment process?’

‘A new janitor?’

‘Well, let’s skip the interview and CV and that… I fancy getting closer to the action – maybe we could just pretend I was the new janitor.’

He flustered. ‘That would be irregular, to say the very least.’

I bolded it: ‘And fucking murder isn’t?’

Calder closed his mouth. I watched his Adam’s apple rise slowly as he swallowed what looked like objections.

‘How about you go hunt out one of those dustcoats for me, Joey Boy.’

Chapter 8

HOD HAD SEEN FIT TO warn me about keeping the course. Staying on track. By that he meant: off the sauce. If he thought he had any sway with me on matters of general inebriation, my daily state, he was deluded. Knew he understood that he carried no such weight at all. Hod, for all the heart in him, had a hard enough head to take reality as it comes. Which, truth told, scared the shit out of me.

I’d never seen the bloke so down on his luck; Hod was the archetypal hunter-gatherer. A survivor. Seeing his life unravel like this was a heartscald. Worse, being his only hope just turned the knife in me. This was about as close to a volte-face as you could get – Hod was usually the one bailing out my arse. If it wasn’t buying the Holy Wall off me, it was subbing me the readies to take Debs down the aisle… and putting me up when our marriage hit the skids. Hod had pulled me through a few scrapes – it played heavy on my conscience at the best of times – but I’d never countenanced the possibility that I’d be asked to pay him back. Bastard picked his moments. There were times when I was together, stable, in the neighbourhood of happy, even. Christ, I’d had a gym membership once. But right now, at this particular point in time, I was about as lost as lost gets. If I could manage to keep myself together long enough to see the week out I’d be doing well. Felt a shiver run through me. A black crow swooped on the pavement, cawed. In a second it was off, vanished. Wondered if I’d seen it at all.