by C F Dunn
“That’s very generous. I didn’t know you’d seen him again.” I detected hidden meaning behind the raised eyebrows.
“It was spare,” I muttered.
Matias didn’t answer, but the sardonic look he adopted said it all. He peered behind the bookcase, but even his long arm couldn’t reach that far. “It looks heavy,” he said almost to himself and put his shoulder against it, taking care not to damage the carved edges. He heaved. It barely moved. He tried again.
“It slid into place easily enough,” I offered unhelpfully.
“Well, it certainly doesn’t want to move now,” he said, his face a brighter shade of pink. “Give me a hand?”
“Yes of course, sorry.”
We both took one side and on the count of three managed to move it away from the wall.
“It must have taken a least three men to get this up here,” he panted.
“No, just Matthew – there wasn’t anyone with him.” I remembered how easily he moved it and it dawned on me what that implied. “He must have had help, though. Thanks,” I added as Matias handed my watch to me.
He glared at the bookcase. “Perhaps you’d better wait until Matthew can help next time.”
“I could always ask, I suppose,” I said, thoughtfully stroking the silky wood. Matias’ eyebrows shot skywards again and he grinned roguishly at me.
“Want me to drop it behind again for you?”
I pulled a face and turned away. “Matias, could you do me another favour?”
“What, another one?”
“It’s one of my students – Aydin, he’s been arrested or something and he’s down at the police station in town. I need to see if there’s anything I can do.”
“You want me to take you there?”
“Yes, please; would you mind?”
He scratched the back of his head. “Let me get Elena’s books back to her before she scalps me – and then I’ll take you.”
“Thanks…” I hesitated.
“C’m on, Em, what else?” He sounded like an older brother trying not to sound impatient in a sort of indulgent, brotherly way.
“You know where Matthew works, don’t you?” I asked. He nodded. “I have something to give him. I was wondering if…”
“Do you want me to take it?” he interrupted.
“No, no!” I said far too quickly.
“Ah, you want me to take you there – I understand entirely.” The suggestive eyebrow rose again, for which I thwacked him on the arm and he pretended it hurt; he would have made a good brother. He dashed off and I finished tidying my room before I remembered the note I meant to give him for Elena. From my desk I plucked the lilac Post-It arranging a time for our long-overdue ‘girl-talk’, and stuck it in her pigeon-hole as Matias reappeared panting and out of breath.
It didn’t take long to find the police station; the garish red-brick building dominated the street in which it sat. What would I say in Aydin’s defence? What could I say? And one thing worried me as I sat in the car next to Matias: when he came to see me the morning after the attack, Aydin told me he had not slept the previous night.
The entrance hall smelled of institutional cleaner and it stung my throat – a dubious preference to the odours it supposedly suppressed. In a side room, the officer looked down at the notes already taken.
“So you’re saying, ma’am, that you didn’t see or hear anyone that night other than the screams?”
I was already regretting this. “Yes.”
“But you know this guy – who you’ve met, like what – four times…”
“No, more than that – five,” I corrected him.
“Yeah, five times and you think he is innocent, like… why?”
“I just don’t think he’s capable of attacking someone,” I said lamely.
“Oh yeah, sure.” He had stopped bothering to write down anything I said some time back but I didn’t want to leave without making the only point I could think of.
“Can I ask, Officer, why you suspected Aydin in the first place – just out of curiosity?”
The policeman scratched behind his ear with his pen. He wasn’t giving much away.
“We had a tip-off, a phone call.”
“Is that all? I mean, no physical evidence or anything?”
“Now look, ma’am, I don’t mean to be rude, but…”
“It’s just that, what’s Aydin’s motive?”
“A guy like that doesn’t need a motive.”
“A guy like what? And why did someone give you a tip-off? What motivated them? I bet it wasn’t for the public good.”
“Ma’am, we’re not country hicks here and this isn’t Oxford and you sure ain’t Miss Marple, so you leave the detecting to us and we’ll let you get back to teaching.” He must have been a fan of British detective series. He was on his feet, impatient to see the back of me. I stayed where I was.
“Of course, you are quite right – I know absolutely nothing about the process and you are the professional; but in my line of work I always have to look for the reason behind the action and, you see, Aydin doesn’t have anyone to look out for him, and then there’s the prejudice…”
“I hope you ain’t saying we’re prejudiced…”
“No, not in the least, but what about the person who made the call? Not everyone is as fair-minded as you. I know I haven’t given you anything to go on, but did they?”
I realized I trod a very fine line but the officer stopped and scribbled a few words on the pad. “Is it possible for me to see him, just for a few minutes?”
“No can do.”
I wanted Aydin to know that someone thought about him, had taken the time to ask about him.
“Can you give him these, then? It’s just some work – he mustn’t get behind in his studies.” The policeman flicked through the pair of textbooks I hastily grabbed as I left college; he winced, but didn’t give them back.
“Yeah, sure – is this what he’s studying?” He held up one of the books showing an illustration of a gutting. I saw the direction of his thoughts and smiled sweetly.
“No, those are mine, but Aydin has to write a paper on it. You will make sure he gets them, won’t you?”
“Sure, sure,” he said again, eyes fixed on another page; he was taking a far too unhealthy interest in the material.
Matias waited in the car outside, thrumming his fingers on the steering-wheel as he listened to some plaintive wailing on the car radio.
“How did that go?” he asked as I climbed in beside him.
I shook my head. “I don’t think it’s going to be much use and they wouldn’t let me see him, and I don’t think they have any evidence either, but apparently I’m not Miss Marple or Morse, for which I think I should be grateful.”
Matias laughed. “OK – so where next, Inspector?”
I made my voice all gravelly and dropped it an octave. “The medical faculty, Lewis, and step on it.”
He grinned and to my relief, switched off the music.
I had never been in the science and medical faculty before. Siggie Gerhard said that Matthew endowed it but what I hadn’t appreciated was the extent of that endowment. The medical centre took up the whole of the ground floor, and the medical science and research facilities the two floors above that.
The glass-and-steel doors swung open and I followed Matias into the foyer, a little nervous now that I came to it; but I wasn’t prepared for what I saw, nor for the strength of my reaction to it. The frosted-glass sign hanging over the reception area declared in big, clear letters back-lit in blue: The Ellen Lynes Memorial Centre.
My heart lurched and I stood transfixed staring up at it. From somewhere close by, a tittered comment closely followed by a shriek of laughter rang out as if they could read my thoughts and mocked my shame. I shouldn’t have reacted – it shouldn’t have mattered – but somehow seeing her name up there came as a slap in the face, a reminder that I couldn’t compete with a dead wife so obviously revered, and so clearly
mourned. I should have known when I saw the wedding ring he still wore.
“Emma?” Matias called from the lift door. “You don’t look too good; do you need to see a doctor?” he chuckled, but I didn’t feel like laughing. I gave him a tight smile and he looked puzzled for a second; then the lift arrived and he entered its glass box and I followed because, despite my apprehension, it intrigued me to see what so much love for one woman inspired.
The first floor made up the medical research laboratories. On the east face of the building the double-decked windows were tinted to take the glare of the morning sun.
“What are these for?” I pointed to rolls of metal above each of the windows in Matias’ own laboratory in the department of genetics.
“Those are UV shutters; they operate automatically and close when sensors detect a certain level of sunlight; they prevent damage being done to light-sensitive experiments. Brilliant, aren’t they? Matthew had them specially made for all the windows on this side of the building.” I heard the admiration in his voice.
“Matthew designed them?”
“Yup – with the input of someone else in his family – his older brother, I believe. Everything you can see and most of what you can’t – custom designed and made for the scientists who use it. It’s seventh heaven for people like me.” He stared around his lab as if admiring it for the first time. He patted a table. “C’m on, I’ll show you where Matthew works.”
We walked out of his lab and along the corridor towards the far end of the building and through a set of automatic doors. My head spun with the influx of new information and I found it hard not to be beleaguered by it all. Matthew not only had the facility built but he designed it as well. Money, brains and looks – and a dead wife; this was getting too much to cope with. I traipsed after Matias with ever decreasing enthusiasm, past rooms where intriguing apparatus engaged the attention of the occupants, until we neared the end of the long corridor. Talk about cold feet, mine were rapidly becoming blocks of ice.
He stopped outside a laboratory where large sheets of glass separated us from the people within. They all wore identical lab coats making them a homogenous group of white, heads bent over microscopes and tables and computers, like long-legged shore birds on a beach searching for molluscs in the sand.
I saw Matthew at one end of the room, his flax-coloured hair starkly contrasting with the blue-black mop of the young man with whom he spoke. His white coat should have made his fair skin look wan; instead he managed to look devastating. I clutched the small book in my hands and my mouth went dry; I didn’t know whether I wanted to see him or not; I didn’t know what I would say or whether he would read the doubt in my face.
A young woman came up to them, a printout of some sort ready in her hands. Matthew took it from her, scanning it. The girl didn’t take her eyes off his face. She stood as close to him as was decent and even at that distance, I could feel her pulse. She looked Norse with white-blonde hair loose below her shoulders and large, baby-blue eyes fringed with long lashes. She wasn’t wearing make-up because she didn’t need to and her natural rose-blush highlighted perfect skin without a freckle in sight. Had he been blind he still couldn’t fail to notice such flawless beauty. He said something to her, still reading the stats. She replied, flicking her hair over her shoulder as he looked up from the paper with a slight frown. I’d seen enough; perhaps Sam had a point after all – this was one kitten who obviously wanted to play.
“I have to go,” I said hoarsely. With a hand on the door handle, Matias paused.
“What’s the matter? Don’t you want to see Matthew?”
But I had already walked away.
“Emma!”
The urgency in Matthew’s tone stopped me in my tracks. I looked over my shoulder, surprised to hear his voice. He stood next to Matias.
“Don’t go,” he said, when he saw me hesitate. I wanted desperately to believe he wanted me to stay. I took a faltering step towards him.
“I… I’ve brought your book back,” I stammered, because I thought he needed to know that I had a legitimate reason for being there. I still clasped it in both hands and didn’t move any further. A few long strides brought him to my side.
“I know,” he said. “Thank you.”
I looked away, suddenly shy. “I said I would.”
“Yes.”
I looked up at him then and he smiled, his mouth turning up in an unguarded gesture of real pleasure, and I couldn’t remember why I wanted to leave. I held the book out to him like an offering. He reached out to take it, but a shadow passed across his face. I glanced down to see what he was looking at; faint darkening smudges where Sam had held onto my hand coloured my wrist under my watch.
“Sam did this?” His voice held an edge to it.
I yanked my sleeve down to cover it. “He didn’t mean to – it was an accident. It doesn’t hurt or anything.”
Matthew regarded me, his now denim eyes seeking out the truth; then his forehead smoothed and he smiled again and the tension lifted. He took his book from me.
“So, what did you think of it?”
“It’s amazing – I’ve never seen some of the methods depicted before. I tried to work out what some of them were from the text, but it’s so frustrating not being able to read it.” Bubbles of enthusiasm threatened to burst my composure.
“Well now, we can’t have you in a state of frustration over not being able to decipher methods of torture, can we? That would do terrible things for your blood pressure. I’d better get this translated before any permanent damage is done.” His tone gently teased and I realized I must sound like a complete geek.
“Sorry,” I murmured.
“What for?”
“I get a bit overenthusiastic about my work.”
“I’m glad someone does and anyway, you come alive when you talk about it; it makes your eyes spark.”
A dozen sprites tap-danced inside me. I shot him a quick look to see if he still teased, but saw no mockery in his eyes. Good grief, was he flirting with me? I looked away, not sure how to react, searching for something to say.
“How come you can read medieval Italian; it’s not on most school curricula in the US, is it?”
“Not that I’m aware, no, but it’s closely related to Latin, which comes in useful now and again. Don’t you need to have an understanding of Latin in your line of research?”
“Um, well, you see – how can I put this…” I chewed my lip then decided honesty was the best policy. “I’m utterly useless at languages. I spent twelve years failing to learn French, I ditched Anglo-Saxon after two weeks and I only scraped Italian at university because I passed the history and culture units with almost full marks. I did want to learn Latin at school though, but I was the only one, so they didn’t run the course. Probably a good thing, come to think of it; I would have failed.”
I risked a glance at him and found that he was looking at me with a distinctly humorous expression. His eyes seemed a brighter shade of cobalt than they had moments before, as if they reflected the sun.
“Mmm, is there anything else you would like to confess while you’re at it?” He smiled broadly, and at that moment, there wasn’t anything I wouldn’t confess if that was what he wanted. I reined in my heart which threatened to stampede again, and thought of a more sober topic.
“Talking of Latin, I don’t suppose you know what the inscription over the door in the atrium means, do you? The res ipsa… something or other.”
“Hoy, you two – my arm’s getting tired holding this door; are you coming in or not?”
I had totally forgotten Matias waited for us and reluctantly looked away from Matthew’s eyes – an action requiring conscious effort, like pulling two magnets apart. We started walking towards Matias and the open door.
“Would you like to see the lab?” he asked, not assuming – just hoping – and I nodded, not trusting my voice. “The inscription, roughly translated, means ‘The thing speaks for itself.’ Does it, do y
ou think?”
I managed a laugh. “Things are rarely what they seem!”
“Quite,” he murmured, his hand barely skimming the small of my back as he showed me through the door. I started, and he murmured an apology, but for once, I hoped it was on purpose.
The half-dozen people in the large room looked up as we entered. The young man with the raven hair stood nearest, and Matthew introduced him first.
“Emma, this is Sung, one of the best researchers I’ve ever had the pleasure to work with. Sung, this is Dr D’Eresby.”
Sung thrust out his hand and shook mine enthusiastically, his face puckering with delight to such an extent that his eyes almost disappeared behind folds of skin.
“Dr Matthew is very generous with his praise – I wouldn’t be here if it were not for him.”
I looked enquiringly at Matthew, who seemed a little embarrassed.
“You overestimate my role, Sung.”
“Don’t listen to him; he got me out of Korea – North Korea – and do you know how difficult that is? Nearly impossible!”
“It was worth the effort to secure him for the department,” Matthew explained evenly. I sensed more to this story than he let on but Matthew adopted a blank expression and I thought it better not to ask.
“What are you researching?” I asked Sung out of politeness, not being scientifically minded. Sung looked at Matthew, who nodded for him to go ahead.
“Most of our work focuses on corpuscular mutation in mammalian species resulting in cellular restructuring and sub-species transmutation and metamorphosis.”
I must have looked particularly dense, because he broke into a broad beam that transformed his face again.
I shook my head. “I’m no good at foreign languages, so roughly translated, that means…?”
“Put simply, changes to the structure of blood that directly affect the evolution of species.”
“Surely that would involve changes to DNA? Is that where you come in?” I addressed Matias.
“Uh huh, I’m looking at the fundamental changes that rewrite DNA.”
I could see the endless avenues for research, the implications behind the possible outcomes. “Wow, that’s fascinating!”