“Is that why you did it?” I demanded of the room in general, since I still had no proven idea who, or what, I was talking to. “Is that why you killed her? Because you were frightened? Because she was thinking of taking me away? After all, if I’m not here to see your precious sculptures, if I’m not here to put them on the web where others can see them, then what is the point of them at all? What is the point of you?”
There was no response, but I hadn’t expected one. At least I didn’t think I expected one. I’m not exactly sure if I expected anything at all. It might have been the booze talking or it might have been the booze allowing me to speak, but it didn’t matter in either case.
“You know what?” I decided suddenly. “I think I’m going to go. I think that I’m going to take all those photographs of all those wonderful scenes that you created and I’m going to make copies, copies that are perfect in every detail. And don’t think that I can’t do it. I can do it. I used to be an architect. And when I’ve got those copies, I’m going off to America to take all the credit and all the glory and I’m going to have this place boarded up and closed off. Hell, I might even have it bulldozed into the ground and the land salted. See how you like that.”
I brandished a fist in my drink-fuelled rage and nearly brought myself to the ground as a result of the change in equilibrium. I hadn’t quite reached the level of a falling down drunk and something inside me fought against the indignity of becoming one now, so I staggered off and even managed to get all the way upstairs and onto my bed before passing out.
When I woke up, it felt like someone had fur-lined the interior of my brain. Of late, this was not an unusual sensation. It was still dark and the air was warm and muggy. I lifted my head and it banged into something. I cursed, wondering where it was that I had ended up. And yet, I could feel my bed beneath me. My head was supported by my pillow and my legs were entangled in my duvet. Of all of this, I was certain and yet when I raised my head again it met something unyielding.
I tried to turn and roll off the bed, but my shoulder did not move very far before it encountered something that would not let it move any further. I raised my knee, but it was blocked after a few inches as well. Reaching out either side of me, I ran my fingers over the fitted bedsheet all the way to the edge of the bed itself. There, they encountered a smooth barrier.
Only it wasn’t really smooth. I could feel small vertical and horizontal lines.
I started to panic. I struck out with my hands and feet, punching and kicking as hard as I could, considering that I could only move either a small distance. None of the surfaces around me showed any signs of breaking, or even moving. One of the things about Lego is, if built properly, it can be incredibly strong.
Stronger than a man trying to break his way out, anyway.
And it turns out that, entombed in a coffin of small plastic bricks, no-one can hear you scream.
The Book
“It was the book,” Barker told me with absolute conviction.
“It was not the book,” Heathern contradicted him with an equal measure of certainty, adding for good measure, “That’s just absurd.”
“Oh, absurd is it?” Barker demanded, his moustache actually bristling with the depth of his indignation. I hadn’t ever seen that happen in real life. I didn’t think it was possible, to be fair. Then again, I hadn’t ever met anyone with a moustache quite as imposingly impressive as Barker’s before. The lip upon which it sat was similarly imposing, being in proportion with the rest of the man. I supposed that holding a position as one of the leading world experts in texts, both modern and ancient, led to a lot of sitting around reading, which in turn led to a lot of waistline, jowls and upper lip.
For her part, Gloria Heathern seemed to completely ignore the man’s outrage. That was probably natural behaviour, born from long years of working together, familiarity breeding a total lack of response. She was a good deal thinner than her colleague and her frame was draped in a skin that seemed as cracked and dusty as the ancient parchments with whose translation she had made her name.
“Completely absurd,” the female professor confirmed. “It is simply a book and I will not ascribe supernatural powers to it.”
“It is irrelevant what you will, or will not, ascribe to it,” the male professor countered. “You don’t have to believe in God for God to believe in you.”
“I don’t believe in God,” Heathern stressed.
“Neither do I,” Barker agreed testily, “but that doesn’t mean that either of us is in a position to claim absolute authority on the issue one way or the other.”
“It stands to reason...”
“Reason!” Barker interrupted his colleague sharply. “Well, if you’re going to rely on reason then I can’t argue with you.”
This seemed to please the woman.
“Because there are a good many things that do not stand to reason,” the portly academic added. “There are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamed of in your reasonable philosophy, my good Heathern.”
“Quoting Shakespeare does not make your argument any stronger,” she pointed out, completely impervious to his agitated state and tone of voice.
“Quoting Shakespeare makes any argument stronger,” Barker retorted. “It’s Shakespeare for the love of God.”
“I thought that you didn’t believe in God,” Heathern countered.
“And I thought that you could look the facts in the face and see the obvious rather than being blinded by your precious reason.”
I stirred in my seat, deciding that I wasn’t going to learn anything of any value by letting the exchange carry on any longer.
“Much though I love to listen to the cut and thrust of lively academic debate,” I lied, “I am here to investigate a death.”
They both looked at me as though they had forgotten that I was in the room with them. This was, in my experience, quite likely. I had found, in my time policing the university, that academics were all alike in their ability to be completely distracted from the real world by matters of esoteric interest but little actual value. Only the nature of the esoteric distraction in question changed.
“Which one?” Barker said after a moment.
“Lisa Atwell,” I clarified things for him. “Suicide. Here. Yesterday?”
“Ah yes,” he said, becoming suddenly sad. “Poor Lisa. Lovely girl. Very smart, conscientious, funny when she wanted to be. Very talented researcher.”
At least he managed not to look out between the half-closed shutters into the college quad beyond, a quad that was currently festooned with yellow ‘police – do not cross’ tape and patrolled by a couple of very bored-looking Police Community Support Officers.
“Suicidal,” I added to his list of the dead girl’s attributes.
“Oh, no,” both academics spoke in unison.
“No, I won’t have it,” Heathern added with her, apparently usual, certainty, despite the evidence that lay on the other side of the window.
“‘Won’t have it’?” I queried, as archly as I could manage.
“No, constable. I won’t have it,” the professor confirmed, reminding me that when it came to withering insults and smart put-downs I was paddling in the shallows, whilst she was used to free-diving in the abyssal depths.
I didn’t even bother trying to put her right on the matter of my rank. The university staff boasted the finest minds in their fields and they could not imagine anyone who would choose another line of work over their own. It followed, to their minds at least, that anyone who was not in Academia was naturally inferior in mental capacity to anyone who was. Talking down to a mere policeman was, therefore, the only way to talk to a policeman.
“And would you care to elaborate on that?” I asked politely, keeping a tight rein on my temper. Nothing annoys university types more than being unable to get under someone else’s skin.
“Care to? Not really,” she decided.
“It’s only that I’m basing my conclusion on the fact
s that Little Miss Non-suicidal went to the top of a fourth-floor dorm building and swan-dived into the concrete below. Top marks on the descent, but the re-entry was a little messy. What are you basing your conclusion on?”
“There is no need to be vulgar or unpleasant,” Barker complained.
“I wasn’t aware that I was being either,” I told him. “Merely descriptive. Would you like to see the photographs?”
“No, I would not,” he denied, batting away the manila envelope that I offered him.
“What about you, Mrs Heathern... Miss Heathern... Ms Heathern?” I asked.
“Professor Heathern,” she responded with a moue of distaste that suggested I was doing a better job of needling her than the other way around. “And no, I do not wish to look.”
“So, Lisa Atwell takes a dive off the roof of the dorm, in full view of several witnesses mind you, and you ‘will not have it’ that she was suicidal?” I prompted her.
“I can only speak as I found her,” Professor Heathern replied. “She seemed a very well-adjusted girl with a disposition that was, if anything, a little too sunny.”
“‘Too sunny’?” I queried.
“She was one of those people who are cheerful and singing the praises of the morning whilst you are still trying to wipe the sleep from your eyes and have your first cup of coffee,” Barker explained
“I know the type,” I muttered darkly, thinking of a couple of people in the major crime team that I could smack several times before elevenses each day.
“She was doing generally well in her studies,” Barker continued, casting a questioning glance at Heathern, who nodded her agreement. “She had a close group of friends and was, I believe, just starting out on a new relationship.”
“How could you possibly know that?” Heathern demanded, clearly not sharing that information.
“She was a female student,” Barker told her with a mixture of satisfaction and impatience, which is not a combination that is easy to bring off, but he managed it, “and female students gossip in the hallways. They also don’t pay attention to the presence of older people, such as you and me.”
“Speak for yourself,” Heathern objected, despite being clearly older than her colleague.
“I always do, dear,” Barker assured her. “It’s the only way to be sure of making sense.”
I had the feeling that Heathern wanted to stick her tongue out at him, but being a world-famous academic expert, and in front of an audience, restrained her response.
“How new was this relationship?” I wondered aloud.
“New enough to be still testing the bedsprings near to destruction, I understand,” Barker told me. “From what I overheard, he is quite an athletic young man.”
He leaned over to me in what was meant to be a confidential gesture, but continued to speak at the same volume, “The beds in the dorm rooms are not designed for that sort of activity. Rather a foolish oversight, I would suggest.”
He noticed Heathern’s disapproving expression.
“Oh come on! For a woman who has authored a number of books on the importance of erotic literature through the ages, you are remarkably prudish.”
“I am not frowning on what they were doing, but rather on the fact that you were eavesdropping,” she pointed out.
“I was collecting my post, in plain sight,” he retorted. “That’s hardly eavesdropping.”
“So, if she was such a happy and... fulfilled girl, why did Lisa Atwell throw herself from the roof? Your roof?” I asked, trying to drag the conversation kicking and screaming back in the right direction.
“I am sure that we haven’t the faintest idea,” Heathern said firmly.
Barker remained silent under her stern gaze.
I let them sit uncomfortably in silence for a few seconds before speaking.
“So, tell me about the book then.”
They were easily distracted and annoyingly distracting, but they couldn’t have imagined that I had forgotten about Barker’s comment. I was investigating a death, after all, even if it was one that was as open and shut a case of suicide as I have ever encountered. The young lady in question had climbed out onto the college’s roof in plain sight of several witnesses, having deliberately disabled a window lock on the way, before diving off the guttering to her death. She had even left a note, for heaven’s sake. This conversation with her subject and pastoral tutors was a mere formality.
Heathern rolled her eyes at this further mention. “Are we really going to waste the Sergeant’s time on myth and fantasy?”
I again ignored the reference to my rank. I’d been a sergeant and I knew that was nothing to be ashamed of.
“Hardly that,” Barker objected. “Recorded history and verified facts.”
“With no causal link,” she challenged.
“With no causal link that you are willing to admit,” he challenged her right back.
“Because there is no link to admit to.”
“When I mentioned the death earlier, you asked ‘which one?’, implying that there have been more,” I tried to suggest, but Heathern jumped in immediately.
“All of them easily explicable.”
I looked to Barker.
“When looked at in isolation,” he agreed, glancing at Heathern and adding, “which is where you should be. If you place them together, however, a pattern emerges.”
“Paranoia-fuelled conspiracy theories,” Heathern dismissed.
“Tell me about this book,” I ordered Barker, hoping that he would be the more forthcoming on the subject.
“It has been known by many names,” the man started, clearly getting up to lecture speed, making me wonder if I had made the right choice. “The current translation is entitled ‘Ruminations on doom and joy’.”
“Sounds like a real page turner,” I muttered.
“It can hardly be termed that,” Heathern interrupted. “Considering it only has one page.”
“One page? That’s not a book.”
“One page of note,” Barker expanded his colleague’s explanation. “One page that anyone ever reads. One page that changes everything.”
“And people kill for this page, this book?” I wondered. The prospect of a simple suicide case was looking ever more distant and unlikely. “Commit suicide, perhaps?”
“Yes, they do,” Barker confirmed enthusiastically, “and have done throughout history.”
“Throughout history?” I asked, despite my better judgement.
“The book we have is not the original,” Heathern explained. “It has been transcribed and translated many times. The origin of the text is not known, but predates almost all known civilisations.”
“That’s old.”
“Older than the Dead Sea Scrolls, older than anything kept in the Great Library of Alexandria, older than the hieroglyphics in Egypt’s oldest temples,” Barker confirmed.
“And there are how many copies?” I asked, not liking where this line of questioning was taking me and my clear-cut suicide case.
“Only one,” Barker confirmed my fears. “There is only ever one copy made. When the old one is nearly illegible, a new copy is made and the old one is destroyed.”
“So, it’s valuable,” I suggested. A unique book of ancient origin was going to provide motive for all manner of bad acts that would now have to be considered.
“Beyond price,” Barker said, “though not because of what it is made of or even what it contains, but because of what happens.”
“What people believe happens,” Heathern corrected.
“What happens?” I asked, fascinated.
“Nothing,” Heathern snapped.
“Doom or joy,” Barker said cryptically, with a great deal of relish. He even sat back in his armchair and knotted his fingers across his belly in self-satisfied fashion.
“Look,” I said, starting to lose my patience with the pair. Eccentricity was to be expected from senior university academics, but this was getting too much. “I’m not Sherlock
Holmes...”
“That’s true,” Heathern muttered and then gestured for me to continue when she realised that she had said it out loud.
“...and this is not some scene from a short story, so can we please dispense with all the theatrics and you tell me what the deal is with this book? If not, we can all take a ride in a marked police car to the local station where we can hold this conversation in a nice, if slightly grubby, interview room. I’m sure that the University would love the visuals of two of its vaunted professors being led away in handcuffs.”
“It’s quite simple, Chief Inspector,” Heathern said into the rather strained silence that followed. “For a long time, some strange, and no doubt disturbed, people have taken the notion that reading the first page of the book will either bring about your wildest dreams or make real your worst nightmares.”
“Doom or joy,” Barker reiterated.
“It’s a magic book?” I asked with what I believed to be just the right amount of rational disdain. “You read the first page and you’re suddenly rich, famous and married to a porn star?”
“Your assessment of what constitutes joy does you credit,” Heathern said with a much greater degree of disdain.
“It does not bestow anything,” Barker explained. “It is, after all, a book. Books convey information. That is their function, their raison d’etre.”
Which didn’t explain 50 shades of anything, I restrained myself from saying.
“This book conveys something more,” he continued. “Some people who read the book, or a page of it at least, are inspired. They leave their normal lives and chase new dreams, becoming the most extraordinary amongst us.”
“It’s utter nonsense, of course,” Heathern dismissed the idea.
“Is it? Is it?” Barker pressed. “Einstein was a patent clerk before he read it. Alexander was a king, admittedly, but it was only after reading this book that he went on to conquer the known world; Christopher Columbus was a mere deckhand before striving to discover a new one. Edith Piaf was a part-blind circus performer and teen mother before she became a songbird and learned not to regret anything. Joanne Rowling was a divorced and unemployed single mother before one book inspired her to write another.”
Taking the Tube to the Outer Limits Page 25