Double or Die

by Charlie Higson

  The porter strode out into the courtyard and gave a shrill whistle, then waved to someone and shouted something. Presently he returned with a tall, slightly scruffy young man.

  ‘This gentleman can show you the way,’ he explained. ‘He’s a regular visitor – aren’t you, Mister Turing? He was just on his way to the professor’s rooms himself.’

  James signed in, at the last minute deciding to use a false name. He chose ‘John Bryce’, thinking that if he kept the same initials as his own name it would be easier to remember. Then he followed the young man into the college.

  ‘Are you a professor here?’ James asked.

  ‘Me? Good lord, no.’ The young man laughed. ‘Not yet, at least. I’m not even at this college. My name’s Alan by the way, Alan Turing. I’m working on a research project with the professor. He’s a very brilliant mathematician.’

  ‘I’ll take your word for it,’ said James. ‘I’m afraid mathematics is not my strong point. Not that I know what my strong point is exactly,’ he added.

  The courtyard they were crossing was huge, with more Tudor buildings around the sides and an elaborate stone fountain in the middle. It was like School Yard, only on a much larger and grander scale.

  As they walked the college clock began to chime.

  ‘Do you know,’ said Turing, ‘in nineteen twenty-seven one of the students, Lord Burghley, ran all the way around the square in the time it takes the clock to strike twelve. That’s less than thirty seconds. Never been done before or since.’

  It turned out that Turing was a keen runner and they fell into a relaxed conversation about athletics. As they talked, they passed through a long, gothic building and into a second courtyard and then a third, much smaller one.

  ‘Here we are,’ said Turing, as he led James inside and up a noisy, wooden staircase. At the top was a door of black oak, studded with iron nails.

  Alan smiled at James and knocked. They heard what sounded like someone moving about on the other side of the door, but there was no answer.

  Turing knocked again but there was still no reply.

  ‘I’m sure I heard someone,’ said James and he looked down to see a sliver of light shining from under the door.

  ‘Must have imagined it,’ said Turing. ‘Or else it was coming from one of the other rooms. Very hard to tell in these old buildings. It’s odd, though,’ he added, scratching his untidy hair. ‘He was expecting me.’

  ‘Is he often late?’ asked James.

  ‘Never,’ said Turing. ‘He’s one of most organised men I know.’

  James felt disappointed and frustrated. He had been expecting Peterson to answer all his questions and now he was faced with the possibility of not meeting him at all. A possibility he had not even considered. Maybe Turing could help, though. There was certainly one point he could clear up for him.

  ‘What does the professor look like?’ James asked.

  ‘What does he look like?’ Turing rubbed his chin with his hand, thinking hard. ‘I’m not sure I could say for certain. He doesn’t look like much, really. Just ordinary, I suppose. Yes – just perfectly ordinary.’

  ‘He doesn’t have a moustache?’

  ‘Not so as you’d notice.’

  ‘Well, he either does or he doesn’t!’ said James, trying not to laugh.

  ‘Doesn’t,’ said Turing.

  ‘Is he tall? Short?’

  Turing chuckled. ‘I’m not much use to you, am I?’ he said. ‘As I say, I’ve not really noticed. He’s about my height, I suppose. I mean, don’t think me a fool, if I was to see him on the street I’d obviously recognise him. “There’s Professor Peterson!” I’d say. But visual things aren’t really my strength, you see. If you asked me to draw him for you I’d be all at sea. He’s got the usual compliment of arms and legs, one nose, two eyes, all that sort of thing.’ He stopped and looked at his watch, unsure of what to do.

  James knocked again. As hard and as loud as he could, but there was nothing but silence from the other side of the door. Turing sighed.

  ‘I think I’m going to come back later,’ he said. ‘Maybe I got the days muddled. I’m not as organised as the professor. Will you wait? Or shall I show you out?’

  ‘I’ll hang on a minute longer, I think,’ said James. ‘Thank you for your help.’

  ‘Help?’ said Turing. ‘I don’t think I was much help. Good luck.’

  James listened to his footsteps clattering down the stairs, and once it was all quiet he carefully tried the door to see if it was locked. If Peterson wasn’t there, maybe James could at least find some clues in the room.

  He grinned as the handle turned and the door clicked open. It led directly into a cosy, well-lit sitting room. A fire burnt in the grate. There were books around the walls, some battered old furniture, and a mug of coffee sitting on a low table by the fireplace. The smell of cigarette smoke hung in the air.

  ‘Professor Peterson?’ James called out softly. ‘Gordius?’

  Apart from the crackle of the fire there was no sound.

  James knew he should get out of there quickly. If he was caught it would take all his cunning to think of an excuse, but his curiosity got the better of him and he walked over to the fireplace.

  Above the mantelpiece was a cork noticeboard, with notes, letters, bills and photographs neatly pinned to it. James looked at the photographs. They were nearly all of the same person, from different times in his life. This must be Professor Peterson, but it was very definitely not the man who had introduced himself as such to the Crossword Society.

  Turing had been right. Peterson looked completely ordinary. These were photographs of an ordinary life. Here was a young boy in a sailor suit holding a flag. Here an older boy, looking very serious, with his mother and father. There was a more recent photograph of him looking slightly uncomfortable in academic robes, wearing an elaborate hat. And there were several which must have been taken in his student days. They showed a happy, open-faced young man. One picture caught James’s eye. Peterson was posing with two friends in fancy dress. Peterson wore an eighteenth-century costume with a long curly wig, the person next to him wore a suit of armour complete with closed helmet and the third person was dressed as a cowboy.

  There was a speech bubble, as in a cartoon, coming from the cowboy’s mouth and someone had written inside it with a scratchy pen: Happy days. Happy memories. Good luck in everything you do. Alex.

  Alex?

  James realised with a shock that the cowboy in the photograph was Alexis Fairburn. The picture must have been taken when he was at university with Peterson. Fairburn had more distinctive features than his friend, with a large nose and ears and wild, curly hair pushed up to one side like a breaking wave.

  James continued searching the room and found a small door behind a curtain that must have been hung there to keep the draft out. He carefully opened it and went through.

  He found himself in a study. There were even more books in here, shelf after shelf of them, and orderly piles of papers rested on every available surface, but James paid no attention to any of this.

  There was a man at a desk by the window, sitting very still and staring at James, his hands resting on the desktop, a pen stopped halfway through writing a sentence. A cigarette was smouldering in an ashtray, filling the room with smoke.

  It was Peterson.

  ‘Sorry,’ James muttered. ‘There was no reply… I knocked… I didn’t mean to…’

  James ran out of steam under the man’s icy stare.

  A three-bar electric fire stood in one corner, pumping out heat, but the room suddenly seemed very cold, the walls pressing in.

  James stepped closer. There was something wrong. The man was too still, too icy, and, as James moved, the eyes didn’t follow; instead they remained fixed, staring blindly at the doorway.

  8

  See Cambridge and Die

  Peterson was as unmoving as a statue and James knew for sure that he was dead.

  This ordinary man, w
hom James had seen growing up in the photographs next door, was dead.

  And death had made him extraordinary.

  There was no breath coming out of the body. There was no rise and fall of the chest. No faint tick of a pulse at his temples. The eyes were dull, drying up. A spark had gone out, a light switched off.

  There is a difference between a living person and a dead one, something indescribable. A dead person is somehow no longer a person. He is a lump of flesh. The only part of Peterson that was still alive was the bacteria in the stomach. It would thrive and grow and the gases would build up until the stomach burst and the bacteria would spread through the rest of the body.

  Already it was beginning to rot and decay.

  James gingerly held out a hand. There was still some warmth in the skin, which meant that he wasn’t long dead, but how had he died? James could see no signs of violence, no mark on him of any kind. Perhaps he had had a heart attack?

  No. There was no evidence of pain. No grimace. His face looked bland, almost calm. Whatever had happened, had happened fast.

  James was mystified, but as he looked at Peterson, a tiny drop of blood welled in the corner of his right eye then trickled slowly down his face, like a scarlet tear.

  There was a small soft pat as the drop fell from Peterson’s chin on to the desk.

  James looked down. Peterson had been writing a letter.

  Dear John, it started.

  James looked back at Peterson’s face and saw a small, puckered, puncture hole in the tear duct of his eye, about the size of one of the Os in the letter.

  He swallowed. His throat was very dry. He had crossed a line; from the ordinary world of carol singers and bicycles and toy shops, into this bizarre world where a dead man sat calmly at his desk, forever frozen in the act of writing a letter.

  His mind was struggling to make sense of it all. It was almost like another weird puzzle in Fairburn’s game.

  He shivered, even though he was sweating inside his heavy overcoat. He was paralysed. As rooted to the spot as Peterson.

  Then there was another pat as a fresh drop of blood fell on to the letter, and James felt a movement in the air. With the change of air came a smell. A smell of lavender and blocked drains. And then a series of thoughts crashed into his head all on top of each other.

  Peterson was still warm.

  Peterson had only just been killed.

  Someone had killed him.

  Someone had pierced him through that tiny hole in his eye, and it had been so quickly and so neatly done that he had died instantly and seized up at his desk.

  James and Turing had been outside for several minutes. They had seen no one go in or come out, but there had been that noise when they had first arrived, as if someone were moving around inside Peterson’s rooms.

  The porter had said that James was the third visitor that afternoon.

  Turing was the second.

  The killer must have been the first. And they must have surprised him moments after he had murdered the professor.

  That meant that when James had come in, the killer was still here.

  And he was still here now.

  James was suddenly alert. His senses screaming. The focus of his vision, which had been narrowed down on to the body at the desk, now snapped wide and took in the whole room in an instant. There was a second door. And his ears picked up a tiny sound. The rustle of a sleeve perhaps.

  There was someone behind it.

  James knew it. As surely as he knew that Peterson was dead and that whoever was on the other side of that door had killed him.

  As surely as he knew that if he didn’t get out of here, he, too, would be killed.

  Almost without thinking James grabbed a chair and jammed it under the door handle, then he snatched the letter from under Peterson’s hand, and as he dragged it away, the stiffly held pen drew a neat line across it.

  Peterson sat there unchanged, the pen now resting on a piece of paper that had been underneath the letter. Written on it was what looked like code. Rows and rows of minute ones and zeros.

  James grabbed this as well, and in a second he was out of the room and running. Back through the sitting room and out on to the landing. Then he stopped, made a quick decision, and ran back. He plucked the photograph of Peterson and Fairburn from the noticeboard, stuffed it in his pocket and bolted out again. He raced down the stairs and out into the cold night air.

  Past a row of parked cars he could see another exit from the college. He sprinted towards it and into a side road that ran between high brick walls. He came out on to Trinity Street and got his bearings. King’s College was to the right. That was the way he had come. He set off at a fast jog.

  The road was full of students on bicycles and families bundled up against the cold. James had escaped the strange world behind the college walls and the lifeless man sat forever writing at his desk in that stuffy room. He could be gone from here, he could disappear back into the ordinary world and not be mixed up in all this.

  The body would soon be discovered, after all…

  No. He must tell someone.

  He stopped and was just about to turn back when he spotted a familiar figure.

  It was Alan Turing, looking into a bookshop window.

  James ran over to him and tugged at his sleeve.

  ‘Bryce!’ said Turing, surprised to see James. ‘Did he turn up?’

  ‘No… well, yes… well…’ James didn’t know what to say and blurted out the first thing that came into his mind. A question that had been nagging away at him.

  ‘What were you and the professor working on?’ he asked, trying to appear calm.

  ‘Ah…’ said Turing, pulling a scarf from his pocket and wrapping it around his neck. ‘We were seeing if we couldn’t improve on Babbage’s work and build a new sort of Difference Engine. I say build, but it’s all theoretical, really…’ Turing stopped and looked properly at James for the first time. ‘I say, are you all right?’ he said. ‘You look quite agitated.’

  If Turing had only known it, this was the understatement of the year.

  James hadn’t really been listening to Turing, because he had just spotted someone over the student’s shoulder.

  A man was walking slowly up the street, tall and stooped, wearing a long black coat and top hat. His huge head like a skull.

  It was unmistakably the man James had seen driving the Daimler that night in Eton after the Crossword Society meeting, when it had almost ran him down.

  James knew that it was no coincidence that he was here now, walking purposefully towards him.

  Death – that’s how Katey, the maid at Eton, had described him – as the figure of death. And she hadn’t been far wrong.

  ‘Don’t go back there,’ James blurted out. ‘To the professor’s rooms. Don’t go back alone. Go to the police. Take them there. And do it now.’

  ‘I say,’ said Turing. ‘Whatever are you talking about? What’s all this about the police?’

  The skull-faced man locked eyes with James and grinned. That sealed it. James would never forget those two jagged rows of brown, rotting teeth.

  And even from a distance of more than fifteen feet, James could smell him. The smell of bad breath poorly disguised with lavender water.

  ‘Please,’ he said, moving away from Turing. ‘Just do it.’

  ‘I don’t understand, Bryce,’ said Turing. ‘What’s this all about?’

  ‘I shouldn’t be here,’ said James and he shuffled backwards a few paces. ‘But it wasn’t me. You have to believe me.’

  At last he turned and ran, shouting over his shoulder to the confused Turing: ‘Tell them it was Peterson’s first visitor. All right? It wasn’t me!’

  James didn’t check to see if the skull-faced man was following. He prayed that he would be fast enough to get away from him on the still-crowded streets.

  He barged through a knot of people, leaving a trail of curses and protests behind him as he ran across the road. A cyclist
swerved to avoid him, losing control and crashing into another student on a bike. There was a clash of metal and a stream of shouted abuse, but James didn’t stop or look back. He rushed madly down the pavement until he came to a well-lit pub and pushed in through the front doors. Even at this hour the place was busy with students and locals. It was a Friday night before Christmas, and people were in a party mood.

  He squirmed his way between the damp bodies of the men and found a back door that led out into a quiet back alley. He pounded along it and, as he reached the end, he risked a backwards glance.

  There was no one there. For the moment he had lost his pursuer, but, as he turned back to run on, he collided with a young man who was strolling along whistling a snatch of Mozart. The two of them sprawled against the wall and held on to each other for support.

  ‘Watch where you’re going,’ said the young man with a smile. ‘You nearly had us both over.’ He looked like a sober law student or a clerk. James muttered an apology and walked briskly on.

  He may be safe for now, but he knew he mustn’t relax. He needed to find Perry and get well away from Cambridge before deciding what to do next.

  Using back alleys and side streets he worked his way towards the cafe they had arranged to meet at. It had started to drizzle, and the drizzle turned to sleet. The streets began to empty, which wouldn’t help him as he would stand out more. Also, the pavements were getting slippery, and he had to slow down.

  He stumbled on, getting soaked to the skin, until he at last saw the cafe up ahead. He speeded up the final few feet and hurried in through the door.

  The cafe was filled with a fug of smoke and steam. There was a puddle of slush in the doorway and a smell of boiled potatoes and sticky cakes. A giant tea urn bubbled and hissed behind the counter.

  James looked over the pink, shiny faces of the customers, searching desperately for Perry. The place was packed. People were obviously using it as much for shelter as refreshment.

  ‘Can I help you, dearie?’ said a large woman, bustling over and wiping her hands on her apron.