The Shadow Maker

by Robert Sims

  She knocked on the door.

  She heard a shuffle of papers, then a voice with a soft, modulated accent.

  ‘Come in.’

  She stepped inside and closed the door behind her. Roxby looked up from the computer screen he was working on, a bland, accommodating smile on his face, no doubt the one he used for greeting students. Rita couldn’t assume the radical website was accurate in its assessment - after all, he might just be the victim of student animosity - yet there were immediate signs of psychological wear and tear - worry lines around his eyes and furrows above his eyebrows.

  He was a man with ordinary looks and an average figure. Only his piercing blue eyes stood out in an otherwise unremarkable face.

  ‘How can I help you?’ he asked, his voice smooth and honeyed.

  Rita walked up to his desk and stood there, looking down at him. ‘Dr Roxby?’

  ‘Yes, just as it says on the door. And who are you?’

  ‘Detective Sergeant Marita Van Hassel, from the Sexual Crimes Squad. I’d like to ask you a few questions.’

  The expression on his face hardened. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘You may be able to help with police inquiries.’

  He stared up at her, suspicion creeping into his eyes. Then he sank back in his chair, regaining his composure with a fatalistic shrug. ‘I confess.’

  ‘To how many crimes?’

  ‘How many have you got?’

  ‘A rape and mutilation.’

  He sat up straight. ‘I withdraw my confession. But you’d better take a seat.’

  She pulled over a chair and sat down, looking around. Philosophy books lined the shelves, along with framed photos from Oxford and Berkeley. There were no family pictures at all. The floor was stacked with essay folders, and a jumble of discs filled a rack beside a laser printer.

  ‘Of course, you’re working on the blind prostitute case,’ he continued. ‘I’ve seen your picture in the news. So what exactly brings you here?’

  ‘Plato’s Cave.’

  He shook his head, as if bewildered.

  ‘The fellowship,’ she said. ‘The one you’re chairman of.’

  ‘Pardon my ignorance, but what are you talking about?’

  She took out the card and placed it carefully in front of him.

  Roxby picked it up, gazed at it and frowned. ‘So, let me guess.

  This was found at the crime scene.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then I can happily eliminate your line of inquiry. It’s got nothing to do with the Plato’s Cave Fellowship.’

  ‘You’re sure of that?’

  ‘We don’t produce plastic cards. Absolutely not.’

  She fixed him with a look, trying to be more forceful than she felt. If he was telling the truth, then he was right - this was another dead end in the investigation. But something about his reaction bothered her. A certain cavalier attitude. A surface confidence that seemed to hide something nastier - just as the Caveman Roxby description claimed. Despite the grim smile on his lips there was a dull torment in his eyes. She had an urge to ask him about his divorce. But that would be pushing it.

  Instead she said, ‘So what’s your fellowship about?’

  Roxby blew out a heavy sigh. ‘We’re just a bunch of windbags who get together once a month to indulge in wine, cheese and flights of philosophical fancy. We exchange a bit of banter on our website.

  But we put nothing on paper - or plastic. And as far as I know, we don’t commit rape. We only mutilate the English language.’ That glibness again. ‘I suggest you try other establishments of the same name,’ he said, handing back the card.

  ‘Such as?’ she asked.

  He saw the gleam in her eye and realised his mistake. ‘There must be others out there.’

  ‘You wouldn’t say that unless you already knew.’ She folded her arms and observed him closely. ‘So tell me. How often do you visit them?’

  He said nothing at first, then gave a smile that was empty of humour.

  ‘Okay, okay.’ He raised his hands in mock surrender. ‘There’s another Plato’s Cave in this town. Its name popped up when I was setting up the fellowship’s website. And yes - I’ve visited it. And why? Not just because I like to explore the dark night of my psyche.

  No. But because the goddamn name intrigued me. A nightclub using one of the most powerful symbols of philosophy. How could I ignore such a sublime irony?’

  ‘Obviously, you couldn’t. But how often?’

  ‘Three or four times in the past couple of years.’ He smoothed back his hair. ‘That’s all.’

  ‘When was your most recent visit?’

  ‘Several months ago.’

  ‘Are you sure it wasn’t last week?’

  ‘Of course I’m sure,’ he insisted.

  She couldn’t tell if he was lying, but he was certainly uncomfortable.

  ‘While exploring your dark nights,’ Rita went on, ‘did you pick up any fellow travellers?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You know precisely what I mean, Dr Roxby. The nightclub’s a glitzy pick-up joint, with dope and vice girls on tap. Men go there for drugs or sex or both,’ she noted. ‘What’s your preference?’

  He averted his eyes to contemplate the photos of his academic past, without answering.

  Rita softened her tone. ‘I’m not here to expose your private life or damage your reputation. What we discuss is confidential, including your personal proclivities, but I need you to answer my questions.’

  ‘Okay,’ he breathed out. ‘I may have sampled the available talent, so what?’

  ‘Did it extend to bondage?’

  He hesitated. ‘How shall I put it? There was a range of experience, but it was consensual, mutually beneficial and socially harmless.’

  ‘So that’s a yes,’ she interpreted. ‘And did it include role-playing?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You didn’t re-enact a scene?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You didn’t recreate a theme that appeals to you?’

  ‘What theme?’

  ‘The one that gives its name to your fellowship - the cave.’

  ‘Of course not!’

  Rita fixed him with a steady gaze. ‘Have you met the club’s owner, Tony Kavella?’ she asked.

  ‘I met him once, yes.’

  ‘Did he invite you to sample anything more exotic than the girls in the bar?’

  ‘No, he didn’t,’ answered Roxby. ‘We had a brief but charming conversation about the golden age of Athens, after which he told the barman to serve me free drinks. That must have been a year ago, long before his arrest, trial and acquittal.’

  ‘Very chummy,’ she commented, but other than underlining a sleazy side to his character it didn’t really take her any further.

  ‘What about the new brothel called Plato’s Cave?’ she asked.

  ‘Have you sampled its wares?’

  ‘Never heard of it.’

  ‘What car do you drive?’

  ‘A Porsche. How much more of this grilling?’

  ‘I’m nearly through,’ she smiled. ‘Who are the members of the fellowship? And how many?’

  ‘Apart from me, there are thirteen students,’ he said, relaxing a little. ‘Eight girls, five boys - the brightest of my current flock.’

  ‘How old are they?’

  ‘The oldest is twenty-one, the youngest is seventeen and she shines like a precocious star among the rest of the first-year intake.’

  ‘Starting young,’ Rita observed, deciding she’d questioned him enough. She was about to stand up to go but, as an afterthought, she paused and said, ‘What does it mean to you, exactly? Plato’s Cave?’

  ‘Are you asking for a free tutorial?’

  ‘I’m asking for a straight answer.’

  ‘How fascinating,’ he said. ‘A police detective demanding a straight answer to a philosophical question.’

  ‘You find that absurd?’

  ‘I find
it a strange paradox. But if you insist.’ He leant on his elbows, hands clasped together. ‘Very well, the myth of the cave,’

  he began. ‘The most famous passage Plato ever wrote, telling of prisoners chained underground since birth …’

  ‘Yes, I’ve read all that,’ she interrupted. ‘But what do you think Plato’s saying?’

  ‘He’s describing the human predicament. We’re all prisoners of the cave. And we’re all deluded.’

  ‘So you’d say it’s a pessimistic vision?’

  ‘Not entirely. If a prisoner can shake off his bonds and emerge from the cave, he’ll see the light of truth. Then he has a duty to return and try to enlighten his fellow creatures.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘There’s the moral perspective. Maybe a message for you. Having attained virtue, if you want it to triumph, you must come to grips with the law of the jungle. Leave the light behind, and plumb the depths of the pit. Descend the chasm of human ignorance, stupidity and obscenity.’

  ‘That sounds like your interpretation. But was it Plato’s?’

  ‘He was saying you can’t trust reality. It’s all in the mind.’ Roxby tried to smile at her, but again his eyes betrayed him. ‘Nothing is what it seems.’

  Rita walked back to her car and put in a check call on Roxby’s vehicle registration. She found out he drove a Porsche, just as he said - a midnight blue Cayman S model, with a price tag nudging $150,000. The car alone would rule him out as a suspect, though she decided to keep an open mind about him.

  Next she phoned Xanthus Software and asked to speak to Kelly Grattan.

  ‘She doesn’t work here anymore,’ the receptionist told her. ‘She left last week.’

  Rita hadn’t expected that. ‘Put me through to the system administrator, Eddy Flynn,’ she demanded.

  When Flynn picked up, he asked abruptly, ‘What do you want now?’

  ‘I want to know where I can reach Kelly Grattan.’

  ‘So do I!’ he shouted. ‘She dropped us in the shit and vanished.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘She never came back,’ Flynn complained. ‘She cut a severance deal and pissed off overseas, nobody knows where.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘The same day she checked out of hospital.’

  ‘Did she give any reason?’ asked Rita.

  ‘Apparently she put the squeeze on Barbie, claiming she was under too much pressure. What a joke!’

  ‘Did Barbie tell you this?’

  ‘No, it was Josh - the project manager.’

  ‘Can I speak to him?’

  ‘No, you can’t, he’s supposed to be finishing a fourteen-hour diagnostic. Get him when he’s not on company time. I’ve gotta go.’

  Flynn hung up, leaving Rita feeling frustrated. She was angry that Kelly couldn’t be questioned again, and even more convinced that Xanthus was worth probing further. At least she knew where to focus next. If Josh Barrett knew something about Kelly’s sudden departure, she’d start with him.

  Josh Barrett was losing patience. Flynn and Maynard were becoming increasingly aggressive.

  ‘The trouble with you,’ said Maynard to Flynn, ‘is you can’t think outside the square.’

  ‘Fuck the square,’ said Flynn.

  ‘You can’t see beyond the box.’

  ‘Fuck the box!’

  Josh adjusted his headphones, ramped up the volume of the Rolling Stones and began to round off his marathon diagnostic. The pressure of the job was bad enough without pointless tantrums adding to it. While those around him got sucked into whirlpools of stress, Josh tried to rise above it. Urgency only made him go faster, with the energy of a hyperactive kid. But it was an energy that left him impatient with fools, bad technology and childish behaviour.

  ‘Benchmarking,’ he heard Maynard shouting at the top of his voice. ‘A paradigm shift.’

  ‘Shift it up your arse!’ Flynn shouted back. ‘And stop spouting American jargon at me!’

  Josh increased the volume on ‘Wild Horses’ and tried to concentrate.

  ‘You call it jargon because you’re ignorant!’ Maynard continued, his eyes bulging, his face flushed as he rocked sideways in his chair.

  ‘You’re in denial!’

  Flynn threw a mouse pad at him. ‘Autistic hoon!’

  At last, just as Josh had had enough, he wrapped up his day’s work.

  ‘Thank God!’ he declared, ripping off his headphones, logging out and pulling on his jacket.

  ‘What’s your fuckin’ problem?’ asked Flynn.

  Josh rounded on him. ‘Is this a software company or a kinder-garten?’

  ‘You can fuck off, too,’ replied Flynn.

  ‘Fine. That’s what I’m doing,’ snapped Josh, striding through the door and heading off to his car.

  The steady flow of the traffic was a relief after the tantrums of the office. As he waited at a set of lights, the cool breeze of the air-conditioning on his neck, Josh let his mind wander back to his brief fling with Kelly Grattan. With neither of them big on commitment, it had only lasted a few weeks and had ended months ago, but he still looked back on it nostalgically. Beneath Josh Barrett’s brash and reckless personality was a well of sensitivity.

  As the lights changed, he wheeled the car into a right-hand turn towards home. He needed to get the workplace mania out of his system with a shower, a snack and a relaxing smoke.

  An hour later, he felt no better. The pressure and sleep deprivation were taking their toll, and the hash wasn’t working - not the way it was supposed to. Instead of a mellow feeling, it was sending a blade of paranoia cutting through Josh’s thoughts. As he sat on his sofa, an afternoon soap on the TV, his feet on a coffee table, helping himself to cheese and olives, he became convinced things were going off the rails at Xanthus. Kelly’s fast exit and the big pay-off she’d collected were among the warning signs, along with the level of deadline stress and the edge of panic in Barbie’s behaviour. If the deal with Japan fell through, Josh would be out in the cold.

  The more he smoked, the more his doubts darkened into a heavy mood of pessimism. The sense of an impending crisis lodged in his mind and the dope was intensifying it.

  ‘A shit-storm’s coming,’ he said to himself, and there was nobody to disagree.

  Rita stood at Josh Barrett’s front gate. It led to a two-storey Victorian terrace house, white and in mint condition, with wrought-iron lacework fringing the upstairs balcony and downstairs verandah. The metal pillars and railings were also painted white, while the black and white ceramic tiles of the steps and paving sported a row of potted palms. It spoke of professional affluence. Parked outside was his metallic grey Saab.

  She opened the gate, walked down the path and knocked on the door, banging the brass knocker. No one answered. From what Flynn had said, Josh must have been working since midnight, but surely he wasn’t asleep mid afternoon. Then she thought, if so, too bad. The general attitude at Xanthus had left her feeling less than considerate, and she resumed hammering with the brass knocker, more insistently, the sound echoing down the hall.

  At last she heard footsteps approaching, and the door was flung open by a barefoot young man in a tropical shirt and jeans.

  ‘Yes?’ he demanded, his face flushed, hair adrift, eyes not quite focused.

  ‘Are you Josh Barrett?’ Rita asked him.

  ‘I am,’ he answered. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Detective Sergeant Marita Van Hassel. I’d like a word with you about Kelly Grattan. Can I come in?’

  He was too startled and stoned to respond, so she brushed him aside and went down the hall. He caught up with her in the front room, the air thick and pungent with dope.

  ‘This isn’t convenient,’ he tried to protest. ‘What’s going on here?’

  Rita ignored the question. ‘You worked closely with Kelly?’

  she demanded.

  Josh hesitated. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Very closely?’

 
‘We’ve seen a fair bit of each other.’

  ‘Have you really?’ said Rita, her cheek muscles tightening. ‘Socially?’

  ‘Maybe we have,’ he said, still confused. ‘I don’t see what you’re getting at.’

  ‘Like to assault women?’

  Josh stepped backwards as Rita stepped menacingly towards him.

  ‘Of course not!’ he shrilled, pushing his glasses back to the bridge of his nose. ‘I don’t know what happened to her.’

  ‘But you know she wasn’t knocked off her bike.’

  ‘Of course I do,’ he stammered. ‘She doesn’t ride a bike.’

  ‘Thank you for that. I knew she was lying.’ She dropped her hands to her hips and looked him up and down. ‘So you’re the third man in the core team at Xanthus?’

  ‘I know what I do,’ retorted Josh. ‘But what’s your special field

  - police intimidation?’

  ‘Only when I’m in a bad mood.’ She looked down at his ashtray.

  ‘And if you’re not careful I might be in the mood to bust you.’

  Josh winced as if he’d swallowed something hard. The banging on the door had obviously interrupted him, and in his haste to ditch the remains of the joint he had spilt ash and knocked over the olive jar.

  ‘Okay, can we just chill out here,’ he said, overarticulating his words. ‘What would put you in a good mood?’

  ‘If you regain control of your faculties,’ said Rita, ‘and answer my questions.’

  ‘No problem. I’ll make some coffee.’ Josh clumsily tidied up the telltale mess. ‘You’re right, I need to clear my head.’

  She followed him into the kitchen, where he grappled with the percolator, then stared at her with renewed perplexity. The hash seeping into his bloodstream was giving him an oblique feedback on his predicament.

  ‘This scene’s a bit surreal,’ he admitted. ‘And I’m famished. Fancy an omelette?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘But if you’ve got the munchies, go ahead.’