Dying on Principle

by Judith Cutler

  ‘Quite sure.’

  ‘And you’re sure you’ll be all right on your own tonight?’ Ian pressed. He looked at me kindly.

  ‘Alone? With that fucking great hound in the house! Best chastity belt I’ve ever seen, sweetheart,’ Dave said, emerging from nowhere and putting an ostentatious arm round my shoulders.

  ‘D’you think he was running all that porn? Fairfax, I mean,’ I asked, ignoring him.

  ‘A bit of private enterprise from Curtis, that. He had a college with facilities, a lot of money he could spend on specialist software and hardware, and some staff who’d do anything they were told to stay in a job,’ Dave said. ‘That’s all he’s talking about – the porn. Oh, and Blake getting his come-uppance.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘For overreaching himself? He’d certainly done something to annoy Fairfax – protested about his treatment of Trevelyan, for one thing.’

  I found a chair. ‘OK, why did Fairfax want Trevelyan treated badly? Spell it out.’

  Dave grabbed a chair too, but he straddled his. ‘That little scam of hers was an irritant, and it drew unwelcome attention to the college, reduced the time available before people started inspecting the books. Blake couldn’t do much about it, of course, because she knew about his merry pastime. Fairfax decided the easiest thing was to shut them both up. Now, Curtis may have taken this a little too literally. “Shutting them up” can mean bribing just as much as it can mean killing.’

  ‘Curtis likes running over squirrels,’ I said.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘I think he’d have preferred the nastier alternative.’

  ‘You wouldn’t be biased?’ Chris asked quietly, drifting over with what I was sure was a deceptively casual air.

  Equally casually, Ian drifted away, more or less dragging Dave.

  ‘Even if he claims he was acting under orders, that would scarcely exonerate him,’ I said.

  ‘Messy bloody business all round,’ Chris said. ‘Trevelyan runs a silly little scam. Melina finds out and confronts her; Tevelyan kills her and goes mad – or feigns madness: we shall never know. And then she too is killed. What people do for money!’ He looked hard at me, but then asked; ‘Any idea what’ll happen to Muntz now?’

  ‘I should have thought the FEFC would do something. There are a lot of jobs involved, and they own the Harborne site, too. They’ll probably send in some inspectors to run the place, get someone to prepare a report, and hope it can be revived. Either that or merged with another college. It’d be nice if William Murdock would take it over – I could carry on walking to work!’

  Chris laughed politely.

  I got up to leave, and then found I couldn’t avoid it any longer. ‘Do you think the whole of Fairfax’s empire is built on blood?’ I asked, looking him straight in the eye.

  ‘Absolutely. And Sophie – no, tomorrow will do.’

  I hated it when he looked sorry for me, hated it. ‘What else? Come on, spit it out.’

  ‘I phoned to tell young Simon he was right about the microwave, about the magnetron, that is. The pathologist ran some tests using Simon’s figures and they worked out hunky-dory.’

  ‘I won’t ask what they tested his theory on.’

  ‘No. Don’t. Anyway, he said he’d had a call from someone here. Not me. About some CDs you bought. Simon suspected they might be dodgy, so he contacted us and passed on the cir’s registration number. Remember? I’m afraid you bought a whole lot of stolen property, Sophie. It’ll have to go back to the owners.’

  I shrugged. ‘Win some, lose some. Look, you need to get pissed and I’d better go and feed Pilot. See you, one and all!’

  It didn’t take me long to drive back home.

  34

  I looked at my watch. Nearly lunchtime. I had to get back for my afternoon class, not that I’d expect too many students this close to the exams – especially not after all the trauma of the last few days.

  I leaned against the only wall in the bus shelter with any glass left and let my eyelids droop. I’d already had a long day, after all. I’d been up at four, picked up the M5 at Junction 3 and been down in Devon with my cousin Andy in time for breakfast. Pilot had romped in the meadow of the home farm, and then had resumed his place in the back of the BMW. I’d left him at the kennels Andy always used, with instructions to let no one have him till I’d met them and checked their home. Then I’d driven home again, coming off at Junction 2 this time, and picking up the A4123. Auden wrote a poem about it once. I spent perhaps half an hour at Rydale’s. They didn’t want to do it at first, but I was adamant: they were to service the car, bring it to perfection, and sell it for the highest price they could get – at auction, if necessary. I gave them Aberlene’s number, thinking they and the MSO Friendly Society Fund could get some mutually useful publicity. The money might even save that little boy’s life, though for the life of me this morning I couldn’t remember his name. A saleswoman tried to interest me in a Three Series, but so soon after the Seven Series anything would have seemed puny. Maybe, however, one day I would take Chris up on the offer he’d made weeks ago to squire me round all the local garages for test-drives. Or perhaps I should get a new bike. I patted the blood-red car one last time, tossei them the keys and crossed the road.

  The 126 bus seemed to take for ever to come.