New Pompeii (2 page)

“Yes, in a couple of weeks’ time. The first few days got booked pretty fast.”

The professor gave a mischievous smile. “Does your father know you’re going?”

Nick shook his head. “We’ve not talked about it.”

“Quite.” The professor let the conversation evaporate. Nick didn’t try to keep it going. One thing was certain: he hadn’t been invited here to talk about Peking Man. And the professor had stopped shuffling his papers.

“Your father told me you’ve had your research proposals turned down?”

“No,” Nick said. His voice suddenly sounded small. Like somebody had reached into his throat and unplugged the amp. Cutbacks. There were going to be more cutbacks. “I’m still waiting on Imperial.”

“It’s a pity we haven’t any open research posts here at the moment,” continued Drockley, seemingly not hearing his answer. “But funding is now so much harder to get hold of.”

Nick nodded, and tried to take a deep breath. “I heard there were going to be more redundancies?”

“Yes,” said Drockley. “So let me get to the point, Nick. It’s going to be difficult justifying your somewhat unofficial position here if I’m getting rid of full-time, qualified members of teaching staff.”

“Quasimodo,” said Nick.

“Hmm?”

“It’s what one of the lecturers calls me. Quasi-student, quasi-teacher.” He hesitated, the silence pushing him towards an admission. “I guess I’ve always preferred the idea of research to teaching.”

The professor looked straight at him, his expression serious but with a great deal of sympathy. “I think you’ll find most of us prefer research to teaching, Nick. But the government operates under the illusion that universities exist to teach. And, from what I’ve seen, you’re good at it. You
will
be good at it too, once you’re qualified.”

“I don’t enjoy it.”

“Perhaps not, but still. There it is. And it’s not really all that different to being a proper research student. Quasi, or otherwise.”

“Well, I’m still waiting on Imperial,” Nick repeated, finding a bit more volume. “And, if necessary, I could stay here on a voluntary basis, and see what happens next year.”

Drockley sighed. “Look, Nick,” he said. “Your father wants me to keep you in your existing post, and his view still counts for a lot even considering his recent… troubles. But people are going to be upset when the pink slips start being distributed.”

Nick struggled to swallow. “Thank you for letting me know,” he said. In his lap, he’d folded the Peking Man leaflet so many times that all that remained visible was a company logo in its bottom right-hand corner:

presented by
novus particles
UK LLP

A
FEW LAST DROPS
of bathwater ran down Kirsten’s body. Her wet hair clung to her shoulders and back. And if the water had been cold, then the air was truly freezing. Goose pimples shimmered across her arms and she stood slightly hunched, her arms crossed against her chest as she tried to keep the last remaining dregs of heat close to her body. But all the while, she remained focused on the sounds from beyond the door.

The footsteps were heavy, the voices male. With each upward step on the staircase, she’d hoped they would stop at one of the floors below. But they hadn’t. And now they were right outside the bathroom door.

“So the door was definitely locked?” said one of them.

“Yeah,” said a second, older voice. “We had to kick it in. The room was empty.”

Kirsten was shaking so much that the words took a long time to sink in:
It was locked. We had to kick it in
.

Her attention snapped back to the bathroom door. The barrel was slid into the locked position. But the bolt glinted from within a splintered frame. They could just…

…push it open.

The door started to move. “Fucking hell! Wait!”

Her words should have been shrieked, but instead came out like a distorted cassette tape. Long and low. Each vowel stretched into the time it would have taken to express three or four. As if she had a pint of water sloshing around inside her ears. Not that it mattered. Two policemen stepped in from the corridor. They didn’t even look at her. Instead, their eyes roamed around the bathroom, and then they turned their attention towards the door through which they had just come.

Kirsten opened her mouth to say something – to tell them to get out – but her throat had closed tight. It was difficult to breathe, let alone talk. She’d managed to keep one arm across her breasts, and pushed the other flat between her legs. But neither man seemed to have noticed her.

“Hello?”

Again, her words came long and low. She shook her head, and felt the floor surge beneath her as she continued to shiver.

“Doesn’t quite match the rest of the Cambridge pomp downstairs, does it?”

One of the officers, the younger of the two, indicated the peeling floral wallpaper and stained yellow carpet. “Think they’ve redecorated the place since the seventies?”

The older policeman didn’t reply. Both were tall. Kirsten dimly noted they were cut from the same cloth. Only their age distinguished them from each other. One looked to be in his early thirties, the other closer to retirement. Both wore police uniforms. And both were ignoring the naked woman standing not four feet from them.

Almost immediately, Kirsten gasped. A dim image of Christmas flashed into her memory. Or rather, three different versions. And a very old story.

Past. Present. Future.

Kirsten swallowed, her body no longer shaking. She turned back to the bath, half expecting to see her own body still floating in it. But the tub was empty.

No body. No water.
No water.

She turned back to the men, and gripped her chest tighter. Ordinarily, she’d have wanted them gone – for them not to have opened the door in the first place. But now they were in front of her, she desperately needed them to see her.

The younger officer pointed towards the lock on the door. “You’ve not touched this?”

His colleague shook his head. “No.”

“The catches mean it can’t just slide accidentally shut.”

“Agreed.”

The younger man stood, and turned towards the bath. Kirsten stepped dumbly back out of his way. “The water was still in the bath?”

“Some of it had leaked away, but there was a ring of scum around the edge. Someone had definitely been using it. It’s all gone now, of course. The plug’s still in. We haven’t touched it.”

“The window?”

“See for yourself.”

The younger policeman took a few steps forward and pulled back the blind. He grunted. The window looked out across one of the college quads. It should have given him a great view of the old library, but it was dark outside. Pitch black.

“And the college hasn’t heard from the girl for over forty-eight hours?”

Kirsten started to shake again, but this time not because she was cold. Forty-eight hours?

“She didn’t turn up for duty on Tuesday morning,” replied the other officer. “Porter says she’s often late, but not like this. The others on this floor haven’t seen her. First reported missing by another bedder at fourteen hundred hours.”

Forty-eight hours?
Kirsten felt her arms drop to her sides, useless. The men were right in front of her. Neither had noticed she was standing beside them. And there could only be one explanation. She’d seen the movies. Read the books.

She was already dead.

“What did she do, again?” asked the younger policeman.

“College bedder.”

“Which means what? She slept with the students?”

The older officer didn’t smile. “Emptied their bins. Changed their sheets. Kept the fellows informed of what was happening on the student staircases.”

“And what sort of girl was she?”

“Flirty. Some might say cheeky.”

“Boyfriend?”

“No.”

The younger man stared into the bath. “Many staff live on site?”

“Not nowadays. There’s some shift accommodation for porters in the front lodge. But these rooms have traditionally been used by bedders. They’re too small to be any use to the students.”

“They don’t look too bad…”

“Not great if you’re paying fees.” The older man pointed upwards. “There’s also a bell in the roof of this stairwell. It rings at seven each morning, and seven at night. Breakfast and dinner.”

“I see.”

“Locked-room mystery,” mused the older officer.

“Hmm?”

“Missing person. Door locked from the inside.”

“It could have been locked by someone using a piece of nylon.”

“Difficult…”

“Possible with practice. Students are known for their pranks – and the ones at this place must be cleverer than most. So I suppose my last question is this: who’s the last person we know who saw her?”

“A kid called Harold McMahon.”

N
ICK ARRIVED HOME
to find an envelope waiting for him. It sat on the telephone stand. Placed so he would see it as soon as he came through the front door. So here it was. The last one.

Nick examined the envelope – but didn’t pick it up. Not yet. The top left-hand corner bore the logo of Imperial College, London.

“Are you going to open it, or just stare at it?”

Nick didn’t reply. Didn’t even turn. He could sense his father standing in the doorway to the lounge. He should have made the effort to get home earlier. At least then he could have opened the letter in private. Taken the beating with no one to see him. Now that wasn’t going to happen. His father was waiting.

Nick hesitated, then took the letter from the stand. Inside, the answer to his application would be switching between “yes” and “no” until the moment he read it. Like a roulette wheel. Yes or no. Red or black.

“Stop messing around and open the damn thing.”

Nick scanned his name again before letting the edge of his thumb slide along the gummed flap. Yes or no. It could be either.

And yet he only needed one to say “yes”.

Behind him, his father let out an impatient sigh. They’d both been waiting for this for the last couple of weeks. It was his final opportunity. But, in the end, it was written in the same way as all the others:

Dear Mr Houghton,

Thank you for your recent research application. We read your proposal with interest; however, you will understand that these are difficult times and as such we need to be particularly selective with regards the projects we support. Unfortunately, we felt your research proposal was not quite right for us at the present time and…

Nick didn’t bother to read the rest. Wordlessly, he slipped it back into the envelope. So, that was it. His applications had all been turned down. He stood for a couple of seconds, the implications bearing down on him.

His father seemed to read his body language. “You can apply again during the next round.”

“Do you expect their opinion will have changed by then?”

“It would be wrong of them to punish you for my mistakes.”

Nick didn’t respond. Yes, it would be wrong. But the slow accumulation of rejections indicated he was already being punished. Already being driven out.

“I’ll find a way round this,” his father continued.

Nick didn’t say anything. He drifted towards the kitchen and ran himself a glass of water. He drank it in one go before refilling. He’d been to seven interviews. Applied for seven potential proper jobs. The bastards had all smiled, shaken his hand, and listened to his proposal. And then they’d thrown his applications in the bin.

All because of his father’s “mistakes”.

Nick looked down. His knuckles were white. The tendons clear against the back of his hand. He forced himself to put down the glass before it shattered. He should have stayed at work. The roulette wheel would have still been spinning. He shook his head, and headed towards the lounge.

His father’s middle-aged bulk already occupied one of two easy chairs. He held a book loosely on his lap, but wasn’t reading. Nick sank into the other chair. He couldn’t settle. His father’s eyes were locked on him – his face illuminated from above by a solitary reading lamp.

“I didn’t see you in the library today.”

Nick shook his head. He shouldn’t have given any sort of answer, but his response had been automatic. His father closed his book. “If you spent more time studying then you’d be further on with your preparatory research. Maybe that would have impressed them at the interviews.”

So it was his fault. Nick took a large mouthful of water. Emptying the glass for the second time. Tension was pulling at the back of his neck, but he couldn’t look away. Just as his neck started to cramp, his phone rescued him, buzzing in his pocket. One new message. Ronnie.
Be here now
.

Nick rose to his feet.

“Going out again?”

Nick nodded.

“To see Ronnie?”

Parry
, thought Nick.
Just parry
. “He adds a bit of colour,” he said, looking down at his phone.

“He adds distraction. Him and his damfool ideas. As I said: you need to focus on your studies. Or would you rather join him on the dole queue?”

Nick felt his brow tighten. Could he just ignore this bullshit?

“You want to say something?”

Parry
. “No.”

“Well, you look like you do. Perhaps you think I’m wrong? Perhaps you think you could get a better job than the one I secured for you? Just like Ronnie managed with his degree? Not all friends are for life, Nick.”

Nick pulled his head back upright. His dad was still glaring at him. “You’re not wrong, Dad.”

“I’ll have a word with Drockley, tomorrow. There may be something I can do.”

* * *

The trip across London took a good deal longer than he expected.
Be here now
. If Ronnie had actually said where he was, then he might not have taken such a circuitous route. As it was, his friend wasn’t at home – and Nick had been left to take a further thirty-minute journey over to Russell Square underground station.

On any other day, he’d probably have been sufficiently pissed off to head back home. But not today. Instead, Nick pushed his hands into his jacket pockets and waited. Trying to keep out of the main lanes of pedestrian traffic, and merge into the background buzz of the ticket hall.