This is yet another university piece. Yes, I do write stuff outside of that place, but it's all novel stuff at the moment ("The Bad Seeds" in my link box, if you're interested), and I can't really post that here. I'm working on two short stories as well, and maybe I'll actually get on and finish them sometime this millennium. But until then, here's the uni piece. It's a short story from my "Life Writing" class, one of two times when we got to write an entirely fictional work. The only thing I can remember about the brief was that it needed to have loads of references, and so it does: some are easy to spot, and some aren't.
But anyway, that's enough from me. Let's see what you think...
The Man On The Street
I’m going to let you in on a little secret. Despite whatever you may believe, working life is boring. It’s not just 9-5 till-bitch stuff, either: sure, that’s rigor mortis-inducing, but it’s not the only one. Cleaning toilets, making clothes, sorting post, delivering milk, driving trucks, serving patients, writing news, committing crimes, fighting wars, chairing huge multinationals, it’s all just mind-numbingly tedious. No matter where you work, no matter what role you have, no matter how much money you make, you’ll just be spending all day waiting for the day to end. I don’t think there’s any great reason for this: it’s simply that all jobs are boring.
Yes, even for me. Especially for me. You might think dissecting dead bodies is good fun, or at least interesting, but it really isn’t. When you make an incision into the abdominal wall, or open up the pulmonary tract, you feel about as much excitement as slicing up cheese ready for your lunch. Unless, of course, you’re the kind of person who instinctively up-chucks at the sight of dead bodies: then again, fear and excitement are kinda similar. Either way, when PC Whoever wheels in another murder victim or accident fatality for me to look at, I’m not exactly going to jump for joy.
Take this guy here, for example. John Noakes, according to the clipboard that came with him. Even with the photo below his name, you couldn’t tell this just by looking at him, not the way his body is all crushed and broken and bloodied and stuff. Basically, it looks like someone dropped a building on him…which, according on the clipboard, is pretty much what happened.
Luckily, DCI Wallander is on hand to explain things. Though I found out everything I need to know from the TV this afternoon, he still wants to tell me all the unnecessary details. I imagine he just wants to voice his thoughts, so I might as well humour him.
“How much are they saying on the news?” he asks me. He seems to be worried about looking patronizing. Quite sweet, really.
“Just the basics, really. Someone blew up a university accommodation block this morning, with about fifty casualties. This guy here is the first you’ve wheeled in.”
“Naff all, in other words.”
“Seems that way.”
“Good. I like to work without distractions.”
Don’t we all. But if Wallander wants to talk, he can talk. I can cope with distractions.
“It was one of their own students, you know.” Wallander says after a few seconds.
I don’t look at him, but I still raise an eyebrow. This might just be interesting after all…
Wallander keeps on talking. “She turned herself in the moment we arrived. She was waiting at the blast site. We’re interrogating her at 7pm, so we’ll know why by then. Must be for a reason, though: she doesn’t strike me as the remorseful type.”
“I thought you said you haven’t interrogated her yet.”
“First impressions, Robert. I’d have thought you’d remember that from training.”
Ah, of course. I’d kinda forgotten about that: down this end of the building, character analysis is somewhat irrelevant. And speaking of which, why does Wallander always insist on calling me by my first name? It’s not as if we’re friends or anything. Still, it doesn’t exactly hurt: as long as he doesn’t start throwing insults, I suppose he can call me whatever he likes.
“Who is she?” I ask. Nothing wrong with feigning a little interest.
“Elizabeth Fawkes. Nineteen years old, from Quarley in Hampshire. A second-year Creative Writing student, or at least up until this morning. Very pretty little lass, too. Not to mention an IQ off the charts and being a stone-cold psychopath.”
“Your average girl next door, then.”
“Something like that.”
Whilst Wallander’s been blathering on, I’ve been having a look over the body. To be honest, I’m not really sure why they brought this Noakes guy down here: when you get dug out of a blown-up building, it’s pretty easy to figure out what you died from. And seeing as they’ve already got the culprit in custody, I can’t see why they’d need any evidence from the body. Well, not including for Fawkes’ trial, anyway. But seeing as this is technically a terrorist incident, I can forgive them for playing this by the book.
There’s one puzzling thing about this body, though. When someone gets involved in a bomb blast, they’re usually in an even worse state than this broken and bloodied mess. The puzzling thing here is that there’s even a body to look at. The way I see it, there’s only one answer.
I finally look up at Wallander. “I’m assuming the actual bomb only destroyed one of the lower floors.” I say to him. “John Noakes here was on one of the higher ones. Hence why he’s still relatively intact.”
“Based on what the techies and the first round of statements have to say, you’d be right. It looks like Fawkes hid small bottles of nitro-glycerine throughout the first floor. When those got set off, the building’s already piss-poor structural integrity was permanently compromised.”
Nitro-glycerine? I haven’t seen that used in a while. You’ve got to give full credit to Fawkes for trying a home-brew.
Wallander carries on talking. “Less than a minute after the explosion, the top four floors of the building collapsed onto the ground one. The end result you saw for yourself.”
So, basically, even though Noakes survived the explosion, the collapsing building killed him anyway. Hardly how I’d choose to go out.
I look back up at Wallander. “That must have taken Fawkes a while to prepare.”
“Months, probably.” Wallander pauses for a few seconds. “What would make someone do a thing like this? I mean, the victims were people she knew.”
“Perhaps that was the point. Either way, I get the feeling she’ll tell you.”
“Hmm. I get that feeling too.”
Of course, there’s something I don’t tell him: who really cares why she did it? It won’t make any difference, not in the grand scheme of things. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in this job, it’s that nothing can change people. You can try anything from grease to a crowbar, but no one ever budges from the gaps they wedge themselves into. Once you figure this out, and you invariably will, then all pretences life has at being interesting just piss right off. Reasons are irrelevant, because there are no reasons. Just boredom, and nothing else.
“So, Miss Peel, when did you first meet Elizabeth Fawkes?”
Why does he want to talk to me? How much does he think I can tell him? These are thinks I’d prefer to talk about. But you don’t want to be unhelpful to a copper. It makes you look like you’re hiding something.
It doesn’t take me long to answer. This is something I can remember. “On our first day at uni. She lived in the room opposite me.”
“In which hall?”
“Newman House. Second Floor.”
The copper doesn’t write this down. I imagine he already knows.
“How did you meet, exactly?”
I’d forgotten about this until recently. But That changed things. I’ve been looking through a lot of old memories since That happened.
I shift about a bit on the sofa. Always take time to phrase things in your mind. As long as it doesn’t make you look like you’re about to lie.
“I had my door open whilst I was unpacking all my stuff. The room was a bit stuffy, so I wanted some air in there. ‘Cause the door was open, I could hear music coming from Elizabeth’s room. “Open Up”, by Leftfield. Anyway, I went over to tell her she had good taste. I was feeling a bit lonely on that first day, so I suppose I just wanted an excuse to talk to someone.”
I’m not in Newman House right now. Second-years have to live off-campus. This conversation is being held in the living room of my Malbrook Road house. It’s not big and it’s not tidy. We’ve left it how the previous tenants did. Cream flowery wallpaper. Coffee carpet. Two chocolate sofas about ready to come apart. Our only addition is a TV set the size of a lunchbox. But it’s still home.
“And did Elizabeth?” the copper says. “Did she want to talk as well?”
“I suppose so. It was only small talk, really, but she was amiable enough. She didn’t tell me to go away, at any rate.”
The copper takes a sip of his tea. It’s not the best cup I’ve ever made. “And that’s how the friendship started, is it?”
Does he believe me or not? It does sound a little too simple for its own good. But this truth isn’t simple.
“I wouldn’t say we were ever friends, not really. I wouldn’t say Elizabeth was someone who needed friends. We were just two people who…got along, I suppose.”
“So what made you get along?”
The answer to this one is simple. “We just had the same tastes. Music, films, books, guys, those kinds of things. The basic stuff, really.”
The copper goes silent. The cheap plastic wall clock ticks loudly for a bit. Then he looks right at me. “Why did Elizabeth ask to move in here?”
He thinks I’m bullshitting. I know he does. He thinks I’m trying to cover for her about something. But she’s already confessed. She’s already told them why. There’s nothing to cover.
This copper’s called Wallander. He looks a lot like you’d expect a police detective to look. Middle-aged. Gray business suit. Slightly overweight. Receding hairline. Looks like policing is his reason to live.
“She didn’t ask. We were one person short for the house, and she didn’t seem to have started looking for her own place. It was convenient for everyone.”
Wallander nods. He seems to understand that one. “So, what was Elizabeth like?”
It’s been three days since That happened. His question is one I’ve thought about a lot. But it’s best to clarify things first.
“You mean, what was she like to live with, or what was she like as a person?”
Wallander shrugs. “Both.”
They’ll both be easy to answer. “As a person…well, I can’t really say I knew her as a person. I don’t think anyone did. She was always polite, always with something to say, but she wasn’t really someone you could talk to. You’d notice when she wasn’t around, but at the same time…I don’t know how to explain it, really.”
It’s a while before Wallander says anything. The clock ticks some more. “So she didn’t seem like someone who’d blow up a building?”
I’ve finished my mug of crap tea. I stand up and walk through into the kitchen. This is a room I actually like. It’s very modernist. Stone floor tiles and black marble-effect worktops. Plain wood doors and chrome appliances. I put the plain white mug next to the sink. Wallander’s looking very embarrassed about something when I get back to the living room.
“Sorry about that.” he says to me. “That was tasteless. You must have known people in Lee House.”
I sit back down on the sofa. I can feel one of the springs starting to poke through the fabric. “Actually, no I didn’t. Don’t worry about it.”
It’s always good to make coppers feel comfortable. That mostly bothers me because it was Elizabeth’s fault. I know we weren’t the best of friends. But I still liked her. I still hadn’t imagined her doing That.
I go back to answering his earlier question. “Elizabeth didn’t strike me as a…bomber, no. She had her quirks, sure, but what student doesn’t?”
Wallander eyes me curiously. “What kind of quirks?”
This is something else I’ve thought about a lot since That. “She was always Elizabeth. If you called her Liz or Ellie or Beth or anything like that, she’d go nuts. “Call me by my name”, she’d always say. I’ve never been able to figure out why.”
Wallander taps the side of his mug with his fingers. He doesn’t look impressed with that bit of information. He’s probably already found it out the hard way.
“Did Elizabeth ever say anything to you?” he asks “Anything that might have been a sign of what she was planning?”
I take my time before answering this one. Perhaps unwise. “There were a few times. Maybe only three or four in the year I knew her, but I still remember them. She’d start talking about how the university was just there to brainwash people, to make everyone the same. All that kind of conspiracy theory stuff. I never really saw her point, to be honest. I just thought she was drunk.”
Though people tend to be more honest when drunk. I really should have paid attention.
Wallander smiles dryly. “Yeah, that tends to happen with students.” I’m not sure if he’s referring to her talking or my not thinking. It’s best not to ask.
“Let’s talk about something more practical.” he says. “Our forensics team said Elizabeth used homemade nitro-glycerine as her explosive. I imagine you don’t know much about nitro, so I’ll just say that it’s not easy to make. If you were clever enough, you could make it in your bedroom, but you wouldn’t be able to do it without attracting attention. You must have seen something.”
I already know Elizabeth used nitro-glycerine. I overheard one of the forensics guys taking about it when they searched her room two days ago. I only found out how dangerous it was by looking online. Elizabeth was insane.
“No, I didn’t see anything. None of us did. For all I know, she did it whilst we were out. Between lectures, jobs and the bar, none of us are at home much.”
Such is the way of the student. I really should have paid attention.
Wallander put his mug down on the carpet. He hasn’t finished it. I can’t imagine he believes my lack of attention. But maybe he does.
“So you don’t really know why Elizabeth did this?” he asks.
“Like I said, I didn’t really know her.” I think now would be the right time to ask the obvious question. “Wouldn’t she have already told you in the interrogation?”
Wallander smiles. “Yes, she did. But until I can get a bigger picture of her personality, I don’t intend to trust a single word she says. Given her intelligence, she could have anything up her sleeve.”
I’ll give Elizabeth that. She was very intelligent. I’m starting to feel that maybe she was more intelligent than the rest of us. You’d have to be, to come up with That.
