Peter Hamilton: Manhattan in Reverse

‘I’ve divided them into two categories,’ he told the Operations Centre. ‘Dunbar students sharing the same accommodation wing; physically close enough to have killed Raleigh, but for whom there is no known motive, just opportunity. And a batch of his closest friends. We’re still waiting for the last one of them to arrive, but I gather the uniform division has now located him. First off, I want the doctor to collect blood samples from all of them before the interviews start; if this is a drug-or alcohol-induced crime we’ll need to be quick to catch the evidence.’

Standing discreetly at the back of the room, I watched the rest of the officers acknowledge this. It was as though they were willing that to be the solution. Like me, they didn’t want a world where one normal, unaffected person could do this to another.

‘Wrong approach,’ Francis muttered quietly to me.

‘In what way?’ I muttered back.

‘This slaying was planned; methodically and cleverly. Drugs or alcohol implies spur-of-the-moment madness. An irrational act to which there would have been witnesses. You mark my words: there won’t be a fingerprint on either the knife or the window.’

‘You may be right.’

‘When Pitchford starts the interviews, I want us to attend those with Justin’s friends. Do I need to tell you why?’

‘No.’ It was at a time like this I both appreciated and resented the old man’s testing. It was an oblique compliment that he thought I had the potential to succeed him eventually; but it was irritating in equal proportion that I was treated as the office junior. ‘Whoever did this had to know Justin, which means the friends are the only genuine suspects.’

‘Glad to see all those expensive courses we sent you on haven’t been totally wasted,’ Francis said. I heard a reluctant note of approval in his voice. ‘The only other suspect I can think of is a Short. They don’t value life as much as we do.’

I kept my face composed even though I could not help but regard him as an old bigot at heart. Blaming the Shorts for everything from poor harvests to a tyre puncture was a prejudice harking back to the start of the Second Imperial Era, when the roots of today’s families were grown amid the Sport of Emperors. Our march through history, it would seem, isn’t entirely noble.

The interview room was illuminated by a pair of hundred-watt bulbs in white ceramic shades. A stark light in a small box of a room. Glazed amber tiles decorated the lower half of the walls, adding to the chill atmosphere. The only door was a sturdy metal affair with a slatted grate halfway up.

Peter Samuel Griffith sat behind the table in a wooden chair, visibly discomfited by the surroundings. He was holding a small sterile gauze patch to the needle puncture in his arm where the police doctor had taken a sample of his blood. I used my pencil to make a swift note reminding myself to collect such samples for our family institute to review.

Detective Gareth Alan Pitchford and a female stenographer sat opposite Mr Griffith whilst Francis and myself stood beside the door, trying to appear inconspicuous.

‘The first thing which concerns me, obviously, is the timing of events,’ the detective said. ‘Why don’t you run through them again for me, please?’

‘You’ve heard it all before,’ Peter Samuel Griffith said. ‘I was working on an essay when I heard what sounded like an argument next door.’

‘In what way? Was there shouting, anything knocked about?’

‘No. Just voices. They were muffled, but whoever was in there with Justin was disagreeing with him. You can tell, you know.’

‘Did you recognize the other voice?’

‘No. I didn’t really hear it. Whoever they were, they spoke pretty quietly. It was Justin who was doing the yelling. Then he screamed. That was about half past eleven. I phoned the lodgekeepers.’

‘Immediately?’

‘More or less, yes.’

‘Ah, now you see, Peter, that’s my problem. I’m investigating a murder, for which I need hard facts; and you’re giving me more or less . Did you phone them immediately? It’s not a crime that you didn’t. You’ve done the right thing, but I must have the correct details.’

‘Well, yeah… I waited a bit. Just to hear if anything else happened. That scream was pretty severe. When I couldn’t hear anything else, I got really worried and phoned down.’

‘Thank you, Peter. So how long do you think you waited?’

‘Probably a minute, or so. I… I didn’t know what to do at first; phoning the lodgekeepers seemed a bit drastic. I mean, it could just have been a bit of horsing around that had gone wrong. Justin wouldn’t have wanted to land a chum in any trouble. He was a solid kind of chap, you know.’

‘I’m sure he was. So that would have been about, when…?’

‘Eleven thirty-two. I know it was. I looked at the clock while I was calling the lodgekeepers.’

‘Then you phoned Mr Kenyon straight away?’

‘Absolutely. I did have to make two calls, though. He wasn’t at his college, his room-mate gave me a number. Couldn’t have taken more than thirty seconds to get hold of him.’

‘What did you tell him?’

‘Just that there was some sort of trouble in Justin’s room, and the lodgekeepers were coming. Justin and Carter are good friends, best friends. I thought he’d want to know what was going on. I’d realized by then that it was serious.’

‘Most commendable. So after you’d made the phone call to Mr Kenyon you went out into the corridor and waited, is that right?’

‘Yes.’

‘How long would you say it was between the scream and the lodgekeepers arriving?’

‘Probably three or four minutes. I’m not sure exactly, they arrived pretty quick once I got out into the corridor.’

The detective turned round to myself and Francis. ‘Anything you want to ask?’

‘No, thank you,’ Francis said before I could answer.

I have to say it annoyed me. The detective had missed points — like had there been previous arguments, how was he sure it was Justin who screamed, was there anything valuable in the room, which other students had been using the corridor and could confirm his whole story? I kept my silence, assuming Francis had good reason.

Next in was Carter Osborne Kenyon, who was clearly suffering from some kind of delayed shock. The police provided him with a mug of tea, which he clamped his hands around for warmth, or comfort. I never saw him drink any of it at any time during the interview.

His tale started with the dinner at the Orange Grove that evening, where Justin’s other closest friends had gathered: Antony Caesar Pitt, Christine Jayne Lockett, and Alexander Stephan Maloney. ‘We did a lot of things together,’ Carter said. ‘Trips to the opera, restaurants, theatre, games… we even had a couple of holidays in France in the summer — hired a villa in the south. We had good times.’ He screwed his eyes shut, almost in tears. ‘Dear Mary!’

‘So you’d known each other as a group for some time?’ Gareth Alan Pitchford asked.

‘Yes. You know how friendships are in college; people cluster together around interests, and class too, I suppose. Our families tend to have status. The six of us were a solid group, have been for a couple of years.’

‘Isn’t that a bit awkward?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Two girls, four men.’

Carter gave a bitter laugh. ‘We don’t have formal membership to the exclusion of everyone else. Girlfriends and boyfriends come and go, as do other friends and acquaintances; the six of us were a core if you like. Some nights there could be over twenty of us going out together.’

‘So you’d known Justin for some time; if he could confide in anyone it would be you or one of the others?’