The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime 10

THE LADDER by Adrian McKinty

DONALD SIGHED AS the university loomed out of the rain and greyness. All morning he had hit nothing but red lights and now, although it was green, he had to stop because a huge gang of students was crossing the pedestrian walkway in front of him.

It was rag week and they were wearing costumes: animals, Cossacks, knights, milkmaids. Predictable and drab, the outfits had a home-made look and they depressed him. The students were laughing and some were actually skipping. It was raining, it was cold, it was November in godforsaken Belfast so what the hell had they to laugh about?

The traffic light went red and then amber and then green again and still they hadn’t all got across. He was tempted to honk them off the road but no doubt from hidden pockets they would produce flour-and-water bombs and throw them at him. He sat there patiently while the car behind began to toot. He looked in the rearview at a vulnerable, orange VW Microbus. Yeah, you keep doing that, mate, he said to himself, and sure enough half a dozen eggs cut up the poor fool’s windscreen.

He chortled to himself as the mob cleared and he turned into the car park.

“Jesus, is that a grin?” McCann asked him when he appeared in the office.

He nodded.

“What, have you got a job offer somewhere?” McCann wondered.

“No, old chap, I am doomed to spend my declining years with your boorish self and my cretinous students in this bombed-out hell-hole of a city slowly sinking into the putrid mudflats from which it so inauspiciously began.”

“Bugger, if I’d known I was going to get an essay…” McCann said, not all that good-naturedly.

Donald took off his jacket and set it down on the chair. “Is this coffee drinkable?” he asked, staring dubiously at the tarry black liquid in the coffee pot.

“Drinkable yes. Distinguishable as coffee, no.”

Donald poured himself a cup anyway, added two sugars and picked up the morning paper.

“Before I lose interest entirely, why were you smiling when you came in? Some pretty undergraduate, no doubt?” McCann asked.

“No, no, nothing like that, I’m afraid. The students went after some hippy driving a VW Microbus… talk about devouring your own.”

“Aye. I’ve seen that thing around. New guy. Been parking in my spot. Kicked his side panels a few times. Buckled like anything. It’s an original. Those old ones are bloody death traps.”

“A windscreen covered with eggs and flour won’t make it any safer.”

McCann took out his pipe and began filling it with tobacco. Donald went back to the paper. “So what’s on the old agenda today anyway?” McCann asked.

“Nothing in the morning. Playing squash at lunchtime and then we’re doing The Miller’s Tale after lunch.”

“The Miller’s Tale? Which one’s that?”

“Do you actually want to know?”

“Well, not really, I suppose,” McCann replied, somewhat shamefaced.

The hours passed by in a haze of tobacco smoke, bad coffee, worse biscuits and dull news from the paper.

At twelve Donald slipped off, only to be intercepted by a student outside the gym.

“Dr Bryant,” the student began in a lilting voice, and Donald remembered that he was a Welshman called Jones or Evans or something.

“Mr Jones, how can I help you today?”

“Uh, actually my name is-”

“Yes, Mr Jones, how I can help you? Come on. Out with it, man. I’m in a hurry.”

“Uhm, Dr Bryant, I’m supposed to do a presentation next week on Jonson…”

“Ben or Sam or, God save us, Denis?”

“Uhhh, the playwright.”

“They all wrote plays, Mr Jones.”

“They did? Uhm, well, it’s Ben. Yeah. And, well, the library doesn’t have the secondary sources… someone took them all and I don’t know what to do really. I tried to borrow them from the University of Ulster library but they’re out too. I’ve read all the primary stuff, but I want the secondary sources to do a good job.”

Donald felt a pinprick of guilt. Mr Jones seemed like a nice, sincere young man. One of the few good students. He was studying engineering but was taking English as an elective. Perhaps that explained his curious dedication. The BAs in English were all perverts and drug fiends. “All right, Mr Jones, come by my office at four today and I’ll lend you my own books, they should be sufficient for a half-decent presentation. You’ll be careful with them, won’t you?”

“Oh, God, yeah, thank you, thank you very much,” the student said.

Donald arrived at the gym feeling unnaturally buoyant – two quite pleasant incidents in one morning.

He showed his ID to Peter Finn, the ancient security guard at the reception desk.

“Afternoon, Dr Bryant,” Peter said in his rough country accent.

“Afternoon,” he replied curtly.

“Going to give the wee muckers another hiding, eh?”

“One tries, Peter, one tries.”

“You still at the top?” Peter asked, knowing full well the answer.

Donald swelled a little. “Still plugging away.”

“Sixteen straight months, Professor Millin says. Yon’s a record, ye know,” Peter said very seriously.

“Is it indeed?” Donald said, and this time it was his turn to pretend.

“Aye.”

“Well, all good things must come to an end sometime. This new crop of lecturers is giving me a run for my money,” Donald said magnanimously.

Peter winked at him as if he didn’t quite believe him.

Donald grinned, went to the basement, found locker 201 and changed quickly into his gear: a casual blue tee-shirt, white shorts, white socks and an old pair of Adidas squash sneakers. He looked at himself in the mirror. He was in the prime of life. His eyes were clear, his cheeks clean-shaved, his hair jet black with only a few strands of invading grey around the ears.

Fenton was late and Donald tried hard not to show his irritation. Fenton was a slightly younger man and he was nimble. He was number three on the squash ladder and by no means an unworthy opponent. Fenton playing above his game and Donald playing beneath his could pretty much even out the field. Fenton changed into his kit: pristine white shorts, Fred Perry top and a brand new racket.

They walked to the court, stretched, warmed up the ball.

Donald won the racquet spin.

He served a high looping ball that died in the corner. Fenton made an attempt to return it but he had no chance. Donald served five more like that before Fenton managed to get one back and by that time it was too late – his confidence was broken. Donald won the match three games to one, Fenton’s sole game coming from Donald’s largesse. When he was in control it was Donald’s policy always to let an opponent win at least one game so that no one would ever know the true picture of his ability.

They showered and had a quick gin and tonic in the bar before Donald went off to his lecture. It was nearly a full house, the students didn’t ask stupid questions and he was in good form when he set off for home at four o’clock. Halfway to the car he remembered about young Jones and went back to his office. Amazingly the undergraduate was on time and he gave him the books without further ado.

“Quite the day,” he said to himself as he walked to his Volvo Estate under a clearing sky. Susan noticed his good mood immediately as he picked her up outside the Ulster Bank on Botanic Avenue. “You’re in a good mood,” she said.

“Yes,” he said. “Let’s eat out at the new Italian.”

“What about your aubergine lasagne?”

“We’ll give it to the dog.”

“What dog?”

“Any dog.”

The drive to Carrickfergus was easy, the new Italian was acceptable, the sommelier complimented him on his choice of wine.

He parked the Volvo outside his neat, mock-Tudor detached house near the Marina. After another cheeky bottle of Tuscan red he and Susan had sex only slightly less exciting than that he’d been lecturing about this afternoon in The Miller’s Tale.

As days go, it wasn’t bad and when the university loomed out of the mist next morning, this time he didn’t sigh.

Susan, getting a lift to Belfast for the shopping, smiled at him.

“It’s growing on you,” she said.

“Perhaps,” he agreed.

“You’re playing Fenton today in your silly squash thing, aren’t you?”

“Oh, no, that was yesterday. And it’s not silly. He was the third seed. Psyched him out completely, poor chap. Went to pieces. Had to go easy on him.”

“So you’re still top of the ladder?”

Donald was a little surprised at the question. Of course he was still top. Did she seriously think he could take her out to the expensive new Italian restaurant, get the priciest plonk on the menu and be happy as a clam if he was off the top? My God, what kind of cipher did she think she’d married?

“Oh, yes, I think so,” he said casually.

She started talking about something or other but he was replaying the game in his mind, wondering if his backhand was still quite as strong as his lob. He left her outside the bank.

“So you’ll drive me to the soup kitchen on Saturday?” she asked, getting out of the car.

“I’ll drive you,” he said, and then after a pause added: “What soup kitchen, what are you talking about?”

“Haven’t you been listening? Our reading group. That book really affected us and we’re volunteering at the soup kitchen on Saturday. Christmas is coming, you know.”

He tried to think what the book could be. Something by Orwell perhaps, or Dickens, or some ghastly novel set among the poor of India.

“Of course I’ll drive you. In fact, I think I’ll even go. Help out.”

“You?” she said incredulously.

“Me, yes. Why so shocked? I’m a Labour man through and through. Help the common people, each according to his needs and from, uh, you know…that’s my motto,” he said with only semisarcasm, for she had hurt him a little with her surprise.

The week went by like every other week and on Saturday he did help out in the soup kitchen and it was by no means completely unpleasant. Some of the indigent were witty and grateful fellows fallen on hard times and he felt, if not happy, at least content.

The following Monday morning Mr Jones gave his presentation and it wasn’t bad and that afternoon he played squash with Professor Millin in the gym. Millin was number six on the ladder, not a serious opponent. An older man, a physics lecturer, well into his forties, although last week he had taken a game off Dunleavy who was currently in second place and Dunleavy was the sort who never let anyone have a game, ever.

“Heard you gave old Fred Dunleavy a run for his money,” Donald said conversationally as they walked down to the court.

“The big Scots ganch, I showed him! He’s slipping, he’s really slipping, getting a paunch. I tell you, you’ll cream him next time you play him, cream him,” Millin said.

Donald was happy to hear this. Dunleavy was a young Physical Education lecturer and for some time it had been his fear that Dunleavy would one day pull a superb game out of the bag and beat him.

“He’s been avoiding me for weeks, I suppose that’s why,” Donald said with satisfaction.

They paused outside the court to stretch. Donald looked at the squash ladder and was surprised to see a new name way down at the bottom, at number sixteen: V. M. Sinya.

“Who’s that?” he said, pointing at the name. Millin was the Ladder Secretary for this term, so he should know.

“Oh, yes, new fella, foreigner, bloody Pak…er, I mean, uh, an Indian gent, I think. Initials stand for Victor Mohammed so I suppose he’s a Muslim. He’s from Computer Science. A lot of those boys do computers nowadays.”

“Is he any good?” Donald asked with a hint of nervousness in his voice. Anyone new could be trouble and several world champions had come from Pakistan.

“How the hell should I know?” Millin replied with great indifference.

“All right, let’s go in,” Donald said putting all ominous thoughts of the newcomer out of his mind.

He let Millin have a few points early before cruising to an easy victory in four games. He showered, picked up Susan and drove home.

On Thursday the Dean told him that his student evaluations were up since last term and, after buttering him up, asked if he’d ever considered standing for the University Council. He had no such intention but the thought that the Dean was interested in him pleased him immensely.

On Friday he had a game with McCann who was number twelve on the ladder. McCann had been quite a useful little player until the drink had become the dominant force in his life. Now all he was left with was a powerful serve and a few trick shots. He had no stamina and he couldn’t get about the court. Donald never usually bothered to play anyone this low down but McCann was a friend. When he got to the court he was pleased to see that Mr V. M. Sinya was still at number sixteen. He hadn’t even been able to beat old Franklin at fifteen, clearly the man wasn’t much of a threat. He found that he was tremendously relieved by this. Was the ladder so important to him that the thought of a mysterious stranger had given him the jitters? He laughed at himself. What a dunderhead you are, he said to himself, and to prove his good humour he let McCann take a couple of games.

On Saturday he was still feeling sufficiently good to help out at the soup kitchen. Also at the weekend he received a letter to say that one of his papers on Chaucer was going to be anthologized in the new collection by Dalrimple. Things, in fact, were going so well that he began to be suspicious that something terrible was about to happen. Perhaps he would be informed that he had some dreadful illness or maybe he would crash the car.

Just in case, he took the train to work on Monday, sitting in a back carriage near the emergency exit and steeling himself for a sudden derailment.

Nothing happened except for fifty gum-chewing, messy, obnoxious children getting on at Greenisland who tormented him all the way to Central Station with their music and pointless celebrity gossip.

His fears of impending disaster were somewhat realized when he showed up at the court to play Dunleavy and he saw that the mysterious Mr Sinya was at number ten on the squash ladder. The man had demolished five opponents in a week! This meant, of course, he had displaced McCann, so at least he could interrogate his friend at lunch.

In an unusually brutal and hurried match he thrashed Dunleavy, showered quickly and found McCann in the office, eating toast and drinking tea mixed with whisky.

“What’s Sinya like?” he blurted out before even saying hello.

“Sinya, I’ve no idea, mate.”

“You played him.”

“I gave him a bye, he wanted to play me on Friday lunchtime and I just couldn’t be bothered.”

“You gave him a bye?”

“Yes.”

“So maybe that’s why he’s jumped up the ladder? People have been giving him byes.”

“Aye, could be,” McCann said, not at all interested.

Relief sank over Donald like chloroform and again he chastised himself for the importance he attached to something so silly as the squash ladder.

The relief lasted until Wednesday when he bumped into Millin coming out of the university bookshop. Millin informed him that Sinya had demolished him and that he, Sinya, was now number five on the ladder.

“What’s he like?” Donald asked, trying not to sound frantic or panicked.

“Oh, he’s good. Going to give you a pretty tough game.”

“What’s he like?” Donald insisted.

“Don’t get your knickers in a twist. He’s Pakistani. I suppose forty, perhaps older, it’s hard to tell with them. He’s fast, and my God…that serve, those returns! It’s a nightmare. You give him any opportunity and he destroys you. Our match was over in half an hour.”

Donald went home that night in a state of distress. He barely talked to Susan and he couldn’t concentrate on his proofs for the Dalrimple book.

From his upstairs study he stared at the boats in Carrickfergus marina and the grey castle beyond. The halyards were muzzled by the wind, the granite castle walls kept their own counsel.

Could it be that the squash ladder was perhaps the one thing that gave him any satisfaction, any sense of accomplishment, in what was really a rather pathetic, little, nondescript life?

Not the teaching, not the writing, not even Susan.

And now, inevitably, he was going to face his Nemesis. It was a melodramatic thought but he couldn’t shake it.

A few days later the phone rang in his office. With a sense of dread he picked up the receiver. Naturally it was Sinya. He had beaten Fenton and Dunleavy and he would like to play Donald whenever it was convenient.

His voice was pleasant enough, foreign but not very foreign, and gentle. Aye, that’s how they get you, Donald thought. Softly softly. Lull you and then go for the jugular. Bastards. Well, he wouldn’t let them. He wouldn’t take this lying down. This was his league, his campus. Who did this guy think he was, for Christ’s sake? He’d been going easy on these chumps, he could take them all with one hand behind his back. This guy was no different. Try to spook me? See about that. He realized that during this prolonged internal soliloquy Sinya had been waiting for a reply on the other end of the phone.

“This afternoon’s fine with me. One p.m.” he said quickly, hung up and attempted to bury himself in work until just before the match.

He arrived early but Sinya was already there, changed, waiting for him. They shook hands. Sinya was tall, bearded, good-looking. He had a very charming way about him. He smiled easily and was polite. He asked Donald how he was and enquired about Donald’s new (bought yesterday) super-light, super-strong, carbon-fibre, state-of-the-art Khan Slazenger Pro racket.

Sinya won the spin, served, and launched a tremendous dying serve that Donald barely returned, but of course Sinya was already at the front wall waiting to volley Donald’s weak backhand. Donald, anticipating a crushing return, ran to the back right of the court, but Sinya placed a perfect drop shot in the left front corner, flat-footing Donald and winning the point. Sinya won the next four points and then missed one. On Donald’s serve, Sinya volleyed the ball back so fast Donald didn’t even see it until it was too late.

The whole match went that way, Donald’s play grew worse and forty-five minutes later it was all over. He had managed to take a game but Sinya had easily beaten him: 9-5, 9-4, 7-9, 9-1. Shell-shocked, he let his opponent prattle on about this and that and then watched with horror as Sinya stopped at the noticeboard outside the court and had the cheek to take out Donald’s name from the top of the ladder and substitute his own. Couldn’t the bastard even have the decency to wait until he was showering?

He drove home and after four hours of silence Susan got it out of him, and of course he agreed that it was only a stupid game and it meant nothing. The next day he went to the court with his new racket and practised serves and drop shots for an hour and called Sinya and asked him for a rematch.

The rematch was on a Friday and this time Sinya took him in straight sets. He realized with horror that Sinya had given him the game he’d won last time as a courtesy, just as he had condescendingly done with the lesser players in his bouts.

They walked back to car park and Sinya stopped at the repulsive Volkswagen Microbus Donald had seen egged by the rag week students.

“Do you want a lift?” he asked. “You’re in Carrick, aren’t you? I drive all the way to Larne so it would be easy to drop you.”

The fact that Sinya lived in Larne, one of the grimmest towns in Ulster, gave Donald no comfort on the silent ride home.

Sinya’s reign at the top began and seemed unbreakable. He was miles ahead of all the players. In fact, if he’d been younger he could well have been an international. Weeks went by and Donald played him on and off with little effect. On a weekend game with Fenton, Donald unexpectedly lost, and after another fortnight he was only at number four on the ladder.

Despite the repeated assurances of his wife, his friends and even, on one humiliating occasion, the university’s psychological counsellor, that it was only a senseless cardboard list of names, he felt that his work, his health, his libido and his mental outlook were all suffering terribly as he slipped down the ladder.

Christmas came and went, term ended and began again.

McCann was no comfort but Donald found himself spending a lot of time with him in Lavery’s or the Bot, enjoying increasingly frequent liquid lunches.

At the gym he noticed now that Peter Finn was cool to him at the door. On a miserable Tuesday morning he played a man called Jennings, lost in straight games and found that he was now last on the ladder. He almost relished this final embarrassment. Now there was no place lower to go.

He slipped upstairs to the cafeteria, called Susan and asked if she could get a lift back to Carrick with one of her friends. He sat, nursing a coffee, watching the sky darken and the lights come on street by street, Sandy Row, the Shankill, the Falls, the illumination moving north to the old shipyards and then down around the university and the City Hospital. In Belfast tonight there would be violence and love and passion and death. People in the hospital would be passing away from cancer, accidents, heart disease, and in other wards dozens of babies were being born. New lives for old.

“It really isn’t that important, you know, old man,” he said to himself.

“What isn’t important?”

He turned. It was Mr Jones, his student from last term’s course on the Elizabethans. He was holding a book called Automotive Engineering Mistakes.

“Oh, I was just talking to myself. Join me. Have a seat. What on Earth are you reading?”

Jones sat. “It’s about design faults in cars. Not just the Ford Pinto. Some pretty famous cars. Even brilliant designers make mistakes.”

He got Jones a coffee.

Something McCann had once said came floating back into Donald’s mind.

“I heard those Volkswagen Microbuses are a death trap,” he said.

Jones grinned. “Oh, yeah! No crumple zone at the front to absorb a crash and the exhaust pipe runs the full length of the floor…oh, boy, you get two holes in the rust and your vehicle’s filled with carbon monoxide. Death trap isn’t the…”

But Donald was no longer listening.

It would be the easiest thing in the world.

Punch a hole through the floor and the exhaust.

Punch a hole. Let fate take over. If nothing happened, nothing happened. But if Sinya got into an unfortunate accident in the long drive from Belfast to Larne, well, it wouldn’t really be Donald’s fault. It wouldn’t be murder, or attempted murder. It was a design flaw in the vehicle, he was helping nature take its course.

He said goodnight to Jones, ran six flights to the ground floor and out into the wet, cold January darkness.

He knew that it would have to be now. Tonight. If he thought about it, he wouldn’t do it at all. He conscience would kick in. His middle-class sensibility. His cowardice.

It would have to be now or never.

He reached the car park. It was six o’clock. Most of the vehicles had gone but the putrid orange Volkswagen was still there. Sinya often worked late. Trying to get ahead no doubt, Donald thought spitefully. He went to his Volvo, rummaged in the boot and found a torch and his toolkit. He locked the boot and walked to the Volkswagen.

“I’m not going to do this, it’s not me,” he said to himself.

He checked that the coast was clear. No one was within a hundred yards.

“I don’t even know what to do. Should have asked Jones for details. Doesn’t matter, I’m not going to do anything. I’m not a killer. What I will do is take a look underneath, just to see if it’s possible.”

He scanned the car park again, turned on the torch, squatted on the wet tarmac and looked under the VW. A great hulking exhaust pipe ran almost all the way from the front of the cabin to the back of the car. The pipe was rusted, the chassis was rusted. A few taps from a screwdriver might do the trick…

He stood, checked the car park one more time.

No one.

He was calm.

He lay back down again.

In five minutes it was done.

He had punched a hole in the top of the exhaust pipe and another through to the cabin. He had connected the two holes with a paper coffee cup he had found lying around – squeezing the cup into a tube. If an accident did occur the cup would burn in the fire, and if it didn’t it was an innocent enough thing to find stuck under your car.

He wiped himself down, got in his car, sped to the Crown Bar, had two pints of Guinness to calm his nerves and drove home.

In his study he had a double vodka and a cognac but he couldn’t sleep.

Susan went to bed and he checked the radio for reports of road accidents, deaths.

He really didn’t want Sinya to die. If the poor man was injured that would be enough. Then Donald could resume his march back up the squash ladder and get his life back in order. Get to the top, stop drinking with McCann, start writing his book, have that talk with Susan about kids again…

Finally he drifted off to sleep on the living-room sofa at about three. He woke before the dawn in the midst of a nightmare. Sinya’s Volkswagen had plunged off the cliff at the Bla Hole just outside Whitehead. Two hundred feet straight down on to the rocks below. The car had smashed and it was assumed to be an accident but the police had found a paper cup wedged in the exhaust. The murderer had left fingerprints all over it.

Five years earlier Donald had been arrested for cannabis possession at Sussex University. His prints were in the database.

“Oh my God,” he said.

He turned on the radio, found the traffic report: a road accident in Omagh, another in County Down, nothing so far on the Belfast-Larne Road.

He paced the living room. What madness had overtaken him? To try to kill a man over something so preposterous as a squash ladder? He had obviously taken leave of his senses. That’s what he would do at the trial. He’d plead temporary insanity.

Insane was the right word. Macbeth crazy. Lear crazy.

Susan woke and he was such a mess that she drove him to Belfast.

He thanked her and ran to the car park.

The Volkswagen wasn’t there.

“Oh, Christ,” he said to himself.

He cancelled his lecture, went to his office and waited for the telephone to ring. He imagined the phone ringing, the resulting brief conversation:

“Is that Dr Bryant?

“Yes.”

“This is Detective McGuirk, we’d like to come over and ask you a few questions if that would be okay…”

He found an ancient packet of cigarettes, lit one and sat in his onyx Eclipse Ergonomic Operator Chair waiting. The phone lurked in its cradle…

There was a knock at the door but it was only McCann come by to see if he wanted to go for lunch. He said he wasn’t feeling well. It wasn’t untrue. He felt sick to his stomach. McCann left. He closed the door and turned the light off. He sat there in the dark. Perhaps they wouldn’t ring him. The first he would know about it would be them marching into his office with guns drawn.

He wouldn’t go with them. He wouldn’t let them take him. His office was on the sixth floor. The window. A brief fall through the damp air. A crash. And then… nothingness.

He waited.

Waited.

He sank beneath his desk and curled foetally on the floor.

The phone rang.

“Dr Bryant?”

“Sinya?”

“Yes.”

It was Sinya. He was alive!

“Yes?” Donald managed.

“Dr Bryant, Professor Millin cancelled with me today and I was wondering if you could squeeze in a quick game?”

“A game? A squash game? Yes, yes, of course, I’ll be right over.”

He sprinted the stairs.

Sinya was already in the court warming the ball.

He waved to him through the glass, ran to the locker room, changed into his gear and ran back to the court without stretching or getting a drink of water.

He didn’t care how suspicious or unsubtle he sounded. He had to know.

“I didn’t see your car this morning. You’re always in first,” Donald said.

Sinya grimaced. “That thing tried to kill me. I was halfway home last night and I realized the whole car was stinking of exhaust fumes. I pulled over just before Whitehead. Would you believe it? The whole exhaust is rusted away next to nothing and a paper cup had blown in there and gotten stuck between the exhaust and the car. I left it at the garage in Whitehead and got a taxi home. I suppose I’ll have to get it fixed.”

Donald grinned with relief.

Emotions were cascading through him: relief, happiness, gratitude.

He would inform Susan tonight that she should go off the pill. He would start going to that soup kitchen again. He would give to charity. He would really get cracking on the book.

This would be his last squash game ever.

“I have really screwed up my priorities, darling,” he’d tell Susan. “That silly squash ladder! Something as banal as that. I’m going to be more Zen. Live in the present, live in reality. Real things. You, me, life, stuff like that. It’s corny but, well, I’ve had a moment of clarity. It’s about perspective. It all seems so bloody stupid now. God. I mean can you believe how obsessed I was?”

Sinya hit him a few practice shots which he returned with ease.

“Well, I’m sorry about your car, old chap, but I think you can afford a new vehicle with the money they’re paying you in computers. And Larne isn’t the priciest place in the world to live. You should be more like me. Enjoy life. Live for the moment. Get yourself a Merc or a Beemer. You deserve it,” Donald said.

Sinya laughed. “Are you kidding? The university only gives me three hundred a week, you know. A BMW on my wages?”

“Three hundred a week? What are you talking about? A junior lecturer makes twenty-five grand a year. It’s more in computers, I’m sure.”

Sinya grinned. “I’m not a lecturer. I’m a technician in the computer department. I fix the machines, man. Hardware, software, you name it.”

Donald gasped but said nothing.

The game began and Sinya took a mere thirty-five minutes to beat him.

They showered, talked about the weather, shook hands, parted ways.

Donald walked to the English department building.

No one knew, no one had to know.

When he got to his office he called Millin and told him. Millin was outraged.

“Doesn’t the fellow know that the ladder is only open to faculty? My God, the effrontery.”

“You’ll do something about it?”

“Of course I will. Right away. I’ll scrub the last two months’ results and put it back to the way it was at the beginning of December.”

Donald hung up the phone. Leaned back in his chair.

Grey sky.

Black sky.

Night.

Stars.

In the car Susan talked about the soup kitchen, birth control. He avoided giving direct answers. They ate separate microwaved meals from Marks & Spencer.

When he got into work the next morning he went straight to the gym. V. M. Sinya’s name had disappeared and he, Dr D. Bryant, was again in the number one spot, for the first time in nearly two months.

“The once and future king,” Peter said at reception, startling him.

“Yes,” he attempted to reply, but his throat was dry and no sound came.