Only Darkness (3 page)

‘Anyway, it’s cruel,’ said Sarah Peterson, who had been following the discussion closely. Debbie sighed. Sarah rarely contributed, but it was typical that when she did it was with the wrong end of the stick securely in her hands. She could see Leanne Ferris, one of the brighter members of the group, about to deliver a sharp rebuttal, and she pulled them back to the poem, and began to work them around to thinking about
a less literal interpretation. She saw Sarah diligently writing down the points she was making.

Sarah was Debbie’s particular concern that year, a different kind of student from Leanne. Leanne, quick-minded and confident about her own ideas, would sail through anything the exam system threw at her, as long as Debbie could persuade her to do a bit of work. Sarah worked very hard, but didn’t understand. She had no confidence in her own ideas and opinions, so she wanted someone – Debbie in this case – to tell her what she should think. She didn’t want to know why the answers were correct, what they meant or what the implications were. She just wanted the answers, as her palpable puzzlement when answers weren’t offered made clear.

After the class, Sarah waited until the others had gone, and then asked rather diffidently if there was time to discuss her last essay. ‘The one I did on
Othello.
I didn’t get a very good mark.’ She rummaged in her bag and produced the essay which looked rather crumpled, and a can of Coke. ‘I’ve got to go straight to work,’ she said apologetically, gesturing at the can. Sarah, like a lot of students at City, could only afford to stay at college by working. She had a job at a pub on the outskirts of Moreham.

They discussed the essay, or at least, Debbie did, while Sarah wrote things down. ‘Have another go at it,’ Debbie suggested. ‘Once you’ve got one good essay, it gives you a model for others. Let me have it on Monday, OK?’

‘Thanks, Debbie.’ Sarah smiled and briefly met Debbie’s eyes before hurrying out. Debbie collected her things and headed back to her room.

When she got there, Rob Neave was leaning on the windowsill beside her desk, flicking through the pages of one of her books – a collection of Auden’s poems. He usually showed some interest in her books, though she sometimes found it hard to tell if he really meant it. His face could be difficult to read. He looked up as she came in. ‘Deborah.’ He was one of the few people who used her full name. ‘So what’s this
nothing much
problem?’

‘Do you want a coffee? There was something else as well,
actually.’ He declined the coffee, as she knew he would. He’d made some pointed comments in the past about the standard of the coffee that she and Louise drank. He waited as Debbie got herself a drink, idly turning the pages of the Auden.

She remembered the last time she’d talked to him about poetry. He’d picked up a copy of
The Waste Land
from where it was lying on Debbie’s desk. What had this got to do, he’d wanted to know, with the lives most of the students led? ‘A lot,’ Debbie had retorted. And was it going to help them with what they really needed in their lives – a way to make a decent living? ‘It teaches them how to think.’ Debbie wasn’t giving anything away to anyone about the value of studying literature. He’d argued the point good-naturedly for a bit longer and she’d wondered at the end of it if he’d been winding her up.

‘You can borrow that, if you want.’ She was surprised when he said he would. ‘I thought you didn’t see any point in poetry,’ she said.

‘I didn’t say that.’ He was still turning the pages, but not really reading.

Aware that it sounded a bit blunt, Debbie asked, ‘Is it right that you used to be in the police?’

He looked at her. ‘Who’s been talking to you? Yes, for ten years.’ He didn’t seem to mind her question, but something told her not to ask any more.

‘Let me show you this.’ She took the book out of his hands, and started leafing through it. ‘This one. That end bit there.’ She was looking at the lines towards the end of ‘The Shield of Achilles’, the bit about the ragged urchin in the weed-choked field.
That girls are raped, that two boys knife a third/ were axioms to him, who’d never heard/ Of any world where promises were kept/ Or one could weep because another wept.
He read it through and looked at her, waiting. ‘Didn’t you meet that boy a hundred times when you were in the police force?’

He was still reading the lines. ‘Yes, you see them all the time.’

‘That’s what I meant. Poetry has a lot to do with their lives.’

He grinned, acknowledging both the point, and the fact
that she wasn’t prepared to let the argument go. ‘OK, but you can romanticize as well.’

‘I don’t think that romanticizes. It calls raping and killing axioms.’ She was standing close to him as they read the lines, and she was aware of the warmth coming from him, the smell of a laundered shirt, the faint smell of sweat.

He nodded, but cut the topic off. ‘Right. What’s the problem.’ He listened while Debbie outlined the concerns that she had working in Room B110 at night, where the curtainless windows, brightly lit, looked out on to the street and gave any passer-by a clear view of who was – and who wasn’t – in there. She told him about some trouble she’d had with youths in the street the night before. He looked at her – ‘Why didn’t you report it at the time?’ – making a sudden switch from friendly to official. She had seen him use this device to wrong-foot people, and now it derailed her.

‘There wasn’t anyone around to report it to,’ she protested, sounding defensive in her own ears.

He thought for a moment and seemed to make a conscious effort to move back into a more relaxed stance. ‘I know there’s still a problem with security in the evenings. You could do with mobile phones really, the teaching staff.’ He gave her a quick smile. ‘But that’d be the rest of my budget.’ After he’d made some notes, he said, ‘What was the other thing?’

‘Oh, well …’ Debbie was a bit uncertain now, unsure of his reception, but he leant back against the wall and waited, so she told him about her encounter at the station. He listened in silence. ‘Should I tell the police?’ she said.

‘Yes. Next question.’

‘Do you think it had anything to do with the murder?’ Debbie tried to keep the anxiety out of her voice, but something must have come through, because he narrowed his eyes and his face went serious.

‘I’ve no idea, Deborah. You’ll have to tell them and let them work it out. Why don’t you bring your car when you’re working late?’

‘Because I haven’t got one. I don’t drive.’

He looked exasperated, but Louise turned up before he could say anything, and the conversation turned to more
general college matters. After a few minutes he left, promising to get back to Debbie about Room B110.

Louise was packing a pile of marking into her briefcase. ‘A bit of leisure activity,’ she added, seeing Debbie look at it. ‘Doing anything interesting this weekend?’

Debbie felt low. ‘I hate weekends. I’m not going anywhere, I haven’t got anyone to go with and even if I did I’ve got so much work I couldn’t anyway.’

‘Fancy a drink this evening?’ As Debbie accepted Louise’s invitation, she thought that the older woman must have seen how down she looked. Debbie, the youngest lecturer in the English and humanities team, was usually known as the most cheerful, having, as Louise pointed out, a lot more energy than the others, ‘and the chance of a future that will get you out of this dump.’ They agreed to meet later at Louise’s house. Louise didn’t like pubs much, and Debbie felt like a quiet evening.

Rob Neave was home in his flat, listening to music and letting his mind drift. Maybe things were getting better. They didn’t seem to be getting any worse. The flat was tiny, a bedsitter, really, but called a flat because it was self-contained. He had a small kitchen and a bathroom to call his own, and that was all he’d wanted at the time. He’d taken the first offer on the house he used to share with Angie, the first offer that would cover the mortgage. All he’d taken from the house were his stereo and some pictures. He’d bought everything else he needed – a bed, a chair, carpets, curtains, a cooker. It was all he could manage to do, to find a new place to live, a new job.

The evening stretched in front of him, bleak and empty. He could go out – but where and why? He could stay in, read, listen to music, like he’d done for the past countless number of evenings. He wondered about giving Lynne a ring, going over to her place, talking a bit of police shop, picking up the gossip, spending a couple of hours in her bed. It would be a distraction, something to do. Though she’d probably be busy at this short notice.

Maybe it was time to move on. Staying here, everything
was a reminder. Places he went to, people he saw. He’d found a letter waiting when he got in, from an ex-colleague, Pete Morton. Morton had gone into the security business up in Newcastle, Neave’s childhood city. He’d written to ask if Neave was interested in joining him.
There’s a load of work here,
Morton had written.
I’m starting to turn stuff down.
Neave thought seriously about the offer, about going back to Newcastle. He needed to get away.

Applying for the job at City College had been part of getting away. He didn’t know anyone there, and no one knew him. The job had looked interesting as well. The place was wide open, equipment was walking out through the front door, the buildings were being vandalized and staff and bona fide students were starting to feel intimidated. It had been a challenge he’d enjoyed, imposing a system on to the anarchic world of post-sixteen education. It had given him something to think about, but he’d done as much as he could there.

He knew he wasn’t particularly liked. It didn’t worry him. He had the capacity to get on well with people, inspire trust – it had been an asset in his last job, but he didn’t need it now. His face in repose looked boyish and good-humoured, and his eyes, despite – or perhaps because of – the lines under them that seemed to be a permanent feature now, tended to look as though he smiled a lot. When people found out he wasn’t the easy-going person he seemed, they resented it. But he got results.

He thought about his conversation with Deborah Sykes that afternoon. He remembered his first meeting with her. She’d been banging her head against the brick wall of management, trying to get a perfectly reasonable request for decent lighting implemented. The response had been to agree in principle and postpone action
until the budget allowed
– i.e. indefinitely. He’d played traitor on that one, and helped her get it through. She, and then Louise, her sharp-tongued boss, had become his first supporters in the place. He enjoyed their company, and had taken to dropping into their room to talk to them.

He’d fired Debbie’s evangelical instincts when they’d had some kind of argument about books, about the value of
poetry, and she’d started lending him things she wanted him to read. Typical bloody teacher. He smiled. He liked Debbie, and he’d been relieved when he’d seen her come through the college entrance that morning. His mind wandered. He could picture her now, not very tall – her head had just reached his shoulder when she stood beside him this afternoon. She kept her black hair firmly pulled back and held in a knot with pins and combs, and it had smelled clean and sweet. He tried to picture it curling down round her pale, pretty face and over those small, high tits … He shook himself awake, pushed that line of thought out of his mind –
you don’t need that
– and picked up the book she’d lent him, turning the pages back to the poem she’d pointed out …
were axioms to him, who’d never heard/ Of any world where promises were kept/ Or one could weep because another wept.

She was right, he’d known them, the empty-eyed children who didn’t seem to know – or to care – what or why their lives meant to themselves or anyone. And maybe it was him, too.

He read on through some of the other poems, and found more words that spoke to him –
the glacier knocks in the cupboard, the desert sighs in the bed
… He even found that ‘Stop all the Clocks’ poem from the last film he’d seen with Angie. He couldn’t read that. It had made Angie cry, and it would make him cry now, if he could cry, if he wanted to cry.

‘The thing is,’ Debbie said, pouring herself another glass of wine. ‘Sorry, did you want one? The thing is, I like being on my own and I don’t – if you see what I mean. When things are going OK it’s great, but when you’ve got something on your mind, you haven’t got anyone to talk to.’ She stood up, feeling the wine she’d drunk, and got another bottle out of her bag. ‘I bought a red. Is that all right?’ She had arrived about eight-thirty, and they’d spent the first hour talking about work, students, and drinking a bit too quickly.

‘Yes, fine. I dunno about all this talking it over.’ Louise had been married for twelve years and sometimes envied Debbie her freedom. ‘Dan only has conversations with the television these days. What problems? Want to talk about it?’

‘Oh, it’s complicated. A bit of it’s Tim, I suppose.’

‘Tim Godber? He’s always a problem. I wish he’d go and be a proper journalist and stop wasting my time.’ Louise had to organize curriculum and timetables, and thought that Tim didn’t take his teaching work seriously. ‘What’s your problem with Tim?’

‘Well, we had a bit of a fling and I wish we hadn’t. There’s something a bit creepy about him.’

‘Is he giving you any hassle?’ Louise’s voice sharpened.

‘No, oh no, nothing like that. I just wish, I don’t know, that I’d kept away from him, really …’

‘Did you enjoy it at the time?’ Louise refilled her glass and raised an eyebrow at Debbie.