Hands of the Ripper (12 page)

But sometimes you just had to.

Seven

The Division

JOHN WOKE TO
the first dry skies for weeks. It wasn’t only that that made him happy.

‘What a stupid old man you are,’ he told the distended reflection in the chrome surface of the toaster, but felt no more conviction than his double did remorse.

He poured himself a bowl of cereal and ate it while looking out of the window at his small garden. It had the hunched and tired demeanour of a man that has been beaten up and is hoping to avoid worse. The flowers had had the petals slapped from them, the bushes bent their backs and cowered like dogs, the cypress hedge needed to comb its hair, stray branches splayed at all angles. He didn’t care. It was green and fresh and would soon be back on its own feet if the rain stayed away. Not that the presenter on the radio seemed convinced that was likely. ‘Enjoy the break from the rain,’ he said, with all the earnestness of a man giving advice to a favourite child, ‘the forecasters say it’ll be back soon enough.’

‘Perhaps we should build an ark!’ suggested the chirpy producer who seemed determined to muddle up
his
job description by being as ever-present on air as the DJ who had been employed by the studio for the purpose. ‘At this rate we’ll all be washed away.’

Something the news then had the unfortunate timing to confirm as it ran with the lead story of an elderly couple drowned in flooding.

John turned off the radio, conscious that it might wake Anna. Then it occurred to him that perhaps he should wake her. Was he really proposing to let a stranger – who he knew had been in the employ of a woman who wished him ill – have the run of his house? Did he expect to return to find his belongings in place? Surely she would be on the phone to Alasdair or Glen the moment he was past the front gate, encouraging them to come round and steal everything that wasn’t nailed down before trashing the rest. What proof did he even have that she had left Aida Golding’s influence?

‘None whatsoever,’ he announced, putting on his bicycle clips, grabbing his bag and heading out of the door.

He found not caring incredibly uplifting.

The bike ride to the campus continued his good feeling. It seemed to him that London was picking itself back up after a war. People mopping the floors of their shops, pedestrians glancing at the sky as if unable to believe such good fortune, umbrellas furled, heads dry.

He pulled into the college campus, narrowly avoiding Shaun Vedder, who was shuffling aimlessly around the place as usual. Not that this was unusual behaviour for any of the students, often you couldn’t get
a
complex sentence structure from them until mid-afternoon. Vedder spun around to watch John ride towards his office and managed a slow wave once he realised who it was.

‘Stoned out of his tree,’ John chuckled, swinging the bike around the corner of the science block and heading the last few feet towards his office.

Dismounting, he carried his bike inside the building. He’d used to chain it up outside but after a spate of robberies a few months back nobody dared leave their bikes in plain sight. He’d taken to shoving his in the nest of AV cable and stale tobacco that was Ray’s office. If the technician nicked it, it would only be so he could get to the corner shop and back quickly because he had the urge for a pasty.

‘Morning!’ he announced cheerily as he barged through the door.

‘Jesus!’ Ray had thrown his roll-up down the back of the desk thinking it was some less-forgiving member of the faculty. ‘What’s wrong with you? Are you drunk? How dare you come in here smiling at this time of term.’ He dropped to his hands and knees and went on the hunt for his cigarette before it burned the desk down.

‘I’m sure all the joy will be knocked out of me by lunchtime,’ John admitted. ‘I’m just glad to see it’s stopped raining.’

‘Bullshit,’ Ray muttered from somewhere behind a cat’s cradle of power leads, ‘nobody looks as happy as you do without sex or narcotics, which is it?’

‘I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed either, though our friend Shaun Vedder certainly seems to
have
had his fair share of the latter this morning.’

‘Nah … poor sod’s mum’s dead, isn’t she? I heard someone talking about it in the canteen.’

‘Oh,’ John sat down, his good mood dented. ‘Poor lad, is he heading home?’

‘Not sure. From what I gather she brought him up on her own so he’s not got much to go home to. He’s not in a good state though, that’s for sure.’

‘I’ll try and talk to him maybe, offer him a bit of support.’

‘You do that.’ Ray reappeared, cigarette between his lips, ‘I’m sure that’ll make all the difference.’

‘You’re a jaded old git, you know that?’

‘Just a realist. You mean to tell me a chat from someone you didn’t know would have helped you after Jane? It’s just something you have to get through, isn’t it?’

John nodded, though even Ray, for all his blunderbuss sensibilities, knew that John was still a long way from having ‘got through’ it. ‘I’ll still try, I wouldn’t want him to feel he has no support.’

‘Such a pinnacle of kindness. Why don’t you help me more often? I need a shoulder to cry on too, you know.’

‘About what?’

‘About how little I’m getting laid.’

‘Bye, Ray.’

‘Get out you heartless bastard, you’re no friend of mine.’

Under normal circumstances, John would have expected to see Shaun Vedder that very morning. Though when
the
young man didn’t show for his lecture he wasn’t surprised.

Talking on autopilot, John realised his heart wasn’t in it. He looked out at the audience of students, some taking notes, some just staring into their own thoughts, and realised there was nothing worse in education than going through the motions.

‘Psychology,’ he said, completely changing the tack of his speech, ‘is the science of understanding why the mind disagrees with itself. Why it will constantly fly in the face of logic and reason.’ It was proof that he had been boring them that only a couple seemed wrong-footed by his sudden gear-change. ‘We are at the mercy of our automatic triggers, our hang-ups and phobias. We are constantly doing the wrong thing because our minds give us no option.’ He paused and then decided to go for broke.

‘I’m the perfect example,’ he said. ‘I have spent my whole life disbelieving anything that fell beyond the realms of scientific explanation and yet, ever since my wife died, I’m convinced she haunts me. I see her everywhere. I hear her everywhere. She’s not there, of course, I know that really, but knowing that doesn’t make her go away. I am tortured by my own, stupid brain.’

There was an uncomfortable shuffling at that. The students were awkward at the emotional context of what he was saying. Understandable, he thought, but missing the point.

‘Don’t get caught up in the detail,’ he insisted, ‘embarrassed at the fact your mad old lecturer has a
dead
wife. It’s not the important point. The important point is: however much I know something, the brain won’t let me be. It cannot help but be an organ of deceit, working hard to convince me of things I know not to be the case but will end up believing – in that awful, vulnerable moment – because I am unable to help myself.’

He ambled back and forth, not even sure if he had a point or just wanted to shake them up.

‘At its worst degree, this diversion between fact and reality is called madness. But it’s in all of us, make no mistake about that. When you feel jealous of a partner, regardless of whether they’ve given you due cause, when you find yourself waking up in the night convinced there’s someone else in your room, when you sink into depression knowing you can’t complete your coursework because it’s all too much work and you’re just not clever enough …’ there was a slight laugh at that, the students relieved to be on familiar, innocuous ground. ‘That’s the division at work. The rational voice conflicting with the panicked, instinctual, fearful voice. The one that wants nothing more than to rattle you. It’s all madness, it’s just that sometimes we’re just able to continue functioning.’

One of the students, Jim Farrage, always the joker, pulled a crazy face and acted the loon.

‘In your case, Farrage,’ John said, ‘
barely
function.’

They laughed, nothing won back a room like gently picking on one of their number. There was a psychological lesson to be learned there, too, John thought, but not today. Today they had learned enough and he had no more interest in teaching them.

‘And sometimes,’ he continued, ‘the best way you can understand psychology is to shut up, close your books,’ he tapped his temple, ‘and listen to what is says in here.’

He gathered up his own . ‘We’ll finish early so you can do just that,’ he said, and went in search of Shaun Vedder.

The campus was typical of many institutions designed and built in the seventies. The separate buildings littered the grounds surrounded by pathways and stairways that frequently led to nowhere the discerning pedestrian could wish to be. Architectural cul-de-sacs were semi-legitimised by ‘free’ areas turfed or gravelled and filled with park benches or picnic tables. Sometimes you’d even find students in these areas, but only if they were lost or specifically trying to avoid other people.

John found Shaun huddled on a bench in the process of being swallowed by an azalea bush.

‘You mind if I join you for a minute?’ he asked.

Shaun shrugged and squeezed himself into an even tighter ball in the corner of the bench.

‘I heard about your mum,’ said John. ‘My condolences.’

Shaun nodded but chose to say nothing.

‘I just wanted to offer my help,’ John continued, determined to say his piece. ‘You know I lost someone recently and it’s difficult to deal with. I still struggle. But I’ll give you whatever support I can. At least you know that I understand what it feels like. I know how it can hurt.’

They sat in silence for a moment. John hoping Shaun
might
actually say something. When he eventually decided that wasn’t going to happen he got to his feet and made to leave.

‘You know what’s really getting me today?’ said Shaun finally.

John turned back to face him. ‘What?’

‘How it takes my mother dying to get everyone around here to give a shit.’

John shook his head. ‘That’s not true, Shaun, lots of people care, you know that.’

‘Do I? Really? Who are my best friends, Mr Pritchard? Who do you always see me hanging around with?’

John tried to think and found he couldn’t bring anyone to mind. Whenever he saw Shaun he was on his own. ‘I don’t know,’ he admitted, ‘I’m sorry.’

‘You and every other stranger,’ Shaun replied and shifted on the seat so his back was turned to John. It was clear he had no more interest in talking. After a moment of desperately trying to think what might be the best thing to say, John conceded defeat and left the young man to it.

The good mood he’d started the day with was slipping away. He’d been of no use to Shaun and felt embarrassed at how he’d handled the situation. Ray had been right that he should have avoided seeking the lad out. Still, having made that initial effort he felt he couldn’t just abandon him entirely so went to see Tracy Lambeth, the student counsellor.

She was in her office reading a newspaper and waiting for her working day to end. John often wondered
how
someone so apparently uninterested in other people could be found doing her job.

‘Hello, John,’ she said when he stuck his head around her door. ‘I can’t hang around I’ve got a very busy morning.’

‘Clearly,’ he replied, with a smile, nodding at the newspaper.

‘Can’t do this job unless you’re abreast of current affairs,’ she said, ‘you’d be surprised how much the outside world affects them. I remember a girl five years ago who swallowed a bottle of Nembutal just because the “wrong” person won
X Factor
. God knows how she got hold of some. Bought it online, I suppose. I wish one of the sods would show me how to find that sort of thing. Music, drugs and porn … all you ever see on this damn thing,’ she tapped her computer, ‘are emails and Wikipedia. God knows what I’m doing wrong.’

‘Perhaps Ray could …’

‘That smelly pervert? I’d rather have the thing thrown out of the window. Anyway … what did you want to ask? Out with it so I can get on with my research.’ She shoved at the newspaper with a chewed biro. ‘What’s one of them done now? Or is it you that wants to …?’

‘No, no, I’m all right. It’s Shaun Vedder.’

‘That weirdo? What’s he done now?’

‘His mother’s died.’

‘Oh, well, I suppose that’s hardly his fault.’

‘Of course not,’ said John, ‘but he’s very cut up about it.’

‘Well, I’m here if he needs to talk.’

John couldn’t see that happening. ‘I tried to talk to him myself, actually.’

Tracy shook her head in despair. ‘What is with you people thinking you can just go and be a counsellor,’ she said, ‘I didn’t train for nothing, you know. I’ve a diploma in grief counselling, what qualifications have you got?’

John just stared at her, not quite sure if she was joking or not.

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘yeah … your wife, sorry.’

‘No problem. He wouldn’t talk anyway. Seems to have a real chip on his shoulder about people not caring for him.’

‘Took a shower once in a while he might find his social life picks up,’ Tracy laughed. ‘All right, I’m only joking.’

Said in the manner of obnoxious bullies everywhere, thought John. It doesn’t matter what you say as long as you insist you were joking afterwards.

‘Just thought I’d let you know,’ he said, getting up. ‘He’s genuinely suffering, maybe you could keep an eye on him?’

‘Yeah,’ she picked up her paper again, ‘will do.’

John coasted through the rest of the day, finding he always had one eye on the windows hoping to catch sight of Shaun Vedder. He even took his lunch at Verano on the off chance he might bump into him there. No doubt he had little in the way of an appetite, for vegetable tikka wraps even, certainly there was no sign of him.

John even returned to the bench where he’d talked to Vedder. Unsurprisingly it was empty.