The Alembic Valise (4 page)

Joel was buzzed; he had spent the weekend in Paris with Mai who had a brief hiatus in her tour schedule. They had taken the Euro star on Friday morning; spent a blissful two days together and now they had returned and were crossing London: Joel to get back to some serious writing and Mai to prepare for her final series of concerts. After dropping Mai at her hotel he had settled back in the cab and tried to ease himself mentally into the space he needed to be in when he had to write to a deadline. He asked the driver to drop him outside the tube station as he was only carrying an overnight bag and wanted to grab a coffee and buy some groceries before heading for home.

In the Mall was Tesco Express where he stocked up on essentials but as he headed to the checkout something caught his eye. It was the headline of the local newspaper: Police Puzzled by Bridge Death. Making an effort to stay calm Joel put the paper in his basket face down. It was only when he was sat at his favourite table by the big window at Starbucks with an Americano in front of him that he took out the paper and read the story. The headline was trailed across the top of the front page but the article itself was on page four. It said that an early morning jogger had spotted the body on the previous Monday morning. The dead man was identified as Darren Shah, a twenty-year-old student and that the cause of death was being investigated by the police.

Joel had deliberately left his phone switched off for the past three days. He had not wanted anything intrude on his time with Mai and it had worked because he was returning to his routine feeling good in many ways. However he now knew that when he switched the damn thing on there would inevitably be an unwelcome intrusion of reality. He was right: three “call me” messages from Severin, one “hi” message from Dave Trulock and lastly one from DC Sharma at Shepherds Bush police station saying that it was important for him to contact her ASAP. He was about to dial the police station when he noticed a text alert from Dave. It was marked urgent and said to talk to him before anyone else. The word ‘anyone’ was in capitals. It only took him fifteen minutes to walk home. He rang on the landline; Dave picked up on the second ring.

“Stay on the boat; put the coffee pot on, I’ll be over in ten.” He then hung up before Joel could say anything into his phone.

Detective Z stood alone on the touchline watching his daughter play lacrosse. It had been a scorching match but his mind kept returning to the report. Shah’s injuries were consistent with a fall of thirty-five feet onto shingle and rocks, a few feet either way and mud would have lessened his impact. The head trauma was bad enough to be near fatal and the sub-zero temperature would have finished him off. There was of course always the possibility that he could have been pushed or thrown from the bridge, but there was no evidence to support this theory. After the match he put a consoling arm around Lorna’s shoulder as the teams trooped off the pitch.

“You outplayed them for at least sixty five, maybe seventy five percent of the time.”

“It’s not about possession; I keep telling you, it’s the switch; the speed and clarity of the switch, Daddy.”

He smiled down at her. Lorna smiled back at her father then reverted to a serious expression in order to continue educating him in lacrosse’s strategic requirements.

“From defence to offence, you soak it up and then you suddenly strike. That’s how you win.”

Detective Z stopped walking. As the players surged past him he called out. “I’ll try to remember that. I’ve got to be somewhere. See you tonight, flower.” He called everyone flower, said it was his duty as a Yorkshireman.

He took the bus and alighted on the south side of the river, then began to walk over the bridge towards last week’s incident scene. In the centre of the bridge the detective stopped and lit a cigarette. The truth was the department had no real leads, and his boss was getting impatient.

In a few minutes he was on the embankment walking towards Joel’s boat, but paused on seeing Dave Trulock entering the gardens on a bicycle. The detective watched from behind a cherry tree as the owner of the Gate picked up his bike and started along the pier towards the home of celebrated cult writer and guardian of the mysteries Joel Barlow. His phone rang. It was DC Sharma.

The detective listened as she told him what she had discovered from Darren Shah’s laptop. She had simply visited the sites in the browsing history. There was one particular website called Lacuna Room that was a forum for gamers, Goths, and cyberpunks to show off their tattoos, piercings and gaming prowess. On the days prior to his death Shah had spent many hours on the site so DC Sharma had then concocted an identity and become a member in order to further investigate.

“Try Cembali Silvae,” suggested the detective. He spelt it out for her and it worked. When she started to describe the area she now had access to, he cut her short.

“Hold it right there. I think I need to see this. I will be there in ten minutes so put the kettle on, flower.”

He would like nothing more than to make a sudden appearance on the Alembic Valise, having seen Trulock going aboard, so obviously in a hurry. Barlow must be onboard and this intrigued the detective more than a little. But he knew he would be bluffing it and on balance there was more to learn back at the station. Sensing the breakthrough was elsewhere he walked briskly away from the river.

Dave left his bike on deck then sat in the galley of Joel’s boat for a few moments. He was out of breath.

“Look you know I’m seeing Siobhan?”

Joel nodded. “Banging her brains out I suppose.”

“Oh no, each
other’s
brains we are currently banging out, Sahib,” replied Dave emphasising the word
others
.

“Look man, wind in your Peter Sellers impersonations and tell me what is going on, what did your text mean?”

“Siobhan knows some of the white coats in the West London police forensic department. She was told that the police are looking for a connection between you and the dead guy because of the tattoo. Also it’s a murder enquiry now.”

“Yeah it’s lurid enough for the doing the gossip round,” said Joel.

“So you know about this already? If they have not hauled you in for questioning then they must be waiting for you to make a move. They may be watching the boat right now,” said Dave in a stage whisper.

“Look I was away in Paris. I literally just got back. I knew about the tattoo but I thought it was accidental death.”

“Well not any more. Get lawyered-up before you go and see them, it is not a ‘helping with enquiries’ situation any more. Look, you shoulda told me. You must be their only lead. Maybe you should go into hiding.” Dave began pacing up and down then peered through the blinds at the embankment.

“Look have a cigarette and calm down,” said Joel. “By the way where would a good hideout be?”

DC Sharma had entered The Lacuna Room. There were many gaming related threads but she restricted herself to ones that either mentioned Map Turtle or Alembic Valise. There were many public “rooms” that any site member could browse. There were also private rooms that were unavailable to general users and access to them was restricted to senior site members. She had found references to Map Turtle by using the onsite search facility but there were no obvious leads to follow. With the correct password however she was able to download photos of the tattoo and two PDFs of maps that the dead man had posted. Then disaster had struck, she had tried to log on from another machine in order to show the site to Detective Z, not knowing that there was a secure cookie system that meant access was only allowed to one machine. The account had then been frozen. She sheepishly handed the copies of the maps that she had printed out to her boss and packed up for the day.

Later Detective Z sat at his desk glumly recalling that the cyber fraud boys had once told him that even with a warrant to obtain a user list, webmasters of dodgy sites invariably purged their domains of anything incriminating before giving access. He was still puzzling over the maps when the phone rang. It was Joel who had been getting things straight in his mind before he telephoned Detective Z. Weirdly Dave had become more paranoid back at the boat, which had prompted Joel to wonder if Dave was under stress, even or doing drugs. He was struck by Dave’s idea of hiding out. What would that achieve? It would be incriminating behaviour. But he was curious to see exactly where he might suggest. Dave even had them agree on a story, in case the police were watching the houseboat and they were questioned.

“I know, I’m just jealous of your magazine life style. But I am glad you called because there is something you need to know. It’s the Herald, in the next edition they are going with a “Mystery Deepens” headline, they somehow knew about the tattoo and the body being in close proximity to your boat. So we had to give them a statement. Listen I can read what they are actually going to publish:

A tattooed body was found yards away from the boat of well-known local author Joel Barlow, whose book is slated to be turned into a Hollywood movie next year. Shah (20) had a mystical symbol from the Alembic Valise fantasy story tattooed on his arm. Mr Barlow has been in touch with the police to offer his assistance in the continuing inquiry.

It was still an hour before dawn and Venus, the morning star or Lucifer as it was once known, hung brightly in the southern sky. Joel had one day of grace before a tattooed corpse, Alembic Valise and maverick writer Joel Barlow would be forever linked in the minds of the populace, courtesy of the article appearing in tomorrows Herald. His agent, his publisher and a whole load of PR people were on the case. So Joel had decided not to worry. He had a plan and the first part was to go for a run. To help re-establish the anchor patterns in his life that had recently been disrupted so profoundly. So here he was back on the towpath, for the first time since the fateful day.

Knowing that it would take that extra little bit of effort to blow away the cobwebs he kicked for home earlier than usual and arrived back at the boat exhausted yet somehow refreshed. It was still early but out on the water the racing crews were training hard too. Two eight-man craft shot by, their oars barely disturbing the water, he watched them for a moment then continued his warming down exercises against the floodwall.

Two and a half hours later, as he was climbing the steps of an austere office block Joel was thinking that despite the situation he was beginning to rather respect Detective Z, and that Dave was been over-reacting. After all he really did have nothing to hide. In the reception he was given a pass and told to take the lift to the fifth floor.

“Mr Barlow, thank you for coming,” said DC Sharma as she led him through the shabby open plan office towards a desk in the far corner where Detective Z was seated.

“Here have a seat,” he said gesturing at a chair. “Coffee or tea?” Joel shook his head to indicate that he was fine then asked about the maps.

“Yes we found these on a website that Darren Shah frequented a lot. We have been reduced to trawling the virtual world for some clues as to what this boy was all about. Have you heard of the Lacuna Room? It’s a website for gamers.” the detective enquired watching him closely. Again Joel shook his head.

“Show Mr. Barlow the maps, DC, you know we only got access to these by using your new book title as a password. How many people would know about that?” asked the detective.

“Well officially hardly anyone I guess. But there are certain protocols that the more adept game players use to accelerate their progress and a fairly central one is the use of anagrammatic proofing.”

“What the hell is that?”

“Well”, he continued, “the Turtles give directions that can either be wisdom or folly. The player must choose whether or not to follow these directions. ‘A far lust temple’ is an anagram of ‘false map turtle’ for instance. Therefore this is a case of a direction that it would be folly to take.”

“Here take a look at these maps while we wait for our coffee,” he said pushing a folder towards Joel. “But first tell me why your work has clicked with so many people?”

“Starting with the book, this can be read in a conventional linear way but at the end of each chapter the reader has the option of jumping to another part of the narrative via a short guided-imagery exercise that draws material from the readers unconscious. This aspect of the book was expanded when it was turned into a computer game. Using symbols in this way is derived from the whole mythic journey template that has been used in storytelling for millennia. The Sufis believe that the forging and the controlling of symbols is a channel of divine immanence. Modern hypnotherapy also uses this technique.”

“So are you hypnotising the readers?” asked Detective Z, now leaning forward in his chair.

“I Dunno, it’s just a device to draw readers in really. Multiplying the possible outcomes strengthens user resonance and adds layers of empathy and meaning. The current buzzword is ‘immersive experience’, I believe.”

DC Sharma returned at that moment and put three large Styrofoam cups on the table. Joel smiled at her and declined her offer of sugar then worked the lid loose on his cup and took sip.

“These are transition points located at various points within the PW,” said Joel on studying the map. Receiving blank looks he began to backtrack.

“Alembic Valise is a MMO game, that’s massively multiplayer online game. It is played within a persistent world, meaning the gaming environment continues to evolve even when a player is off-line. On every level, and there are nine, there are zones the player must locate, and these are known as the vulture’s neck. An esoteric metaphor that is based on the idea that time is essentially a spiral and that the possibility exists of being able leap between the coils. Usually only the denizens of the spirit world are able to perform this vault across both time and space. Anyway the game player must recognise and use these hidden doorways in order to progress to the next level.”

DC Sharma started writing furiously on her notepad then announced, “Nukes Culvert; it’s on this map and it’s an anagram of Vultures Neck.”

“Well apparently he was watching your houseboat from the nearby park. For a while my boss had the theory that he was there to kill you, in order to free himself from the game; thought he may have been in the grip of some kind of obsessive psychosis.”

“Oh fuck!” said Joel.

“Even the tramps do not doss in the park in midwinter. We spoke to some of them and he was seen over the few days leading to his death.”

“They have replied,” said DC Sharma suddenly. Both Joel and Detective Z looked at her expectantly.

“Well,” continued DC Sharma reading the email response from her computer screen. “He says that this map was almost certainly generated from a pirated copy of Alembic Valise of which there are many in circulation. Usually some of the menu options and functions do not operate correctly if at all.”

“Well that is reassuring to know,” said Joel.

“In fact he goes on to say that when a player has reached the pinnacle of their quest they are deified and inducted into the pantheon of immortals. This is missing from the pirated copies and can clearly be seen to be absent on these particular maps even though the player reached level nine.” DC Sharma pushed her chair back, tasted her coffee, grimaced, and then looked enquiringly at her superior.

“Maybe we should just let the coroner decide if it was an accident or suicide,” said Detective Z wearily, after a few moments of thought.

“You mean draw a line under it boss?”

“I mean, can you imagine calling a press conference and telling them that a pirated computer game could be sending folk crazy. On the other hand if there is the issue of public safety and if we do not warn people and it happens again or for that matter it has happened before and we do not know about it then we will be accused of being negligent. The only link in the Shah case is his tattoo; if he did not have that then the whole thing would have past us by completely.”

Joel remained silent. The two detectives seemed to be going through some process and he was content to listen.

“OK”, said Detective Z after a short pause. “You, DC Sharma, will start going through recent cases. You can search the database by keywords, so let’s compile a list of those and get started.”

“It will take weeks, boss.”

“I know but then if we find nothing, nobody can accuse us of not pursuing the necessary due diligence. But for now let’s wind things up. I need some lunch. Thanks for your time Mr. Barlow. I’ll call you if we need anything else.”

“Glad I could be of help,” said Joel as they rose.

“This should do wonders for your royalties,” said the Detective as he left him in the corridor.

“Not so good if I get offed by a psychotic gamer before I get the chance to spend them,” Joel said to himself as he waited for the lift to arrive. He left his pass on reception and once outside turned down a side street, to get away from the noise of the traffic.