11
The library on campus was the type where the air itself was very still, where every sound was amplified, even down to the turning of pages by students who looked lost in their work, with open textbooks spread around them, along with rulers, rubbers, pens, calculators.
They were probably those who were fast approaching a deadline, so made a beeline for the library to scribble down what they could. Malcolm sometimes wondered if half of them cheated by copying out of books. Maybe they did. He was often tempted himself to do so. He was here to see a student whom he did not particularly know, but was on nodding terms with.
The type of person whom he would acknowledge passing by in a corridor, but would have nothing else to say in other situations, such as in a lift, or a queue. This time, however, Malcolm was seeking him out because he was a student of psychology with criminology, studying for a first degree with honours, and was coming to the end of his last year. In a few months time, he would either have a career in it, or would be stacking shelves in a supermarket.
Malcolm eventually found him upstairs, unsurprisingly in the psychology section. He had a table to himself in the corner, and Malcolm hovered near the rail overlooking the tables below. Ryan Vaughn was 24, and was one of those students who looked much older. This was self imposed primarily because he was the type of student who could easily grow a moustache and beard within a few days.
In every class, along with the stereotypical skinny kid, overweight kid, shy kid, loud kid, big-eared kid, freckle-faced kid, handsome kid, buck-toothed kid, there was always the kid who would display none of these, but would be the first to grow a moustache, and they would feel like the more mature pupil, the one who had taken further steps into adulthood.
Most of the kids would look up to their elders, and emulate them by trying smoking and alcohol at young ages, but then in an ironic turnaround, when they reached adulthood, when they became ‘mature’, they longed for their childhood and wasted youth. It was basically a case of ‘If only..!’ If only I’d done this, if only I’d done that. Everybody to some degree had some regrets that could not be rectified. Malcolm would probably regret not talking to the girl he is attracted to around the university.
Should she vanish altogether, then no scientist on the planet could help him reverse time. If only, it seemed was a bane on the conscience when the irreversible decision was wrong. However, for Ryan, making himself look older may prove in the long term to be a mistake. An integral part in shaping the persona of the adult is in the decisions made in youth. A teenager prone to hostility sees an old woman carrying a purse. His decision is made right there. His life could alter based on that choice. If he steals the purse, then maybe he is caught and sent to a place where there are others like him, and he is therefore influenced by them. Should he not steal the purse, his life would take a separate path. The choices Ryan, and indeed Malcolm, had made, had led them here, to this moment, and any regrets they had are accepted, and not entirely forgotten, but sometimes reluctantly remembered.
Ryan had a few psychology books around him, but he was reading a newspaper, the rustle of the pages amplified. Malcolm wondered if the books were simply for show, for some extra esteem from passing women. He didn’t have any stationary around him, just a mobile telephone on a closed book entitled: ‘Assessment of industrial psychology’. It probably hadn’t even been opened.
Ryan looked like the type of person who never stopped being a student. He wore what could be described as a casual suit. It was dark brown, and matched his hair and two-inch beard. Malcolm didn’t know why he felt reluctant to approach him. Was it a natural desire not to disturb him? Was it a fear of saying something to offend him and losing the respect he already had with him? It didn’t matter, he needed answers, and Ryan may indeed possibly enlighten him. He could but try.
After a few minutes, they were talking as if they had known each other for years. Ryan seemed pleased that he had been asked to help out, as it was an actual incident, in the real world that he could perhaps have some involvement with.
What he said to Malcolm may change his mind and therefore he would have played a part in his investigation. His input may be minimal, but depending on how Malcolm used it, may be very significant.
“See, what you’ve got to understand is that...” said Ryan, trying to get his point in order. “Nobody really knows anybody 100%. We cannot say that it is really unlike somebody, because we do not understand them fully. Think of a first date. They don’t know each other really, but they want to. It’s where they discover each other, their likes, fears, hopes, and as they come to understand them more fully, they get to ‘know’ the person, get to know their personality. It’s a voyage of discovery, but in the end, they could be married for 50 years or more, and still make new discoveries about each other”.
“But murder, though, I’m convinced my Dad would have abhorred the thought of hurting my mother. He never hit me, and for him to just do what he did, and blatantly admit it as though it was something he just decided to do, just doesn’t make sense. He said to me: ‘She had to die’, now why would he say that? and why would he kill himself afterwards? when that, to me, is not like my Dad at all. I just don’t get it”.
“He killed himself?” said Ryan, “I didn’t know”. He looked deep in thought. “Seems to be more of an occurrence up here in the north lately. I suppose you know of the others”. Malcolm shook his head.
“I hardly pay attention to news lately. It’s all too depressing”. Ryan rifled through the newspaper, and eventually found what he was looking for. He folded the paper so that the article was prominent and pushed it towards Malcolm. It was small, sidebar news, on page nine, pushed aside for the more important revelation that a popstar had broken a photographer’s jaw, a photographer from the same newspaper, who were taking out their frustrations by printing as much sordid details about them as they could get away with.
The story was of a labourer from a vehicle manufacturer who had been stabbed to death by his wife. She had buried him in the back garden. When he had been found, she had confessed to killing him, but then, later on, she had killed herself in custody. A neighbour had been quoted as saying: ‘I knew her for years. That was unlike her. I didn’t think she would do that’. Malcolm sat back and stared at the article.
“See,” said Ryan, “no-one truly understands the idiosyncrasies of the human mind. You could be the nicest man on the planet, yet sleep with animal corpses every night as though it was completely normal.
Incidentally, while I must put it down to coincidence, this has been more prominent lately, leading me to think there may be more to it than that. Over the past year, you probably know anyway, but there have been a few people going missing, then found by the same person by psychic detection.
Of those he has got right, which I believe is four in a row, the killers confess, then soon after kill themselves. They are responsible for the murders, but those who knew them all say similar things to her”. He gestured to the newspaper. “It’s not surprising that they would say that, considering the fact that most people don’t have murderous tendencies unless truly provoked.
If you had a wife and kids brutally murdered by me in your house, and you came home to find me drenched in blood, sitting in your armchair watching TV, and I then told you to go and make me a cuppa, well…you would see the chopped up corpses, then you would see me, and then you would see red. Well, you’d see red anyway but you know what I mean. What I’m saying is we are all capable of murder. When driven to the absolute edge. Kill or be killed, we would surprise ourselves at what we are capable of”. Malcolm nodded.
“Yes, but is it really a coincidence that four unrelated murders were committed by someone close to them whom, presumably wouldn’t dream of murder”.
“They are linked. The psychic, I forget his name. The one who found them, who, don’t forget, found your mother”.
“Then that makes him a suspect. I should call the police and explain it”.
“How can he be a suspect? All he did was find them telepathically. He didn’t actually murder them. If he finds four in a row, then that does not make him a killer. The police would make nothing of that.
Each case is wrapped up. The killer confesses, and that’s that. Like I say, you cannot fully understand the human mind and motivations. There is plenty of untapped and unknown areas still to be probed. Basically, these things happen, and we have to just accept it as a mysterious aspect of behaviour”. Malcolm nodded, pushed the newspaper back, then stood up. He thanked Ryan for his help, but left feeling unsatisfied. There was just something that didn’t fit, didn’t make 100% sense. He thought again of his father’s departing words: ‘She had to die’. Why though? Why did she ‘have’ to die? He was so wrapped up in his thoughts that when he left the main building, he didn’t notice the girl he was attracted to walk straight past him.
That was it, he thought. No more avenues. Would a talk with the psychic reveal anything? he wondered. Probably not. He couldn’t help but think that Ryan was right. These things happen. It was one of those mysteries of life that are never explained. He had to accept that he wasn’t going to find an answer, and when he decided that his coursework was important after all, he knew it would prey on his mind less and less.