Alex had been doubtful but surely any normal family would have clung onto that, out of a desire for justice or truth, or for the minimal comfort of knowing their son’s heroin overdose hadn’t been self-inflicted. Any normal family would have scoured these possessions the way he had for the last hour, searching for even the slightest link to a possible murderer or motive.
He’d found nothing though, and having met Luke even briefly, he could imagine him not telling Will’s family about his suspicions anyway, out of respect for their grief or just because he’d have seen it for the futile gesture it was. No one else cared about how Will had died, no one else except, perhaps, Dr Alex Stratton.
He leaned back in his chair and looked around the office, the picture of his parents with him in his doctoral gowns, a picture of his brother Julian in the same getup, a real doctor, someone who made people better and yet still found time to read every article and book Alex wrote.
Two of the prints were from Julian too, the Escher and the Geiger, both of them fitting for someone who studied the demons of troubled sleep. On the wall facing him was a picture Kate had given him, a Glen Baxter print, because he’d needed to lighten up - that’s what she’d told him. And then there was his film poster, framed now, the only thing that had survived from his old student rooms.
It was a good place to be, this office, a positive place, somewhere that reminded him of what he had to be thankful for. On a superficial level at least, he’d thrived over the last ten years, and there were people who cared about him, and he’d had more than was perhaps his fair share of happiness.
He felt optimistic now as he looked around, and he was glad he’d come in. He was officially on sabbatical and he’d thought about staying home but had come in as usual to be around for Ruth, in case she needed him for anything. It was better anyway that he’d been there looking through Will’s things rather than back at the house.
Collecting them up, he began to put them back in the bag. He’d keep them but there wasn’t anything there of the Will he remembered, nothing either that would add anything to his death. And yet even as he dismissed it, he couldn’t shake off the thought of the missing scrapbook.
It would keep nagging at him, he knew it, and it meant nothing, only that Will had tried to free his mind of her by finally throwing it away, or that Luke had simply been unable to find it. Luke had been scared though, and Alex couldn’t help but give space to the quietly disturbing possibility that he’d been right to be afraid.
Without thinking about it he picked up the phone, dialled directory enquiries and asked for the number for the Brighton police. He just wanted to be told by someone official that there had been nothing suspicious about Will’s death, that Luke had been blinded by his own loyalty and friendship, that their friend had died a junkie’s death.
When he got through he asked to speak to someone about the death of William Shaw but ended up just giving his own details, offered a promise that someone would call him back as soon as they were available. He put the phone down, frustrated.
A knock sounded on the door. It was Ruth.
‘Come in.’ She walked in smiling, looking tired. She was small anyway and wore her hair short, and when she was tired she looked like a little kid, like she was too young to be a student, let alone researching a doctorate. ‘Ruth, I’ve been telling you for two years now that you don’t need to knock.’
‘I just think it’s good to let you know I’m coming. You never know, it might be inappropriate for me to come in.’
He smiled too and got up to make coffee, saying, ‘It’s a sad indictment of my life perhaps, but trust me, it’s always appropriate.’ She sat down, laughing now, and he said, ‘Anyway, you’re looking pretty wrecked this morning - take it you’ve been in the lab all night?’
‘Yeah, I had two volunteers in.’
‘Anything interesting?’
‘Not really. I think one of them just wanted a quiet night’s sleep.’ Alex smiled. ‘But I’m not the only one looking wrecked this morning. Care to talk about it?’
‘Nothing to talk about,’ he said, continuing with the coffee, trying to dismiss it. ‘Yeah, I had an episode but it was nothing out of the ordinary.’
‘Alex?’
‘Ruth?’ He said, mimicking her accusatory tone.
She backed down, probably just too tired, and said, ‘Okay, but I’m willing to state yet again for the record that I’d like you to go in the lab for me, and that if you really cared about my doctorate you’d volunteer happily.’
She laughed, an admission perhaps of how outrageous it was to suggest he didn’t care about her research. He laughed it off too but couldn’t resist saying, ‘Let me remind you yet again of the advice I gave you when you first approached me with a doctorate in mind.’
‘I know,’ she said, reciting it like something she’d learned by rote, ‘go to the University of Florida, study under Douglas and Dambrauskas.’