Manhattan in Reverse Read Free Page B

in his voice. ‘The only other suspect I can think of is a Short. They don’t value life as much as we do.’
    I kept my face composed even though I could not help but regard him as an old bigot at heart. Blaming the Shorts for everything from poor harvests to a tyre puncture was a prejudice harking back to the start of the Second Imperial Era, when the roots of today’s families were grown amid the Sport of Emperors. Our march through history, it would seem, isn’t entirely noble.
    The interview room was illuminated by a pair of hundred-watt bulbs in white ceramic shades. A stark light in a small box of a room. Glazed amber tiles decorated the lower half of the walls, adding to the chill atmosphere. The only door was a sturdy metal affair with a slatted grate halfway up.
    Peter Samuel Griffith sat behind the table in a wooden chair, visibly discomfited by the surroundings. He was holding a small sterile gauze patch to the needle puncture in his arm where the police doctor had taken a sample of his blood. I used my pencil to make a swift note reminding myself to collect such samples for our family institute to review.
    Detective Gareth Alan Pitchford and a female stenographer sat opposite Mr Griffith whilst Francis and myself stood beside the door, trying to appear inconspicuous.
    ‘The first thing which concerns me, obviously, is the timing of events,’ the detective said. ‘Why don’t you run through them again for me, please?’
    ‘You’ve heard it all before,’ Peter Samuel Griffith said. ‘I was working on an essay when I heard what sounded like an argument next door.’
    ‘In what way? Was there shouting, anything knocked about?’
    ‘No. Just voices. They were muffled, but whoever was in there with Justin was disagreeing with him. You can tell, you know.’
    ‘Did you recognize the other voice?’
    ‘No. I didn’t really hear it. Whoever they were, they spoke pretty quietly. It was Justin who was doing the yelling. Then he screamed. That was about half past eleven. I phoned the lodgekeepers.’
    ‘Immediately?’
    ‘More or less, yes.’
    ‘Ah, now you see, Peter, that’s my problem. I’m investigating a murder, for which I need hard facts; and you’re giving me more or less . Did you phone them immediately? It’s not a crime that you didn’t. You’ve done the right thing, but I must have the correct details.’
    ‘Well, yeah . . . I waited a bit. Just to hear if anything else happened. That scream was pretty severe. When I couldn’t hear anything else, I got really worried and phoned down.’
    ‘Thank you, Peter. So how long do you think you waited?’
    ‘Probably a minute, or so. I . . . I didn’t know what to do at first; phoning the lodgekeepers seemed a bit drastic. I mean, it could just have been a bit of horsing around that had gone wrong. Justin wouldn’t have wanted to land a chum in any trouble. He was a solid kind of chap, you know.’
    ‘I’m sure he was. So that would have been about, when . . . ?’
    ‘Eleven thirty-two. I know it was. I looked at the clock while I was calling the lodgekeepers.’
    ‘Then you phoned Mr Kenyon straight away?’
    ‘Absolutely. I did have to make two calls, though. He wasn’t at his college, his room-mate gave me a number. Couldn’t have taken more than thirty seconds to get hold of him.’
    ‘What did you tell him?’
    ‘Just that there was some sort of trouble in Justin’s room, and the lodgekeepers were coming. Justin and Carter are good friends, best friends. I thought he’d want to know what was going on. I’d realized by then that it was serious.’
    ‘Most commendable. So after you’d made the phone call to Mr Kenyon you went out into the corridor and waited, is that right?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘How long would you say it was between the scream and the lodgekeepers arriving?’
    ‘Probably three or four minutes. I’m not sure exactly, they arrived pretty quick once I got out into the corridor.’
    The detective turned round