Connected (9 page)

Doug sat on the cold stone steps of the ornamental
garden in square three, the walls of the surrounding buildings seeming to close
in on him like the sides of a colossal concrete bunker. Hoping a cocktail of
caffeine and nicotine would banish the throbbing ache that had exploded in his
skull during the lecture on ‘Functions of a Complex Variable: Contour
Integration’, he sipped the cappuccino, took one last drag from his cigarette
and tossed the butt over his shoulder. His phone started to buzz silently in
his jacket pocket.
“Doug… It’s Cindy”
He took the mobile from his ear and checked the display. It was an unknown
number.
“Hello, are you there?…Doug?”
“Yes. I’m here. Where the hell have you been, it’s been four days… and what
was with the lake? What the hell’s going on?”
“Listen, I’m at the bottom of your tower. Are you in?
Doug glanced at his watch. He had another lecture in forty-five minutes. “No,
but I’ll be there in two - don’t go anywhere!”

When he reached the tower, Cindy was waiting
nervously at the entrance dressed in a light grey hoody and dark glasses. She
gave him a half hug and led him inside. In the elevator, she removed the
sunglasses to reveal a large bruise over her left eye and part of the temple.
“What the … who did that to you?”
“Just leave it. It’s nothing.”
“Come on, what bastard did that? Do you want me to sort him out?”
She looked at him and smiled. “That’s very sweet of you, but no, it’s nothing
really, just some plonker in a bar.”
“If I’d been there I would have had him.”
“It looks worse than it is. Let’s just drop it… please!” She forced another
smile and hugged him. Doug pulled her body closer and gently kissed the top of
her head as it nuzzled into his shoulder. She squeezed him tighter.

Once in Doug’s room, she flew into his arms and
started to smother him in kisses. Again, it briefly occurred to Doug how little
he knew about this girl, but again the thought vanished as quickly as it had
come. She was here, in his room, and right now, that was enough.
“You know, I still want an explanation for that disappearing act … and the
lake.”
“Mmm,” she murmured hypnotically, kissing him some more. “Are you sure you want
to talk right now?”
A silent, irrepressible energy flowed between them - an energy that bound them,
removing all need for words. For a moment, nothing else in the world existed
but the essence of their writhing bodies rapt in that exquisite cocktail of
urgency, frustration and pleasure which is unbridled lust. They tore, clumsily
at each others’ clothes, stumbling breathless onto the bed. There was neither
foreplay nor gentleness. Animal instincts overwhelmed sensitivity. Gone was the
compassionate lover Doug usually thought himself to be. Right now he just
wanted to copulate. He wanted power over this girl, who had been stealing his
thoughts for almost a week, and he understood that she now granted him that
power.

Whether it lasted thirty seconds or thirty
minutes, Doug had no idea. It was, without exception, the most powerful
experience he had ever had. For several minutes they just lay panting side by
side on the narrow bed.
“Fuck me!” he finally exclaimed, staring at the ceiling.
“Again?”
They looked at each other for a second, and then burst out laughing, all the
worry, confusion and sadness of the past draining away. After a while, he could
no longer tell whether they were laughing or crying, but either way it felt
good. They embraced again, taking in each others’ pheromones, tasting the very
molecules of sexual attraction with every pore of their bodies.
“I suppose I should offer you some coffee or something,” he said finally.
“Yes you should,” said Cindy with a frown. She then looked over at Doug’s
computer.
“Hey, do you mind if I check my email, while you’re in the kitchen?”
“Sure. No problem.” He quickly logged in, started the browser and made for the
door.
“Any chance of some toast or something while you’re out there?” she called
after him, “I’m famished.”
“Yeah okay, Marmite or jam?”
“Marmite please.”

Doug put the kettle on and rummaged around in the
cupboards for some bread. Pulling out a half bag of sliced white, he peered
inside and gave the contents a sniff. Not too bad. There were a few blooms of
mould on the edges, but nothing the toaster and a little scraping wouldn’t take
care of. He could hear the bass of some heavy rock reverberating down the
corridor. It sounded like something from Brian’s collection. Doug was tempted
to go and knock on his door, but then thought better of it. Although a good
friend, it irked him to think of Brian having got to Cindy first.

As he made the coffee and started applying a
liberal coating of Marmite to the now slightly burnt, stale toast, he thought
about their first meeting on the morning of Kal’s death. She had been standing
right here in Brian’s rugby shirt making coffee. He could still vividly picture
the way the baggy jersey had hung against her body, and the sexy way she’d
moved within it. Most of the girls Doug had known tended to play hard-to-get,
always forcing him to take the initiative in any relationship, but in this
case, the roles had been completely reversed. It was almost as if she had set
him in her sights and hunted him down from the start. The word “predatory” came
to mind. In fact, now he thought about, hadn’t Brian said she had actually
asked for him at the party? He took the plate of toast and coffee back to his
room.

“Hey, Cindy. How come you were looking for me the
other night at the party?”
Cindy quickly closed down some windows on the computer and spun round.
“Sorry, what?”
“At the party - the night before we met - Brian said you’d actually approached
him asking for me. How did you know my name, and why were you looking for me?”
“What is this, the Spanish inquisition?”
“No… I’m just curious as to who told you about me. Surely my reputation isn’t
that good.”
Cindy turned towards the computer for a moment, hesitated and then walked over
to him. Her eyes glanced up to the ceiling over his right shoulder and then she
whispered in his ear, “You’d be surprised!”
Kissing him gently on the neck and sending an army of goose bumps marching down
his spine, she whispered. “You see, I was complaining to this girl about the
lack of fit men at the party when she told me about this one big muscular guy
called Doug.”
She gently squeezed his biceps and gave his behind a playful slap.
“No way!” chuckled Doug. He knew she was lying, but it no longer seemed to
matter. She had a way about her which caused him to forget about such things.
He pushed her onto the bed and started kissing her neck.
“Hey there stud! Let me get to my breakfast,” she said, giggling. “We’ll have
plenty of time for this later.”
Doug looked at his watch. “Damn, I just missed a lecture.”
He paused and smiled at her. “It was worth it though!”
“I should bloody well hope so!” she replied in mock indignation.
“I do have to be at the computing lab this afternoon though. Are you okay with
that toast, or would you like to get some lunch with me in one of the
restaurants on campus?”
“Let’s go to the restaurant, this tastes a bit stale.”
“That’s probably because it is. Sorry. Chuck it in the bin on the way out.” He
stepped over to the computer and saw that windows explorer was minimised. “Did
you manage to check your email okay?”
“Yes thanks, you can shut it all down now.”

“Food on 3”, the largest of the campus
restaurants, was almost full. “They must have something good on today,” said
Doug, “Let’s go here.”
He enjoyed the feeling as he watched his fellow students jealously eyeing-up
Cindy. The dark glasses still covered the bruising, but she had removed the
hoody revealing another tight black top which looked as though it could have
been spray-painted onto her naked, bra-less torso. He pulled her closer and
kissed her passionately on the mouth.
“Showing off our latest conquest are we?” she asked knowingly.
He turned red. “Sorry - but yes! Walking in here with you is doing wonders for
my ego - Hey, I think I’ll go for the couscous, how about you?”
“Couscous sounds good,” she said, raising her voice so that everyone within a
ten foot radius could hear her. “All that fucking has left me ravenous!”
Half a dozen people turned round, half smiling, half shocked, but mostly in
awe. Putting one hand on his shoulder and the other on his crotch, she moved
her mouth to his ear and whispered “How’s the ego now, big boy?”
Doug turned even redder. “Touché!” he whispered back. Come on, let me pay for
these and we’ll see if we can get a seat.”
“Two would be nice. Unless you want me to sit on your cock again?” she said,
her voice crescendoing up to a fortissimo “cock” and once again attracting a
host of stares.
“Hey okay! You win, I’m sorry!”
“It’s okay, I’m just messing with you. Here, Let me treat you.” She pulled out
a thick wad of twenties and gave one to the cashier. For a few minutes, they
ate in silence.
“How close were you and Kal?” Cindy finally asked.
“Pretty close,” said Doug with a sigh. “We were taking the exact same courses,
so we sat together in most of the lectures and worked together on projects.”
“What, like computing projects?”
“Yeah, we even wrote a paper together.”
“Oh yeah, what on?”
Doug looked at her quizzically. “You know, I don’t know the first thing about
you! I know you’re not a student here, but beyond that, I know absolutely
nothing.”
Cindy, leant back in her chair and sighed, puffing out her cheeks as she
exhaled. “Well, let’s see. I’m twenty-five years old, graduated from the LSE
four years ago and I’m now an accountant. I was born in North London, but now
live here in Colchester. I commute into London two or three times a week, and
work from home the rest of the time. I was an only child and my parents are
both dead. What else do you want to know?”
“No way! So how the fuck did some high-flying accountant end up at Kal’s
party?”
“Not so high-flying really.”
“That was a pretty thick stack of twenties you pulled out at the counter back
there. You’re obviously not short of a quid or two.”
“Oh – you noticed that did you?” she said with a smile. “I just collected that
this morning from someone who owed me some money. As for the party, I tagged
along with an old friend of mine - Tracy, do you know her?”
“Doesn’t ring a bell.”
“I think she knew someone who knew Kal. I forget the exact connection though.”
Doug was speechless. He had guessed she was no Asda checkout girl, but he
hadn’t expected accountant.
“So what was the paper about?” she asked again.
“Sorry?”
“The paper you co-authored with Kal.”
“Oh that! It was to do with fractal patterns. Do you know what they are?”
She nodded. Doug gently shook his head in amazement and went on.
“Well, we discovered a new way of manipulating and evolving the underlying
equations, which had the unexpected side-effect of generating these really cool
moving images - kind of mesmerising. Anyway, Kal was a lot more excited about
it than I ever was. To me it was just a mathematics problem.”
“Sounds cool though, maybe you can show me sometime?”
“Yeah, I suppose so.”
“So how was the paper received?”
“Oh I don’t know, I don’t think anyone took much notice really. Fractals are a
bit passé now I think.”
“Even so, I’d be interested in seeing those images sometime.”
“Now you mention it. Kal texted me on the morning of his death to say he had
posted a new file for download.” Doug thought for a moment. “Doesn’t that
strike you as a bit strange?”
“What?”
“Well…one minute he was excited enough about these damn fractal patterns to
want to share something new with me, and then a couple of hours later was
depressed enough to hurl himself out of a window. It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Does it ever make sense when someone commits suicide?”
“Well… not in a rational way maybe, but you can sort of understand it in the
context of severe depression. You know, if someone loses all hope and perceives
life as too painful to bear. But Kal wasn’t like that. It just seemed to come
out of nowhere.”
“Maybe you didn’t know him as well as you thought you did.”
Doug looked at her for a moment, feeling saddened. “Maybe.”
“Did you ever download the file?”
“No, I was trying to, but then it bombed. Look, can we change the subject?” He
looked at his watch. “Actually, I should be going. Will I see you again or are
you going to do another disappearing act?” he said, somewhat unkindly.
“Look I’m sorry about that. I just got kind of freaked. Of course you’ll see me
again. I’m afraid I’m busy tonight, but tomorrow is good. Perhaps I could come
by early evening and we can go out.”
“Sounds like a plan!”

Outside the restaurant she hugged him, kissed him
one more time, then turned and left without another word. Doug stared after
her, watching the way her tight little hips swayed gently from side to side as
she walked. He willed her to turn around and acknowledge the stare, but she
continued purposefully in the direction of the North towers car-park. He
thought about calling after her, but couldn’t think what to say. He almost
wanted to shout “I love you!”, but that would be ridiculous, he barely knew
her… and yet he’d never wanted anyone so badly.

In the computing lab, he again tried Kal’s drop
box for the DZ-13 file he’d tried to download the other morning, but the whole
folder was now empty. Surely the university wouldn’t have started clearing out
his stuff so soon. Maybe Kal deleted it before jumping. Could that have been
why the download had bombed? But why wipe it?

Doug wandered out to the café to get a coffee. As
he opened his wallet, he noticed Bullock’s card. Perhaps the police would let
him access Kal’s PC. But on what grounds? He’d probably need the parents’
consent or something. As he paid for his coffee he decided it was at least
worth a try. He pulled out his mobile and dialled the number.
“Inspector Bullock, Essex Police.”
“Hi, err…Inspector, this is Doug Richards from the university.”
“Mr. Richards, yes, what can I do for you?”
“I was just wondering if it might be possible to pull some files off Kal’s PC.”
Bullock paused. “What sort of files would they be?
“Oh just some stuff we were working on together. You see, he texted me that
morning to download something, but I never got it.”
“You’re saying he texted you on the morning that he died?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Yes, of course I’m sure. Why?”
“Could the text have been sent the night before, but you only noticed it in the
morning?”
“No, because it woke me up. Surely if you just look at his mobile, you’ll be
able to confirm all this.”
Bullock was silent for a few seconds. “We could if we had it, but we don’t know
where it is. We know he had one, but it wasn’t in his room and it wasn’t on his
body.”
“That’s weird.”
“What time did he text you?”
“Err…about elevenish I think, hang on, let me find it, I think it’s still
there.”
Doug scrolled through his texts. “Yeah, here it is. I received it at 11:30.”
“And what did the text say exactly?”
“It says Check it out! DZ13 in drop.”
“And what does that mean?”
“It means he uploaded a file called DZ13 to a communal server and wanted me to
take a look at it. I tried to download it, but I think he must have deleted it
shortly after sending the text because the download stopped before I got it
all, and now it’s not there.”
“Was there anything about that text which struck you as strange, or was that
typical of the texts he would send you?”
Doug thought for a moment. “No, it’s fairly typical really.”
“So let me get this right. Mr. Gupta sent you a text at 11:30, inviting you to
download a file. Between then and 1pm, he deleted the file, lost his phone
somewhere, and jumped out of the window.”
Doug pondered this for a few seconds. “I suppose so… unless someone took the
phone before you arrived – it was an iPhone.”
“Very good, Mr. Richards! Ever considered a career in the Police?”
Doug laughed nervously.
“We’ll contact the onlookers again and ask if anyone saw a phone. I trust you
don’t remember seeing one yourself?”
Doug thought hard. “No, sorry. I’m afraid I was a bit sick and had to turn away
for a while. Besides, we weren’t the first ones there.”
“We, Mr Richards? I thought you said you were on your own that morning.”
Doug was about to mention Cindy, but something told him he shouldn’t. “No, I
mean people were coming from all over and moving in the direction of the noise.
I ended up walking alongside this girl who’d arrived from somewhere else, but
she disappeared shortly after we got there and I haven’t seen her since.” Doug
waited to hear if Bullock would buy it and at the same time wondered why on
earth he’d lied. He could hear the sound of a keyboard tapping in the
background, but Bullock was silent. He pictured that hairy face staring
questioningly into his eyes. Eventually the inspector spoke. “Okay, Mr.
Richards. You’ve been very helpful. If you remember anything else then let me
know.”
“Wait a minute!” What about Kal’s PC? Can I get my file or not?”
“Ah, I’m afraid that won’t be possible…”
“I just want to see if that file is there so that I can continue the work we
were doing. I can prove to you that we were working on this together. We
jointly wrote a paper …”
“No, you don’t understand, Mr. Richards. It’s not a question of permission. The
hard drive was wiped clean. A low level format according to our technicians.”
“No way! What about his external back up drive? It would have been in his room,
a box about…”
“That too. Wiped clean. For a man about to commit suicide, his behaviour
was…let’s say, atypical.”
“You can say that again!” murmured Doug racking his brain for some logical
explanation and failing.
“Can you think of any reason why Mr. Gupta would want to erase the information
on his hard drive, Mr. Richards? Were you aware, for example, of any compromising
photographs, or other material which might have caused upset to his loved
ones?”
“What, like porn you mean? There might have been the odd naked woman, but
nothing you wouldn’t find pinned to the wall of your local garage mechanic.
Certainly nothing sick. He wasn’t like that.”
“Okay. Well if that’ll be all Mr. Richards, I need to be getting back to work.”
“Yes, me too I suppose. Thanks anyway.”