Ecstatic From One Lie

John woke up just before one o’clock. He felt as if he had not slept at all not so much by way of weariness but by his general feeling of nausea. He had a headache, something which he rarely suffered from and decided to take some disprins for it. He got out of bed and his foot trod on the open copy of the college Annual Report. The reminder of it gave him the impression he had stood in dog dirt and this made him feel even more queezy. He went downstairs, searched around for the disprins through numerous cupboards before discovering their whereabouts and then got a glass, poured in about ¼ pint of water straight from the tap and popped in three tablets. They fizzed, spurted and spun on the surface of the liquid like a speck of sodium thrown in a tank of water. He pulled open a drawer, withdrew a teaspoon and stirred the mixture to a flaky whiteness and then gulped it down. It was like drinking a suspension of chalk and water for the undissolved particles stuck on his tongue and were not washed down with the rest that had dissolved. He quickly poured himself another quick swill of water and drank this to wash away this sediment. Slowly he ambled back upstairs. He was in a quandary. He wanted to contact at least one of Trevor’s relatives to offer his condolences even at this rather late stage after the event but he did not know any and trying to trace them other than by writing to the address he had for Trevor would be an impossible task. No doubt, The Times, the paper to which Trevor had most contributed would have printed a brief obituary of sorts or at least mentioned something in the Births, Marriages, Deaths column of the newspaper but he would have to search through a few editions to check that. And, moreover, he thought, given his recent problems with such research and the events that he had been associated with, perhaps even triggered off recently, there could be no guarantee that it would be reported in any way, shape or form. He was now only too aware that his involvement must be known about and it was only a matter of time until all was revealed to him and his usefulness may be dispensed with. Strangely enough, the manner that dispensation might take was not at the heart of his worries. What was there was the fact that something might happen to him and he would never know what he had stirred up or been involved in. He recalled the comic epitaph for a virgin, “Returned Unopened”, and felt with regard to this mysterious character, Patrick Field, and his internment, he did not want such a vacuity about his own knowledge inscribed on his tomb or urn or whatever! It was strange, he reflected, that it was merely his involvement by asking questions that had brought him to this pass : he had gained no answers so why should he feel at risk ? Why, indeed, should he even be at risk ? There was, he concluded, no point in contacting Ken Churcher. There was absolutely no doubt in his mind that he would know by now about Trevor’s decease though it had seemed when he had talked to him only yesterday that he had no knowledge thereof. John tried hard to recall details of the conversation with Ken on matters relating to Trevor but what he remembered was far too indistinct and too vague to be conclusive about whether he had any insider knowledge or not. The drink had been a good deadener on that score and probably on others. Anyway, the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field, and Ken Churcher certainly could be identified with such a creature. John had no illusions about that man and his role. He was probably stitching up someone – maybe himself – or something even as he was having these thoughts about him!