A Pocketful of Eyes Read online

  Bee began to tremble. No. She was just being silly. It was probably a security guard, doing his nightly rounds. Or maybe Gus had returned to get his smartcard.

  Footsteps sounded in the lab. Bee saw the thin strip of light beneath the door wink out, then the footsteps faded into the distance. Bee groped for Toby’s hand, and they felt their way to the door, which had thankfully not been locked on the other side.

  Toby flicked the lab light back on and Bee blinked away the brightness. She felt tired and fuzzy, as though her head was stuffed with tissue paper.

  ‘You okay?’ said Toby.

  ‘Fine.’ Her voice sounded as though it were a long way away. ‘It was probably the security guard.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Toby. He looked at her for a moment longer, and Bee thought maybe he was going to kiss her again. ‘I might just go and check, though,’ he said. ‘Make sure he doesn’t lock us in or set an alarm or anything.’

  ‘Okay.’

  Toby slipped out the door into the corridor. Bee shivered, suddenly cold. She perched on her desk. The almost-finished possum stared up at her with empty eye-sockets.

  She felt as if she’d been busted breaking into school at night. But she hadn’t. She’d been working late, which was something professional and responsible. Something adult. Adults worked late.

  Adults didn’t get hot and sticky with boys on the backs of stuffed tigers.

  Bee checked the clock on the wall: 12:49. She’d have to get a cab home. Toby had been gone for eleven minutes. Why was she waiting? Was it because she thought she and Toby would resume their make-out session when he got back? She had a strong, urgent desire to be at home, in bed. Alone.

  She picked up her bag just as Toby returned.

  ‘No sign of the security guard,’ said Toby. ‘And his office is empty, so I guess he’s on his rounds somewhere else in the building.’ He looked at her. ‘Are you leaving?’

  ‘Um,’ said Bee. ‘Yeah. It’s late.’

  She shuffled awkwardly towards the door, veering to the side in case Toby thought she was walking towards him.

  ‘See you tomorrow,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Toby. ‘See you.’

  BEE WOKE TO THE SOUNDS of her mother being attacked with a light sabre.

  She crawled out of bed, every swoop and crack of the light sabre stabbing her between the eyes.

  Angela was sitting on the couch in the living room, wearing a red velvet dressing-gown and battling Darth Vader on her PlayStation 3.

  ‘Hi, Mum,’ said Bee.

  Angela didn’t look away from the screen, but waved her controller in a vague gesture that Bee supposed was meant to be affectionate. ‘Good morning, sweetheart.’ She performed a tricky manoeuvre that involved jumping high in the air and flipping over before slamming Darth Vader on the top of his black shiny helmet. ‘Did you go out last night? Did you have fun?’

  Bee thought of the little silver flask, the stuffed tiger, and the feeling of Toby’s lips on her neck.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I had to work late, remember?’

  ‘That’s a shame.’ Angela winced as she took a glancing blow to the head. ‘So do you have the morning off? I’m nearly finished this chapter and I don’t have to teach until 11:30. We could go out for breakfast.’

  Bee shook her head. ‘No,’ she said, yawning. ‘I still have to be there at the normal time.’

  Darth Vader delivered a killing blow and the screen went dark. Angela swore and threw down her controller. Then she glanced up at Bee. ‘Sweetheart, I’m sorry to break it to you, but normal time left the building a while ago.’

  Bee felt as though she’d been slapped in the face. She looked at the clock on the DVR. It was 9:03.

  ‘Crap,’ she said, and bolted to her room to change.

  Bee’s perfectly honed skills of observation were sadly dulled by residual alcohol, lack of sleep and intruding thoughts about a certain dark-haired, bespectacled boy and the way he had sent shivers up her spine. So she didn’t notice five things that otherwise would have alerted her to the fact that this Friday morning was not like other Friday mornings.

  1. The front door of the museum didn’t open automatically as it usually did within opening hours. Bee had to fish out her smartcard and buzz in.

  2. An A3 piece of paper was stuck to the automatic door with sticky tape. Bee didn’t stop to read what it said.

  3. The museum café was closed.

  4. Bee didn’t have her watch on, so she didn’t notice that, despite it being 10:17, there were no patrons lined up at the ticket counter.

  5. There were no staff at the ticket counter. There were no staff anywhere.

  Bee passed through the Mollusc Room and the Hall of Native Flora, then pressed her smartcard against a door and pushed it open, making her way down the grey concrete stairs to the basement.

  Two police officers, a man and a woman, were standing at the bottom of the stairs, talking in low voices.

  Bee walked up to them. ‘Would you mind letting me through?’ she said, as if a police presence outside her office wasn’t at all unusual. ‘I’m late.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said the policeman. ‘But I’m afraid I can’t do that.’

  Bee sighed and was about to argue, but someone called her name. It was Toby.

  ‘Are you okay?’ he said, touching her arm. Bee pulled away, feeling affronted. Why wouldn’t she be okay? What did she have to be not okay about? She considered it and came up with three possible scenarios, none of which were acceptable.

  1. Toby was in love with her, and had immediately turned into the kind of boy who buys bunches of roses with those little white flowers among them. The kind of boy she’d read about who wrote poetry and was doglike and droopy. The kind of boy who said no, you hang up first. And Bee had no interest in that kind of boy, in fiction or in real life.

  2. Toby was concerned that she was in love with him. And he was going to play the man, we were so trashed last night, what the hell did we get up to card to get himself out of trouble. Well.

  3. Gus was on the warpath because Bee was late. Which would mean Bee getting a lecture from Gus, while Toby stood around in the background looking smarmy.

  Whatever the reason behind Toby’s solicitousness, Bee decided to clear up the whole drunken-kissing thing straight off.

  ‘Look,’ she said, glancing at the police officers and scowling. ‘About last night. I think we’re probably both mature enough to admit that things got a little out of hand. And while I’m sure you’re a very nice person, I really don’t think we have much in common. So perhaps we could just forget it ever happened. We have to work together, and . . . would you mind letting go of my arm?’

  Toby did not let go of her arm. He tugged on it instead. ‘We have to go upstairs, Bee.’

  Bee wasn’t sure how that was a mature response to her statement . . . or any response, really. Why did he want her to go upstairs? Did he want to find a private place so he could kiss her again? Was he not listening? She didn’t want any more kissing. Really. Honestly. She felt her cheeks go red.

  ‘There’s a staff meeting,’ Toby was saying. ‘We’ve all been summoned.’

  He was still pulling on her arm. The police officers were staring uncomfortably at the ground.

  ‘What?’ said Bee. ‘There’s no staff meeting today. Staff meetings are on Mondays.’

  Toby stopped pulling, and leaned down to look Bee directly in the eye.

  ‘Bee, don’t you know?’ he said. ‘Gus is dead.’

  ‘MOST OF YOU WILL ALREADY have heard that Gus, our Head Taxidermist, died last night,’ said Akiko Kobayashi, the Museum Director, her knuckles white on the wooden lectern.

  Bee sat next to Toby in the back row of the auditorium where the museum held public lectures and forums. The other staff members were dotted around the room, sitting in groups of two or three. Some were crying. Bee felt as if she couldn’t blink. The only part of her body that had any feeling was the hand Toby was still holding. Gus
was dead?

  ‘Are you okay?’ whispered Toby, squeezing her hand.

  Bee didn’t respond.

  ‘He was found this morning in the Red Rotunda,’ said Akiko, glancing down at a piece of paper in front of her. She paused and swallowed. ‘The police say that he – he took his own life. At around midnight last night. He took something that sent him into anaphylactic shock. Um. Forensics are working in the Red Rotunda today, so please stay away from that area. Counselling will be made available to any staff member who requests it, and of course my door is always open. The museum will remain closed today, and staff have the option of taking the rest of the day off . . .’

  Akiko continued to talk, but all Bee heard was a faint buzzing. Gus was dead. Dead. Yesterday he ate a salad sandwich and two hamburgers and several doughnuts and today he was dead. As dead as the possum on Bee’s desk.

  ‘I need to see him,’ Bee said suddenly, turning to Toby.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Gus. I need to see him.’

  ‘You want to see his body?’

  Bee nodded. ‘Now,’ she said, getting to her feet.

  There was police tape across the door of the Red Rotunda, but no sign of any officers.

  ‘We can’t go in,’ said Toby.

  Bee ignored him and opened the door, ducking under the tape.

  The room looked the same as it had the previous day. It contained a strange collection of creatures, some preserved in jars of yellowing methylated spirits, others posed and mounted. There were some rather mangy cats and a dog in one case, and a scorpion and a funny-shaped crab in another. One large jar labelled Mole Paws contained what looked like several hundred tiny furry hands. A raven perched on a wooden branch, its glass eye winking at Bee.

  The only change in the room was that the elderly gentleman and tour guide were gone, replaced by two police officers standing near a glass case containing a dissected dolphin fin and a sperm whale foetus.

  And Gus, lying in the very middle of the room, not moving.

  He was on his back, his green Natural History Museum hoodie stark against the polished parquetry floor and the red walls. His eyes were closed and his mouth open. In his right hand Bee saw a tiny bottle. She leaned forward to read the label.

  ‘Seriously?’ said one of the policemen into a mobile phone. He held the phone to his chest to muffle his voice as he spoke to his colleague. ‘Forensics can’t get back here until two.’

  ‘The guy’s been dead for . . .’ The second policeman checked his watch. ‘. . . nearly eleven hours. He’s going to start to smell.’

  Bee went to check the time, only to find her watch wasn’t on her wrist. She grabbed Toby’s arm. There was an awkward moment where he seemed to think Bee wanted to hold his hand, but she pulled back his sleeve impatiently and checked his watch: 10:51.

  The movement caught the attention of the policeman on the phone, who frowned at them. ‘I don’t care if it’s only routine, just tell them to hurry.’ He finished the call. ‘You can’t be in here,’ he said to Bee and Toby.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Toby. ‘We work here. In the same office as . . .’ He indicated Gus and glanced at Bee. ‘My colleague is very upset.’

  The policeman nodded. ‘It must be hard,’ he said. ‘And ordinarily it’d be fine, but Forensics haven’t finished yet, and I’ll be in deep strife if I let anyone near the body.’

  ‘Does he have anything on him?’ asked Bee suddenly. Her voice sounded very loud.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Besides the bottle. Does he have his wallet, or a suicide note, or anything?’

  The policeman shook his head. ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Just some loose change in the pocket of his hoodie. Oh, and about ten glass eyes.’

  ‘What size?’ asked Bee. Toby looked at her as if she were crazy.

  ‘Different sizes,’ said the policeman. ‘Like for an animal. Yellow, with a line instead of a dot in the middle.’

  ‘Like a cat’s eye?’ asked Bee.

  ‘More like a lizard or a snake’s.’ The policeman made an apologetic face. ‘You’d better go. There’s really not supposed to be anyone in here.’

  Toby escorted Bee out the front door of the museum and across the lawn to the posh café over the road. As they walked, Bee’s mind was whirling. But amid the confusion of emotions and thoughts, three things stood out very clearly:

  1. It was a very nice day. Too nice to be the day you discover your boss has killed himself.

  2. The old man she’d seen yesterday – William Cranston – was sitting on a bench on the museum lawn. He was wearing a tweed cap.

  3. Bee was a terrible, terrible person.

  In the café, Toby bought her a cup of chamomile tea and an orange-cardamom friand.

  ‘You’re sure you’re okay?’ he asked.

  ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Sorry about before. I was upset.’

  ‘I know. I’m upset too. It’s . . . it sucks.’

  Bee shook her head. ‘I just don’t understand.’

  ‘Me neither,’ said Toby. ‘I mean, I barely knew the guy, but why would Gus want to kill himself? He must have been really unhappy.’

  ‘He didn’t seem unhappy,’ said Bee. ‘Grumpy, but not unhappy. And yesterday he was positively chirpy.’

  ‘It’s common for behaviour to alter dramatically once the decision has been made to end a life,’ said Toby, as if he were reciting from a book. Bee frowned at him and he looked apologetic. ‘But you’re right, it’s weird.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Bee, staring into her cup of tea while her mind clicked and whirred through myriad possibilities and scenarios, none of which involved a suicide. ‘Weird.’

  Stop. She had to stop thinking like a storybook detective. This was real life. A man was dead. ‘Have you heard of William Cranston?’ she asked suddenly. ‘He’s an anatomist.’

  Toby looked confused. ‘Um, I don’t know. The name sounds familiar. Are you sure you’re okay?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Bee firmly. ‘I’m fine. Gus killed himself. It’s very sad and real. I’m fine.’

  Toby leaned closer. ‘You sound like you’re trying to convince yourself. You don’t think he killed himself?’

  Bee forced a laugh. ‘Of course he did. That’s what the policeman said.’

  ‘But you think they might be wrong? What, do you think he might have been murdered?’

  ‘No,’ said Bee. ‘No. Definitely not.’

  She just had to stop thinking, that was all. Maybe if Toby kissed her neck again it would drive out all rational thought like last time.

  ‘Because, really, why would anyone want to kill Gus? I’m sure he didn’t have any money or anything.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Bee. ‘It can’t have been murder.’

  Toby ducked his head to look directly at her. ‘You don’t look convinced,’ he observed.

  Bee stood up suddenly, her chair scraping on the slate tiles. ‘Well, I am,’ she said shortly. ‘I’m going home.’

  ‘Wait,’ said Toby, but Bee was already marching out of the café and into the bright sunshine.

  The whole idea seemed even more ridiculous in the street, with people walking by eating ice-cream and carrying shopping bags. But there were so many things sloshing around in Bee’s head, getting tangled up in her hangover and making her temples throb. She closed her eyes for a moment and wondered how it was possible that Toby knew so much random trivia about the anatomy of creatures, but had never heard of Doctor William Cranston. Shouldn’t a trivia-laden med student like Toby be familiar with a world-famous anatomy expert?

  ‘Bee,’ said Toby. ‘Talk to me. What’s going on?’

  He touched her shoulder and she had a sudden flashback to the stuffed tiger and the little silver flask. They hadn’t talked about what had happened last night. Bee hoped that now they wouldn’t have to. She also remembered seeing Gus’s smartcard on his desk after she was introduced to the little silver flask. She remembered hearing the door to the taxidermy lab close. She remembered go
ing back into the lab and noticing the three-minutes-slow clock, which had read 12:38. Had the smartcard still been on Gus’s desk when they returned? That she couldn’t remember. Stupid silver flask.

  ‘Bee?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Bee, who had an uncomfortable suspicion that she might cry from the enormity of it all, and the nagging thoughts and emerging theories that she couldn’t drive away. ‘Nothing is going on. Because I know Gus wasn’t murdered. I know because the world doesn’t work that way. Have you heard of Occam’s razor?’

  Toby made a face. ‘It’s one of those things I always pretend to know about when lecturers mention it,’ he admitted. ‘But I’ve got no idea.’

  ‘It’s this scientific theory,’ said Bee, talking very quickly to stop herself from bursting into tears, ‘that the simplest explanation is usually the right one. And it is. My father didn’t disappear when I was six because he got stranded on a desert island like Robinson Crusoe. He left because he was embarrassed by my mother, who is a spotty sixteen-year-old comic-book nerd living in the rather overweight body of a middle-aged woman. And my boyfriend Fletch hasn’t called me all summer – not because he’s a secret agent on a mission in Russia, but because he likes my best friend better than he likes me.’ She took a deep breath. ‘The world isn’t complicated at all. It’s very simple and straightforward. Mysteries can be solved with clear, objective thinking. Gus killed himself because he was depressed. There. The end.’

  ‘But?’ said Toby.

  ‘But what?’

  ‘Oh, there’s a but. I know you have a but. So tell me. But . . . ?’

  Bee stared at him for a moment. She should just keep quiet. But . . .

  ‘But yesterday, Gus didn’t seem like the kind of man who was so depressed he was about to kill himself. He told us all that bizarre stuff about Frankenstinian dogs. He ate a sandwich. And that bottle . . . the label said it was corrosive sublimate. I’m not quite sure what that is. But anyway, it was in his right hand, yet Gus was left-handed. And how did he get into the Red Rotunda if he’d left his smartcard in the office?’