A Study of Death

Chapter One

DCI Arthur Stone looked intensively at the body that was causing all the fuss that morning. It had already been confirmed that the man had fallen from the five story window above them. The body had also been identified at the scene, not typical practice, mind, but when one of his students walked past and caught a glimpse, she’d fainted, and been taken in for questioning.

“Professor Marcus McHurst, death by falling out of his office window. Suffered head trauma as a result of said fall, or, I presume, jump.”

“Why would you say that the man jumped?” Arthur asked the Inspector, “I have a suspicion that the victim isn’t all that you have deduced.”

“We’ve looked around the scene, Stone, it’s clear he jumped!”

“How closely did you look at the scene Ellis?” the DCI asked, as he pulled on a pair of rubber gloves.

“Close enough, why do you ask?”

“Firstly, have you been in the man’s office yet? If this was a suicide he would of left some form of note to prove it. Suicide victims document everything out of habit, both culturally, and for their families to reference in the future,” Arthur said, as he checked the man’s pockets, bagging the contents carefully. Nothing unusual there, just the usual things, bits of string, a packet of gum, a biro pen that had exploded in the pocket, causing black, sticky ink to go all over the place. No note in the pockets, which would mean that, logically, there would be a note near the window where he would have jumped off, providing that this was actually a suicide.

“We’ve got forensics up there now, taking a look to see if there is anything along those lines.”

“The other point I must mention is to ask how often this man wore his spectacles. From what our witness told us, he wore them all the time, as his eye sight was so very bad. If you then look at the body, you can see…”

“He’s wearing glasses. But how is that pertinent to this case?”

“When someone commits suicide, they might not want to see it as it happens. If the Professor’s eyesight was really that bad, he would have taken his spectacles off so he wouldn’t know when death would come for him, a comfort thing I guess, and having presided over many cases of this kind of suicide, I would know. But he kept them on. This is therefore suggesting that he was braver than we think, or that he was pushed.”

“Humpty Dumpty was pushed?”

“Perhaps he was. Who knows?”

A young forensics officer ran up to the DCI, and handed him a piece of paper.

“That’ll be the suicide note, I warrant,” Arthur said, raising an eyebrow to his colleague, “Let’s have a read, shall we?”

‘December 4th 2013.

My time in the world is drawing to a sudden and violent close. If God can Help me now, it would be appreciated, but this will be the Killer of me, my sanity is clearly On The Loose, I would stay alive, but I Don’t Trust Anyone Here. Give my love to my wife and daughter; their details are in my desk on the top drawer.

Professor McHurst’

“He wrote a note, it’s a suicide.”

“I have a hunch; this was a professor who taught semiotics.”

“Eh?”

“That’s the study of symbols and codes to you and me, a very fascinating study, for those who have the time. Look at this letter, what can you tell me about what you see?”

“That his grammar was terrible? Professors are not known for their good literary skills.”

“I have reason to believe that the professor was trying to convey something important through this note. First, we need to compare the handwriting on the note to something he wrote before this. Then we’ll go from there.”

They turned round from the scene, and headed back to their car, there would be paperwork waiting at the DCI’s office, which he intended to have a quick skim through before sitting down to decipher whatever was in the note. The capital letters interested him. Why on earth would the professor only capitalise certain words, and not all of them? The hand looked shaky; he had to have been forced to write this for whatever reason. And why would anyone want to bump off an innocent old professor who studied the fairly innocent art of code decipher?

As they got into the car, the covered body was loaded into the back of an ambulance.