Anne walked towards the Intelligent Systems building and fumbled in her bag for her door pass. Closer by, she saw she wouldn’t need it. A brick had been wedged to hold the door ajar.
Corby’s scanner was still screwed to the wall. The University maintenance staff had disconnected it but they hadn’t got the security card reader working reliably so the staff had blocked the door open.
As a result, January now seemed as cold inside the building as out. Anne walked down the corridor and pulled her duffle coat more tightly about her. The office doors were all closed – as much to prevent the escape of heat as for privacy. Without its stacks of computers, the passage seemed wider as well as colder.
Corby’s door was the only one open and a glance inside showed him glumly packing books and computing magazines into a carton.
“Good morning, Steven.”
He looked up sullenly. “Oh, it’s you.”
“Come on. I’ve apologised.” She walked into the room. “You can’t just cold-shoulder me for the rest of your life.”
“All very well for you to say that.” He continued packing. “But you haven’t lost three years’ research.”
“You know I didn’t want that. And there’s nothing I can do about it now.” Anne couldn’t help feeling sorry for him. “Come over to the cafeteria and I’ll buy you a cup of coffee. If you still want to be angry you can get it out of your system and we can be friends again.”
“I suppose I’d be nuts not to accept an offer like that.” Corby smiled grimly. “It’s probably the best I’ve had this year.”
As they made their way along the sidewalk towards the canteen, she looked up at him. He was a foot taller and it seemed to make him both remote and vulnerable.
“I hope you didn’t mean that,” she said.
“Mean what?”
“That this was the best offer you’d had this year.”
“Oh, it almost certainly is. Things have been pretty depressing. I spent Christmas trying to see if I could save anything on my computers at home but you need a critical mass of, oh, maybe fifty or sixty machines, before the system betrays any sign of intelligence. Then, a week ago an e-mail from the University. They’ve suspended me pending a hearing.”
“Why on earth would they do that?” Anne moved ahead of him as he held the door open.
“Looks as if they’re trying to throw the book at me. Health and Safety for the computers, unauthorised computer use, unprofessional conduct, misrepresentation. You name it. I’m not allowed to contact my students until after the hearing. No tutorial work.”
“My goodness. They have got it in for you. When do you see them?” She paid for their coffee and they made their way over to a booth and sat down.
“Not for another week. And with the accusations so vague, there’s not even very much I can do to prepare for it. I thought about contacting a lawyer to represent me but I’m not it’d be a good idea. I’d be burning my bridges. If things go against me it will be twice as bad if I’ve involved an outsider.”
“Who’ve you got to help you, then?”
“I think I’ll have to go it alone. I don’t know anyone in the Law Department and, to tell the truth, I’ve lost contact with most of the people I used to know in Computer Science. I’d got so immersed in the work I was doing that I really only spoke to DENIS. And my tutorial students aren’t appropriate, of course.”
“Maybe a lawyer wouldn’t be a bad idea. One of my students had some visa problems and there’s a lawyer out in Edge Hill who sorted them out for her. Mind you, he was a good lawyer but in the Frank Galvin mould.”
“Frank Galvin?”
“You know, the alcoholic Paul Newman character in The Verdict. My student had smelt booze on his breath a few times and she was terrified he’d be drunk at the hearing. But he turned out to be amazingly good. And he did it all ‘No win, No fee’.”
“Well I couldn’t afford to pay anything. And I don’t think I’d want a lawyer who drinks.”
“What are you trying to achieve?”
“That’s the stupid thing. I seem to be caught up in a mess that simply doesn’t make sense. I only want to carry on working, which seems less and less likely as time goes on. Things just go from bad to worse. That’s why I was taking my books home – I know most of the stuff these days is on the web but every now and then you need to look at a book and there’s not much point coming up here to refer to them if I can’t talk to anyone. And without computing resource I can only do background work on my project.”
“I suppose...” Should she get involved? It would be wrong to get his hopes up if she didn’t have the time later. But, she felt so sorry for him. “I could give you a hand with your preparation. If it would help, of course. How are you planning to defend yourself?”
“That’s the difficulty, really. What is there to defend?” He shook his head. “In some ways it would be easier if there was a less general accusation – plagiarism or being drunk and disorderly or something. The only real specific is that the computers were a fire risk and there’s no way that could ever be disproved. Especially now they’re gone. And they say I made unauthorised use of a computer to launch a virus on the network. I wouldn’t know how to write a virus if I wanted to. In some ways, perhaps attack is the best form of defence. Go there and ask them directly why they’re persecuting me.”
“Now that would be burning your bridges. No. Don’t make things worse for yourself. Why don’t you let me take a look at what they’ve sent you? At least I can tell you whether it looks reasonable or not.”
“That’d be great. I’ll give you a copy when we get back to the office.”
“And don’t go doing anything hasty. I have a lecture in ten minutes but let’s take a calm look at this and see what can be done to recover things.”
Anne stood up and began to collect her books. As she turned towards the door, she caught sight of Adrian Fielding at the other end of the room. Corby had clearly seen him too because he quickly drank his coffee and made his way to the door with her.
“Not so fast!” Fielding’s voice came from behind them. “Don’t think you can scuttle away from me.”
Corby half turned but Anne took his arm and led him away from any confrontation.
“Running away won’t get you anywhere,” Fielding taunted. “What you need is a lawyer. A good lawyer. And don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
As Corby reached the exit his face was white.
“Don’t let him get to you,” Anne said.
“He’s mad, you know.” Corby’s voice was strained. “Completely mad. But maybe he’s right about the lawyer. Maybe the idea isn’t so bad after all. Perhaps a lawyer could do something about my computers too. Even the one in Edge Hill.”
“Yes. He’s very good. His name’s Shaikh. It won’t hurt to talk to him before the interview with the Dean. At least you know what your rights are. And if you need him later you’ll already have the contact.”
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