The Time Roads

“And if I need confirmation, I shall surely ask them. This moment, I wish to hear your account. Did you walk to the university or ride?”

“I took a cab.”

“Directly to the lecture?”

“No, not directly. Cabs aren’t permitted on the grounds. In any case, my rooms are in the square opposite the East Gates. I stopped by

to fetch my gown and notebooks for the lecture.”

“Anything else?”

“Nothing. No, wait. I had promised a book for Susanna.”

“Did you encounter anyone, talk to anyone, between your rooms and the lecture hall?”

Síomón shook his head. “No. No one.”

Ó Deághaidh studied him a moment. His eyes, which had appeared so warm that afternoon, had turned hard and glittering in his weathered face. It was, Síomón thought, as though Ó Deághaidh had stripped away every superfluous quality, leaving behind only that relentless curiosity.

“Very well,” Ó Deághaidh said. “What next? You came to the lecture hall. Whom did you first see?”

They covered Síomón’s activities from when he and Ó Deághaidh parted by the Blackwater, to when the gardaí arrived at the murder scene. Throughout, Ó Deághaidh’s voice remained calm, his manner detached, but his attention to detail was meticulous. In the background, Síomón could hear the scratch of pens moving over paper. Two gardaí were taking notes in parallel, as though Ó Deághaidh did not trust the account to a single chronicler. Another, the one who had fetched him the tin of water, simply waited and listened.

Eventually they reached the point when Evan De Mora approached Síomón in the library.

“What was the hour?” Ó Deághaidh asked.

“Near ten. I remember the hour bell ringing just as we left the library.”

“And how would you say Mr. De Mora appeared?”

Síomón paused, the tin cup in hand. “Upset, of course.”

“At you?”

“No!” Síomón slammed the cup onto the tabletop, sloshing water over the sides. Hands shaking, he mopped up the spill with his handkerchief. “I apologize for my outburst, Commander. It’s been a long day.”

“To be sure, Mr. Madóc. We are all a bit weary and shaken. Tell me, if you can, exactly how Mr. De Mora appeared. Upset, you said. Did he seem angry? Grieving? Nervous?”

His mouth tasted like cotton, but Síomón resisted the urge to request more water. “Do you suspect him? Surely not?”

Aidrean Ó Deághaidh’s expression remained bland. “I suspect everyone, Mr. Madóc. Did you know David Levi?”

The sudden shift in topic caught Síomón off guard, and, for a moment, he couldn’t collect his thoughts into an answer. “Yes, I knew him. Not as well as Evan does—did. But David attended a number of mathematics lectures, so we talked from time to time.”

“About electrical impulses in numbers?”

Was that mockery in Ó Deághaidh’s voice? Some sly reference to Síomón’s own discredited theories? He could not tell. Suppressing his urge to shout, he answered, “Yes.”

“But you were not friends.”

“No. Colleagues.”

“Respected colleagues, you might say. I understand. Do you know if he formed any closer ties with the other mathematics students?”

So far he’d answered freely, but now Síomón began to mistrust the shape of Ó Deághaidh’s questioning, which seemed designed to draw out his opinions in dangerous ways. “Not that I know of.”

Ó Deághaidh favored him with another thoughtful look, but apparently he had no further interest in David Levi, because he went back to the step-by-step questions, asking Síomón about his departure with Evan De Mora from the library, what they saw from the portico and walk, who first noticed the body, and when Síomón observed the unknown fugitive.