An Elegant Solution by Anne Atkins ➱ Book Tour with Giveaway

An Elegant Solution

by Anne Atkins

Genre: Contemporary Fiction

When someone mentions the City of Cambridge you probably think of an iconic building, its four corners stretching out of the once medieval mud and into the arms of everlasting heaven, its white limestone yearning into eternity... and without even knowing exactly what ephemeral joys or permanent wonders the vision brings to mind, it s a safe bet that the one thought which doesn t occur to you is that the Chapel might not be there by Christmas. Theo (Theophilus Ambrose Fitzwilliam Wedderburn to his friends) is a Junior Research Fellow in Number Theory. Prompted by a supervisee to demonstrate how to trace the provenance of bitcoins, Theo happens across a shocking revelation, with embarrassing ramifications for the whole University. Meanwhile he is being stalked unseen by someone from his childhood. To his annoyance, Theo falls for a cheap con... and discovers a horror set not only to rock the very seat of power itself but to change the face of Cambridge and its beautifully iconic image for ever.

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An Elegant Solution

Extract 1
She woke disoriented, her gown crushed. She rummaged in her clutch bag. Twenty past three. It was disappointing to have missed any of the night, but perhaps worth it to feel so refreshed. She ran her fingers through her hair and scrunched it into place.
Suki must be enjoying herself. Charlotte straightened the bed and left it as she’d found it.
She didn’t immediately notice anything in the sitting room: it was now in darkness. She switched on the light for her makeup. Suki sat on the window seat, hunched, her head on her knees, still.
“Hello!” Charlotte said brightly. “Were you having a great time? Suks?”
She knelt on the floor next to her. “Suki? You all right? Hey . . .”
Her friend barely moved. Charlotte realised she was crying. “What is it?” Suki rocked into her arms and sobbed. Charlotte wondered how long she should hold her, whether to get tissues, how to put the kettle on. It was a few minutes before she could let go.
“I’m making you some tea. Will you be all right?” Their roles reversed, despite Suki’s whole Cambridge year ahead of her.
There were dirty mugs by the kettle, a box of teabags and a used spoon. Charlotte opened a cupboard but found only instant coffee. “I’ll be back in a moment. I’m going to find milk.” She went into the corridor, opening doors. One led to the bedroom which must belong to the other occupant of the set. The bedclothes were in disarray and she saw Suki’s pretty feather cardigan on the floor. She retrieved it. The next door was locked, but then she found a door saying ‘Gyp Room’. It was a tiny kitchen. She took milk from the
fridge, then returned for sugar. “Here we are,” she said, shutting the door carefully. She continued
the chatter as she stirred tea bags and added sugar to one of them. Suki stared out of the window and went on crying.
“Come on, Suki. Take this. It’s okay: I’m just moving your skirt out of the way. You don’t want to wreck your dress, shaking your tea like that. I’ve put sugar in it.”
“I don’t take sugar.” “I know.” Suki winced at the heat. She gave the mug back. “Where were you?” “I waited for you at the ceilidh. Like we said.” “The ceilidh,” she said dully. “Have I missed it?” Tears ran down
her cheeks again.
“The caller was rubbish: you didn’t miss anything we can’t do better another time. Have another sip.” She waited. “Tell me what happened. If you want to. Do you want me to get anyone?”
“No! No, please.”
“Okay, okay.” Charlotte waited a moment. “Where did you go, after the punting?”
“I can’t remember. We went to the photo booth. There was a long queue so we came back. Then . . . I don’t know. I don’t care. I met friends, and I was introduced to someone. A Fellow. He seemed really good fun.” She started sobbing again and couldn’t go on.
“Did you . . .” Charlotte thought of the feather cardigan. “Did you go into the room along the corridor?” Suki nodded. “Did he . . . ? What happened?”

Extract 2

It was after four when Mark came to bed. She heard drawers opening and shutting, the wardrobe door complaining, shoes hitting the floor. The springs moaned as he sank heavily in the bed without touching her. Within minutes she felt his low snoring growl.
The darkness was diluting into grey. A lone bird attempted something. Now she’d been woken, she wouldn’t sleep again.
What had he been doing? Working? Emailing? He used the room he called his library. She preferred the comfort of reading in bed, though once Mark was there she had to turn the light off.
She was not entirely pleased with what she had worn last night. It was a calf-length dark red velvet dress, an unusual choice for midsummer, especially one as balmy as this, and one of their guests had commented on it.
The conversation had crossed back and forth about the table, as it should, until Shirley said, “You know all about this, don’t you Liz? Aren’t you on the Museum Committee?”
That was the moment at which Mark finished saying something to Tom’s partner Rachel at the other end of the table, and addressed her. “Would you get the coffee now?”
“I’ll get it in a minute. Yes,” she turned back to Shirley. “It’s a complex issue. He told us his terms upfront. He was very courteous, and quite happy to take his money elsewhere. His ideas are extremely well researched.” She was about to explain his vision for the modern collection.
“It’s been a minute,” Mark said from the other end of the table. The conversation stalled and faces turned to him. His iPhone was in his left hand, timing her.
Silence. The room waited.

Extract 3

Theo had never been sexually assaulted. He had never felt vulnerable as he assumed all women do, at some level, in a way men can never fully appreciate. But he had been bullied. He had experienced cruelty from grown-ups far more powerful than he was. And he could transport his soul – whether with ‘sympathy’ or ‘empathy’ he neither considered nor cared – to a room overlooking Trinity New Court, into the mind of a nineteen-year-old who, though academically competent, was far too naïve and uncertain of herself to stand up to a senior member of the university. Who was trying to be respectful to her academic superior as well as enjoy herself at her first Cambridge May Ball, the ticket for which had cost her far, far more than it ought and required her to go half a term without proper food and rather longer lacking books she would have liked for her course. He considered too how her precious youth and enthusiasm had been so carelessly and callously ruined as surely as the beautiful frock of which she had been so inordinately proud.
When his imagination reached that point (with far more empathy, in truth, than the eminent psychiatrist had shown his mother long ago) he experienced his anger in the form of an intense and almost unbearable physical pain.
Another man, in the grip of such rage, might have hit something or (depending on his educational disadvantages) someone. Perhaps competed vigorously with a ball – or in earlier times a more brutal weapon – according to rules set down by other men. These outlets were not available to Theo: from an early age he had been excluded from all sports he enjoyed, by teachers who were far more competitive than their pupils and didn’t see in Theo’s enthusiasm anything that would advance the school’s reputation or their own careers.
He considered it uncivilised – and more to the point, unconstructive – to go round to Crispin’s rooms and punch him in the face.
So instead, Theo wept.
He wept for the trusting nature of a young woman he had only just met. He wept because from now on she would have to be a little harder and more cynical. He wept because the treasured memory of her first May Ball had been spoilt for ever. And because her friend, even younger than she was, had been made to grow up far too soon.

Extract 4

“In other words,” Theo turned back, his face very still, “Crispin is engaged in supposedly independent research. Whilst going to a lot of trouble to hide large payments from an interest which would very much prefer his findings not to be independent at all.”
“Hey, man,” Evan said soothingly. “It’s not that bad. So, his research is compromised.”
“Not that bad?” Theo demanded, moving his spectacles very slightly on his nose. “Not that bad? His integrity is compromised. The college is compromised. The entire University of Cambridge is compromised.”
“Surely not,” Charlotte said. “One bad apple . . .”
“The foundation on which we all conduct research is compromised.” He looked away, collecting his thoughts. Letting the colour in his face subside. “Kute Kittens,” he resumed after a long, slow breath, “is campaigning for freer access to porn. Wanting the internet, all websites, to be uncensored. No frontiers. Crispin is researching how porn affects young viewers. Whether erotic images have a permanent effect on children’s neural pathways. Whether this later affects their relationships, influences how they view the opposite sex, creates an acceptance of violence. His findings will be published in peer-reviewed papers. Reviewed by other psychologists who will assume his research was kosher. What he ‘discovers’,” he paused, “will enter the field of expertise, become part of the body of accepted fact. Some journalist on the Daily Mail – or perhaps, in this case, the Guardian – will skim-read it in five minutes and summarise it in an argument for free access to porn. At some stage the House of Commons will decide to vote on some related piece of legislation. Busy MPs will ask their unpaid interns just out of journalism college who have never been introduced to the concept of independent thought let alone proper research, to investigate the issues. These dippy, not very clever stooges will find the Guardian article. It wouldn’t occur to them to consider first sources. Even if they did, all they would find would be the lies Crispin has been paid to produce. Overworked politicians will vote on the basis of those lies. Do you not see?” He took off his spectacles and wiped his face. “Somewhere down the line, Crispin’s bribed and far from independent or indeed academic research will abuse the minds of children, who might then go on to abuse others.

Extract 5

When someone mentions the City of Cambridge you probably think of an iconic building, its four corners stretching out of the once medieval mud through the imagination of Henry VI and his architect Reginald Ely and into the arms of everlasting heaven, its white limestone yearning into eternity, its graceful face overlooking the sighing river, smiling enigmatically on the loves and ambitions, the hopes and dreams, the volumes of slim poetry and glancing kisses of those who have ever travelled the lazy Cam in midsummer . . . and without knowing exactly what ephemeral joys or permanent wonders the vision brings to mind, it’s a safe bet that the one thought which doesn’t occur to you is that the Chapel might not be there by Christmas…
***
They looked at the Chapel, already diminished to a model, the windows lit up like tissue paper.
“The most beautiful place in the world,” she said. “Yes.” “Imagine if anything were to happen to it.” “I can’t. It would make me too unhappy.”
The silence was mutual.
“Think of all the people whose lives it represents,” she continued eventually. “Stone-masons, glaziers, carpenters. Little boys singing; townspeople worshipping; Fellows and Provosts and Deans.”
“During the war, they removed every pane of glass. An old professor told me that in the gales of 1987 he climbed onto the roof, alone, with no safety equipment, to save the windows. There was scaffolding up to clean the stonework, and he feared a pole might come loose.”
“Like Bathsheba and Gabriel. Sorry,” she remembered he was a mathmo. “Just a novel.”
“He wasn’t a night climber or anything. Luckily he found workmen up there, and left it to them.”
“It’s stood for, what, nearly six hundred years?” They sighed in contentment. “Do you suppose,” he said, “there are rules against senior
members running on the lawn?” “No one here to ask.” “You’ll have to keep up. If you’re on the grass without a senior
member they’ll shoot you.”

Anne Atkins is the author of several novels, most recently An Elegant Solution, a literary thriller set in Cambridge, with a dashing Aspergic hero.

Previous novels are The Lost Child, On Our Own and A Fine and Private Place, all featuring a child’s viewpoint.

She has also written several books of non-fiction. Split Image: Male and Female After God's Likeness, is a layperson’s guide to biblical teaching about the sexes. Child-Rearing for Fun: Trust Your Instincts and Enjoy Your Children gives parents the confidence to know they're getting it right, ideas to help them do it even better, and an awful lot of laughs. Agony Atkins is a compilation of her agony aunt columns in the Daily Telegraph and contains much wisdom and lots more laughs.

She is a regular contributor to Thought for the Day on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, as well as many other radio and television programmes and most national newspapers.

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