The Archfornicator of Canterbury

39 A pile of Drøvel

Marcello Finocchio knew Professor Drøvel's schedule better than he himself did. The professor would leave the University at ten past three and walk to his apartment. It would take him fifteen minutes to do so. This meant that Finocchio had plenty of time to refuel the Government-issue brown Corolla he'd signed out of the KSPB garage.

Finocchio pulled in at the nearby Turmoil station. A gray-haired attendant in green overalls was waiting at the pump. Finocchio remembered driving to the station with his father in their old Peugeot 404 when he was a little boy and being served by the same attendant.

"Good day Sir. Regular unleaded I presume."

"Yeah. Fill her up. Charge it to the KSPB account. And check the oil while you're at it."

"Certainly Sir."

Finocchio was already bored out of his skull. The Professor would get home and work on a journal article or a conference paper. At 6 o'clock, he would have dinner, which he'd prepare by heating a can of spaghetti Bolognaise in the microwave. After dinner, he'd make himself a cup of herbal tea, sit down in his favourite chair and read scientific journals until nine o'clock. At nine, he'd pour himself a glass of sherry and continue reading until 11.30. Then he'd brush his teeth, turn out the lights and retire for the night. He would get up to have a pee between three and four in the morning. His alarm clock would go off at 7.30, after which he would move his bowels, take a shower, have breakfast (two slices of toast with orange marmalade and a cup of tea) and leave for the University at 8.30. Finocchio knew all these details courtesy of the video surveillance equipment they'd installed in the Professor's apartment. Once at the University, the Professor would teach, read, teach some more, go home and do it all over again.

The attendant was finished. Finocchio signed for the fuel and drove off. He was at the Professor's apartment in two minutes and looked at his watch. The 17-jewel Vostok was a present from his late father, who used to work as a translator at the Soviet Embassy. The Professor would arrive in two minutes. He got out of the car and went down to the cellar to sit at his makeshift surveillance station, which they'd set up in one of the storage cupboards. It was moldy and damp. Finocchio was sure the pungent stench came from a rat carcass rotting between sheets of wet asbestos. He sincerely hoped that the Professor would somehow get a violent brain seizure and die, so he wouldn't have to waste his life away any longer in a hellhole such as this.

The Archfornicator of Canterbury by Olli-Pekka Rinta-Koski
is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.