The Sleepless

The only thing that ever caused him any anxiety was ‘Mr Hillary’. ‘Mr Hillary’ was only a minuscule blot in his life and yet he couldn’t erase it. It seemed petty, no more significant than a single pinprick of mould on a perfectly painted wall, but it never left him alone. Ever since childhood, his nights had constantly been haunted by a single terrifying image; an image that stood silent and cold in a remote corridor in the back of his mind. It was an image that was unreachable by day. In his late twenties he had tried hypnotism, and then he had two years of absurdly expensive psychoanalysis. But the image was inaccessible to his waking consciousness – even though he knew all the time that it was there.

Eva appeared in the mirror behind him, aristocratically handsome, in her primrose-yellow Eva Chun suit. ‘Is His Honour the Supreme Court justice ready yet?’ she smiled. John stuck out his jaw and turned his head from side to side. ‘His Honour is ready, but His Honour isn’t officially a Supreme Court justice until His Honour is sworn in.’ ‘His Honour is splitting hairs again,’ smiled Eva. She came up to him and twined her arms around his waist. ‘Hairsplitting is what I do, my darling.

Inside the library, there was over a mile of oak shelving and leather-bound law books. When he had first walked into it, John had closed his eyes and said, ‘If justice has a smell, this is it.’