The choices: They could wait on Nelquay for the arrival of the feared ‘black caps’, the military police escouades, then surrender to them. This would probably be in the next day or two. Or they could go into hiding, or disperse.
If they surrendered they would be treated by the military police as army deserters – because of this they faced the death penalty. In practice, execution was not likely to be carried out, as capital punishment had been abolished for many years in Faiandland itself. However, they would probably be sentenced to death, immediately commuted to a long spell of imprisonment in a military prison camp, followed by a return to the unit they had joined. The spokesperson added that high speed military vessels had already been detected leaving the southern mainland, probably heading for Nelquay, and they were expected to arrive within the next forty-eight hours.
The second choice was to remain on Nelquay and attempt to hide from the black caps. The woman said that the islanders of Nelquay would help them hide, and do what they could to protect them from capture. She explained Nelquay’s havenic and shelterate laws, which meant that among many other provisions no islander could be punished for hiding a deserter, or in this case a survivor from the shipwreck, but if any of the conscripts were discovered they would be immediately taken into custody. She added that staying in hiding was a viable option, because the people of Nelquay had substantial experience from past incidents. They were adept at concealing and smuggling escapees.
However, there was a final choice. This was to disperse and depart from Nelquay to any of the score or so of other islands in the close vicinity. From there they should quickly move on to the many other islands, in every direction, losing themselves in the hundreds of thousands of islands and island groups spread across the Midway Sea. They should travel alone or, at most, in pairs. The black caps routinely patrolled on many islands. Nowhere was completely free of them, but there was safety in small numbers and a willingness to keep travelling. Observing that all the survivors from the ship were young, the seigniory official pointed out that the logical overall direction of travel might seem to be homewards, to the north. She knew the urge to return home was strong, but she spelled out the risks of re-arrest should they make it back. She reminded them of the islands’ liberal shelterate laws that gave powerful if not complete protection from the escouades.
Finally, she said that the seigniory would give a useful sum of travel money to anyone wishing to move from Nelquay, and would provide advice about local ferry services departing in the next couple of days. Extra ships could be put into service if needed.
Spoder said he took the third choice. He travelled alone, but about fifty others were with him on the first of the ferries. Soon after that the opportunities of the sheer number of other islands made sure that the concentration was quickly dispersed. He transferred from one island to another, almost at random, usually changing ferries as soon as he arrived in another port. Within ten days he had landed on the island of Quy, smaller than Nelquay and with a warmer climate. Here at last he rested. But only for a while.
Spoder told me that over the next five years he discovered how to survive as a fugitive. He changed islands constantly, never remaining in any one place for more than a few weeks, however safe or attractive it seemed. He found jobs in most of his ports of call, begged in the streets in some others. He matured, learnt skills, made brief friendships. He was constantly alert for the arrival or presence of the black caps, terrified of what would happen to him if he was apprehended. He soon realized that most of the ordinary islanders shared his hatred of the squads of military police, and it was the local people who would tip him off if they heard of black cap activity close by. He had one close encounter with an escouade on the island of Demmer, but he successfully eluded them and did not see any others. He never lost his fear of them.
On Manlayl, the only island on his long itinerary where the benign climate and the way of life tempted him to settle permanently, Spoder met and was befriended by a former fugitive, called Thuneton.
Thuneton was some forty years older than Spoder, a deserter from the Glaundian army. He said little about himself, but one day he told Spoder the story of how he and three others had managed the near impossible: an escape by boat from the mainland of Sudmaieure. They had been chased by an escouade of black caps in a power boat, but managed to elude them when a bank of fog drifted up from the frozen coast. After a chaotic and almost disastrous landing on the shores of an island called Luice, he too had wandered for many years from one island to the next, in constant fear of his life. Finally, here on Manlayl, he married. He was now naturalized as a citizen serf of the island. His wife had died, but he had three islander children, all now adults. He said that because of his approaching old age the threat to him from the black caps was minimal, and if he was found by them the havenic laws would protect him.
Thuneton explained to Spoder why he believed islands like Manlayl were mostly safe from the escouades. Almost all the deserters fleeing from the actual war tended to fan out in an ever widening northerly direction. Islands to the west and east of this huge area were relatively unvisited by fugitives, apart from people like himself who had been on the run for many years. Most of the Archipelago was of course outside the escape sector.
Manlayl was one of those islands, but not, according to Thuneton, sufficiently far away to be completely safe for a young man travelling alone. To the black caps he would be an obvious target.
A few weeks after this, Spoder decided to forgo the scenic beauty and pacific lifestyle of Manlayl, and put more distance between himself and risk of capture. He travelled south and west, heading down into the equatorial zones.
After two more years of travel Spoder came at last to the Salay Group. The ferry took him to the port in Salay Ewwel, the first, where he had discovered ahead of time that there were plenty of opportunities for work. After his many adventures across the islands Spoder had decided what he wanted to do: his travels had made him resourceful, self-sufficient and able to think for himself. He had worked in dozens of different jobs, most of them menial, but now he wanted to put his skills and abilities to use. He had had first-hand experience of policing work, most of it on his behalf, through his contact with the various shelterate laws on different islands. He had formed a strong wish to join the force with the aim of becoming a detective. He moved to Raba, where he made the mistake of lying about his background, but he was accepted and began the training scheme.
Spoder said he had served as a Raba detective for years, gradually promoted, committed to the work he was doing, enjoying the increasing responsibility. He said nothing about his present status with the force, and once again I did not enquire.
Then he said: ‘I have to tell you what happened to the other young people who escaped from the ship at the same time. Most of them became cops, like me. It’s not widely known, but there are former deserters and fugitives on almost every police force in the Archipelago. I began to find this out after I started regular work, and was part of the team. It makes sense, of course. Once you’re in the police the black caps are no longer a problem, and the life you have been forced to live while on the run turns out to be the best basic training you could get. If you can survive several years of island hopping, having to look out for yourself, then you end up self disciplined, capable, knowing the difference between right and wrong, and you’ve found out about human nature from the ground up.’
‘That makes you into a cop?’ I said.
‘It makes you suitable to become one.’
‘Some people have a more sceptical view of the police,’ I said, suddenly remembering the ex-cop Jeksid, for some reason hunting me down and allegedly wanting to kill me. When I noticed Spoder’s reaction to that, I added: ‘As a matter of interest how many other fugitives are in the police? Here, on Raba?’
‘When I first joined the Raba force there were sixteen ex-deserters on the roll. One of them was my immediate superior, and the station superintendent had been on the ru
n thirty years before. At the moment there are about a dozen, all of them junior to me. There’ll be a new intake of cadets later this year, and some of those will almost certainly be fugitives.’
A swift twilight had passed while Spoder was telling me his story, and now we were sitting in the humid darkness of the early evening. I turned on the patio lights, and the ones in my study behind us. Large insects soon swarmed towards the deck. We retreated inside, closing the windows and doors. I was hungry – a dilemma because Spoder was showing no signs of leaving, and I would either have to cook something for us both or send out for food.
Then I remembered that apart from about fifty thalers I had in my wallet, I was broke. For the first time in my life I felt a fleeting sense of panic about money. I was no longer so sanguine about the crashing economy.
I said to Spoder: ‘Do you have any money on you? I’ve been wiped out today.’
‘My bank foreclosed yesterday,’ he said. ‘I have about a hundred thalers in cash. Plus some savings in an account I can’t get at.’
‘I had savings until earlier today. Are you going to be all right?’
‘I’ve no idea, sir. It’s too depressing to think about.’
‘I can cook omelettes and potatoes for us both. Is that OK with you?’
‘I’d like that,’ Spoder said.
‘We could go to a restaurant, but I don’t want to spend the cash I have, not until I know the exact situation.’
‘The exact situation is that we’re cleaned out.’
‘Let’s eat,’ I said. ‘After that I want to work.’
Twenty minutes later, sitting at the long table in the large kitchen/diner, while we finished what felt at the time was possibly the last meal ever, Spoder suddenly went to his jacket, slung on the seat of one of my chairs. He withdrew a thin sheaf of papers from an inner pocket. He had folded them down the middle, lengthways, to fit his pocket.
‘Sir, I said I had a reason for wanting to tell you what happened to me when I was a teenager. And how as a result I came to be in the police a few years later. At the time I thought I was the only fugitive who moved over into the law, but as I’ve described it turned out to be a common route. It’s not widely known to the public. Although throughout the islands there’s a great deal of sympathy for the young people who escape the war, there is a belief at every level of policing that this is a subject that should not be made widely known. Hundreds of people like me are still being hunted, we are in breach of the laws of those distant countries. And we are the law enforcement in the islands.’
He placed the papers on the surface of the long table, and flattened them with his hands to smooth out the crease.
‘This Enver Jeksid we have been talking about. The former police officer. Sir, he came to visit me yesterday. He turned up at my apartment without warning. At the time he came to my door I was trying to find out what had happened to my money, so I couldn’t have been less ready for him. I had no idea who he was: when he said his name I didn’t connect immediately. He did not look as I expected, because of the things he had said. The insinuations, the sense of a threat against you. He did not frighten or intimidate me. But he said that because the island where he came from, Dearth, was close to the southern continent, he had contacts with the Faiandland forces there. I took that to mean he was threatening to expose me.’
‘Surely the escouades, if they found you, could not arrest you now?’
‘You mean because of my age? That’s right, of course. But they could make life difficult for me, and perhaps for my children.’
‘So what did he want?’
‘He’s using me. He wants to meet you. He has promised there is no threat to you.’
‘That’s not what Frejah Harsent told me—’
‘He swore he is no danger to you.’
‘Was he carrying a gun when he came to your flat?’ I said.
‘Not that I was aware of. The only thing he had brought with him was this.’ Spoder indicated the low pile of papers lying on the table in front of him. ‘He wants you to read what he says. I read it last night – he described it as a confession but to me it seemed more of a boast.’
‘A confession of what?’ I said.
‘He claims to have killed Hari Harsent, the husband of the woman cop you know. He said you should read it.’
I stared at the pages, lying on my long table. They were handwritten.
‘Why are these people around you?’ Spoder said. ‘Who are they, and where have they come from? The Harsent woman and the man who claims he killed her husband. She says Jeksid intends to kill you too. He denies it. All three of them are police officers, or were. They were involved somehow in the murders of the twin brothers. You know, I’m much more concerned about the future of Terrik and Noella, my own children. They’re grown up and have their own lives and know nothing of this, but I’m suddenly bankrupt and every plan I had for them, to leave them something to provide for their future, all that has been suddenly undermined, taken away. That’s much more important to me than the intrigues of these ex-cops.’
‘I agree,’ I said, knowing the words were inadequate, feeling great sympathy for him. He lived alone. At least I had Jo. I was feeling the separation from Jo intensely at that moment. She was due to leave Muriseay in a couple of days – I could barely wait to see her again. I felt certain that once she was home all this intrusive madness of fast cars, guns and ex-cops would somehow go away. Meanwhile, what I had was Spoder and his story, now Jeksid and what appeared to be his. I added: ‘Frejah Harsent said that Jeksid claimed to have committed a perfect murder.’
‘That’s more or less what he says here. He’s stricken with guilt, but a part of him is bragging about it. It doesn’t make for pleasant reading.’
‘I don’t believe in a perfect crime,’ I said. ‘Crime is too crude, too rough, too negatively intended, for perfection.’
Whatever Jeksid had done it would not have been perfect. I remembered the many articles and books on the subject that I had read over the years, written by my fellow crime novelists. It was a subject of recurrent interest in the unusual, generically defined but popular business I was in. I was interested in it too.
The gist of the argument was essentially this: murder, one of the worst of all crimes, was only perfect if there were no witnesses, no known motives could be proved, no incriminating evidence was either left at the scene or found on the perpetrator, no connection at all existed between the killer and the victim. Preferably, ideally, there would be no corpse lying around after the event, so that a forensic examination by a doctor or a pathologist was not possible. If any of those conditions was broken, then it was not a perfect murder.
On the other hand, if all those conditions were exactly in place then, ironically, it became a murder not worth writing about in a thriller. Thus the essential contradiction that always frustrated crime writers.
In the real world some people were undoubtedly murdered from time to time in inexplicable circumstances. Killings in this sense would include murders, but were not in themselves mysteries. A body might be found on the side of the road, the victim of a hit-and-run incident, perhaps a deliberate one (murder) or an accident (careless or dangerous driving). The car would bear revealing damage, but if it took several days to be traced, then there was time for the damage to be repaired or the car disposed of. In another example, someone else might be stabbed to death in a fight outside a bar or a nightclub, after which all the witnesses and the perpetrator fled. Or there could be a totally innocent victim shot at random by an armed sociopath who had never killed before, went into hiding and who never killed again.
A murder was often unsolvable, but that did not make it perfect.
Nor did it make it thrilling or mysterious. Such murders were not the stuff of the kind of novels I and all the other crime writers liked to write. Who can solve the unsolvable? Who may be tempted by perfection? Novelists often were. But then novelists sometimes cheated.
Spoder said: ‘
Jeksid prepared it as a perfect murder, sir. And I believe it would be unsolved to this day if he had not written this account of it.’
‘Hari Harsent’s wife Frejah knew it must be him. She told me she had him drummed out of the force because of it. That alone removes any claim to perfection. And, as you say, the fact that he has written a confession has the same effect.’
‘His wife Frejah, his widow, accused Jeksid only on suspicion. This is proof.’
‘How long ago was it?’ I said.
‘Nine years. I’m not sure when these notes were written.’
‘The other murders we’ve heard about were even older. They are all beyond the reach of justice now.’
‘Not if Jeksid is still alive. He’s somehow involved in them all.’
I was growing tired of the subject. It was past the time in the evening when Jo and I made internet contact. I also wanted some time to myself – I was desperate to look around on the internet and explore just how bad the financial crisis had become. It was no longer of purely academic interest to me, if it ever had been. I had much on my mind. And Spoder had been here at the house since late afternoon.
‘Will you leave those pages with me?’
‘These are photocopies – the originals are locked away at my apartment. Are you OK reading his handwriting?’
I glanced again at the top page. The handwriting was large, squarish, obviously put down slowly and carefully, a childish hand, intended to be legible. The writer in me winced at the spelling mistakes – I saw five in the first couple of paragraphs. It’s a writer’s curse to notice such errors, another kind of quest for perfection. As usual I felt guiltily supercilious for noticing.
‘I can manage,’ I said.
Spoder left the notes lying on the long table in my kitchen. I glanced at them again, put them aside.
I wanted Jo, and as soon as Spoder’s motorbike roared away into the distance I put in the call. She was waiting. We spoke for an hour, mostly about the work she had been doing, and would be completing the next day. She showed me several photos of her set designs. I was pleased for her and impressed, and from what she told me it sounded as if the artistic director of the theatre was too.
The Evidence Page 22
