by John Byron
VOLUME IIII
THE NERVES
odern debates about subjectivity question almost every aspect of being. Gender, ethnicity, class, sexual orientation, culture, genetics, neurobiochemistry, memory, consciousness, emergent neural complexity, even the influence of gut flora: all come to bear, with various degrees of acceptance, in arguments about what it is to be human.
Ubiquitously unquestioned, however, is the primacy of the brain. The human subject resides, in a manner of speaking, inside one’s head. You have a body, which plays an enormous role in determining who you are and how you relate to the world, but where you are is located somewhere behind your eyes.
To illustrate. Dentistry is famously more distressing than other forms of surgical intervention, even when less painful, because it is traumatic to have a power tool at work inside one’s head. This fear is not only a function of objective pain: it is simply too close to home.
Philosophers invent ontological thought experiments to test our loyalty to our flesh. The consensus holds that were our brains to be removed from our bodies and kept in vats, we ourselves (whatever that means to each of us) would still be essentially present, in a way we would not were the surviving artefact instead a well-tended left leg. That assumption is today held to be so obviously and axiomatically true as to be invisible to most interlocutors.
It has not ever been thus.
The orthodox Aristotelian theory, prevailing in Europe for two millennia until Vesalius overturned it, held that the heart was responsible for intellect and affect. The heart did not serve the vascular system: it was served by it. The heart was where you were, while the nervous system – including the brain and the spinal cord – were merely conduits driving motion and sensation. The nerves were classified together with the ligaments, with interdependent and parallel functions, in the manner of the arteries and veins.
Then the Master demonstrated that the nerves originate in the brain, not in the heart, including those nerves serving distal structures of emotional expression: tear ducts, facial muscles, sweat glands, the hairs on the back of the neck. The heart, by contrast, consisted entirely of muscle, lacking the foundry to originate emotion and intellection. Vesalius hypothesised that the brain and the nervous system were responsible for thought and affect, as well as motion and sensation.
This was a minority view at the time, opposed by experts and the masses alike, to whom the proposition was ridiculous. Yet Vesalius did not flinch. He challenged orthodoxy in the very structure of the Fabrica, considering the nerves in isolation in Volume IIII, while examining the ligaments in Volume II alongside the muscles, tendons and aponeuroses, relegating them to the realm of locomotive leverage and anchorage, rather than impulse transmission.
Wednesday 12 September – afternoon
‘I’ve found the connection, boss!’ said Harris, bursting in from the stairs.
‘Apart from being rich arseholes?’ said Murphy, standing up from the worktable in the Homicide Squad’s open area. ‘What’ve you got?’
‘All three victims are with Denison Bank!’
Murphy rolled his eyes and sat back down heavily.
‘Why not?’ protested Harris.
‘Do you have a Denison Bank account, Harris?’ asked Murphy.
‘Yeah.’
‘Does Niko? I know you’ve asked him.’
‘Yeah, he does.’
‘What did he say about your theory?’
Harris drooped visibly. ‘He doesn’t like it. Told me to try it on you.’
Murphy rummaged in his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. He slid a credit card emblazoned with the image of Fort Denison across the table.
‘Yeah, but all three,’ said the rookie. ‘What are the odds?’
‘Short, Harris.’
‘Come on, boss. It’s a hit for sure.’
Murphy tilted his head like George Kennedy regarding Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke as he hauled himself out of the dirt: I like your pluck, son, and I don’t really want to hit you again, but if you keep getting up … ‘Janssen?’ he called out.
‘Yes, I have one.’
‘Chartier?’
‘Me too.’
‘Jo?’
‘Nope.’ She left the commissioner’s New Fabrica and wandered over.
‘Anyone else?’ Murphy knew the uniforms were listening. There was a chorus of yeses, a couple of noes.
‘Oh,’ said Harris, deflated. He turned and started trudging towards the stairs.
‘Thirty-four point three per cent,’ said Jo.
‘What’s thirty-four point three per cent?’ asked Murphy.
‘The odds of all three victims having a Denison Bank account. Give or take.’
Harris stopped and turned, and everything went quiet. Murphy tilted his chair back and examined her sceptically. Despite decades of experience, he still couldn’t reliably tell whether his little sister was taking the piss out of him. Janssen and Chartier each put down what they were doing and tuned in.
‘Really?’ Murphy said dubiously.
‘Uh-huh.’
‘How would you know?’
‘Worked it out.’
‘What, just then? In your head?’
‘Yep.’
‘You’re an art historian.’
‘We’re allowed to use the mathematics, you know. As long as we put them back the way we found them.’
Chartier coughed to conceal a laugh.
Murphy gave Jo his well-rehearsed ‘you little smart-arse’ look. She held a neutral gaze in return. ‘All right, I’ll bite. Talk me through it.’
‘Population of Sydney is five million, right?’
‘Less the children.’
‘They’ve all got Fort Denison moneyboxes, Dave.’
‘Yeah but they’re not his demographic.’
‘Okay, minus the children but plus Newcastle and the Illawarra. Five million.’
‘How about people in hospitals? Prisons? Barracks?’
‘Come on, Dave, you’re nitpicking. This is ballpark.’
‘Okay, okay.’ Murphy held up his hands. ‘It’s just, you say “point three” like it’s precision engineering.’
‘Fair enough, I’ll round off. So Denison Bank has three and a half million individual customers in the Sydney area. It’s their best market by a country mile.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘I’m a shareholder. It’s in the annual report.’
‘You little capitalist,’ said Murphy. ‘Who knew?’
Jo stuck her tongue out at him. ‘The university credit union demutualised when the Fort swallowed them whole. They issued us shares.’
‘But you don’t bank with them?’ asked Janssen.
‘I was pissed off and took my banking elsewhere.’
‘So any given citizen is more likely to have a Denison account than not,’ said Chartier, returning to the point.
‘That’s for each one separately,’ urged Harris. ‘I mean for all three together.’
‘That’s the right thinking, Cooper, but the numbers don’t stretch that far,’ said Jo. ‘Not with the Fort’s market share, and not with only three victims.’
‘I don’t get it.’
‘The odds in Sydney of being a Fort customer is three and a half out of five, right?’
Harris nodded.
‘So that’s seven out of ten. For any three particular Sydneysiders to all bank with them, it’s seven-tenths cubed. That’s 343 on a thousand.’
‘Thirty-four per cent,’ said Janssen.
‘Point three,’ added Chartier.
‘Wait, why cubed?’ asked Harris.
‘Because we multiply each of the odds together. With three the same, it’s a cube.’
‘Okay.’
‘And the odds of none of them being with the Fort are three-tenths cubed,’ added Chartier. ‘Under three per cent.’
Murphy looked at her in surprise. ‘How the fuck’d you work that out?’
‘Jo just explain
ed it, Spud,’ said Janssen.
‘Oh, right,’ said Murphy, clearly not following.
‘So there’s a one-third chance we’d find all three victims had Denison Bank accounts,’ concluded Jo. ‘I’m no statistician, but that could be random coincidence.’
‘Yeah, fair enough,’ said Harris, defeated.
‘Sorry, mate.’ Jo offered him a sympathetic smile.
‘They’re all in the NRMA, too,’ Harris revealed. ‘And Qantas.’
‘Not to mention the electoral roll, drivers’ licences, Medicare cards, tax-file numbers …’ added Murphy dryly. He’d never been particularly impressed with this kind of dragnet fishing: it was as meaningful as saying they all ate Vegemite on toast and drank Toohey’s New. It might be true, but it didn’t help you catch anyone. ‘Tell you what, though, I wouldn’t mind having access to Denison Bank’s database,’ he added.
‘Why’s that?’ asked Jo.
‘Head of security over there is Tom Adams, my old partner from Armed Rob. You wouldn’t believe the kind of information they have on their customers. There’s no such thing as privacy when it comes to commercial data, and no one gives a shit. Actually, the regulators encourage it, to help the banks estimate risk. But as soon as it’s a government database, everyone freaks out about invasion of privacy. I tell you, if we had access to half that much intel we’d double our arrest rate overnight.’
‘Yeah, government surveillance of innocent citizens, what could possibly go wrong?’ quipped Jo.
‘Righto, comrade, but meanwhile you and your civil liberty mates are keeping this bloke on the street while we flail about in the dark.’
So how many would it take, Jo?’ asked Chartier, steering them back on track again. ‘Just out of interest.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘How many Fort customers as victims before it’s implausible that it’s by chance alone?’
‘Depends on what you mean by implausible. Scientists go for five per cent, sometimes even one per cent.’
‘We’re looking for leads, not the laws of physics,’ said Murphy. ‘Let’s say ten.’
‘So seven-tenths to the power of whatever. Hang on.’ She scribbled on a notepad for a minute. ‘Yeah, seven. Once you have seven victims all with Denison Bank accounts, it’s only an eight per cent chance of being random.’
‘Klote, let’s not get to seven,’ said Janssen.
‘Amen to that,’ said Chartier.
Jo turned to the young detective. ‘This is good work, Cooper. Keep track of it.’
‘Thanks, Dr King,’ replied Harris. ‘But I’m still hoping to stop him at three.’
Jo smiled and nodded. Weren’t they all.
‘I’m seriously impressed, Jo,’ said Janssen.
‘Me, too,’ said Chartier.
‘Nice work, sis,’ said Murphy, although he was clearly only saying it for the benefit of his colleagues. He turned his chair back to the worktable and opened a file, pretending to read until everyone went away.
Monday 17 September – afternoon
Sylvia left the hospital, crossed Avoca Street and wended her way through the residential streets towards home. She stopped for milk on the way, then again on the steps at the end of their street to admire a magnolia in full profusion of ivory and pink. She was passing the riot of azaleas in their elderly neighbour’s garden when she heard a cry of distress from inside. She went through Clare’s gate and knocked on the door.
‘Just a minute,’ she heard from the depths, then the door opened. ‘Hello, Sylvia, how are you?’ Her neighbour seemed fine.
‘I’m well thanks, Clare. Sorry to disturb you, but I thought I heard something. Just seeing you’re okay.’
‘Oh! Yes, it’s nothing. It’s kind of you to check.’
‘What happened?’
‘I found a crack in my favourite teacup. I was being melodramatic.’
‘Oh, no, I understand.’
‘It was the last survivor from a set I bought in Lisbon decades ago. Vista Alegre.’
‘It’s lovely to use precious things in your everyday life,’ ventured Sylvia. ‘But sooner or later they come to grief.’
‘Yes, I’m reconciled to that principle,’ said Clare. ‘But you also reach an age when you’re never going back to places. It lends some objects a heightened significance.’
‘I hadn’t thought about it like that.’
‘No reason you would, at your age. Everything’s still possible.’
Sylvia smiled. ‘I suppose so.’
Clare pulled the door open. ‘Would you like to come in for a cup of tea?’
‘Oh, no, that’s okay.’ Sylvia didn’t want to be a bother.
‘Don’t worry, the backup crockery is quite up to scratch.’
Sylvia laughed, and reconsidered. It was only a cup of tea, not a four-course meal. Anyway, Clare was impressively independent for ninety, but also alone a good deal. She might like the company. ‘Why not? Let me put the milk away. I’ll be right back.’
‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ Clare said. ‘Come straight through.’
Sylvia went out one gate and in the other, and entered her front door just as Murphy was leaving his study. He looked a little furtive.
‘Oh!’ she exclaimed. ‘I wasn’t expecting you.’
‘Why not?’
‘Your car’s not out the front. Hasn’t been stolen, has it, detective?’
‘Nah, it’s back in the shop. Still has that rattle in the drivetrain.’ He went ahead of her into the living room, straight for the sideboard. He waved a bottle of red at her with a raised eyebrow.
‘No thanks, I’m going next door to have a cuppa with Clare,’ said Sylvia as she put the milk in the fridge. ‘I’ll make dinner when I come back.’
‘What does she want?’ grumbled Murphy. He harboured an unspecified – and as far as Sylvia knew, unprovoked – aversion to their neighbour.
‘Nothing, just catching up. So did you get the bus again, working man?’
‘Fuck, no.’ He shuddered as he poured. ‘Janssen dropped me on his way to Jo’s.’
‘Isn’t she working at Surry Hills?’
‘Yeah, but she had to see a PhD student this arvo.’
‘What couldn’t keep until tomorrow?’
‘I dunno. Something about search results.’
‘Hmm.’ Sylvia was sceptical. ‘You don’t need me to drive you in tomorrow morning, I hope?’ She was finally on her weekend, and was looking forward to a sleep-in before a quiet day to herself. She’d been learning a tough new flamenco guitar piece and wanted a good few hours to work on it, well rested and alone.
‘No, he’s picking me up on his way in,’ said Murphy.
‘Who, Matthijs?’
‘Yeah. Why?’
‘Doesn’t he live in Bondi?’
‘So?’
‘How is Randwick on his way to Surry Hills?’
‘I dunno.’ Murphy shrugged. ‘He offered.’
There’s definitely something fishy about this, Sylvia thought. Enquiries would have to be made. ‘Just don’t bring him inside tomorrow morning,’ she said. ‘He scared the daylights out of me last time.’
Murphy smirked. ‘He got a nice eyeful, but. You in all your glory.’
‘You set us up, you bastard.’
‘Didn’t hurt anybody. Anyway, the Danish are chronic nudists.’
‘He’s Dutch, and that’s not the point.’
‘I don’t know who was more embarrassed, you or him.’ He laughed.
‘Not you, that’s for sure.’
‘I was fully dressed.’
‘Well, tomorrow just go out front and get in his car, will you? No funny business.’
‘Just trying to put a little sunshine in a young fella’s life.’
I reckon he’s probably doing all right for sunshine, thought Sylvia, although she kept it to herself. Right now, and not that far from here.
Thursday 20 September – afternoon
The police filed
into their minister’s office, the top brass all spit-polish and dark navy serge, Murphy in a rumpled grey suit with a pie stain on the left lapel. He’d been a last-minute inclusion and had not had time to change. He hoped the effect was of streetwise authenticity. At least Sylvia had ironed his shirt.
The police minister was at the head of the rectangular coffee table, his chief of staff next to him, and on the other side the attorney-general, a silk of the Sydney bar who thought he was Cicero and everyone else a fucking idiot. This would be interesting: the attorney-general was a committed factional enemy of both the police minister and the premier, who in turn hated one another passionately, despite – or perhaps because of – their factional alliance.
Murphy let his commissioner, deputy commissioner and superintendent make their greetings and select their seats. While they were still milling, he noticed that one of the several staffers present was being treated with a particular deference by everyone else. In his early thirties, fit, sharply dressed, modish hair – could pass for anything from a tech entrepreneur to a special forces sniper – he turned out to be the premier’s principal adviser.
This was not good. Somewhere in the no-man’s-land between these various political agendas sat Murphy and his homicide case. He was resigned to the political class doing its plotting and scheming, but he did not want to be nearby when it happened. Coppers who kept this kind of company tended to come to grief.
He took the last remaining chair and looked up to find all eyes on him.
‘Detective Senior Sergeant Murphy,’ said his minister. ‘They call you Spud.’
‘Yes, sir, they do.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘The boys called me that in school. It stuck.’
‘They must’ve had a reason.’
Murphy offered his altar-boy face. ‘Best known to themselves, sir.’
‘Well, “Spud” is a common enough soubriquet for a male of Irish extraction,’ contributed the attorney-general. ‘Although the association with Erin is as specious as it is banal, given the tuber’s origins in the Peruvian Andes.’
