Influence

by Chris Parker

  Barry turned to Peter. His eyes were emotionless above his mask. ‘Well, Detective Chief Inspector,’ he said, ‘it looks as if you’ve got a headline act.’

  ‘Could be.’ Peter offered the obligatory smile and moved on to the equally necessary one-upmanship. ‘I think, though, we have a case of skulduggery.’

  Barry chuckled despite himself and Peter joined in. Both men knew that behind the humour, behind the need to downplay the situation, something very bad had happened here. Right now, they just didn’t know why.

  14.

  A radio interviewer had once asked Marcus Kline if he knew of anyone else as skilled as himself. When Marcus had admitted that he didn’t, the interviewer had asked if he ever felt lonely.

  ‘Why should I?’ Marcus had questioned.

  ‘Because you don’t have anyone you can share with on an equal level; because you are different from the rest of us – and those people who know you, know that you are.’

  ‘First of all, if you dedicate your life to being the very best at something you are actually aiming to be different. You can’t be the best and have people you can share with on an equal level. In one sense what you call loneliness is one of the key measures of absolute success.

  ‘Secondly, I have a very good friend who has a job that seems at first glance to be very different from mine and yet in many ways is very similar. He is a detective. He says, “There is no such thing as normality.” I agree with him. There are no two people who are exactly the same. We are all different. It just makes life and relationships easier to manage if we think that our obvious similarities bind us more closely together than they really do.

  ‘You see, there is a gap that exists between all people – even the closest of lovers, the best of friends, or the most committed of family members. It is a gap created by the fact we all perceive the world differently and because we all communicate to ourselves and to others differently. I suspect that some part of every human being is either lost or misinterpreted in that gap. In one sense, then, we are all alone. It’s an integral part of the human condition. The difference is that some of us are alone because of our level of expertise.’

  The interviewer fell silent for a second, looking down at the floor, his shoulders slumping. Marcus pointed very deliberately at the microphone. The interviewer suddenly remembered his listeners and forced himself to straighten and speak. He said what was clearly on his mind, ‘That sounds a dispiriting assessment of the human condition.’

  ‘That’s an interesting interpretation and response,’ Marcus said quickly. ‘We need to remember whenever we are communicating that words are only sounds – sounds that we have agreed as a society to give a basic level of shared meaning to. Given that, we have the personal power to choose how to respond to those sounds. If we deny this power, we are saying that other people determine and control our emotional states and associated behaviours. That cannot be a positive way to live, can it? Surely the most important skill we can ever learn is how to control our responses to external stimuli?

  ‘On one level, then,’ Marcus continued, ‘you are making a decision, albeit perhaps a subconscious one, to feel dispirited by what I said. And the fact that you chose to describe the way you are feeling as “dispiriting” is really interesting. Why, for example, didn’t you say that you felt “saddened’ or “upset” or even “angered”? Why, I wonder, did you instinctively say that you were “dispirited”? Tell me, what does the word “spirit” mean to you in this context…?’

  Marcus was sitting alone in his office. Simon had left just a couple of minutes ago. When Simon had first written to Marcus asking for work he had described himself as “naturally high-spirited”. Marcus had asked him what he meant by that and Simon had replied, ‘It means that nothing can ever get me down and keep me there. I’ve created my own approach to life. And if the Hindus are right and we are reborn, it’s the approach I’ll use for a hundred lifetimes! It’s really that cool. I call it the Limbo Philosophy.’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘The Limbo Philosophy. Under pressure I’ll bend as much as I need to and no matter how low I go, I’m going to come straight back up again!’

  It had been the answer that had convinced Marcus to invest in the young man. Flexibility, adaptability, continual movement towards a specific outcome, these were all qualities he valued highly. Given that, perhaps Limbo was the perfect metaphor for great communication? Perhaps he should insist that they have a limbo competition at the Christmas party?

  Marcus realised that he was tapping the desktop with his fingertips. He was meeting his best friend Peter Jones for dinner tonight. As professionals they had come to realise that their respective roles had much in common. They both sought to identify and make sense of patterns. They both had to detect. They differed only in how they responded to the patterns they identified and in the desired outcomes they sought. The greatest similarity they shared, though, was that they both knew the absolute importance of disassociating from the people they set out to understand. They both knew that when you put your work head on, you had to leave your emotional self behind.

  Peter had told him once, ‘If you are a criminal Detective Chief Inspector Jones wants to get so close to you that he can see into your mind and heart – whilst at the same time being so far removed that you can’t touch him in any way. The man who is just Peter, who doesn’t have to confront the detritus of the city, he just wants to be left alone to enjoy a decent glass of wine.’

  Marcus admired the way Peter could turn into the Detective Chief Inspector in the blink of an eye. Or maybe it was the other way round? Maybe the Detective Chief Inspector turned into Peter? Either way, in Marcus’s eyes, he was a consummate professional. And the very best possible friend. In the final analysis though, he still didn’t read patterns and understand people as well as Marcus did.

  But, then again, who could?

  15.

  The source of the Detective Chief Inspector’s professional self-confidence was two-fold. Firstly, every challenging situation he entered into had been started by the criminal activity of someone else. He didn’t go looking for trouble. Society only needed detectives because some people were willing to abuse, damage or destroy others for personal pleasure or gain. Bad stuff didn’t just happen; people created it. Take them out of the equation and there was nothing left to detect. Peter had always believed in the adage that right makes might and he was always, always, in the right.

  Secondly, and perhaps even more importantly, Peter’s ethical might was supplemented by the support of the biggest and best team in the country. Some criminal gangs were undoubtedly powerful and some were part of a network that extended across countries, but the police gang and its associated network was more significant still. It was made up of far more than the myriad professionals who were trained and paid to solve crime and maintain order; it also incorporated a range of other experts and an equally complex network of informants. In Peter’s experience right was most likely to have might when those in the right outnumbered and were better trained and better prepared than those they were up against.

  Some of the criminals Peter knew were amongst the cleverest people he had ever met. They could have been hugely successful business leaders – in fact, some of them were. They knew how to strategise and influence. They knew how to motivate, delegate and enforce. They were resilient under pressure and were ruthless in pursuit of their goals. Sooner or later, though, someone who worked for them would break ranks, or some new evidence would be found, and Peter and his team would have their breakthrough. It wasn’t inevitable, but it was the most likely outcome as long as everyone did his or her job right.

  The perfect crime was dependent on a complete lack of evidence. And that was a very hard thing to accomplish, for even the most clever and ruthless of individuals. Sometimes just one verifiable fact created an opening, a crack in a wall of silence and, as Peter’s gang applie
d their pressure, the crack widened, more evidence appeared and the previously hidden pattern of events was exposed.

  The officer who was technically in charge of this new investigation was Detective Superintendent Michael Briggs. Peter knew him well. Briggs had proven himself to be a competent detective and an astute politician, with a clear intention to reach the highest levels of power. Peter had no such aspirations and was well aware that Briggs regarded him as a useful asset who offered no competition or threat. Peter was as skilled at managing his boss as he was at managing his team. He regarded those as the basic skills that allowed him to detect. And, just like the criminals he hunted, he was never involved in only one target at a time. That was one of the reasons why he needed a team that he could trust.

  As a young constable Peter realised he wanted to have responsibility for identifying and arresting the most serious and dangerous criminals. He shared his dream with his far more experienced Sergeant. The advice he had received had been succinct and of enormous value. The older man had paused for several seconds, staring into his beer as if somehow it contained every hard earned lesson from the previous twenty years, and then said, ‘Be your own man and pick the best to have around you.’

  Peter Jones had already learnt to be his own man. He hadn’t known that much then about policing, but he knew the importance of being true to himself. He had realised as a teenager that everyone was different and that life’s greatest challenge lay in finding the courage to be expressly and uniquely yourself in the face of the social need for conformity. The best detectives, and the most creative of human beings, knew how to distance themselves emotionally from the twin dragons of expectation and consequence, the two seemingly irresistible pillars of social pressure.

  Expectation, Peter had come to appreciate, blinkered perception; it not only tempted you to go looking for what you believed to be true, it also brought in its wake the likelihood of regret or despair whenever the expectation was not met. Thoughts of consequence, on the other hand, often introduced fear into the equation. Fear of failure or retribution. And for some people, Peter realised, fear of success, which was the only fear he had never been able to really understand.

  Peter’s philosophy that there was no such thing as normality had been forged long before he had joined the police force. It had begun taking shape as a teenager when he had been forced to learn that you cannot take responsibility for the expectations of others. As years passed he had also come to realise that consequence is never anything more than one link in an on-going pattern of events. Consequence was a footprint pressed more deeply than most others, a mark in time, nothing more.

  Several hours ago someone, as yet unknown, had created their mark in time. For whatever reason, they had presumably taped a man to a chair, scalped him and then cut off the top of his cranium. Now Peter was en route to the Queens Medical Centre where the post mortem would be carried out. The hospital was the largest teaching hospital in Europe, with six thousand staff. Soon a handful of those staff would study, dissect and record the body with the sole purpose of determining how precisely the man had died.

  The factors that had led to this death were still a mystery. The consequences that the death would create were yet to unfold. Peter was prepared to bet, though, that he could accurately predict one of them. He would track down the person responsible. You can’t leave a clear footprint without providing clues about where you came from and where you are going. And Peter had spent years following the advice of his old Sergeant. He had picked the best people he knew to work with him. He led a team of keen, willing and capable detectives, supported by experts, including forensic scientists, scenes of crime and family liaison officers. And an office team led by an experienced manager who knew how to receive and record information and provide advice to Peter and his fellow detectives.

  He also had one very special, and secret, source of support.

  Marcus Kline.

  He was quite literally the very best at what he did. He was also always willing to help. So, whenever a crime scene presented an unusual challenge Peter shared the details with his friend. He asked Marcus to read the scenario as he would read a human being, to look below the surface and find the hidden pattern. It was one of Peter’s great professional secrets: he could call on the insights of a genius.

  He was planning to do that again if the mad rush of the first few days of investigation did not unearth the culprit. He would, he reasoned, be mad not to.

  16.

  Paul Clusker had found tapping into his subconscious both challenging and, if he was to be completely honest, frightening.

  At the end of the day and with his wife gone to bed, he settled down in his favourite armchair with a pen and paper in his hands, ready to uncover and record the hidden knowledge. His heart began to pound. His mind sprang into action, turning into an unbidden and unwanted instructor, bombarding him with orders and criticisms. He heard his harsh internal voice – a mixture of his own and his dead father’s – barking out directions whilst also reminding him of past failures. The voice was made up of disappointment and frustration, background notes that combined to create an overriding sense of anger. Paul sat in the armchair, drawn into his internal world, dominated by the voice that always made him feel like a child.

  Paul sat there, staring, with nothing inside his head but the language of missed opportunity and obligation. The voice was scathing, talking always of what he should do, should have been, ought to prioritise, ought to have done, must become, must overcome, must honour… must…ought…should…if only, if only, if only!

  And as the voice returned time after time to the same, same messages and conclusions, his pen began to circle on the page; increasing speed, pressing harder, filling in the space inside the circumference, black ink blocking out the whiteness of the paper with staccato, angry movements that finally proved too much and tore a hole.

  ‘What do you do to make the voice stop?’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ Paul realised with a start that, as he had explained the experience to Marcus Kline, he had begun reliving it.

  ‘I asked you what your strategy is for shutting the voice up.’ Marcus Kline didn’t blink. His breathing was barely perceptible.

  Paul could feel his heart thumping inside his chest. ‘I don’t have one.’

  ‘The evidence clearly shows that you do.’ Marcus shifted in his chair, pushing down with both hands against the brown, leather arms, his body straightening then leaning forwards slightly. ‘After all you don’t hear the voice all the time, do you?’

  ‘Well, no. But that doesn’t mean that I have a strategy for stopping it.’

  ‘It doesn’t mean that you have a conscious strategy. However, you clearly know when enough is enough. You couldn’t fall asleep if you didn’t, let alone focus on your clients well enough to heal them.’ A brief pause; just long enough for the message to be recognised. And then, ‘Perhaps you silence it when your heartbeat reaches a certain level?’

  ‘I, erm…Do you think so?’

  Marcus smiled gently. ‘It’s what I see.’

  ‘You really see what happens on the inside?’

  The response was a brief, curt nod. The smile disappearing like a playing card beneath a magician’s open palm. ‘And I am always working very intently on being able to do it even better.’

  ‘Yes, but….that level of insight…’ Paul splayed his hands as he searched for the words. ‘I…I can’t imagine what the world must look like to you.’

  Distanced. That was the answer that no client ever wanted to hear. Far enough away for me to have the perfect perspective.

  ‘Given that I don’t need healing, you don’t need to worry about it,’ Marcus replied. ‘What you do need to focus on, however, is the fact that you create every voice in your head and you abdicate all of your personal power if you think otherwise. ’

  ‘But my father was always so critical, so sur
e that I would never amount to anything.’

  ‘And he’s dead. For a long time now, you told me. And given that he isn’t an invisible spirit living on your shoulder, whispering in your ear, we are left with the only conclusion available to us: that your thoughts are your own creation.’

  Paul slumped back in his chair, looked down at his feet. It felt suddenly as if there were no words inside him, nothing that he could find to say.

  ‘Listen, there are three aspects of time,’ Marcus’ voice was lower now, softer, drawing Paul’s attention. ‘They are the past, the present and the future. Everyone knows this. The bit that most people get wrong – and it is the crucial bit – is that they believe they can influence the present and the future but not the past. This is a serious error, one that explains why people keep repeating the mistakes of their past. After all, if you believe that you can’t change the past you are condemned to relive it and its effects endlessly.

  ‘But…but the past has happened, how can you change something that has already taken place?’

  ‘It’s true that the events have happened, which is why they can now only exist as memories. And memories are created by, and contained within, the human mind. It’s impossible for a memory to be an accurate record of what actually took place, because it’s impossible for a person to ever identify and focus on everything that happens at any one time. We are selective in the way we give our attention and so, by extension, we are selective in the content and meaning we give to our memories. When we create and then revisit a memory we delete, embellish, or distort the details of it, just as we do every experience that happens in the present.

  ‘Given that,’ Marcus continued, ‘we can actively choose to delete, embellish or distort to suit our needs and purpose. Memories are like interactive paintings and we are the artists. Often our memory-paintings incorporate sounds, especially voices, and with a little practice we can learn how to change their volume, their tone, even the words they say. Ultimately, if we choose to, we can silence a voice completely. Even if it was the voice that once belonged to a dead parent.’