AHMM, December 2009

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "Thank you sir,” the woman said, as if she didn't understand what he meant but didn't have the time to find out more. “We'll send someone right away."

  When he went back to his computer, the browser had refreshed to an error page, the camera or the server down, and no matter how many times he clicked refresh, he could not get it back again.

  * * * *

  "Mr. Miller?"

  There were two of them, a man and a woman, so bulked out by stab vests and dangling black equipment that they seemed bigger than ordinary human beings. They had to come though the door one at a time, and Miller had to walk off ahead of them. He led them to the small sitting room, hovered, and offered tea. They sat on his creaking couch, said that they were fine, thank you very much. He sat down opposite them.

  They all sat in silence for a moment, and then there was a crackle of voices and static. The policeman reached up a hand, turned down his radio.

  "You called us last night, Mr. Miller.” He flipped open a notebook. “About eight forty-five."

  Now, Miller thought, now he could do some good for once, after years spent living a life unnoticed. He took a deep breath. It was very important that he remembered everything. Every last detail. That he told it clearly, without stammering or repeating. He wanted them to think: reliable witness, good citizen, strong character.

  "That's right,” he said. “I did. I saw it."

  "You reported that you had witnessed a serious assault. In Burdon Square."

  "That's right."

  "But as I understand it, you weren't actually present in Burdon Square, you were..."

  "Here. Yes. I saw it on the computer, through a public webcam."

  "A webcam."

  "Yes."

  The two police officers stared at Miller for a moment, and he felt uncomfortable. Had he said something wrong?

  "Can I ask why?” It was the first thing the woman officer had said.

  "Sorry, I don't—Why?"

  "Why you were watching a webcam of Burdon Square,” she asked. “It's just an unusual way to spend your evening. Burdon Square, of all places."

  Miller looked from her to the other officer. Both stared back at him with faces that said nothing. A man lay seriously hurt, maybe even dead, and they were more concerned with what he got up to on an evening? No wonder people complained about the police these days. He never liked to, they did a difficult job, but if this was how they treated people then he understood some of the comments he had read on newspaper message boards.

  "It just—I just—I don't spend all evening doing it.” Now that he was asked to say why he did it, he could not find any words to describe it. “There's lots of them, you can find lists of them, there's nothing illegal about it, I'm not hacking in or anything, they're open to the public. Councils, organizations, they put one up and for whatever reason they decide to make it available. I just sometimes like to ... watch.” Oh no, he thought to himself, that makes me sound terrible, like a voyeur, watching the women on their way for a night out, like I have a dirty secret. “I've been ... not well. I don't get out very much, and sometimes it's nice to know that there's a world going on out there beyond these four walls, people just doing what they do, going to work, coming home, going out for an evening.” He smiled at them, trying to reassure. “Just reminds me that I'm not alone."

  They didn't smile back.

  "But you live alone here,” the policeman said. It sounded like an accusation.

  "Yes. I do."

  "So no one else witnessed the assault you reported."

  "No—well, anyone else watching the camera would have done, or anyone who watched the tapes back, it would be—"

  "You said you'd not been well, Mr. Miller.” It was the woman again. Miller wished just one of them would speak, wished she would stop changing the subject just when he had got to grips with where it was going.

  "What? Yes, I did, but I don't see what—"

  "Do you mind if I ask what's wrong, sir?"

  "I—yes, yes I do mind actually, because firstly, I said I was ill, and now you're talking to me as if I still am, and second because it's none of your business, and third because I saw a man getting beaten half to death last night, maybe even killed, and I try and do my duty and report it and you come here and start asking me all kinds of insulting and personal questions. You're not even acting like you want to catch the terrible people who did it."

  "The webcam.” The policeman again, as if Miller had never spoken. “You know who it belongs to?"

  Miller looked back to him, then back at the woman, then back again, feeling as if he was having two completely separate conversations at the same time. Something was wrong. Very wrong.

  "The University,” he said. “I think."

  "That's right, sir. A learning resource center, apparently. We've been in to see them this morning, spoke to one of their technicians, the one who set the camera up."

  Miller felt like he was expected to say something, but he did not have any idea what it should be.

  "They had a problem with some petty vandalism a couple of months ago. Nothing major, but that side of the building's not covered by the University's security cameras; there are plans to extend the system, but apparently they're waiting for next financial year. So this technician had a bright idea. He was playing with a webcam anyway, just to learn how to do it, so he set it up in the window overlooking the square, linked it to a PC to record the feed. Takes an image every five seconds, saves them to a hard drive. They get overwritten every three days, but that doesn't matter. If some youth had egged the windows, they could see who it is the next morning, give us an image, see if it's anyone we recognize."

  "Good,” Miller said.

  "We were very concerned,” the policeman said.

  "Good."

  "Very concerned, Mr. Miller, because no assault had been reported,” he said. “And after your call a car was sent round to check the square, and they found nothing."

  Miller raised his hand to his mouth. Oh no. The men had come back and taken the body away. That meant that the victim was dead, his body rotting in the river or hidden by scrubby bushes in a lonely field.

  "So we reviewed the recordings. And do you know what, Mr. Miller?"

  Miller looked at him, at her, at him. “What?” His voice came out very softly, the way you talk when you are in a church.

  "We found nothing on there either."

  The silence in the room seemed to well up around him like floodwater. He could not speak, they did not speak, and he thought for a moment that he might drown. No, he thought. Not again.

  "Nothing for the time you reported the assault. Or half an hour either side. So we reviewed the lot.” He paused, stared hard at Miller. “There's nothing there, Mr. Miller. Not from six at night until six in the morning. People coming, people going. No assault. No men from the alleyway. No body on the steps. So we'd appreciate some kind of answer from you, sir, as to why you have made us waste time on pursuing this, when it means taking officers away from genuine inquiries."

  Miller opened his mouth and struggled to remember how you made words come. “I saw it,” he croaked. “I wouldn't lie, I wouldn't do something like that."

  "Serious matter, Mr. Miller, wasting police time. We will not stand for it. Do you understand me?"

  "Yes, but I didn't—I wouldn't—I saw, I'm sorry, I...” The walls pressed in close and he felt as if he was in a dream where there was something terrible just behind him, so terrible he did not dare turn round to look at it, even though it was just about to take him. Not again, he thought. It can't be. I would have recognized the signs. Besides it was never like this before, I never saw things ... his thoughts spun away, gone, replaced by the terror that not only had his illness come back, but it had come back worse.

  "Mr. Miller,” the policewoman said. “We have a record of you, from two years ago. You called us then, made a number of complaints of harassment. That you were being spied on, persecuted, followed."

  "I
know,” he said, and tears came into his eyes and he was embarrassed because it made him feel like a child, and he did not move to wipe them away because he could not move, and they ran down his cheeks and felt cold. “I was ill. I know I was ill, I'm sorry, I said sorry before, I was ill and I didn't know it and I thought all kinds of things. I had to go to hospital for a while, and I've been signed off work since, but I am better now. I didn't—I wouldn't—"

  "Are you still receiving treatment, Mr. Miller?"

  "Yes,” he said, and it sounded like a confession. “But I only see someone every couple of months now. And my medication's reduced, I was going to—I was going to be stopping it altogether in a couple of months."

  "Would you mind telling us who is in charge of your care?"

  "Dr. Singh, at—at Wood Lane.” Not the general hospital. The other one. The place he had spent six months in, putting a life back together after it had been broken apart.

  "Thank you, Mr. Miller.” She made a note.

  "Right,” the policeman said, and he snapped his notebook shut and put it back in his pocket. “We've had a word with a senior officer, and he's happy that we not proceed with any further action at this time, but we will be writing to Dr. Singh, so he can discuss this with you, take any appropriate steps. And I have to warn you, if there's any repetition of this, we're not going to be able to tolerate it. Do I make myself clear?"

  "Yes,” Miller breathed, but they did not hear him, so he said it again, more loudly.

  "Good. Thank you Mr. Miller.” They stood up, rustling, bulky aliens. “I hope we don't have to see you again. My advice to you is to go and see your GP and Dr. Singh as a matter of urgency. As I said, we'll be writing to him, but for your own sake, make sure you've got the help you need, sir. We'll see ourselves out."

  Miller let them go, heard his front door shut a hundred miles away, pulled his legs up and wrapped his arms around them, and let the tears come, ragged and furious. It was a long time until it stopped.

  When he edged out of the door, Miller felt for a moment as if he were standing on the edge of a mountain, nothing but vast, beckoning space opening up before him. All he had to do was to take one step forward and he would drop, fall forever, and never be found again. But he swallowed hard and stepped out into the street, and the pavement held him and did not let him fall. The walls of his flat had pressed in so close around him that he had to get out before he was crushed. He had to have room to think, to step outside of his life for a moment and see whether it was all falling apart again.

  He walked the streets at random as the last blue of the sky faded into black, trying to remember how he had felt the last time, trying to feel whether now felt the same. He could remember the facts of it all, the paranoia and suspicion about neighbors, friends, the people he worked with, the fear that filled every moment, and the cunning things he did to catch them doing whatever it was he thought that they were doing behind his back. He could remember the facts, but not the feeling, not the way that the terror and suspicion stole into every nerve, every cell, not the way that he felt when he walked into a room and was convinced that a conversation about him had just stopped.

  I don't think it feels like the last time, he thought. But I can't be sure. What I saw was so real, all there, on the screen. He thought of hackers, briefly, video feeds hacked into, bored teenagers or prankster art students staging some kind of happening, drama played out to the lens of a security camera. But he wasn't paranoid enough to believe the first, or naive enough to believe the second. I don't think I can watch the cameras anymore, he thought. I don't think I can ever do that again.

  He looked up to cross the road, recognized where he had ended up, across the road from a pub he sometimes drank in at lunchtimes when he was at work. The road off to the left was a stretch of nightclubs and bars, quiet now but a human circus in a few hours. The road to the right...

  Miller stood for a moment, then turned right. He had to see for himself. He walked down past the takeaways and launderettes, the boarded up travel agents, and the shop that sold wigs in styles that nobody wore anymore. He walked past where the Mexican restaurant used to be, and then into Burdon Square.

  It was empty. There was no sense of drama, no crackle in the air. He did not know quite what he was expecting, but it did not live up to it. And why would it, he thought. Nothing happened here. He saw the dark slash of the alley between buildings, the dirty stone of the steps up to the boarded up chapel.

  Miller walked across the square, turned when he was halfway across, and looked up at the flat, brutal concrete of the University building. The lights were off, and he could not see the camera. He crossed the road, walked up to the steps to the chapel.

  There were leaves blown into the corners, an empty Marlboro packet, a condom hanging like a slug from the top step, dirty stone. No blood. No telltale signs. Nothing.

  Oh God, Miller thought. I am ill again. But at least this time I know it. Maybe that would make a difference.

  He turned and heard the click of footsteps on the far side of the square. A woman hurried out of the square, unsteady on high heels, tugging down at the hem of her short black dress with one hand, clutching tight at her handbag with the other.

  "She...” Miller thought, and then her footsteps were lost by the rattle of a train on the embankment, rectangles of pale yellow light flickering past for a moment, and then one final arc of blue as the overhead power cable sparked.

  Miller took a step back up the steps of the chapel, then another, his legs weak. A taxi drifted along the far side, slowed. Miller stepped forward, raised a hand, but the taxi accelerated away again, until it was just red lights, and then it was nothing at all.

  The lights in the furniture shop window changed color, warm orange to a sickly green that turned the air into thick water, deep under the sea.

  They came from the alley by the side of the chapel, two of them, not particularly hurrying, walking toward him. One wore a light coat, one a dark coat, and both pulled their hoods up as they walked.

  Miller walked down one step, back up another, no time anymore, nowhere to go.

  Copyright © 2009 Iain Rowan

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Mystery Classic: THE MAN WHO WAS KICKED TO DEATH by Pablo Palacio

  Introduced and Translated by Kenneth Wishnia

  * * * *

  By all accounts, Pablo Palacio was a bit of a lunatic. So at least we have something in common. But Palacio (1906-1947), whose complete works fill a slim volume of about 175 pages that has achieved canonical status in his native land, was a unique figure in Ecuadorian literature. He was, in the words of one critic, a “doomed precursor” of the Latin American literary boom of the mid-to-late twentieth century (Palacio died relatively young, in an asylum).

  In this short story, a young man decides to play amateur detective and solve a violent crime that has baffled the police. It sounds simple enough, but the tale was way ahead of its time both structurally and thematically, ridiculing what one critic calls “the elitist culture that dominated Ecuador at the end of the 1920s,” and prying into the sexual taboos of ... Oh, never mind. Just read the story and you'll get the idea.

  When the short story collection featuring “Un hombre muerto a puntapiés" ("The Man Who Was Kicked to Death") appeared in 1927, avant-garde poet Gonzalo Escudero raved about it: “Bitter tales, tart, icy as cocaine ... Palacio is pursuing a revolutionary algebra in the bourgeois art of writing stories."

  Of course, there was no escaping politics at the time. The major Ecuadorian writers of the period were all socialists and communists dedicated to writing political novels. One of them, Alfredo Pareja Diezcanseco, admired Palacio's writings for expressing an “unlimited interior freedom [and] spontaneity in vigorous opposition to the black and white” characterizations of evil oppressors vs. praiseworthy oppressed that dominated the social realism of the 1930s. (In other words, Palacio was reacting against a phenomenon that didn't exist yet, producing psychological
anti-realism before realism took hold in Ecuador.)

  But another prominent novelist and militant social realist of the period, Joaquin Gallegos Lara, took Palacio slightly to task for not including enough Marxist economic analysis in his work. Palacio replied that while literature must be “a faithful reflection of the material conditions of life ... We live in moments of crisis and decadence that should be dryly exposed, without commentary."

  This quality is certainly on display in the following story. And now, step into the fractured world of Pablo Palacio...

  * * * *

  The Man Who Was Kicked to Death by Pablo Palacio

  "How can we dispose of all those sensational stories of passionate street crimes? Bringing the truth to light is a moral action."—El Comercio [A Quito daily newspaper]

  "Last night, at approximately 12:30 a.m., Police Officer No. 451, who serves this precinct, found a man named Ramirez lying completely flat between Escobedo and Garcia Streets. The unfortunate man's nose was bleeding profusely, and when questioned by the officer he said that he had been the victim of an assault on the part of unknown individuals just because he had asked them for a cigarette. The officer asked the assault victim to accompany him to the police station in order to make a statement that could shed some light on the matter, but Ramirez flatly refused to do so. The officer, acting according to his duty, then asked one of the drivers at the nearest taxi stand for help, and they drove the injured party to the police station, where, in spite of the medical attention of Dr. Ciro Benavides, he died within a few hours.

  "By this morning, the captain of the 6th Precinct had pursued all the usual formalities, but he was unable to discover anything about the murderers or about Ramirez's identity. The only information known, by chance, was that the deceased had one or two vices.

  "We hope to keep our readers up to date, as soon as more is known about this mysterious event."

  The Diario de la Tarde said no more about the bloody event.

  I don't know what I felt then. Except that I laughed my head off. A man kicked to death! As far as I was concerned that was the funniest, the most hilarious thing that could possibly happen.