Little Hands Clapping

by Dan Rhodes

  The doctor ran into the maze of pedestrianised streets in the city centre, looking for an opportunity to shake off his pursuer. He caught the occasional glimpse of himself in a shop window and wished he was wearing something on his bottom half, but he didn’t have time to dwell on it. One of his slippers fell from his foot, and he hopped along for a few paces as he balanced things out by kicking off the other one. The pavement scraped against his bare soles with every stride, but while he was aware of the discomfort he focused only on getting away. He knew exactly where he was going. Once he had shaken off the policeman he would make his way to the back of the museum and rouse the old man, who would have no choice but to take him in and give him trousers, and hide him from those who would lock him away. They would live together in the roof. He would have to share his meat from now on, but that was a small price to pay for relative freedom, and besides the old man didn’t look as though he had much of an appetite. Maybe they would even have a stroke of good fortune that night, and be eating a supper of fresh steak before bedtime.

  The people standing in the streets were craning their necks to see the flashes of light, but every so often one of them would notice him streak past. Already in a carnival mood they laughed at the sight, and nudged their friends and pointed. It was only the adults with young children who looked on with horror as his private parts, no longer private, windmilled as he ran. Occasionally he would weave around somebody who would think, That man looks just like Doctor Fröhlicher. I must remember to tell him about this the next time I see him – he will be very amused.

  The doctor looked over his shoulder at the purple-faced policeman chasing him, and was angered by the advantage the other man’s shoes gave him over his own bare feet. Everything about this situation seemed unfair, but what irked him most of all was that he was so clearly morally superior to those who would condemn him. He looked at the people he was running past, and knew they would be horrified if they had known what he had done, that they would label him a monster, or a fiend, but he knew in his heart that he had done so much more good than harm in his life, that on balance he was a better person than any of them would ever be. He was a doctor, and though there was no way of quantifying the good he had done, he knew it was considerable, even when his occasional transgressions were taken into account. He looked at those who would denounce him, and could see that they were just ordinary people who cared little about anything beyond the boundaries of their own lives, people who drank normal coffee without giving a thought to the lives of those who produced it. He knew just by looking at them that they lived only to look after themselves, and to cast judgement on others. As anger burned inside him he longed to throw back his head and shout Hypocrites, but he didn’t. He just kept running, as fast as he could. He didn’t want to draw attention to himself.

  The policeman was gaining ground. There were only a few paces between them but he was no longer worried. His chance to shake him off had come at last. He was approaching the gardens surrounding the City Hall, and all he had to do was scale the high fence and disappear into the darkness around the back of the building. With so many possible points of exit he knew the policeman would have no idea which one he had taken. With an athletic bound he jumped up and gripped the black iron railings, and feeling as agile as a monkey he made it to the top. As he vaulted over, his hand slipped and his body fell, landing on the long spikes. For a moment it felt as if this wouldn’t matter, that he would be able to lift himself off and keep going, but he couldn’t. The cold metal dug into his flesh, and the spikes broke the surface of his skin. He counted four holes, from his chest to his abdomen. His strength had left him, and the agony registered only as an irrelevance. The usefulness of pain had passed; it told him nothing he didn’t already know. In his mind he charted the passage of the spikes as they penetrated organs, and cracked bones. They pushed against the skin of his back, then broke it, and he slipped down until he could go no further. He tried to see himself as an impaled martyr, misunderstood and hounded to his doom by his fellow men, but the elaborate speeches of self-justification that he had planned for his final moments, the words that had seemed so noble, had vanished from his mind.

  The policeman was looking up at him.

  Horst could see that this would be his last opportunity to question the doctor. Something had been bothering him as they were running through the streets. His confession had seemed quite comprehensive, but at no point had the doctor mentioned how he had got hold of the bodies he had butchered. Horst knew that if he was going to claim true glory he would have to find this out. ‘Did you work alone?’ he asked.

  The doctor’s high ideas left him, and his humanity took over. He felt only a desire to share the blame, to drag somebody else down with him. He looked at the policeman, and said, ‘I had an accomplice. He lives at the museum . . .’ Then the policeman vanished, and everything around him vanished until he was no longer stuck on the railings of the City Hall on a cold evening, but standing in a lovely garden on a clear summer day, and there before him was Ute.

  ‘Ute,’ he said, ‘you look beautiful.’ Her eyes had never been bluer, her hair more golden or her smile so sweet. Then her blue eyes narrowed, and her smile turned cold. He reached out to touch her, but she was gone. And then everything was gone.

  Horst bent double, and struggled to recover his breath. It was time to call for help. He took his phone from his pocket, and as he continued gasping he saw that his wife had sent him a message. He supposed he had better read it before doing anything else. It is lucky for you that we do not have a dog, he read, because if we did your dinner would be inside it by now. He would call her and explain, but first he had to contact the station and ask for urgent reinforcements and an ambulance to be sent as quickly as possible. Soon a small crowd had gathered around him. They stared at the body on the railings, knowing this would be the only time in their lives when they would get to see such a sight. They didn’t want to look away, not even for a moment. Horst searched for an appropriate Latin phrase to mutter, but none came to mind.

  The people stared and stared, oblivious to the fireworks as they built to a crescendo, and seeming not to hear the sirens, distant at first, but growing louder all the time.

  XVI

  The unexpected aroma had gone away. For a moment, though, it had overwhelmed her, and for the first time in days she felt hungry, even ravenous. Her eyes were closed as the firework display’s finale shook the table and then stopped, leaving the room still and quiet. A moment later there was a wave of applause, and she wished she had been there to see it properly, that she was one of the people clapping in the cold air. The rope was tight against her throat, and she knew she had to take it off and get away. She opened her eyes, and through the darkness she saw that the old man had returned. A fire extinguisher stood beside him on the floor.

  ‘This has gone on long enough,’ he said. ‘You have made your decision. Allow me to assist.’ He walked to the table, took hold of the back corner and tipped it forwards. Madalena’s feet slid down the tabletop, and in a panic she turned and kicked on the corner he was lifting, forcing him to drop it back into place. Straightaway he took hold of it again, but she stamped hard on his long, grey fingers. She looked at his face, and where she had thought there would be anger there was nothing. He walked to the fire extinguisher, and picked it up. She could see now why he had brought it with him. She tried desperately to loosen the noose. Just minutes ago she had been sure she had nothing to live for, but now she was struggling harder than she had ever struggled for anything. The old man lifted the fire extinguisher over his shoulder, and swung it hard at her legs.

  She was powerless against this blow. It knocked her off the table. She hadn’t quite been able to get the noose off, and as she fell it caught against her chin, jolting her head backwards before swinging free. She landed hard on the floor, and looked up. There it hung, empty. She could still hear the applause, and for that moment she felt it was for her. The old man was glaring at her, and no
w there seemed to be a hint of fury in his eyes. The fire extinguisher was still in his hands, and he walked towards her and lifted it high. As he brought it down hard she rolled away, and it hit the floor where a fraction of a second earlier her head had been. It slipped from his grip, and Madalena took hold of it, stood up, and swung it at him. She had aimed for his head but its weight pulled it down, and it hit him in the side. He staggered, and she swung it again, this time catching him in the belly. He fell. She lifted her weapon high, and was ready to smash it down into his face when a weak, pitiful sound came from his mouth.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Please. Please, no.’

  There was fear in his eyes now, real fear, and she didn’t know what to do.

  ‘There is no need,’ he said, still in the accent that could have come from home. She knew she couldn’t trust him, but at the same time she didn’t want to batter a frightened old man to death. She didn’t know what to do. She had no idea how to get out of the building, and if she was to run he might come after her. He would know every inch of the museum, and there would be nowhere to hide. She carried on wielding the fire extinguisher as he stood up and went to the corner of the room, where he picked up the wooden chair. He took it over to the table, and using it as a step he climbed up, and put Madalena’s noose over his head. If his time had come to die, he would rather it was by his own hand than by hers.

  The old man had never had a great deal of interest in living, but no matter how often he told himself that he was not afraid of death, he had always known he could never end his own life. He had been certain that if he was ever to come close his survival instinct would be just as strong as that of the spiders as they thrashed around inside his mouth, frantic as they tried to delay their final moments. Sometimes as he crushed their soft bodies between his teeth, he wondered what made them fight so hard. Was it the webs left unspun? Or maybe lodged somewhere inside their tiny brains was an inescapable dread of what might lie beyond.

  He had always found the people who had died in the museum to be a profound irritation, mainly because of the inconvenience they caused him and the threat they posed to the continuing stillness of his day-to-day life, but also because they awoke in him an ungovernable jealousy for having risen above the spiders. He wished he could conquer his fear of the possibility that he had been wrong to put his faith in nothingness, that perhaps he really was something more than a tangle of atoms, that the end would not be the end and there would be unbearable consequences awaiting him. Now, though, it seemed his time had come, and he was ready to find out. He tightened the rope.

  ‘God forgive me,’ he said, just in case it was to make a difference, but as the words came out he knew he wouldn’t be able to go through with it. He wasn’t ready. All he wanted was to get his days back to the way they had been, and the way he wanted them to stay. The girl had given him the opportunity to gather his thoughts. Now he knew that the only thing he could do was finish what he had started, and call the doctor and haul her lifeless body through the fire exit and into the back of the car. When that was done he would never have to think of her again. He lifted his hands and loosened the rope.

  Madalena could see what he was doing. She wasn’t going to give him another chance to come after her, and she swung the fire extinguisher at his legs. The old man fell from the table, and he hung from the pipe, rocking just a little from side to side, his eyes seeming to stare at her as they bulged from their sockets. His mouth hung open, and Madalena noticed a thin leg emerging from the darkness, and then another. The spider rested on the old man’s bottom lip, black against the grey skin. For just a moment it remained perfectly still, as if considering its next move. Then, its decision made, it ran down the nightshirt and on to the floor, and into the safety of the shadows.

  Madalena grabbed her bag and ran into the corridor, and down the stairs, and in and out of dark rooms until she found the fire exit. She pushed it open and slammed it behind her, and hurried along the dim, deserted back alley to the street. It was packed with happy people who had been to the fireworks, and she let herself be swept along with them, but soon she broke away to look at her reflection in a mirror in a shop window display. She tidied her hair, and checked her throat. There were some red marks. Until they faded she would have to wear a scarf, but for now she turned up the collar of her coat. As the adrenaline drained away she felt first the cold, and then pain. Her neck was stiff from her chin having caught on the rope, and there were going to be bruises on her legs, and her arms hurt from swinging the fire extinguisher. None of this mattered.

  She had never been so thirsty, or so hungry. She walked on until she found a shop selling food and drink. She bought a two-litre bottle of water and a loaf of bread. She sat on a wall and watched the thinning crowd pass by as she began her picnic. She drank most of the water in one go, then opened the paper bag and brought it to her nose. She inhaled. It was just normal bread, like any of the loaves she had eaten since leaving her village. She couldn’t imagine the scent of bread like this ever travelling hundreds of miles and overwhelming the senses of an unhappy girl, and calling her home. She took a bite. It tasted just as ordinary as it smelled. But, for now, it would do.

  PART FIVE

  I

  Doctor Fröhlicher’s patients woke to a brief item on the regional news, telling them that their general practitioner had been impaled on the railings of the City Hall gardens, and had died at the scene. This was met with quiet disbelief and profound sorrow. The universal assumption was that he must have slipped while trying to get a good view of the fireworks. The police had decided to wait before releasing any further details, but with the house sealed off and clearly under intense forensic examination, the local reporters could see that there was more to the story than they were being told.

  The police had to say something, and at midday a statement was issued, confirming the reports that the deceased had been found in a state of undress after a chase through the streets, and announcing the unexpected news that his garage had housed several suspicious freezers. They held off from mentioning the discovery of body parts, but they did let the reporters know that one of these freezers contained a frozen cat that was being tested for evidence of human sexual interference.

  When his patients heard this, they shook their heads and sighed. What a shame, they said to one another. What a shame that the doctor’s private life is being made public in this way, and with him no longer around to present his side of the story. Nobody said it out loud, but each of them asked themselves whether they could put their hand on their heart and say with absolute certainty that if they had been in the doctor’s position they would not, in a moment of desolation, have had sex with a frozen cat.

  It was not until the afternoon that the police felt ready to announce that they had strong evidence to suggest that extensive cannibalism had taken place on the premises. At this point the story exploded, but even as the town filled with news crews from around the world, the doctor’s patients continued to give him the benefit of the doubt. They stayed tuned to their radios, waiting for a newscaster to tell them that the police had found the real culprit, and that the poor man could at last rest in peace, but with each new bulletin a fresh piece of evidence was revealed, and one by one they began to consider the possibility that there had been more to their doctor than had met the eye.

  Among those listening to the radio were Franz and Irmgard Klopstock. The incident in the park had allowed them some time to prepare for these revelations, but even so they listened in dismay as their very worst fears were confirmed. After dinner they were interrupted by the doorbell, and they answered it to find Horst. It was the first time they had seen him since Irmgard had given her statement, and he looked as though he hadn’t stopped since. His hair was sticking up in tufts, and there was a growth of stubble on his pale face, but although it was clear that he needed a good night’s sleep, his eyes were bright.

  The city’s Chief of Police was notoriously formidable, but when Horst had been call
ed into his office that afternoon he had never seen him quite so incandescent. He was sitting behind his enormous desk with a list of The Lone Wolf’s misdemeanours in his hand, his face turning increasingly crimson as he read out each one. When at last he reached the end he slammed the list on to the table, looked him in the eye, and told him that if he ever stepped out of line again he would be out of the force.

  ‘Do you understand?’ he snarled.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Horst. He had been waiting his whole career for this scene. For years he had pictured his superior giving him a stern dressing down, even though they both knew that it was just a formality, that under the skin they were two of a kind, each as committed as the other to cleaning vermin off the streets, even if it meant bending the rules from time to time. But instead of basking in an atmosphere of tacit mutual respect, he felt like a schoolboy being told off by his headmaster, and as he watched the veins in the Chief’s temples throb with such violence it seemed they would burst, he felt as if his knees were turning to jelly. He made to leave, but was called back.

  ‘Not so fast,’ the Chief snapped. Horst faced him once again, and saw the faintest trace of a smile playing across his lips as he tore the list into pieces, and dropped them in the bin. ‘Good work,’ he said, quietly. His snarl returned. ‘Now get out.’

  It was perfect.

  In between sips of Irmgard’s home-made gooseberry juice, Horst brought his hosts up to date with what had happened since they had last met, trusting them with details that had yet to be made public. He told them about the stake-out, the arrest and the chase, and the subsequent discovery of diaries and photograph albums that detailed everything the doctor had been up to. He had reached the real reason for his visit. He put on his cap, and took a deep breath.