by Baker, John
‘The devil uses money to shove us around. But he can only do that if we continue to make money the centre of our lives.’
Miriam shook her head. ‘My boss,’ she said, ‘the one who owns the café; he drives a maroon Jag. Inga went in it once and he put his hand up her skirt, but she said it was worth it. She liked the smell of the leather.’
‘When I hear things like that,’ I told her, ‘there’s an Old Testament prophet rises up inside me who’d like to strike both of them dead.’
It was then that she said I was as crazy as a two-bob watch. She was quiet for a moment, and then she shook her head and said it with a laugh.
I didn’t think it was funny. I still don’t.
I looked it up in the dictionary. Australian slang, apparently. Harking back to the days before decimalization, when a bob was a shilling. So a two-bob watch would be a watch that you bought for about ten pence. Something cheap, something totally useless.
I explained to Miriam why I thought chastisement was in order, and she agreed with me. It could have taken many forms, but in the end we thought that physical punishment was the way forward.
She lay over the end of the bed and I gave her ten good wallops with the hairbrush.
Afterwards we had sex.
I am not a two-bob watch.
I am a watcher. I am the watchman.
There is only one of the two sisters left. The blind one. And I do believe she has got herself a minder. But that’s all right. I’ve always been a fair man. As a blind woman she has, of course, a built-in disadvantage. She is handicapped in relation to me. But if she has a minder, then her handicap is nullified. We are equal. She has herself and her riches and her minder, and I have my fortitude and my God.
This has been my life. I have remained awake for the purpose of devotion; through long years I have kept my vigil. There was a period when it seemed that my vigil was in vain. But I kept the faith, and now it is beginning to pay off.
I am not by nature a violent man. I am a watchman, and by virtue of my watch I am drawn to strike the balance. A good man was lost, and should I stand idly by while others profit from his death?
Last night I told Miriam how I used to pray as a child and about crying myself to sleep at night. I didn’t mention the bed-wetting. I told her how my mother was worried because she thought I was left-handed. My teacher, too; they all thought I was left-handed. If I’d been left-handed, there would have been something wrong with me. I would have been different to the rest.
That was the first time I remember witnessing joy in the eyes of other people, when they finally decided that I was ambidextrous. If they’d thought I was normal, righthanded, and then discovered that I was ambidextrous, it wouldn’t have been such a joyful occasion. Just something to remark about. But because they’d thought I was handicapped, and then discovered that I was superhuman, they thought it was a miracle.
And maybe it was.
Suxamethonium. The name of the drug I used. A pleasant-sounding word, don’t you think? Suxamethonium.
Isabel was by far the more predictable of the two sisters. I calculated how she would react when I turned up on her doorstep. A long training as a student of psychology helped, but my observations of her over the past months had convinced me that she would go along with my little scheme.
‘Good morning,’ I said. ‘Mrs Reeves, isn’t it? I’ve abducted your sister, Angeles Falco, and I’m here to discuss the terms of her release.’ I smiled at her. I watched her mouth fall open and the dawning realization that one of her worst nightmares was taking place.
I stepped forward, over the threshold, and the woman moved to one side to accommodate me. Someone else would have slammed the door in my face and immediately rung the police. But not Isabel Reeves. Shock had the effect of paralysing her.
When she’d recovered a little, she wanted to ring her sister to make sure I wasn’t lying. I let her do that. She dialled the number and started when her sister’s mobile began ringing in my pocket. I took it out and pushed the talk button. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said into the mouthpiece, ‘Angeles Falco can’t come to the phone just now.’ Isabel Reeves put her own mobile down on the sideboard and looked at me with vacant eyes. She was in a no-win situation.
She was pale; her hand kept flitting to her mouth and then fluttering by her side. She was perspiring and from time to time she would shake her head as though to clear her vision. I told her I wanted ten thousand pounds and she said she would have to have a glass of water. She drank the liquid and wept for a moment. She said she couldn’t give me money just like that, she’d need some kind of proof that her sister was alive.
I had predicted this as well. It was as if the woman was a puppet, someone without free will. I made a suggestion and she responded to it precisely as I expected.
‘We’ll use your car,’ I told her. ‘You drive. You don’t have to get the money until you’ve seen the proof.’
She was anxious. Her skin was cold and clammy. But what could she do? I was holding all the cards.
I directed her up to the moors and we travelled a high, narrow road that was populated by sheep and only the occasional car. It was not a short journey and from time to time she would turn and ask if I was sure that this was the right way.
I was sure.
Following my directions, she parked in a lay-by which led to a public footpath. I told her to follow the path, walking close behind her. When the road was out of sight we turned off the path on to one of the sheep-runs. She did as I directed for about a hundred metres before she rebelled.
‘Angeles isn’t here,’ she said. ‘I’m going back. I don’t know what you’re up to, but this isn’t right. She can’t be here.’
She pushed past me and ran along the narrow sheep-run. I took off after her and pushed her into the heather. I straddled her and flicked the cover off the syringe, pushing the needle into the top of her chest.
It was remarkable how quickly the Suxamethonium took effect. Within seconds she was still, unable to move, her eyes staring with fear.
I hadn’t thought through what to do next. I suppose I could have given her more of the drug but I wasn’t sure that would satisfy me. At first I thought I might strangle her, but in the end I turned her on to her face and knelt on the small of her back. I took her by the shoulders and pulled until her spine cracked.
I don’t mind admitting it: I felt and still feel that this killing was beneath me. Don’t get me wrong; I’m glad she’s out of the way, that she’s dead. But I want the disposal of the next sister to be a more creative act.
When people hear that I worked in forensic psychology they want to know about offender profiling. This is because offender profiling is the new sexy specialism of the profession, and there are many of us, professionals and ex-professionals, who wish it wasn’t so. It is a technique (though the word itself adds dignity to what might turn out to be mere romance) that is as yet unproven, and is certainly unscientific. The profiler prepares a biographical sketch of the offender, the ingredients of which are gathered from information taken at the scene of a crime and from the personal habits and history of the victim.
And there have been successes, some of them startling. Nevertheless, offender characteristics are extremely complex, and there is no reason to get excited just because one or two early results were positive. Research and slow, painstaking work are what adds to our knowledge base. At the present stage of its development offender profiling is irrelevant in the detection of crime. You would be better off tossing a coin.
Catharsis is much more interesting, though not as sexy.
Freud’s concept was that the existence of drama allowed the spectator to vicariously discharge his aggressive drives. There have been various research projects built around the idea of catharsis, but, as yet, no one has come up with a definitive result. Some studies show that the depiction of violence leads to more violence, while others seem to suggest that catharsis is at work and acting as a safety valve.
&nbs
p; My own research involved a field study. I had access to a group of boys in a young offenders’ unit a few miles to the north of the city. What I intended to do was feed half of them on a diet of violent television, video nasties, slasher movies, etc., while the other half would be submitted to pastoral, seasonal and calming filmic images. I needed permission to run this experiment for ten weeks, during which the behaviour of the boys would have been constantly observed and measured.
I was the observer. I. The watchman.
Yesterday Miriam came home from work in a foul mood. She stripped off her apron and her blouse which were stained with tomato sauce. They’d been serving spaghetti bolognese in the café. She marched around the flat like a soldier. Her hair was greasy and lank and there was pallor to her skin. Her eyes flashed danger.
‘Don’t anybody say anything,’ she said, although I was the only other person present, and I hadn’t breathed a word.
‘One word, just one word, and I’ll scream. I’ll bring the fucking roof down.’
This is the love of my life.
She is so skinny her ribs are visible, protruding like those pictures from the concentration camps. She was wearing a patterned bra, red roses washed out to pink, sweat stains under her arms. She has two more like that, bought at the same time in a sale, before we met. Her pigeons are several sizes too small for a bra. Surrealist images come to mind: a nipple in a marquee.
She goose-stepped into the bathroom and slammed the door behind her so hard that it came open again. I could see part of her as she sat on the bowl: one leg and the lower half of her arm, and I could hear her stools splashing into the water.
I gave her an hour, an hour and a half. If necessary I can be patient.
We have a tall chair in the kitchen. It is too tall for the table. When you sit on it you have to lean down to reach the cornflakes. Miriam was sitting on it. She had a woollen cardigan over her shoulders, fastened with one button. Her arms were bare.
I took a breath and she looked towards me.
‘Bad day?’ I asked.
She nodded. ‘You could say that.’
‘I don’t think I contributed towards it,’ I said. ‘But you’re making me suffer.’
‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘If I have a bad day, everybody else should as well.’ She smiled quickly. She went to the bathroom and returned almost immediately. ‘You’re as crazy as a two-bob watch,’ she said, handing me the hairbrush.
14
Sam’s late wife had left him a house with five bedrooms. He had plans for it; he’d had plans for it ever since Dora died. But his ideas about the house never materialized. The first thing he’d thought of doing was moving out and giving the place to a housing charity - Shelter, one of those. Because what did he want with a great rambling place like that? And Dora’s ghost was forever there.
Next, he was going to take in homeless people, fill the place with life, give it a reason to exist. There must be lots of other kids like Geordie, who needed a helping hand, somewhere they could get a little shelter. People needed a base, somewhere they could begin to be whoever it was they were supposed to be.
The latest thing was that he’d advertise the rooms, let them off to whoever wanted them. People who wouldn’t be dependent on him. People whom he wouldn’t have to bail out on a Saturday night, and whom he wouldn’t have to hassle to clean up the kitchen.
But now he’d come round full circle, and was thinking of moving out again. The place was an emotional burden. He felt guilty about taking up so much space. Should have moved out in the summer when he wasn’t busy, instead of laying about in the long grass in the garden and watching the tourists littering the medieval streets, wondering when he was going to slip and buy some hooch.
Saturday today. Most of the day off. His surveillance stint didn’t start until five o’clock. He’d been to a midday AA meeting at the Friends Meeting House and walked into town, had a look at the people. It was cold, but he bought a packet of fish and chips in Petergate and took them to a bench in King’s Square. The fish was hot, and when he broke through the crust of batter he burnt his fingers on the white flesh. There were a dozen or so others in the square, mainly tourists. Two Norwegians, a lone Japanese woman, and a young American family, most of them tasting real fish and chips for the first time in their lives and some wondering why they’d bothered.
Sam wasn’t drinking at the moment, hadn’t touched a drop since Dora died. He didn’t want a drink today, and if that changed as the day turned towards evening, it wouldn’t make any difference. He’d ignore the craving, talk to Max, his AA sponsor. If Max wasn’t around, he’d talk himself through it. He was working, and there was the woman called Angeles. There were reasons to stay sober. If you looked hard enough, there were always reasons. The gospel of a hopeful cynic.
There’d been a blind woman at the AA meeting, Sally Stone. She’d said that her blindness and her alcoholism were the same. The only way to live with either was to accept it as a fact. Her alcoholism meant staying away from booze. If she didn’t, her life fell apart. And her blindness meant that she had to use a cane or a dog to get around safely. As soon as I begin to ignore the fact that I’m blind,’ she said, ‘then I get hurt or in trouble.’
Yeah, there it was, coming out of somebody else’s mouth, somebody else’s experience. You have to take the treatment, and treatment primarily involves not taking a drink.
Pigeons strutted about the square, quick to pounce on any scraps the people left behind. Every couple of minutes one of the American kids would rush them, and the square would erupt into a flutter of rushing feathers. The birds flew up, out of range of the children, and immediately alighted again in another part of the square. The pickings were rich, fatty and stuffed with protein.
The Japanese woman finished her fish and dropped the paper with the remains of her chips into a waste bin. She wandered off, round the corner into Church Street.
As if on cue a madman stalked out of Goodramgate, his mouth full of strange oaths and curses. He was tall and thin with a stoop, but his body was animated, his long arms waving around, seemingly out of control. His face was strangely elongated, unshaven for three or four days, and the light covering of hair on his head was long and unkempt.
He stood in his army greatcoat, which had no buttons, and addressed all four points of the compass, muttering incomprehensibly. He was like a mystic at prayer, Sam thought. But the guy wasn’t praying. He was hallucinating. Maybe talking to the ghosts of some of those ancient Romans who used to live here. Constantine the Great? Maybe he was Constantine? The American kids moved in close to their parents.
The guy went straight to the waste bin and came up with the discarded chips. He sat on a low stone wall and opened the packet. His eyes shone. He paid no heed to anyone else in the square, just downed the chips one after the other in quick succession. Sam wondered if they’d retained any heat. Probably not.
The madman screwed up the empty paper and threw it across the square. Then he was back in the waste bin. There were more chips there, and the heel of a fish, all of which he put away within a few seconds.
Sam glanced down at what remained of his own dinner, wondered how he could pass it over to the guy without seeming to patronize him. He could give him money instead, let the guy go buy himself a packet of fresh. Except the guy wouldn’t buy food, he’d already eaten. He’d buy booze, something to help him forget he was a prince with the world at his feet.
Sam’s musings took only a few seconds, but when he looked up again the guy had gone. It was a busy life, harvesting the streets. You couldn’t hang around one spot too long.
The tourists on the other side of the square were becoming animated again now that the perceived threat had disappeared. The American couple were whispering comfortable lies to their children. They and the Norwegians were up on their feet, ready to move on to the next museum or heritage site. It was a busy life treading these historical pathways. You couldn’t hang around one spot too long.
S
am tossed a cold chip to the pigeons and they tore it apart in seconds. The city was a place of contrasts, but the dissimilarities were modified, intensified by their relationships to each other. The homeless and the tourists were all displaced. Difference was the homeless followed a route that the world didn’t recognize, while the tourists were on a circular trip, return tickets in their back pockets.
The biting wind intensified and by the time he arrived home Sam’s ears and nose were glowing pink. His lips were blue in the bathroom mirror. He’d picked up a paperback on the psychology of perception, hoping it’d give him some insight into Angeles Falco, but it was too technical. He thumbed through it for half an hour, but there wasn’t much he could use. He read that our perceptions of the world were always delayed because of the speed of light, and because of the time taken to get messages to the brain; that our perception of the sun is over eight minutes late. What this adds up to is that we can never perceive the present: we always sense the past. Knew that already though, before he’d bought the book.
What he also knew subliminally, but which he needed the book to spell out for him, was that light was only a small proportion of the total electromagnetic spectrum. The difference between colours is simply in the frequency of light, but outside that frequency range there are other wavelengths that we do not see: radio waves, ultra-violet, infra-red and X-rays are just some of them. When you take into account the narrow band of frequencies that actually stimulate the eye and allow us to see, you could say that humans as a group are almost blind.
Geordie arrived with Echo in her pram and Barney on a new tartan leash. Echo was sleeping so Geordie left her in the pram in the garden. After he’d licked Sam’s face, Barney took up position as guard-dog.
