by Desmond Cory
“Mind you, they probably have hogs there as well. In Holland, I mean. In fact I’m very partial to a nice slice of Dutch ham when I’m feeling peckish.”
“Pup-peckish?”
“You know … When I feel like getting my teeth into something …”
“Oh. Yeah. Peckish. Right.” Olly decided to effect a discreet withdrawal. Difficult, of course, to withdraw the one without withdrawing the other. So she withdrew both. It’s possible, she told herself, to get a feller over-excited. And that in the present circumstances mightn’t be wise. “About those primary things you were talking about …” Oh God, he was looking at her in that way again. With a feral glint in those flinty eyes of his. “I mean, those primary wotsits …”
“Oh, no matter. I can look into that little problem after lunch.”
“Lunch? Lunch? I don’t wonnany lunch. In fact I was thinking I should be—”
Dobie, rising to his feet. “Let’s take a quick look in the kitchen. I think we might find a few nice gobbets in the fridge.”
“Gug-gug-gobbets?”
“I’m sure I stored a few kidneys away against a special occasion.”
“Whose … I mean what sort of kidneys?”
“Frozen kidneys. I just pop them in the microwave and they’re ready in a jiffy. We could have them on buttered toast if you like.” Dobie smacked his lips noisily. “Delicious.”
“Ack-shully,” Olly said, buttoning up with remarkable celerity, “I ought to be mooching along. It’s later than I thought.”
“That’s what they used to inscribe on medieval gravestones. It is later than you think. Or wait a moment. No. I rather think it was on sundials. One or the other.”
“Either way it’s been a real fun morning, Mr Dobie.”
“I’m glad you enjoyed it,” Dobie said.
She sat huddled up in the driving seat of her car with all the windows wound right down. She needed air. Hot? … She had to be sweating from every pore.
So that was what had happened to Kate Coyle. No wonder he hadn’t even been pretending to look for her. She knew too much about him, of course she did. So now he had the poor woman wrapped up in little plastic bags in his kitchen freezer, against such times as he fancied a nice little cut off the brisket. Feeling peckish, indeed … Ooooo he was awful.
Of course she hadn’t any actual proof of what he’d done. And she wasn’t about to go and look for any. It was most unusual for Olly to admit defeat once she’d got her nose on the trail, but she wasn’t going to go back in there, not for all the coke in Colombia. That moment when she’d realised what it was he was up to … It still made her feel funny all over, thinking about it. Best not to think about it, of course. Best to get out of here while she had the chance. Yet another lucky escape, was the way to look at it.
The Rector of Dobie’s university was also looking, at that moment, as though he’d just come across something nasty in the woodshed. He was staring at the fax on his office desk with the expression of one petrified by the basilisk glare of a Medusa, though the Medusa of course he knew to be a legendary figure. Dobie, on the other hand, wasn’t. Unfortunately. The fax bore the heading, PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL. “This would seem to be private,” the Rector said, “and confidential.” Even when in a state of shock, the Rector of a British university is supposed to notice things like that. The Rector had.
“I know, I know. But it’s been on the Secretary’s desk for four days now and she asked me what she ought to do about it. She hasn’t been able to contact him and I can’t, either.”
“Hardly surprising,” the Rector said, lowering his eyes again towards the missive, “in view of the … But this is … However you look at it …”
“Yes, that’s what I thought,” Traynor said.
For Chrissake Dobie what do I have to do to get in touch with you? You on holiday or something? Hope not as I’m minidiscing to you express the latest computations for your checkout or maybe for your own satisfaction as the Acad of Sci has checked and recognised the figures officially already. I guess your satisfaction should be considerable as the new observations from the Hubble confirm our predictions to have been spot on. I don’t have to tell you what that implies.
What may not please you quite so much is that according to Ray who as you know is well informed on these matters we’re being nominated for a joint Nobel, right now it seems it’s between us and Platanov at Kiev but Ray reckons your 1974 paper establishes our priority so it looks good. The AAS ought to be behind us and I think we got the Scandinavian bloc vote which is pretty vital, so though it’s early days yet you might like to think about getting your acceptance speech ready. And you might also think about answering your fucking e-mail once in a while. We got to get together on this. And by the way, Doug Hamer says any time you want to come back to MIT you can write your own ticket, that’s if things are as dull over your side as we reckon they are. We got stuff coming in from the Hubble you wouldn’t believe. Okay?
Bill
“I can’t even believe this,” the Rector wailed. “I don’t want to believe it. But since you’ve perhaps unwisely seen fit to place this, er, document before me, I suppose I … Who is this Bill person anyway?”
“I assume it’s Bill Campbell. Since the heading is MIT. You remember that he and Dobie —”
“He’s heavyweight, is he? In his field?”
“Stateside, about as heavy as they come.”
“Physics?”
“Yes.”
“But Dobie’s a mathematician.”
“It’s something of a fine distinction these days.”
“But the prospect of his … It’s just utterly appalling. It must be stopped.” A manic glint appeared in the Rector’s eyes. “Perhaps if the content of this communication were to be divulged, I believe leaked is the current term, to the daily press …”
“That would be improper.”
“In ordinary circumstances, yes, but a desperate situation calls for desperate—”
“Besides, it wouldn’t do any good.”
“You think not?”
“A prospective Nobel prize is of very little interest to the popular press. Even a British one. Certainly compared to the sort of thing they seem to be getting excited about right now.”
That morning’s edition of the Daily Snipe indeed lay front page uppermost on the Rector’s desk. He glanced briefly towards it and then lowered his face into his hands, the familiar gesture of one prepared to meet a notably unpalatable destiny with a becoming dignity. Familiar, that is, to anyone who has had any dealings with University Rectors, as Bill Traynor certainly had. “Oh bollocks,” the Rector said. With dignity. “This is intolerable. Don’t you agree?”
“Quite so. I do, I do. But after all … A Nobel prize is something out of the ordinary. It could be taken to reflect a certain, well … prestige … upon the university. And, of course, upon my Department of Mathematics in particular.”
“Yes.” The Rector peered hopefully out from behind his fingers like an emergent marmot on Groundhog Day. “Yes. I take the point. But … But … But …”
“But unfortunately Dobie has resigned.”
“He’s what? …”
“He’s sent me a letter of resignation. With a load of cobblers about his being persecuted by the tabloid press. You remember when this issue came up before—”
“I do indeed. All too well. But, as I was about to say, I take it Dobie hasn’t seen this communication as yet?”
“He hasn’t collected it, anyway. So one may assume not.”
“And it would appear to contain,” the Rector said with distaste, “a thinly disguised job offer from MIT. A disgraceful attempt at poaching, in fact.”
“That’s my interpretation, also.”
“In that case … refuse to accept his resignation, Bill.”
“I have.”
“Good. I’m glad someone’s brought some cool thinking to bear on the matter.” The Rector allowed his gaze to wander yet again t
o the unfolded front page of the Daily Snipe. “Now one can only hope … only hope …”
No. One couldn’t. Not where Dobie was concerned. Traynor rose from his chair and made a discreet exit, leaving the other seated figure slumped in the swivel chair and giggling quietly to itself. The Rector, no doubt, was having a difficult day. But then he imagined that Dobie was, too.
Kate wasn’t feeling very happy, either.
What wasn’t she feeling happy about?
Oh, about things in general …
She knew what the textbooks said, of course. And she’d treated plenty of junkies before … or anyway, had tried to. She knew quite a lot about the effects of heroin but she couldn’t remember what she knew very well because all kinds of other things she could remember more easily were getting in the way. She knew quite a lot but she didn’t know what it seemed those people wanted to know or rather she knew what they wanted to know all right but she didn’t know it. Everything was like that. Going round in circles. It was … what?
Frustrating, really.
Three days is what the textbooks say. If you can believe them. Or less, but three days anyway. Three days of regular mainlining will turn you into a habitual. Or less if what you’re using is top-grade heroin. They probably were. Yes, but that’s if you’re psychologically predisposed towards addiction. Which she wasn’t. Too many unknown factors, that was the trouble. She didn’t even know how long she’d been here, tied down on this bed, since she could see her wrist-watch there on the table but she couldn’t see the dial of it and that was very frustrating, too. It was probably intended to be.
And with the electric light on all the time you couldn’t even tell if it was night or day. Only way you could tell the time was when that little Miss Joyjuice came in with the breakfast tray and then you knew it was three or four hours since the last snort, only you couldn’t really be sure of that, either, so all you could go by was how much you felt you needed the next fix. Which right now, Kate thought, is pretty badly.
Except, no, it isn’t, she told herself. I can take it or leave it, given the choice. Which of course I’m not. That’s the trouble. That’s why it all goes round in circles. Cause and effect. Like deducing the existence of God as the First Cause who Himself isn’t caused by anything and hence doesn’t have to have an effect. If you were God, You could create the world and people and lots of other stupid things like that. Okay, so He hadn’t had to. But if He hadn’t, then He wouldn’t be a Cause now, would he? – and so His existence couldn’t be logically deducted. And anyway there wouldn’t be anyone around to do the logical deducting. Dobie had tried to explain all that to her once and had got it all muddled up, as usual. But now she could see it quite clearly. It all went round in circles. Everything did. It all became very simple, if you were God. Which she wasn’t. Or there again … perhaps she was. Since it all seemed very simple to her now, too.
“I’m the Cause of everything,” Kate said. “ ‘S’easy.”
And that was why she was here. Lying here on the bed. Waiting. Waiting. For what?
What else can there be to do? If you’re God?
Waiting for the ministering angel. That was what. Bringing in the tray. On the tray there’d be a little plastic box containing a hypodermic syringe and a nice new gift-wrapped needle. There’d also be a metal spoon and a plastic envelope and that nice Miss Joyjuice would empty the contents of the envelope into the spoon and Kate would feel a warm glow of happiness as Joyjuice warmed the bowl of the spoon with a cigarette lighter. “They’ll be using this lighter on you before long if you don’t act a bit more sensible. Ain’t about to go on wasting this good stuff on you for ever.” To which Kate would cheerfully nod and giggle and watch her press down the plunger of the syringe and then draw in a delicious spoonful through a cotton filter, all according to Cocker whoever he was, just the way Kate would have done it herself. C’mom, c’mon. Here we go. Strip of bandage round the upper arm, pausing a moment to look at the fleshy swellings where the damp thongs were cutting into Kate’s narrow wrists. “No good pulling at ’em. Makes ’em worse.”
“Get worse anyway,” Kate said.
“You don’t look good at all, you don’t. Mebbe I shouldn’t give you the shot, not unless you want it bad. Ah, but then you do, don’t you?”
“Smother things I’d like better.”
“Yeah, well, you know what you got to do. Jus’ say the word is all. Then all I got to do is pick up the telephone. They’re ringin’ me every thirty minutes now, anyway, askin’ how it’s going. Any time now they’re goin’ to tell me to shove in a little bit extra so you’ll float away from us on a big pink cloud only like for ever. An overdose, they call it. But you’d know about that.”
“You wouldn’t want to do that. Killing people, that’s serious.”
“You’d know about that, too, wouldn’t you? But me, I just do what I’m told.” Reaching for the syringe and stooping forwards. “Sisters under the skin, we are. Right where … this … is … going … There … How’s that feel? … Nice ’n’ floaty?”
“Oh it’s very … serious …”
And
what was the word? …
paradoxical …
to be needing something that you didn’t want. But why? You want any number of things that you don’t need. Dobie, now. Do I need Dobie? I want him all right. No doubt about that. If he were to walk in right now I’d say, “Hullo Dobie.” He’d know what I meant. But he won’t walk in. Nobody’s going to walk in through that door, except Miss Joyjuice. In just a few minutes now. With the breakfast tray. Surely in just a few minutes. Because it’s been such a long time since the last one. You can tell by the itch. It’s an itch in your head. Your mouth and nose. And your tongue feels all swollen. Interesting. Unless my tongue is swollen. Like my wrists.
Maybe so I won’t be able to talk. Tell them what they want to know. But I can’t tell them what they want to know because I don’t know what they want to know. Been through all that before. Small area of the brain the size of a walnut. Hypothalamus. Regulates temperature is why I feel so hot all over and also governs certain aspects of your sexual behaviour is that why I keep thinking about Dobie? and I had to draw a diagram of it for my premed exam along of the hippocampus what helps govern memory because that was what they wanted to know or more exactly to see if I could remember what they knew already but if I hadn’t a hippopotamus couldn’t have drawn one, could I, or even my hippothalamus near top of the brainstem which is partickly easy affected by opiate derivatives even alcohol so they can’t blame me if I shotapotamus being under the influence of that Miss Moonshine of Javanese extraction if she comes in now I’ll say
“Hullo Dobie”
yes
yes That’ll surprise her
when she comes in with the breakfast tray.
14
Olly needn’t in fact have worried. The kidneys had remained tucked away in the freezer. Dobie, like Miss Otis, was too busy to bother with lunch today.
In his bachelor days it had been his wont to lunch on three or four cups of Douwe Egbert coffee and a similar number of Player’s No. 3’s and, although his late wife and subsequently Kate had done their best to inculcate in him more seemly midday feeding habits, he invariably reverted to his former custom when presented with the least opportunity. Since Kate’s absence (and Olly’s departure) from their domicile offered him just such an opening, the top of that morning duly found him still seated at his computer with the electric percolator bubbling alongside him and an open packet of governmentally-disapproved-of coffin-nails conveniently to his hand. Coffee and tobacco, in Dobie’s lunatic opinion, served him as a powerful intellectual stimulant while helping him on his way to an early grave and he had particular need of such stimulation that morning, since ballistics wasn’t (or weren’t?) his special field. Or anything like it.
He wasn’t even sure if it was singular or plural, grammatically speaking. Of course an identical doubt persisted in his mind with regard to
mathematics itself (itselves?), which Campbell and his other American friends always referred to as math (instead of maths); British patriotism would therefore seem to suggest that ballistics should be thought of as balls, which was in fact how he did think of it, though that didn’t help very much in his present situation. Didn’t, indeed, help at all. But then no help appeared to be forthcoming from any source. Bill Campbell had no less than four beady-eyed Research Assistants at his beck and call. Dobie didn’t. He sighed and took a second cup of coffee to the problem.
… Which stemmed from the fact that he didn’t really know very much about ballistics, or balls. Little more than what he took to be common knowledge, such as (for example) the fact that the ballistic coefficient C is notoriously equal to m/id, where i is a dimensionless constant (known as the form factor) introduced into the xero-yaw drag force so as to permit a certain degree of correction for such aerodynamic effects as were excluded from the basic equation. These effects, however, were subject to the pernicious influence of precisely those strange attractors that Dobie had spent most of his bachelor days, precisely, in tracking down to their various and cunningly-hidden lairs. As a result of his endeavours a fair amount of conventional ballistic theory had had, in consequence of the Dobie paradox, to be tossed, metaphorically, out of the window, this much to the dismay of applied physicists everywhere.
Of course the fuzz were of the opinion that the bullet had ricochetted, and if that was so there was no need to invoke the Dobie paradox or any other; the ballistic issue then became a mess of incalculables that no computer anywhere could possibly decipher. Jacko had been definite on the point; it seemed that the deformation of the bullet that had been extracted from Primrose’s skull could be accounted for in no other way. Nor could the rather peculiar nature of the entry wound, nor the failure of the bullet itself to penetrate as deeply as might have been expected. Dobie was inclined to accept that anything Kate aimed at she was likely to hit, but he couldn’t go along with Jacko’s theory that the shot had been intended to scare rather than to kill, this because Kate had all along insisted that she hadn’t fired the bloody thing at all and Kate, to the best of Dobie’s belief, didn’t tell lies. Not, at any rate, when the issues involved were as crucial as this clearly was. Therefore …
