Infinite Ground

by Martin MacInnes

  He opened the next door. He was familiar with the layout of the building, the symmetry either side of the stairs, and so he knew this room was most likely the kitchen. He could have gone here first.

  When he heard the roar of the insects, he had the idea that he was inside a computer, something neutral and artificial whose sustenance he didn’t understand. It was difficult to identify the contents of the room. The insects distorted things, lent blur and motion. Blood lapped in ground pools, a lot of blood, the deceptive volume of approximately one individual. The blood was easy to identify. He tried not to step through it. It was blood only on the linoleum floor, nothing else had come through. On the worktop was a scalped adult head. The blow flies covered the brain, blue-black currants. The head was male. The eyes were brown and wet hair lined the length of the neck. On the table the torso was in the process of being stripped; he had interrupted the man. A navy blue and white apron hung from the bar that ran along the top of the cooker. Parts of the torso had been sliced, sheets two or three inches deep. These slices made him think of an orange cut down the middle, the fraying and the juice.

  He had been trained to act logically and to prioritize. He phoned it in, quietly stating only three numbers, then continued surveying the room. Some of the parts were wrapped in foil. He heard the floor splash.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ the man said. ‘I should have warned you, but really there is no cause for alarm.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘There is nothing to concern you here, that’s all.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘This is not a human. Was it not apparent to you? I really hope I didn’t give you a fright. Easy mistake to make, I suppose, at least if you’re not paying attention.’

  ‘This is a man,’ he said.

  ‘It isn’t. It’s an Indian.’

  ‘I see,’ the inspector said. ‘I see.’

  ‘I’m sorry this had taken up your time, when really there was no need. I hope you can resume your work soon. You people provide a great service, I always think.’

  The inspector had yet to identify the knife. From the look of the cuts, the blade would be a foot long. The parts had come away easily. He thought of wire and cheese, the freeing of the arms and shoulders. He had moved quickly and with only a minimal number of incisions. He had sheared the head off in one, hacked through the neck-stalk.

  ‘There is a lot,’ the inspector said, searching the room without a flicker.

  ‘It was big.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Just what I say. It was big. You’re right, there is a lot. Can I ask you something?’ the man said, still standing in the doorway.

  ‘Of course you can.’

  ‘Why are your colleagues coming?’

  ‘It’s nothing to worry about,’ the inspector said. ‘I’m just meeting them here and then we are leaving. It’s fine.’

  ‘Okay,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah, it’s nothing.’

  ‘Are you sure you would not like some iced tea?’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure, thank you.’

  ‘But it’s so warm.’

  ‘It’s rather embarrassing to admit,’ the inspector said, ‘only, I have a weak bladder.’

  ‘Ah,’ he smiled and laughed a little. ‘That explains it.’

  The inspector noticed a greying flap, four inches long with a slightly uneven surface. It lay flopped on to the counter by the kettle. Looked like a small fish. It was open at one end, where it had been detached. He saw that there were innumerable strings running through it, that the whole thing was rather a mass of strings with a strip of cover on top.

  He watched the man speak. He was saying dull things and he was not moving from the doorway. It was six minutes since the inspector had phoned it in and still nothing, and no indication of the sign.

  He watched the man speak and he said the right things in response and couldn’t help watching his mouth, observing the wet inside, the automatic lathering of the tongue along the teeth-tops, the just detectable excess sound of the lips’ contact.

  He knew where it was now. The man had lost his concen­tration and given it away. He would have to reach for it. It would take the man almost a whole second to cover the knife with his hand and about half that time to seize it. The inspector asked a question about iced tea, about what brand he used, because he really was a connoisseur of teas. He was very sorry, but he couldn’t take a glass just now, and as he finished asking the question the inspector reached for his belt and his gun and brought the man down before he had time to complete the arc of his arm towards the top of the fridge. It was over.

  He needed to establish information, confirm possible links. He pushed up from the bed. His head was full and he leant heavily for a moment on the sill of the bedroom window. The evening light seemed too thick, too heavy, as if ready to burst. He pulled the curtains together.

  The links, he thought. The killer, here – was it possible he had worked, however briefly, for the corporation? He didn’t know if the timelines matched. For how long, even, had the corporation been active? He knew, exasperated, exactly what they would say: that the question was not straightforward. That he would need to clarify, be more specific. Which particular incarnation, they would ask, did he refer to? The corporation had undergone a series of mergers and subsequent divisions. It endured, they would tell him, via transition. So what did he mean, when he spoke of the corporation? What single thing, precisely, did he imagine?

  His instinct was that the timelines didn’t fit, the killer being too old for the photograph in the offices. Most likely he had been mistaken in sensing a connection. It was an uncommonly similar face, simply a coincidence.

  But it wouldn’t leave him. He needed to rule it out. Apprehending the criminal was the last he had seen of him. After armed backup arrived the man had been taken to hospital, then a holding cell, transferred on to a high-security unit, trialled and swiftly sentenced. The inspector’s colleagues, particularly the senior officers in his department, had been unusually accommodating, granting him a short period of leave; his boss had then insisted he undergo a minimum three sessions with a staff counsellor – only appropriate, she had said, given the unusual trauma involved in the arrest. The perpetrator, by all accounts, had made no effort to conceal his actions; this was evident from the start, and meant things could move forward quickly. The inspector’s presence had not been required in court and he was simply asked to participate in a comprehensive debriefing, detailing exactly what had happened that August afternoon.

  He wouldn’t try to work out the connections. Recalling the scene, even just thinking about the killer, caused his stomach to cramp, his temperature to rise, and he thought, moving ambitiously to his desk, he might vomit again, he might faint.

  He wasn’t sure what he had eaten, what precisely had given him the poison, but he had some idea. He pushed away a dull, distant thought. He’d start preparing his own food again. He’d live a simple diet now, fluids, carbohydrates and vegetables. He could purify himself. Hopefully he’d ejected most of what it was and the thing had passed. The timing was poor, he had work to do. But the timing was necessary. He had remembered the scene, placed the face in the course of vomiting across his bathroom floor. His illness had bred the realization.

  He tried to circle around the thoughts rather than confront them. The connections: the corporation, the killer, Carlos. It should have been enough that he had felt it, known it. The killer would have information. There were the records, the archives: holdings in the interior, illegal practices and missing communities. The killer, insane, destroying an indigenous person. But what did it have to do with Carlos? What was he pushing for?

  He speculated again on what had happened to Carlos. ­Isabella had not contradicted him when he asked if the source of the illness could be psychological, prompted by something Carlos had seen, something he h
ad learned. This ‘information’, then, this source, whatever it was, causing the illness – could it be related to something within the corporation? Something in its history? Could it be related to the killer?

  He didn’t know what Carlos had found out. What kind of pressure he had been under. But if he could interview the killer, learn about his employment, the nature of his role in the corpor­ation, then perhaps he could get a little closer.

  He made the necessary enquires. Public information was minimal, the case having been omitted from the media by request. He was referred to several different departments, each clerk assuring him the following number would give him all the information he required. He remained at his desk, on hold, doing his best to resist the eruption of his rage. He spoke to someone else. He was transferred again. He was put on hold.

  Eventually he got somewhere – a holding cell in the south. Montero sounded a little young for a sergeant. He seemed to be eating and to be addressing at least one other person in the room, the line coming in and going out, as if obstructed by an object. He did not have long, Montero explained – it was another very busy evening – but he would give the inspector what he could.

  He remembered the case, of course. How could he not? The inspector had worked with him only briefly. It wasn’t unusual that he couldn’t place the name, the voice. People often told the story. Montero congratulated the inspector on his work. Who knew, he said, how many others that monster would have taken?

  The inspector cut in. ‘I’d simply like to know where he is. Which facility he’s held in.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Montero said, apparently in full agreement. ‘Why?’

  The inspector asked him to repeat himself.

  ‘Why do you want to see him?’ he said. ‘Are you sure it’s for the best? Isn’t it true the events had quite an effect on you, at the time?’

  ‘Listen, just give me the name of the relevant facility and I’ll be getting on.’

  Montero made a noise, perhaps striking a match. He paused. ‘I’m afraid we’re going to have a problem.’

  At any moment, he thought, the scene would correct itself. Everything would be clarified and the manner of the officer – his colleague – would soften.

  Montero explained the situation as best he understood it. It appeared, he said, to all intents and purposes, that the killer had been lost.

  He clarified: obviously he remained in a secure facility – he would never be released, that went without saying. It’s just that we are having some temporary difficulty, he explained, establishing precisely where he is.

  The beginning of the problem, he told the inspector, was the killer’s insanity.

  ‘He struck me as lucid.’

  ‘Quite,’ Montero agreed. ‘But did you ask him his name? He had no identification. Nothing especially unusual in that. But that’s not what we’re talking about. He claimed he didn’t have a name. Kept up the claim for quite some time. The problem was there was nothing to identify him in the apartment. No passport, credit cards. No mail. Neighbours on nodding terms only – he hadn’t been there long. The apartment was sublet or sub-sublet, paid weekly in cash, no contract. He worked independently, freelance, he said. Naturally, he would give us no more details.

  ‘You would not believe,’ he said, ‘the trouble we have had administering this man.

  ‘We assigned him the temporary moniker Juan Pérez. It would have been better, we agreed, if he had, in fact, been a real Juan Pérez, dead like the others. As this man had no bank account, you can imagine our surprise when his full legal team arrived.

  ‘The defence was rhetorical. They said – I remember the words – that we had “no one we could legitimately charge”. The onus was on us to identify him, they claimed. Until that point we could proceed no further.’

  The inspector waited. Several seconds of silence.

  ‘Well, that’s it, effectively. We were at an impasse. He remained held indefinitely, awaiting trial. He was imprisoned, that wasn’t going to change. There were other, more pressing matters. I won’t deny it was frustrating. But we had our man, that was the main thing. Besides, what could we do? You should have heard the defence. The young lawyer said that given the limited information gathered, we’d no way to prove this was a living man. There was no laughter, Inspector. They said he didn’t pay tax and he didn’t procreate. He was nameless, had no known relatives. He didn’t seem to have come from anywhere. What exactly were we dealing with? They used the word “suspect”, as if none of it had really happened, as if you hadn’t really seen it for yourself.

  ‘The young lawyer said the suspect did not live anywhere. Nothing definitive placed him in that apartment for any length of time. By this stage the neighbours were refusing point-blank to cooperate with enquiries. The lawyer, with some relish – I wish I could remember the name – said the suspect, prior to arrest, had been continuously moving, never ultimately settling down in any one place. These were games, obviously. They were playing for time. They said he didn’t live anywhere, said he wasn’t, effectively, alive.’

  The inspector was incredulous. He waited for the reveal, the truth explaining that this was a joke, it wasn’t real. Nothing. It couldn’t go on like this. ‘In the trial, in interviews, was there anything to suggest Pérez worked for a financial institution?’

  ‘We told you, we learned nothing about his job. He claimed he worked independently, that was all. Why?

  ‘But he’s there, Inspector – we have him, don’t worry about that. For the moment, however, we’re unable to pinpoint the particular facility he’s held in. Inmates are transferred regularly and Pérez’s location has become confused. And… well, he seems to have coerced some of the other prisoners. Whenever we look for Pérez, more than one of them claims the name. Groups of them, they copy each other in the way they carry themselves, the way they walk. You could say Pérez, in a manner, flows through the cells. If we thought there was any chance of a positive identification, then, really, we’d bring you in, Inspector. But it’s been many years. And it would take some time – we’re talking a minimum of six facilities. If you think it’s worth it, then by all means, fill out an application and we’ll have it processed just as soon as we can.’

  XI

  A chair makes an average man half as tall. The office employee spends around two-thirds of his life at this height or lower (asleep, childhood). Sitting in the one position for extended periods may have a quite different effect from that intended. After a period of 2–3 hours in a single seated position, the redundant legs become insensate. Obscured from view beneath the desk, he loses awareness of them.

  The feeling, once he stands, is novel. He slaps the trouser legs to spark sensation and feels transparent charge in the momentum of his blood. The legs, having effectively been in storage, are returned to him in the manner of a prosthesis, an addition with which he has to familiarize himself again in order to activate. The loss of muscle strength in calves, quads, forelegs and thighs increases the likelihood of significant injury later in life, the decades-long disuse perhaps being returned to in the provision of a wheelchair.

  TRIBES OF THE SOUTHERN INTERIOR, p. 43

  He woke to the insistent, shrill sound, sat up from the sofa in his front room, smoothed his shirt. It had been going on for some time. The sound had entered his sleep, into whatever he had been dreaming. He felt uncertain, not quite in his place, a little reluctant to pick up.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘We have him.’

  Carlos?

  It took him several moments to realize the voice on the other end was referring to Pérez.

  They had located him in the prison system. He was willing to talk, so the inspector acted quickly, arranging delivery of his service vehicle and washing and readying himself while he waited. The hotel – which had a reputation for being unfeasibly lavish – was a distance away, past the city in the east.


  His headlamps lit up demolition sites, fenced off, abandoned land and two last remaining tower blocks. It wasn’t clear if anyone still lived there. He passed on, through rows of black-window bars, pawn shops and anonymous takeaways. He drove more purposefully through the night streets unimpeded. Why hadn’t he thought of this before, the relief of night driving? The ease of getting somewhere, the reassurance of autonomy.

  It was quite a peculiar arrangement, but he was in no position to turn it down. Several lawyers would be present and the terms insisted on a neutral location, taking the man out of prison grounds. Pérez had a story to tell, and he wanted to speak to the inspector and no one else.

  He joined the Rio Paraná again, wide, enormous looking, extending into the clouded sky. For a while he drove in parallel. He could hear its rush through the open windows. The road was thin, with no edge-lights, no barriers in place on the riverside. He was out in dark farmland, in sheets of soft green, with the silhouettes of sleeping animals cut out of the land.

  He had the feeling he had to get there quickly, that it was important. Potentially crucial. If he had been correct in identifying a link between Pérez and the corporation, then what he was driving towards could well be a revelation. The lawyers would push for leniency, finally giving up the identity of their client, along with the information he had to give, on condition of favourable treatment. Transfer to a low-security prison, perhaps. A comfortable place; somewhere he could live out the rest of his life quietly. The thought disgusted the inspector, but he should wait and see what the man had to give them before ruling anything out.

  The ground-floor lobby was deserted. His shoes made a tapping sound on the bright, hard floor. Outside was sheer dark, the interior baldly reflected on the glass.

  His instructions were to wait in the foyer until he was collected by officials, who would then escort him to the room where Pérez was held. Now he had stopped, had a moment to think, it seemed outrageous. That Pérez could be there, locked in a room. Presumably he would be shackled. There would be guards as well as lawyers, armed men. Pérez should pose no threat. Still… He would have preferred a meeting on prison grounds, with separating bars. He pictured the face from the photograph, blank, unremarkable. The man he had met at the doorway and apprehended in the apartment. The glazed, distant, vacant expression. The cool, unaffected way he had stood around an obliterated individual.