A Philosophical Investigation

19

The switchblade was still open in her hand, the blade a razor-sharp, silver thumbnail protruding from her clenched fist. She held it by her side, at an arm’s length, like one of the Sharks or the Jets in West Side Story, ready for the rumble. Only the rumble was over. Even now the two ambulancewomen were manoeuvring the man’s body on to the trolley. They strapped him down as if he might have preferred to get off and walk. Not much chance of that, Jake thought. Not with a crushed windpipe.

Pleased with the way the knife had performed she lifted it up to inspect it more closely. She had bought it on an impulse, while holidaying in Italy the previous year. Just something to put in her shoulder bag and make her feel a bit safer, when she wasn’t carrying her gun. She was almost surprised that she should have used it in the particular way she had.

The two ambulancewomen lifted the top of the trolley clear of the wheels and then steered the man by remote control, out into the corridor outside the apartment and towards the lift door, like a toy she had once had as a child. Not a toy for a girl, her father had said. Better than a toy for a girl, Jake thought.

Downstairs, in the lobby, the doorman did what he was supposed to do and held the door open while they steered the man out into the car-park. The trolley collided with the back of the ambulance rather too vigorously, it seemed, and automatically engaged the electronic lift. This picked him off the tarmac like a binful of garbage and drew him inside the long body of a vehicle that was covered with advertisements for Lucozade and Elastoplast. At the very second the door closed beside him, the blue laser light on top of the roof started to flash in all directions like random bolts of lightning.

The two ambulancewomen regarded Jake and, more especially, the knife that was still in her hand, with some uncertainty. One was about to say something but then her colleague caught her eye and shook her head as if to indicate that it was probably best if they didn’t ask any questions. Their job was just to collect their fare and take him to hospital. Nothing more. But the woman holding the knife spoke to them.

‘Where are you taking him?’ she said. ‘Which hospital?’

One of the ambulancewomen shrugged and held up the man’s identity card.

‘Depends on his ID,’ she said. ‘I haven’t stuck it into the computer yet. As soon as we do, his bar-code’ll tell us where he’s registered, and that’s where we’ll take him.’ So saying, the woman holding the card climbed into the driver’s seat.

Jake pointed out two men sitting in a nearby police car.

‘See those cops?’ she said to the second woman.

‘I see them.’

‘They’ll be following you. So try not to lose them.’

‘Sure, anything you say, lady.’

Jake watched them drive away, Stanley following in the police car, two sirens whistling like sex-mad construction workers. When they were out of sight she went back inside the door of Winston Mansions and up to the seventh floor where a motorcycle cop, who had arrived on the scene at the same time as the ambulance, was already restraining those other residents of the building who were curious to see what had happened. The door to Esterhazy’s flat stood open. Jake walked into the apartment, picking her way carefully across the pile of shattered glass that had been one of the windows, and surveyed the scene.

The apartment was simply, even starkly furnished, with none of the sensational features that might have delighted some tabloid newspaper intent on depicting the mind of a serial killer as an aspect of interior decoration. There were no heads parboiled in pots still hot on the cooker, no torture chamber, no paintings or photographs of dead bodies, no collections of women’s underwear, no human skin hanging on a tailor’s dummy awaiting a needle and thread, no glass case with guns and knives displayed like so many insects and spiders. There was only one picture — a portrait of Sir Winston Churchill which, matching the mural in the lobby downstairs, Jake suspected had been there since the time Winston Mansions was built. Esterhazy’s own peculiar gun was still in its shoulder-holster, which hung from the back of a chair.

It was true that Jake found the colour scheme in Esterhazy’s apartment was not to her own taste: a royal blue carpet, black woodwork, and yellow walls. Blue and yellow were classic opponent-process colours, mutually antagonistic to each other as neural sensory experiences, but that was hardly an indication of homicidal mania. The plain fact was that Esterhazy’s apartment seemed to provide no more obvious insight as to what had turned him into a mass-murderer than might have been obtained from the leaves in his tea cup, or a selection of Tarot cards. How ordinary it all seemed, and then all the more extraordinary, because of the nature of the man who lived there.

It was not the first time that Jake had encountered this phenomenon. She was quite used to the idea that mass-murderers could live what were outwardly quite ordinary lives. It was the thoughts in their heads that you had to worry about, not the pictures on their walls or the trophies in the display cabinets. Real evil, she knew, did not always adorn its home with black velvet curtains and human skulls for ashtrays. The most unusual thing in the whole place was the severed end of the rope tied round one of the beams, from which Esterhazy had tried to hang himself, and the fallen step-ladder he had used to climb up to the noose, and which he had then kicked away: the ladder which, no more than a minute or two afterwards, she herself had used to climb up and cut him down. It was Jake who had given Esterhazy the kiss of life. The taste of him still lingered on her lips. It was strange, perhaps because of what he was, something dangerous, something alien to her, but somehow she had almost enjoyed breathing the life back into him, as if he had been some drowned sailor, or Don Juan washed up on her island.

And for what had she saved him? It was as well, she reflected, that she was not a sentimental person, because she well knew what it was to which she had delivered him. Jake lit a cigarette and smoked it, irritated with herself now, for there is nothing of so infinite vexation as one’s own thoughts. She tried to tell herself that what happened to Wittgenstein, to Esterhazy, was not her affair. She had done her duty, according to the law, and in spite of the very best endeavours of nearly everyone around her.

It would be up to others now, the lawyers, the judges, the psychotherapists, and probably the politicians, what became of him. Perhaps he would succeed in a not-guilty plea by reason of insanity. She remembered having once said something about making sure that he got medical help, so she would make sure that a forensic psychiatrist other than Professor Waring was able to examine him. Perhaps the fact that there had been several articles in the various medical and psychiatric journals to the effect that, based on his writings alone, the real Wittgenstein might have suffered from some sort of bipolar-affective disorder (what was once called manic-depressive psychosis), would count for something in helping to sustain a plea of insanity.

The truth was that having done her duty Jake’s sincerest hope was not that she could help the Crown Prosecution Service to build a water-tight case against Esterhazy, but that he might end up with something better than an ice-cold needle in his vein. This was a strange sensation for her. Normally she didn’t much care one way or the other what happened to the men she arrested. But then Esterhazy was hardly like any other man she had ever known.

That was what she hoped. But in Jake’s heart she knew it would be different. In her heart she had always known it would be different.

She sat down at Esterhazy’s desk to wait for the scenes-of-crime officers. She noted all the computer equipment, and then the black-rubberised Reality Approximation Outfit which lay on a special leather recliner like a discarded shadow. If he had been into that kind of shit, she said to herself, then there was no knowing what might be in Esterhazy’s mind. There were some people who said that protracted use of RA was every bit as dangerous as LSD. Then she noticed two notebooks on the desk, one brown and one blue, and curious about what was in them she opened the brown book.

Six Months Later

A crowd had gathered outside the front gate of Wandsworth Prison. It was early evening and its number continued to be swollen by people who were on their way home from work. The mood was quiet but even so, a small squad of riot-police was in attendance.

Jake arrived early, having misjudged the time needed to get through the evening traffic. She parked her car in a nearby garden centre and, to fill in time, bought some geraniums for her window box. As she waited for the assistant to debit her cash card, it crossed Jake’s mind that she could buy some flowers for Esterhazy, that he might welcome some colour in the last few hours of his conscious life. She glanced about her and, seeing nothing that wasn’t rooted in soil, asked the assistant if they had any flowers. He sniggered and pointed out to the yard where there were hundreds of plants flowering.

‘What do you think they are?’ he sneered.

‘No, I want cut flowers.’

The man’s sneer grew deeper. ‘This is a garden centre,’ he said. ‘Gardens grow, know what I mean? You want cut flowers I suggest you walk down to the cemetery on Magdalen Road. You’ll get cut flowers there, although speaking for myself, I can’t imagine anyone wanting to cut something down as was already growing.’

‘Spare me the botany lecture,’ said Jake, and selected a well-bloomed hyacinth, one of the new red variety, from a box nearby.

‘You don’t want to take that one,’ said the assistant. ‘That one’s in full flower. Be finished in a day or so. Best have one that’s still budding.’

Jake shook her head. Another day would be too late for Esterhazy. ‘No, this one will do just fine.’

‘Please yourself,’ said the man.

Having placed the geraniums in the boot of her car, she walked on towards the prison gate. She thought it was probably safer to leave her car where it was, than in front of the prison. Just in case anyone decided to slash her tyres on the off-chance that the car belonged to a member of the prison staff. The sun had set but she kept her sunglasses on, to stop anyone recognising her. Esterhazy’s trial, and her own role in his capture, had been well reported on television. But the crowd paid Jake little attention as she walked up to the gate, deceived by the red flower she held in her hands. There weren’t many police or Home Office officials arriving at HMP Wandsworth who brought flowers with them. She had presented her ID and was through the door in the gate before any of the demonstrators were aware that it had opened and closed.

‘You here to see the jab?’ enquired the warder still holding Jake’s identity card in his gloved fingers.

She said that she was and the warder picked up a computer.

‘Just a mo’, while I check you off on the guest-list,’ he said. He grinned to himself as his forefinger held down one of the keys. The computer clicked like a geiger-counter as it scrolled down a long list of names. ‘We wouldn’t want any gate-crashers, would we? Yes, you’re all right, ma‘am.’ He glanced uncertainly at the potted plant.

Jake wondered if he was thinking of inspecting it for drugs or something.

‘Is that for him?’ he said.

‘Yes. All right?’

The warder shrugged. ‘Under the circumstances, I s’pose so. I’ll get one of my men to walk you down to the new wing.’

‘Don’t bother. I know my way.’

‘Fair enough,’ said the warder and returned to reading the previous day’s edition of the News of the World. On the front page was a photograph of a rather bemused-looking Esterhazy, underneath a headline which read, ‘PSYCHO KILLER GETS THE HOT MILK TOMORROW’.

Jake grimaced and walked quickly away.

Wandsworth’s Punitive Coma Wing was of recent construction. It had even won an award from the Institute of European Architects. Built of red brick, like the Victorian walls which surrounded it, the PC wing was a large dome resembling an observatory from the outside, and a library from the inside. Reinforced-concrete ribs supported a ceiling of many windows which from beneath looked like the huge eye of God. Around the interior circumference were what seemed to be large filing drawers, many of which, like a mortuary, contained the comatose bodies of convicts.

The PC wing was colder than the outside air, being partly refrigerated, and, dressed in a light linen summer-suit, Jake was soon shivering. She quickened her step as she crossed the main floor underneath the eye of the dome, heading towards the holding cells.

The sight of one open drawer, slightly larger than a coffin, interrupted her step. Curious, she stopped to examine it more closely. The bottom of the drawer was upholstered in soft black calf leather, which was the only concession made to the prevention of pressure sores. A number of tubes and catheters, which would be attached to the convict’s body, protruded from the drawer’s sides. On the front of the cabinet was a small flat screen on which the body functions could be read and a card key lock to prevent anyone from interfering with the drawer’s occupant. Jake’s shiver progressed as far as her jaws, and rubbing her bare arms she quickly carried on her way.

In an antechamber close to where Esterhazy was spending his last few conscious hours, a small group of people had assembled. Most of them were faces she recognised from the Home Office and the Brain Research Institute: Mark Woodford, Professor Waring, and Mrs Grace Miles. For the first time, television cameras were also there to cover the event, having successfully petitioned the High Court that if print journalists were allowed to witness such events, then why not other media as well?

Jake stopped to see how ITN was covering the event and was all the more interested when she saw that the programme was being presented by Anna Kreisler. She herself had been the object of serial killer David Boysfield’s obsession; and this was the case which Jake had made the subject of her lecture to the EC Symposium on law and order when first she had been requested to command the Wittgenstein investigation. It all seemed like a very long time ago to her now.

Anna Kreisler, elegantly suited in Chanel, with the slightly plastic good looks and perky air of a model air-hostess, was responding to questions posed on air by an unseen studio anchor-man. It was an indication of the importance that ITN were attaching to coverage of the punishment that Kreisler was there in person and not behind her usual desk in the studio.

‘What’s the atmosphere like there in Wandsworth Gaol, Anna?’

‘Well, as you can imagine, Peter, it’s very tense here. A sizeable crowd has gathered outside the walls of Wandsworth Gaol to protest against Paul Esterhazy’s punishment, and although the police are in attendance, they’re not expecting any trouble. This kind of thing differs very much from what used to happen with capital punishment because, unlike then, now there is no expectation of a last minute reprieve. Telephone calls from the Home Secretary commuting a sentence to life imprisonment are a thing of the past, because of course there is no such thing as life imprisonment. I spoke to the prison governor a little earlier and he told me that Paul Esterhazy ate a light dinner at around five o’clock and that he refused the opportunity to speak to a priest. Since then I understand that he’s spending his last few hours watching television.’

‘So he might even be watching this broadcast. Anna, we still don’t know much about Esterhazy’s motives for these dreadful crimes: at the trial it was suggested that the balance of Esterhazy’s mind may have been affected by protracted use of reality approximation programs. Has there been any word from Esterhazy himself as to what made him into a mass-murderer? Any indication of remorse?’

‘No indications of remorse whatsoever, Peter. Of course, we now know that the background for these murders was the Lombroso Program and that, like Esterhazy himself, many of his victims had been given the names of famous philosophers in order to protect their identities. Esterhazy was himself an undergraduate at Oxford University until he was sent down for drug abuse, and some commentators have suggested that this may have brought about a resentment of intellectuals in general, and philosophers in particular. It’s also a bizarre coincidence, but like the real Ludwig Wittgenstein whose name Esterhazy was given, he himself came from a rich Austro-Germanic family, and spent some time working in the pharmacy at Guy’s Hospital. This was one of the factors which was alleged to have contributed to Esterhazy’s failed defence of not guilty by reason of insanity.’

‘Anna, you’ve spoken to lots of people who have met Esterhazy. What kind of a man is he?’

‘By all accounts, a highly intelligent one, Peter. Well read, well educated, skilled with computers. He was popular at work too. Many of the people who knew him at Guy’s said he was a nice man, well-mannered, the studious type who wouldn’t have harmed a fly. But at the same time it seems he was a rather solitary, lonely figure. We know how he became estranged from his parents many years ago, and so far there has been no sign that they have any wish to re-enter his life at this late stage in the day. Records also prove that Esterhazy was married for a while, but his wife divorced him and has since changed her name. All attempts to trace her have so far proved fruitless.’

‘So in many ways, even now he’s in custody awaiting punishment, Esterhazy remains something of a mystery?’

‘Very much so, Peter. What’s frustrating a lot of people is that carrying out this punishment today might mean we never discover any more about him. But it’s only fair to say that Esterhazy may be something of a mystery even to himself. There have been occasions, especially during the trial, when he seemed unable to distinguish between reality and an approximation of reality, as I think you mentioned earlier. For that reason there are lots of people who believe that the proper place for Paul Esterhazy is not in a PC drawer, but in a hospital for the criminally insane.’

‘You mentioned the Government’s Lombroso Program, Anna: where do you think this leaves that and other controversial aspects of the Government’s law and order policy?’

‘Critics of the current policy, most notably the opposition spokesman on Law and Order, Tony Bedford MP, have argued that the Lombroso Program constitutes an invasion of human rights and should be scrapped. But I think that’s unlikely to happen, Peter, since the European Court has already ruled that since the accent of the Program is on care and counselling people who have an innate capacity to develop an aggressive disorder, the Program does not constitute a violation of human rights. Nevertheless radical changes will have to be made, not least to the Program’s security, and it’s being said that heads will have to roll. But until the results of the public inquiry, we won’t know how the system’s security was breached and exactly who will be held accountable. And of course until that result, the Program itself remains in suspension.

‘I’m now joined by the Minister for Law and Order, Mrs Grace Miles. Mrs Miles, how do you answer the critics of punitive coma who say that it is a cruel and unusual punishment and has no place in a civilised society such as ours?’

Mrs Miles smiled, almost painfully.

‘First of all, Miss Kreisler, let me correct an earlier remark that was made about the Lombroso Program. The Lombroso Program is not just this Government’s policy. It is part of the policy of the European Community, as enacted by all the member nations in the European Parliament. It just happens to have been introduced in this country first of all.

‘Now to your questions about punitive coma, I would say this: the European Court has ruled that it is neither cruel, nor unusual. This kind of punishment has existed in the United States for a number of years and has many proven advantages, which I don’t propose to discuss now. This hardly seems like the most appropriate time. However I will say this about its detractors. What surprises me about them is that their arguments are the same arguments that these same people used to use against the return of hanging. I myself was, and am against capital punishment. But everyone felt that in certain cases, such as this one, some punishment tougher than imprisonment was required. I think PC does that job very well indeed. And the best argument of all for PC as the law’s ultimate sanction is that, where mistakes are made — and let’s face it, any system is fallible — a sentence can be reversed. I would only add to that that there is clearly no room for doubt in this particular case.

‘Moreover, I for one welcome the presence of cameras here today. The public has a right to know about the punishments meted out in its name and at the taxpayer’s expense. Just as long as the faces of those participating in the execution of the sentence can be obscured. I look on this kind of broadcasting as performing a valuable public service.’

Jake could stand no more of someone as manipulative as Mrs Miles defending the freedom of the press, and walked slowly away from the cameras. She was surprised to find Mark Woodford come after her. She hadn’t seen him since the day when he and Waring had tried to persuade her to let Sir Jameson Lang try and talk Wittgenstein into killing himself.

‘Haven’t had a chance to speak to you,’ he said. ‘But well done, you know. For catching this poor fellow. No hard feelings?’

Jake shook her head. ‘I was just doing my job.’

‘That’s right. We were all acting for what we thought was the best, weren’t we? By the way, congratulations about your promotion. I hear you’re heading up the Murder Squad, now.’

‘It’s just temporary,’ said Jake. ‘Until they can get someone to replace Challis.’

Woodford lowered his voice. ‘Oh I wouldn’t be surprised if you ended up doing the job permanently,’ he said. ‘The Minister likes your style.’

Jake glanced back at Mrs Miles who was still talking to Anna Kreisler.

‘I can’t say I care much for hers.’ She shook her head. ‘I can’t say I care for my own very much either. Not when I see a circus like this.’ Jake was walking towards the chief warder.

‘Well just remember this: it was you who found the star act.’

‘Like I said, Woodford, I just did my duty.’

‘You heard that Doctor St Pierre resigned?’

Jake said she hadn’t.

‘Oh yes. It’s not public yet. But someone’s head had to roll for what happened. And St Pierre was the obvious candidate, I’m afraid. There’s a new security chap on it now. He’s going to change the whole system procedure, before the Program is implemented throughout the European Community, so there shouldn’t be any more problems of unauthorised entry. And when the thing is up and working it really will make your job a lot easier.’

Jake smiled sardonically. ‘I wonder,’ she said. ‘Well, if you’ll excuse me.’

She went over to the chief warder and asked if she could see Esterhazy alone for a few minutes.

The warder looked at the flower and then at Jake. ‘What’s the plant for?’ he asked suspiciously.

‘It’s for Esterhazy,’ she explained. ‘Something beautiful for him to see and smell before he’s PC’d.’

‘Against the regulations probably. But under the circumstances, I suppose it’ll be all right. This way, if you please.’

Jake found Esterhazy watching television in his cell, under the watchful eyes of two warders. His hands manacled in front of him he was sitting on the edge of a chair, engrossed in the BBC’s outside broadcast coverage of his own punishment. When he saw Jake he turned and smiled.

‘Ah, the hyacinth girl,’ he said. ‘You know I shall miss colour most of all. It’s my experience that one only ever dreams in black and white.’

Esterhazy was older and more distinguished than Jake remembered from the trial. Lofty even. Like someone who was easily tired by the mundane thoughts of his fellow men. She was struck by his physical resemblance to the real Wittgenstein. Only he was more athletic — vigorous even — than she might have imagined. And there was about him an air of electric intelligence such as Doctor Frankenstein might have set his sights upon in creating his famous creature. He spoke in an exaggerated sort of way, like a character from some Victorian melodrama. His restless eyes became fixed for a few seconds on the flower in Jake’s hands. She said nothing. He rose from his chair, took the pot out of her trembling hands and laid it on the table beside the television set.

‘How kind of you to bring me a red flower,’ he said. Nostrils flaring he pushed his whole muzzle into the bloom and closed his eyes.

Jake heard him breathe deeply through his nose, savouring the sweet scent of the flower. He repeated this behaviour several times before his eyes opened again. He glanced at Jake and she saw mischief run down his face like a bead of sweat.

‘If I had asked you to bring me a red flower, would you have looked up the colour red in a table of colours and then brought a flower of the colour that you found in that table?’

Jake shook her head. ‘No.’

‘But when it is a question of choosing or mixing a particular shade of red, we do sometimes make use of a sample or table, do we not?’

‘Yes, we do sometimes,’ she agreed.

‘Well,’ said Esterhazy, returning his slightly-hooked nose to the flower, ‘this is how memory and association may be said to work, within the context of a language game.’

‘You’re still playing games, even now?’

‘Why not?’ He pouted and pointed to the television screen. ‘When I myself am to be made the subject of what might be conceived as a game, albeit a concept with rather blurred edges. Oh yes, I know what you’re thinking. You’re asking if a blurred concept is a concept at all. Is an indistinct photograph a picture of a person at all? Is a man who is neither wholly dead nor wholly alive still a man?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Jake. ‘Perhaps.’

He grinned. ‘Then again, perhaps not. It seems to me that I shall be more like this plant. Hair and fingernails pruned from time to time. Watered and weeded. Periodically checked for signs of infestation. But largely shorn of relevance other than the purely symbolic.’

‘You killed people.’

He shrugged quickly. ‘I envy them.’ His grin widened. ‘I owe you my life, I suppose. But tell me, what were you saving me for?’

‘There are rules in my game too,’ Jake said. ‘It isn’t a proper game if there is some vagueness in the rules. You, of all people, should realise that.’

He sighed and nodded. ‘Yes, you’re right I suppose.’ His smile returned. ‘You know, you’ve done me a real favour, bringing me this little hyacinth. I’ve been racking my brain for a strapline of less than 150 characters, to put on my drawer’s computer screen. One of the condemned man’s last little privileges. Too generous. The gentlemen here have been reading me some of the other convicts’ lines in the hope that I might be able to decide what I wanted.’ He groaned and rolled his eyes. ‘Of course, most of them are impossibly sentimental. The average criminal has a rather vulgar turn of phrase, especially when it relates to how he wishes to be remembered. But you have inspired me with this flower of yours. Thank you.’

‘What words are you going to have?’

‘Surprise,’ he said. ‘Read my drawer in a couple of hours.’

‘I’m sorry about... all this. Really I am.’

He shook his head dismissively. ‘Will you do me a service?’

‘If I can.’

‘I understand that it is permitted to visit someone who is in a coma. Gardeners say that if you talk to a plant then it will thrive. Would you come and talk to me now and again?’

Jake shrugged. ‘What shall I say?’

‘Name things. Talk about them. Refer to them in talk. As if there were only one thing called “talking about a thing”. Speak to me as if you were a little girl talking to her doll. You owe me that much for keeping me alive. Will you do this?’

‘I never much liked dolls,’ said Jake. ‘But I’ll make an exception in your case.’

He seemed relieved by this assurance.

Finally she asked him why he had done it. What was it that had motivated him to kill all those men?

The bright eyes rolled heavenwards. His accent suddenly turned American.

‘My motivation?’ He smiled laconically. ‘Well gee, it was all based on my inner emotional experience I guess, discovered through the medium of improvisation.’ He shook his head. ‘Motivation... You make me sound like Lee Strasberg, for God’s sake. People always ask a killer that question, Jake. “Say, Cody, what made you do it? What made you go and kill all those women?” They must get so tired of being asked that question, and not finding much of an answer. Embarrassing for them. They ruin their lives and don’t even have a good explanation for it. So after a while, they try and think of some kind of explanation, just to get people off their backs. And what do they say, these killers? “I had visions of Christ and all his angels telling me to do it.” Or, “The voice of Allah spoke to me and told me to kill the infidels”. But you know, this kind of explanation goes right back to man’s beginnings and was first employed by Abraham. “God told me to kill my son, Isaac, and I was going to do it.” How lucky for Abraham that he heard His voice again, and stopped short of murder.

‘Today, when we accept that a killer believes what he says to be true, that religious defence strikes as being evidence of his insanity. And if we think he’s bogus and that he’s lying about having heard a voice, then we go ahead and jab him. But whichever one applies, this kind of explanation for committing such appalling crimes remains generally comprehensible to us. It’s not particularly original, but we can readily accept that there would surely have to be some extraordinary explanation to do something as heinous as kill your mother and your father and your own puppy dog. In a sense, it’s the only explanation which people can understand.’ Esterhazy smiled to himself and looked distant for a moment.

‘But if you want an explanation that’s better suited to these modern times, Jake, I’ll give you one. If the absence of logic is what characterises faith, then the opposite also holds true. Where one has faith in nothing, then there is only logic that’s left to answer to. So just as another man might have claimed that God made him kill twelve men in cold blood, I’m saying that it was not the voice of God which made me do it, but the voice of Logic. I heard the voice of Logic and his ministers of Reason and I had this compulsion to kill.’ He smiled wryly. ‘It’s a different kind of madness, that’s all.

‘But you’ve read the notebooks, haven’t you?’ He shrugged eloquently. ‘What do you think? You’re the detective. This was your investigation. You caught me. You must have the answers. It’s you who have restored the moral order to a world that was temporarily upset by my crimes. How very Shakespearean of you, Jake. Perhaps it’s me who should be asking you questions. Well, what do you think, Chief Inspector?’

Jake shrugged. ‘Any restoration such as you describe would be an illusion, in my opinion,’ she said. ‘You ought to know all about illusion, Paul. Look at you, spending half your life with that Reality Approximation machine. Even now you might believe that you’re still wearing your RA suit and helmet. If I have an explanation at all, it’s that you can no longer distinguish between what is real and what is unreal. But that doesn’t make you so very different from a lot of other people. Nobody cares much for reality anymore. Maybe they never did. Is that what you would call a moral order? If you ask me, there’s not much balance around anywhere. And this — this investigation was just a holding action. Until the next time.’

They didn’t say much more after that. For a few moments she sat in silence and let him hold her hand. She tried to remember the last time she had held a man’s hand. Her father had tried to hold her hand as he lay dying in hospital and she had pulled away. Things were different now. She had stopped hating. It was time to be compassionate. To care. Maybe even to love.

Jake left him alone during the few minutes which remained. She would have left the prison if she could. She had no stomach for what was to follow. But the provisions of Homicide (Punishment of Murderers) Act 2005 required that, as senior investigating officer, she be present when the sentence was carried out.

Watched by almost twenty people, to say nothing of the millions watching on television, Esterhazy met his punishment as bravely as was possible, considering that he was already strapped down onto a hospital trolley when the coma technician produced the hypodermic. There was an audible gasp among two or three of the spectators as the needle caught the light from the glass ceiling like an upturned sword. Esterhazy turned his head away from the television camera and waited in silence. The technician swabbed his neck with a piece of cotton wool and the air was filled with the scent of something antiseptic.

The prison clock was still striking midnight as the needle entered his jugular vein and the plunger was depressed. Coma was almost instantaneous.

Next the body was wheeled into the main storage hall, and under the huge eye, it was transferred to the waiting drawer. Electric wires and pipes were attached to Esterhazy’s naked torso, and when everything was in place and working to the coma technician’s satisfaction, the drawer was pushed smoothly shut.

Jake waited until the television cameras had gone before moving in closer to read what the technician was typing on the screen: Esterhazy’s epitaph. She recognised it as some lines from The Waste Land, the ones which followed the hyacinth girl.

Jake wiped the tear from her eye, collected the hyacinth, and went out into the sunshine.

What can I tell you about what it was like, lying in that drawer one lifetime, and then gone somewhere else, I don’t know where? How can I describe it to you?

The picture is something like this. Though the ether is filled with vibrations the world is dark. But one day man opens his seeing eye, and there is light.