That much seemed certain, Jake thought.
She turned away from the empty pictophone screen and banged her desk with frustration. Somehow she knew that Waring’s plan might well work and that unless she thought of something, and quickly, Wittgenstein’s collar was going to slip through her fingers. Perhaps his own as well.
Later that same morning, Jake’s thoughts returned to this picture she had of things slipping through fingers. Somehow it brought to mind Wittgenstein’s A-Z again, and a teasing game she had sometimes played at school.
She called Detective Inspector Stanley and asked him to bring Wittgenstein’s A-Z to her office immediately.
It had been a simple childish sort of joke which involved grabbing a novel by D. H. Lawrence, or some other moral iconoclast, from the briefcase of a friend and, with the aim of embarrassing her, trying to determine if the book was at all inclined, by the implication of an excessively frequent consultation, to fall open at one of the more lurid pages. As if to confirm her theory now, Jake drew open the desk drawer and took out her own copy of London’s A-Z. She balanced the book by its perfect bound spine on the palm of her hand and allowed it to fall apart into two sections, at the pages covering that area of south-west London where New Scotland Yard is located.
Stanley arrived carrying the A-Z in a plastic evidence bag as if it was a goldfish he had won at the funfair.
Jake flung her own copy aside and grabbed the bag from out of Stanley’s outstretched fist. His jaw dropped as she tore off the special warning label that had been stapled on to it.
‘This is such a simple idea that I can’t imagine why I didn’t think of it before,’ said Jake, and took hold of the book.
‘What are you doing?’ hissed Stanley. ‘That’s evidence. You can’t handle that. There are fingerprints on it — you’ll spoil them.’
‘Shut up,’ said Jake and repeated the simple manoeuvre. The book parted itself slowly and then lay open on her palm like an exhausted bird. Jake uttered a yell of satisfaction.
‘Just like Lady Chatterley’s Lover,’ she said. ‘It opens first where it’s most been read.’
She scanned the two facing pages of streets, underground stations, parklands, dual carriageways, fire stations, and hospitals, closely, as if she had been reading from the Book of Life.
‘Pages seventy-eight to seventy-nine,’ she murmured. ‘From Waterloo Station as far east as Rotherhithe; Tower Bridge down to Peckham Road. Let’s see now. There are one — two — three — four hospitals in this area. And one of them is Guy’s.’ She stated this last fact as if it had been what the thunder said.
Stanley corrected his shirt collar. ‘I’m sorry I don’t quite see the significance,’ he said.
‘Don’t you?’ said Jake, turning to her pictophone screen and keying out Mrs Porter’s number at the Ministry of Health. ‘Guy’s Hospital was where the real Wittgenstein worked, during the war. In the pharmacy.’
‘That’s a hell of a hunch you’re playing.’
‘Have you got a better one?’
Stanley shook his head.
When Jake found Mrs Porter, she asked her to check for a German or a man of Germanic origin who might be working at Guy’s.
‘My goodness, you have narrowed it down,’ said Mrs Porter. ‘Right then. No problem at all. Just give me a couple of minutes.’ She turned away from the pictophone camera and devoted her attention to her computer.
Jake waited with patient expectation, like someone having her Tarot read by a famous clairvoyant. Stanley looked on, vaguely disapproving. Finally, Mrs Porter looked back at the camera.
‘At Guy’s Hospital there are three male persons of the racial type you’ve designated,’ she said, with all the natural sententiousness of her profession. ‘A Mister Hesse and a Mister Deussen, but both of them are surgeons. And then there is a Mister Esterhazy, who works in the hospital pharmacy.’
‘He sounds interesting,’ said Jake. ‘Can you send me all there is on him?’
‘Well really I should get the Chief Secretary’s permission ...’
‘Mrs Porter,’ said Jake. ‘I can’t tell you too much, but people’s lives are at stake here.’
‘Then I can’t very well refuse,’ said Mrs Porter. ‘It’s not much, but I’ll send you what’s in the file.’
‘Is there a photograph?’
‘No, I’m afraid not.’
‘Damn,’ said Jake. ‘A handwriting sample, perhaps?’
‘Er yes, a small one.’
‘Then send that as well, if you would, please. And thanks, Mrs Porter. You’ve been a great help.’
Jake gave Mrs Porter her computer’s data communication number and then watched as the information started to arrive on her screen.
‘Right,’ she said to Stanley. ‘Let’s make a MAP.’
Jake moved the Ministry of Health’s data onto one half of the computer screen while on the other she called up an investigative menu. From the twenty available files she selected the one titled ‘Criminal Information Database’. The computer gurgled for several seconds and then provided Jake with another list. Finding ‘Multiple Homicides’ featured as File Number 15, Jake typed that number and waited. The system was hopelessly antiquated with a response time that could infuriate all but the most patient of people: sometimes Jake found herself waiting as long as thirty seconds for the computer to find a specific information file. Once again the computer gurgled and once again a series of further choices appeared before her eyes. Finally Jake managed to key into the Multiple Analysis Program.
As developed by her former employers, the European Bureau of Investigation, the MAP was the very latest expert guidance system for assessing a suspect’s personality as a possible multiple killer. From a worldwide database of some 5,000 multiple killers, compiled over a period of fifteen years, the MAP included up to 300 common characteristics of known multiple offenders.
The detective fed information about a suspect into the computer. Then the MAP awarded a certain number of possible points for each item of information that tallied with known multiple behaviour. For instance, the MAP awarded maximum points if the suspect was white, since it happened that most multiple killers were white. Blacks could only obtain a maximum number of points in this respect if the victim was elderly and white: this was because the existing database showed that murders of elderly whites were most commonly committed by blacks. When all the information available to the detective had been fed into the computer, the MAP counted up the number of points and offered the detective a statistical probability that the suspect was indeed a multiple killer. Even then there was nothing automatic about what resulted from the program’s assessment. The sole responsibility for if and how the results were used remained the detective’s. For Jake it was the one computerised system of investigative analysis that she actively enjoyed using.
Stanley stood over her shoulder as Jake started to key in the information using the Ministry’s personnel file on Esterhazy as a reference. When it came to the suspect’s religion Jake was surprised to see that Esterhazy had described himself as a Manichean.
‘What the hell’s a Manichean?’ Stanley growled.
‘Manichean? It’s not really a religion at all,’ Jake explained. ‘More a kind of viewpoint that considers Satan to be co-eternal with God. Equal sides of the same coin, so to speak. St Augustine was a Manichean for a while, until he thought better of it. Eventually it was denounced as a heresy.’
She glanced at the record of Esterhazy’s distinguishing marks. ‘Excellent,’ she murmured. ‘This guy has three tattoos.’
The EBI held that tattoos were one of the most common physical similarities among multiple killers. Examination of the bodies of 300 multiple killers, dead or alive, had revealed that almost 70 per cent of them were marked in this way. It was generally held by forensic psychiatrists that self-mutilation was often an early indicator of criminally aggressive behaviour. The greater the percentage of body area covered with tattoos, the greater number
of points the MAP would allocate to the suspect.
She glanced over at the laser-printer as it sprang into swift action.
‘Is that the handwriting sample they’re sending?’ she asked Stanley.
Stanley leaned over the machine and inspected the printout. Then he tore it off the main sheet and handed it to Jake.
She opened her desk drawer and took out a magnifying glass which she passed over the handwriting as if she had been looking for a fingerprint. Graphology had been a major part of her training with the European Bureau of Investigation.
‘Look at this,’ she murmured. ‘The handwriting is hardly joined up at all. It’s mostly capital letters. Small ones too.’
Stanley bent over her to take another look.
‘Neat though,’ he observed.
‘Too neat,’ said Jake. ‘This is someone who’s really straining to keep things under control. It’s almost like he could explode at any minute. I wonder when this was written.’
‘Maybe when he joined the hospital,’ Stanley suggested.
Jake typed a description of Esterhazy’s handwriting onto the program.
‘Other distinguishing characteristics?’ She picked up the glass and was silent for a minute while she searched again. Finally she handed Stanley the glass.
‘Take a look at the way he writes his letter “W”,’ she said, pointing them out on the copy. ‘Here, and here.’
‘It’s more like a letter “V”,’ said Stanley. ‘With a stroke in the middle. Like a pen nib.’
‘But don’t you think it’s actually rather vaginal?’
Stanley looked again.
‘Now you come to mention it,’ he said. ‘Yes, you’re right, I think.’
Jake typed her description and then pondered her own graphologist’s analysis.
‘You know, that might just indicate a possible Oedipus complex.’
‘The bloke who fucked his mother, right?’
‘Yes, Stanley,’ she said coolly, ‘the bloke who fucked his mother, Jocasta. More pertinently, he also murdered his own father, Laius, King of Thebes.’
‘So what does that mean?’
‘It means that our friend here may be paranoid. He may resent paternal and, therefore, all male authority. Believe me,’ she added, ‘I know what I’m talking about. That’s one thing Esterhazy and I have in common.’ She smiled to herself, and glanced sideways at Stanley but his crumpled face registered no sign of surprise. She almost thought there ought to have been a fanfare of trumpets.
‘That sounds criminal enough,’ said Stanley. ‘Where does this bastard live?’
Jake glanced up at the side of the computer screen still containing the details of Esterhazy’s personnel file. She hit the keyboard to send the cursor in search of this information.
‘Nurses’ home, at Guy’s Hospital,’ she said.
‘The nurses’ home?’ Stanley sounded shocked.
‘I imagine it’s the male nurses’ home,’ Jake said patiently.
‘Whatever it means, he sounds like a bit of an outsider to me,’ said Stanley. ‘Leastways someone who’s not much at home in this world.’
‘You could be right,’ said Jake. ‘But let’s see what the program says, shall we?’
She finished typing in the rest of the information and glanced over the result.
When she was satisfied that there was nothing more she could usefully add, Jake instructed the program to calculate the degree of probability. The machine gurgled, emptied half of the screen, flashed several colours and was silent for almost a minute. Finally a number arrived on screen.
‘56.6 per cent probable,’ said Jake.
‘Not much better than an even chance,’ said Stanley.
Jake grunted. Accessing the original MAP once again, she asked to review the existing 300 characteristics of the database. This took several minutes to read through.
‘You know,’ said Jake finally. ‘There’s nothing here about transportation. What’s a multiple’s most common mode of transport?’
‘Truck,’ said Stanley, hardly hesitating. ‘Small van, or an estate car.’
‘Right,’ said Jake. She cleared the screen and accessed the main menu. This time she selected the National Vehicle Licensing File to check if a vehicle was registered to Esterhazy. After a short pause the computer returned with the information.
‘Bullseye,’ said Jake. ‘He owns a blue Toyota Tardis van, registration Gold Victor Bravo 7-8-3-7 Romeo. Now if we assume that the van is worth another three points, that takes us to almost 60 per cent.’
‘That’s a bit more like it,’ agreed Stanley.
Jake started typing again.
‘One more thing,’ she said. ‘That racial marker we had from the killer’s DNA ...’
‘A German. So?’
‘So Esterhazy isn’t an English name.’
‘It isn’t?’
Jake fed Esterhazy’s name and identity card number into the computer.
‘It’s Hungarian or Austrian, I think. Let’s see what his birth certificate says, shall we?’
A copy of the document flashed up on the screen.
‘Parents born in Leipzig,’ said Jake. She looked at Stanley triumphantly. ‘I’d say that about clinches it.’
Five minutes after Jake finished the Multiple Analysis Program, Detective Sergeant Jones came into her office. He was holding a compact disc and looked angry.
‘Yes?’ said Jake. ‘What is it?’
‘It was orders,’ he said. ‘From Gilmour. I didn’t have any choice.’ Jake guessed what he was talking about. ‘Wittgenstein called, didn’t he?’
Jones took a deep breath. ‘About half an hour ago. Gilmour said you weren’t to speak to him.’ He glanced awkwardly at his shoes. ‘He told me to leave it to Professor Lang to handle the conversation.’
Jake nodded numbly. ‘With what result?’
‘I brought the recording,’ said Jones and handed her the disc. ‘I’m sorry, ma’am.’
Jake smiled bitterly. ‘It’s not your fault. Did he say that he was planning to kill another one?’
‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘What about Lang’s little suggestion? Do you think that it had its desired effect?’
Jones shrugged. ‘Hard to say, ma’am.’
‘All right. Get onto Airborne Surveillance. See if they can find a blue Toyota Tardis van, registration Golf Victor Bravo 7-8-3-7 Romeo.’
Detective Sergeant Jones leaned on Jake’s desk and made a note of the number.
‘Come on, Stanley,’ said Jake, heading out through the office door. ‘We’ll listen to the recording in the car.’
‘Where are you going?’ Jones shouted after them.
‘Hospital,’ said Jake. ‘To get my fucking head examined. Maybe they can tell me why I bother coming here.’
‘That’s all we need,’ Jake screamed as the car twisted loudly onto Victoria Street. ‘This madman to go and top himself just as we’re in sight of arresting him. I could kill those stupid bastards in the Home Office.
‘Better put the siren on,’ she told her driver. ‘We need to make tracks.’
Jake switched on the disc player and inserted the recording.
‘I’m afraid you’ll have to settle with having me today,’ Jake heard Lang tell Wittgenstein, much as if he had been apologising to a student for another don’s absence from a tutorial. ‘Chief Inspector Jakowicz is unable to come to the phone right now.’
‘The lying piece of shit,’ said Jake. ‘So much for moral philosophy.’
‘I hope she isn’t sick,’ said Wittgenstein. ‘I hope she isn’t upset because of what happened the last time. I had promised to talk, after my lecture. To discuss things.’
‘No, no,’ insisted Lang. ‘It’s nothing like that.’
‘Well, something more important, no doubt,’ he replied, sounding rather piqued. ‘I dare say we can get along without Chief Inspector Jakowicz, just this once.’
Immediately she heard Wittgens
tein’s voice she realised that he sounded different: lacking confidence, tired, depressed even. And as their conversation progressed he allowed the professor to take the conversational initiative, to lead the argument. He seemed hardly sure why he had bothered to call at all. He spoke quietly, in dull monotones, with long, ponderous silences. Jake realised how vulnerable he might actually be to whatever phenomenological interrogation Lang had planned for him.
‘Man is a temporal being,’ said Lang.
‘Yes,’ said Wittgenstein dully.
‘A self-creating being who chooses his own fate, wouldn’t you say so?’
‘Oh, I agree.’
‘And being conscious, through one’s own will of one’s own temporality, then the only real certainty about the future is ...’
‘... is death,’ added Wittgenstein.
Jake held on to the door handle as the car swerved through traffic.
‘To live well,’ she heard Lang say, ‘to really live life to the full, you have to live in the hard light of that fact.’
‘Absolutely, yes,’ said Wittgenstein. ‘That is both one’s nature and one’s ultimate fate.’
‘The more so in your case.’
‘How so?’
‘Well,’ said Lang, ‘it seems to me that by killing all these other men who, like you, tested VMN-negative, you are merely postponing your real desire to take your own life.’
‘There may be something in what you say.’
Jake punched the back of her driver’s headrest.
‘Can’t we go any faster?’ she yelled. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Stanley nervously lift his Adam’s apple clear of his shirt collar as the car gave a lurch of speed forward. The driver, who was used to angry demands from the back seat that he should go faster, betrayed no emotion on his lean moustachioed face. He fed the steering wheel through his strong hands as calmly and expertly as if he had been making a perfect circle of pizza dough. In front of the car, the traffic widened like an opening zipper. Speeding past Waterloo Station and round the three-storey-high shanty town of hardboard and corrugated iron, they almost hit a vagrant who was standing motionless in the middle of the road like a traffic bollard. They missed him by only a few centimetres.