The Wisdom of Crocodiles

by Paul Hoffman

  Healey and Roache sat drinking coffee and mulling over what they’d witnessed.

  ‘I’d say that got us precisely fucking nowhere,’ said Roache resentfully.

  ‘Perhaps. But it’s all we’ve got. I think we’re probably flogging a dead horse with Steven Grlscz but, reliable or not, she fingered him first. It’s all we’ve got. If Maria Vaughan is dead, then as the person closest to her he’s statistically the most likely. Not that I want to encourage your lack of objectivity as regards Grlscz, but there’s something not quite right there. I’m probably wrong.’

  ‘I don’t like him,’ said Roache.

  ‘You don’t like anybody.’

  Roache shrugged. ‘Well, if you want me to shake his tree and see what falls out I’m only too happy.’

  Healey looked at him thoughtfully. ‘Tree-shaking is not required. If it should prove necessary I’ll fill out an application for a warrant detailing the legally appropriate measures. How does that sound?’ He sighed. ‘I wonder if we should ask the information technology people whether there’s any point in using that new computer of theirs. What’s it called – NORMA?’

  ‘OMEN,’ corrected Roache smugly. ‘I wouldn’t bother.’ He gestured at the grey box in the corner. ‘I lost four days’ work when that useless pile of crap crashed on me last week. I’d backed it up and everything. The IT department did fuck all about it. Computers are a complete waste of fucking time.’

  Good News for Romantic Love from the Bank of England and Alan Greenspan of the United States Federal Reserve

  The biggest and most complex challenge for any man or woman is to choose a mate and, having chosen well, demonstrate that they have the brains to keep them. There’s an old saying, ‘When poverty knocks at the door, love flies out the window.’ When the Monetary Policy Committee at the Bank of England decides to raise or lower interest rates they are actually raising or lowering the level of anxiety in society about its financial future so that behaviour will change. Imagine by how much a rise will cause devotion to leak out of the window, or by how much a fall will cause an increase in expressions of tenderness behind the bedroom door. Perhaps to make the point that economics is about emotions we should just get the Bank of England to declare that the MPC has announced a half a per cent fall in love, or a quarter per cent rise in anxiety.

  Louis Bris, The Wisdom of Crocodiles

  Tessa Nancarrow sat up in bed, the elaborate breakfast her husband had prepared in front of her.

  ‘Don’t you want any jam on it?’ he said as she took a delicate bite.

  She brought the toast back to the plate. ‘I’m being a bit careful,’ she said, smiling apologetically. ‘I had some chocolate cake when I was in town yesterday. I couldn’t resist.’

  ‘Why should you?’ he said, exasperated. ‘I don’t know why you’re always on a diet these days anyway. There’s nothing wrong with your weight.’

  ‘Exactly,’ she said cheerfully. ‘I just want to keep it that way.’ She laughed nervously. ‘It’s all right for you, you eat like a horse and never put on an ounce. Some of us aren’t that lucky.’ He watched her as she slowly nibbled at the toast.

  They heard the clatter of the letterbox.

  ‘Aren’t you going to get that?’ she said.

  ‘I suppose so.’ Allan Nancarrow stood up, trying unsuccessfully to restrain a sigh of deep frustration. ‘Eat up.’

  He went downstairs. After about ten seconds she got up, went to the top of the stairs and looked down into the hall. He had picked up the mail and gone into his study. Going back into the bedroom she poured most of the tea into a small hand-basin in the corner of the room, broke off a crust of the toast, put it on her plate and hid the rest in the wastepaper bin beside the bed under a pile of multi-coloured tissues. Then she went back on to the landing. There was still no sign of him. Returning to the bedroom again, she took a large pat of butter from the dish with the knife, wiped it off with a tissue and added that also to the others in the bin. Then she got back into bed.

  Down in his study Allan Nancarrow was not, at least for the present, worrying about his wife’s diet. For the moment he was contemplating the good news. The letter he was holding was telling him that his lender was pleased to inform him of a reduction in his repayments due to a recent fall in interest rates announced by the Bank of England. But there was not just one piece of good news. In the other letters there was more. And it was all the same good news. The accumulation of good news meant that next month all that Allan Nancarrow would have to repay to the people who had sent him all this good news was £34,462.48. With luck there would be another cut, and the Bank of England’s policies on interest rates might mean that in the following month he would have to repay even less.

  Forty-five minutes into their meeting about the poor relationship between the police and the lawyers at the FS it was clear to Winnicott that he had encountered Boyd Gribben on a number of previous occasions. Sometimes he had been wearing a skirt, at others instead of being well over six foot he had been barely five foot seven. He had been twenty-four, forty-three, and on another occasion he had talked to him the day before he retired. What persisted throughout these many incarnations was the endless set of gestures: there was the pursed lip over the clasped hands to signal at once a deep thoughtfulness about an opinion being put to them of a kind which invariably led, after much deep thought, to an unequivocal defence of things being done exactly as they were before. There was also the smile with the head cocked to one side to indicate that they, too, had once taken a position very similar to the one they were listening to but which they had come to see was untenable, given the particular circumstances in which they found themselves, although they retained a considerable sympathy with that position and that perhaps it was time to look at it again before settling on things rather as they had been. There were familiar sighs, specimen grunts, exemplary lamentations, object-lesson frowns and habitual murmurs. As a response to every suggestion, or even implication, regarding the poor state of the relationship between the seconded police and the lawyers and accountants, all of Gribben’s looks and noises expressed qualified agreement mitigated by condescension. Every idea put to him he had already considered. And not just the idea’s three-lane highways, its no-speed-limit autobahns: there was no byway of the idea he had not explored, no path along which he had not ridden, no tributary down which he had not sailed. There was no track, footway, flyover or alley that had been unvisited by Boyd Gribben in his search for a solution to the problems being put to him. Winnicott was almost impressed that Gribben had failed to concede anything of even the most minor kind throughout the entire meeting. It suggested a pure spirit, since no one with any real strategic sense would dream of being so uncompromising in refusing to accept any suggestion whatsoever from their new boss. There was no time to deal with this now so Winnicott asked him to put something in writing. There is one other thing, Boyd,’ said Winnicott.

  Gribben looked at him attentively.

  The water cooler next to Lucy’s work area.’ He paused. ‘It’s causing a few problems.’

  ‘In what way?’ said Gribben, eyebrows raised.

  ‘It’s become a meeting place. She finds it distracting. I wonder if it would be possible to find somewhere else to put it.’

  Gribben opened his mouth to dissent then changed his mind. He smiled softly. ‘Let me have a look at it and I’ll see what can be done.’ He stood up and gave an apologetic frown as if he had overstayed his welcome in his anxiety to discuss these matters with Winnicott. ‘I know you have a meeting – I won’t keep you.’ Gribben walked to the door and then turned, all casual afterthought. ‘Lucy is, of course, a very experienced secretary. But I have to say that she can be a little inflexible. I’ve tried to build a real team among the admin staff, and the others are very open to new ideas.’ He waited to see whether Winnicott would respond. He smiled as if it were a painful duty to point this out. ‘Her contract is coming up for renewal next month. Perhaps you’d like to give
it some thought. Of course, Director, it’s up to you.’

  He left and Winnicott sighed as he began to see how the business with the water cooler would proceed. Gribben would make delaying the removal of the cooler a matter of principle. He would drag his feet endlessly in the hope that Winnicott would give up, or that while he was attempting to shift him about this he would not have the time or energy to trouble him about other more significant matters. He had seen these victories by delay many times: the person with the troublesome notion got bored or became exhausted, or it got lost among more pressing matters, or they were promoted, or left, or died, or something else. What really made him dislike Gribben was not the drag on efficiency that such people represented, it was the way he had dealt with Lucy. Gribben had not even bothered to be smarmy with her in the way he was with anyone who had power. He could sense Gribben’s dismissal in the deep sense of affront that animated Lucy whenever she touched on the water cooler. It was not indifference she felt from him but contempt and malice. He was going to teach her a lesson out of spite.

  ‘Well, I can’t think of anything better, Eddy. If you can then please feel free.’

  Eddy Haynes sighed and looked down at his feet as if the excuse he needed might be found on his shoes. Hendrix took another sip from his glass of room-temperature white wine and grimaced. Haynes looked up again.

  ‘You know what I think about hypnosis and multiple personalities.’

  ‘I didn’t say he had multiple personalities, there’s just one.’

  ‘Look, I’ve got a lot more experience of this kind of thing than you . . .’

  ‘That’s why I want your help – I just can’t seem to get the hang of putting them under.’

  ‘. . . and I can tell you on the basis of that long experience that once you start down that road these kind of patients can produce an endless series of personalities. It’s like pulling fucking rabbits out of a hat with some of them.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Look, David, I agree it’s a weird phenomenon, but in the end it’s not usually worth the trouble, for you or the patient. Anyway, half the time they’re making it up.’

  Haynes glanced over at a young woman sitting on a high stool talking to a friend. ‘Look at that,’ he said. ‘Tell me, David, she’s wearing a mini-skirt and the mini-skirt has a slit up one side. What’s that about? What did she say to herself this morning when she chose that dress?’

  ‘It’s a skirt.’

  ‘Don’t be such a fucking pedant. I mean, there are two things that basically separate men from women: one is the ability to have children, and the other is the ability to say to yourself in the morning, “I’m going to decide to have every man I meet today think about having sex with me.” You just don’t have that power, do you? But they do.’

  Hendrix thought about taking another sip of the wine but decided against it. ‘This wine is disgusting. Look, Eddy, as a favour, all right?’

  Haynes sighed. ‘You’re a bloody pest, did anyone ever tell you that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, you are. OK, I’ll do it.’ There was a brief pause while Haynes again considered the legs of the young woman in the split skirt and lamented that the days when a woman of that age would stir at his presence were gone. He was beginning to understand with a greater degree of sympathy why one of his delusional patients was convinced that he was slowly disappearing. I’m starting to know what you’re going on about, old son, he thought. Miss Thunderthighs over there couldn’t see him at all. He came out of this melancholy reverie and turned back to Hendrix. ‘As it happens, I did have an interesting case a few years ago . . . could really have led to something – a man in his early thirties who thought he was turning into a monster who needed to feed on human blood.’ Hendrix rolled his eyes.

  ‘No, it wasn’t as deranged as it sounds. This guy’s alter ego was almost exactly the same as his ego – same thoughtful, likeable personality. Intelligent. Had a very good job. At least that’s what he said but he was clearly very prosperous – this wasn’t a nutter having noisy conversations with little green men. I’m not even sure it was a multiple personality thing. He was deeply alarmed by his growing conviction that he needed human blood.’

  ‘As you would be,’ laughed Hendrix.

  ‘Absolutely. But the really interesting thing is why he needed the blood. It wasn’t the blood as such. He was convinced that he would starve to death if he didn’t have the blood of women who were happy. Women who were in love with him.’

  ‘Interesting,’ said Hendrix, intrigued.

  ‘You can say that again,’ replied Haynes regretfully. ‘He didn’t go in for any supernatural nonsense. He had this incredibly complicated explanation, you know, a rational scientific explanation for why he was like this. He claimed that except for this one thing, and the fact that he had to remember to breathe all the time, he was exactly like everyone else. The odd thing is, I tried putting him under once and he actually did stop breathing. I was a bit spooked at the time but according to Mac Fowler there’s a medical condition, Pike’s Syndrome . . .’ he paused, ‘or was it Park’s Disorder? Anyway, it’s a real medical condition – pretty rare but he’d come across a couple of cases.’ Haynes looked wistful for a moment. ‘The really interesting thing was that this patient was genuinely concerned about his moral position. Because, of course, he knew it would be wrong to kill someone just to preserve his own life.’ He shook his head and sighed.

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘The fucker didn’t turn up for his fourth session.’

  ‘So that was it?’

  ‘Was it hell. This was too important to leave it like that. I tried phoning but the number he’d given me was disconnected. Then I went to the address on his records, but it turned out to be a dry cleaner’s in Kentish Town.’

  ‘So why do you think he did a runner?’

  Haynes grunted. ‘My guess is that it just went away. To be honest, he seemed too well balanced to have snakes in his boots. Except for this idea of needing happy blood, that was what made him so unusual. He was incredibly convincing. You just didn’t feel you were talking to a nutter.’

  ‘God, if your patients could hear the way you talk about them.’

  ‘Well, they can’t.’

  ‘You don’t think his vanishing might have had more sinister implications?’

  ‘No – definitely not. Well, reasonably definitely.’ They both laughed. ‘The point is that he wasn’t a sociopath. On the contrary, I’d say he had a highly developed sense of what other people were like.’

  ‘So why the fake name and address? I have to say I find that pretty sinister.’

  ‘I don’t see why. I’d have done the same in his position. He realised the implications of what he was thinking, and he was worried I might turn him in to the police.’

  ‘When in fact all you really wanted to do was turn him into a career.’

  ‘Hah, bloody, hah.’

  Hendrix signalled to the waiter to bring them the bill. Then a thought struck him. He took out a notebook and began writing.

  ‘Look,’ said Haynes, ‘I don’t want what I’ve just told you turning up in some psychiatric journal. It’s mine.’

  ‘It’s got nothing to do with your bloodsucking liberal psychopath.’ He put the notebook down on the table. ‘That’, said Hendrix triumphantly, ‘is the solution to what I’ve been told is the most difficult crossword clue ever devised – E13.’

  Haynes snorted with derision. ‘I’m better than you are at crosswords, and I’m not much good.’

  ‘Look at this, then.’ He showed him the page proudly. ‘There’s the E. The thirteenth letter of the alphabet after E is R. So that gives you ER. ER is an abbreviation for Emergency Room. Emergency Room has thirteen letters. The answer to El3 is Emergency Room.’

  Haynes looked at the page for a moment. ‘No, it isn’t.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because if that were the answer and the number thirteen actually does refer to
the number of letters in the solution, then the clue would have to be E 9, 4. In case you hadn’t noticed, Emergency Room is two words, not one. Let’s face it, David, if this is the most difficult crossword clue in the world you’ve got fuck all chance of solving it.’ He looked over at the bar impatiently. ‘Where’s that bloody waiter got to?’

  Less than twenty-four hours later, Eddy Haynes and David Hendrix sat looking at a pale man lying on a green Dralon-covered recliner. His eyes were closed and he was breathing slowly as if in the middle of a restful afternoon nap.

  Haynes looked at David Hendrix and nodded.

  ‘What is your name?’ asked Hendrix.

  ‘George Winnicott.’

  ‘Where do you live?’

  ‘Harrow-on-the-Hill.’

  ‘And what is your job?’

  ‘I am the director of the Fraud Secretariat.’

  ‘Do you remember collapsing on several occasions in the last few months?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you remember a woman speaking to you after these collapses?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘She told me I would have to tell a secret.’

  ‘Do you know what this secret is?’

  ‘No.’

  There was a pause and Hendrix, who was feeling increasingly foolish about the whole idea, looked at Haynes. Haynes shrugged.

  ‘You’ve no idea at all?’

  ‘No,’ said Winnicott calmly. ‘Except that it’s the most important secret in the history of the universe.’

  Both the analysts looked stunned – not only by the claim but by the matter-of-fact way it was delivered. Recovering first, Hendrix whispered to Haynes, ‘What do I do now?’