by Paul Hoffman
‘None of us can understand how such hyperactivity is sustainable. It shouldn’t be.’
‘Why are we so different? Do you know?’
She started to go very pale. ‘That’s the secret. It really is the most important secret in the entire history of all living things.’ She closed her eyes and grimaced. ‘And now we must stop because it hurts too much.’
A few minutes later Hendrix returned from seeing Winnicott to the door. Haynes was pouring himself a drink.
‘This is brilliant!’ said Haynes excitedly.
Hendrix looked at him. ‘I thought you took the view that multiple personalities were a waste of time.’
Haynes sighed impatiently. ‘All right, I was wrong. Happy now? You do realise what we’ve got here, don’t you?’
Hendrix looked at Haynes. ‘I think so. A patient suffering from a serious delusion to the effect that he’s been taken over by an alien woman from another planet.’
‘Don’t be such a smart-arse. What a wonderful delusion. It’s so brilliant. I’ve never come across anything like it in the literature – nothing. It’s so complex, so clever. It’s so . . .’
‘Convincing?’ offered Hendrix.
Haynes laughed. ‘Yeah . . . you, too.’
‘Alarmingly so. I take it you won’t be mentioning in the lecture tour – the one I can already see you’re planning in that greedy little mind of yours – the fact that you only have to listen to that voice for a couple of minutes and you’re completely won over. It’s almost impossible not to be carried away.’ Hendrix looked at Haynes slyly. ‘I’d say she’s taken a shine to you.’
‘You’re very amusing.’
‘I’d say you’ve taken a bit of a shine to her as well.’
‘Fuck off.’
‘Look, Eddy, as an analyst of many years’ experience, I can recognise the signs . . . you know . . . when the patient-and-doctor relationship crosses the line. I’d have to advise you that it could never work. You’re an unattractive middle-aged man . . . and so is she.’
Hendrix giggled.
‘Ha, bloody, ha,’ said Haynes, smiling, but ill at ease with the joke.
Hendrix did not notice that he’d made Haynes uncomfortable. He stared out of the window thoughtfully. ‘I agree with you that this is a fascinating delusion. But what I find most disturbing is that voice – not the voice but the personality speaking through it.’ He shook his head, bewildered. ‘It’s so incredibly female.’
‘How about a drink?’
Hendrix stood up and went over to the cabinet.
‘How are you getting on with that crossword clue?’
Hendrix did not rise to the bait but Eddy Haynes was not a man to give up easily.
‘Whenever I contemplate my growing spare tyre . . .’
‘Tyres,’ pointed out Hendrix.
‘. . . or consider my declining abilities to cause a ripple of sexual excitement when I enter a room full of women . . .’
‘When did you ever do that?’
‘. . . all I have to do is think of the two little words of nine and four letters that make up Emergency Room, and I don’t mind telling you, it brings a little rainbow into my life.’
‘I think,’ said Hendrix, ‘that on the matter of El3 I might be on the verge of a breakthrough.’
The Dark Figure Does Lunch
The total amount of deception in a marriage, or a financial centre, or a nation state, is an index of confusion and ignorance about the nature of the soul of man. The more ignorant and confused people are about their nature and their heart’s desires, the easier they are to deceive and, more than this, the more likely they are to deceive themselves. The financial regulator is a policeman of the heart.
Louis Bris, The Wisdom of Crocodiles
The room where Justice Arthur was about deliver his judgment on the arguments put to him by Allan Nancarrow’s defence was a disappointment to George Winnicott. With its subdued, recessed strip lights and stretches of blond wood it reminded him of a register office. It seemed to him unbecoming to the seriousness of the law, its management of ruin and reprieve. The judge was examining a thick file. No one but Nancarrow looked at him directly. All three defence lawyers were quite still as if waiting like athletes for a starting gun. Only Nancarrow moved, his hands fluttering in slight gestures of anxiety. He was a tall, gaunt man, sagging in his seat as if the air had been let out of him. Nancarrow slowly turned his head towards Winnicott and their eyes met briefly.
. . . Oh, shit. Oh, shit. Oh, shit. I’m in trouble now. Oh, shit. Oh, God. Oh, shit. Oh, God. I didn’t mean it, let me go. I won’t do it again. I won’t. Help me. You look like a nice man . . .
What’s she going to say? What’ll she do? She’s lying. I can tell, because they’re telling me, they’re telling me on a need to know. I get told. You know those messages from Mars for schizos, nutters, lunatics . . . I get messages but I’m not deranged. They don’t give me kill-your-first-born summonses, shoot-the-President commands . . . there’s no babble or static, it’s always clear as day. She doesn’t love you any more, that’s what they say. Don’t send me to prison . . . let me off instead. I ask her all the time. What’s the matter, sweetheart? Take my hand. She always does and tells me it will be all right and takes my hand and tells me not to fret.
. . . This is Mars on the blower. . . Venus returning your call. The bitch is lying through her teeth . . . and there isn’t anybody else – it’s you. She doesn’t want your mouth on hers, your hand upon her breasts . . .
I need an even break, m’lud . . . another chance . . . a gift. They’re always coming through the door those gifts for free . . . the funny thing is all the prizes that they offer you I really need: a toaster, a compact disc, a holiday in the sun. How do they know, you ask yourself, that’s what I need? You throw them in the bins those prizes you would get for turning up . . .
I kiss her lips, she doesn’t close her eyes . . . the voices point this out to me. It’s gone . . . it’s gone . . . it’s gone . . . it isn’t coming back. The stroke, the kiss, the reassuring fuck . . . it’s only done to keep you off the scent. I picked some up this morning off the mat: a set of crystal glasses, somewhere to live for free, a television set, something for nothing for a change. I want to be let off. I know that it’s a lot to ask. I won’t say anything. I’ll never breathe a word. I’d do the same for you . . . I would . . . I’d . . .
Winnicott’s eyes snapped open as the judge began to speak.
‘It is natural that there should be a relationship between DTI investigations and those of the Fraud Secretariat, but it is not a close one. The DTI deals with civil matters such as bankruptcy – the Fraud Secretariat investigates and prosecutes crime. Their connection is, as it were, one of coincidence. If the DTI uncovers a crime while clarifying a civil matter this does not make those who uncover the crime a part of the criminal legal process. It is for others to investigate any criminal offence that results from their inquiries. It is the contention of the defence that the Fraud Secretariat have colluded illegally with inspectors of the DTI. Their argument is that knowing Mr Nancarrow had no right to silence while being investigated by the DTI during a civil inspection, the Fraud Secretariat arranged with the DTI that they should continue with this civil investigation long after it was clear it was a criminal matter in order that they could use the answers given by Mr Nancarrow against him in a criminal proceeding. The defence request me to set aside this evidence.’
He stopped again and searched his papers. Nancarrow sat upright, tense. The lawyers for the prosecution were gripped by alarm, their tension showing in the curve of their backs, the way one of them held his disposable biro as if it were the slim neck of a feckless lover.
The judge continued. ‘I refuse the submission by the defence.’
Nancarrow did not move – but everything he was feeling agitated the room like some terrible tuning fork, vibrating misery and loss. There was no longer any difference in the private and the public world for him
; the judge’s words were collapsing his borders, edges and margins, his brinks and boundaries, his deepest shame and loss exposed to view in the form of prison clothes, the locked door and the absence for ever of her touch. He was reducing to nothing in a terrifying mutual collapse of everything. The voice of doom for Nancarrow was a mulling voice, a puzzling out and thinking voice, an introspective, absent of malice, weighing in the balance and found wanting voice. The defendant was being unravelled by eight hundred years of precedents, judgments and appeals, of justice, injustice, truth and lies . . . You will be taken from here to a place . . . It’s a fit-up! . . . Order in the court! . . . Let right be done . . . Has she fragrance? . . . I submit . . . Are you suggesting the police? . . . I find these sentences to be unsafe . . .
‘The erosion of the right to silence is a grave matter,’ continued the judge. ‘But it seems to me that this right exists to protect the weak, the inarticulate and the suggestible from having to answer questions in the strange and hostile environment of a police station. As such, this general right to silence must be upheld. However, these protections are less obviously needed to protect those likely to be witnesses in a serious fraud investigation, who will usually be intelligent, sophisticated, self-confident and articulate. They will usually be accompanied by lawyers, giving evidence by prior appointment in an environment not so foreign to them. I cannot see that a right designed to protect the vulnerable and the weak should become the means by which the strong and the ruthless are protected in their attempts to prey upon the vulnerable and the weak.’
Nancarrow was now quite still, immobile as a stump. The judge sat upright and breathed out deeply as if he were pulling himself together for the final round in a physically bruising contest. This was a man who felt the danger of his power, drawing on courage to make a break with the past and who feared the consequences of being wrong. ‘By seeking to modify such a central feature of our judicial system as the right to silence, I realise I will have dismayed many who will fear I have embarked here today on a slippery slope, that to limit these rights for a strictly defined group is but the first step to limiting them in such a way for everyone. My reply is that I can very well understand these concerns. But the purpose of the law is to preserve order, to ensure that right be done. The financial world as we see it now is very far from that susceptible to common understanding, and the superior cunning that is needed to understand such complexity and manipulate it to criminal ends can be very cunning indeed. Fraud is a modern crime – one might even say the modern crime – difficult, often impenetrable even to the brightest and best. Yet those with the power to control this complicated world can do damage to us all far beyond the most extravagant robbery.
‘The late Robert Maxwell used the law for many years to intimidate those who rightfully sought to expose the business practices he employed to plunder the savings of the weak and vulnerable pensioners who were dependent on his company for their livelihoods. How can this be right? Whether eroding the right to silence is a mistake I cannot know for certain, but what I am certain of is that we cannot rely upon precedent to manage those things which are unprecedented.’
The judge nodded to the clerk of the court and gathering together his papers, packed them into his briefcase. There was a strangely loud snap as he shut the locks. Nancarrow started as if at the sound of a pistol shot.
‘All rise!’
The judge stood up and in a few seconds had gone.
‘Are you all right?’ said McCarthy to Winnicott, who looked as if he were about to faint.
‘Yes, oh yes. Fine.’
‘I’m going for lunch at the Owl Café, want to join me?’
‘Oh, thank you . . . that would be nice.’
The Owl Café on Elgiva Street was not the kind of restaurant Winnicott had been expecting. It was a caff: tea or instant; bacon, eggs, chips and beans. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’ said McCarthy, noticing Winnicott’s expression.
‘Not at all. I’m a little surprised. I wouldn’t have thought this was your kind of place at all.’
‘I just fancied egg and chips for a change.’
The waitress arrived. McCarthy turned to her and began to order. Winnicott looked around at the customers: bike messengers and labourers who were refurbishing a restaurant on the other side of the road.
‘Do you want anything?’ asked McCarthy.
Winnicott looked back at the waitress who was staring at him with silent bad temper. She clearly regarded speaking to the customers as an unnecessary addition to her already burdensome duties.
‘Oh . . . just tea for me.’
‘Are you all right? You don’t seem well.’
‘Ah . . . no . . . not too bad.’ Normally he would not have said anything and he could not account for bringing up such a personal matter. ‘It’s . . . today, it’s the anniversary of my mother’s death.’
‘Ah. I’m sorry. A year ago?’
‘Oh, no. She died when I was thirteen.’
McCarthy smiled. ‘It’s a melancholy thing to have in common but my father died when I was fourteen. How did she die?’
‘Cancer. And you?’
‘An accident.’
The waitress arrived with two cups of tea whose greyness had nothing to do with Earl’s. When McCarthy began to speak it was, he recognised, with a new ease.
‘I was looking for some statistics the other day and I came across an OECD report on world trade. It had the numbers for the amounts exported by the world’s economies and the amounts imported. Obviously they should balance, give or take a bit for human error. But it turns out that one hundred billion dollars more was paid to people world-wide than was received by them. Now unless we’re doing an awful lot of trade with outer space . . . Think of it, a hundred billion dollars in saved paperwork.’ He laughed gently. ‘The Dark Figure. No wonder it’s dark.’
Winnicott looked at McCarthy, his eyes widening.
‘The Dark Figure?’
‘Oh, it just describes the amount of unreported fraud there is in the economy. We don’t know how large the figure for fraud actually is, hence the Dark Figure.’
‘I see,’ said Winnicott, his voice tired and puzzled. ‘Shouldn’t we do some research . . .?’ His voice trailed away.
‘No real point. It’s not called dark for nothing. You can never know how much fraud there is.’
‘Exactly, no, but you could get a clearer idea.’
‘I mean it – it’s impossible. The thing about fraud is that you can manipulate the victim’s perception of the crime. Taking risks, that’s what capitalism is all about. An investor or a Name at Lloyd’s, think about it . . . how are they to know that the best risks have been siphoned into their dealer’s own account or that the reinsurance business has been given to a firm owned by the underwriter? They don’t have to lose anything, they just fail to make as much money as they would have done if they hadn’t been defrauded. Insider dealing usually goes unnoticed by everyone except the conspirators. Why do you think we never catch anyone, not seriously anyway, for insider trading? I mean, you can’t rob a bank legitimately, can you? But you can use good judgement to buy shares about to rise in value. Sixty per cent of all shares rise in value before a takeover – so what’s that? Good judgement or insider trading?’ He gestured to the waitress to bring him another cup, then looked back at Winnicott who seemed not so much pale as ashen.
The waitress brought the tea and, as she left, McCarthy grimaced to see half the cup sluicing around in the saucer. McCarthy sighed. ‘You have to look at it this way, things are the way they are. Unemployed single mothers who persistently fiddle their gas meters go to prison and their children get put into care, persistent insider traders who fiddle ten million just have to pay the money back – OK, and with a hefty fine. They probably won’t get caught in any case. But if you did catch them more often, really produced an atmosphere of fear in the City of London – all that would happen is that a wall of money would head out of the City to someplace people weren�
�t worrying whether they were about to be woken up in the middle of the night and carted off to prison. And if that happened, your single mother can kiss goodbye to a rise in her benefit when she comes out of chokey and the chance of a job for her teenage eldest.’ He leant back, depressed. ‘I mean, the judge is right about protecting the weak and all that. Nobody wants to see those in a position of power or trust get away with defrauding people. But he’s only right up to a point. Zero tolerance for fraud would be a disaster for every man, woman and child on the planet. What the Fraud Secretariat is for . . .’ he shook his head as if to clear it, ‘. . . is to serve as a warning to the waverers who are thinking of swindling some widow of her savings but lack the courage, for want of a better word, to go through with it – and to be someone to blame so that when a scandal breaks from time to time and Something Must Be Done, then there’s a regulator to be thrown to the wolves. Brett, you, the entire Fraud Secretariat if necessary. You can’t stop fraud because it’s what people do. I don’t just mean money. People lie all the time about everything . . . wives, husbands, children, colleagues . . . good people . . . honest people . . . and mostly it’s what they don’t say that’s the biggest lie of all. You don’t get to the bottom of people, do you?’ He laughed though he wasn’t amused. ‘De maximus non curat lex.’
Winnicott smiled. ‘I’m sorry, I’m only an ex-policeman . . . my Latin isn’t up to much.’
McCarthy felt a growing affection for the strange man in front of him. ‘For the greatest things, the law provides no remedy.’ He raised his dripping tea cup and gestured towards Winnicott with a weary smile. ‘Here’s a toast to our shadowy employer. Be upstanding for the Dark Figure.’
There was a long silence while McCarthy finished the last of his egg and chips. When he had cleared the plate, he sat back. ‘I shan’t want that for another year, but I enjoyed it.’