The Wisdom of Crocodiles

by Paul Hoffman

  Steven stood and watched, a red blanket they had given him around his shoulders to keep off the wind. A small tow truck pulled back the cab, allowing the car to drop from the rough niche in the wall into which it had been jammed. Seven or eight men fell to examining it like anxious racing mechanics during a wheel change. Steven moved forward.

  After a few minutes the short man came over. There isn’t a trace of anyone.’ He looked uncomfortable, clearly torn between a conviction that there was no one in the car and his fear of being definite.

  ‘What now?’

  ‘When the Arvin comes back – that’s the big tow truck – we’ll start to stretch it so we can see if . . .’ He let his sentence trail away.

  Within five minutes the Arvin turned up and was waved to the front of the car, where it came to a halt with the repressed hiss of giant air-brakes. A great beefy man, all shirt sleeves and hairy arms despite the cold, climbed down and went to the back of the truck. He started attaching a chain but there was a delay while someone reached under the front to hammer the linking bolt through a bent towing bracket.

  When it was attached, the big man swaggered back to the cab and climbed up into it like a sailor climbing the rigging of a tea clipper. Four men stood two apiece at the front of both trucks. Steven moved with the short man to the middle where the car lay with limp chains to front and back. With the engines throbbing, the short man signalled for the trucks to move forward slowly. The men in front of the cabs made a gentle come-to-me gesture with their hands. Both trucks moved forward with great delicacy. The short chains shifted slowly. The trucks moved on. The chains described a sagging arc and then, slowed even further by the watching men holding their palms before them, gradually became taut. The men held up one hand, palm out. The trucks stopped. A short pause followed and then the signing began again, this time fingers moving like those of someone stroking an animal under the chin. The tone of the engines changed up a note, then another. The car shifted imperceptibly then clearly as the engines worked hard to lift it from the ground. With a scraping noise of metal across tarmac the crushed car lifted. Inch by inch it rose, like a terrible levitation. The short man signalled again. The engines strained, as if the effort was certain to damage them. Then the sound of metal pulling away from metal began, a painful sound, like an arthritic limb pulled straight by powerful, unsympathetic hands. The noise went on, groaning and cursing as the trucks tried to reverse the forces suddenly combined in great weight, high speed and the sixty-million-year solidity of Wycombe Hill. Again another change of note, a deeper, tearing sound twisting the car; it seemed to move in fits and starts, weak and strong by turns. Then the bodywork gave way and smoothly the car relaxed to something like its former length. The short man waved his hand decisively. The others followed suit. The big trucks stopped. The car now hung, suspended, five or six feet off the ground. The short man was about to signal to his men to let it down slowly to the road when someone shouted, ‘Look!’ A liquid was leaking from underneath the car.

  ‘It’s blood,’ said someone else.

  ‘No, it’s not. It’s oil,’ said the supervisor.

  But he was wrong. The first of it, gelatinous and black, must have been exposed to air inside the car, but as they watched, appalled and sick at heart, the blood flowed, pouring and leaking from everywhere as if the car itself had veins and arteries. Over bright-work, door sills, headlamps, from engine bays and wheel arches it streamed, pouring as if the car was filled with only blood. Red as nail varnish it ran down the hill, over the white lines, catseyes and bits of chalk sprinkled along the edges of the motorway.

  No one said anything and no one moved. The flow stopped quickly but the car dripped red like too-wet washing on a washing line. The supervisor looked at Steven. He watched him for a long time not knowing what to do but deeply moved by what he’d seen. Something else began to leak.

  ‘It’s petrol,’ called out one of the supervisor’s men.

  ‘We’d best move away,’ the man said gently to Steven, who stood blanket-wrapped before the broken car, but he gave no sign of having heard. ‘Come along, my son,’ he said, putting his arm around Steven’s waist and leading him towards a nearby car with ‘Motorway Police’ stamped boldly on the side.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Steven asked.

  ‘Home,’ said the policeman. ‘Is that all right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The supervisor shut the door and slowly the car pulled away heading down the motorway towards Oxford before the driver could turn it back to London at the junction close by.

  The supervisor turned his attention to the petrol slowly leaking on to the road. Mixing with the blood already drying in the cold, it liquefied it, spreading it in thin pools over the tarmac. The now darkening, half-dissolving reds deepened the waxy electric blues and greens that shimmered on the petrol in the quickly disappearing light.

  Across the crash barrier the supervisor saw the police car moving very fast past the accident along the unblocked carriageway. He watched it go up the hill out of the cut, then turned back. ‘Quickly now, lads,’ he called, as the firemen with their suffocating chemicals flushed the blood and petrol into the margins of the hill.

  E13

  How unfair life is.

  Louis Bris, The Wisdom of Crocodiles

  One week had become two weeks. Then three. Then six. On the day that Dr Robert Sapelsky came to see him with his final diagnosis, George Winnicott had been in hospital for nearly two months. His head had been shaved and the powerful steroids he had been taking had caused his face and hands to swell. The impression was of both great size and great vulnerability, like a giant child. Dr Sapelsky had already started when the patient’s wife entered. Already nervous, her arrival flustered him still further.

  ‘Uh . . . as I was saying, the symptoms are clear enough in themselves, Mr Winnicott, but they conflict with one another. They indicate damage to the brain in many different areas. The MRI scans show that two areas of your brain are, as it were, lighting up inappropriately. They’re both supposed to be active when someone talks to you. But when you’re just thinking, only Broca’s area is supposed to light up. But sometimes there’s activity in both even when no one is talking to you. When that happens you hear your thoughts as if they were voices speaking to you. There’s possible evidence of damage to Broca’s area – but we can’t be sure . . .’

  ‘Can’t you do more tests?’ said Alice interrupting.

  The doctor shifted awkwardly. ‘Well, the thing is that these MRIs are as sensitive as we can go. But it’s the symptoms you’ve developed since you came in. They’re contradictory. There’s a definite weakness on the right side of your body now . . .’

  ‘That could be his back, couldn’t it?’ said Alice, almost fiercely. ‘He always gets very stiff when he lies in bed for any length of time. He needs to move about more.’

  ‘It’s not that kind of weakness, Mrs Winnicott. It’s affecting all the sensory modalities . . . all the senses on that side of his body. It also explains the headaches.’

  ‘That’s on the left side of my head,’ said George politely.

  ‘Yes. It would be. The left-hand side of the brain controls the right-hand side of the body.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘What’s also puzzling is the short periods of eyesight loss in your left eye, and you’ve complained of losing your sense of smell for periods of up to an hour. You see, that would indicate a lesion on the frontal lobe . . . but we can’t find anything, no physical damage is showing up in the tests . . . the scans. It’s very unusual.’

  ‘Don’t you have any idea at all? I find it difficult . . .’ Alice did not know how to finish the sentence. She was angry at the ineffectual diagnosis but also afraid of annoying the doctor so that he might decide to stop trying to help her husband out of pique.

  ‘I appreciate this must all seem very vague. I’m sorry.’

  ‘I realise you won’t want to . . .’ a look of irritation and alarm clouded Georg
e’s face as he searched for the word, ‘commit,’ he said at last with relief, ‘commit yourself – but you must have some ideas.’

  A look of hunted unwillingness came over Sapelsky’s face as he reluctantly started to speak. ‘Well, not all diseases of the brain involve the kinds of solid objects you can pick up in a scan – tumours and lesions and so on. Sometimes the effect is non-specific damage to the tissue. It just degenerates. But I’m not saying that’s what it is.’

  ‘What are you telling me?’ said George, suddenly alarmed. ‘Am I going to get better?’

  Sapelsky was taken aback by George’s reaction because his earlier response, more stoic than his wife’s, had suggested he was prepared for what Sapelsky was trying to tell him. He was clearly wrong. Sapelsky did not look at his wife.

  ‘It’s difficult – given we can’t locate the cause of the problem exactly.’

  ‘Then I might just get better – is that possible?’

  ‘Well . . .’

  ‘I’m not asking for a guarantee. I’ve heard all your . . . warnings you give people . . . caveats . . . I’ve heard them. Will I get better?’

  ‘No . . . I don’t think so.’

  George looked as if he had been struck in the face. He said nothing for a while. Sapelsky still avoided Alice’s gaze but could feel her eyes boring into him. George composed himself to ask another question. ‘So . . . you think I’ll be like this for the rest of my life?’ The look on the faces of both Sapelsky and Alice puzzled George for a moment.

  ‘Oh,’ he said.

  George Winnicott realised he was going to die.

  Alice turned away to the window, away from her husband and the doctor.

  There was a rasping sound from the sick man on the bed, a self-deprecating reprimand for having missed something that was clear if only you had been paying proper attention: a partner’s adultery, a colleague’s sudden promotion to a job you thought was in the bag.

  ‘How long?’

  The doctor murmured evasively.

  ‘Please,’ said George, ‘your . . . what’s the word? . . . reservations, are perfectly clear. You don’t have to repeat them.’

  ‘In the last ten days your condition has deteriorated in a number of significant ways.’ He stopped for a moment and then committed himself. ‘Weeks.’

  ‘Two? Four?’

  ‘It might be longer than four, I don’t think it will be less.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Alice turned back from the window. ‘I won’t have this. Do more tests.’

  ‘We can do the ones we’ve already done again. There aren’t any others I can think of.’

  ‘I’d like another opinion.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I think I’d like to . . .’ George struggled, ‘support . . . that, Doctor. I’m sure you understand.’

  ‘Absolutely. Ah . . . if you’d like to find someone yourself, of course you must. But,’ he paused awkwardly, ‘I’ve asked Professor John Porter-Hallett at Guy’s to review your case. The thing is, it will be quick. He’ll see you on Friday.’

  ‘Look, I don’t want to be rude,’ said Alice, passionate in her husband’s defence, ‘but I’m sure you understand. Is he impartial? If you know him?’

  ‘Ah, I don’t actually know him. I’ve met him once . . . briefly. We’re not friends or anything.’

  ‘What do you think, Alice?’

  The question almost broke her heart. She nodded and they did not see she was unable to speak.

  Alice had gone to talk to the doctor to arrange the details of the second opinion. She had been reluctant to leave her husband but he reassured her that he would be fine on his own, that he would even prefer a few minutes by himself. In this way, with the best of motives, he offended her deeply. She needed to be with him and wanted him to know that she would put aside everything. In this time when his life was coming to an end, there would be a fresh start. This had been a great thing for her, to allow that there had been something deeply wrong between them. The acknowledgement of how she really felt about her life caused her physical pain. It made her stomach ache, her chest tighten. But she would make an effort; she would be kinder. And though it made perfect sense to her that he would need time on his own, it did not matter. She felt his reassurance that he did not need her with him like a blow.

  Alone, George suddenly felt immensely tired, as if he had been drugged. He was being dragged into a deep sleep. He tried to stay awake but in a minute he was gone. He slept for only a short time then woke up, or rather he woke himself up. Anyone watching would have seen that he was uneasy, afraid even. But only ten minutes later he was smiling. It was not a happy smile, certainly, but one of self-conscious mockery, as if he had overreacted in a way that was understandable but still slightly foolish.

  ‘It’s very, very sad.’

  Sally Brett and Michael McCarthy sat glumly in her office.

  ‘How long?’

  ‘She didn’t say.’

  ‘No . . . awkward.’

  ‘I’m going up to see him once he’s settled in at home. She asked me to leave it for a while.’

  ‘Ah.’ Brett’s face fell again. ‘Do you think I should . . . go?’

  ‘I’ll ask when she phones, if you like. I got the impression he’s particularly bad at the moment. He goes up and down, apparently. She made a point of my not staying long.’

  ‘Of course. Well, I’ll leave it to you . . . as you think best.’

  There was a pause, then Brett produced an unopened letter and handed it to McCarthy. It was addressed to Brett. ‘It’s postmarked Harrow. It must be from George.’

  ‘Why don’t you open it?’ said McCarthy.

  ‘I think it might be his resignation.’

  ‘Really? Why?’

  ‘It was something he said to me before he went into hospital. He felt he hadn’t contributed anything.’

  There was an awkward silence.

  ‘What if it’s not? His resignation I mean.’

  Brett leant forward as if she were anxious not to be overheard. ‘If I open it and he’s offered to resign it could be very difficult. I had a roundabout sort of talk with our legal department . . . hypothetical. It seems that George . . .’ she paused, ‘. . . well, his widow . . . is only entitled to a pay-out if he’s been employed here long enough.’

  ‘And he hasn’t?’

  ‘Just under. There’s another week to go.’

  ‘So if he resigns now she won’t get anything.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Why don’t you ask him?’

  Brett sighed heavily. ‘Arthur says I’ve got to accept it if it’s offered – we’re obliged to follow Civil Service rules in these matters.’

  ‘Maybe it isn’t his resignation.’

  ‘Maybe not,’ she said irritably, ‘but I’d have to open it to find out, wouldn’t I?’ She lowered her voice again. ‘All this is strictly between us.’

  ‘Of course.’ A thought struck McCarthy. ‘What happens if he dies before next Thursday?’

  ‘Then it’s out of my hands, I’d say, wouldn’t you? I could try having a word with Hutchence at the First Division. He’s not a bad sort. Anyway, I’ll worry about that when it happens.’ She handed McCarthy the letter. ‘I’d like you to keep it for the moment.’

  McCarthy took it.

  ‘Perhaps when you go to see George you might do a little digging for us.’ She mistook McCarthy’s suspicion for reluctance. ‘I’d say it was a good cause, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Yes . . . of course.’ Unhappily, he put the letter in his inside pocket.

  ‘Is he dead?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Put him over there . . . No, over there.’

  ‘It’s five o’clock.’

  ‘That gives you thirty minutes, then.’

  ‘What’s the problem?’

  ‘Proof it and reduce it by fifty or so. If anybody more important chokes it might have to come down a bit more. It was last done by that useless
cretin Woodward, so Botsford says to double-check everything with the Press Association and Who’s Who.’

  ‘Why are we doing this now? He’s not due for an update till next month.’

  ‘Apparently he’s pretty sick . . . not going to last much longer. The Fraud whatever-they’re-called is in the news. Oh, and Botsford says so. Always a compelling reason to do an obituary quickly in my book.’

  The journalist placed the two closely typed pages side by side on his desk and began to read, listing the facts he had to check as he went.

  George Winnicott, who has died aged 44, {Check} rose through police ranks in one of the most dramatic ascents in modern times.

  As a young officer he sustained a spinal injury playing football for a police team and the increasing problems this caused Winnicott led to his retirement as Head of the Anti-Terrorist Squad earlier this year. His appointment to the less physically demanding, but surely no less difficult, job as Director of the ailing Fraud Secretariat came as a surprise to many. To some in the City he seemed to fit the bill, but all were not equally impressed.

  Winnicott first came to the attention of those at a senior level in the police force in 1981, {Check} through his work on the joint inquiry, with the Home Office, into extreme right-wing organisations and racial violence. Despite having made a good impression with his meticulous marshalling of evidence, his warning about the dangers of presenting offender statistics by racial groups went unheeded, although later controversy over their publication went some way to vindicating his judgement.

  Subsequently his organisational skills became increasingly valued as the Metropolitan Police began slowly to change during the 1980s from a hands-on philosophy based in the practical skills of ‘coppering’ into a more modern organisation where managerial skills were to be emphasised.