by Desmond Cory
Repressing other thoughts of an uncharitable nature about her friend Professor Dobie, she picked up the receiver again and dialled another number. When the duty desk replied, she asked for the CID Room extension number and got it. The next voice she heard was that of another old friend, Detective-Inspector Michael Jackson, also known – though rarely addressed – as Wacko Jacko. ‘Yes?’ the voice said. ‘Jackson here.’
‘It’s Kate Coyle, Jacko.’
‘Oh, hullo, Kate, I mean Dr Coyle.’ The voice became at once a little guarded. ‘No corpses for you today, I’m afraid. I think we’re undergoing a procession.’
‘You mean a recession.’
‘Yes, one of those. Things are pretty quiet at the shop, anyway.’
‘I’m glad of that,’ Kate said, ‘because I want to draw on your profound knowledge and experience of the criminal mentality. Or more exactly, Dobie does.’
‘Ah.’ The voice became more guarded than ever. ‘Thought we’d got Mr Dobie out of the country for a while. And not a moment too soon, in my opinion.’
‘Out of the country doesn’t mean out of trouble.’
‘Be a bit too much to ask for, that would. Amazing how he stirs it up, one way or another. Saddam Hussein, the boys in the Records Office call him. Still, give him my regards when next you write.’
‘I will. But I also want to give him some information.’
‘What’s he want to know?’
‘He wants to know something about fake confessions.’
‘Eh?’
‘People who come along to you and confess to committing crimes which in fact they didn’t do. Is it very common, that sort of thing?’
‘You have,’ Jackson said lugubriously, ‘to be joking. Hardly a day goes by, you might say. What sort of crime are we talking about?’
‘Murder.’
‘Oh, no,’ Jackson said. ‘Not again.’
‘I’m afraid so. But at least it’s a long way away this time. Not your manor.’
‘Nothing like far enough,’ Jackson said, echoing the sentiments of the rector of Dobie’s university. ‘But wherever you go it has to be pretty much the same. Nutcases everywhere. Hang on a mo.’
A pause. Then at the other end of the line a resounding crash and a tinkle. Another pause. Then Jacko came back on.
‘Great big bugger of a fly crawling over my teacup. Soon settled his hash. Where was I?’
‘Nutcases.’
‘Right. Anything that gets into the papers, along they come. By the dozen, sometimes. You wouldn’t credit it. Most of them are harmless enough, though. Some of them we think of as regulars. Keep on coming back.’
‘So you don’t take them seriously?’
‘Not those ones we don’t. But some of them we have to. You never know.’
‘Because they’re convincing?’
‘Oh, they can be very convincing. Often as not they’ve convinced themselves, you see. Sometimes you can only trip ’em up on some little error of fact they’ve gone and got wrong. I mean, it’s all in their imaginations, see? So now and again they let their imaginations run away with them. So to speak. The loony blighters.’
A long deep-breathing silence. Kate knew what had happened.
‘Jacko?’
‘What?’
‘Leave that fly alone.’
Jackson with his rolled-up newspaper, poised to strike. ‘Look, they’re nasty things, flies. They spread diseases. Money jitus and things like that. You ought to know. You’re a doctor.’ Another splintering crash in the earphone indicated the abrupt demise of another teacup. ‘I hate their guts, to tell you the truth.’
‘What, flies? Or teacups?’
‘No, no. Those loonies we’re talking about. What with the time they waste, checking out their stories.’
‘Do they come and confess to other kinds of crime?’
‘Lord, yes. Anything they’ve read about in the paper, like I said. Or seen on the telly. Murder’s what really turns ’em on, though. So Mr Dobie’s right about that.’
‘Any special kind of murder, Jacko? I mean, one kind more than another?’
Jackson hesitated for a moment before replying. Kate took this to be a pause for cogitation rather than a preliminary to further unprovoked assault. ‘… Yeah. Sex killings. Anything that’s … you know … a bit off. Kinky like. Appeals to the psycho in them, I suppose. I can’t account for it, mind. But it’s a fact.’
‘So they’re mostly men?’
‘Nine out of ten of ’em, I’d say. But I couldn’t quote you the actual sadistics.’
‘And you can’t hazard a guess as to why they do it?’
‘Not my place to, is it? They’re barmy, is why.’
‘Yes, but—’
‘Foxy Boxy, he’s always going on about guilt complexes and suchlike but he goes to the pictures a bit too often, in my opinion. Sees all them Hitchprick films or whatever they’re called. No – they just want to draw attention to themselves is what I think. Having missed out on a mother’s tender care when they was young. And a happy family atmosphere such as I enjoyed. Why, I betcha,’ Jackson said, ‘I got the marks of my old man’s slipper on my backside yet. Discipline, see? That’s what this country needs.’
‘And more unbreakable teacups.’
‘Ha ha ha,’ Jackson said.
Kate rang off on that convivial note and looked at the notes she’d scribbled on the telephone pad. They didn’t seem to add up to very much but then that silly chump Dobie hadn’t told her very precisely what questions to ask. And her next commission was, if anything, even vaguer.
A London number, this time. She had to look it up in the directory before dialling it because naturally Dobie hadn’t known it. It was always like this with bloody Dobie. He hadn’t even been gone a week yet and …
Oh, dear.
The telephone clicked in her ear.
‘Perriam and Webb,’ said a bright female voice. ‘Editorial office. How can I help you?’
‘Of course people talk about it,’ Cem Arkin said. ‘They’re bound to. Just about everything in Cyprus is based on gossip. We’re a Middle Eastern country in that respect, no doubt about it.’
Ozzie apparently didn’t disagree. ‘A pre-litterit sossity really, innit?’
‘Becoming less so, though, surely?’
Cem shrugged. ‘Perhaps. We’re doing our best. But old habits die awfully hard. You’ve got to visualise two camel drivers meeting in the middle of the desert and sitting down on the sand to exchange rumours for three or four hours; and then transpose that scene to a village community; and then to what to all outward appearance is a modern city centre: and then you’ve got an overall picture of Cyprus. It accounts for a lot of the things that happen here, because that’s the thing about rumour. It’s almost invariably alarmist.’
Dobie didn’t feel the least bit alarmed. Nor was he disposed to visualise anything in particular, unless it be a second glass of cherry brandy. Zeynep’s lamb chops had been excellent, as usual, and the bottle of Cankaya even better, and even in the heat of the day it was pleasant to sit in the cooling shade of the pergola outside Ali’s bar chatting about this and that with some of his new colleagues, establishing friendly relations und so weiter. Berry Berry wasn’t present, his lunchtime (and other) requirements being presumably catered for by his wife, and Hillyer, one gathered, had earlier gone into town, but the other bachelors and bachelors-in-effect of the compound were all now seated around the wooden table, Cem Arkin and Ozzie and a little guy of vaguely Japanese appearance whose name Dobie hadn’t yet caught. He wasn’t really Japanese, of course; it was probably just the effect of those rather narrow slit eyes behind the thick pebble lenses.
‘But isn’t the press alarmist? And the media in general? In the UK and just about everywhere else?’
‘Of course. They carry on the great tradition, or they do if they want to sell a large number of copies. All the same, there’s a difference between reading something in a newspaper and hearing ab
out it from your next-door neighbour. Both versions will be equally inaccurate but your neighbour’s version is personal. He’ll tell you what he thinks about it, as something between him and you. And you’ll react in the same way. That’s the point.’
‘And that,’ Ozzie said, ‘is what you geezers don’t understand about the PLO.’
‘And terrorist groups generally. It’s not publicity they want, in the modern sense. Newspaper reports don’t terrify anyone – if they did, we’d all live in a constant state of fear. And most of us don’t. No, it’s the word-of-mouth stuff that does the trick. The rumours. They know that because they’re primitive people themselves. They know white man’s medicine won’t cure black man’s toothache. Pull the damned thing out and wave it in the air. That’ll show them.’
Dobie, as a newcomer to this particular terrorist group, was finding that most of these interesting remarks were being addressed directly to him but, again as a newcomer, wasn’t finding it easy to reply. Luckily, it didn’t seem that he was required to do so. The second glass of cherry brandy had duly arrived and he could content himself by sipping at it somnolently.
‘And,’ Cem Arkin said, ‘the spoken word hasn’t very much relevance to time. You know that? Or to any known timescale. That’s another thing that throws people when they first come here – people who’re used to getting their information in a written form, that is. You listen to people chatting in any of the Famagusta cafes, just the way we’re chatting now, and you’ll realise they talk about things that happened last week and things that happened twenty years ago in the same breath. Even I found that odd when I came back here. The fact that they’re talking about them now seems to make everything a part of the present, far as they’re concerned. Mind you, the Turkish language encourages that attitude in a way, wouldn’t you say?’
The little chap in the pebble lenses coughed modestly. ‘I’d rather not start up that hare, if you don’t mind. After all, the past is part of the present and I don’t see anything wrong in recognising that. Unless we want to discuss philosophical niceties—’
‘Doesn’t it depend on the nature of the past? And on the character of the people who’re doing the talking? If you’re obsessed with the bloody past like Makarios was—’
‘No one can say that the Turks are obsessed with the past. Hell, it’s all secularisation and modernisation and Europeanisation and has been for these past sixty years. That’s what I complain about.’ Removing his glasses and rubbing them vigorously with a napkin. ‘This almost total disregard for our heritage – both there and here. Everything being allowed to fall into disrepair and ruin and even to collapse. It isn’t lack of money, like they say. It’s lack of a sensible and coherent conservation programme. That’s what it is.’
Dobie was once again allowing his eyelids to close in a reflective sort of way. This afternoon and for the first time he was beginning to feel at home here; this ambience of post-prandial donnish conversation, of an agreeable all-male grouping was so familiar to him. Here, too, he couldn’t really figure out what everyone else was talking about and here, too, it didn’t much matter. They certainly seemed to be great talkers, though. Especially Cem Arkin, who appeared to have inherited something of Tolga’s liking, and talent, for oratory. Amazing, really, Dobie thought, how well everyone round here spoke English. Except Zeynep, of course. Here she came now, bearing what? More cherry brandies? Splendid.
‘So what do we do? You said it yourself. We sit around talking. Exactly. When we should be doing something about it. Talk is the national vice, as far as I’m concerned. Talk is nothing but a disguise for, for … lethargy.’
He had put his glasses on again and they now wobbled up and down on the end of his over-excitable nose. He didn’t seem to be at all lethargic. He rather gave the impression of a high-tension battery prepared to shoot off sparks at the slightest touch upon a terminal. Dobie, however, didn’t see much wrong with being lethargic. Now, for instance.
‘They’re an ’ell of a lot more progressive,’ Ozzie said, ‘over on the Greek side. You have to give ’em that.’
And Arkin, ‘Yes, it’s all back to front with the Greeks. A progressive attitude to life and a retrogressive philosophy. While we’ve got a progressive philosophy and a retrogressive attitude. No wonder so many people think the situation here is hopeless.’
Dobie said, ‘How are they retrogressive?’
‘Just like I said. Obsessed with the past. And an imaginary past at that. Obsessed with their own idea of the past that they think they can somehow drag into the present. That’s what Enosis was all about. Back to Byzantium. Look, you may not believe this, Dobie, but never mind Cyprus, a lot of these bloody mainland Greeks still think they’ve got some claim on Istanbul. They want it back, as they put it. I know it’s incredible but there it is. Time doesn’t exist for them. Nothing ever changes. You can’t deal with people like that and, of course, the trouble is … we’re just the same.’
‘Was Seymour … like that? Obsessed with the past?’ This question provoked a sudden and immediate silence, a silence in which the previously animated discussion group looked blankly round the table at each other. Cem Arkin. Ozzie. And the fellow with the wobbly nose. ‘Well,’ Cem said in the end. ‘Who’s going to answer that question?’
‘Kaya,’ Ozzie said. ‘He’s the flippin’ expert.’
Kaya. That was it. Sitting back and adjusting his glasses before replying.
‘He took a great deal of interest, certainly. But I wouldn’t say obsessed. He was writing this book last year about the local antiquities and I remember he consulted me on quite a number of points where … where I hope I was able to help him. And then there was a little research project that Derya and I were working on together. He took an interest in that, too. Though that may have been because Derya was doing it rather than because of the subject’s intrinsic fascination. I wouldn’t have thought it all that fascinating to a layman. Not really.’
‘What sort of research?’ Dobie was puzzled. ‘I mean, Derya was a mathematician.’
‘Yes, that’s exactly why I wouldn’t have thought … I wanted some computational analyses carried out, you see, and she very kindly agreed to help. It was all fairly straightforward stuff and not too time-consuming, but naturally I shall make the proper acknowledgments when my paper is published.’
‘Nothing to do with mythology? Anything like that?’
‘Mythology?’ Kaya blinked, as though uncertain he had heard aright. ‘No, no, what gave you that …? Nothing of the sort. I mean, there’s no secret about it. I had to have some proportions and ratios estimated, that was all. I’ve been trying to work out the actual dimensions of the principal buildings of Salamis and their extent – the original city, that is and things like that. Things that might be of importance in future archaeological surveys of the site. Mythology,’ he said, bristling a little, ‘doesn’t come into it, other than very indirectly, any more than theology would come into working out the dimensions of a ruined medieval cathedral. Archaeology is a science nowadays, Professor Dobie, whatever you may have been told to the contrary. With a mathematical basis. Like all the others.’
Dobie took off his glasses and rubbed the lenses with the corner of his handkerchief. They tended to mist up in this steamy weather. From the radio at the far comer of the bar a Turkish pop singer was grinding a mouthful of consonants to powder with her teeth before whining them out plaintively through her nose; Kaya sounded as though he would have done the same to any of the figures of classical myth so unwise as to present themselves before him. They’d be Greek mythical figures, of course. ‘Oh, I see. Well,’ Dobie said peaceably, ‘if I can be of any assistance in the matter …’
Kaya’s expression softened immediately. Dobie, he had perhaps remembered, was a new boy around the campus and allowances, in his case, would need to be made. ‘That’s very kind of you,’ he said, bobbing his head up and down like an out-of-work samurai searching for casual employment as the village executioner.
‘But in fact Derya managed to complete all the computations before she … That’s to say, she completed them. I hope to finish the paper itself before the end of the year. Though I doubt,’ Kaya said, his disputatious mood returning, ‘if it’ll excite any very great attention, least of all here, given the present administration’s attitude of total indifference.’
‘Quite a lot of us,’ Cem Arkin said, ‘would like to get away from all that isle-of-Venus crap. We can safely leave that stuff to the Ministry of Tourism. In my opinion.’
‘Oh, I agree entirely,’ Kaya said. He might just possibly have suddenly remembered the position occupied by Cem’s father within the administration he had calumniated. ‘Indeed, that’s the very point I was making. All this emphasis on the mythological element—’
‘And after all Seymour was a tourist. Or a visitor, anyway. His being married to a Cypriot made no difference. He saw everything from a visitor’s viewpoint, as was only to be expected. Not,’ Cem said, reaching across the table for his brandy glass, ‘that it’s necessarily a bad thing for us to see ourselves sometimes as others see us. Perhaps at the university we imagine ourselves to be very much more anglicised than we really are. Though not enough so, maybe, to satisfy Derya.’
‘Oh, I dunno,’ Ozzie said. ‘I always thought she fitted in all right. It was only—’
‘I’m not criticising the way in which she performed her professional duties. All I’m saying is that I felt her balance to be a little suspect. Her equilibrium, if you like. I know she spent all those years in England but so did you and I, Ozzie, and it wasn’t any kind of culture shock that she went through or anything as straightforward as that. It was almost the opposite. As though she found she belonged here in a way that she didn’t expect, found that she was being assimilated, so to speak … and didn’t like it. That’s why she always set out to shock people in that really rather childish way. And then of course Seymour, Seymour …’