The Dobie Paradox: british mystery novel: where nothing is as it seems

by Desmond Cory

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Really? We’ve met before?’

  ‘Don’t think so. No, you just told me.’

  ‘I did?’

  ‘Yes. You did. And I’ll be, ah, sprinting back to a hot bath now, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘Of course. Thanks very much, Doctor um er … Doctor …’

  Dobie watched Doctor um er’s long hairy legs receding rhythmically in the light of the dimmed headlamps and then, reluctantly, got out of the car himself. He couldn’t, after all, get much wetter than he was already.

  He was also well aware that, apart from being wet, he was very far tonight from being on the ball (as Elspeth might have put it), the sad demise of her schoolmate Beverley Sutro having possibly shaken him up more than he’d realized. He was therefore considerably relieved to be at last offered, almost immediately after effecting his entry into the house, a sizeable snifter by the sympathique Mrs Train, who also relieved him of his hat and raincoat. She had, Dobie observed, the peculiar slanting eyes that he had always associated with Thai bar-girls (not that he had ever encountered a Thai bar-girl, other than in his wildest fancies), enabling her to cast sidelong glances from under her eyelashes while in a full-frontal position, evincing in Dobie a sudden desire to roll feebly over on to his back waving his paws in the air. Being, perhaps fortunately, seated in an armchair at the time he was able to resist the impulse and to focus his attention instead upon the words being at the moment uttered by the lady’s husband. Far from casting sidelong glances at anything or anybody, Train apparently had the habit of fixing his eyes, as he spoke, on a point on the ceiling directly above the head of the person addressed (in this case, Dobie), either to indicate the profundity of his thought or, more probably, in order to evade the unpleasing spectacle of Dobie dripping rainwater over his expensively upholstered armchair.

  In other respects he had the overall appearance of a retired Army officer of the old Imperial school and his voice had the fruity overtones suggestive of the regular consumption of innumerable post-prandial bottles of VSOP, ordered no doubt by the old Imperial gallon. Though in fact it was whisky that Dobie was currently sampling, and not at all a bad whisky at that. ‘… What a very unfortunate occurrence. Of course it’s a dangerous road, as I’ve often pointed out, and on a night like this … People drive too damned fast along it, that’s another thing.’

  Really a rather decent little whisky, and Train’s was really rather a decent little study. More of an old-fashioned gentleman’s den, in fact, and as such somewhat cluttered up with bric-a-brac, but Dobie – glancing around him – could perceive nothing that might be closely connected with anything so vulgar as your actual work. No portraits of Sigmund Freud hanging on the walls, or of Her Majesty the Queen. There was, it is true, a silver-framed portrait of Mrs Train on the highly polished desk in the far corner but that could hardly be connected with work, either, other than in the sense of doubtless being nice if you could get it. The original of the portrait, having fulfilled her wifely duties with the whisky decanter, was still hovering gracefully by the carved oak sideboard, concerned to see her guest comfortably settled in before beating a retreat or/and at the same time indulging her feminine curiosity.

  ‘There’s a school sign further up the road,’ she said, ‘but often people just don’t see it.’

  ‘That’s right. That’s right. Perhaps this incident will at least serve the purpose of drawing their attention … But then it always seems to need some such disaster as this to wake the authorities up to reality, that’s the devil of it.’

  ‘It’s a private school, of course. And a girls’ school at that. I’ll bet that if the County Council—’

  ‘Well, but let’s not bring politics into everything. The girl’s dead, that’s the point.’

  ‘And you do have other matters to discuss,’ Mrs Train said, pouting in her evident reluctance to withdraw from such stimulating company, ‘so I’ll leave you to discuss them. Perhaps Mr Dobie would like a little more whisky?’

  ‘Well … Thank you … It is a little chilly out there.’

  ‘Especially as you had such trouble in getting here. It’s so lucky you managed to run over … run into Dr Carter, the place really is an absolute rabbit warren. Just a top-up for you, darling?’

  ‘Eh …? Oh well. I don’t mind if I do.’ Dobie bad been hoping he’d say that. Grasping his own laden tumbler firmly in one hand, he rose politely as the lady of the house effected a sinuous exit; sat down again and lowered the tumbler’s contents appreciably while Train went on staring morosely at the ceiling. ‘Yes. Good feller, young Carter. And a promising clinical psychiatrist, or so they tell me. I’m not a doctor myself, of course. Should make that clear. I’m just an old-fashioned administrator trying to run a nice tight ship. Of course m’wife’s right about the general set-up, I mean if you’re given a great rambling place like this … but then between you ’n’ me I don’t think the local health authority has ever really decided whether it’s a hospital or an open prison or a bloody Borstal, we’ve had a few dust-ups with that lot, I can tell you. And for the rest … under-staffed, over-worked, the usual story. Won’t bore you with it. Of course it’s the supervision that’s the problem. That’s what they don’t seem able to appreciate.’

  ‘Supervising the prisoners, you mean?’

  ‘In fact we don’t call ’em that but yes, that’s what it all boils down to. They think they can solve the problem with lots of damn pettifogging regulations. Reason I had to ask you to call in at this ridiculous hour is visitors ain’t permitted here till six p.m. an’ as the Director I have to set a good example to the troops, see what I mean? – an’ one can’t explain all these stupid details in a letter. Good of you to be so co-operative, though. Very public-spirited.’

  Dobie sank another finger of whisky and felt his toes curl up in delighted response. He didn’t know what the director of an establishment such as this might expect to pull in, but Train seemed to be doing very nicely at it. Some kind of a private income, perhaps, stocks and shares and bearer bonds and weird things like that. That would account for the quality of the whisky and, of course, also for Mrs Train. ‘In fact you didn’t explain very much. I was hoping—’

  ‘Yes, yes. Quite. Brings us to this Seymour chap. We’re not convinced he belongs here in any way an’ so we propose to release him pretty soon. Soon as we can, in fact. Gather you know him pretty well and so I thought I should maybe consult you on the matter.’

  ‘But I hardly know him at all. All that happened was, when I was out in Cyprus—’

  ‘He’s thinking of applying for a teaching job, you see, at some university or other. I’m a bit concerned about it.’

  ‘So you should be.’ You could hardly ask, Dobie thought, for more convincing evidence of advanced insanity. On the other hand, though, should he be accepted, most of his colleagues would certainly prove to be almost as loopy as he was, so that he might at least find himself working in congenial company. You had to look at both sides of the coin. ‘Of course I understand he’s a bright lad in his field, but it’s not a field I’m well informed about. I mean, literature and all that pif—’

  ‘But as to his overall suitability …?’

  ‘Oh, well, he’s qualified, certainly.’

  ‘You see, we’re not well informed about that kind of thing. Most of the lads here would probably pass out cold if anyone offered them a job and the idea of asking for one wouldn’t cross their minds in a million years. So we don’t have a Careers Advisory Officer or anyone like that. There again, we like to try to be helpful and you can see what I mean when I say that Seymour doesn’t really fit in here. He had an addiction problem, yes, but we’re satisfied that’s been dealt with. And for the rest he actually seems to be ambitious, he wants to make something of himself. I mean, this is the Welfare State, damn it, we’re just not geared to handle that sort of thing.’

  Dobie found himself staring, to his mild surprise, at the photograph on the desk a little to his
right. For a second there he had seen superimposed upon the pleasing features of Mrs Train the blank expression and glazed-over eyes of Beverley Sutro; an optical illusion, of course, but not an agreeable one. By now the fuzz would have arrived, of course. He wondered how Kate was getting on. ‘… No. I see. But what about his mental state? He got himself into an awful jam in Cyprus—’

  ‘So he did, silly feller. Well, Carter and Ram reckon they’ve got to the bottom of that one and they regard it as totally drug-related, with an unhappy marriage as an overall inhibitory factor. Something about a Coleridgean guilt complex but even though I run this place I can’t say I understand an awful lot of the jargon. I gather his wife was a university teacher, though. Worries me a little, that does. He might do better to stay clear of that atmosphere for a while. On the other hand, women can kick up their heels a bit in any sector of society, that’s obvious. It’s a situation one has to learn how to deal with as it arises, don’t you feel?’

  This, if Elspeth was right, was a matter upon which Train might well pontificate with some authority and which Dobie therefore thought it tactful to evade. ‘In fact it won’t arise, will it? – because she’s dead.’

  ‘Indeed. Indeed. Quite so. Yes, these apparently intractable problems often surrender to a very simple solution, haw-haw. Though in Seymour’s case there are some signs of consequent mental trauma, I won’t deny it. Not surprising. She was murdered, after all, and that can’t be … But of course he didn’t do it, as I believe was at one time suggested. No, no. The hypnotherapist’s report is quite unequivocal as to that. And that’s another point … Almost all the other lads here have got criminal records of one kind or another and Seymour hasn’t. He’s got an aggressive personality, certainly, and he often expresses it quite overtly but not in that way. No true sociopathic tendencies, none at all.’

  ‘But then why was he sent here in the first place?’

  ‘Well may you ask. Apparently his last registration with the NHS was when he was a student in Cardiff, so that put him under the Regional Health Authority when they sent him back from Cyprus. I’ve got about eight pages of computer printouts on file in my office and frankly … You know, in this business you fight the ones you think you can win and the others you just let ride. Seymour was one of the others, very definitely. Answer is to get him back into circulation as soon as may be and out of everyone’s hair. You’d like to have a chat with him, perhaps?’

  ‘I would?’ Dobie was startled.

  ‘Because it’d certainly help if you would give him a reference.’

  ‘What sort of a reference?’

  ‘Well … More or less suggesting that in your view he’s capable of taking up a post in a university. Of being a useful member of the community. A reference from someone with your prestige would carry a lot of weight with the Committee, there’s no doubt about it. And Seymour … I’m sure he’d feel greatly encouraged. Encouragement is what he needs right now. It’d make a considerable difference to his overall stability of mind, believe you me.’

  ‘Yes,’ Dobie said. ‘There’s one thing I’m not quite clear about, though.’

  ‘I’ll try to enlighten you, if I can.’

  ‘Why is he … I mean, do you cater for criminals here? Or for outright nutters? Or both? Because to the best of my knowledge, Seymour is neither.’

  Train hesitated for a few moments before replying, not, as it seemed, because he found the question embarrassing but because several possible answers had at once presented themselves to him. ‘The truth of the matter,’ he said, making his intention to skirt cautiously around it sufficiently obvious, ‘is that we cater for such male miscreants as other institutions, in their wisdom, see fit to send on to us. In other words, a very mixed bunch. Under the old system, you see, the decision to release or to parole these characters was based on reports compiled over a period of time and often by not very well qualified personnel – social workers and such. What I have here is a small team of psychiatrists who are also qualified medical practitioners … They carry out a series of interviews and tests and they submit the reports on which the decision is reached to release the patient or to send him elsewhere for further treatment. In the ordinary way I myself would make that decision, in consultation with Dr Mighell and the specialist concerned. In the case of Mr Seymour, our decision is very likely to be favourable. Does that clarify the position?’

  ‘Partly. Are you, in effect, offering a guarantee of his future good behaviour?’

  Dobie was being more than ordinarily cautious, but the Director seemed to find this readily understandable. ‘Oh, no. No, we can hardly do that. All we can do is state that in any given case it’s our opinion that the patient’s future behaviour is unlikely to endanger the community … or in other words, that he may be eccentric or neurotic but that he isn’t dangerous. In the present financial and economic climate, there’s considerable pressure on us to relieve the charge upon the taxpayers’ pockets as soon and as frequently as possible. We’re all very much aware of that.’

  ‘So you might be prepared to release Seymour even if he were nutty as a fruitcake?’

  ‘Indeed. Or even nuttier. Provided we were satisfied, as indeed we are, that his eccentricities don’t show any serious criminal tendencies. After all, the patients here are under constant close surveillance and restraint – they’re not living under what you or I would call normal conditions. Usually, they improve when they return to society. We have a few backsliders, I’ll admit, but by and large we have a very satisfactory success rate.’

  ‘I see,’ Dobie said. ‘If they’re loopy when they get here, then the conditions here conduce to keeping them that way. Then when you let them go, they get better. Yes, I can follow that.’

  ‘I’m not sure that I said that, exactly. But there’s an element of … After all, there’s always some mental strain occasioned by being kept prisoner, no matter how pleasant the surroundings.’

  ‘And how does it affect them?’

  ‘Well, that’s exactly what my staff are required to observe. They can be affected in many different ways … often enough by memories of their childhood and of their childhood reading, or of … But basically they try to rationalize their imprisonment. Captain Scott, for instance, posed us a bit of a problem. He used to insist he was snowed up in an igloo in the Antarctic and sitting out the winter … which in view of the weather we’ve been having lately had to be accounted as little more than a slight misapprehension. But then he used to pass his recreation hours pushing a tea-trolley up and down the passageway shouting, “Moosh! … Mooooosh!” or something like that … Nice fellow, of course, but when you shook hands with him he always looked you straight in the eye in a virile manly sort of way that got up the other fellows’ noses. However … I mustn’t waste your time with these idle reminiscences. You’ll want to see young Seymour yourself and form your own conclusions.’

  Dobie wasn’t sure that he did, but he nodded politely. The form of conduct that Train had just described would of course have passed virtually without notice if adopted by any of his university colleagues, but … ‘It takes,’ he observed sagely, ‘all sorts to make a world.’

  ‘That’s what I have to keep telling myself,’ the Director said.

  2

  There was the world of the Centre, that he hadn’t yet got used to and didn’t much want to get used to since anyway they said he’d be out before too very long, and there was the world of the dream, which was well explored and familiar but which seemed to be receding further and further from him as the days went by. The world of the dream was familiar but deceptive and couldn’t be trusted. There were colours in the dream, blue and red and yellow, blue of the sea, red and yellow of a million clustered flowers, blue again of the sky, but also there were mists, the mountain mists and the dust haze over the plain, and also there were people in the dream, people dimly seen and imperfectly recognized, men and women in the dream and therefore also sex though impersonal and shadowy, brown-bodied dark-haire
d figures jerking impassively in a swirl of dark foam-capped waves. Outside the dream there were perfectly clear and rational recollections of a place called Cyprus, of his wife and of his friends and acquaintances, but these recollections seemed to be unrelated to the dream and would in any case always be swiftly dissipated by the interminable ingressions of the present moment, of the routine of the Centre, of Reality, upon his thoughts.

  As now …

  Pip pip pop of the ping-pong ball impinging on the table. The occasional rustle of Charlie Chan’s newspaper as he leaned forwards in his chair, poring over the crossword. Now and again a high-pitched communal laugh, almost a giggle, from the brat pack over in the corner. This was the time of the teenagers, no doubt about it. They’d taken over Reality. Even closing your eyes, you couldn’t keep them out. The laughter and the whispers and the mindless beat of their favoured music, if that’s what you called it. Only a few older ones, he and Charlie and Harry the Horse and maybe one or two others, nobody else to talk to except the doctors and you had to be careful what you said to them.

  You had to be careful what you said to Harry, too. Harry had a nasty temper. Harry was going into snide on a GBH as soon as they got through with him here. Harry hadn’t got much to look forward to, when you thought about it. Me, I’m different. By rights I shouldn’t have been sent here at all. Everybody said so.

  ‘Sporting effort,’ Charlie said, ‘by someone who can barely run … Six letters …’

  ‘Got any of them?’

  ‘Ends with a K.’

  Easy. ‘STREAK.’

  ‘Oh yeah.’ Seymour didn’t open his eyes. He didn’t have to.

  Charlie crouched over the plastic-topped table, ballpoint clutched in one ham-sized hand, chuckling to himself as he filled in the squares … He’d seen it so often. They didn’t allow you ballpoint pens here, not to start with … Offensive weapons, you could take someone’s eyes out with one. But Charlie was allowed a ballpoint and so was he, he even had a typewriter in his room so he could type out words words words whenever he liked, it was part of the therapy as he supposed. For a while he’d tried to find the words to fit the dream but none of them would and hadn’t when he’d tried that once before so he’d given that up and now he was writing a novel, a new novel, about … about … He’d remember that when he got back to his room. Meantime, this was Reality. Pip pip pop and a sudden blare of sound from the radio over in the corner where the kids were congregated, not all of them because some were just sitting around staring at the walls, the ones who were still on withdrawal and feeling the ache but me, I’m different, Seymour thought: I always said I could shake it if I really wanted to and now I’ve proved it. I’m older and I’ve got the dream and they haven’t, I know they haven’t. I’ve asked them. They don’t seem to understand at all.