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

by Desmond Cory

  ‘No, it isn’t. You’ve got that the wrong way round, somehow.’

  ‘Ah, forget about it, ’Olmes, gizza kiss, Vienna, huh? Vienna …! Oh wow!’

  Dobie, too, was reasonably chuffed and even sang to himself in a weird guttural soprano as he washed up the breakfast things. ‘Drunt in der Lobau,’ he carolled erratically, ‘hab ich ein Mädel geküßt …’ His German was extremely wonky these days but so vot, he liked Vienna and moreover knew from past experience that the various amatory exercises in which he had of late been over-indulging might also be pleasantly performed amongst the trees of the Wienerwald, which would be at their best in September. So that was something he could look forward to … unless of course Kate and the past experience got together and compared notes, a contingency sufficiently remote to preoccupy him very little. Yes, Kate would enjoy the trip and they might even take a boat up the Danube as far as Melk and then … Plenty of linden trees there, of course, and there were songs about them, too, which right now he couldn’t remember. He stooped to recover the shards of a breakfast plate which had just come to pieces in his hands and placed them in the refuse bin, where with any luck at all Kate wouldn’t spot them. He was pretty sure she wouldn’t. This was his lucky day.

  Kate, who was at that moment causing temporary inconvenience to one of her more elderly patients with an expertly wielded spatula, was wondering if she mightn’t indeed have made a mistake with Dobie … an error of judgement, anyway, or maybe of tact. The guy was pushing fifty, after all, he was a fully grown human being, and it had to be supposed that he knew what he was doing … even if he was hardly likely to be doing it right. And perhaps, Kate thought, I’m wrong to try and discourage him from doing it, because this inexplicable and far from commendable urge of his to undertake criminal investigations, or in other words to stick his nose into other people’s business … perhaps in some way this peculiar penchant offers him some kind of distraction from the problems that – being some kind of loony – he probably regards as more important and pressing. She had only the vaguest of notions as to what the Dobie Paradox was and even less of an idea what its implications in the world of physical science might be, but Dobie did – at least, she was prepared to take his word for it, even though this knowledge had to make him virtually unique in the human race. And being unique, or nearly, he had to be aware of certain rather unusual forms of responsibility; she could quite see that. Responsibilities that might weigh on him, even worry him. Well, he was worried. It was obvious. So perhaps it would be a thoughtful and considerate thing to do some worrying on his behalf, for a change. It needn’t be any very serious worrying, after all. Murder is a serious business, yes, but Dobie’s futile attempts at research could hardly be anything but harmless. Completely innocuous. Surely …?

  ‘Hhhhrrrrfffffffgh,’ the elderly patient remarked.

  ‘Nasty sore throat you got there, Mr Prothero. I’ll prescribe you something for it.’

  ‘Hrrrrrrch you,’ the patient said. Patiently.

  Jackson was also concerned about Dobie, though for quite other reasons. These reasons were chiefly related to his interview with Micky Mannering and to Micky’s intimation that bloody Dobie had been chatting him up already. This wasn’t a development of which Jackson could approve. There are some very undesirable elements in the Cardiff social swim and Micky, as was notorious, knew most of them.

  All right then (Jackson thought) for Dobie to go Boy Scouting round the place turning up various items of material evidence, even if he did his Boy’s Own Paper funky stuff in places where he had no business, on the face of it, to be. He had at least handed his evidence over, such as it was, and in view of the rather startling interpretation that apparently had to be granted it, Jackson was prepared to act on it. Forthwith. That very morning. Even though to do that he’d have to stick his neck out rather further than was his normal custom. But that was also what Dobie would be doing, if he wasn’t careful. Indeed, it was what Dobie had done already.

  The silly bugger.

  What he obviously hadn’t realized was that with Micky Mannering, money talked louder than anyone else. Micky could be a right old chatterbox and telltale tit when it paid him to be so, and information could often be a valuable commodity to Micky’s little chums. Some of them might be interested to know that Dobie had been asking questions about little Beverley and – more importantly – Irene Jones, and some of them might very well wonder why he was asking them. Since Micky wouldn’t be able to tell them why, they might take it into their pretty little heads to seek the needed information from Dobie himself, and that wasn’t a prospect that Jackson could relish. Not in view of the character of some of the boys who might be concerned. Naughty boys like Ivor (the Terrible) Halliday, who when all was said and done might well be – and probably considered himself to be – the kid’s father. Not that he could ever have played convincingly a paternal role; that wasn’t Ivor’s scene. Nor, for that matter, could any child under any conceivable circumstances have fancied Big Ivor as a Dadda. Dobie clearly had no idea of the kind of villain his enquiries might for one reason or another be annoying. Dobie had never seen any examples of Ivor’s handiwork. Jackson, who on the other hand had viewed over the years some of his victims when they’d been pulled out of the river, was quite well informed on the subject.

  No, Dobie would do well to confine his investigations to the botanical field – and preferably to those trees he’d talked about at that Cambridge college, which would have the advantage of being at a considerable geographical remove from Micky and Ivor and Irene Jones’ numerous other gentleman friends. The further, the better. Jackson thought he might well have a word with Kate Coyle about it. Kate would make him see sense.

  After all … these academic geezers may know all about things, facts and figures and so forth … But people, now – that’s another matter. That’s where the dumb old copper comes into his own – in dealing with people. Human beings. That’s if you could count Big Ivor as a human being.

  Perhaps you couldn’t …

  Though the real trouble with the Beverley Sutro business (Dobie decided) was that it didn’t seem to have any kind of a shape to it, any readily discernible pattern. He and Kate had stumbled upon a body that hadn’t become a body until a little later and everything else had been like that, somehow. All manner of rather bizarre detail, any number of probably misleading impressions, but no shape. And Dobie found that a little disturbing.

  Apart from anything else, he couldn’t clearly picture in his mind the girl herself. Her physical appearance, yes. But her mentality, no. Girls in their late teens are always a puzzle, because you don’t know whether to treat them as girls or as women. Often enough they’re not sure about this themselves. At least in one obvious sense you had to count Beverley Sutro as a woman … but also as enough of a child for childhood influences to be still affecting her personality and her behaviour. And according to Micky Mannering, those influences couldn’t have been altogether … well, let’s say propitious.

  The girl couldn’t have had a very high opinion of men, anyway. It was odd, perhaps, that Dobie should feel convinced of this, in view of the evidence of her precocious, if not all that precocious, sexual activities. It just stood to reason, given her family background – or lack of it. She’d have learnt, no doubt, to recognize her mother’s various lovers and husbands as powerful and authoritarian beings, exerting an inexplicable influence on the behaviour of her mother and – ultimately – of herself. Beat it, Bev. Get lost, Bev. Keep out of the way for a while, darling, Mummy’s busy. So busy that apparently she can’t even be found, when she’s needed. OK, so what’s left but rebellion? Against the unwarranted male assumption of domestic authority, and by implication against established authority in general?

  Of course that didn’t make her anything out of the ordinary. Quite the contrary. Every other teenager you met these days seemed to be rebelling against established authority and to be almost painfully self-conscious about it. Those kids were
the new Puritans, if only they realized it. All established authority demands a reasonable degree of tolerance and they weren’t, as far as Dobie could see, prepared to extend it. They’d concede you nothing. They preferred the alternative culture, as they called it, meaning plenty of teenage sex and drugs, and that was how they ended up in the Rehabilitation Centre. And that indeed was the paradox … or an aspect of it. Beverley belonged there, by rights. If she was instead enjoying the comforts of privilege in the Dame Margaret School for Girls just round the corner, that was because she was protected by the material benefits arising from her mother’s financially advantageous second (or third) marriage … which obviously had enabled her to get the kid out of the way for quite a long while, darling, and at just the right age, too, rich Italians being notoriously prone to poking the odd stepdaughter or two, at least if all those films about the Mafia were to be believed … Dobie was rather vague on this point since he’d slept through most of them but anyway he was involving himself in a digression. The damned woman had sent the kid to a posh girls’ school, that was the point, run if anything on even more authoritarian lines than the Centre itself. She wouldn’t have been happy there, as went without saying. And so …

  ‘Would you say that doctors are symbols of authority, Kate? I mean, do people often see them as such?’

  ‘Wouldn’t it be nice to think so. I could derive a good deal of satisfaction from that idea, especially when I’m down on my hands and knees scrubbing the kitchen. But … oh, if you’re serious, yes, I suppose they do. My dad certainly was one. Ruled his patients with a rod of iron, the old sod. And us, too.’

  ‘More so than school teachers, perhaps?’

  ‘That would depend. It cuts both ways. School teachers hardly ever get blamed when they make a mistake, but doctors always are. So it’s just as well we bury most of them.’

  Dobie thought about this for a while. ‘You’re respected, but you’re also resented.’

  ‘Sometimes, yes. Nearly always by men … who think I shouldn’t be doing the job and can’t be doing it right, anyway. Not many of them left around, though, thank goodness.’

  ‘And conversely, a woman might sometimes resent a male doctor?’

  ‘A certain type of woman might. A very young woman or a girl, probably, who … But then he’d be resented as a man more than as a doctor, or so I’d imagine. I certainly resented Dad that way but then a lot of kids resent the activities of their parents, whatever it is they’re doing. What—’

  ‘Sexual activities, too?’

  Kate stared at him. ‘What’s all this about, Dobie? You’re talking in riddles. And it worries me.’

  ‘I’m delving into female psychology.’

  ‘Well, don’t do that. Just keep on delving into more material parts and I’ll be perfectly satisfied. Or if I’m not, I’ll let you know.’

  ‘Oh. OK,’ Dobie said. ‘Thanks.’

  Tuesday March 27th

  Some weird interruptions to normal routine this morning. Comings and goings by sad-looking men in regrettable suits. I take them to be plain-clothes (le mot juste) police officers. The Horse says they are and he should know.

  I’m confined to my room until further notice. We all are. Recreation period later, they say. It’s raining in any case, so I don’t mind. I got the draft of my novel out an hour ago, but yet again I don’t feel in the mood for any kind of serious endeavour. I don’t think I’ll ever recapture the mood until I get clear of this place.

  I don’t need any recreation periods – all I seem able to do is re-create, which is the opposite of create. It’s almost like it was in Cyprus. Nothing comes but clichés. I can’t get her out of my mind. That kind of thing. And after all it’s only a face. Or no, that’s not true. ‘When her loose gown did from her shoulders fall’ – I know now how he felt, poor old Wyatt. Cooped up in there. In Cyprus, too. In the cage. But it’s not like it was with Derya, not even remotely. I’m distressingly sane these days; I feel I’d just be saner yet if I could get out of this dump. Popeye says it won’t be long now but he’s such a liar. They all are. Only of course it’s not ordinary lying, it’s psychotherapy. That’s supposed to make a difference. They don’t explain why.

  Too many kids here still on withdrawal, that’s why. Yes, you can see why they have to tell us all these lies – the truth’s what most of us are trying to escape from. Even the nuts and addle brains who’ll be let out in the end because they’re harmless and because they can’t go on getting treatment here for ever. That’s all the doctors try to do, really – make sure we’re harmless. Not all of us are. The Horse most certainly isn’t. But he’s trying to escape from the truth all the same. That’s what I always feel about the girl whenever I see her. She’s trying to escape. From what? From my dream? Where’s the truth in dreams? It makes no sense. That’s the trouble.

  At least I don’t feel scared, not any more, like a lot of us are. Like the guy in the next room when he starts screaming at night. Says he sees spiders. There aren’t any spiders, I wish there were. They’d keep me company. And the dark-haired one who reckons they’re out to get him, except he doesn’t know who ‘they’ are. A crackpot. Always looking out the window and ducking back. He’s scared of Horse but then a lot of us are. That’s natural. And that other little white-faced chap, maybe seventeen or eighteen, who always looks scared half out of his wits or would if he wasn’t that way already. Another persecution complex. A real twitcher. Quelle galère. I’d write a book about the people in this place if I thought anyone would believe it.

  Instead, just notes. Always notes. Where’s the point?

  Sometimes I think I’d sooner be a doctor than a writer. Or even a mathematician, like Derya was. Or John Dobie. Someone anyway who’s trying to find the truth, not run away from it. But if you drop your doorkey in the dark, it’s no good going over to the nearest lamppost to look for it, which is what I reckon all the shrinks here are doing. Dobie seems to have the right idea. Moving over the lamppost. At any rate I think that’s what he’s trying to do. Sometimes I wish Derya were still alive so she could explain it all to me, the mathematical bit, but mostly I don’t. I’m not glad she’s dead, I just feel that things are getting better now she’s gone. Yes, I know – but it’s the truth, that’s where I dropped the key and it’s no good looking somewhere else for it.

  They’re all looking in the wrong place, the psychs. I know it and they don’t. The same with all those bastards in the tatty suits. They wouldn’t say they were searching for the truth, they’d say they were investigating a crime. It’s all wrong. A crime isn’t something you do, it’s something that you are. I know because I’ve been one. I’ve been a crime, I know what it feels like. Someone killed that girl, I know that, just as someone else killed Derya, and maybe they’ll find out who it was and maybe they won’t but if they do, then what?

  In here. In some place like this. With us. Re-creation, correction, rehabilitation, whatever you call it. It can’t be done. I know because I’m in here. They’ve tried it on me. They’ve told me all the right lies but the lies get in my way, all I can do is re-create, I can’t create any more. Not while I’m here. I suppose that’s a paradox, the sort of thing that Dobie goes in for. I hope he can move the lamppost. I hope someone can.

  ‘Of course computers tell lies if they’re told lies in the first place. They’re just like human beings in that respect … though I don’t know why I’m telling you this, of all people.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ Dobie said. ‘It doesn’t do to forget the obvious. Besides, I rather think that’s what’s been happening.’

  ‘Human error.’ Merrick shook his head. ‘That’s difficult to trace.’

  ‘And sometimes even more difficult to correct.’

  ‘Naturally.’

  The human being, female in gender, standing beside them seemed to be a little perturbed at the direction the conversation was taking. ‘If we have any erroneous information on file, Dr Merrick, I can assure you that the Director will wi
sh the matter to be rectified as quickly as possible. But I really don’t think it very likely—’

  ‘Oh, we didn’t mean to imply any criticism, Miss …’

  ‘Mgono.’

  ‘Miss MacGonogh, no criticism at all of your procedures. Or of your infrastructure. Nothing like that. We just wanted to … see what there is to be seen of it, so to speak.’

  ‘Better call me Maggie. Everyone does.’

  Not very much of the Main Computer Room’s infrastructure was, in fact, visible, most of it inevitably consisting of micro-circuitry effectively concealed from the human eye. The same was broadly true of Miss Mgono’s infrastructure, though the principal screening agent in her case was a voluminous cotton lab jacket, the gleaming whiteness of which afforded a startling contrast to the equally gleaming blackness of her face and hands and also conduced to an overall impression of almost minatory efficiency. Miss Mgono – Maggie – was indeed a good deal more impressive in outward appearance than the electronic machinery of which was the present custodian, being – even in her flat-heeled lace-up sneakers – six foot three, at least, in height and of correspondingly substantial bodily proportions; she might, Dobie thought, easily be able to secure alternative employment as the chucker-out at a night club, should Ol’ Man Redundancy cast a beady eye in her direction. (Though not the night club in which Irene Jones had at one time made her own admirable bodily proportions available to a discriminating public, that particular den of vice having long since, as Dobie had discovered, been closed down.) With some effort, he diverted his attention from Miss Mgono’s – or Maggie’s – mighty thews to their immediate surroundings, which mainly consisted, of course, of computer consoles and monitor screens.

  The days of wildly spinning tape spools and of clicking digitals being now as long since past as those of the Flamingo Night Club, the display here didn’t seem very much more complex than that which a mere couple of years ago Dobie had observed in the travel agency his then wife had worked for. ‘It’s all simple enough,’ Merrick said, confirming this impression, ‘as you can see for yourself. Reciprocal units on modems feeding the central memory bank, cross-filing on the reciprocal computers on various rather elementary access acronyms, simultaneous feedback to the Welsh Office files … All quite primitive, I know, but adequate to the purposes it was set up to serve. And just about problem free, wouldn’t you agree, ah … Maggie?’