Seeing the Wires

by Patrick Thompson

  That would leave Lisa with no one to look after her.

  Suddenly, the day seemed to be full of bonuses. In a week I’d be having free drinks and there would be the chance of consoling Lisa. There would be jokes from my friends and I’d be able to sell my story to the national press; failing that, to Eddie Finch.

  The telephone rang, disturbing the pleasant thoughts. I answered it in case it was work, calling to make sure I was at home ill.

  ‘Yes?’ I said.

  ‘Sam,’ said a voice. I couldn’t place it.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Are you drunk?’

  Drunk seemed a strong word. Then, whisky seems a strong drink first thing in the morning. Perhaps I was drunk. I recognized the caller’s voice.

  ‘Tony,’ I said. ‘I’m not drunk. I’m off work ill.’

  ‘They told me that. You’re not off work because of this thing in the paper, then? You’re not off work on account of you’re ashamed to go out?’

  ‘This is all something Jack’s made up. He’s off his head.’

  ‘Is that why you brought him round to see my daughter? My wife?’

  Tony’s voice was harder than usual. It was flat and solid. He sounded worse than angry.

  ‘You bring this maniac to my house and let him talk to Samantha. You let him play with her, and you knew what he was like? How do I know it’s not true? I know what you were like back then. Dressed in black, reading all of that Crowley rubbish, hanging around the cemetery. For all I know you did what he said. I know you’re capable of it. I know exactly what you’re capable of.’

  He listed some things I’d done wrong, a few indiscretions. Family things. He told me that I wouldn’t be going to their house again, with or without Jack, guilty or not guilty. He said that it would reflect badly on Caroline and Samantha. I tried to explain what was going on but he said he’d heard enough and rang off.

  I rang back but it was busy, and it stayed that way.

  Strange. A few days ago I had been thinking that you never got away from your family. Now my brother – as close to my family as I was going to get – had severed all ties. My family had got away from me. My best friend was mad, and my girlfriend was moody.

  I gave up taking gentle nips of whisky and started swigging it instead. I lay on the living room floor for a while and watched a woodlouse struggling up the wall. I discovered that drinking whisky from a bottle while prone results in a noseful of painful liquid.

  I began to shake.

  I was still doing that when the police arrived.

  II

  There were two of them. One male, one female, both younger than me. The female one had police eyes, a look of equal parts distrust and dislike. The male one was doing his best to have police eyes, but the expression wasn’t finished. He looked like quite a cross puppy.

  ‘Yes?’ I said.

  ‘Police,’ said the female one.

  ‘Really?’

  She ignored that. ‘Can we ask you a few questions?’

  ‘Come in,’ I said. ‘Coffee?’

  ‘No thanks. I don’t think this will take long, do you? It all seems cut and dried.’

  ‘Oh. Yes. Come in, then.’

  I led them to the living room and sat down. They stood over me. The male one looked at my shelves and suddenly got the expression he’d been trying for. He wasn’t impressed with my shelves.

  ‘Did you make those?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes. Didn’t take long.’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t have thought so. So. You’ve seen the papers? You know this Mr Ives? Only he seems to know you quite well.’

  ‘I know him.’

  ‘Have you been drinking?’ asked the female one. ‘I’d say it was early to be drinking. I suppose you have a lot on your mind at the moment? With all of this murder business?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Well. Let’s see what we can sort out. I’m PC Stiles and this is PC Fields. We just want to have a little chat. Nothing to worry about.’

  ‘Nothing at all,’ said Fields. He smiled.

  ‘I see,’ I said. This seemed to be a new approach. Nice cop, nice cop. Fields sat on the free chair. Stiles moved to stand directly in front of me.

  Nice uniform, I thought. Fits well.

  ‘Now. We’ve been sent by our boss, Inspector Moore. He’s concerned about this story.’

  ‘It doesn’t reflect well on the area,’ said Fields.

  ‘It doesn’t reflect well on us,’ said Stiles.

  ‘And it doesn’t reflect well on you,’ said Fields. ‘I can see you’d be upset by this whole thing. We’re obliged to look into it, of course. Inspector Moore is going to follow up a few things. Have a look what’s gone on.’

  ‘How long have you known Mr Ives?’ asked Stiles.

  ‘Since we were children.’

  ‘How would you say he was? Mentally?’ asked Fields. He flipped open a notepad and poised a chewed pencil over it.

  ‘I wouldn’t know. I know him, but he seems sane. Until recently. This is all new.’

  ‘What’s all new? Confessing to murders?’

  ‘Yes. To my knowledge he hasn’t confessed to murder before … He didn’t murder anyone. I mean, neither of us did.’

  ‘We wouldn’t have thought so. Our problem is, the story is in the papers. People want to know what we’re doing about it.’

  ‘Pressure from above,’ added Stiles. ‘Politics. Influence.’

  ‘When we spoke to your friend Jack, he seemed quite earnest,’ said Fields. ‘We do get people who confess to things, as a hobby. As a pastime. They tend to be strange.’

  ‘Single,’ said Stiles.

  ‘Male,’ said Fields. ‘And while Mr Ives is male he isn’t, technically, single. He seems to be in a relationship. It might be a strange relationship, and they might have strange hobbies.’

  ‘Pastimes,’ said Stiles.

  ‘Of course, what people do in their own homes isn’t any of our business.’

  ‘Unless they’re dismembering the lodgers or cultivating crops of narcotics.’

  ‘But as we all know, people have strange ways. This is a multicultural society. We can’t assume that because people behave differently, they are criminals.’

  ‘Correct,’ said Stiles. ‘That would be my point, too. Sometimes people confess for strange reasons.’

  ‘So what would you say Mr Ives’ state of mind was?’ asked Fields. ‘Would you consider him more likely to murder people, or just to confess to it? Perhaps for reasons of a mental nature.’

  ‘After all, body piercing suggests a need for self-violence. That might also reveal itself in false confessions.’

  ‘You don’t believe him, then?’ I asked. They’d made it clear, but I was drunk and I wanted to be sure. Perhaps I was already out of danger.

  ‘Course not,’ said Stiles. She took a small step back and relaxed. ‘It’s not something we enjoy in the West Midlands police force, people confessing.’

  ‘It’s not that we want to frighten you,’ said Fields. He was lying, of course. They wanted me to know that I’d be in for a hard time if they thought Jack was serious.

  ‘Now,’ said Stiles. ‘You say that Mr Ives imagined all of this? His confession is false?’

  I nodded.

  ‘I need a verbal response, Mr Haines. Are you saying that Mr Ives made a false confession?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That would seem to be that.’

  Fields snapped shut his notepad and put it away.

  ‘What happens now?’ I asked.

  ‘That’s all,’ said Stiles. ‘We have a look at the places Mr Finch mentioned in his articles, if we think there’s anything to go on. To tell the truth, there are no records of anyone going missing at that time. If five people are murdered, they’re missed. No one missed anyone ten years ago. So that seems to be fair enough.’

  ‘Inspector Moore will, of course, investigate further. He’s very thorough.’

  ‘More thorough than you might want,
I sometimes think. So we’ll be off now. We may be back in touch, but I doubt it. You can keep your passport. You’re free to go wherever you want.’

  ‘Now all we have left to do is rough up your friend Mr Ives and dump him on some wasteground.’

  ‘He’s joking,’ said Stiles. Until she said that, I hadn’t doubted it.

  III

  I sat down heavily and realized that I was sober. That didn’t seem fair, after I’d put the time and effort into getting drunk. I didn’t think the hangover would pass me by. That would turn up later in the afternoon. You can’t outdrink hangovers unless you do the full Hendrix.

  I wasn’t satisfied. Something was wrong. Not just the accusations and the police popping round for a conversation loaded with veiled threats. If Jack was mad – I don’t know the technical terms, so mad will have to do – it was new. He’d always been more or less sane.

  Apart from the body piercing. But then, a lot of people go in for body piercing. It’s not unusual. Many people observe their own genitals and think, that’d look cool with a nail in it.

  I don’t think like that. I think, a nail in that would hurt like fuck.

  In any case, body piercing wasn’t enough to make someone mad. It was more of a quick way to spot students. Whatever had happened to Jack had happened in another way.

  He’d told me that he’d started thinking about it after the documentary we saw at Tony’s house. I’d seen the same documentary, and it hadn’t made me believe that I was a murderer. It must have been something else. There were programmes that made me want to commit murder. Most of them seemed to be on early Saturday evenings. But none of them made me think I’d already done it, because the person I most wanted to murder was on the TV at the time.

  How do they become famous? These people who can’t do anything. Where do they come from? You see them from time to time in guest spots on variety shows. Then suddenly there they are with an eighteen-week run of a forty-minute extravaganza with the usual dancers and guests who all turn out to be famous for being well known and mediocre. Bad boy bands fragment into four or five bad presenters; dismal soap actors become dreadful singers. Some vanish, and you think they’ve gone for ever. Then it turns out that they’re club DJs making more money than some corporations. I would sit there on a Saturday watching this parade of nothing and a red mist would descend. I would become agitated. I would imagine slapping them. I don’t think you could ever get tired of punching Jeremy Beadle. You could do it for months without the amusement value wearing off.

  So television did lead me to think violent thoughts, true, but it didn’t make me go out and act on them. I was too busy staying in and watching television.

  Jack had got his ideas from somewhere. The documentary had clearly helped him along, but that had been a catalyst. Something else must have been involved. I flicked through the Pensnett Herald, hoping that something might spark off an idea.

  If Jack had got his ideas from somewhere, I needed to know about it. If Jack was in trouble, I ought to do something about it.

  Besides, I didn’t seem to do anything much. This gave me something to do. It would give my life some excitement.

  I thought about that list of Dudley-based murderers. Perhaps there were more. The Herald didn’t go in for extensive research. Eddie certainly didn’t. He went in for extensive drinking. I could start with the history of it all. Perhaps Jack had read something and forgotten he’d read it.

  I didn’t have any books on my shelves. I didn’t have any books at all, come to think of it. I didn’t get on with books. I’d have to go and find some.

  I decided to start my investigations at the library. You couldn’t get much more exciting than that.

  Chapter Eleven

  I

  It took me some time to get ready to go out. I was sober but no one had told my fingers. They thought I was still drunk. They wouldn’t work properly, which created difficulties while shaving.

  I always think about growing a beard when I’m shaving. Women don’t know how lucky they are, not needing to shave.

  Of course, some of them do need to shave, but as a rule I don’t mention it to them. That’s one of those little rules for easier living. Don’t tell women they have moustaches, they won’t thank you for it.

  So every day I have to go through this ritual, foaming up the face and scraping at it with a blade I ought to have changed three months ago. But razor blades are one of those things that fall off shopping lists, a category that also includes bin liners and toilet rolls. It’s a lot of scraping to go through and sometimes I get a sore neck. I tried an electric shaver but the batteries went flat and batteries don’t even get onto the shopping list. I tried shaving last thing at night, but that didn’t work. I’d develop stubble around lunchtime. The sort of people whose job it is to sit in offices disapproving of things would look at it, disapprovingly.

  It took me a long time to shave that day. Bristles appeared in areas I’d cleared. My hands were less steady than they might have been. They’d have been good for people shaking collecting tins.

  I reached the library early in the afternoon. I must have missed the lunchtime rush as the building was deserted apart from three librarians waiting for life to come and find them. I went directly to the non-fiction department. The stairs had introduced a couple of new creaks into their repertoire.

  The top storey was brightly lit but otherwise dull. I thought it’d be best to start with the Local History section. If Dudley had a history, I wanted to know about it. To my surprise, I learned a few interesting facts. Interesting if you live in Dudley, that is.

  Firstly, Dudley wasn’t always the dullest town in the world. Up until the eighth century it wasn’t even there. There was a hill, and a lot of forest. Then along came an Anglo-Saxon wanderer, passing that way for unknown reasons. Perhaps he liked the look of the clouds.

  He found a clearing, and settled there. Other people turned up and settled with him. His name was Dudda – not an unlikely name, many people in Dudley have names like that even now – and the Saxon word for a clearing is Leah.

  The clearing in the woods miles from anywhere became known as Dudda-leah. Over the next few centuries this was knocked down to Dudley, for ease of use. Strangely, many residents of Dudley favour the old pronunciation, and still attempt to use it whenever possible.

  In around 1070 AD the Midlands were knocked about by the French. A French nobleman, not highly regarded, by the name of Ansculf of Piquigney built a castle there.

  Some time after that – the dates are vague at best – royal approval was given for a market in the town. It’s still there, and it still hasn’t got anything you want, unless you want tea towels, transparent greetings cards and the overwhelming smell of fish.

  The market caused Dudley to grow, in the same way that a melanoma causes a freckle to grow. The castle passed from lord to lord with a gap of several years that the history books didn’t explain.

  In due course, Henry VIII was crowned. Henry wasn’t satisfied with being king and killing women who couldn’t bear him children. He also wanted the lords to have more power. So it was that the lord of the castle at the time – John of Dudley, the lord finally having come to terms with having Dudley as part of his name – was granted a long list of supplementary titles, perhaps by way of compensation.

  These included Earl Martial of England, Viscount Lisle, Duke of Northumberland, Earl of Warwick, and Baron of Somerie and Tyas.

  I couldn’t help noticing that all of those titles involved places other than Dudley.

  John Dudley’s long list of titles didn’t do him much good in the long run. Henry was given to mood swings. During one of them he had John Dudley beheaded at Tower Hill. Which put Judy’s mood swings in perspective. She was far worse. She’d never let you off with a beheading. First you’d have to guess what you were being beheaded for.

  My theory about French architecture was flawed. Dudley Castle didn’t collapse without assistance. Parts of it were demolishe
d during the Civil War. A fire took out the residential areas in 1750.

  In the 1930s, the latest Lord decided to construct a zoo around the castle. The castle sits on top of a hill overlooking the town and the zoo covers the flanks of the hill.

  I was taken to Dudley Zoo several times when I was young. It was alleged to be a treat. My parents would drag me up long inclined paths, past empty cages. Sometimes things hidden in dark corners would whine. Chimpanzees wanked joylessly over dangling tyres. Giraffes attempted to reach above the cloud cover. In the reptile house empty enclosures were marked:

  CHAMELEONS – EXPERTS AT CAMOUFLAGE

  A small lake in a larger enclosure held a crocodile, lying still in the water, looking for all the world like a log. Closer inspection revealed that it was a log. The crocodiles had been shipped somewhere warmer.

  A pen held giant tortoises, although I never saw them emerge from their shells. Over the years I formed a theory that the tortoises were tortoise shells.

  Close to the exit a pets’ corner had been constructed, with goats and rodents to fondle, allowing the urban populace to develop the sorts of diseases normally only found in rural areas. Every path led up, and it would be raining. If it hadn’t been raining, we wouldn’t have gone to the zoo. We’d have gone for a walk in the countryside instead.

  That was the history of Dudley, from its birth to the present day. Founded by a man called Dudda, invaded by the French, and home of few notable people.

  The notable people were listed. James Whale, the director of Frankenstein. Cuddles the killer whale, no relation. A handful of rock groups that managed to get into the charts: The Wonder Stuff, Ned’s Atomic Dustbin. A handful that didn’t: Head of David, Belch Pop Frenzy. A local computer company that did well back in the days of the ZX Spectrum, Hardboiled Games, whose games featured a lot of magic, black and otherwise. The heroes used magic. The villains used magick.

  I used to be interested in magic. I’ll come clean about that. Jack was right, I used to be into black magic. It was fun, in the gloomiest sense of the word. I used to wear black clothes. I used to drink black drinks. I was a goth, and I still have some miserable records. Punk groups used to release singles and albums on variously coloured vinyl – the UK Subs hardly ever released a black vinyl album. Goth bands, on the other hand, only released black vinyl albums. They would only have used coloured vinyl if there had been a colour darker than black.