The Book Of Evidence

by John Banville

  There were two cars, unmarked and nondescript, a blue one and a black. The comedy of car-doors opening, like beetles' wings. I was put into the back seat with Sergeant Hogg on one side of me and a big, baby-faced bruiser with red hair on the other. Haslet leaned on the door. Did you caution him? he enquired mildly. There was silence. The two detectives in the front seat went very still, as if afraid to stir for fear of laughing. Hogg stared grimly before him, his mouth set in a thin line. Haslet sighed and walked away. The driver carefully started up the engine. You have the right to remain silent blah blah blah, Hogg said venomously, without looking at me. Thank you, Sergeant, I said. I thought this another splendid bit of repartee. We took off from the kerb with a squeal, leaving a puff of tyre-smoke behind us on the air. I wondered if Charlie was watching from the window. I did not look back.

  I pause to record that Helmut Behrens has died. Heart. Dear me, this is turning into the Book of the Dead.

  How well I remember that journey. I had never travelled so fast in a car. We fairly flew along, weaving through the sluggish Sunday traffic, roaring down the inside lanes, taking corners on two wheels. It was very hot, with all the windows shut, and there was a musky, animal stink. The atmosphere bristled. I was entranced, filled with terror and a kind of glee, hurtling along like this, packed in with these big, sweating, silent men, who sat staring at the road ahead with their arms tightly folded, clasping to them their excitement and their pent-up rage. I could feel them breathing. Speed soothed them: speed was violence. The sun shone in our eyes, a great, dense glare. I knew that at the slightest provocation they would set on me and beat me half to death, they were just waiting for the chance. Even this knowledge, though, was bracing. I had never in my life been so entirely the centre of attention. From now on I would be watched over, I would be tended and fed and listened to, like a big, dangerous babe. No more running, no more hiding and waiting, no more decisions. I snuggled down between my captors, enjoying the hot chafe of metal on my wrists. Yet all the while another part of my mind was registering another version of things -was thinking, for instance, of all that I was losing. I looked at the streets, the buildings, the people, as if for the last time. I, who am a countryman at heart – yes, yes, it's true – and never really knew or cared for the city, even when I lived here, had come to love it now. Love? That is not a word I use very often. Perhaps I mean something else. It was the loss, yes, the imminent loss of – of what, I don't know. I was going to say, of the community of men, something solemn and grand like that, but when was I ever a part of that gathering? All the same, as we travelled along, some deep cavern of my heart was filling up with the grief of renunciation and departure. I recall especially a spot, near the river, where we were held up for a minute by a faulty traffic light. It was a street of little houses wedged between grey, featureless buildings, warehouses and the like. An old man sat on a window-sill, an infant played in the gutter with a grimy pup. Lines of brilliant washing were strung like bunting across an alleyway. All was still. The light stayed red. And then, as if a secret lever somewhere had been pressed, the whole rackety little scene came slowly, shyly to life. First a green train passed over a red metal bridge. Then two doors in two houses opened at once, and two girls in their Sunday best stepped out into the sunlight. The infant crowed, the pup yapped. A plane flew overhead, and an instant later its shadow skimmed the street. The old man hopped off the window-sill with surprising sprightliness. There was a pause, as if for effect, and then, with a thrilling foghorn blast, there glided into view above the rooftops the white bridge and black smokestack of an enormous, stately ship. It was all so quaint, so innocent and eager, like an illustration from the cover of a child's geography book, that I wanted to laugh out loud, though if I had, I think what would have come out would have sounded more like a sob. The driver swore then, and drove on through the red light, and I turned my head quickly and saw the whole thing swirling away, bright girls and ship, child and dog, old man, that red bridge, swirling away, into the past.

  The police station was a kind of mock-Renaissance palace with a high, grey, many-windowed stone front and an archway leading into a grim little yard where surely once there had been a gibbet. I was hauled brusquely out of the car and led through low doorways and along dim corridors. There was a Sunday-afternoon air of lethargy about the place, and a boarding-school smell. I confess I had expected that the building would be agog at my arrival, that there would be clerks and secretaries and policemen in their braces crowding the hallways to get a look at me, but hardly a soul was about, and the few who passed me by hardly looked at me, and I could not help feeling a little offended. We stopped in a gaunt, unpleasant room, and had to wait some minutes for Inspector Haslet to arrive. Two tall windows, extremely grimy, their lower panes reinforced with wire mesh, gave on to the yard. There was a scarred desk, and a number of wooden chairs. No one sat. We shuffled our feet and looked at the ceiling. Someone cleared his throat. An elderly guard in shirt-sleeves came in. He was bald, and had a sweet, almost childlike smile. I noticed he was wearing a pair of thick black boots, tightly laced and buffed to a high shine. They were a comforting sight, those boots. In the coming days I was to measure my captors by their footwear. Brogues and boots I felt I could trust, running shoes were sinister. Inspector Haslet's car arrived in the yard. Once again we stood about awaiting his entrance. He came in as before, with the same diffident half-smile. I stood in front of the desk while he read out the charges. It was an oddly formal little ceremony. I was reminded of my wedding day, and had to suppress a grin. The bald old guard typed out the charge sheet on an ancient upright black machine, as if he were laboriously picking out a tune on a piano, the tip of his tongue wedged into a corner of his mouth. When Inspector Haslet asked if I had anything to say I shook my head. I would not have known where to begin. Then the ritual was over. There was a kind of general relaxing, and the other detectives, except Hogg, shuffled out. It was like the end of Mass. Hogg produced cigarettes, and offered the grinning packet to Haslet and the guard at the typewriter, and even, after a brief hesitation, to me. I felt I could not refuse. I tried not to cough. Tell me, I said to Haslet, how did you find me? He shrugged. He had the air of a schoolboy who has scored an embarrassingly high mark in his exams. The girl in the paper shop, he said. You never read only the one story, every day. Ah, I said, yes, of course. It struck me, however, as not at all convincing. Was he covering up for Binkie Behrens, for Anna, even?

  (He wasn't. They kept silent, to the end.) We smoked for a while, companionably. Twin shafts of sunlight leaned in the windows. A radio was squawking somewhere. I was suddenly, profoundly bored.

  Listen, Hogg said, tell us, why did you do it?

  I stared at him, startled, and at a loss. It was the one thing I had never asked myself, not with such simple, unavoidable force. Do you know, sergeant, I said, that's a very good question. His expression did not change, indeed he seemed not to move at all, except that his lank forelock lifted and fell, and for an instant I thought I had suffered a seizure, that something inside me, my liver, or a kidney, had burst of its own accord. More than anything else I felt amazement – that, and a curious, perverse satisfaction. I sank to my knees in a hot mist. I could not breathe. The elderly guard came from behind the desk and hauled me to my feet – did he say Oops-a-daisy, surely I imagine it? – and led me, stumbling, through a door and down a corridor and shoved me into a noisome, cramped lavatory. I knelt over the bowl and puked up lumps of egg and greasy spuds and a string of curdled milk. The ache in my innards was extraordinary, I could not believe it, I, who should have known all about such things. When there was nothing left to vomit I lay down with my arms clasped around my knees. Ah yes, I thought, this is more like it, this is more what I expected, writhing on the floor in a filthy jakes with my guts on fire. The guard knocked on the door and wanted to know was I done. He helped me to my feet again and walked me slowly back along the corridor. Always the same, he said, in a chatty tone, stuff comes up that y
ou think you never ate.

  Hogg was standing at the window with his hands in his pockets, looking out at the yard. He glanced at me over his shoulder. Better now? he said. Inspector Haslet sat in front of the desk, wearing a faraway frown and drumming his fingers on a jumble of papers. He indicated the chair beside him. I sat down gingerly. When he turned sideways to face me our knees were almost touching. He studied a far corner of the ceiling. Well, he said, do you want to talk to me? Oh, I did, I did, I wanted to talk and talk, to confide in him, to pour out all my poor secrets. But what could I say? What secrets? The bald guard was at his typewriter again, blunt fingers poised over the keys, his eyes fixed on my lips in lively expectation. Hogg too was waiting, standing by the window and jingling the coins in his trouser pocket. I would not have cared what I said to them, they meant nothing to me. The inspector was a different matter. He kept reminding me of someone I might have known at school, one of those modest, inarticulate heroes who were not only good at sport but at maths as well, yet who shrugged off praise, made shy by their own success and popularity. I had not the heart to confess to him that there was nothing to confess, that there had been no plan worthy of the name, that I had acted almost without thinking from the start. So I made up a rigmarole about having intended to make the robbery seem the work of terrorists, and a lot of other stuff that I am ashamed to repeat here. And then the girl, I said, the woman – for a second I could not think of her name! – and then Josie, I said, had ruined everything by trying to stop me taking the picture, by attacking me, by threatening to to to – I ran out of words, and sat and peered at him helplessly, wringing my hands. I so much wanted him to believe me. At that moment his credence seemed to me almost as desirable as forgiveness. There was a silence. He was still considering the corner of the ceiling. He might not have been listening to me at all. Jesus, Hogg said quietly, with no particular emphasis, and the guard behind the desk cleared his throat. Then Haslet stood up, wincing a little and flexing one knee, and ambled out of the room, and shut the door softly behind him. I could hear him walk away along the corridor at the same leisurely pace. There were voices faintly, his and others. Hogg was looking at me over his shoulder in disgust. You're a right joker, aren't you, he said. I thought of answering him, but decided on prudence instead. Time passed. Someone laughed in a nearby room. A motorcycle started up in the yard. I studied a yellowed notice on the wall dealing with the threat of rabies. I smiled, Mad-dog Montgomery, captured at last.

  Inspector Haslet came back then, and held open the door and ushered in a large, red-faced, sweating man in a striped shirt, and another, younger, dangerous-looking fellow, one of Hogg's breed. They gathered round and looked at me, leaning forward intently, breathing, their hands flat on the desk. I told my story again, trying to remember the details so as not to contradict myself. It sounded even more improbable this time. When I finished there was another silence. I was becoming accustomed already to these interrogative and, as it seemed to me, deeply sceptical pauses. The red-faced man, a person of large authority, I surmised, appeared to be in a rage which he was controlling only with great difficulty. His name will be – Barker. He looked at me hard for a long moment. Come on, Freddie, he said, why did you kill her? I stared back at him. I did not like his contemptuously familiar tone – Freddie, indeed! – but decided to let it go. I recognised in him one of my own kind, the big, short-tempered, heavy-breathing people of this world. And anyway, I was getting tired of all this. I killed her because I could, I said, what more can I say? We were all startled by that, I as much as they. The younger one, Hickey – no, Kickham, gave a sort of laugh. He had a thin, piping, almost musical voice that was peculiarly at odds with his menacing look and manner. What's-his-name, he said, he's a queer, is he? I looked at him helplessly. I did not know what he was talking about. Pardon? I said. French, he said impatiently, is he a fairy? I laughed, I could not help it. I did not know whether it was more comic or preposterous, the idea of Charlie prancing into Wally's and pinching the bottoms of his boys. (It appears that Wally's creature, Sonny of the emerald hues, had been telling scurrilous lies about poor Charlie's predilections. Truly, what a wicked world this is.) Oh no, I said, no – he has an occasional woman. It was just nervousness and surprise that made me say it, I had not meant to attempt a joke. No one laughed. They all just went on looking at me, while the silence tightened and tightened like something being screwed shut, and then, as if at a signal, they turned on their heels and trooped out and the door slammed behind them, and I was left alone with the elderly guard, who smiled his sweet smile at me and shrugged. I told him I was feeling nauseous again, and he went off and fetched me a mug of sticky-sweet tea and a lump of bread. Why is it that tea, just the look of it, always makes me feel miserable, like an abandoned waif? And how lost and lonely everything seemed, this stale room, and the vague noises of people elsewhere going about their lives, and the sunlight in the yard, that same thick steady light that shines across the years out of farthest childhood. All the euphoria I had felt earlier was gone now.

  Haslet returned, alone this time, and sat down beside me at the desk as before. He had removed his jacket and tie and rolled up his sleeves. His hair was tousled. He looked more boyish than ever. He too had a mug of tea, the mug looking enormous in that small, white hand. I had an image of him as a child, out on some bog in the wastes of the midlands, stacking turf with his da: quake of water in the cuttings, smell of smoke and roasting spuds, and the flat distances the colour of a hare's pelt, and then the enormous, vertical sky stacked with luminous bundles of cloud.

  Now, he said, let's start again.

  We went on for hours. I was almost happy, sitting there with him, pouring out my life-story, as the shafts of sunlight in the windows lengthened and the day waned. He was infinitely patient. There seemed to be nothing, no detail, however minute or enigmatic, that did not interest him. No, that's not quite it. It was as if he were not really interested at all. He greeted everything, every strand and knot of my story, with the same passive air of toleration and that same, faint, bemused little smile. I told him about knowing Anna Behrens, and about her father, about his diamond mines and his companies and his priceless art collection. I watched him carefully, trying to judge how much of this was new to him, but it was no good, he gave nothing away. Yet he must have spoken to them, must have taken statements and all the rest of it. Surely they would have told him about me, surely they were not protecting me still. He rubbed his cheek, and gazed again into the corner of the ceiling. Self-made man, is he, he said, this Behrens? Oh Inspector, I said, aren't we all? At that he gave me a peculiar look, and stood up. I noticed again that brief grimace of pain. Bad knee. Footballer. Sunday afternoons, the shouts muffled in grey air, the flat thud of leather on leather. Now what, I said, what happens now? I did not want him to leave me yet. What would I do when the darkness came? He said I should give the guard my solicitor's name, so he could be told I was here. I nodded. I had no solicitor, of course, but I felt I could not say so – everything was so relaxed and chummy, and I did not want to create any awkwardnesses. Anyway, I was fully intending to conduct my own defence, and already saw myself making brilliant and impassioned speeches from the dock. Is there anything else I should do, I said, frowning up at him seriously, is there anyone else I should tell? (Oh, I was so good, so compliant, what a warm thrill of agreeableness I felt, deferring like this to this good chap!) He gave me that peculiar look again, there was irritation and impatience in it, but a certain ironic amusement too, and even a hint of complicity. What you can do, he said, is get your story straight, without the frills and fancy bits. What do you mean, I said, what do you mean? I was dismayed. Bob Cherry had suddenly turned harsh, had almost for a moment become Mr Quelch. You know very well what I mean, he said. Then he went off, and Hogg came back, and he and the elderly guard – oh, call him something, for God's sake – he and Cunningham, old Cunningham the desk sergeant, took me down to the cells.

  Am I still handcuffed?

/>   I do not know why I say they took me down (well, I do, of course) for we simply walked a little way along a corridor, past the lavatory, and through a steel gate. I confess I felt a qualm of fear, but that was quickly replaced by surprise: it was all just as I expected! There really are bars, there really is a bucket, and a pallet with a striped, lumpy mattress, and graffiti on the scarred walls. There was even a stubbled old-timer, standing white-knuckled at the door of his cell, who peered out at me in wordless, angry derision. I was given a piece of soap and a tiny towel and three pieces of shiny toilet-paper. In return I surrendered my belt and shoelaces. I saw at once the importance of this ritual. Cowering there, with the tongues of my shoes hanging out, clutching in one hand the waistband of my trousers and holding in the other, for all to see, the fundamental aids to my most private functions, I was no longer wholly human. I hasten to say this seemed to me quite proper, to be, indeed, a kind of setting to rights, an official and outward definition of what had been the case, in my case, all along. I had achieved my apotheosis. Even old Cunningham, even Sergeant Hogg seemed to recognise it, for they treated me now, brusquely, with a sort of truculent, abstracted regard, as if they were not my jailers, but my keepers, rather. I might have been a sick old toothless lion. Hogg put his hands in his pockets and went off whistling. I sat down on the side of the cot. Time passed. It was very quiet. The old boy in the other cell asked me my name. I did not answer him. Well fuck you, then, he said. Dusk came on. I have always loved that hour of the day, when that soft, muslin light seeps upward, as if out of the earth itself, and everything seems to grow thoughtful and turn away. It was almost dark when Sergeant Hogg came back, and handed me a grubby sheet of foolscap. He had been eating chips, I could smell them on his breath. I peered in bafflement at the ill-typed page. That's your confession, Hogg said. Feel like signing it? The lag next door cackled grimly. What are you talking about? I said. These are not my words. He shrugged, and belched into his fist. Suit yourself, he said, you'll be going down for life anyway. Then he went off again. I sat down and examined this strange document. Oh, well-named Cunningham! Behind the mask of the bald old codger a fiendish artist had been at work, the kind of artist I could never be, direct yet subtle, a master of the spare style, of the art that conceals art. I marvelled at how he had turned everything to his purpose, mis-spellings, clumsy purpose, mis-spellings, clumsy syntax, even the atrocious typing. Such humility, such deference, such ruthless suppression of the ego for the sake of the text. He had taken my story, with all its – what was it Haslet said? – with all its frills and fancy bits, and pared it down to stark essentials. It was an account of my crime I hardly recognised, and yet I believed it. He had made a murderer of me. I would have signed it there and then, but I had nothing to write with. I even searched my clothing for something sharp, a pin or something, with which to stick myself, and scrawl my signature in blood. But what matter, it did not require my endorsement. Reverently I folded the page in four and placed it under the mattress at the end where my head would be. Then I undressed and lay down naked in the shadows and folded my hands on my breast, like a marble knight on a tomb, and closed my eyes. I was no longer myself. I can't explain it, but it's true. I was no longer myself.