by Simon Okotie
This self-applied crimson lip colouring had a stickiness that enabled it to adhere, for a time, to one’s lips, and it was this stickiness that had held the upper and lower of Isobel Absalon’s lips together momentarily as she opened her mouth on seeing her husband, presumably, in the area in front of the townhouse. In a sense, it was not an intentional feature of lip colourings, he thought (nor was the adherence of some of the colouring to the teeth, on occasion, giving the impression of carnivorousness once the mouth had performed the task of opening sufficiently to reveal the teeth in question). Instead, this capacity to stick the lips momentarily together was a by-product of the need for adherence to each lip separately in order for the product to function according to its remit. A final note in the area of lipsticks came into his mind: the term ‘stick’, here, referred, he thought, to this quality of stickiness but also to the supposed resemblance of the lipstick item itself to naturally occurring sticks e.g. the stubby debris of a tree found on a muddy path after a blustery night. However, this latter link was tenuous, he thought, to say the least, and he left it to one side, as, managing to avert his gaze, finally, from Isobel Absalon’s luscious lips,23 he commenced his ascent of the stairs leading up to her.
27
He swept up the stairs to the front door of the townhouse, his left hand returning, now, palm upwards, with the keys – both conventional and electronic – towards his left-hand trouser pocket.
Having said that he swept up the stairs, now, to the open front door of the townhouse, there would seem to be an inevitability, for those of us now familiar with his investigative technique, that there would be, on his behalf, an inquiry into what it was he had done in that instant – what, in fact, he was still doing, given that he was still in the process of sweeping up the stairs in question towards the front door in question. And that inevitability stemmed, he thought, from our familiarity with his method of attempting, to the extent that he could, to clarify his terms, often as he went along, to ensure that he left no stone unturned, was perhaps how the training manuals put it, in his investigations, and, in the current instance, in his investigation into the disappearance of his colleague, Marguerite who, presumably, had been so formative in instilling this investigative technique into him in the first place. He could not then, given his training and mentoring, and his experience, thus far, in the field, as it were, sweep up the stairs in front of the townhouse, towards Isobel Absalon, with Harold Absalon now, he sensed, having entered the area in front of the townhouse behind him (meaning that, presumably, he was now actually amongst us) without really nailing, as it were, what, in fact, he was doing in sweeping up those stairs in front of the townhouse in the way described.
He was not, of course, literally sweeping up those stairs, in the sense that he did not have a broom, or a dustpan and brush, was not using some or all of those implements, if that was what they were, to systematically sweep or brush the horizontal and perhaps even the vertical planes of those steps as he went, as a means of removing, or at least moving, dust and debris from those surfaces as a means of cleaning them, or even of spring cleaning them.
No, he did not have those, or similar, implements in his possession as he swept, and continued to sweep, up those steps leading from the area in front of the townhouse in question to the front door of same, which, was standing, rather than, say, lying or sitting, open; but it was not for that reason alone that he was not sweeping up those stairs in the sense of using those or similar implements to remove dust and/or debris from the horizontal and perhaps even the vertical planes of those steps, assuming such dust and/or debris to be present, which it wasn’t. Even, then, were he to have had a broom and/or a dustpan and brush in his possession as he swept up those steps (and he refused to countenance the dustpan not being together with the brush, which was why he had not used the ‘and/or’ between the ‘dustpan’ and the ‘brush’; they should, he thought, remain together at all times – they depended on each other in that beautiful symbiotic relationship that we are all, hopefully, familiar with to some extent) then it would not have been in the sense of actually using those implements in his on-going movement that would have formed the main part of his rationale for asserting that he had swept or, rather, was sweeping up those steps, and the reason that it would not have been in the sense of actually using those implements on one or both of the planes of those steps (with, he thought, their use on the horizontal plane being a minimum requirement) was, quite simply, that he was in the middle of an investigation that was becoming more fraught by the moment, an investigation, remember, into the disappearance of his colleague, Marguerite, last seen on the trail of Harold Absalon, the Mayor’s transport advisor, who had been missing, and one that, somehow, he knew he was entering into the final stages of. Given the fact, then, of his on-going investigation, and the fact that he was entering into the fraught yet crucial endgame of same, then it would seem wholly inappropriate to him, his superiors – even his inferiors and peers (and we can put ourselves in whichever of these categories we think to be most appropriate) for him to engage in some cleaning and tidying, regardless of whether: the action was or is unfolding during the spring, summer, winter, or fall; there is or was debris present on those steps; and he has or had a dustpan and brush, which, remember, should always always be kept close to each other, and/or a broom in his possession at that moment.
This was not, of course, to say that one investigating a disappearance or other crime should never use these implements during a live, as it were, investigation (and he wasn’t referring to the similar, but generally smaller implements that were often used at the scene by his forensic colleagues, such as the fingerprint brush, an analogous but opposite situation, this latter, in that the fine particulate matter would be introduced into the picture as it were, before being swept away, rather than simply being swept away); it may be, in a particular case, that adopting the identity of, say, a road sweeper would be the best undercover means of observing covert criminal activities that one would not be able to observe were one to be wearing the traditional investigative garb of trench coat and Fedora; one should not rule out, in other words, swapping a trench coat, Fedora and newspaper for a donkey jacket (the leatherette shoulders being, to his mind, optional) and broom, if the situation demanded it; it was just that the current situation did not demand it – in fact, it would be positively counterproductive given the nature of the current investigation and the stage it had reached for him to suddenly start sweeping in that sense, with or without the roadsweeper’s traditional apparel.
It was not, then, in any of these senses that he had swept, and continued to sweep, from the area in front of that townhouse, up the steps leading towards the front door of same, a front door that still stood (etc) open. It was, rather, in the sense that he was travelling at speed, along, and up, the aforementioned trajectory, and it was, perhaps, this speed that had as it were precipitated this comparison with sweeping in that, in both activities there would be, if one looked closely enough, swirling, dusty eddies on either side, with, he thought, the clockwise eddy being on the right of the person sweeping, in whatever sense, now, you want to take it, and the counter-clockwise eddy being on the left of that person (assuming, as always, that, given we are following in their dust-free, now, footsteps, that we are facing in the same direction as they are). It was, then, simply a sign of the speed with which he was now moving, with this speed a consequence, of course, of the precarious position he now found himself in and the enormous potential for his investigation into the disappearance of his colleague,24 Marguerite, last seen on the trail of you know who, that was afforded to him by travelling at such speed whilst retaining the clarity and meticulousness to which we have now, he hoped, become accustomed.
28
The front door stood open to him then. The sense in which it stood rather than, for example, sat partially open to him related, he thought, to its resemblance to the human body when in standing posture and, more specifically, to th
e average human body when in standing posture. He had copious evidence at his disposal to suggest that, just like a door, an average human subject – when standing – was taller than it was wide and was wider than it was deep, which is to say that its vertical dimension was larger than its horizontal dimension and that its horizontal dimension was larger than its depth. And this was regardless, he thought, of where one measured those as it were human dimensions from and to: one could, for example, measure depth along the soles of the feet; from rear end to front of penis, regardless of whether the latter was erect or in a flaccid or semi-flaccid state; from small of back, as he thought it was called, to protuberant belly button, and in the situation of a withdrawn belly button, to the belly surrounding that button, as it were; from the back, mid-shoulder blades, to the fully erect female nipple on the more sizeable of the two breasts where there was a noticeable if not significant difference in size between them. Wherever, in short, one measured the depth of the average human subject, it would still be less sizeable than the horizontal dimension of the same subject was his submission, as, closing his left hand around the keys – both conventional and electronic – in their journey back to his left-hand trouser pocket, he stepped past Isobel Absalon and into the house; similarly with the horizontal dimension in relation to the vertical, using whichever bare extremities take your fancy; and it was the resemblance of these dimensional relationships between the door and the average human subject when standing that had enabled him to assert that the door in question, which he continued to pass on his left, with Isobel Absalon on his right, was standing, rather than, say, sitting open.
In asserting that the door stood open he was not denying that the way now lay open before him. In this latter case he took it to be the resemblance between the way ahead in the sense of the trajectory of his, and he hoped Isobel Absalon’s, onward journey as it were, and the prone human form, whether average or not, that provided the correspondence of terms, which is to say, our ability to use the word ‘lay’ in relation to both the way ahead and the prone human form, whether below-, above- or just plain average. And the reason that the stipulation about averageness, to coin a term, was not required in the case of the way lying open to him and others related to the fact that even the fattest person, whether lying on their front, back or side, whichever was most comfortable for them, could be taken to lie in a way akin to the sense in which the way lay ahead, for what he hoped were reasons that were now obvious, at least to his more imaginative and/or technically astute followers. But would this still hold, he now wondered, if the way that lay ahead of him took in the stairs just inside the door to the left. He pondered this whilst simultaneously, or near simultaneously, wondering if Isobel Absalon was holding any implement in one or both of her hands that when delivered with force to his head, as may have happened previously, would send him sprawling, prone, unconscious, probably in a forward direction such that he might lie lengthwise along the way that lay open to him and would thereby be prevented temporarily or permanently from going upstairs with Isobel Absalon, which, he now realised, was his greatest wish and which he knew might provide him with the final clue to solving the disappearance of his colleague Marguerite, and the relationship between the disappearance and that of Isobel Absalon’s husband, Harold Absalon, the Mayor’s transport advisor, who had been missing.25 He did not turn to look at Isobel Absalon; instead he continued to focus on the way ahead, whilst returning in his mind to whether, when that way ahead included a flight of stairs, as they are known, as it did, he knew, in the current case, the resemblance between that way and the fattest human form in a prone position still stacked up, as it were. His question could perhaps be re-expressed in the following way: when leaning forward resting their massive belly against that flight of stairs did the fattest human subject more resemble someone lying or standing? In other words, wouldn’t the fattest human subject whilst resting their enormous gut against a particularly steep flight of stairs more resemble someone standing rather than someone lying down? And if this were the case then could one still refer to the way, taking in those steep stairs, as lying rather than standing in front of one? Continuing to move into the house, turning to look, just with his eyes, at the actual stairs in question, and continuing to remain conscious in the absence of any swift arm movements from Isobel Absalon or any other factor that might render him unconscious, whether temporarily, as had occurred, he now thought, at the outset of his investigation, or permanently, he concluded that if the stairs were not particularly steep, as in the current case, then even the fattest human subject could be taken to be lying on them rather than standing against them and that he could continue to refer to the way as lying ahead of him – as well as the door standing open to him – even if that way lying ahead took in those stairs as he hoped they would for him and for Isobel Absalon, if not for Harold Absalon, with all the promise that that way ahead would provide in this continuing investigation into the disappearance of Marguerite who, for all he knew, was still on the trail of Harold Absalon, the Mayor’s transport advisor.
29
He had learnt, even in his earliest training, that it was necessary to take in a scene in all its detail, especially when one was coming to the end of one’s investigation, so that one could brilliantly relate, whilst referring to each of the clues, how one had constantly stayed one step ahead (as before) of even the archest of arch-criminals, with all of the dark ingenuity at their disposal. When all of the suspects were gathered together, which only ever occurred at the end of a case, one could demonstrate to everyone present how observant one had been and, moreover, how one had seen the real pattern linking all of the key items in question, rather than the pattern laid down as a decoy by the criminal fraternity – the sub-set thereof involved in that particular case – or any other pattern, whether the work of a criminal or other mind or no mind, which is to say a pattern of man, of nature, of chance, of fate or of God, if one believed in any or all of those latter sorts of things. But it might be asked how, precisely, in his case, he knew that he was coming to the end of his investigation and, for that reason, knew that he needed to amass the final clues leading to a conviction, such as the detailed arrangement of items on the telephone table to his left and the fact that there was what’s known as a decorative fish eye mirror on the wall above this table. Wasn’t it actually easier for us to know that his investigation was coming to a close, given the thickness or thinness of the remaining evidence, as it were, he wondered, somehow, to himself as he noticed, in the decorative fish eye mirror, his own resemblance to Harold Absalon, the Mayor’s transport advisor?26 And if, as he strongly suspected, he did have superior or preferential knowledge relating to the final unfolding of the investigation, given his unsurpassed experience and training in this area, and that this superior or preferential knowledge resulted in a deeply felt instinct that the investigation would finally unfold in the bedroom on the first floor of the house in question in Isobel Absalon’s presence, whether clad or unclad, then how did that instinct, so deeply felt, square with our own knowledge of the thickness or thinness of the remaining evidence, so to speak, he wondered (assuming that the majority of those following his investigation are doing so in a traditional way that our investigator can only be distantly aware of if he is – or was, rather – aware of it at all, rather than following his progress on a screen, say, and he didn’t mean, in this case, a CCTV screen)? We are supposing a lot, he submitted, as he continued to move towards the foot of the stairs, in somehow holding that our own evidence on the likelihood of an imminent conclusion to his investigation was more reliable than his own; and the main thing that we are supposing, he asserted, was that the evidence that we have at our fingertips is all of the available evidence. Who of us is to say that what we have is all there is, in other words (even if we do have access to the previous volume)? Granted that were there to be subsequent evidence submitted to us through whatever form, that his reputation for completeness and for providing satisfaction as an invest
igator would be very much on the line, as it were. Now it might be fine to submit, somehow, an erratum or errata to his evidence should that prove necessary – that, he thought, would prove acceptable although it would be undesirable to a perfectionist such as himself. This wouldn’t matter much, he suspected, were he to complete his investigation in a timely fashion such that he would provide satisfaction to those shadowy figures such as yourself somehow following in his footsteps; and what this meant, he thought, was, quite simply, solving the mystery of the disappearance of Marguerite, his investigative colleague, using all of the evidence at his and our disposal and doing so in the most elegant and unlikely way possible such that none of us could ever have guessed the outcome even though we have had access to precisely the same evidence as him. Moreover it involved completing his work in this way without the need for any se- or prequels or any other subsequent submission more sizeable than the single sheet of an erratum, should this, for whatever regrettable reason, prove necessary. He knew that a few blank pages at the end of his submission would be satisfactory to most of those following him in the traditional way, especially given that this could be used to record their own evidence as the investigation has unfolded and will continue to unfold. Such was the pressure on him as, starting to rotate his left hand clockwise, as it approached his left-hand trouser pocket, he continued towards the stairs, noticing that telephone was surrounded by an address book open at the letter Q, a Yellow Pages open, implausibly, on the page relating to private investigators, and an unopened packet of Senior Citizen cigarettes.