The Weaver Fish

by Robert Edeson

  ‘What do I need to pack?’

  ‘Everything. I’ll help if you want.’

  She became quiet. Worse wondered if behind the silence she were examining her trust in him. Certainly he thought about his own risk. Thwistle had not mentioned a sister, but Worse was comforted by the knowledge that he could check the veracity of what she had told him. Clearly, they both had an interest in the Humboldt, or at least Fiendisch, and it might be that Nicholas, through email traffic, was the explanation for Fiendisch’s interest in him.

  ‘Who is Sigrid, apart from being your friend with a spare room?’

  ‘Sigrid? Psychiatrist, logician. Worked on probabilistic reasoning and psychosis. Markov madness, you could say. Might afflict you one day. Early doctoral work on Kant’s legacy in the modern world. Thesis published as Recognizing Kant, apparently a runaway bestseller, if in a vanishingly small market. Now writes books on things called credules. You’ll like her.’

  Again, Millie fell silent. Worse turned into her street and asked where her place was. He pulled over in a spare bay about fifty metres further on, and was intending to go in with her. Something made him hesitate. Excusing himself, he reached for the laptop that was on the floor by Millie’s feet and cabled to the dash. He made a short keyboard entry, watching the satnav screen, then looked in his mirror.

  ‘Fiendisch has people watching your place.’

  ‘How do you know?’ She sounded just a little incredulous.

  Worse had turned his head away, looking back along the street.

  ‘They’re in a white Commodore on the other side twenty-five metres back.’

  He thought about the fact that he had driven right past them, and was thankful for some subconscious vigilance.

  ‘How do you know?’ The inflexion had changed while somehow preserving the incredulity.

  ‘Listen.’ Worse entered another command. It was as if he had tuned the car radio to one of those depressing early-hours talkback quiz shows. Millie glanced at him with a theatrically pained expression. Worse raised a finger to his lips. Suddenly, with much clearer reception, a man’s voice was broadcast into the car.

  ‘It was DiMaggio, fuck. They’re losers. Jesus. I’m gonna ring, I’m gonna ring.’ It was Kev’s voice.

  ‘Just cool it, will you? You ring and that makes you a loser. Fucking shut up about it. Watch the road. No more stuff-ups.’ Ritchie was an eloquent mentor. After a few seconds, he added, ‘That Benz a minute ago. Pulled over and no one’s got out.’ He had apparently been observing in his mirrors. ‘Did you make out who was in it?’

  ‘Nah. Light’s too bright.’ After some delay, Kev added, ‘D’you think it could be our bitch?’

  Worse glanced at Millie. She was staring fixedly at the stereo controls.

  ‘Why would she park up there? You got more of those?’ There was a sound of crinkling wrapper.

  ‘Maybe she’s pissed off. Fuck. The loser. DiMaggio, ya prick. Ring ’em Ritchie.’

  ‘She hasn’t pissed off. All her stuff’s still there for Christ’s sake.’

  Millie drew breath audibly.

  Ritchie continued. ‘She’s just on a fucking night out, where else would she be? She’ll be back.’

  Worse reached to mute the transmission, but Millie stopped him.

  ‘She could be screwing some fucker all night.’ An idea of Kev’s mythic woman was conveyed by the lust in his voice.

  ‘Yeah, well, she’s got to stop sometime. Then she comes home. Then bang. No more all-night bitch. No more big-sister fucking trouble.’

  ‘What’s the bitch like, Ritchie? You gonna do anything first?’

  ‘Jesus, Kev, keep your fucking mind—’

  Worse switched off the sound. Millie made no objection. He settled back in his seat, staring through the windscreen, the computer half on his lap, half against the steering wheel. He wanted to reach for Millie’s hand, to acknowledge her vulnerability, and reassure her, but at the same time he was inhibited to test her trust. The sordidness of what they heard somehow weakened the human being in him. His generosity was deadened; he felt ashamed to be a man.

  ‘How do you know they’re waiting for me?’ Her voice was quiet and reedy, as if she were about to cry. Worse continued looking forward. Unexpectedly, as he spoke, his concern took the form of irritation.

  ‘Their names are Ritchie and Kev. They’re killers. They take instructions from Fiendisch. I’ve seen them all together. Therefore they’re connected to Nicholas. They’re in your street. They mentioned big sister. Tell me the likelihood.’

  He immediately regretted the harshness of his inference, and its cruel appeal to the probabilist in her. ‘I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.’

  She was silent for several seconds, then asked, ‘How is it that you can listen in on them?’

  ‘Yesterday they came to my place to kill me. I’ll tell you about it later. Anyway, I managed to distract them and hide a microphone in their car.’

  He had been thinking about the bitter almond in the Commodore. He could press a few keys and end their lives. He could listen to them die. He could walk back along the pavement and watch. He could even ring Ritchie and say: ‘You’re about to die, fucker.’

  ‘Emily, hypothetically, if you had means to end the lives of those two here and now, sitting in their car, would you do it? Guaranteed result. No incrimination.’

  She considered the question. ‘If I could remain safe from them in the meantime, I would rather wait till I’d found Nicholas.’ Her voice was becoming defiant.

  ‘That’s what I was thinking,’ said Worse. ‘Can I pass this to you?’ He closed the computer and handed it to her. She rested it on her lap. For the first time since parking, he looked directly at her.

  ‘I’m really sorry you heard all that.’ It was spoken without obviousness, and brought to the space between them his concern, and kindness. For Worse, it was also an apology for the awfulness in men.

  As he rested his hand on the gear selector, Millie turned to him, acknowledging his words with a tilt of her face. She reached out and placed her hand lightly on his. ‘I’m so worried about Nicholas.’ She was almost tearful.

  ‘I know.’ At last, Worse’s humanity found expression in his eyes. ‘We should leave.’ He pulled into the street, half watching the Commodore and its ugly conversation recede into rear vision.

  * * *

  For readers unfamiliar with credule theory, the following brief introduction may be of interest. Any given belief can be partitioned into irreducible, monadic elements (of belief) known as credules. Credules can be identified under special tests of atomicity, details of which are given in S Blitt’s Elements of Belief. Every credule is epistemically independent of every other credule, except in the case of negating pairs (see below) where clearly they have correlation negative one. A (non-null) belief, then, can be defined as a set containing at least one credule, disregarding negating pairs (this condition is implicit in several definitions that follow). The number of independent credules contained in a given belief is referred to as the order of the belief. Any complex belief can be discretized into unit-beliefs. A unit-belief is one having least order capable of motivating an act. (A sentential definition is used in some formalisms.) The algebra of sets provides a methodology for analysis; for example, intersection defines belief in common, or agreement. Two beliefs (sets), A and B, are identical if and only if every credule in A is contained in B, and vice versa. Otherwise, A and B are different beliefs. If A and B are different but have one or more independent credules in common, they are said to have semi-agreement (denoted congenial beliefs by some authors). If no credule in A is contained in B, A and B are called absolutely different or, equivalently, disjoint beliefs. Note that two disjoint beliefs cannot be the joint premises of a valid syllogism. The precise correspondence between set membership and order is subtle, and treatments differ according to author. For Blitt, a belief A is called null if, for any disjoint belief B, the union A U B has the order of B. Every nu
ll belief is defined to have zero order, and to be identical to every other null belief. A credule a is said to negate the credule b (and vice versa) if the belief {a, b} is null. In general, a belief containing mutually negating credules is not rational.

  There have been many attempts to develop clinical models from this theory, particularly applied to delusional ideation. (Strictly, a belief is false if it contains at least one credule that is false. A credule is false if it belongs to the Halfpenny Set of any made observation.) Much of the modern psychiatric endeavour here can be viewed as identifying and repairing pathological credules. Typically, psychotic beliefs tend to be of very high order. Interestingly, religious beliefs are also of high order, unless agnostic, when they are null. Recent research has focused on the distribution of the unit-belief order statistic, which differs between sexes, appears to vary diurnally, and is altered by antipsychotic drugs (A Camenes, personal communication).

  Evidence is also emerging of a totally novel psychotherapeutic modality premised on credule count censoring; a recently discovered ligand, auric sekitriptyline, specifically reduces the order of certain religious beliefs (toward the null state) with apparent conservation of conscience and no other discernible central nervous effects. The theological promise (not welcomed by all clerics) is that residual faith studies will identify the one true god.

  The strong analogical connection between false credules and ordinary pathogens (including infectivity, resistance, and a form of antigenicity) has stimulated new avenues of research with profound implications for public health. It is reasonable to expect that effective surveillance and prompt detection of particularly virulent credule isolates, allied with conventional epidemic control measures, will assist in arresting the spread of popular delusions and mass hysterias, and even eliminate endemic variants. New credule conversion techniques, and targeted drug therapies using sekitriptyline-like agents, are expected to revolutionize these efforts and, longer term, immunization programmes may be possible.

  In another fascinating development, some authors, particularly in the sociological literature, have advanced the hypothesis that credules are heritable. This is partly to account for the common observation that traits such as criminality and religiosity are familial but not always attributable to nurture. At least two plausible mechanisms have been advanced: (1) Credule determinants with intensionality are encoded in parts of the genotype subserving language (it is very rare to find criminality expressed before language develops); and (2) Credules are embedded in dreams, and inherited pari passu (the favoured hypothesis). The suggestion of heritability, which would seem incompatible with Sidney Spoker’s idea of generational renewal of conscience, is distasteful to many ethicists, and this might explain why funding for the required multicentre longitudinal studies has not been forthcoming. If proven, the concern is that affected persons and progeny will be subjected to open-ended state-sponsored credule rehabilitation therapies. But such programmes are not new; the very same, using spiritual and corporeal methods, has long been the prerogative of world religions.

  Finally, in respect of translation science, a theorem states that two beliefs are Thortelmann equivalent if and only if they contain at least one credule in common. It follows that a true belief and a false belief can be Thortelmann equivalent.

  25

  THE STRAND RECKONERS

  It was almost 4.00 am as Worse chose the coast road to return to Perth.

  ‘I think it might be safer if you stay with me for the time being, rather than Sigrid.’ His place was far more secure, and he was thinking ‘safer’ for both Millie and Sigrid.

  Millie didn’t reply. After a full minute of silence, she asked, ‘Why did those men come to kill you?’

  Worse gave a summary of events beginning with Zheng’s visit, and finishing, ‘So, at the moment, it comes back to Fiendisch, though he apparently confers with someone else. I don’t know why they would want me dead.’

  He had been glancing periodically at the satnav screen. Ritchie’s car had not moved.

  ‘Are you scared?’ Millie looked at him.

  ‘Scared? Appropriately, I would hope.’ Worse was thinking of the recent struggle in his apartment, and Zheng’s fatal miscalculation. He turned his head, looking past Millie to the white water glints on the black sea. They reminded him of the quartz scintillation earlier. He appeared to change the subject. ‘Have you heard of Leonardo di Boccardo?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No. Few have. A Florentine political philosopher and earliest known victim of aggravated identity erasure. He was the luckless progenitor of all those airbrushed out of history in fascist times. Despite that, he projects an appealing sort of mentorship across the centuries, I find.’

  ‘Airbrushed at least hints of a certain artistry; now we would be digitally remastered from the record,’ said Millie, rather technically. ‘Anyway, what about him?’

  ‘He advised that, in conflict, one need only be as fearful as one’s adversary is clever. From what I have seen of the two outside your place, that would be not very. In the case of Fiendisch, more. Definitely more. A small advantage is that I suspect they’re not completely sure of my identity.’

  ‘As I am not,’ Millie responded drily. She also looked briefly at the ocean, then ahead. ‘Do you think their interest in you is connected somehow to Nicholas disappearing?’

  ‘Increasingly.’

  Worse called Sigrid to say that her house guest would not be arriving. He gave no explanation.

  When he had rung off, Millie continued her enquiries. ‘Why would they conceivably want you dead? I mean, what is it you do? Ordinary people don’t get killed off by gangsters for no reason.’

  ‘It is troubling, isn’t it?’ Worse said. ‘Generally, I just quietly mind my own business. Occasionally I might meddle in someone else’s—only bad people, though.’

  ‘Did you go to the police?’

  ‘No. I was wanting to figure out more for myself first.’

  When they were nearly at the Grosvenor, Worse pulled over and asked for the computer. He instructed Peepshow to blind the security system to their arrival. As he drove into the basement car park he noted Zheng’s car, but made no comment. In the elevator, all he said was, ‘Thirty-three,’ as he pressed for the floor, for Millie’s benefit.

  Worse actually had two adjoining apartments, occupying the whole north side of his floor. When he referred to his spare room, it was more like a spare apartment. Millie was not aware of this, and when he showed her to what was clearly a main bedroom, she asked rather pointedly where he would be sleeping.

  ‘Through here,’ he said, ignoring the imputation. They walked into the side that was primarily his home.

  ‘I’ll be here if you need me. The security’s good. I’ll show you around in the morning.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Well, later today.’

  He had carried the computer and backpack up from his car, and now put them down on a hall table.

  ‘How can you afford all this?’

  Her curiosity exceeded good manners, and within the lifetime of the question Worse detected an apologetic inflexion. But he did answer politely.

  ‘Indebtedness. Mine and others’. Consulting fees. Some modest royalties.’ He was tired. ‘We’ll make a plan tomorrow. There’s a lot of research we can do from here. We need to unravel the strands of our respective mysteries. I’m sure we will find them joined somewhere, which can only be helpful, actually.’

  They were standing in the hall outside his computer room and he gestured inside. ‘We can find you some clothes and whatever as well. Go shopping, I mean. We may also be able to get back into your place soon. First we should make a judgement about your level of continuing risk. Let’s plan to start at ten.’

  He walked through to his kitchen and assembled some fresh items on a tray, then led her back to the other apartment. He put them in her refrigerator, and pointed to other supplies in cupboards.

  ‘Towels and so on are in the bathroom. Washing ma
chine and dryer in there. You could do your things overnight. If there’s anything else you need, just come over and call out. You should feel completely at home.’

  ‘Thanks. It’s great. A definite improvement on where I’ve been recently.’ The thought of Nicholas interrupted the pleasure in her face, and she looked down.

  ‘I was meaning to ask,’ said Worse, ‘do you have your credit cards and so on with you or are they at the flat?’ Millie patted her denim jacket.

  ‘Good. I mention it because if they were back there, you might have considered cancelling them.’

  ‘And my travel documents are in safekeeping at a bank.’

  ‘Not the Humboldt, I trust. Goodnight.’ As he left, he added, ‘By the way, I have a regular commitment on Thursday evenings. I’ll be out tonight.’

  He closed the link door behind him.

  Worse was up and working by 8.00 am. The first thing he did was check the location of Ritchie’s car. It was still in Millie’s street. He scanned the voice recording from Ritchie’s phone, making some notes as he did. There had been little conversation over the past four hours as the two took turns at watching the house, and sleeping. Worse also prepared another computer, specifically for Millie’s use, with safeguards for both her and himself.

  Millie appeared at exactly 10.00 am, opening the link door and calling out. Worse answered, and she followed his voice to the workshop. She looked surprisingly refreshed, and seemed pleased to see him. He marvelled at the art of dressing differently using the same clothes.

  ‘By the way, I don’t know your first name,’ she said brightly.

  Worse hesitated. ‘Richard. Have you eaten?’

  ‘Yes, thank you.’

  Worse stood up and moved to the computer he had dedicated to her.