Those Who Feel Nothing

by Peter Guttridge

  She and Heap got lost on campus. They were eventually directed to an office block set against a steep slope. There was no reception so they just followed signs to Simeon’s door, which was open, as was his window. Papers fluttered on his desk from the through breeze.

  Dr Simeon was a lanky man with a three-day growth and untidy hair. He was wearing jeans and a denim shirt poorly tucked into his waistband. He sat with them at a table by the window, in the cooling breeze.

  Gilchrist had filled him in on Rafferty on the telephone.

  ‘He sounds like he might be the kind of person I’m studying,’ Simeon said now. He had a quiet, calm voice that Gilchrist found soothing.

  ‘And what kind of person is that?’ she said, conscious she had lowered her voice in response.

  ‘People born without empathy.’

  ‘Empathy,’ Gilchrist repeated.

  Simeon cleared his throat. ‘Empathy is the urge to respond with an appropriate emotion to another person’s thoughts and feelings. But there are those people who feel nothing. People who don’t give a damn about the rest of us.’

  Gilchrist gave a little snort. She’d known a few of those in her time.

  ‘Born without it or had it destroyed in them?’ Heap said.

  Simeon chuckled. ‘Ah – the old nature versus nurture argument. I believe these people are fundamentally born without empathy but, yes, a bad environment would make them worse or paralyse empathy in someone. Child soldiers in Africa, for instance. Those involved in genocide in Rwanda or, before that, Cambodia, say, under Pol Pot. Terrorists who plant bombs in crowded markets or on planes.’

  ‘Although Rafferty’s interest is in the long-dead,’ Gilchrist said. ‘Can any of us be expected to have empathy with a skeleton?’

  ‘Of course – if only as a memento mori,’ Simeon said.

  Gilchrist glanced at Heap, her walking encyclopaedia. He didn’t disappoint.

  ‘As a reminder of our own mortality,’ he murmured.

  Simeon looked from one to the other of them and smiled. ‘Simon Baron-Cohen is the expert on autism. He reckons an autistic child can’t grasp either their own or other people’s thoughts and feelings. Feelings are like an alien language to them. That’s why they are so socially inept. Baron-Cohen calls it mind-blindness. He’s also come up with the idea of the Extreme Male Brain.’

  ‘He must have met Detective Sergeant Donaldson,’ Heap blurted, then flushed.

  The psychologist smiled but shook his head. ‘Extreme male doesn’t mean macho, if that’s what you’re thinking,’ he said.

  ‘What does it mean?’ Gilchrist said.

  ‘Baron-Cohen – he’s related in some way to that Borat guy, by the way – thinks people are all somewhere on a spectrum between empathy and systemizing.’

  ‘Systemizing?’ Gilchrist said.

  ‘Yes – you know: organized, interested in how things function or making sense of things by identifying or creating a system around them. You might say that’s what founders of religions have done to make sense of the world. But you’re mostly talking scientists, technologists, engineers and maths geeks.’

  ‘This is the Extreme Male Brain?’

  ‘It is primarily a male thing, yes.’ Simeon gave a little shrug. ‘On the whole women empathise, men systemize. But the Extreme Male Brain is at the extreme systemizing end of the spectrum. No empathy at all.’

  ‘Most women are more empathetic,’ Gilchrist said. ‘That’s clearly true. But you’re saying autism is an extreme form of maleness?’

  ‘In this narrow context, yes.’

  Heap leaned forward. ‘Sociopaths feel nothing – does that make them autistic?’

  ‘Good question – but no. Baron-Cohen identified two kinds of empathy. Cognitive and affective.’

  Gilchrist sat back. ‘I was doing so well too. Speak as if to a child, doctor. I’m just a Plod.’

  He seemed to take Gilchrist at her word, which miffed her a bit.

  ‘OK, cognitive empathy is where you’re trying to figure out what a person’s feeling and thinking. Affective empathy is the way you respond when you do figure it out.

  ‘So, autistic people and people with Asperger syndrome have no clue what mental shape another person is in. They get a zero for cognitive empathy. But, often, once they are told about someone’s state of mind they know how to respond in an appropriate way. Now this response is most likely learned but it means that, after a fashion, they can operate in society.’

  ‘Sounds like a sociopath to me,’ Heap said.

  Simeon shook his head. ‘A sociopath is the other way round. They have cognitive empathy but no affective empathy. Sociopaths can figure out what a person is feeling and thinking but they don’t use that information to respond empathetically, they use it to manipulate them. Further, autistic people aren’t cruel – not deliberately, at least – although they might be cruel by default. Sociopaths are manipulative and use their cognitive empathy just so they can hurt others.’

  ‘Which is Rafferty?’

  ‘Well, I’m not sure I know how to answer that because, as you said, detective inspector, he’s not trying to relate to living people. He’s dealing with bones – so he doesn’t have to worry about what they’re feeling. But in his puzzlement at how other people react I’m guessing he’s not got much cognitive empathy.’

  ‘Except that he did this activity in secret, at night,’ Heap said. ‘As if he knew it was wrong.’

  Simeon looked at him for a moment. ‘Surely that was just so he wouldn’t be caught.’

  The ensuing silence was interrupted by Gilchrist. ‘So in this theory it’s definitely nature over nurture?’

  ‘Sure – except for what autistic people can learn. It’s also averaging out – it doesn’t mean that any individual man or woman is typical. And it doesn’t mean every autistic person is going to be great at taking a bike apart and putting it back together.’

  ‘Even in Brighton?’

  Simeon gave an unexpectedly broad grin. ‘Maybe here.’

  You spent the next hour dodging foot and vehicle patrols as you made your slow way back to the waterfront. You’d dosed Michelle with morphine and she was out cold.

  You gave Westbrook sugar solution and water. He got stomach cramps and he squatted in a corner for a while, afterwards casting around for something to wipe himself with. When he started moving again, he seemed a little stronger.

  He walked with Rogers as you carried Michelle. The two men carried on a low conversation.

  When you’d come up the Mekong you had disembarked some kilometres down the coast then done a loop round the back of the city. Now your plan was to go directly to the port and steal a boat.

  You were better armed and better trained than anybody you were going to come across but you knew the enemy could strike lucky. Even so, you felt your chances were good if you kept your wits about you. You were forgetting the state of undeclared war with Vietnam.

  You estimated you were within six blocks of the harbour when your way was blocked by a much bigger patrol than you had yet encountered. You scurried down an alley to the right. There was another patrol on the next street. On the next street it was the same story.

  You and Rogers exchanged glances.

  ‘I don’t know if they’re looking for us,’ Rogers said.

  ‘Makes no difference,’ you said. ‘We don’t want them to find us.’

  You were on Street 178, near the junction with Street 13. To your left there was a dilapidated, once imposing building built in mock-traditional Khmer style.

  ‘The National Museum,’ Westbrook said. ‘Long abandoned and probably looted.’

  Rogers led the way towards a long, broken window. You stepped inside. The moon shone through huge holes in the roof. You could see the movement and hear the flittering of bats all around you. Hundreds of bats.

  ‘Great – we’ve found the bat cave,’ Rogers said. He nudged you. ‘You can be Robin.’

  ‘If they’re vampire bats, we
’re fucked,’ you said.

  ‘Vampire bats are only to be found in the New World,’ Westbrook said. ‘But you might want to avoid the guano.’

  Rogers frowned at him.

  ‘Watch out for the bat shit,’ you explained.

  Rogers grunted. ‘Let’s find somewhere to hunker down.’

  The floor was littered with broken fragments of statuary and piles of rubbish. There was a reception desk near the main entrance with an office behind. You laid the woman down on the floor in the office and settled down.

  ‘I’ll take first watch,’ Rogers said.

  ‘I’ll let you,’ you said.

  Detective Sergeant Donald Donaldson was sitting in Bellamy Heap’s chair when Gilchrist and her DS got back to their office. Sitting didn’t accurately describe it. He was overwhelming the chair. Gilchrist wouldn’t have been surprised if it simply crumbled beneath his weight. Donaldson was a solid, ungiving block of concrete.

  He was playing with a bulky-looking torch, pointing it at the wall and switching it off and on. It seemed to give an unusually intense light.

  Gilchrist and Heap exchanged glances.

  ‘Extreme male brain,’ Heap muttered. Gilchrist kept a straight face.

  ‘Did you get everything out of the storeroom, Don-Don?’ Gilchrist said.

  He put the torch down and nodded. ‘Fifteen sacks. I’ll let the pathologist figure out how many bodies that represents.’

  ‘What about those packing cases at the back?’

  Donaldson shrugged his beefy shoulders. ‘We had a quick shufti. Museum stuff. Indian and Chinese, they reckon. Guy with an elephant’s head seems popular. Buddha too. I left it all with the museum boffins to examine – they’re the experts. There was an iron door back there too but we couldn’t get it open. We’ll keep trying.’

  ‘Two different religions,’ Heap murmured. He looked thoughtful. ‘But then the Pavilion can’t decide whether it’s Indian or Chinese. Not sure how Buddha fits in, though.’

  Donaldson raised an eyebrow. ‘I’m more of a Nietzsche man myself.’

  Heap looked at him but said nothing.

  ‘And I’m more of a George Clooney girl,’ Gilchrist said.

  Both men looked baffled.

  ‘What are we going to charge him with anyway?’ Donaldson said. ‘Aside from being a scumbag.’

  ‘Under the Anatomy Laws stealing a corpse is not in itself illegal as the corpse has no legal standing and is not owned by anybody,’ Heap said. ‘Dissection of the corpse and theft of items other than the corpse is illegal.’

  ‘But these weren’t corpses,’ Gilchrist said. ‘They were bags of bones.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Donaldson said. ‘So what do we charge him with?’

  ‘Desecration?’ Gilchrist said.

  ‘Burning or otherwise desecrating the US flag will get you in deep shit in the States but that’s nothing like this,’ Heap said. ‘And we can’t do him for trespassing because churchyards are open to everyone.’

  ‘What then – making a public nuisance?’ Gilchrist said.

  Donaldson snorted. ‘Yeah – let’s give him an ASBO.’

  ‘Even if we can’t get him for anything substantive,’ Heap said, ‘public opprobrium will dog him for the rest of his life.’

  ‘Substantive?’ Donaldson snarled. ‘Opprobium? Jesus, Heap, don’t you know any normal words?’

  Donaldson picked up the folded newspaper on Heap’s desk and pointed at the crossword in the bottom corner of the page. Nothing had been filled in.

  ‘Is that why you can’t do the quick crossword? Words too short for you?’

  Heap blushed. ‘I’ve done it.’

  Donaldson looked back at the empty crossword and threw the paper on the desk. ‘Police issuing invisible ink these days, are they? Do you think I’m an idiot?’

  ‘Do I have to answer that?’ Heap murmured.

  ‘What?’ Donaldson was out of the chair, heaving chest straining at his shirt. ‘What did you fucking say?’

  ‘Sergeant Donaldson!’ Gilchrist gestured for him to resume his seat. After a long moment, he did.

  ‘It’s a blind crossword,’ Heap said.

  ‘Is it?’ Donaldson said. ‘And what’s a blind crossword when it’s at home?’

  ‘They used to use them as a test when interviewing potential code-breakers at Bletchley during the war.’

  ‘Did they? Well why don’t you fuck off to GCHQ and do us all a favour?’

  ‘Sergeant!’ Gilchrist said again.

  ‘Well, Lord Snooty here thinks he’s a cut above the rest of us. A blind crossword, for God’s sake. He must think I’m born yesterday.’

  ‘You haven’t actually explained what one is,’ Gilchrist said to Heap.

  ‘You do it in your head,’ Heap said.

  ‘Just the quick one though?’ Gilchrist said.

  ‘I usually do the main Times crossword,’ Heap said.

  ‘What – and you keep it all in your head?’ Donaldson sneered. ‘Bullshit.’

  Gilchrist believed Heap. He was the brightest man she’d ever met.

  ‘Boys, boys,’ Gilchrist said. ‘Detective sergeants should show respect for each other.’

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ Donaldson sneered. ‘I forgot. Wonder Boy here is a detective sergeant after five minutes in the service.’ He jabbed his finger at Heap. ‘Took me fifteen years, sonny boy.’

  Gilchrist could guess what Heap was about to say, which would only inflame the situation more. She caught his eye.

  Heap pursed his lips. ‘Anyway,’ he said. ‘DS Donaldson’s mention of an ASBO is correct. It’s probably all we can give Rafferty, repugnant though his crime is.’

  Donaldson fixed Heap with a gleaming eye that put Gilchrist on the alert.

  She interrupted. ‘We need to question him again about where else he might have stashed these poor women’s remains.’

  ‘But if he’s not going to be charged he has no incentive to help us,’ Heap said.

  Donaldson turned to Gilchrist. ‘Maybe, while I question Rafferty, Boy Wonder could do the grunt work, being new to the job? I thought my years of service might entitle me to be put on something a bit more demanding.’

  Gilchrist was pretty sure Don-Don took steroids to bulk himself up but maybe that look in his eye meant he took something else too.

  She held his fierce look. ‘I decide who does what, Detective Sergeant Donaldson. The task I’ve given you is far more important, believe me, than Detective Sergeant Heap acting as my chauffeur.’

  ‘And you’re the big expert on investigations suddenly, are you, Sarah? I think we have about the same amount of time in.’

  ‘But I have the rank,’ Gilchrist said coldly. ‘Is there anything else?’

  Donaldson glowered up at her. ‘Nothing at all, Detective Inspector. Except my motto becomes more and more relevant.’

  ‘And that is?’ Gilchrist said cautiously.

  Don-Don showed his teeth. ‘Life is a blank canvas: you can either paint on it or shit on it.’

  ‘It’s a good one,’ Heap said.

  Donaldson swung the chair towards him, scowling. ‘Why thank you, Constable Heap. What’s yours?’

  ‘Detective Sergeant Heap,’ Heap said. ‘It’s festina lente, actually.’

  Donaldson barked a laugh. ‘Well, actually, it would be some fucking Greek thing you got at your public school.’

  Gilchrist leaned in from the other side of the desk. ‘Don-Don – are you OK?’

  ‘It’s Latin, not Greek,’ Heap said.

  ‘It’s fucking Greek to me,’ Donaldson said. He shot a look at Gilchrist. ‘And I’m fine.’

  There was definitely something odd about his eyes.

  ‘I wasn’t at public school,’ Heap said.

  ‘Wherever,’ Donaldson said.

  ‘What does it mean, Bellamy?’ Gilchrist said.

  Heap shrugged. ‘It means: make haste slowly.’

  Donaldson frowned as he thought for a moment, then bared his teeth.
‘Bloody typical. You never do make sense.’

  Make haste slowly. Gilchrist kind of liked it. They were all quiet for a moment.

  Gilchrist gestured to Donaldson. ‘A word, Detective Sergeant.’

  Donaldson’s chair rocked as he stood. ‘Ma’am.’

  She led him out into the corridor. She looked into his unfocused eyes. ‘What’s going on, Don-Don?’

  He curled his lip. ‘Nothing, ma’am. I’m merely impressed by Constable Heap’s rapid rise. Constable to detective constable to detective sergeant in about a week …’

  ‘Longer than that,’ Gilchrist said.

  ‘Took me fifteen years,’ Donaldson said.

  ‘As you’ve said. Maybe you need to ask yourself why.’

  ‘Do you have the answer, ma’am?’

  She nodded. ‘If I had to hazard a guess I’d say it’s because you’re old style. Drag your heels, take the piss when you have a chance but get results when you’re so inclined. A lazy sod.’

  ‘And Boy Wonder is different? No offence, ma’am, but he’s so far up your arse – well, maybe you like that, maybe that’s your thing.’

  Gilchrist’s open hand caught Donaldson so hard on his cheek he actually rocked on his feet. His eyes narrowed but he didn’t move to retaliate.

  ‘Striking a subordinate, ma’am? Not good. Not good at all.’ Then he forced a smile. ‘But it’s not the first time a pretty woman has slapped my face and I’m sure it won’t be the last. And it’s never stopped me getting what I want.’ He gave her a hard look. ‘Ever.’

  Gilchrist wanted to slap herself. She ground her teeth. ‘Report me if you want,’ she said. ‘I won’t deny it. But if I find you’re not pulling your weight in this investigation—’

  ‘You’ll never find anything like that,’ he said, his voice low.

  ‘Everything OK here?’

  Bellamy Heap was standing in the doorway of their office.

  ‘Fine, Bellamy, thanks,’ Gilchrist said.

  Donaldson scowled. ‘Hunky dory, Bell-ender.’

  ‘You need to watch your language, Detective Sergeant Donaldson,’ Heap said quietly.

  ‘You going to make me?’