The Drowned Detective

by Neil Jordan

  Why?

  Because it’s a different kind of watching. It’s obsessive. It’s cold. It’s unnerving.

  She turned quickly, so her hair bounced around her face.

  Can I smoke here?

  He nodded. And she sat on the windowsill and lit one.

  There’s no love there. Any more. In his eyes.

  And there was once?

  Yes, she said, and bit her lip. Being loved by him was . . . comforting. We have a child. You know that.

  Your daughter.

  Jenny. And we have only fifteen minutes, doctor, before I have to pick her up.

  You share a house, still.

  Yes, she said, and threw the cigarette out the window.

  I imagined it falling lazily to the street outside, and being trampled on by a random passer-by.

  Why haven’t you moved out?

  Why hasn’t he, doctor?

  And the Viennese turned to me. His forehead formed itself into a wrinkled question mark.

  It’s called marriage, isn’t it?

  I am angry, doctor, she said. And maybe I have no right to be. But I am angry, and I don’t know why.

  She kissed me on the way out. On the cheek, briefly, a kiss that felt more like a smack in the face. And she left me there with him, to finish the session.

  Why did you come here? he asked.

  To this session? We had already paid.

  No, he said, to the city.

  Sarah was offered a job with the archaeological department.

  The university?

  Yes. And I met an ex-serviceman on an aeroplane who told me about opportunities in the former Soviet republics. I found myself a colleague, opened a tracing agency.

  A tracing agency?

  We find people. Who may or may not want to be found. The one who manufactures fake Glenlivet whisky. The one who markets ersatz versions of Gucci. The husband who has left his wife.

  For a more attractive version?

  Actually, generally less, in my experience.

  And the doctor smiled.

  In my experience too.

  His smile thinned out, as if it hadn’t meant to be there.

  And your partner? Who wears the . . . he hesitated for barely a moment . . . cufflinks?

  You’re asking me is he a less attractive version? Of me?

  No. What function does he have in the . . . scheme of things . . .

  He was full of pauses, this Viennese.

  He helps me on the ground. He knows the language. I put the systems in place. Or thought I would. Open another branch, in another city.

  Ah. A franchise. Like Starbucks.

  Yes. The Starbucks of Security. Kind of thing.

  And how many branches?

  Just the one, to date. Here.

  Is that a concern?

  No. We do well enough. Here. Just haven’t . . . multiplied . . . And you’re fishing now, doctor.

  Fishing?

  For something. What is it?

  There is a lot of anger in the air.

  Unjustified, you think?

  I do not make judgements. I just look for the source. Frustrations in work. Disappointments in life. Can lead, of course, to stress with a marriage.

  Are you asking am I disappointed in myself? Perhaps. But I love my wife, doctor. My daughter.

  And she seems to love you.

  Can you be sure?

  I can detect a certain . . .

  And here came the pause again.

  . . . residual affection.

  Will that be enough?

  To sustain a marriage?

  He shrugged.

  It is better than contempt.

  6

  Contempt. I thought about the word as I made my way back towards the office. It sounded exactly like it should. Contemptuous. I should have had contempt for him, but I would have had to hate her to do that. I tried to muster it as I entered and saw him turn towards me from his computer. But I couldn’t quite manage it.

  You want to see? he asked. Our morning’s work? Vulcanizace?

  He had the file of pictures on his laptop. I leaned over his athletic, slightly bent shoulders and couldn’t avoid the odour of Lynx and aftershave.

  He clicked through the images. The dark shapes of the ministerial jeeps framing the lady in the oily jumpsuit, her arms around the tyre. The stooped figure of the minister, the burly minders around him. His reflective sunglasses, gleaming from the shadows as she pulled down the metal door above them.

  And then? I asked him.

  Then they go upstairs, he said, as he flicked on through the file.

  I saw the upstairs window, the flashing red of her hair as she pulled the curtains.

  We are denied the shots that could bring this shitty government down.

  What shots are they?

  The minister, vulcanised. Covered in rubber. A chain around his neck.

  You think he’s that adventurous?

  You call that adventurous?

  I had no answer to that one. So I returned to the safer shore of politics.

  You want to do that? I asked. Bring the government down?

  Somebody should, he said. Somebody will.

  And I felt sorry for all three of them. Him, his vulcanising lover and his fragrant wife. They seemed players in a bad West End farce. I wished I could have felt as sorry for all three of us.

  So what do we do with these? he asked.

  Print them up, I said.

  Istvan is already at the photo shop.

  Then, send them to the client.

  The wife? he asked.

  She was the one who hired us.

  Along with bill of charge, he said.

  Of course, I said.

  So I can’t post them on the internet, he sighed, with a feigned kind of weariness.

  No, I said. But you could open Google Maps. The east city.

  He turned to me from his computer and I saw a bead of sweat on his upper lip. Which was odd, because the heat never seemed to affect him. And it was still hot, even as it grew dark outside.

  Do we need to talk? he asked.

  Before you open Google Maps? No.

  I had contempt then. For myself. For the mundane, English bile of that statement.

  He shrugged, and I had to admire the forbearance with which he did so. I unrolled the map from my pocket.

  This, from Gertrude.

  The psychic? You actually went to her?

  Why not?

  Because, it is, quite simply, insane.

  Maybe I’m insane then.

  No, Jonathan. You are not yet insane.

  Well then. I’m getting there.

  And as the same grid of streets emerged on his computer screen, I had him gradually enlarge it until it matched the exact dimensions of what Gertrude so elegantly called the analogue one.

  Print it.

  He stuck a cable in his laptop and pressed Print.

  I placed the burnt map over the fresh one, and drew a circle round the small burnt hole.

  Somewhere among those streets, there is a brothel. How do you say it?

  Bordel. How do you know?

  I can only assume.

  And can we now talk?

  About what? I asked him.

  About cufflinks, he said.

  No, I told him.

  And I looked at the loose button on his shirt. His chest, as I noticed for the umpteenth time, was shaved.

  Some other time.

  7

  It was dark when I walked out. There was a soft summer rain falling. It brought a smell of dust to the air that was almost sweet. I thought I might walk home, all of the way; forty minutes or so it would take me, and if the rain kept up there would not be too much damage. To my jacket, my hair. The damp felt welcome, after the day’s heat. Over the river, up those small ascending streets towards the hills. Jenny would be playing with her dolls in the hallway, always the hallway, for some reason. I would cook, or Sarah would, or wonder of wonders, we both
might, and find a way to soften whatever had happened between us. They say a marriage is never truly a marriage until it has dealt with an infidelity. And if that was so, perhaps we were well on our way to being married.

  I was on the bridge then, walking alone for once over the brown river, and I stopped to look at one of the carved angels with their immobile feathered stone wings that seemed designed to keep watch over those waters. I twisted the gold band off my finger and looked through it at the currents beneath. There was the circular frame, soft and out of focus, and the dark passage of the river, one enclosing the other. Was that what a marriage was to the vicissitudes of life, I wondered, something barely noticed yet comforting that enclosed all of the chaos in gold. I heard a cough above me then, or a sob, and I turned, too quickly, because the ring slipped from my fingers and fell, slowly it seemed, tumbling over and over, into the brown river below. I remember wondering, would Sarah notice? And if she ever did, when would that day be?

  I heard the cough again, but it was more like a choked, suppressed gurgle and I thought of someone drowning. Maybe my ring, drifting and absolutely lost now, towards the mud of the riverbed. Then I saw a shadow by the foot of the stone angel, huddled beneath its glistening, motionless wing. The shadow moved a little, and it was a woman, squatting or crouching there. She was young. Young enough to make me think of suicide and all of the attractions of oblivion. If she wanted to jump it was her choice, I reasoned, but I already knew that reason doesn’t come into such things. So I spoke one word, loud enough that she could hear.

  Don’t, I said.

  Don’t what? she asked, without turning. And I could tell that her English was good. And I was already climbing up beside her.

  Don’t jump, I said.

  Why would I jump? she asked.

  I don’t know, I said. Why would anybody?

  Maybe to know, she said, what it feels like.

  She had her head still turned from me. And I edged closer, round the great stone wing of the statue.

  The architect jumped, I’ve been told.

  Why do you say that? she asked.

  I’m not sure, I said.

  Just to keep talking, she said. You think if you keep talking, I won’t.

  You won’t jump?

  And it wasn’t the architect. It was the sculptor of the angels.

  Why did he jump?

  Because of the eyes.

  What eyes?

  When the bridge was finished, he realised he’d forgotten to carve out the eyes. So he jumped.

  And I said something stupid then, just to keep the conversation going.

  So those angels are eyeless?

  She said, yes. Blind. Cannot watch over the river.

  And she turned to me. Long lashes blinked over a pair of brown eyes.

  Stupid historical fact.

  And she jumped.

  I saw her body fall, in a long straight plumb line to the darkened waters. And I noticed the most irrelevant of details. She had coloured canvas sandals. And something about them made me jump too.

  I hit the water as if I was cracking a sheet of ice. And then there was brown, foaming, oily liquid flooding my nostrils, from them to the roof of my mouth. I would have vomited, if I could have. I could see nothing but darkness, probably kept my eyes closed, so would have been no help if she was floundering beside me, and then some instinct took over and I swam up towards the surface. I saw a slicked head, bobbing up beside me like a seal, but it was a girl and she was gasping for breath, so I gripped her beneath her armpits and managed to say, just let me do this. And I swam with her, towards the west side.

  She lay against me like a dead weight and I thought I saw a smile on her face.

  Kick your legs, I said, if you can.

  And I saw those coloured sandals break the surface of the brown foam. So we made our way, together, towards the sloping bank of concrete.

  There was the detritus of a great river there, waterlogged pieces of wood, rusted bedsprings, tin cans, old shoes. And I laid her like a piece of flotsam on the concrete bank.

  Why you do that? she asked.

  Why did I do it, I corrected her. And I honestly don’t know.

  If you don’t know, what about me?

  You’re alive, at least.

  You think?

  And I threw up then, whatever liquid I had swallowed. The bile slid down the weedy bank, back towards the river.

  You need help, she said.

  And I almost laughed.

  I do?

  You need to drink fresh water, dry your clothes.

  And what about you?

  Me too, she said. Both of us.

  Where?

  Anywhere.

  And she stood. She was like a drowned cat, with dank river mud in her dark hair.

  You need a hospital, I said.

  You think a hospital would help?

  Help what? I wondered. Whatever urge made her take that leap? Whatever urge made me take it too? And then the question seemed absurd.

  No, it probably wouldn’t help.

  We could stand in the emergency place. For hours until we dry. Ask for hairdryer, maybe.

  I can’t just leave you here, I told her.

  No?

  You might jump again.

  From here?

  And she looked down at the river. The brown, uninviting foam. There shouldn’t have been foam, but then the water shouldn’t have been brown, either.

  What if I didn’t jump? What if I slipped?

  Even so, I said. I still can’t leave you here.

  So then, she stood. Take me to hospital. Outpatients. You know where it is?

  No, I admitted.

  Of course you don’t. I will have to lead you there.

  Where is it?

  Twenty minutes’ walk. Five minutes’ taxi. You could also take me home.

  Where is home?

  A few blocks away.

  Blocks. The Americanism sounded odd in her accent. I would have said streets. But she turned then, and walked towards the nearest steps without looking back. And it seemed natural, inevitable, even, that I should follow.

  There were metal steps leading through a stone tunnel to the street, with intermittent, fast-driving traffic. And when we crossed the road, she took my damp arm.

  You’re wet, she said.

  No more than you.

  But I don’t wear a suit. You . . . you squish . . .

  And I did. I could hear the water ooze from my damp shoes with every step.

  Did you save me? she asked.

  I wondered. Would she have swum to the other shore, without my help? Would she have even jumped, without my presence there? It was an act that needed to be observed for its dramatic potency. She only jumped to be seen jumping, in the knowledge that she could be saved. And I thought of a riddle I would ask my sister before they cured her harelip, by the promenade and the blue blue sea. What would you rather be, nearly drowned or nearly saved?

  Would you have swum to the other shore, I asked her, if nobody was there?

  No, she said, as we sidestepped an oncoming pair of headlights and reached the pavement on the other side.

  Not the east side.

  Why not the east side? I asked.

  Because, she said, and, with a gentle touch on my elbow, led me towards the next set of steps, it is not my side.

  So, I had saved her. And we both seemed to accept that as we walked past the whores and their pimps who stood in twos and threes in the summer night. I had saved her and her presence on my arm seemed testament to that fact. And I noticed for the first time that the rain had stopped.

  Does it come with a responsibility? I wanted to ask her, do I have to validate somehow the life you would have finished? But the question seemed absurd, and I didn’t even know how to ask it. She was alive, and who knows what would have happened had I not been there.

  You had better tell me why, I said to her. Why you did the thing you did . . . or wanted to do . . .

/>   And again the question was half-formed, but somehow she understood.

  She stopped over a metal grating outside the back of a hotel and the wind from below lifted her skirt.

  I think you know, she said.

  And I did know. There is only one reason for that urge.

  Somebody hurt you.

  Hush, she said. That’s enough.

  She took two steps backwards and leant her head into the underground breeze. It was like a giant dryer now, lifting her dark hair into a perfect fan.

  Stand here, she said, with me.

  Why?

  You are wet, like me. Dry your clothes.

  I walked three or four steps over, so my dripping shoes stood beside her canvas plimsolls. The warm air ran up my legs, making ridiculous balloons out of my trousers.

  Open out your shirt.

  She pulled at the parts of my shirt that were still tucked in my belt.

  My shirt ballooned and I held it out, so even the sleeves filled with the warm air.

  Turn, she said.

  And she turned. Her dress filled out like a flower, and the dark pistil of her hair seemed to surge upwards, as if it was being pulled from above.

  The giant blow-dryer, she said, of the river god.

  There is a river god?

  Yes, she said. And if you ever get wet again, remember that his blow-dryer is here.

  She took my arm then, and led me off the grating, towards a small alley beyond.

  Home, she said. I remember. Just a few blocks away.

  Blocks. That Americanism again. And it seemed particularly inappropriate for the streets she led me through, small cobbled places, with arches every now and then, that led into communal courtyards.

  She stopped by one particular arch and I remember it had decorative tiles, halfway up the walls, covering the ceiling.

  Come, she said.

  And, as always, the courtyard seemed larger and more fanciful than the arch outside would have intimated.

  Come up, she said, and began to ascend one of those circular stone stairways.

  I followed again. There was a gleam of yellow light as a curtain was pulled in an adjacent apartment. An older woman stared, behind the reflective glass. And the wet girl turned her head, as if she didn’t want to be seen.

  She felt for a handle in the dark, and found it locked.

  Keys, I said.

  Yes, she said. I had keys.