Millennium People

by J. G. Ballard

  ‘Then you left it on the carousel? Why that one?’

  ‘A baggage handler told me there were illegal stowaways on the Zurich flight. The passengers were held on the plane and wouldn’t be through immigration for at least half an hour.’ Gould spoke softly, voice barely audible above the traffic on the perimeter road. ‘I set the fuse for fifteen minutes and slipped the valise onto the carousel as the Zurich baggage came out of the chute.’

  ‘Next to Laura’s suitcase. A complete coincidence.’

  ‘No. It wasn’t a coincidence. I’m sorry, David.’ Before I could speak, Gould went on: ‘There was a baggage tag on the handle. I noticed the surname. I thought it belonged to someone else.’

  ‘Who, exactly?’

  ‘You, David.’ Gould managed a flicker of sympathy, trying to mask his smile. ‘I’d been reading A Neuroscientist Looks at God. A hotel sticker on the suitcase mentioned a psychiatric conference two years ago. I assumed it was you.’

  ‘Me? So I was…?’

  ‘The real target.’ Gould touched my shoulder, like a doctor telling me that an earlier, unfavourable diagnosis had proved correct after all. ‘I’ve always felt that the bomb brought us together. In a sense, our friendship was fused in that terrible tragedy.’

  ‘I don’t think so. But why me?’

  ‘I’d seen you on television, talking about elective disease: self-inflicted paralysis, imaginary handicaps, states of voluntary madness – I think you put religions into that category. Fear of the void, which only the genuinely insane can contemplate without flinching. I thought I’d jolt you out of your complacency. A useful lesson, not the sort of thing you learn at Swiss conferences.’

  ‘What went wrong?’

  ‘Everything. Now I know why professionals always leave revolution to the amateurs. Customs were checking the suitcases of a pregnant Jamaican woman working as a drug mule. She went into an hysterical fit and started to give birth. They asked me to help, and I ended up in an ambulance on the way to Ashford. I tried to ring Dexter and then Heathrow Security but we were stuck in the tunnel. It turned out the baggage handler had been talking about the wrong plane. The Zurich passengers reached the carousel as the bomb went off. I was shocked, David. I heard your name on the news and assumed you were dead.’

  ‘And then I turned up at Kay’s house.’

  ‘Risen from the grave. In a sense I’d already killed you, for the most idealistic reasons. I liked you, David. You were serious but flexible, and searching for some kind of truth. Laura was the door into your real self, and I’d opened it.’

  ‘You stayed out of sight for a long time.’

  ‘I was watching you. The middle-class revolution was up and running, and Kay was our Joan of Arc. She’d switched off the voices in her head, all those idiotic Hollywood films. Fifty years ago she’d have been married to some strapping young curate, arranging whist drives and spicing up his sex life. She couldn’t understand why I lost interest in smoke-bombing video stores and travel agencies.’

  ‘But after Heathrow everything changed.’ Still controlling myself, I kept my hands at my sides, avoiding eye contact with Gould and encouraging him to talk on. ‘You’d glimpsed something important there, even though people had died.’

  ‘Well put, David. Very well put.’ Gould patted my shoulder, and then searched his pockets as if looking for some little token to give me. ‘Remember, I was working with these desperate children. I was their delegate, and I wanted an answer. If you’re faced with a two-year-old dying from brain cancer, what do you say? It’s not enough to talk about the grand design of nature. Either the world is at fault, or we’re looking for meaning in the wrong places.’

  ‘And you started looking back to Heathrow?’

  ‘Right – the deaths there were pointless and inexplicable, but maybe that was the point. A motiveless act stops the universe in its tracks. If I’d set out to kill you, that would have been just another squalid crime. But if I killed you by accident, or for no reason at all, your death would have a unique significance. To keep the world sane we depend on motive, we rely on cause and effect. Kick those props away and we see that the meaningless act is the only one that has any meaning. It took me a while to grasp, but your “death” was the green light I’d been waiting for.’

  ‘Then I rose from the grave, and you needed another victim.’

  ‘Not victim.’ Gould raised his hand to correct me. He seemed finally to have relaxed, convinced again that I understood him and was on his side. Standing in his threadbare suit beside his rusting car, he was a kind of mendicant physician, haunting airport car parks with his cure-all nostrum. Putting me straight, he said: ‘“Victim” implies some sort of malign intention. Whatever else, David, I’m not malign. I needed a partner, a collaborator who could join me in the search for absolute truth.’

  ‘Someone you didn’t know, and had never met?’

  ‘Absolutely. If possible, someone famous of whom I’d never even heard. Famous, but utterly unimportant.’ Gould stared at the child’s stick-man he had drawn on the Jaguar’s windscreen. ‘Someone like a minor television presenter…’

  31

  The Sentimental Terrorist

  WAS GOULD FANTASIZING to himself? I watched him stroll away from the Jaguar, eyes fixed on the rows of polished executive cars, as if the dusty saloon reminded him of shabbier days before he recognized his real vocation. He had recast himself as a messenger of the truth, dry-cleaned his suit and put on a clean shirt and tie. He stopped when he reached my Range Rover and glanced at his reflection in the black doors, the pale nimbus of a head floating behind the cellulose as it had haunted the trees in Bishop’s Park, Munch’s Scream resited to some long-term car park of the soul.

  Gould took a small handkerchief from his pocket and polished a toecap, then walked back to the Jaguar, ready to give me his time. Had he placed the bomb on the carousel in Terminal 2, or was the entire account a fabrication? Desperate for violence, had he seized on a terrorist act committed by some unknown group and claimed it as his own? Had he deluded himself into believing that he was the bomber, and now had moved on to the Hammersmith murder, annexing unexplained crimes in an attempt to make sense of the inexplicable?

  Yet the man who approached me was smiling with a kind of shy confidence, a concerned gaze that had nothing of the fanatic about it. He was the caring physician on the ward of the world, encouraging and explaining, always ready to sit beside an anxious patient and set out a complex diagnosis in layman’s terms.

  ‘David…?’ He patted my arm with his bloodless hand. ‘I don’t want you to be upset. These things are hard to take in. You expect everything to come to a stop – why aren’t the roads silent, why aren’t all the planes grounded? Earth-shaking events take place, and people are still making cups of tea…’

  ‘That’s all right. I’m ready to listen.’

  ‘It’s not a confession.’ He smoothed his threadbare lapels in the sun. ‘You have to understand – walking behind that young woman to her front door, I felt no malice.’

  ‘I know you, Richard. I take that for granted.’

  ‘Good. It was a sudden insight, almost a revelation. I saw her in the King Street shopping mall, and thought…’

  ‘Was Stephen Dexter following her?’

  ‘No. He was following me. He knew what was up, we’d talked it through a lot of times. After Heathrow and the Tate, she was the next logical target. He wanted to stop me before I could go through with it. When he heard that I’d seen her coming out of the River Café a couple of days earlier he started to get worried. He trailed me to the King Street mall, and all the clocks started chiming. It was difficult to shake him off. So many cameras watching us.’

  ‘You’d met her before?’

  ‘Never. I knew she was famous, and Vera told me who she was. In every way, she was the perfect target. It let me off the hook – no residual guilts, no toilet-training hangovers…’

  ‘You were a pure, disinterested assassin?’
<
br />   ‘David?’ Gould shook his head, puzzled by me. ‘That’s putting it a little harshly. I was her facilitator; we were collaborating in a unique project. If we meet in the next world, I’m sure she’ll understand. Remember, I never knew her.’

  ‘You knew where she lived.’

  ‘Vera had her address on a petition about Third-World tourism. It was somewhere near the River Café, so I asked you to wait for me in a side street.’

  ‘How did you get to her house? She went straight home.’

  ‘There’s a car park behind the mall. I followed her there. Introduced myself and said I was a doctor involved in the campaign. She said she’d give me a lift back to Charing Cross Hospital and pick up Vera’s petition on the way.’

  ‘Then you stepped out of the car and followed her up the path? You were armed?’

  ‘Of course. I’d been doing some weapons training, knowing the day was going to come.’ Without thinking, Gould unbuttoned the jacket of his suit, revealing the muzzle of a small leather holster under his arm. ‘She had her back to me, sliding her key into the lock. It was the right moment.’

  ‘Why on the doorstep?’ With an effort I controlled my breath, trying not to distract Gould. ‘She lived alone. No one would have found her for days.’

  ‘I didn’t want to see inside the house. How she furnished her sitting room, the framed prints, the invitation cards on the mantelpiece. That would be getting to know her. Her death wouldn’t be meaningless any more.’

  ‘So you shot her.’ I stared at Gould, thinking of Laura among the debris of Terminal 2. ‘The street was empty, and you walked away. You caught a bus to Fulham Palace, and waited in the park. You were…’

  ‘Unhinged. Temporarily insane. It shattered me.’ Gould spoke in an almost offhand way, as if he and I were colleagues who understood each other. ‘It was worth it, David.’

  ‘That’s hard to accept.’

  ‘You will. I’m grateful to you. I needed to see those trees.’

  ‘And you threw the gun into the river. If the police had quizzed that old couple in the park they might have identified you.’

  ‘Me? And you.’ Gould nodded to himself. ‘The getaway car – you drove it. We were collaborators.’

  ‘Not true. I’d never go along with murder.’

  ‘Not then. But you’re edging towards it. Even now.’

  ‘Never.’ Unable to cope with Gould’s intense and friendly gaze, I turned towards the Jaguar. The sunlight caught the green numerals on the paperback cover. ‘And the Tate bomb? That was you?’

  ‘Another cock-up. No one was supposed to be hurt. Dexter was keen to work with me, and I told him I’d leave the bomb on the Millennium Bridge, along with an easel and artist’s bric-a-brac. It was part of our campaign against everything Tate Modern stood for. Anything to make it wobble again.’

  ‘And Stephen’s job was to phone in a warning, so they could clear the bridge?’

  ‘Exactly. But a security man wouldn’t let me paint there – too bad for any budding Monet or Pissarro. The bomb was inside one of Vera’s art books, so I left it in the Tate bookshop. When I went out I saw Joan Chang had appeared on the scene. Another loyal disciple keeping an eye on me.’

  ‘She didn’t trust you?’

  ‘Not after Heathrow. She knew what I really wanted. Stephen was very edgy, he’d taken on all the guilt for those deaths.’

  ‘You’re surprised?’

  ‘Yes and no.’ Gould began to touch up the stick-man he had drawn on the windscreen, as if clarifying the image for the children in the Bedfont hospice. ‘Stephen was having it both ways. After the Heathrow attack he told me he could feel God again, like a phantom limb coming back to life. He needed more and more guilt. That’s why he came along on the Tate job. Unconsciously, he hoped someone would die.’

  ‘But not Joan Chang. He saw her running around in a panic and guessed she’d found the bomb. At least he called security.’

  ‘A little late in the day. That’s the trouble with all religions – they’re too late on the scene.’ Gould took the handkerchief from my breast pocket and cleaned his forefinger. ‘I’m sorry about Joan. I liked her, and that spoiled the experiment.’

  ‘And Dexter? Sooner or later he’ll tell the police.’

  ‘Not yet. He needs more guilt, if his God is going to return and save him. Besides, he understands me. You do, too, David.’

  ‘I don’t.’ I slammed the driver’s door of the Jaguar, trying to rally myself. ‘Richard…it’s insane. All of it – pointless violence, random murders, bomb attacks. They’re vicious crimes. Life is worth more.’

  ‘Sadly, life is worth nothing. Or next to nothing.’ Undismayed by my anger, Gould took my arm. ‘The gods have died, and we distrust our dreams. We emerge from the void, stare back at it for a short while, and then rejoin the void. A young woman lies dead on her doorstep. A pointless crime, but the world pauses. We listen, and the universe has nothing to say. There’s only silence, so we have to speak.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘You and I.’ Gould was almost whispering, as if talking to one of his dying children. He held my arms, steadying me. ‘There’s a lot to do, other actions to plan. I know you won’t let me down.’

  ‘Let you down? Richard, you killed my wife.’

  ‘You’ll understand. I won’t ask you to do anything violent; it’s not in your nature. Or not yet…’

  He spoke in a silky, reassuring voice, but his hand was moving to the holster under his arm. He leaned across me, his head only eighteen inches from mine. His pupils floated upwards, retreating under the eyelids, the warning aura I had seen in Bishop’s Park. I realized that he was deciding if I was too dangerous to leave behind in this car park. If I were found dead inside the Jaguar, the parking ticket in my hand, the police would quickly assume that I was the perpetrator of the Terminal 2 explosion, the killer of my former wife.

  ‘David, I need to know…’

  ‘I’m with you.’ I picked my words carefully. ‘I can see what you’re doing.’

  ‘Good. We have to remain friends.’

  ‘We are friends. All this is something of a shock.’

  ‘Naturally. You can’t take it in.’ Gould patted my cheek. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll talk over the next action.’

  ‘You’ve chosen the…target?’

  ‘Not yet. It’s going to be big, believe me.’

  He turned from me and raised both hands into the air. There was an answering pulse of headlamps from a car parked a hundred yards away. The Citroën estate pulled out of its bay and rolled towards us, Vera Blackburn at the wheel. Gould set off for the perimeter road, three strides ahead of me, checking the shine on his shoes. Reaching the kerb, he stopped to fill his lungs.

  ‘We’ll be in touch, David. You’re still staying with Kay?’

  ‘Absolutely. She’s in the thick of the fight. How does Chelsea Marina fit in? Or doesn’t it?’

  ‘Not really.’ Gould stared at his hands, trying to flex a little colour into his palms. ‘It’s all rather futile – a PTA meeting that got out of hand. The parents have wrecked the staff common room and locked the head teacher in the lavatory.’

  ‘That’s unfair. There’s a serious point being made.’

  ‘You’re right. The middle classes are very serious people.’ Gould waved to Vera as the Citroën approached. ‘That’s why they’ve had to invent so many games. Almost every game you can think of was invented by the middle classes.’

  He settled himself into the front passenger seat, reaching out to press Vera’s hand to the wheel. She gave him a quick smile but ignored me, impatient to leave the car park before the Citroën’s number could be logged into the computer.

  Gould returned my handkerchief to me. ‘By the way, I saw Sally last week.’

  ‘She told me.’

  ‘She’s very nice. I’d say she wants you back.’

  ‘She always does. It’s one of those middle-class games. Why were you there, Richard?’

&
nbsp; ‘I’m not sure. I was looking for you.’

  ‘You were carrying a gun.’

  ‘I have to. These are dangerous days.’

  ‘You’ve made them dangerous. Were you planning to shoot her?’

  ‘To be honest…’

  He was still framing his answer when Vera lifted her foot from the brake and the Citroën surged away.

  I watched the car move down the aisle, cut sharply in front of a courtesy bus and set off for the exit. Behind me the Jaguar settled into its cloak of dust. Taking out my mobile, I debated whether to call the police. The briefest pressure on a button would give me Terminal 2 Security, and the police would swiftly hunt down the Citroën.

  My thumb hesitated, as I expected. Richard Gould was more deranged than any patient who had passed through the Adler, but as always I felt better for seeing him. Despite his admission that he had tried to kill me, I felt calmer and more confident. The long search for Laura’s murderer had come to an end and, by claiming to have killed her, this demented paediatrician had set me free.

  32

  A Decline in Property Values

  CHELSEA MARINA WAS burning when I returned to London. From the Hammersmith flyover I could see the clouds of smoke and steam rising from the river, and hear the wailing ambulances that ferried the injured to Charing Cross Hospital. Crowds of onlookers filled the King’s Road, penned behind the steel barriers as they watched the flames lift from a dozen houses in the estate. Fire engines and police vans blocked the street, their lights sweeping the lapdancing clubs and bucket-shop agencies.

  I parked in the Fulham Road, half a mile from the estate, and followed a crowd of excited schoolchildren heading towards this early Guy Fawkes display. Scraps of charred paper were falling from the air, and I picked an ashy fragment of a credit-card slip from my sleeve. Wine-store receipts, medical bills and share certificates drifted down from the sky, inventories of a middle-class life that had come to an end.