The Longest Pleasure

by Douglas Clark

  “Thank you. Now, we all know what an obsession is, because they commonly occur to a slight degree in all of us. But an increased feeling of compulsion to undertake some mental or physical act which is wrong or criminal is found in several kinds of psychological illness. Sometimes as, I suggest, in Wilkin’s case, the obsessional trait is the outstanding feature of his illness. Because ill, he certainly is.

  “What we have to appreciate is that the hereditary factor is strong in obsessional neurosis.”

  “Do you mean he inherited this mean streak from his mother?” demanded Green. “If so, having met her, I’d agree.”

  “From his mother, his father or both,” went on Cutton. “The parents of people suffering from obsessive states are often found to be similarly afflicted—though not necessarily to the same degree. Meticulous, rigid routine imposed by such parents, whether imposed by discipline, or—as seems to be the case with Wilkin—by a constant nagging, whining, obstructive atmosphere, can be, however, more conducive to obsessional neurosis in offspring than hereditary endowment. But whichever the cause, the kids grow up with typical personalities.

  “And this is where the motive can be seen to become less thin, Mr Wigglesworth. Children like Wilkin grow up to become sticklers for precision and detail . . .”

  “As shown by the lengths he went to in preparing and placing his poisoned cans,” said Masters.

  “Quite. But this precision does not lead to a higher standard of work.”

  “He became a scientist,” objected Wigglesworth.

  “True. But he did not rise in his field. He was relatively unknown and had held down only unimportant jobs.”

  “Why?” demanded Masters, who was patently greatly interested in what Cutton had to say.

  “Why? Because they become so lost in attention to detail that there is interference with the main stream of activity. I’ll explain that . . .”

  “Let me see if I understand. Am I right in thinking that they weigh the pros and cons of every situation so minutely that they become lost in a welter of detail so that they never reach the final conclusions and decisions?”

  “Right,” grinned Cutton.

  “Wait a minute,” said Wigglesworth. “Wilkin came to a decision and we know what the result was.”

  “No, no, he didn’t. He didn’t think the thing through properly otherwise he’d have known that his solution was wrong. He wanted to make Redcoke pay for prosecuting his mother. But his quarrel—hatred—was with his mother, not Redcoke. And to make Redcoke pay—for a perfectly legitimate action on their part—he decided to kill scores of innocent people. If the only way out of his dilemma was to kill, then the person he should have murdered would be his mother.”

  “Clear to me,” said Anderson.

  “Thank you. Now I’ll just add a little rider at this point. Masters will know whether this is correct, but usually the characteristics I’ve ascribed to them make obsessional neurotics rigid in outlook, stubborn in character and morose in temperament.”

  “He’s all that and more,” said Green. “Stubborn? He sat and messed his pants before he’d come clean—if you’ll pardon the paradox. And as for being morose—well, you wouldn’t describe him as being exactly as cheerful as a linty.”

  “Linty?”

  “Linnet,” said Masters.

  “I’ll get on,” said Cutton. “I think that the psychiatrist who advises prosecuting counsel will be at pains to point out that obsessions can usually—if arbitrarily—be divided into four parts. The common headings for these four areas are ideas, impulses, phobias and ruminations.

  “Ideas are thoughts and images which are often obscene or criminal in nature and constantly recur to the patient.”

  “I was wondering about that point,” said Masters. “I couldn’t decide whether Wilkin started his campaign on the spur of the moment or whether the idea had been with him for a long time—awaiting an opportunity to develop.”

  “You’re mixing two things up,” said Cutton. “The idea will have been there, in his mind, on and off, for a long time. But remember I said impulses were the second part of an obsession. Impulses are urges to act—often to act criminally—like pushing somebody under a train or to inflict pain and then to laugh at having done so. So probably, though the idea of getting back at Redcoke had been with Wilkin a long time, the method he eventually used may have been—must have been—made on impulse, because he could not possibly have known he would have had the means of contaminating tins until he literally discovered botulism by chance.”

  “Thank you. I’ve got it clear now.”

  “Good. Phobias are fears. Fears of some act which the patient knows is wrong and seeks to avoid.”

  “Explain, please,” said Anderson.

  “At its simplest, a patient may develop a phobia of knives because he has a fear that he may use one to murder somebody with. He knows it is wrong to use a knife for murderous ends, but he feels he may not be able to prevent himself doing so, so he avoids knives—won’t touch them, won’t wash them up, or any of the usual things. That’s his phobia.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Ruminations are the constant turning over of problems—problems, mark you, not ideas—in the mind. One imagines they are seeking answers to these problems and not finding them. Probably that is why Wilkin came to so disastrous a conclusion to his problem. He didn’t or couldn’t find the simple answer to the problem of his mother which was as easy as refusing to have her to live with him.

  “Anyhow, as you will guess, these symptoms are by no means clear cut. They often overtop each other and any one of them may be the most intense. Depending upon the degree of intensity, they may upset life a little or a lot. In Wilkin, they were so severe as to make ordinary life an impossible task. Unfortunately, in these particular cases, suicide is so uncommon as to be considered atypical. Which is a pity really, because otherwise this trouble may have been avoided.” He looked across at Wigglesworth. “Has that destroyed your notion that the motive was thin?”

  “If it hasn’t,” said Convamore, “I’d like to know what would.”

  Masters got to his feet, anticipating the end of the meeting. Green said to him quietly: “It was a bloody good explanation, but I liked that bit of Byron’s best—about hatred being the longest pleasure. I reckon that summed it up nicely.”

  Masters smiled his agreement.

  If you enjoyed The Longest Pleasure, please share your thoughts by leaving a review on Amazon and Goodreads.

  For more discounted reads and a free eBook when you join, sign up to our newsletter.

  And why not follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram for more great book news.