Читать книгу Ploughing Potter’s Field - Phil Lovesey - Страница 9

Three-thirty, Oakwood High Security Mental Hospital, Cambridgeshire, RECREATION SIX.

The same three players, Rattigan, Denton and myself.

I reached into my briefcase, brought out some papers, two packs of Rothmans and a micro-cassette recorder.

Then turned to Rattigan. ‘There’s one or two things I’m obliged to explain regarding your participation in the programme.’

‘Can’t wait.’ Rattigan was already unwrapping one of the blue and white boxes.

I cleared my throat, anxious to get the script right. ‘Now that you’ve officially consented to my visits, I’ll be asking you a series of questions prepared by various agencies in order to gain a greater understanding of antisocial behavioural disorders. In addition to this, I’ll also be asking some questions I’ve formulated myself in order to help with my own studies in the field of forensic psychiatry.’

‘Blah, blah, fucking blah.’

I placed the micro-cassette on the middle of the table. ‘Are you aware of what this is?’

He looked at the black plastic box for a few seconds. ‘It’s a penguin, isn’t it? A tiny penguin with a lemon up its arse, watching Pinocchio in a large block of flats in West Croydon.’

‘Each meeting will be recorded for subsequent transcription and analysis on this tape recorder.’

At which point Rattigan lit up. ‘Just shows how wrong you can be, eh?’

I switched on the machine, relief flooding over me when I realized the damn thing was working properly. Next I reached for a green sheet of A4 headed ‘Analysis of Institutionalized Offenders – History, Profiling and Sociopathic Behaviour Traits’, and began working my way through the answer boxes.

‘Name?’

‘King of Sweden.’

I put down Francis James Rattigan. ‘Age?’

He exhaled violently. ‘You’ve got my details! Go to the fucking governor’s office and sort this shit out!’

‘Age?’ I repeated, unmoved.

‘Hundred and seven.’

I put down the pen. ‘Frank.’

‘Adrian?’

‘Refusal to cooperate will be taken as reluctance to comply with the programme.’ I was surprisingly cool, amazed the corporate bullshit came so easily. I’d done what Fancy had told me to the last time, left Adrian Rawlings in Dr Allen’s office, waiting for collection.

‘F602 GPW.’

The combination seemed familiar, but I hadn’t asked him for his number yet. ‘Age?’ I repeated, keeping up the show.

‘F602 GPW.’ His eyes scanned my face intently. ‘Yours, innit? Your motor. Dark-green Vauxhall Cavalier. GB sticker on the back. Go anywhere pleasant?’

The penny dropped. I tried not to appear unnerved. ‘I don’t see that’s relevant, Frank.’

‘Bollocks, you’re crapping yourself. Can see it, can read faces, fear. Your fucking wheels. I got your wheels. How much longer before I get your phone, fat-boy? How much longer before I’m ringing your missus up while you’re hard at work in the nuthouse, eh?’

‘Age?’

He smiled, then sighed. ‘Fifty-seven. Born twenty-eighth of March, nineteen-forty.’

I filled in the form, inwardly cursing its designers. Rattigan was right, why the bloody hell wasn’t this done before the interviews took place? And how in God’s name had he got my numberplate? The pen shook slightly. I wanted answers to these ludicrous questions, but knew the cassette was recording my performance as well as his. For some reason I couldn’t bear to have Fancy listening to an actual recording of a balls-up. Stick to the script. Stick to the bloody script.

‘Offence?’

‘Whose?’

‘Yours,’ I replied, staring at the little box, awaiting his response.

‘I chopped up some tart who should’ve known better.’

‘Better?’ I’d deviated here, drifted from the protocol, suddenly anxious to press him for more about the murder of Helen Lewis.

‘What goes around, comes around, sweetie.’

‘Meaning?’

‘She deserved it. We all deserve to die. Just got to want it badly enough.’

‘So what had she done to deserve it?’

‘More a case of what she hadn’t done.’

‘Which was?’

Rattigan looked deep into my eyes, held it for at least three seconds too long. I felt dissected, invaded, just as much his study as he was mine. When he spoke, the voice was ice-cold, devoid of feeling. Yet he smiled throughout. ‘I’d tell you, but I don’t reckon you’ve got the balls for it.’

‘Try me.’

‘Fighting talk. Like that. Always loved a tear-up. Bit of a pro in my own way.’ He paused, squinting slightly, as if the act of conversation was suddenly a leaden effort. ‘Know what I learnt from geezers who talked tough?’

I supplied the obvious answer. ‘They weren’t really all that tough inside?’

Another squint as he struggled to impart whatever ran through his ruined mind. ‘I’m mad, right? One of them psycho-whatnots. Done all the fucking tests a million times. Take more drugs in a day than the Rolling fucking Stones in a month. But that’s only ’cause I can see through people, like they’re fucking transparent or something. Just like I’m looking at you now. Trying to get all chummy with me. Talking like mates. I don’t have to tell you fuck-all if I don’t want to.’

‘So let’s just stick to the questions on the form, then, eh?’

But he wasn’t through. ‘Know why I hate wankers like you?’

‘I feel sure you’re about to tell me.’

He feigned a slow handclap. ‘You’re unnatural. Fucking freak. Should be dead.’

I struggled to grasp the concept.

He enlightened me. ‘Only the strong survive, fat-boy. Little gits like you have to lock people like me up, ’cause you can’t handle us. But you’re all fascinated. You poke us about, prod us, ask us shit – always trying to “understand”. And you ain’t never going to find any answers. We’re always going to be out there. Taking what we want. Doing what we want. That’s what we’re here for. To pass on our genes, or whatever. Fuck ourselves a stronger human race. Science is dead. Drugs won’t hold us for ever.’

I wrenched myself from his sneering gaze, turning to Denton, who sat bored by the wall. He’d heard it all before, a thousand times, maybe.

I let a few seconds’ silence pass. ‘Is that what you were trying to do to Helen Lewis, Frank? Build a stronger human race? Trying to have sex with her?’

He laughed. ‘Tinpot theory. Ain’t you done no fucking homework? Last thing on earth I wanted to do was fuck the bitch.’

‘Yet you stripped her, tortured her?’

‘Which turns you on, right? ’Cause that’s the only connection your fat little filthy mind can make, isn’t it? Just ’cause she was naked, I had sex with her, right? But that’s your interpretation, you sick piece of shit.’

‘So tell me yours.’

‘Fuck off.’

Deadlock. There was little to do but recommence the preset questions. ‘Ward?’

And in an instant the demeanour changed. His tone calmed, and we talked like old friends. I didn’t know which face frightened me more, the angry Beast, or the good-buddy Frank. ‘You see, Adrian,’ he grinned and winked at me. A shiver coursed down my spine. ‘Reckon they’re taking the piss out of both of us. We already know all these answers.’

I found myself apologetic, unravelling in my naivety. Why in God’s name wasn’t Denton being more assertive, shutting Rattigan up, making him toe the line? ‘Dr Allen and the team prepare your questions,’ I said. ‘I’m just the poor fool designated to ask them. I don’t even see them until I arrive. That’s how it works.’

‘You’re crap at this.’ A two-beat pause. ‘Aren’t you?’

‘I’m …’ I shot what must have been an obvious look of desperation at Denton.

‘I find it insulting,’ Rattigan added threateningly.

‘I’m sorry about that …’

‘It’s making me feel demeaned, like some fucking performing seal. And I don’t like feeling demeaned, Adrian. I really don’t. It just pisses me off, and I do things.’

Suddenly, here it was – a break, a slip, a crack of a chance. I was on it in an instant. ‘Like what, Frank?’

He smiled, and I hesitantly returned it, knowing he was drawing me in, but somehow powerless to resist. ‘Like with the lady, fat-boy. Now we’re getting somewhere, aren’t we? Your turn.’

‘So you felt demeaned … when you …?’

‘Oh, I felt lots of stuff.’ His fat head nodded slowly. ‘Pretty as a picture, she was. Pretty as a fucking picture.’

My throat was bone-dry as I struggled to control the delivery of my next question. ‘That demeaned you? Her beauty?’

A slight twitch above his left eyebrow. ‘What are you implying?’

‘That perhaps you felt threatened by it in some way?’

‘That I’m ugly?’ He sounded ugly, too. Instantly loud and dense. His eyes narrowed to pig-slits, and his bottom jaw gaped ludicrously.

‘I’m not saying anything, I’m …’

He turned to Denton, standing and pocketing the cigarettes. ‘Take me back to the unit. I don’t have to take this shit from an arsehole like him.’

Denton stood, quickly moving between Rattigan and myself. ‘Calm down.’

‘Will I bollocks! This cunt’s a wind-up artist!’

Somehow, through my fear came another feeling – stronger, more urgent. Anger. I’d been bloody set up, I was certain of it. I sat seething, staring at the floor and shaking my head. It simply wasn’t my fault, none of it was. The whole session had got off to a terrible start with the set questions. But I didn’t decide those, Allen and his unseen cronies did. Yet I was the poor mug asking them, getting sworn at and intimidated into the bargain.

I felt Rattigan move past me. ‘I’m not a cunt, Frank,’ I said quietly.

But he simply left the room, Denton half a pace behind, leaving me with a well of hatred I hadn’t felt in years, and a conscience struggling to pull myself from his hostility.

But I also knew full well his anger was born from my delving. Questions I’d asked had rattled the ice-cool facade. His response, his anger at me, was explainable, understandable, logical, rational. Sane, almost. He didn’t want me poking, prying. Tough – I was going to upset him a lot more in future.

He felt he’d won – round one to Rattigan. Maybe, but it was going to be a long fight. I’d already beaten the bottle. There was no way Rattigan could be a worse opponent than alcohol.

Could he?