“Because of the theory that the killer either blackmailed or threatened the victims to commit those out-of-character acts. Maybe said he’d kill the victim’s family.”
“Exactly.”
“But he would have had to know about the murder weapons.”
“So he found out. We can’t keep everything out of the public domain. Loose talk at the Yard got out, spread elsewhere. He could even have picked the info up in a pub. Guinane’s a writer, who’s to say he doesn’t mix with journos? You know how they gab after a couple of drinks.”
Simmons shook his head doubtfully. “I dunno, Dan. You’re stretching it a bit. Anyway if he knew about the weapons, why wasn’t he aware of which one was used first?”
“Trust me on this,” Coates said, grinning at his colleague. “Even reporters have a conscience. Maybe they don’t want it to get out. At least not yet. They’re obeying our rules on that.”
“We’ve still got no strong evidence against Guinane. Come on, it’s bloody cold out here. Let’s get in the car and on the way back you can tell me more about your source.”
Coates chuckled as he opened the car door and ducked inside. “You’ll believe me when I do,” I heard him say.
They were both slamming doors shut before anything else was said. They drove off leaving me standing by the kerbside, with nothing to do but stare after them and wonder.
24
Then, for me, there came a time of wandering. I was depressed, confused, afraid—and I felt completely helpless. The police suspected Oliver of my murder, the plan for it to appear as the work of a mad serial killer apparently not wholly successful. I had thought he was my friend, now I knew he had betrayed me. Betrayed me with my wife. How bad could it get? (Funny how often, when you ask yourself that question, things invariably manage to get worse; this was no exception.) I was totally alone, seemingly abandoned by God himself. My body was dead, yet I didn’t seem to be. No, I didn’t even think I was a ghost, because aren’t ghosts supposed to see other ghosts? I’d caught weird and fleeting glimpses of things that might once have been living beings (I remembered the almost limpid but familiar face that had lingered at a distance twice now, once when I was in my teens, and then at my funeral) but all were non-communicative and only temporary. So what was my destiny? To walk the earth for all eternity, a kind of spirit nomad that had no purpose? Maybe this was Hell.
I didn’t return to the house that afternoon. I didn’t want to look at Andrea. I just couldn’t. As much as I hungered to be with Prim, I wanted to be as far away from my unfaithful wife as possible. Love should be an honest thing, but how often is it? I wanted to scream with rage, howl in despair, but what would be the point? No one would hear, no one would care.
I drifted away from my home.
Ask yourself how you’d feel if you became invisible. What fun, right? The places you could go, the people you could spy on. And imagine you weren’t even solid anymore, that nothing could touch or harm you. A lot more fun, yeah?
Well, you’d be wrong. Doesn’t work that way, you see. At least, not if you’re traumatized like I was. In my own view, I was the walking dead on a journey of discovery and disillusionment, the main discoveries so far being that in my lifetime I’d been betrayed by my mother (How could she have hidden my father’s letters from me? How could she rip up the photograph of her only son with such loathing in her eyes, just because I’d had the audacity to die on her and, to make it worse, in the most public of ways?); by my own father who, despite those unread letters, had run out on me when I was only a child; betrayed by my best friend and business partner, and by the woman I’d loved all these years and who had borne my daughter. People I’d loved and respected during my time on earth (except for my father, for whom I had no feelings whatsoever) had deceived me.
With that heavy load dragging on me, I made my lonely way back to the city.
I visited places: the cinema, theatre, bars and hotels, family homes, the zoo (where tigers growled as I went by and monkeys yattered; most animals ignored me as I passed their cages and pens, only a few showing an awareness of me, watching suspiciously as though my presence disturbed them). I became an observer of life, of people, singling out particular individuals who looked interesting, sharing their day or night’s routine with them.
I sat at the side of theatre stages and watched great actors perform, even stood among the back chorus line of one musical production and sang along with them; I strolled through parks and took bus rides; I watched children in playgrounds and classrooms, and thought of Primrose, yearning for her, desperately wanting to see her again, to hold her, kiss her chubby little cheek, to whisper how much I loved and missed her… But I resisted the urge to return home, still consumed with anger and dismay because of Andrea’s adultery and Oliver’s treachery, telling myself that going back would only worsen my pain. For the best part of one day I travelled on the underground’s continuous Circle Line, studying the commuters, listening to their conversations, envying them their physicality, their humanness. Occasionally, I’d meld into one or other unsuspecting passenger, just to get a feel of life again, glimpsing his or her thoughts, sensing their emotions. And it was all rather uncomfortable and dull, through no fault of theirs though; the dullness, the disinterest, came from within myself. Even one young guy’s lurid reverie of the sexual activity he and his girlfriend had enjoyed the previous night and his daydream of its continuance this coming evening failed to spark anything in me. It was like watching a blue movie with better production values, yet I felt neither desire, nor envy—the images didn’t even cause me an erection (although it seemed to work for him okay, but I wasn’t part of that). Perhaps if I’d possessed pigment the embarrassment might have coloured me red, but as it was, I merely slipped out of him, bored with his private imagining. My guess is that when you no longer have the power to procreate physically, then your psyche dismisses the arousal instinct, renders such urges redundant. Certain paraplegics might dispute the point, but then they’re still flesh and blood; when you are nothing, you become detached—literally; you don’t lose emotions such as love and hatred (witness my resentment), and you certainly can yearn, but sex isn’t in the game anymore. Believe me, I’ve tested myself (you don’t forget the memory of desire).
You may wonder if any individual I invaded felt my presence and I’d have to answer no, not really, save for a slight shiver each one gave. The merest frisson of interrupted energy, the slightest tautness of neck muscles. I had no control over these people, you understand, I wasn’t a bodysnatcher, I couldn’t make them obey my will in any sense; nor did they pick up on my thoughts and emotions—it was strictly a oneway street.
Now comes the part that I’m truly embarrassed over and it’s about the self-testing I mentioned a moment ago; but, if this is to be an honest account, it has to be told. You see, after the Circle Line disappointment, I was keen to discover the limits my condition had imposed on me. I mean what would any red-blooded male do if he suddenly had the power of invisibility? I still had the memory of desire, I still appreciated beauty, especially when it was to do with the female form, and I still had low inclinations—or I suppose you might be kind and call them human failings.
I followed a beautiful young blonde girl home. And I watched her undress, then take a bath. She was not a natural blonde, I discovered, but even without make-up and stylish clothes, she was gorgeous. I appreciated her great looks well enough, but I was not aroused: it was only the admiration of a dispassionate observer. I suppose I viewed her in the way an octogenarian gentleman might: evaluation without lust. It was how I learned another aspect of my condition, which is why, shaming though the voyeurism was, it had to be mentioned here. A less disheartening example is that although the sight of good food remained pleasant to me, it no longer whetted my appetite, because I didn’t feel hungry anymore. And while I trudged the streets and parks, gliding when I wanted to, taking long hops when it pleased me, I suffered no aches or pains or tiredness; rather, my soul became weary and I soon came to understand that this was because of the mental anguish with which I’d been burdened and not the miles I’d travelled. So although I took pleasure from the blonde’s nakedness, I was not exhilarated by it, was not turned on in the least. The curves and dips of her flesh were delightful, the sheer graceful length of her thighs delectable, yet in me it led to nothing more than appreciation. So it seems the Pope may have been right when he pronounced several years ago that there is no sex in Heaven.