The Glister Part 1

The glister : a novel.

by John Burnside.

Hist, then. How dost thou know that some entire, living, thinking thing may not be invisibly and uninterpenetratingly standing precisely where thou now standest; aye, and standing there in thy spite? In thy most solitary hours, then, dost thou not fear eavesdroppers?HERMAN MELVILLE Moby-d.i.c.k, or, The Whale Moby-d.i.c.k, or, The WhaleBuoyed up by that coffin, for almost one whole day and night, I floated on a soft and dirge-like main. The unharming sharks, they glided by as if with padlocks on their mouths; the savage sea-hawks sailed with sheathed beaks. On the second day, a sail drew near, nearer, and picked me up at last. It was the devious-cruising Rachel, Rachel, that in her retracing search after her missing children, only found another orphan. that in her retracing search after her missing children, only found another orphan.HERMAN MELVILLE Moby-d.i.c.k, or, The Whale Moby-d.i.c.k, or, The Whale

Part 1 - The Book of Job

HOMELAND.

IN THE BEGINNING, JOHN MORRISON IS WORKING IN HIS GARDEN. NOT the garden at the police house, which he has long neglected, and not the allotment he rented when he was first married, but the real garden, the only the garden at the police house, which he has long neglected, and not the allotment he rented when he was first married, but the real garden, the only garden, garden, the one he likes to think of as a shrine. A sacred place, like the garden in a medieval Resurrection. To anyone else, it would look like nothing more than a patch of flowers and baubles, set out in a clearing amid the poison wood, just above the old freight line; but then n.o.body else could ever see its significance. Morrison created this garden himself and he has maintained it for seven years: a neat square of poppies and carnations, dotted here and there with the knuckles of polished gla.s.s and stone that he collects on his long walks around the Innertown and the wasteland beyond, filling the pockets of his police uniform with worthless treasure as he pretends to go about his duties. Of course, these days, he the one he likes to think of as a shrine. A sacred place, like the garden in a medieval Resurrection. To anyone else, it would look like nothing more than a patch of flowers and baubles, set out in a clearing amid the poison wood, just above the old freight line; but then n.o.body else could ever see its significance. Morrison created this garden himself and he has maintained it for seven years: a neat square of poppies and carnations, dotted here and there with the knuckles of polished gla.s.s and stone that he collects on his long walks around the Innertown and the wasteland beyond, filling the pockets of his police uniform with worthless treasure as he pretends to go about his duties. Of course, these days, he has has no real duties, or none he could ever believe in. Brian Smith saw to that, years ago, when Morrison made the one big mistake of his career-the one big mistake of his no real duties, or none he could ever believe in. Brian Smith saw to that, years ago, when Morrison made the one big mistake of his career-the one big mistake of his life, life, other than marriage. other than marriage.

That was the day when Smith talked him into concealing the first of the Innertown disappearances. Now, with five boys missing, Morrison is almost ashamed to show his face on the street. Not that anybody knows about the lie, the confidence trick, that he has perpetrated upon them all. People want to know where the Innertown children have gone, but aside from the families of the missing boys, n.o.body expects anything much from him. him. They know he doesn't have the training or the resources to track the boys down, and they also know that n.o.body beyond their poisoned tract of industrial ruin and coastal scrub cares a whit about what happens to the Innertown's children. Even the families give up after a while, sinking into mute bewilderment, or some sad regime of apathy and British sherry. After more than a decade of dwindling hopes for their town and for their children, people have become fatalistic, trying to find, in indifference, the refuge they once sought in the modest and mostly rather vague expectation of ordinary happiness that they were brought up to expect. Some choose to believe, or to say they believe, the official line-the line Morrison himself puts out, with more than a little help from Brian Smith. In this version of events, a story full of convenient and improbable coincidences, each of the boys left the Innertown of his own accord, independently and without speaking a word to anyone, to try his luck in the big wide world. Some say this story is credible, boys being boys. Others say it is far-fetched, that it seems most unlikely that all five of these bright children, boys in their mid-teens with families and friends, would wander off suddenly, and without warning. Among this group, there are those who say that the boys have, in fact, been murdered, and that they are probably buried somewhere in the ruins of the old chemical plant between the Innertown and the sea, where their mutilated bodies will decay quickly, leaving no trace that could be distinguished from the dead animals and anonymous offal that people find out there all the time. This latter group gets restless on occasion, usually just after a new disappearance. They demand a full investigation, they want independent outsiders to come in and conduct an official inquiry. They write letters; they make phone calls. Nothing happens. They know he doesn't have the training or the resources to track the boys down, and they also know that n.o.body beyond their poisoned tract of industrial ruin and coastal scrub cares a whit about what happens to the Innertown's children. Even the families give up after a while, sinking into mute bewilderment, or some sad regime of apathy and British sherry. After more than a decade of dwindling hopes for their town and for their children, people have become fatalistic, trying to find, in indifference, the refuge they once sought in the modest and mostly rather vague expectation of ordinary happiness that they were brought up to expect. Some choose to believe, or to say they believe, the official line-the line Morrison himself puts out, with more than a little help from Brian Smith. In this version of events, a story full of convenient and improbable coincidences, each of the boys left the Innertown of his own accord, independently and without speaking a word to anyone, to try his luck in the big wide world. Some say this story is credible, boys being boys. Others say it is far-fetched, that it seems most unlikely that all five of these bright children, boys in their mid-teens with families and friends, would wander off suddenly, and without warning. Among this group, there are those who say that the boys have, in fact, been murdered, and that they are probably buried somewhere in the ruins of the old chemical plant between the Innertown and the sea, where their mutilated bodies will decay quickly, leaving no trace that could be distinguished from the dead animals and anonymous offal that people find out there all the time. This latter group gets restless on occasion, usually just after a new disappearance. They demand a full investigation, they want independent outsiders to come in and conduct an official inquiry. They write letters; they make phone calls. Nothing happens.

Mostly, however, the town goes about its business; though, these days, it would seem that its sole business is slow decay. Of course, Morrison's business is to walk his beat, make himself visible, try to suggest that law and order means something in the Innertown. This is his function, to be seen to be seen-but Morrison hates to be seen, he wants to be invisible, he wants, more than anything, to disappear, and on this warm Sat.u.r.day afternoon in late July, he is out at his secret garden, weeding and clearing so the few flowers he planted in the spring might not be smothered by gra.s.s and nettles. To begin with, this makes.h.i.+ft shrine had been dedicated to Mark Wilkinson, the first boy to disappear-the one that Morrison had, in fact, found. Later, though, it became more generic, a memorial to all the lost boys, wherever they might be. n.o.body else knows about this garden, and Morrison always feels nervous coming out here, afraid of being caught out, afraid someone will guess what all this means. The shrine is fairly well concealed, because the event it commemorates happened, as such things must, in this hidden place, or somewhere nearby at least. Once, he found the little garden kicked apart and trampled, the flowers uprooted, the gla.s.s and stones scattered far and wide, but he guessed right away that this was nothing more than the usual vandalism. Some kids from the Innertown had come across his handiwork and smashed it without even thinking, in the routine way that kids from the Innertown have in everything they do, but Morrison is fairly sure that they hadn't realized what the shrine meant, and he simply built it up again, plant by plant, pebble by pebble, till it was, if anything, better than before. Whenever he can, he comes out here to maintain it. When yet another boy vanishes into the night, he extends it a little, adding new plants, new heaps of sand-polished gla.s.s and stone.

He finds the best stones on Stargell's Point, his favorite place nowadays, because n.o.body else ever goes there. Even the kids avoid it. Everybody understands, by now, that the entire land under their feet is irredeemably soured, poisoned by years of runoff and soakaway from the plant, but in most areas n.o.body quite knows the extent of that souring-whereas Stargell's Point was always recognized as a black spot, even back in the good old days, when the people believed, through sheer force of will, that the chemical plant was essentially safe. They believed, of course, because they had had to believe: the Innertown's economy depended almost entirely upon the chemical industry. More to the point, there were people in the Outertown, up in the big houses, who had an interest in ensuring that things ticked over without too much fuss. The Innertown folk, the ones who actually worked at the plant, had from the outset been made aware of the appropriate precautions to be taken while going about their duties, but they had always been told-by the Consortium, by the safety people, by all the powers that be-that the danger was minimal. They had wanted to believe they were safe because there was nowhere else for them to go, and they had wanted to trust the managers and politicians because there was n.o.body else for them to trust. Naturally, they worked hard on being convinced. In the early days, some of them even smuggled home bags of the stuff they were making out at the plant so they could spread it on their gardens. It was an act of faith, utterly perverse and so, they hoped, all the more powerful. to believe: the Innertown's economy depended almost entirely upon the chemical industry. More to the point, there were people in the Outertown, up in the big houses, who had an interest in ensuring that things ticked over without too much fuss. The Innertown folk, the ones who actually worked at the plant, had from the outset been made aware of the appropriate precautions to be taken while going about their duties, but they had always been told-by the Consortium, by the safety people, by all the powers that be-that the danger was minimal. They had wanted to believe they were safe because there was nowhere else for them to go, and they had wanted to trust the managers and politicians because there was n.o.body else for them to trust. Naturally, they worked hard on being convinced. In the early days, some of them even smuggled home bags of the stuff they were making out at the plant so they could spread it on their gardens. It was an act of faith, utterly perverse and so, they hoped, all the more powerful.

Later, when it was too late, they began to see what was really going on. They heard the rumors about bribery in high places and anonymous death threats against potential whistle-blowers, they heard how the Consortium had influential contacts within the supposedly independent firms charged with the care and safety of the plant's workforce, but they hadn't known what to do about it. A few years after Morrison left school, the plant had finally been shut down, but its ruins were still standing out on the headland, all around the east side of the Innertown, acres and acres of dead real estate, running from the gutted administration buildings at the junction of East Road and Charity Street, through a series of vast, echoey kilns, warehouses, waste-processing units, and derelict production blocks, all the way to the loading docks on the sh.o.r.e, where great tankers rusted beside the slick, greasy waters of the firth. You could see evidence wherever you looked of the plant's effects on the land: avenues of dead trees, black and skeletal along the old rail tracks and access roads; great piles of sulfurous rocks where pools of effluent had been left to evaporate in the sun. A few keen fishermen found mutant sea creatures washed up on the sh.o.r.e, where those great boats had once been loaded with thousands and thousands of drums of who knew what, and some people claimed that they had seen bizarre animals out in the remaining tracts of woodland, not sick, or dying, but not right either, with their enlarged faces and swollen, twisted bodies.

The most convincing evidence that some evil was being perpetrated on the headland, however, was the fact that, for as long as the plant had existed, the people themselves had not been right. Suddenly, there were unexplained cl.u.s.ters of rare cancers. Children contracted terrible diseases, or they developed mysterious behavioral problems. There was more than the usual share of exotic or untreatable illnesses, a sudden and huge increase in depression, a blossoming of what, in the old days, would have been called madness. Morrison's own wife had got sick in the head and, even now, n.o.body was able to say what was wrong with her. She drank, was the cruelest explanation, but she had been a drinker in her younger days and she had been fit as a fiddle back then.

Now, everybody blames these problems on the plant, but they don't have the energy to do anything about it. The plant had been their livelihood; it had been their best hope. Everyone knew its history, in the official version at least. People could tell you how, thirty years ago, a consortium- it had a fancy name, but it was always referred to, simply, as the Consortium-a local and international consortium of agricultural and other companies, started making various products there, but n.o.body remembers, now, and it seems that n.o.body really knew back then exactly what chemicals were manufactured, or what they were used for. Morrison's father, James, had worked at the plant, and he would insist that it was all harmless agricultural material: fertilizers and pesticides, fungicides, growth accelerants or growth r.e.t.a.r.dants, complicated chains of molecules that got into the root or the stem of a plant and changed how it grew, or when it flowered, or whether it set seed. Other people said it was more sinister than that: maybe the bulk of what they processed out on the headland was innocent enough, but there were special facilities, hidden deep inside the plant, where they made, or stored, chemical weapons. After all, they would argue, it doesn't take much to change one substance into another; break a chain of molecules here, add an extra chain there, and what had been a mildly dangerous herbicide became a weapon of war; alter the temperature, or the structure, or the pressure, and stuff that you had once bought over the counter in the local hardware shop was transformed into a battlefield poison. To this day, they would claim, there are sealed buildings that n.o.body, not even the safety inspectors, was ever allowed to enter.

After a while, when the children started to vanish, new theories were put forward. The boys had stumbled into one of those secret facilities and been consumed by a cloud of lethal gas; or they had been taken away for tests, either by top-secret government scientists, or by aliens, who had been observing the plant for decades. Morrison has always known that this is all pointless speculation, of course, because he knows the truth about the disappearances. Or rather, he knows the truth in one one case because, on a cold autumn night seven years ago, it was his bad luck to find Mark Wilkinson suspended from a tree, a few yards from the spot where he now stands. A few yards, no more, from this raggedy patch of garden flowers and colored gla.s.s where he lingers beside a phantom grave, trying to think of something to say. It isn't prayer he intends, on these visits, so much as some form of communion: he wants, not to send Mark's soul into some happy otherness, but to hold it back long enough for the boy to understand and, so, forgive. case because, on a cold autumn night seven years ago, it was his bad luck to find Mark Wilkinson suspended from a tree, a few yards from the spot where he now stands. A few yards, no more, from this raggedy patch of garden flowers and colored gla.s.s where he lingers beside a phantom grave, trying to think of something to say. It isn't prayer he intends, on these visits, so much as some form of communion: he wants, not to send Mark's soul into some happy otherness, but to hold it back long enough for the boy to understand and, so, forgive.

Morrison was never very much convinced by the idea, taught to him in Sunday school, that forgiveness comes from G.o.d; he could never see why G.o.d needed to forgive us our trespa.s.ses, when He was the one who made us how we are. Even as a boy, however, he had believed in the forgiveness of the dead. When he was little, his mother would take him on Sunday walks to the cemetery on the West Side of the Innertown, not far from where the better-off people lived. James Morrison wouldn't come, he'd always be too busy, but his wife would lead young John and his little sister out to the Innertown cemetery, and all three would sit down on one of the benches dressed in their Sunday best to enjoy a picnic lunch by their grandmother's headstone. It would be a quiet meal, solemn, though not at all morbid. Afterward, out of respect for the dead, Morrison would pick up every spilled eggsh.e.l.l, every curl of orange peel. The dead fascinated him by the way they lived on, alone in their names, each one separate from the others, and he wanted to erase any trace that he, or his family, might leave in their solitary domain. Once, when he was fifteen, he had gone for a walk in the cemetery with his first girlfriend, a slightly plain but funny, generous-hearted girl called Gwen. He'd intended it to be nothing more than a walk, but almost as soon as they pa.s.sed through the cemetery gates she had grabbed hold of his arm and kissed him, right there, among the gravestones and the rhododendrons. That kiss hadn't quite worked because they hadn't tried this before, both of them shy and Morrison not sure if he liked Gwen as much for her looks as he did for her personality. That was why he had hesitated, probably; but the truth was that, at first, he hadn't wanted to go on, with the dead all around him, watching from their separate resting places across the cemetery. He'd tried again, though, for the girl's sake, and this time they did it right, Gwen tilting her head like they did in the movies, so their noses didn't get in the way. After that, they kissed for a long time, maybe a minute, not quite knowing how to stop once they had got started.

As soon as he and Gwen parted, however, that kiss began to worry him. He didn't want to upset or insult the dead, because they were alone in some silent otherness-and that, he had realized, was why they could forgive us. He'd never had any doubt that the dead were better for being dead: they were beyond all the petty concerns and trivial disputes and anxieties that trouble the living. They breathed with G.o.d. That was how Morrison had imagined them as a child: breathing G.o.d's air, but never seeing Him, always alone. It was up to them to watch us, dispa.s.sionately, from a distance, and they forgave us the more easily for that. It wasn't G.o.d's job to forgive, it was theirs. They saw, and they understood, but G.o.d couldn't understand because G.o.d's standards were so high, and because He always got so b.l.o.o.d.y wrathful, smiting and striking down here, there, and everywhere. So, being perfect, He gave the job of forgiveness to the dead. It was logical, when you thought about it. Morrison liked to think of it as a form of delegation.

[image]

He'd found the Wilkinson boy by accident, at the end of a chain of ordinary incidents and events that, in themselves, should have added up to nothing. It was Halloween, around ten in the evening; Morrison had been at the old vicarage, dealing with a minor vandalism incident, going out on foot because he felt he needed a stretch, and because, at that time, he thought people found it rea.s.suring to see a policeman on the beat. The weather had been pretty harsh, clear but bitterly cold for the time of year, and Morrison had been on his way back to the police house to brew up some tea when he came upon a man and two boys at the near end of the West Side Road, which led out to the old rail yards and the little wood that everybody in the Innertown called the poison wood, because the trees, though still alive, were strangely black, a black that didn't look like charring or the result of drought, but rather suggested that the trees were veined with a dark, poisoned sap, black, but with a trace of livid green in the essence of it, a green that was bitter and primordial, like wormwood, or gall. The boys looked scared and unhappy, but they also had an embarra.s.sed air, and Morrison had been suspicious to begin with. He thought something had happened to frighten them, but he wondered if they were as innocent as they wanted to appear. He hadn't been in the job long, and his first line of defense in most situations was skepticism. That was what he thought being a local policeman was all about in the end, a contagious sense of calm and a readiness to take things with a pinch of salt. Still, these boys had been scared, no doubt about that; though, to begin with, he couldn't make much sense of their story, other than that it had to do with a boy called Mark, some old den out by the poison wood, and a spool of cotton thread.

Meanwhile, the man with them, a middle-aged widower called Tom Brook, whom Morrison knew somewhat through family connections, wasn't helping matters any. In a gray cardigan and blue corduroy trousers, though without a coat in spite of the cold, Brook had the look of someone who has just left his cozy living room, pulled on a pair of boots, and gone out into the night without thinking. It was a look Morrison had come to know well, the look of someone singled out, in the middle of ordinary matters, by chance, or perhaps by fate. Trouble was, Brook had got one garbled version of the story already, and he kept asking questions that, for Morrison, had no context and so only confused matters.

"All right," Morrison said, finally. "Let's start this again, at the beginning." He spoke slowly, quietly, as he had trained himself to do, to inspire calm in others. He had practiced his calm look in the mirror, as he ran through lines in his head that he thought would be rea.s.suring. He wished he looked older. Or not so much older as more experienced. People knew it wasn't that long since he'd worked as a lowly security guard-a night watchman, in effect-at one of Brian Smith's properties in the Innertown. To date, he'd not learned much in the job, but he had had learned one thing, which was that people didn't quite trust young policemen. "Who, exactly, went where and how long ago?" As soon as he finished speaking, he was annoyed with himself. He'd just broken one of his princ.i.p.al rules. One question at a time. Take it slowly. Keep everybody calm, get one person to talk. learned one thing, which was that people didn't quite trust young policemen. "Who, exactly, went where and how long ago?" As soon as he finished speaking, he was annoyed with himself. He'd just broken one of his princ.i.p.al rules. One question at a time. Take it slowly. Keep everybody calm, get one person to talk.

Tom Brook looked at the boys, then shook his head. "Well," he said, "I know it sounds odd. He's only been out there a short while, really." He turned to one of the boys, who had started to cry openly now. "It's all right, Kieran," he said. "The policeman's here. We'll find him-"

"Find who, Tom?" Morrison's mind was already drifting back to tea and digestives at the police house. Maybe to sit awhile with Alice, quietly together at the kitchen table, in those days before sitting with Alice had not been a ch.o.r.e. This was going to be nothing, he could feel it. Maybe he was new to the job, but he had an instinct for police work. This would be nothing more than a silly prank, or some misunderstanding. He didn't want to spend the rest of the night wandering around the poison wood, looking for some runaway who'd only been gone for an hour and a half.

"It's Mark Wilkinson," Tom Brook said. He already seemed less sure of what had transpired. Morrison's native skepticism was obviously catching. "They say he went into the woods and he hasn't come back."

Morrison looked at the boys. It was odd: they really had got a scare, that was obvious, but the taller lad seemed as much embarra.s.sed as frightened. The boy Brook had addressed as Kieran was smaller, a little stocky, but with a sweet, almost girlish face; he was close to desperate, a step away from hysterical even, looking from Morrison to Tom Brook as if he suspected that they were the ones who had made his friend vanish into thin air. "So," Morrison said, "tell us exactly what happened. From the beginning."

In spite of their different emotional states, the boys were utterly consistent. It seemed they had been playing a game out in the woods, and because the game was an old Halloween ritual, probably dating to pagan times, Morrison quickly returned to his suspicion that this was all a storm in a teacup, that the disappearance was some kind of schoolboy's hoax, a piece of silly theater that had simply gone too far. Possibly the taller boy, whose name was William, had been party to the hoax all along, but then something had happened that wasn't in the script, which left him torn between worry and skepticism-and also embarra.s.sed, because the game they had been playing was a girl's game, one that Morrison only knew about from one of those "Did You Know" type articles he'd seen in the paper the previous week. Maybe Mark, or one of the others, had read the same article about how, once upon a time, a girl would take a bobbin and tie it to one end of a length of cotton thread. She would go out into the woods and, after repeating the necessary spell, she would toss the bobbin out into the dark as far as it would go, keeping a tight grip on the other end of the line. The bobbin would fly out into the darkness and land some distance away, hopefully still attached to the line, while the girl stood waiting for some sign-a movement, a tremor, something tugging urgently, or gently, at the line, calling her out into the dark. The article had said that, when they followed the line out to where the bobbin had landed, those pagan girls believed they would meet their future lovers in spirit form, and so perhaps learn who it was they were to marry when the appointed time came. Mark had suggested to the others that they should play this game out in the poison wood, to make it more real; he had even seemed to think the trick would produce some result, that there really would be someone waiting in the dark at the end of the line.

"So what did you think you would find?" Morrison asked William. "You're a bit young to be thinking about a wife."

William looked even more embarra.s.sed than before. "We weren't looking for wives," wives," he said, with obvious distaste. he said, with obvious distaste.

Morrison gave him an encouraging smile. "So what were you looking for?" he asked. William stared at his feet then, not wanting to look any more foolish than he already felt. Morrison turned to Kieran, who had begun to calm down. "How about you?" he said. "What were you looking for out there in the woods, son?"

Kieran shot a glance at William, who shook his head but kept his eyes fixed on the ground. "We were looking for the Devil," he said, after a moment. "It was Mark's idea. He said this thing about girls and husbands and stuff was all rubbish, it was really a trick to find the Devil." Now that he had stopped crying, he seemed angry. Or indignant, rather-and Morrison sensed that Kieran was one of those boys who would grow up angry at the world for occasionally including him him in its problems. in its problems.

"The Devil?" he said, in his best skeptical-policeman's voice.

Kieran stared at him. "Yeah," he said angrily.

Morrison turned to Tom Brook. He wanted to say something rea.s.suring, to tell them all that this was either a hoax gone wrong, or one of those minor mysteries that everybody laughs about afterward, but Brook spoke before he could say anything. The man looked both sad and relieved.

"You don't go looking for the Devil, son," he said. Both boys looked up at him then. He was the older man, so he had their attention. "Didn't anybody ever tell you that?" he said. He turned to Morrison and gave a sad, but conniving smile. "You don't need to go out to the woods searching for the Devil," he said again. "The Devil finds you, you, doesn't he, Constable?" doesn't he, Constable?"

That had been the story. Daring himself to look the Devil in the eye, Mark Wilkinson had thrown his bobbin into the dark reaches of the poison wood and, when nothing happened, he had walked out alone, tracing the line to where it had fallen. The last thing he'd said to the others before he vanished into the shadows was that, if he didn't come back right away, they shouldn't wait for him. Then, with a laugh, he had walked out of the ring of flashlight and vanished among the trees. William and Kieran had waited a long time for him to come back, but they were too scared to go out into the Devil's night to look for him. Instead they had panicked and run, leaving their one flashlight behind. Morrison heard their story patiently and decided that the best thing-the only thing-to do was to pack these boys off to their beds, and go out into the poison wood to investigate. First, though, he would go by the Wilkinson house, to see if young Mark was tucked up in bed, laughing at the trick he had played on his friends, while congratulating himself on his lucky escape from the Devil. It was nothing, this story, just a kids' game, and Morrison was surprised the boys had got into such a state about it. Still, the poison wood was a pretty scary place at night, even with company and a flashlight. "All right. Here's what we'll do," he said, "I'll go out there and take a look. If nothing else, then maybe I'll find your torch, at least. Mark is probably back at his house now, watching TV. You boys get off home, too. There's nothing to worry about." He turned to Tom. "Maybe Mr. Brook could see you back?"

Brook nodded. "It's not far," he said. "I've got nothing better to do," he added.

That was when Morrison remembered what a very special anniversary for Tom Brook this night was. It was a story everybody knew, a story Tom would trail silently around with him for the rest of his days, defined by this one event, this one painful fact. For it had been around this time last Halloween that Tom's wife, Anna, had died from a huge, inexplicable growth in her brain that had eventually driven her insane. She had been reduced, at the end, to an abject, desperate creature who, lying in her own bed, believed she had been buried alive. For several days before she finally gave up the ghost, she'd clawed desperately at the imaginary box in which she thought herself enclosed; when he had gone round to the house briefly to see if he could do anything to help, Morrison had been reminded of the story of Thomas a Kempis, the saint who really had had been buried alive, a fate that was only discovered years later, when Thomas was disinterred for a more distinguished burial site after his canonization. Contemporary descriptions said that the body was wizened and twisted, the arms curled up under the coffin lid as if the author of the been buried alive, a fate that was only discovered years later, when Thomas was disinterred for a more distinguished burial site after his canonization. Contemporary descriptions said that the body was wizened and twisted, the arms curled up under the coffin lid as if the author of the Imitatio Christi Imitatio Christi had died while trying to push his way out, the fingertips a robin's pincus.h.i.+on of splinters and dried blood, where he had scratched and clawed at the wood in his desperation to be free. Morrison had heard that story in school, while his mother was on her sickbed; after she died, he would go to the churchyard and lie on the grave with his ear pressed to the ground, listening. He had been terrified that his mother was still alive down there, with six feet of earth holding her down, scratching and crying to be free. When he'd heard about Anna Brook, Morrison tried to imagine how he would have felt if he'd been obliged to listen to his mother calling his name, in some bloodied darkness deep under the ground, and been unable to do a thing to help her. That had been Tom Brook's fate: to see his wife buried alive, to watch her clawing at her coffin lid, to hear her screaming for help, and be forced to sit helplessly by. Tom knew, as Morrison knew, that his wife wasn't actually buried alive, that her predicament was imaginary, but her agony was no less real for that. It had been a terrible time and Morrison was disgusted with himself for forgetting this anniversary so easily. "Thanks, Tom," he said. He wanted to say something else, something commemorative perhaps, but he didn't know what. He turned back to the boys. "There's nothing to worry about," he said. "Everything's going to be fine." had died while trying to push his way out, the fingertips a robin's pincus.h.i.+on of splinters and dried blood, where he had scratched and clawed at the wood in his desperation to be free. Morrison had heard that story in school, while his mother was on her sickbed; after she died, he would go to the churchyard and lie on the grave with his ear pressed to the ground, listening. He had been terrified that his mother was still alive down there, with six feet of earth holding her down, scratching and crying to be free. When he'd heard about Anna Brook, Morrison tried to imagine how he would have felt if he'd been obliged to listen to his mother calling his name, in some bloodied darkness deep under the ground, and been unable to do a thing to help her. That had been Tom Brook's fate: to see his wife buried alive, to watch her clawing at her coffin lid, to hear her screaming for help, and be forced to sit helplessly by. Tom knew, as Morrison knew, that his wife wasn't actually buried alive, that her predicament was imaginary, but her agony was no less real for that. It had been a terrible time and Morrison was disgusted with himself for forgetting this anniversary so easily. "Thanks, Tom," he said. He wanted to say something else, something commemorative perhaps, but he didn't know what. He turned back to the boys. "There's nothing to worry about," he said. "Everything's going to be fine."

[image]

Over the next few hours, Morrison went about his business with a feeling more of irritation than concern. He stopped off at Mark Wilkinson's house before he did anything else because, as he'd told the others, finding the boy there was the most likely scenario. When he got to the house, however, at just after eleven o'clock, the Wilkinsons were watching television and they seemed more upset at being interrupted at the crucial point in the film than anything else. They certainly didn't seem concerned for their son. After showing Morrison into the front room, they hadn't even switched off the television, though the mother did turn the sound down a little. Still, all the way through the interview, they kept sneaking glances at the screen, to see what was happening. This annoyed Morrison, who also found it difficult to sit in a room where a TV was turned on and not be distracted. Though he hardly ever watched it at home, it struck him as a fairly innocent distraction and it was company for Alice when he was out and about. That night, however, there was something dully obscene about those images flickering on the screen and the sound of the actors talking, dialogue spoken just quietly enough that, even though he didn't care a whit about what they were saying, Morrison found himself straining to follow. Perhaps because of this, or maybe because the parents seemed so unconcerned, the interview did not last long. It seemed the boy hadn't come home yet, but the Wilkinsons made no show of being worried. "Mark often stays out late," the husband said, darting a quick glance at the screen. Clint Eastwood was pointing a gun at somebody.

"He's stayed out all night a couple of times," the wife added. She seemed oddly blase about it, as if she didn't much care what the boy did, or what might happen to him. Morrison thought, talking to them, that it was no surprise Mark was out there in the dark, wandering around in the poison wood, playing stupid games to scare his pals. In fact, the longer the conversation went on, the more he disapproved of these people. At the same time, however, he knew he didn't have any right to judge them. He didn't know what their lives were like. You only had to take one look at them to know that marriage to either one couldn't be much fun. "He just goes off, without a by-your-leave." She glanced at the TV. "I think it's his way of teaching us a lesson."

"I see," Morrison said. He sounded like a policeman from a TV program himself at times. "So, can you think of any reason why he might have wanted to teach you a lesson tonight?"

The woman gave him a sharp glance. She had sensed his disapproval and she was none too pleased. She turned to her husband, whose face was as blank as a TO LET LET sign; then, with nothing doing there, she swung back to Morrison and gave him a bitter smile. "Probably," she said. "Nothing would surprise me with him." sign; then, with nothing doing there, she swung back to Morrison and gave him a bitter smile. "Probably," she said. "Nothing would surprise me with him."

Morrison was working hard not to show his exasperation. "Well," he said, "do you know of anywhere anywhere he might have gone?" he might have gone?"

The woman didn't look at him, but kept her eyes defiantly on the screen. "He might have gone to my sister's," she said.

"Your sister's?"

"Yes," she said. "Sall's."

"And where is that?"

"Oh, she's not there now" now" the woman said, with an oddly triumphant expression. "Sall's dead. Somebody else lives there now." The woman seemed as indifferent to her sister's death as she did to her son's apparent disappearance. the woman said, with an oddly triumphant expression. "Sall's dead. Somebody else lives there now." The woman seemed as indifferent to her sister's death as she did to her son's apparent disappearance.

"He just goes over there, sometimes," the man put in. "He loved Sall," he added, a little wistfully, Morrison thought.

"She spoiled him," the woman said. "She didn't have kids of her own."

Mr. Wilkinson had started to get interested now. "Well," he said, "she couldn't, could she?"

His wife shot him a warning look and he slipped back into semi-torpor. "Anyway," she said, "he goes over there and hangs about. G.o.d knows why." She gave Morrison another of her tight smiles. "I mean, he knows knows she's dead." she's dead."

It was around then that Morrison decided he didn't see any point in continuing any further, so, after noting down the aunt's address and a few more-or-less token questions, he stood up. The Wilkinsons stayed where they were, on the sofa. "Well, I wouldn't worry," Morrison said. "It's probably just a bit of Halloween high spirits."

The woman looked at him. "Probably," she said.

Morrison stood a long moment, then the man finally got up. "I'll get the door for you," he said.

"Don't worry," Morrison said. "I'll see myself out." The man looked surprised at this, then relieved. He sat down again and turned to the television. By the time he got to the front door, the TV was back at normal volume.

[image]

As he closed the Wilkinsons' gate, Morrison had debated whether to let the matter go for the night and follow up the next morning-and without a doubt, he would have been better off if he had. If someone else had found the boy, there was a good chance that things would have turned out differently, not just in this one case, but in all the cases that followed. On another night, perhaps, he would have gone back to the police house, to check in with Alice and have a cup of tea, but that night, something nagged at him, something he couldn't put his finger on. So he'd fetched the car and gone over to the poison wood to take a look. Even then, he'd been in two minds and he'd considered just going home and waiting till morning, thinking himself a fool for bothering. If the parents didn't think the boy was in any real trouble, he asked himself, why should he? About half an hour into the search, however, he found what looked like a little den among the trees, a natural shelter of scrubby bushes and rubble, the kind of place where some lonely child might go to hide out. Not a place for a gang, but a secret, enclosed s.p.a.ce where a boy with more imagination than friends might sit out late, playing at wilderness. Or that was what it looked like at first; it was only on closer inspection that Morrison saw that it was really the first in a series of such closed s.p.a.ces, the first tiny room in a series of rooms, one leading to another, until, in the fourth, he found a strange little bower where someone had made an elaborate display, all glinting, colored fragments of gla.s.s and china, the bushes decked with swatches of stripy fabric, the floor splashed here and there with what looked like tinsel and glitter. It was all new, a special place that someone had just built-a bower, bower, like those elaborate structures that some exotic birds make, when they want to attract a mate. At the same time, it also had the feel of a chapel, a special place set aside for prayer, or contemplation, or possibly sacrifice-and it was as if that thought, that wisp of an impression, drew Morrison's torch beam away, dancing over the cold, glittering floor of the den across a wall of twigs and tattered sc.r.a.ps of nylon and old curtain fabric to the body. A boy's body, Mark Wilkinson's body, suspended from the bough of the largest tree; suspended, perfectly bright and neat and-this was what disturbed Morrison most, this was what his mind kept going back to afterward-absurdly gift wrapped, at the throat and around the chest and ankles, in tinsel and bright lengths of fabric, like a decoration or a small gift hung on a Christmas tree. Morrison knew it was Mark Wilkinson right away, though there was no reason to be so sure: the face was covered with blood and grime and there were faint creases in the dirt on his cheeks, where he might have been crying-though Morrison wasn't sure of this, because the boy's face looked oddly calm, even though his eyes were open and he was suspended in the tree like a figure from some makes.h.i.+ft crucifixion. Morrison didn't know why, but he was convinced that whatever had happened here had only just finished, maybe only a few minutes since. Still, he didn't have to check the boy's pulse to know he was dead. Yet it wasn't the fact of death that horrified Morrison so much as his own reaction to the crime scene. It was nothing like the climactic moment in a film, where someone discovers a body and screams: he didn't reel away in disgust, he didn't cry out or run to fetch help. Worse still, he didn't remember who he was and start doing his job. Instead, he came to a halt at every level of his being. He came to a total standstill in his mind and in his nerves and in his blood, suddenly drained of energy and will, captivated by the horror and, at the same time-and this was what transfixed him-by the sense that there was some kind of meaning in all this. Had he got there soon enough to intervene, or a few hours later-the next morning, say-it might have been different. There would have been something to do, set actions to perform; or everything would have been frozen and drained of color, a crime scene, a collection of evidence that someone, though probably not John Morrison, could have read like a book. like those elaborate structures that some exotic birds make, when they want to attract a mate. At the same time, it also had the feel of a chapel, a special place set aside for prayer, or contemplation, or possibly sacrifice-and it was as if that thought, that wisp of an impression, drew Morrison's torch beam away, dancing over the cold, glittering floor of the den across a wall of twigs and tattered sc.r.a.ps of nylon and old curtain fabric to the body. A boy's body, Mark Wilkinson's body, suspended from the bough of the largest tree; suspended, perfectly bright and neat and-this was what disturbed Morrison most, this was what his mind kept going back to afterward-absurdly gift wrapped, at the throat and around the chest and ankles, in tinsel and bright lengths of fabric, like a decoration or a small gift hung on a Christmas tree. Morrison knew it was Mark Wilkinson right away, though there was no reason to be so sure: the face was covered with blood and grime and there were faint creases in the dirt on his cheeks, where he might have been crying-though Morrison wasn't sure of this, because the boy's face looked oddly calm, even though his eyes were open and he was suspended in the tree like a figure from some makes.h.i.+ft crucifixion. Morrison didn't know why, but he was convinced that whatever had happened here had only just finished, maybe only a few minutes since. Still, he didn't have to check the boy's pulse to know he was dead. Yet it wasn't the fact of death that horrified Morrison so much as his own reaction to the crime scene. It was nothing like the climactic moment in a film, where someone discovers a body and screams: he didn't reel away in disgust, he didn't cry out or run to fetch help. Worse still, he didn't remember who he was and start doing his job. Instead, he came to a halt at every level of his being. He came to a total standstill in his mind and in his nerves and in his blood, suddenly drained of energy and will, captivated by the horror and, at the same time-and this was what transfixed him-by the sense that there was some kind of meaning in all this. Had he got there soon enough to intervene, or a few hours later-the next morning, say-it might have been different. There would have been something to do, set actions to perform; or everything would have been frozen and drained of color, a crime scene, a collection of evidence that someone, though probably not John Morrison, could have read like a book.

At first sight, it appeared that the boy had been brutally treated, deliberately and systematically wounded, in a process that easily could have been mistaken for torture. Yet later, when the image of this place had sunk into every fiber of his bones and nerves, Morrison would not have called it that. Mark Wilkinson's hands had been bound-bound, yes, yet loosely, almost symbolically-with a length of very white, almost silky rope, and most of his clothes had been removed, leaving him so thin and stark and creaturely that he looked more like some new kind of animal than a boy in his early teens. His skin was very white, in the unmarked areas between the mud stains and grazes, but what struck Morrison most forcibly was the look in his eyes, a look that suggested, not fear, or not just fear, but recognition. That was what shocked him most: the boy had a look in his eyes that suggested that he had seen, at the moment of death, something he knew, something he recognized-and it took Morrison a moment to realize what he was now witnessing, a moment to work it all out, not thinking, just feeling, just ticking like a machine for remembering and connecting, and then he understood that what he was seeing wasn't the result of a torture scene, but of something that, to him, seemed much worse.

What he remembered then was a pa.s.sage in a book he had read, a pa.s.sage that described how, when the Aztecs performed a human sacrifice, they would cut the heart from the still-living body, and he recalled how he had shuddered at the notion that a whole people, an entire culture, could believe that this was the only way to protect their crops, or to ensure victory in battle. It had revolted him, that these things had actually happened, that this was how people had once spoken to their G.o.ds. To believe in human sacrifice, not as some secret, ugly, perverted thing, but as a glorious act; to accord the highest honor to the priest who scooped out that living heart and raised it to the sun, not once but time after time, in ceremonies that might claim tens, perhaps hundreds of victims, had seemed to him obscene beyond imagining. Yet it had also seemed mercifully remote, the ugly, absurd practice of a primitive, warlike race. Now, however, as he stared into Mark Wilkinson's pale, muddied face, he understood that his death had meant something to his killer, something religious, even mystical. He didn't know how how he knew this, he simply did. It wasn't the scene of the crime that told Morrison what the killer felt; it was nothing rational and it was certainly nothing he could have put into words had someone come, at that moment, to question him, or prod him into doing his job. No: it was something about the arrangement of the body that struck him, an arrangement in which he sensed the reverence of a last moment. No matter how incredible or disgusting the idea would have seemed to him at any other time, Morrison sensed, for one fleeting and terrifying moment, that there had been reverence here, a terrible, impossible tenderness-in both the killer and his victim-for whatever it is that disappears at the moment of death, an almost religious regard for what the body gives up, something sublime and precise and exactly equal in substance to the presence of a living creature: the measured weight of a small bird or a rodent, a field mouse, say, or perhaps some kind of finch. he knew this, he simply did. It wasn't the scene of the crime that told Morrison what the killer felt; it was nothing rational and it was certainly nothing he could have put into words had someone come, at that moment, to question him, or prod him into doing his job. No: it was something about the arrangement of the body that struck him, an arrangement in which he sensed the reverence of a last moment. No matter how incredible or disgusting the idea would have seemed to him at any other time, Morrison sensed, for one fleeting and terrifying moment, that there had been reverence here, a terrible, impossible tenderness-in both the killer and his victim-for whatever it is that disappears at the moment of death, an almost religious regard for what the body gives up, something sublime and precise and exactly equal in substance to the presence of a living creature: the measured weight of a small bird or a rodent, a field mouse, say, or perhaps some kind of finch.

Morrison had to fight the temptation, then, to cut the boy down, to undo the ceremony of what had been done to him, to cover him up and not let him be seen like this by anyone else. He wanted to deny this sacrifice, he wanted to invalidate it-but then the realization came that what he really wanted was to bring the boy back to life, to reverse the process through which he had suffered and died, and that was something n.o.body could do. And it was then that John Morrison understood, with a sudden and brutal clarity, that he wasn't a real policeman after all, because he did not have what it took to deal with this. He could already feel some brittle structure crumbling in his mind and, as he stood staring at this sacrificed child, everything he had hoped for when Brian Smith unexpectedly w.a.n.gled him the job of town policeman collapsed like a bad wedding cake. When he'd joined the police force, he had never expected to find a body. Or not like this, at least. People died in the Innertown all the time, as they die elsewhere. They died of strokes, old age, lung disease. Occasionally, they killed themselves, or were made strange by some random accident. Morrison had already had his fair share of those, and he'd been obliged to deal with the aftermath, or make notes, or stand at the edge of some family's bewilderment and grief and pretend he had a reason to be there. Mostly, though, his neighbors died privately, with no need for an official presence, and Morrison was as removed from those deaths as he was from their other secrets. Some of them died from causes that were, and would forever remain, unknown, because no authority on earth wanted to determine what those causes were. The Innertown wasn't a healthy place to live; the trouble was that, for most people, there was nowhere else to go. This was why so many also died of things that no doctor could have diagnosed-disappointment, anger, fear, loneliness. Not being touched. Not being loved. Silence. In the old days, even hardnosed GPs would talk about dying from a broken heart: now cause of death had to be something more official. Still, n.o.body had been murdered in the Innertown, not in Morrison's lifetime, and he was glad of that, at least. He might have wanted to be a policeman all his life, but he had never wanted to be one of those those policeman, like the ones he saw on television, finding bodies, stalking the killer, refusing tea from a friendly, but now slightly anxious woman, because he was about to tell her that her child had been tortured to death. That was all very well for the cinema, or crime magazines, but Morrison had never thought of it as real police work. What Morrison had wanted was to be a small-town bobby, walking the beat, a face familiar to everyone, a person people could trust. He wanted to work with the familiar and the tender; he wanted to be able to know what he was dealing with, learning all the time as he went along till he had a body of knowledge and understanding that he could pa.s.s on to whoever replaced him. He wanted, in other words, to be part of the community, a man as well known and reliable as the town-hall clock. He wanted to tap the barometer as he left home in the morning and know the chances of rain that day; he wanted to buy a paper on a Monday and read about the town gala, or some minor local sporting victory. Not this. Not some child, hung out on a tree like a sacred offering. policeman, like the ones he saw on television, finding bodies, stalking the killer, refusing tea from a friendly, but now slightly anxious woman, because he was about to tell her that her child had been tortured to death. That was all very well for the cinema, or crime magazines, but Morrison had never thought of it as real police work. What Morrison had wanted was to be a small-town bobby, walking the beat, a face familiar to everyone, a person people could trust. He wanted to work with the familiar and the tender; he wanted to be able to know what he was dealing with, learning all the time as he went along till he had a body of knowledge and understanding that he could pa.s.s on to whoever replaced him. He wanted, in other words, to be part of the community, a man as well known and reliable as the town-hall clock. He wanted to tap the barometer as he left home in the morning and know the chances of rain that day; he wanted to buy a paper on a Monday and read about the town gala, or some minor local sporting victory. Not this. Not some child, hung out on a tree like a sacred offering.

It was this chain of thought, this sense he had of something collapsing in his mind, that wrong-footed him. It came as a shock, afterward, that he could have done such a thing, but it only shocked him later, when he had become capable of feeling anything more than he had at the scene. At that moment, in his confusion and terror and the horrible emptiness of it all, what he had done seemed not so much the best as the only only thing to do, his one possible escape. He had just realized that he was too tender a soul, too soft a man to see through the work he had chosen. He had just seen himself as wholly lacking in all the virtues he had thought would come with time and experience, but which, he now knew, were intrinsic, at least in some basic form. A man either thing to do, his one possible escape. He had just realized that he was too tender a soul, too soft a man to see through the work he had chosen. He had just seen himself as wholly lacking in all the virtues he had thought would come with time and experience, but which, he now knew, were intrinsic, at least in some basic form. A man either has has courage, good sense, and a certain impenetrability of spirit, or he does not. Morrison did not. He was weak, lacking, frightened. Because he could not do the one thing he most wanted to do- because he could not reach out and bring this boy back to life-he wanted to close his eyes and run away to some safe place where n.o.body would ever call on him to do anything again. When he thought about it later, he would see that he knew he was making a terrible mistake even as he made it, and he also saw that he had been guilty of nothing more than a moment's fear, a mere hesitation. He hadn't known what to do: it was that straightforward. He wasn't a real policeman, he'd been pushed into the job when Constable Fox had died suddenly, after a fall from his bicycle. It was his employer, Brian Smith, who'd suggested he take the job if it was offered and he'd leapt at the unexpected opportunity, but he'd never been confident of his abilities as a policeman and now, facing his first real test, he was paralyzed with the fear of making some unforgivable error. Of course, he told himself that he was only looking for advice. He told himself that what he was doing was simply a courtesy, a show of respect to the man who had made him a policeman in the first place. He wanted to send out a warning, in case this tragic event had repercussions that had to be dealt with. This was what he told himself; yet he knew in his heart that he was lying. The truth was, he wasn't big enough to deal with a murdered child and he was afraid of what would happen if he called this in all by himself-and so it was that, in his terror of making a mistake, he walked up to the old red telephone box on the outer road and made the worst mistake he could have made. He called Brian Smith. courage, good sense, and a certain impenetrability of spirit, or he does not. Morrison did not. He was weak, lacking, frightened. Because he could not do the one thing he most wanted to do- because he could not reach out and bring this boy back to life-he wanted to close his eyes and run away to some safe place where n.o.body would ever call on him to do anything again. When he thought about it later, he would see that he knew he was making a terrible mistake even as he made it, and he also saw that he had been guilty of nothing more than a moment's fear, a mere hesitation. He hadn't known what to do: it was that straightforward. He wasn't a real policeman, he'd been pushed into the job when Constable Fox had died suddenly, after a fall from his bicycle. It was his employer, Brian Smith, who'd suggested he take the job if it was offered and he'd leapt at the unexpected opportunity, but he'd never been confident of his abilities as a policeman and now, facing his first real test, he was paralyzed with the fear of making some unforgivable error. Of course, he told himself that he was only looking for advice. He told himself that what he was doing was simply a courtesy, a show of respect to the man who had made him a policeman in the first place. He wanted to send out a warning, in case this tragic event had repercussions that had to be dealt with. This was what he told himself; yet he knew in his heart that he was lying. The truth was, he wasn't big enough to deal with a murdered child and he was afraid of what would happen if he called this in all by himself-and so it was that, in his terror of making a mistake, he walked up to the old red telephone box on the outer road and made the worst mistake he could have made. He called Brian Smith.

CONNECTIONS.

A FEW DAYS BEFORE HIS ELEVENTH BIRTHDAY, BRIAN SMITH DEVELOPED FEW DAYS BEFORE HIS ELEVENTH BIRTHDAY, BRIAN SMITH DEVELOPED a pa.s.sion for puzzles of every kind, and jigsaw puzzles in particular. He liked the way they made connections, how a great pile of a thousand or more random pieces could be transformed, simply by matching shapes and colors, into a perfect likeness of the Venetian ca.n.a.l scene or the lush tropical garden depicted on the box. His parents, who didn't think of him as particularly intelligent-or indeed, as especially interesting or likable-soon took to buying him all the puzzles they could find, delighted to provide a distraction that would occupy their charmless and more or less superfluous only child for hours at a time, allowing a pa.s.sion for puzzles of every kind, and jigsaw puzzles in particular. He liked the way they made connections, how a great pile of a thousand or more random pieces could be transformed, simply by matching shapes and colors, into a perfect likeness of the Venetian ca.n.a.l scene or the lush tropical garden depicted on the box. His parents, who didn't think of him as particularly intelligent-or indeed, as especially interesting or likable-soon took to buying him all the puzzles they could find, delighted to provide a distraction that would occupy their charmless and more or less superfluous only child for hours at a time, allowing them them to get on with the more pleasant aspects of adult life, like drinking, or playing bridge with the Johnstons-a childless, and so wildly fortunate, couple who lived two doors along the street, in one of the quieter districts of the Innertown. It didn't concern them that, on the surface at least, their st.u.r.dy, unsmiling son had nothing at all in common with those bright, bookish children who normally delight in logic problems. Nor had they ever been unduly troubled by the fact that, as young Brian progressed dutifully through primary school, his teachers not only described him as below average, lazy, and almost entirely lacking in flair or imagination, but also implied that he was universally disliked by both staff and pupils. The truth was that this did not surprise them in the least. to get on with the more pleasant aspects of adult life, like drinking, or playing bridge with the Johnstons-a childless, and so wildly fortunate, couple who lived two doors along the street, in one of the quieter districts of the Innertown. It didn't concern them that, on the surface at least, their st.u.r.dy, unsmiling son had nothing at all in common with those bright, bookish children who normally delight in logic problems. Nor had they ever been unduly troubled by the fact that, as young Brian progressed dutifully through primary school, his teachers not only described him as below average, lazy, and almost entirely lacking in flair or imagination, but also implied that he was universally disliked by both staff and pupils. The truth was that this did not surprise them in the least.

What those school reports failed to mention explicitly was that their son was suspected of playing a wide range of cruel and humiliating practical jokes on the other children in his year group. Apparently, he was particularly vicious toward female pupils. He would find a way of placing fake blood or real excrement in a girl's satchel, or he would lace another child's black-currant drink with a special dye that turned her urine bright red. He left dead frogs and birds in desks, he sent Valentine's and Christmas cards with cruel messages or captions-never handwritten, always clipped from newspapers and magazines-or he would send photographs of stick-thin children in stripy Belsen pajamas to the fattest person in his cla.s.s, a pasty, desperate-looking girl called Carol Black. He put drawing pins on chairs and slipped tiny shards of gla.s.s or copper wire into apples and toffees. For several months run