Barbara Cleverly - Not My Blood

He gave a low rumbling laugh. “Just imagine! If I were to stand before a hundred students in a London lecture theatre, raise my right hand, and proclaim ‘All hail MacDonald!’ ”

“The outcome would be much the same, professor,” Joe said easily. “You’d lose your post. But the charge in England would be one of imbecility.”

“And well deserved!” Bentink agreed. “But over there-you know how it is. You’ve fought these fellows. Highly efficient, but soldier ants. No sense of the ridiculous.”

“Not all, sir,” Joe murmured. “Not all.”

“Oh, yes. If it’s exceptions you look for, look no further than the director (for the present moment!) of the Berlin Psychological Institute. Wolfgang Köhler is finding all this saluting rubbish a bit hard to comply with. He performs the action but with all the eager anticipation of a vegetarian who’s just been served with a juicy steak. But most have accepted the situation-politics and leanings in a country that has never been democratic are less compelling when large grants are on offer to any prepared to stick their arms in the air and make a Roman salute.”

He sighed and shook his shaggy head. “It seems what we have now is a Ganzheitpsychologie . The larger unity, the nation-the Volk , if you like-overrides the interests and rights of the individual. The plan is to put German applied psychology to the service of the National Socialist government, which values it.”

“A science-backed Nazi ideology,” Joe murmured. “Interesting. You are well informed, professor.”

“And shall be even better informed when I return from the Dresden conference in April.” He gave Gosling a knowing look. “Confidential exchanges over the port with your top brass on the cards, young Gosling? I think so. As Miss Joliffe will confirm, the Prussians are more generously funded, less heavily supervised by government, and more adventurous in their approach. Imaginative, ruthless and productive-they are most impressive. And they are not our friends. No matter what the Times leader writers tell us.”

Puzzled as to where he was going with this, Joe picked up an odd point that had intrigued him. “You are not regarded as a topranking scientist, you say?”

“Not quite yet. And certainly not in our own country. Psychology? What’s that? Ask a selection of people in Piccadilly, and one third will say it’s to do with the spirit world, one third will say it’s to do with sex, and the remaining third will say it’s a load of bollocks. Ask the same question on the Kurfürstendamm , and they’ll tell you it’s a practical science that will solve the nation’s problems.”

He was wasting their time deliberately with the useless generalities of a man propping up the bar at his local pub. In five minutes he’d look at his watch and claim he had to bustle off to his next appointment, so sorry not to have been of more help. Joe decided to push things along.

“The headmaster at the school-St. Magnus-from which the boy Spielman disappeared sends his regards, by the way. And he hopes you found some benefit in the use of the twins he sent you for research last term.”

Bentink bowed his head briefly in automatic acknowledgement but seemed not to remember the name.

“Mr. Farman is the headmaster. I believe you know him from your mutual membership of the Eugenic Society?”

Bentink’s brow furrowed. “Ah-the Brighton chapter? Yes, now you come to mention it. Farman. Got him! He takes the stage occasionally. Corpulent old windbag. But a true and tenacious spirit, I have to say.”

“One of a strong series. The two previous headmasters were equally supportive of the eugenic cause, I understand.”

“It passes down the generations. The young absorb knowledge and resolve at their father’s knee. Nature and nurture in harmony. Supporting each other. Fatuous to argue about which is the more influential. Miss Joliffe will tell you. Good genes, good family are the lifeblood of this country, Sandilands, but we must never disregard the effect of a good upbringing working with them. My father was a guiding light in the Eugenic Education Society, as it was called originally. My brother-in-law James’s father also. He was a contemporary of Galton, you know, and one of the founder members. You could say we were a eugenic family. Tribe, even, since we make a point of making strong bonds with each other’s family.”

He paused to allow this to sink in, his face stiff with pride.

“ Good wombs have borne bad sons , Shakespeare tells us,” Gosling remarked annoyingly. “Really, he’s said it all, hasn’t he? Who needs psychology when we have the wisdom of the Bard to guide and inform?”

Bentink waited with a pained expression for the interruption to be over, then he bent a keen look on Joe. “Many of your own profession, Sandilands, are eugenists, if not in practice, at least in spirit. But then you, a policeman, would consider yourself to be in the front rank of the struggle against degeneracy. And so you are! Hats off to you! Your profession has our support and our sympathy. London-the Great Wen! — with its pullulating under-classes, is consuming ever more of the country’s resources. Most unfairly. The willing, the able and the well-bred of our country are struggling to fund the feckless and the incapable. A sparrow feeding a cuckoo! The crime rate rises at the very time when the London bobby himself is challenged to riposte. I hear it is ever more difficult to recruit men of a certain stature-physical and moral-to combat this fast-breeding, self-propagating slime. No consolation, but they find they have much the same problems to confront in Germany.

“The difference between our approaches being that they take it seriously and are prepared for-indeed, are already engaged in-taking practical steps to combat the threat.”

He got to his feet. “And now, gentlemen, I leave you to make a tour of inspection if that would amuse you. Take Matron along if you wish. Alternatively, take Miss Joliffe-she knows the building inside out, inquisitive little creature that she is. You may go about wherever you please.”

Joe spoke ritual words of departure. “… and thank you for taking the time to see us, professor,” he said politely. “We’ll leave you now to practice your salute.”

There was a tense moment as Ben Lomond crashed into Ben Levi in the craggy expanse of the face. Bentink managed to turn his frown into a benign smile as they left.

“Lord, Dorcas!” Joe whispered. “Whatever did you put in that man’s boots?”

“I know one of the lab technicians. I asked him to get me a particularly obnoxious sample of monkey diarrhea.”

They walked disconsolately down corridors, occasionally peering into rooms that appeared to be unoccupied, ducking out of busy wards with murmured apologies to the duty nurses, preoccupied and getting nowhere with their token inspection.

“Sir, could you work out what that bloke’s point of view was? After all that chat, I couldn’t say whether he approves of the Nazi new boys or hates their guts,” Gosling said when they reached a deserted corridor.

“I was wondering if he knows himself. Many people are ambivalent. I’d say he started out by making vaguely antagonistic noises to draw a reaction from us. To find out where we stand. Was he reassured by the stiffness of our upper lips, Gosling? By our flamboyantly patriotic professions? Possibly. But I think it was his own instinct for glory-seeking and empire-building that swept him into a revelation, towards the end, of something much nastier. Well, nasty by my lights. Admiration for the new regime? Fascination?”

“You don’t know the half of it!” Dorcas said. “It’s obsession! It’s my belief he won’t return from Dresden! Your crack about the saluting really shook him. I think he’s heard the siren song of prestige and unlicensed power.”