Alex Scarrow - October skies

The door creaked open and Judy brought in a tray of coffee and biscuits. Tom thanked her then waited until she had left before continuing.

‘You’d be surprised how many sociopaths are out there.’

Julian’s dark brow arched. He reflexively pushed his glasses up. ‘Uh, how many?’

‘It’s a trait that’s really quite common. Perhaps about one in ten people exhibits sociopathic tendencies to some degree.’

‘What? Surely the streets would be awash with blood.’

‘Well, you know where there’s an absence of a controlling mechanism — law and order — that’s exactly how it is,’ sighed Tom. ‘You only have to consider Baghdad, or Darfur, or Sarajevo, or Kenya.’

He dipped his biscuit, swilled it around and then carefully lifted the soggy thing to his mouth.

‘But listen, it’s a mistake to think that violent behaviour is always a natural follow-on for those who have this inability to pity, to empathise. You ever watch The Apprentice on the telly?’

Julian nodded guiltily. ‘Yeah, I hate to admit I got sucked into the last series.’

‘No one got sliced open or garrotted with piano wire, at least not that I’m aware of. But I’d say a very high proportion of those contestants had a sociopathic tendency of one sort or another, prepared to do anything to anybody just to be the winner.’

‘There now,’ said Julian, half joking, ‘I always knew there was a reason I didn’t like suits.’

‘Well, that’s a fair comment. The corporate world is an ecosystem that rewards the most sociopathic competitors and punishes the most altruistic. Even the phrases commonly used in the business world — dog eat dog, it’s a jungle, who dares wins, hostile takeover — are all very aggressive. The business language is a very predatorial language. By logical extraction, it’s likely that the most successful businessmen — the CEOs, the senior executives, the city traders, captains of industry — are the most ruthless of them.’

‘The most extreme sociopaths?’ said Julian.

Tom nodded. ‘Yup.’

Julian sipped his coffee. ‘Kind of puts a different spin on the whole Thatcherism thing, doesn’t it?’

‘Of course it does. There is no such thing as society any more. Spoken like a true sociopath, eh?’

‘Yes,’ Julian chuckled.

‘If you believe that she sent this country of ours to war in order to stir up the patriotic vote and win herself another term, resulting in the deaths of over two hundred and fifty British servicemen, then, in my book, that puts her serial killer’s scorecard up there above Harold Shipman’s.’

‘And Tony Blair?’

Tom smiled. ‘There you go, arguably another cold-blooded bastard. In fact the world of politics is an even more fertile place for them to flourish; more so than the world of business. Even the worlds of sport, fashion and celebrities attract sociopaths to the very top, like bees to honey. I imagine, flipping through the glossy pages of Hello! Heat and OK! magazines, the majority of those perfect, sun-tanned, smiling faces have got where they are by happily trampling on the shoulders of others.’

Tom leaned forward. ‘Let me put it to you this way, Julian. I wonder how many of them would be prepared to quietly stick the knife into someone in their way? Hmm? A competitor, a rival… a particularly nasty critic?’

Julian nodded. ‘Sure, I suppose.’

‘How far would they go to hang on to their fame and success? Here’s a question for you. How many celebrities do you think would actually kill to keep their status or climb further, if they knew they could get away with it? Hmm?’

Tom’s voice had begun to grow wheezy. He reached for his inhaler and took another puff whilst Julian dwelled on that idea for a moment. The thought of those endless supermarket celebrity magazines being populated by a procession of potential serial killers left him feeling decidedly uneasy.

‘Let me ask you,’ Tom continued, ‘whom would you kill to ensure you hung on to this particular story?’

‘What?’

‘Would you kill me if I threatened to pick up the phone on my desk here, ring the editor of the Mirror and totally blow your scoop?’ Tom’s beefy hand reached teasingly across towards his desk phone and picked it up.

‘No, of course I wouldn’t. But I’d be really flippin’ pissed off with you if you did!’ Julian answered testily.

Tom’s laugh filled the small office as he put the phone back down in its cradle. ‘There you go then. You’re not one of them. You lack the killer instinct, my friend.’ He smiled. ‘That’s what makes you one of the good guys.’

‘Very funny,’ Julian mumbled irritably.

Tom gestured at his pad full of notes. ‘This chap Preston strikes me as the type who would easily kill to see out his goal — which, from what Lambert writes, seems like an attempt to rebrand the Mormon faith in his own way, casting himself in the role of prophet.’ He stroked his chin in thought. ‘A man like that would kill again, and again, and again. Maybe by his own hand but, just as likely, by getting into the heads of his followers and having them do his dirty work.’

‘You’re not a big fan of the religious type, are you?’

He laughed. ‘You kidding? The underbelly of religious fanaticism is thick on the ground with narcissistic freaks. Rasputin, Tomas de Torquemada, most of the early popes, the crusade-era popes… Innocent III, who decreed a crusade against other Christians, never mind Muslims; the imams who groom children to blow themselves to pieces. If ever you wanted a definition of hell, Julian, it’s the inner landscape of minds like these.

‘A messianic narcissistic sociopath.’ Tom smiled. ‘My phrase, by the way. You can use it in your documentary if you want. Just make sure to attribute the quote to me.’

Julian nodded. ‘I’ll make certain.’

‘Yes,’ added Tom, looking back down at his notes, ‘very nasty, very manipulative and very dangerous people.’

Wednesday

Wimbledon, London

Sean Holmwood tossed the stick for Watson out across Wimbledon Common and watched the labrador chase after it, kicking up flecks of mud behind him as he tore across the well-tended grass towards the spinney — an acre of mixed trees, most of them bare and patiently awaiting winter, a few of them hanging on to the last of their golden leaves.

Normally, taking Watson for his evening walk was a daily chore that his wife was happy to do, but this evening he had volunteered as soon as he came home, grabbing the lead and setting out with Watson eagerly pulling all the way.

Sean needed some thinking time. Julian Cooke’s project sounded intriguing.

Watson returned with the stick wedged in his teeth, flecks of saliva across his muzzle. He dropped it at Sean’s feet and sat obediently.

‘Good boy,’ Sean muttered perfunctorily as he scooped it up and tossed it as far as he could towards the spinney.

It seemed Julian had landed on his feet with this find. From what Sean had been told of the story, and from the compilation of fantastically moody footage he had seen on the laptop, there was easily the makings of an hour’s worth of fine-looking documentary. But Julian was quite right to be thinking bigger. This could also be written up as a docu-drama; there were film rights and book rights that could be sold on the back of it. The Mormon angle of the story was also very intriguing. With increasing media attention being focused on the wildcard Mormon independent presidential candidate, William Shepherd, there was a topical relevance to this story.

He looked up at the darkening sky. It was near six, and the dull glow of a drab October day was fast fading.

Watson’s walk was going to be a short one this evening. Sean wanted to get back and put together some notes. If he wanted to fast-track an editorial decision, he needed to sell the project internally. Tonight he’d put together a sales pitch, which he would float across a few desks first thing in the morning.