Colin Wilson - Ritual in the Dark

You see, there's even a sort of dramatic impulse behind it, a playwright's desire for climaxes. Don't you see?

Sorme nodded. He said slowly:

You mean… the newspapers ask if the killer's moved to Greenwich — and immediately, there's a double murder? And a man's arrested, and everybody heaves a sigh of relief. And there's another murder…

Nunne was suddenly serious.

In a way, yes. But Gerard… if only I could feel it had gone out of me. For good. This thing has driven me… for three years now.

Since Hamburg?

Nunne looked surprised.

Yes, Hamburg? How did you know?

Father Carruthers again. Stein told him.

Nunne said shortly:

I thought they suspected.

Wasn't it a man in Hamburg?

A youth. Male prostitute.

He was the first?

Nunne nodded.

And… why did you feel the need…?

Nunne said, shrugging:

Don't know. You wouldn't understand.

I might. Did you hate him?

No. On the contrary. I loved him… a little.

And why weren't you caught?

Because no one knew he'd been with me. He had a lot of clients.

But… what did you do with him?

Are you really interested?

Yes.

I'll tell you. I dumped him in a bath of ice-cold water — it was midwinter in Hamburg — and left him there for an hour. Then I carried him up three flights of stairs, and left him in the room of a man whom I knew to be away for the night. He came in at five in the morning and roused the hotel. Then a doctor examined the body, and decided from its temperature that he'd been killed at least eight hours before. And I had an alibi up till two in the morning. So I was allowed to leave the hotel the next day. It was a pretty low dump, anyway, and that was its second murder in a month.

Wasn't it all pretty dangerous? You might have been seen taking him upstairs.

That's true. That was dangerous. And the man in the next room heard me running the bath water at three in the morning; he mentioned it to me the next day. Luckily, I'd taken great care not to wet the hair. But it was dreadfully dangerous.

Nunne was speaking with a certain pride; he might have been telling Sorme a fishing story. Sorme glanced at his watch; it was one-thirty. He had been there about an hour. In that time, Nunne's demeanour had changed completely. He no longer seemed drunk; he talked with a clinical precision; his voice was calm and cheerful. The whisky had affected Sorme; he was aware of being more than half drunk, while feeling no loss of his power to concentrate. He felt a curious acceptance of Nunne; it was no more strange that Nunne should be a murderer than that he should be a homosexual; or that Gertrude Quincey should be his mistress. Things altered; the world was a perpetual flux. There was no finality in space or time; only an immense, immeasurable freedom.

Nunne said:

Tell me what you're thinking, Gerard?

That wouldn't be easy. I can begin to understand… but there are still some pieces missing.

Such as…?

Wouldn't you prefer to be… normal? Or…

Nunne interrupted quickly:

Of course I would. But don't overestimate my abnormality. I suppose a hangman's job is abnormal, but he treats it as a job all the same. So does a man in a slaughterhouse. I know a man who spent the war training teenage boys how to kill easily and silently. I've known Commandos who have killed more Germans than they can count. One of them always goes to Germany for his holidays and says he prefers the Germans to any other race in Europe.

Sorme said gloomily:

You mean murder's a part of the modern mentality?

Of any mentality, Gerard. Society has always been based on murder. It's no use trying to outlaw murder with laws and moral codes. It has to disappear of its own accord — men have to outgrow it. Don't you see what I mean? My Commando friend — he's a perfectly law-abiding citizen. But murder's still in his system. If there was another war, he'd kill again. He hasn't outgrown murder. It's only that he accepts the laws that forbid it. That isn't the way for a man to grow… You think I'm being a Jesuit?

Sorme said dubiously:

Not a Jesuit. But your defence wouldn't go down in any court of law…

I agree, Nunne said promptly. And I wouldn't expect it to. It's not really a defence. I don't disown what I've done. How can I? I don't even understand it. I was born like it.

I know… But what I don't understand is… well, why you should do it. I can understand everything but the act itself. I can understand the hatred and the disgust. I once wrote a story about a man who kills out of sheer boredom and the desire to do something positive. But… the reasons aren't so important. You don't kill reasons. You kill a human being.

Nunne said seriously:

That's true, in a way. But it isn't as rational as that. It's a kind of irrational resentment, I suppose. Not about people, or even society, but just about… the world.

He was not looking at Sorme as he spoke. His face was averted, and Sorme could see mainly the top of his head, and the heavy black hair that had been newly washed. A speculation about the reason for this passed through his mind, and a feeling of a chill. The conversation suddenly became unreal; he made a mental effort to restore it to focus. He said:

I think I understand you. I've known that kind of disgust. About three months before I left the office for good, I went on a holiday in Kent, and had an experience of the same sort.

His face still averted, Nunne said:

What happened?

Oh… I'd been getting pretty sick of the office. It made me feel dead inside. Finally, the weekends weren't long enough to get it out of my system. I couldn't read poetry or listen to music. It was like being constipated. Well, I got a holiday and went to Kent for a week's hiking. And for the first two days I felt nothing at all, just a sort of deadness inside. And one day I went into a pub in a place called Marden and had a couple of pints. And as I came out, a sort of bubble seemed to burst inside me, and I started feeling things again. And I suddenly felt an overwhelming hatred for cities and offices and people and everything that calls itself civilisation…

He was talking compulsively, glad to speak of himself and restore a feeling of normality to the situation:

Then I got an idea. I sat down at the side of the road and thought about it. I'd read somewhere that the Manichees thought the world was created by the devil, and everything to do with matter was evil. Well, it suddenly seemed to me that the forces behind the world weren't either good or evil, but something quite incomprehensible to human beings. And the only thing they want is movement, everlasting movement. That's the way I saw it suddenly. Human beings want peace, and they build their civilisations and make their laws to get peace. But the forces behind the world don't want peace. So they send down certain men whose business it is to keep the world in a turmoil — the Napoleons, Hitlers, Genghis Khans. And I call these men the Enemies, with a capital E. And I thought: I belong among the Enemies — that's why I detest this bloody civilisation. And I suddenly began to feel better…

Nunne was looking at him now, and nodding his head slowly as he talked. He said, smiling:

Quite. You understand too. The force behind the world is neither good nor evil. Men are not big enough to know anything about good and evil. That's how I felt… the first time it ever happened in London. I'd been to see Father Carruthers and I came away feeling sick of everything. He obviously didn't know what I was talking about. And I walked along Charterhouse Street, and there was an extraordinary sunset over the rooftops. And suddenly I detested it all. Did you ever read that piece in Stein's book on Kurten, about how Kurten used to dream of blowing up the whole city with dynamite? That was how I felt.