Philip Kerr - A Philosophical Investigation

‘They usually are,’ Professor Gleitmann whispered to Jake.

‘When I told him what the test meant, he asked me to explain how he could know this to be true. I said I could show him the PET scan we had taken of the inside of his head. He said that I might just as well show him the inside of a rhinoceros head, for all the difference it would make to him. Whatever I told him was merely a concept derived from experience and he couldn’t accept it as a fact, only as an asserted proposition.’ Chen’s head began to nod again.

‘Ask him if he gave any indication of his identity,’ said Jake. ‘What sort of job he does, where he drinks, that kind of thing.’

‘Listen to me, Tony,’ said Doctor Cleobury. ‘Listen to me. Did Wittgenstein say anything about himself? Did he tell you what kind of job he does, where he lives?’

Chen shook his head. ‘He said he didn’t much care about himself, that’s all.’

‘Clothes,’ prompted Jake. ‘What was he wearing?’

‘Tony, can you tell us what he’s wearing?’

‘A tweed sports jacket, white polo-necked sweater, brown corduroy trousers, sturdy sort of brown shoes which look expensive. A beige raincoat on his lap.’

‘Age.’

‘What age is he, Tony?’

‘Late thirties, maybe.’

‘Tony, I want you to tell me how you counselled him. Tell me about that, will you?’

‘We made an appointment to discuss his future psychotherapy. And some drugs. I gave him a course of oestrogen tablets, and some Valium.’

‘All right, Tony. Let’s move forward in time now. It’s the day of the patient, codenamed Wittgenstein’s first appointment. Tell me what happens.’

Chen shrugged. ‘He doesn’t show up, that’s all. He never called to cancel. Just doesn’t come.’

Doctor Cleobury looked at Jake. ‘Is there anything more you would like to ask, Chief Inspector?’

‘No,’ she said, ‘but when you’re ending the trance I’d be grateful if you could tell Doctor Chen to remember everything he can of Wittgenstein’s appearance. When he’s fully conscious I’d like him to spend some time with one of our ComputaFit artists. Maybe we can work with something more tangible than just a verbal description.’

Jake switched off her discrecorder and dropped it into her bag. Doctor Cleobury started to count Chen out of hypnosis. Professor Gleitmann followed Jake to the door.

‘I wonder if I might have a brief word with you in my office,’ he said, holding the door open for her with one of his impossibly hairy hands. ‘There’s something I’d like you to see.’

They took the lift up to the top floor, and from one of his cherrywood bookshelves, Gleitmann removed a book which he opened and laid on the conference table in front of Jake. There was a photograph of a man. Jake glanced at it and then at Gleitmann.

‘I don’t know whether or not you noticed it,’ he explained, nodding at the picture, ‘but just about everything Doctor Chen said could equally apply to him, the real Ludwig Wittgenstein.’

‘I don’t quite follow you.’

‘Well you see, Chief Inspector, the unconscious mind doesn’t always distinguish things with any degree of precision. It is quite possible for Doctor Chen to have lied under hypnosis, albeit without culpability. I’m not at all certain that he did manage to distinguish between the man codenamed Wittgenstein by our Lombroso computer and the real one, the philosopher. It’s quite possible that he may have merged them both together in his subconscious mind. For instance, take Chen’s description of the patient’s physical appearance: brown wavy hair, large blue eyes, petulant mouth, sharp features: all that could be said of the real Ludwig Wittgenstein.

‘And do you remember that remark that the patient supposedly made about how nothing empirical is knowable, or words to that effect — how he would admit only to the existence of asserted propositions?’ Gleitmann shrugged awkwardly. ‘Well I don’t remember much of what Wittgenstein actually wrote, but that sort of thing is pretty close to the man’s general — Weltanschaung.’

‘Yes, I see what you mean, Professor.’

‘I’m sorry, Chief Inspector. It was a bold idea you had there, but the mind can play tricks on us.’

‘What if Chen knows nothing about the real Wittgenstein? Wouldn’t that make it more likely that his unconscious mind was speaking the truth?’

‘It’s a possibility. But Chen is an educated man, Chief Inspector. I can’t see him not knowing something about Wittgenstein, can you? Good Lord, he read Psychology at Cambridge.’

Jake shrugged. ‘So did I, Professor, and to be quite frank with you until a couple of days ago, you could have written what I knew about Wittgenstein on the back of a postage stamp.’

For a long time Jake had known the name merely as something of emblematic power, a name that was replete with intellectual symbolism, like the name of Einstein. Perhaps after all it was that Semitic suffix which helped to explain the exotic power of the name. But now that she had read Wittgenstein’s shortest and most explosive book, the Tractatus, she had a better idea why he had been such an influential figure in philosophy. Quite apart from the enigmatic, almost hermetic quality of his writing, there was the subject of his investigation: how is language possible? It was something people, especially policemen, tended to take for granted, even though it provided the very stuff of man’s inner life. Even more important than Wittgenstein’s attempt to explain what language was capable of — or so it seemed to Jake — had been his attempt to explain what language was incapable of. This touched something deep within her soul, something that even bordered her own sexuality.

‘Knowledge is a queer phenomenon,’ said Jake. ‘At least that’s Wittgenstein’s opinion.’

‘Well I see you haven’t wasted any time in filling in the gaps,’ said Gleitmann.

‘Filling in the gaps is my job,’ said Jake. ‘But there is one other possibility, of course. That this killer may actually resemble Wittgenstein in more than just a name spewed out by your computer. Suppose for one minute that he is indeed an intelligent, well-educated sort of man. Suppose for instance that he has read about Wittgenstein before, perhaps even been impressed by his thinking. Now isn’t it possible that the shock of being tested VMN-negative might have triggered some kind of psychopathological disorder? A paranoid schizophrenic delusion, perhaps?’

Gleitmann rubbed his blue jaw thoughtfully. ‘I suppose it might be possible. But as quick as that? I don’t know.’

‘Suppose he already had a diathesis, a predisposition towards the illness. All that would then be required would be some kind of stress situation to transform the potentiality into an actuality. A stress situation such as being told that you were VMN-negative perhaps.’

‘That might do it, I suppose.’

Jake smiled thinly at Gleitmann’s reluctance to admit the possibility of what was to her increasingly obvious.

‘Come on, Professor,’ she said. ‘You know damned well it would.’

When their meeting was over, Jake left the building. Outside the Institute, she found a yawn turning quickly into a stretch that demanded some kind of greater response than a brief flexing of neck and shoulder muscles. Exercise. Air: even the combusted air of Victoria. She decided not to take her car back to the Yard and having collected her gun from the glove compartment, she dismissed her driver and set off up Victoria Street.

Most Londoners, finding themselves in Jake’s position, would soon have turned northwards in the direction of St James’s Park. But the pull of the river was too strong for someone who had lived most of her life beside the river.