Philip Kerr - A Philosophical Investigation

Where God does exist is in the mind of man. Ergo, one kills a man, one kills God.

I know these things as thoughts. But my thoughts are not my experiences. They are an echo and after-effect of my experiences: as, when a train goes past my window, my room trembles. I am sitting in the train, however, and sometimes, I am the train itself. Intellect and passion, thinking and feeling — really, they’re all the same thing.

How fast has brother followed brother, from sunshine to the sunless land.

On my next day off I drove round to the home of the next brother on my list. I’m beginning to sound like Adrian Messenger, I know. I don’t mean this to sound vengeful or vindictive as in some Jacobean tragedian’s play. No, it felt right, what I was doing, cold and pure like crystal, but true. A sense of logical purpose had infected my mind, which is where it started for all of us. All in the mind. The mind of man — my haunt and the main region of my song.

After the farce with Shakespeare I decided to leave the dramatists alone and, still trying to disobey my first inclination, which was to kill a philosopher, I chose a poet. Wordsworth — stupendous genius! Damned fool.

My preliminary surveillance had only just begun when I realised that I was not the only one watching over him. Parked outside Wordsworth’s house (I thought I’d break the pattern again) was a scruffy grey van. For a while I paid it no attention as there was nobody in the driving seat. Imagine my surprise when the rear doors opened and two men got out to stretch their legs and smoke a cigarette. They didn’t look much like policemen but then, these days, who does? And given that one of them was carrying a pair of binoculars I didn’t suppose they could be from the Gas Board. The other one clinched it when I saw him unzip his anorak to reveal the flak jacket and machine pistol he was wearing underneath.

But what I failed to understand was how they neglected to observe me. Did they imagine that I wouldn’t reconnoitre my target before going to work? Can they seriously have believed that I was just going to turn up on Wordsworth’s doorstep and shoot him? Maybe they didn’t much care whether Wordsworth was shot or not.

Perhaps, if I’d been there longer, they might have taken me into consideration as a possible suspect. As it was, I simply started up my van and drove slowly away, very much aware of how lucky I’d been. And of how I had underestimated the police. I would have to be more careful in future, I told myself. Especially since I was planning to use my satellite phone to contact Policewoman in the minutes leading up to my next brother’s execution. It would hardly have looked professional to have been arrested in the middle of a philosophical dialogue.

I kept a careful eye on the rear-view video as I drove away, just in case I was followed. But the screen remained empty of traffic and even before I had reached the end of Wordsworth’s road, I was scrolling down the list of brothers on my hand-held computer for the next target.

Fine, I thought, I always did like Wordsworth and was quite glad not to be his solitary reaper. Stop here or gently pass.

These many then shall die. Their names are pricked. But which one was to be next? Auden? Descartes? Hegel? Hemingway? Whitman?

Auden was certainly the closest, although I had a mind (in the sense of reality as a whole, or the Absolute) to kill Hegel out of pure idealism. Hemingway? Obsessed with death, and somehow too vulgar. Descartes? I had been saving him. All the same there was all the nonsense about deducing the existence of God as proof of the perceptible world. And in a way, he did start all of this. Yes, Descartes then. The father of modern philosophy. I would destroy him out of total scepticism. He shall not live. Look, with a spot I damn him.

I kill, therefore I am.

Jake sat alone in her office, her long, strong fingers steepled in front of her forehead as if she had been deep in prayer, or thought, or both.

Ed Crawshaw put his head round the door, cleared his throat, and, having gained Jake’s attention raised both eyebrows by way of preface to a question.

‘Yes, Ed.’ She yawned. ‘What is it?’

She rubbed her eyes which she assumed were sore from a lack of natural light and switched off her desk lamp. Was it the fluorine or the halogen bulbs that were supposed to cause blindness? Perhaps her life wouldn’t seem quite so artificial if she had some flowers in the office.

‘Got a minute, Chief?’

‘Sure, take a chair.’

Crawshaw sat down.

‘Remember the Italian olive oil we found on Mary Woolnoth’s clothes?’

Jake said she did.

‘Well it comes by the drum-load from Italy, to be bottled under licence here in the UK. Company called the Sacred Oil Company, based in Ruislip. Their bottled oil is then distributed all over the country by a company called Gillards. They’re in Brent Cross. Gillards deliver the oil to a number of wholesalers in central London, including one in Brewer Street, Soho. The Soho delivery is always handled by the same driver, one John George Richards. Well it so happens that about eight years ago this Richards did two years under the needle for a sexual assault on a young woman. What’s more, on the date of Mary Woolnoth’s murder, he made a delivery to the wholesalers in Brewer Street.’

‘That’s interesting,’ said Jake. ‘I assume you want my autograph on an application to a magistrate for a search warrant.’

‘That’s right, ma’am,’ said Crawshaw. ‘If you wouldn’t mind.’ He handed Jake a paper. She read his document and then signed it quickly.

‘Thanks, ma’am.’ He stood up to leave.

‘Oh, and, Ed? Let me know when you pick him up. I’d like an opportunity to talk to this guy myself.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘Ed?’

‘Ma’am?’

‘Well done.’

Crawshaw had not been gone for very long when the switchboard rang to say that they had Wittgenstein on the line. Jake immediately hit the button on the pictophone link that had been patched into Sir Jameson Lang’s rooms in Cambridge.

‘It’s him, Professor,’ she announced to Lang’s startled image. ‘Wittgenstein. Are you ready?’

‘Yes, I think so,’ said Lang, and straightened his tie.

A message on Jake’s computer screen told her that the call-trace procedure was already initiated. She told the switchboard to put Wittgenstein through.

‘Chief Inspector?’ he said smoothly.

‘Yes. I’m glad you called.’ She wished that they had been speaking on the pictophone and that she could see his face.

‘Oh, I don’t doubt it. Would you like me to give you a sound-level for your recording? Testing, testing, one-two-three. How’s that?’ He chuckled. ‘You know, I really hope you are recording this. It could be historic. We’ve come a long way from messages chalked on walls near the scene of the crime. “The Jews are not the men that will be blamed for nothing”.’

‘Jack the Ripper,’ said Jake, recognising the quotation. ‘The message near the first victim. Now who was it? Catherine Eddowes?’

‘Very good,’ said the voice. ‘I’m impressed, Chief Inspector. If it didn’t sound so corny I should say you were a worthy opponent.’ He paused. ‘May I call you Jake? I feel I already know you quite well.’

‘Be my guest. What do you want to talk about?’

‘Oh no. This is your chat show, Jake. I’m here at your invitation. You’re supposed to put me at my ease. Make me feel comfortable enough to reveal something interesting about myself: isn’t that how it works? But I will say two things right away, Jake. One is to save you the trouble of trying to trace this call: I’m using a satellite phone. Ah, the wonders of modern science.