Philip Kerr - A Philosophical Investigation

‘And the other is that at some time during our little chat, I’ll have to break off and kill someone. Who this is going to be will be a surprise, of course. I’m saving that until the end, when I will give you his codename. Don’t let that worry you though. Just try and look at it from the point of view of my having to plug a new book or a record. We’ve got plenty of time until then. If my man sticks to his routine we should have at least twenty minutes.’

The voice sounded lighter and more flippant than on the disc. But Jake knew that Detective Sergeant Jones would already have wired the call through to the Yard’s own forensic psychiatrist for a more accurate psychological evaluation. Even now there would be an acoustic engineer trying to isolate and identify any background noise. Jake lit a cigarette. To hell with the regulations, she thought. This was an emergency.

‘I was hoping I could persuade you to give this up,’ she said. ‘Not to kill anyone else. There’s been enough killing already.’ She took a deep, fierce drag. ‘Maybe even to give yourself up. You know, I’d like to help you if I can.’

‘Did you like the photographs I sent you, Jake?’ he said.

She realised that he was trying to provoke her, to see how far her willingness to help really went.

‘They were very good,’ she said evenly.

‘You think so?’ He made a little tutting, dissatisfied noise. ‘I wasn’t sure I got the lips of your vagina right. And your pubic hair. I couldn’t work out if you were the bushy type or not. Whether the hair grows right along the edge of your labia or only as far the pubis. Well? How did I do?’

Jake felt herself colour. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘You know this call is being taped. Do you want to embarrass me in front of all my colleagues? Let’s talk about something else.’

‘What about your anus? Or maybe your nipples.’

‘You know I think this is just an act,’ she said. ‘I don’t think you’re this kind of person at all. Listen, I’ve met some real sex perverts in my time, and you don’t begin to come close. I think you’re trying to impress me as being something you’re not.’

Wittgenstein guffawed. ‘All right,’ he said.

Well that was interesting, she thought. You could contradict him without provoking him. It demonstrated that on one level at least she was speaking to a rational person anyway.

‘Would it interest you then to know that I’ve been close enough to you to smell you Jake? What is that perfume you wear? Rapture, by Luther Levine.’

Jake gave a start. How could he know that?

‘Some might find it rather cloying, but I like it. Fact is, there was something about it that gave me a hard-on. But then I’m much more influenced by smell than other people.’

‘How did you know that: about my perfume? Have you been following me?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘But we have met. Now then, what were we talking about? Ah yes, you were giving me some crap about wanting to help me.’

Jake struggled to keep her mind on the conversation. But she was still badly rattled by his claim to have met her. When?

‘Oh, but I do,’ she said.

‘Don’t fool yourself, Jake.’

‘Then at least let me try to persuade you not to murder another man. What would be the point of that?’

‘Oh, but there is a point, Jake. While we may agree about the facts, that I am killing men, and that there exists a set of criteria for deciding upon the legality of my actions, regarding the validity of what I am doing, the criteria are less generally agreed. If we were to have a discussion about what I am doing or have done, first it would have to be concerned with how to describe that. It might necessitate an examination of the concept of right and wrong and morality in general. We could talk about whether my action can be demonstrated to be sufficiently against the interests of the community as to merit punishment; or whether it can be argued that these are in fact justifiable homicides.’

‘But this is merely verbal—’

‘You disappoint me, Jake,’ he said. ‘That might be a reasonable objection if no further consequences resulted from calling what I do illegal or legal, justifiable or unjustifiable. But of course it does matter when to say “illegal homicide” also means “to undergo punitive coma”.’

‘What you have done is quite clearly illegal. Murder is wrong by the standards of any decent society.’

‘One would first require guidance as to how the words “murder” and “decent” are to be used. For instance, I can demonstrate very easily how any murderer should not be punished. Let us accept that the definition of a murderer is someone who has killed someone else, having intended to kill them, and in the full knowledge that neither society, nor indeed the victim, wished it. Thus, if Brown murders Green and serves a period of punitive coma, or imprisonment, after which he is returned to normal society, he still remains a murderer. So you see it is not always true that a murderer should be punished.’

Jake looked at the pictophone screen and nodded at Jameson Lang. ‘I’d like to introduce you to someone,’ said Jake into the mouthpiece of the telephone. ‘This is Sir Jameson Lang, Professor of Philosophy at Cambridge University. I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve asked him to join in our discussion.’

‘Frankly, Jake,’ Wittgenstein said coolly, ‘I’m a little surprised that you should cheat like this. Bringing a prompt — really it’s a bit thick. But naturally I’m also flattered to be talking to the professor. I know his work well. The novels that is.’ He sniggered. ‘I can’t think of any philosophical work he’s ever done.’

‘Hello,’ said the professor, hesitantly. ‘The example you were describing just now relies on improper philosophical grammar. Specifically your use of the word “should” punish. However, quite apart from the semantic issue here, the chief inspector is quite right: there is a universal standard which applies to the character of one’s acts.’

‘My turn to get semantic, Professor. It depends on what you mean by the word “universal”. Speaking of the character of my acts, you mean only the character which they will seem to have from an ordinary point of view, under the ordinary conditions of inquiry, such as asking the ubiquitous man on the Clapham omnibus. Assuming there was still such a thing as the Clapham omnibus.

‘But you see, Professor, I might have decided not to adopt his standard. I might have decided to adopt the standard of a South American headhunter, or an existential hero from a novel by Camus, or an anarchist maybe, perhaps even a right-wing vigilante, an extreme feminist, or a modern-day Maldoror. Could be I’ve decided to adopt all their standards put together. You see, their judgments as to the character of my acts have just as much right to be considered valid as some hollow, stuffed men from the dead, cactus land of Clapham. So you would have to deny that in themselves my acts have only one character, otherwise you would be guilty of bias.’

‘But that is what society is all about,’ said Lang. ‘A bias towards a commonly held standard of what is right and wrong.’

‘That does not give us the truth about my acts. Only the appearance of truth. For thousands of years, when a man took another man’s property it was called theft. But for almost a century, in certain parts of the world this sort of thing was legitimised by the name of Marxism. Tomorrow’s political philosophy might sanction murder, just as Marxism once sanctioned theft. You talk about the standard of a decent society, Professor Lang. But what kind of society is it that regards a President of the United States who orders the use of nuclear weapons to kill thousands of people as a great man, and another man who assassinates a single President as a criminal?’