Philip Kerr - A Philosophical Investigation

But she was not long back at her desk when Wittgenstein did ring a second time; and as things transpired, there was to be no opportunity for Jameson Lang to argue with Wittgenstein.

Immediately he telephoned, Wittgenstein declared that in response to Jake’s own lecture to the EC symposium on techniques of law enforcement and criminal investigation, he intended to deliver his own lecture, entitled ‘The Perfect Murder’ which he claimed he had recently given to the Society of Connoisseurs in Murder.

When Jake tried to open a conversation with him, Wittgenstein declared that they could either listen or he would ring off and kill someone straightaway. So, in the hope of preventing another murder, and in the vague expectation that they might learn something more of Wittgenstein himself, Jake reluctantly agreed.

In all, Wittgenstein spoke for almost eighteen minutes. He spoke as if there had indeed been an audience that was composed of anything but Scotland Yard detectives: as if there had just occurred some splendid dinner at the Guildhall and now, in front of five hundred guests wearing evening dress who comprised the Society of Connoisseurs in Murder, he, Wittgenstein, had risen from his place to give the keynote address.

After several minutes Jake glanced at her wristwatch. She didn’t much care to be lectured by anyone, least of all a killer talking about the perfect murder. It crossed her mind to interrupt him, to challenge one or two of the statements Wittgenstein had made. But at the same time she did not want to risk angering him and provoking him to ring off. So she kept silent, fascinated with this protracted insight into the mind of a mass-murderer, occasionally glancing over at Stanley who, on catching her eye, would tap the side of his head meaningfully.

But when Wittgenstein announced that at the conclusion of his lecture, he would be committing another murder, Jake was finally moved to contradict him.

‘No,’ she said. ‘I forbid you.’

The voice on the telephone uttered a short laugh. ‘What’s that you say?’

‘I forbid you to kill anyone,’ Jake repeated firmly.

There was a short silence. ‘May I proceed with my lecture please?’ said Wittgenstein. He sounded like some dry-as-dust old academic.

‘Only if you promise that you will discuss this matter at the end of it,’ said Jake.

‘What matter is that?’

‘What you said about killing another man. You promise to discuss it or I hang up right now. D’you hear?’

Another pause. ‘Very well,’ he sighed. ‘May I continue now?’

‘We’ll discuss it?’

‘I said so, didn’t I?’

‘Very well then. Continue.’

‘Let me turn now to the murders themselves...’

‘Be my guest,’ said Jake.

But this time Wittgenstein ignored her.

Jake settled back in her chair and lit a cigarette. From time to time she glanced at the pictophone screen to see how Sir Jameson Lang was reacting to this bizarre example of public speaking in absentia. But the Cambridge philosopher and Master of Trinity College betrayed no signs of anything but fascination.

She reflected that he was probably thinking of how his own fictional detective creation, Plato, would have handled the situation. Better than she was doing, Jake didn’t doubt. She admired and respected Lang, but all the same she found his interest in crime rather puzzling. She knew that he was hardly unique in this respect. The English fascination with the murder mystery was, as even now Wittgenstein was suggesting, more prevalent than ever. She had no explanation for this peculiar phenomenon other than the purely sociological: that it was the product of society’s own decadence. Of that particular characteristic there was more than enough in Wittgenstein’s twisted lecture and irritation began to give way to a certain astonishment the detective felt with regard to the perversity of a murderer’s arguments.

Astonishment became absorption and after her first interruption she did not challenge him again. Later on, she thought she had been naive to have trusted him to keep his word, for Wittgenstein had no sooner delivered the last phrases of his speech, which was to pass over a series of supposedly traditional toasts to a number of famous murderers, than he had rung off, leaving Jake to curse him for a liar.

But what was far worse than the feeling that she had been duped was the knowledge that somewhere he was almost certainly in the very act of committing his twelfth murder.

Later on that day, Jake was called to the City of London where, beside a public bar on Lower Thames Street, an as-yet unidentified male Caucasian’s body had been found with six gunshots to the back of the head. There wasn’t much to see beyond the simple confirmation that Wittgenstein had struck again and, leaving the scenes-of-crime officers to do their job, Jake returned to the Yard.

She found Detective Sergeant Jones and a tall, dark, unshaven man eating a bag of crisps waiting in her office. Both men stood up as Jake walked in and hung her coat on the hatstand.

‘And who’s this?’ she enquired.

‘This is Mr Parmenides,’ explained Jones. ‘I’ve taken a statement off him, but I think you’ll find what he’s got to say worth hearing yourself, ma’am.’

Jake sat down behind her desk and poured herself a glass of mineral water.

‘I’m all ears,’ she said wearily.

Jones prompted the man with a nod.

‘A few days ago,’ said the man, whose name and accent seemed to confirm that he was Greek, ‘I think it was Monday... Anyway, I left home to go to work. This is at my cousin’s restaurant in Piccadilly. I always start work at around six. But on my way I see this man is following me. I notice him for the first time on the train from Wandsworth, where I live, to Victoria. Then, later on, I see him again when I come out of the Brain Research Institute.’

Parmenides glanced uncertainly at Jones. ‘You sure she all right to tell this?’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Jones. ‘The chief inspector won’t tell anyone about you. You have my word.’

The Greek seemed reassured. ‘OK. I believe. Well, Chief Inspector, the fact is that I am VMN-negative. You know about this thing I suppose.’

Jake nodded.

‘I am going to the Institute once a week for counselling on how to deal with situations which may make me feel very violent, sometimes. Like football. And Turks. What will happen to me, I am not sure, but—’ He shrugged nervously.

‘Please go on,’ said Jake, more interested now.

‘Well you see, this man comes after me. I take the underground from Victoria and he is there again when I come up in the Green Park. Then I am walking along Piccadilly, to my cousin’s restaurant like I say, and I say to myself, “Why should this guy be following you, Kyriakos?” So I go into the church there, I–I don’t remember the name—’

‘It’s St James’s Church, ma’am,’ said Jones.

‘I know the one,’ said Jake.

‘Yes, that is it. And the man follows me inside. Now I am sure of him following me. He sits behind me, several seats behind. So after one or two minutes I am feeling very angry indeed at him. And so I get up and grab him round the throat and say “for why are you following me, you bastard?” ’ Parmenides made an apologetic sort of gesture. ‘You know, I have this fear that maybe he is something to do with the Lombroso Program. That maybe he is some kind of secret policeman.’

‘Did he say anything?’ said Jake.

‘He say that he is a tourist. So I give him a good shake and say I don’t believe. I say he will tell me for why he follows me or I will hurt him. Then what happens is that these two people come into the church and for one second I think they are with this man, and for another second I suddenly realise how I am behaving inside a church, of all places. I try to remember what my counsellor has told me about keeping my calm and holding my cool and so, I let him go and he runs off. Well after that, I think maybe he is just some sort of queer or something and maybe he just fancy me.’