Philip Kerr - A Philosophical Investigation

‘Today, when we accept that a killer believes what he says to be true, that religious defence strikes as being evidence of his insanity. And if we think he’s bogus and that he’s lying about having heard a voice, then we go ahead and jab him. But whichever one applies, this kind of explanation for committing such appalling crimes remains generally comprehensible to us. It’s not particularly original, but we can readily accept that there would surely have to be some extraordinary explanation to do something as heinous as kill your mother and your father and your own puppy dog. In a sense, it’s the only explanation which people can understand.’ Esterhazy smiled to himself and looked distant for a moment.

‘But if you want an explanation that’s better suited to these modern times, Jake, I’ll give you one. If the absence of logic is what characterises faith, then the opposite also holds true. Where one has faith in nothing, then there is only logic that’s left to answer to. So just as another man might have claimed that God made him kill twelve men in cold blood, I’m saying that it was not the voice of God which made me do it, but the voice of Logic. I heard the voice of Logic and his ministers of Reason and I had this compulsion to kill.’ He smiled wryly. ‘It’s a different kind of madness, that’s all.

‘But you’ve read the notebooks, haven’t you?’ He shrugged eloquently. ‘What do you think? You’re the detective. This was your investigation. You caught me. You must have the answers. It’s you who have restored the moral order to a world that was temporarily upset by my crimes. How very Shakespearean of you, Jake. Perhaps it’s me who should be asking you questions. Well, what do you think, Chief Inspector?’

Jake shrugged. ‘Any restoration such as you describe would be an illusion, in my opinion,’ she said. ‘You ought to know all about illusion, Paul. Look at you, spending half your life with that Reality Approximation machine. Even now you might believe that you’re still wearing your RA suit and helmet. If I have an explanation at all, it’s that you can no longer distinguish between what is real and what is unreal. But that doesn’t make you so very different from a lot of other people. Nobody cares much for reality anymore. Maybe they never did. Is that what you would call a moral order? If you ask me, there’s not much balance around anywhere. And this — this investigation was just a holding action. Until the next time.’

They didn’t say much more after that. For a few moments she sat in silence and let him hold her hand. She tried to remember the last time she had held a man’s hand. Her father had tried to hold her hand as he lay dying in hospital and she had pulled away. Things were different now. She had stopped hating. It was time to be compassionate. To care. Maybe even to love.

Jake left him alone during the few minutes which remained. She would have left the prison if she could. She had no stomach for what was to follow. But the provisions of Homicide (Punishment of Murderers) Act 2005 required that, as senior investigating officer, she be present when the sentence was carried out.

Watched by almost twenty people, to say nothing of the millions watching on television, Esterhazy met his punishment as bravely as was possible, considering that he was already strapped down onto a hospital trolley when the coma technician produced the hypodermic. There was an audible gasp among two or three of the spectators as the needle caught the light from the glass ceiling like an upturned sword. Esterhazy turned his head away from the television camera and waited in silence. The technician swabbed his neck with a piece of cotton wool and the air was filled with the scent of something antiseptic.

The prison clock was still striking midnight as the needle entered his jugular vein and the plunger was depressed. Coma was almost instantaneous.

Next the body was wheeled into the main storage hall, and under the huge eye, it was transferred to the waiting drawer. Electric wires and pipes were attached to Esterhazy’s naked torso, and when everything was in place and working to the coma technician’s satisfaction, the drawer was pushed smoothly shut.

Jake waited until the television cameras had gone before moving in closer to read what the technician was typing on the screen: Esterhazy’s epitaph. She recognised it as some lines from The Waste Land, the ones which followed the hyacinth girl.

Jake wiped the tear from her eye, collected the hyacinth, and went out into the sunshine.

What can I tell you about what it was like, lying in that drawer one lifetime, and then gone somewhere else, I don’t know where? How can I describe it to you?

The picture is something like this. Though the ether is filled with vibrations the world is dark. But one day man opens his seeing eye, and there is light.