Кен Макклюр: The Devil's Landscape

‘Password three please.’

‘Pine tree.’

The door opened and a tall, thickset man wearing the uniform scrubs of a male nurse but displaying the physique of a nightclub bouncer ushered them inside.

‘This,’ said Groves walking over to where a man in his fifties sat in a chair, ‘is Malcolm Lawler.’ Barrowman immediately took in that the chair was bolted to the floor and its occupant had his wrists and ankles restrained by straps securing them to the frame.

Had he met him under different circumstances Barrowman thought he might have taken Lawler to be a professional man. He seemed to exude an air of quiet self-confidence, the sort that UK public schools worked so hard to instil in their pupils, understated but definitely there — the kind of assurance that got you the job when exam results might have dictated otherwise.

The hollow in Barrowman’s stomach grew more insistent as he recognised that he was about to come face to face with a monster. The moment their eyes met would be significant. He wasn’t quite sure why, but it had something to do with the relinquishing of anonymity. He would no longer be a face in the crowd. Lawler would know him. He would register as someone known inside a killer’s head.

He looked at the hands resting limply over the ends of the chair arms. These hands had carried out acts that had made him gag in horror when he’d read about them in the trial reports, but when he looked up, the face gave no clue.

‘Thank you for agreeing to see me, Mr Lawler.’

Lawler’s eyes moved over Barrowman appraisingly. Eventually he said in a well-modulated voice, ‘You’ll have to excuse me if I don’t get up.’

Barrowman smiled weakly at the joke. ‘I understand I may be interrupting your television viewing?’

Lawler’s lip curled. ‘I don’t watch television; I have it on. The game-show idiots, the clothes-horse presenters, the endless bickering in soaps... they all serve to remind me what I miss so much about society...’

‘I see,’ said Barrowman, chilled by the humourless smirk that appeared on Lawler’s face.

‘Do you? Do you really?’

‘I suppose not,’ admitted Barrowman, deciding to face the challenge head on. ‘There’s really no way I could.’

Lawler gave a slight nod acknowledging both agreement and approval.

‘I’ll think I’ll leave you now,’ said Groves turning towards the door. He and the nurse left the room.

Barrowman was hyper-aware of the sound of the door closing behind them.

‘I understand you’re a scientist,’ said Lawler. ‘What kind? Groves didn’t think to say.’

‘PhD in biochemistry.’

‘Ah, a PhD,’ purred Lawler, ‘a specialist. You learn more and more about less and less until finally you know absolutely everything about fuck all.’

‘That’s one way of looking at it I suppose,’ said Barrowman, beginning to feel as if he were sitting some sort of test with Lawler as examiner.

‘And what exactly does a biochemist want from me?’

‘I’d like to take a few samples, nothing too invasive — a few millilitres of blood from time to time and some scrapings from the inside of your mouth.’

‘With a view to?’

‘Analysing them.’

‘Who’d have thought?’

Barrowman bit his tongue and paused before responding. ‘Medical science is coming ever closer to understanding what makes us all tick as individuals, Mr Lawler, identifying which genes are responsible for which traits and how they are controlled and regulated.’

Lawler snorted dismissively. ‘It’s one thing knowing which gene causes which condition, quite another being able to do anything about it.’ said Lawler. ‘You can’t change an individual’s DNA.’

‘True,’ said Barrowman feeling slightly uncomfortable at Lawler apparently knowing about the drawbacks inherent in gene therapy. ‘But people are working on that.’

‘So you think you will discover why I am... what shall we say?.. alternatively blessed to the good folks on the Jeremy Kyle show?’

Barrowman had been making a point of looking Lawler in the eye when replying, but had found nothing there to support the possibility of establishing any sort of rapport with the man. He was looking into stagnant pools. ‘Yes, that sort of thing,’ he said.

‘Sounds fun.’

Barrowman shuddered inwardly at the thought of what ‘fun’ might mean to a man like Lawler, but also realised why he was continuing to feel so uncomfortable. It wasn’t the fact that he was alone with a rapist and a murderer, it was that Lawler was intent on establishing himself as his intellectual superior.

‘Blood and scrapings, is that all you want from me?’

Barrowman hesitated before risking, ‘It would be useful if you might consider conversation from time to time, talking to me, telling me about yourself... about anything really... just what you feel about things in general...’

‘My hopes, my dreams, my ambitions...’ said Lawler, making a point of looking up at the walls and then at the bindings securing his arms before assuming his superior grin. ‘What exactly do you want to hear from me? What exactly are you hoping for? What do you need for your results? Just tell me and I’ll play along... Psychopath? Schizophrenic? Paranoid schizo? I can do them all. Remorseful? Contrite? Born-again Christian? — that’s my favourite. Just say.’

‘I’m not interested in pinning labels on anyone,’ said Barrowman. ‘It’s data I’m after.’

‘Of course,’ conceded Lawler. ‘I forgot. You’re not a psychiatrist, you’re a scientist, cold, unemotional, observant, but ultimately seeking a scientific truth you can never understand.’

Barrowman looked at him quizzically.

‘The big question, Doctor. What’s it all about?’

Lawler used his eyes to create an arc above his head. ‘It’s the one question waiting at the end of the line for all you scientists, the one you can never answer because it’s beyond comprehension. Everything is derived from something else. The law of conservation of matter. Matter cannot be created or destroyed. Correct? And yet, science proceeds like a hamster on a wheel, carefully examining the running surface in minute detail as it continues on its way to the end of a journey that isn’t coming. How could the first molecule arise if there was nothing there to begin with? The big bang? What exploded if there was nothing there to explode? Maybe that wasn’t the beginning of our universe, Doctor. Maybe it was the end of another... and where did that come from? Same problem.’

Lawler seemed pleased to have Barrowman’s rapt attention. ‘Or maybe it’s all down to a man in the sky with a long white beard. Yes, that’s it. That’s what the chaps in frilly dresses and pointy hats would have us believe so why not? There we are. Sorted. Anything else we should talk about?’

‘I’m sure there’s lots,’ said Barrowman, uncertain if that were true, but feeling slightly mesmerised.

‘Maybe next time,’ said Lawler. ‘Deal or no Deal will be on shortly; I’d hate to miss that.’

London 2014

Dr Steven Dunbar arrived at the Home Office and climbed the stairs to the small suite of offices allocated to the Sci-Med Inspectorate. He was greeted by Jean Roberts, secretary to the unit and PA to his boss, Sir John Macmillan. She smiled as he entered then frowned and looked him up and down before saying, ‘You look like a TV reporter.’

Steven grinned, understanding the allusion to the Berghaus jacket he was wearing. ‘You’re right. I should be standing outside 10 Downing Street telling people that nothing had happened in the six hours I’d been waiting there.’

‘Or wading through knee-deep floods in the west country to show us dumb folks what water looks like,’ added Jean.