D. Compton - The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe

‘It’s Mr Rodericks’s wife, sir. His ex-wife, that is.’

‘Tracey…? All right, I’ll come.’ He left Dr Mason watching, fascinated, as the search in the bedroom continued. Television did that for you, took your mind off things.

Dawlish had put Tracey in one of the interviewing rooms. Although she couldn’t have been waiting many minutes there were already two cigarettes scrubbed out in the ashtray. She was lighting a third as Vincent entered.

‘I tried to call you, but the exchange wouldn’t put me through. So I came.’

‘They have their instructions. Outside calls are—’

‘I’d have thought I might expect something better.’

He spread his hands apologetically, wondering why it was so hard for some ex-wives to let go. ‘You saw the show?’ he said.

‘I saw the show.’

She stared at him through her cigarette smoke and he smiled at her encouragingly. If he wasn’t careful he was going to be told that, before knowing him, Roddie had been a fairly sensitive, decent human being.

‘You know, don’t you, that before Roddie got to know you he was a fairly sensitive, decent human being?’

‘Tracey, my dear, we’ve been through this before. Many times.’

‘And we’ll go through it again, just once more.’

‘It’s late, Tracey. Couldn’t we—’

‘Don’t I know it’s late? Too goddamned late… You’ve destroyed him, Vincent. Chewed him up, spat him out, destroyed him.’

‘You’re entitled to your opinion. I don’t think he’d agree with you.’

‘Maybe he thinks he’s still fighting. Did you know he came to see me?’

‘We had the tape.’ Then he felt guilty for scoring so crudely. ‘I… I didn’t see it. And the sound was missing.’

‘I’m sorry. I wish you had. I wish there’d been sound too. Then you’d have understood.’

‘The new show’s upset you.’

‘The new show? Or the new technique? The new, wonder-miracle, electro-neurological technique. In an age of achievements, the latest and the greatest. The Man with the TV Eyes.’

She was quoting, of course. It was cheap copy, but Vincent wouldn’t disown it. ‘He didn’t tell you?’

‘You’re fucking right he didn’t tell me. He was too fucking ashamed.’

He stood up. ‘This is a pointless and unpleasant interview. If—’

‘Have you thought what I’m to tell his son? That his dad’s the Man with the TV Eyes? The man who sold every farthest corner of himself to the square-eyed monster?’

It was a night for people to splash their souls all over him. ‘Roddie Two’s growing up in a new world, Tracey. These old-fashioned emotive phrases will mean nothing to him.’

‘Maybe you’re right at that. Maybe Roddie Two’s new world will see the justice. A fable for our time, Vincent. The only person the voyeur really hurts is himself. And of course the people who love him.’

She turned her head sharply away, jerked her shoulders, drew painfully on her cigarette. Vincent waited. ‘I shall be interested,’ she said at last, ‘to see if anybody in this lousy world will think that what you’re doing to that woman is wrong.’

‘Plenty will.’ He waved his cigar, looming over her, caricaturing the vandal she believed him to be. ‘Seventy-thirty against at the moment, according to the exchange. But it won’t stop them looking in.’

She stubbed out her cigarette and stood up also. She was, he thought, a pretty little thing, but not one of those whose tears brought out the father in him. ‘I must get back home now,’ she said. ‘There’s a neighbor listening out.’

She gathered strength, then walked to the door, using the short distance to get straight what else she had to say. Then she turned. ‘You’ve not changed. Of course you despise him. You despise everybody. You always did. What I really came to tell you was—’

Behind her the door burst open. Dawlish came in fast. ‘He’s asking for you, Mr Ferriman. We said we’d fetch you. He’s hanging on.’

Vincent hurried across the interviewing room till Tracey blocked his path. ‘I came to tell you,’ she said, ‘that I’d always be around to pick up the pieces.’ But he had dodged past her, had not listened, had more important things to think of. ‘If there are any pieces,’ she shouted after him, down the important, dead corridor.

And watched him go, his innocent, white-coated puppy dog trotting behind. At least she had Roddie Two. She wondered what he had.

I hadn’t expected to get through to the Presence. I’d intended to tape a message. But the sound gear had crackled and a voice had come back at me, a voice I didn’t know, plummy like a stage butler, asking me to hang on. So I hung on. I sat on the seat and hung on.

No doubt there were other places from which I could talk to base without fear of interruption, but that night I wasn’t at my most imaginative. So I gave the goggling office boys — goggling butlers? — a steady, unexciting view of an automatic roller towel. Coryton Rondavel provided contraceptives too, for the men who worked in his garage, but I kept my eyes rigorously to the front. I hoped Vincent would hurry. Much longer and Katherine would start feeling sorry for me. Such is the lingua franca of our digestive processes.

‘Roddie? I ought to be very angry with you, Roddie, letting yourself be picked up by—’

‘Yeah. Well, save it for later. Like the man said, listen now, and listen good. You know where I am?’

‘You’re at Coryton Rondavel’s.’

‘Right. And I’m just going to steal the least swanky of Coryton Rondavel’s eight swanky motorcars.’

‘You’re what?’

‘No time to argue. I’m taking one of our chairman’s cars, and you’re going to talk to him, and he’s not going to say a thing. He can charge a rental fee to the company if he likes, but I don’t think he will. Look at some of the footage I’ve recently turned in if you doubt me.’

‘I already have. We don’t like the look of what’s happening to La Mortenhoe.’

‘Me, I’m just hanging on. Maybe I can snap her out of it.’ Me, I didn’t think so. But Vincent liked his men to think positive. If you weren’t careful, you even talked the Vincent way. Meanwhile, I was just taking each hour as it came. ‘Vincent? You still there?’

‘I’m still here.’

‘Just now the house is empty. They were pretty high, so maybe they’ve taken their orgy somewhere else. But sooner or later they’re going to come back. And sooner or later Rondavel’s going to discover he’s a car short. If you don’t want trouble I suggest you have someone ring every ten minutes. If he gets us picked up by the police the whole thing’s blown. It’s a lousy assignment anyway. You hear me?’

‘I hear you. But for God’s sake, why a car? What—’

‘You think about it. I missed the show, but I picked up some of the comments later. From now on we’re hot.’

‘I can see that. But—’

I flushed the toilet straight through his protest. There’s power for you. ‘I’ve got to go,’ I said. ‘She’s been left too long as it is.’

‘Wait, Roddie. I’ve got Dr Mason here. He—’

I cut him, and opened the door. Katherine was over where I’d left her, in the front seat of the black station wagon with the black windows. When I get an idea I really get one. The number plate — CAR 4 — was a pity, but it’d take a very alert and nasty-minded cop to stop us on the off-chance.

I made my way across to the car and got in smoothly. Katherine had obviously been dozing. She roused herself. ‘I thought you’d left me,’ she said. I put my hand on her knee. ‘I wouldn’t have blamed you,’ she went on. ‘This car business is quite crazy.’