Stanislaw Lem - The Investigation

“In your opinion then,” Sheppard said, “do we have anything to go on?” The Chief Inspector’s ascetic face was expressionless. Gregory caught himself staring almost impertinently at his superior, as if studying a painting. Is he really like that, he wondered, is all this no more than a dull routine for him?

Gregory mused in this vein during the oppressive, unpleasant silence that followed the Chief Inspector’s question. Again a far-off engine resounded in the darkness beyond the window: the deep rumble moved upward, then grew silent. The panes shook.

“A psychopath or nothing,” said Dr. Sciss all of a sudden. He smiled and, indeed, seemed to be in a good mood. “As Dr. Sorensen so intelligently pointed out, psychopathic behavior is usually very distinctive — it is characterized by impulsiveness, stupidity, and errors due to an attention span limited by emotional disorder. Thus, we are left with nothing. Ergo, gentlemen, it is quite obvious that these incidents couldn’t possibly have taken place.”

“You’re joking, I suppose,” Sorensen growled.

“Gentlemen,” Sheppard interrupted. “The amazing thing is that the press has been very easy on us so far, probably because of the war in the Near East. For the time being we haven’t had to worry about public opinion, but we’re going to hear plenty of criticism of the Yard before long. And so, at least as far as its formal aspects are concerned, the investigation must be expedited. I want to know exactly what has been done already and, in particular, what steps have been taken to recover the bodies.”

“That’s all the lieutenant’s responsibility,” said Farquart. “We gave him full powers two weeks ago, and since then he’s been completely on his own.”

Gregory nodded his assent, pretending not to have heard the criticism implicit in Farquart’s words.

“Starting with the third incident,” he said, “we began to take extreme measures. Immediately after a missing body was reported, we closed off the whole area within a radius of fifty miles, using all the local forces, highway and airport patrols, plus two squads of radio cars from the London tactical headquarters at Chichester. We set up roadblocks at every intersection, railroad grade crossing, tollgate, highway exit, and dead-end street… but nothing came of it. By coincidence we happened to pick up five people who were wanted on various other charges, but as far as our own problem is concerned we didn’t accomplish anything. Of course it’s not easy to close off an area that big, and from the practical standpoint you can never set up a net that’s one hundred percent tight — it’s always possible for someone to slip through. After the second and third incidents the perpetrator probably left the area before our roadblocks were even set up, since he had six hours the first time and about five hours the next. I’m assuming, of course, that he also managed to dispose of his car. In the most recent incident, however, the disappearance took place between 3:00 and 4:50 in the morning, so he didn’t have more than an hour and three quarters for his escape. It was a typical March night… gale winds and snow after an evening of thick fog, and all the roads were impassable until noon of the next day. Of course the perpetrator might have used a tractor or a snowplow to make his getaway, but it would have been hard, and I know this from my own experience because we had an awful time getting our patrol cars out of the snow, both the ones from the local stations and the ones from the Greater London C.I.D. reserve that responded to our alert.”

“So you maintain that no car could have left the Lewes vicinity until noon of the next day?”

“Right.”

“What about sledges?”

“Technically it would have been possible, but not in the amount of time he had to work with. After all, a sledge can’t travel at more than a mile or two an hour, especially in a storm like the one they had that night. Even with the best horses he wouldn’t have been able to get out of the closed-off area by noon.”

“If you say so, Lieutenant, but a moment ago you told us that this kind of net isn’t completely secure,” Sheppard said gently. “In fact, an absolutely secure cordon is only an ideal we aspire to.”

“Besides,” Farquart commented, “he could have put the corpse in a bag and carried it through the fields on foot.”

“Impossible,” said Gregory. He wanted to remain silent but his cheeks were burning. He could hardly keep himself from jumping to his feet.

“No vehicles left the closed-off zone after six in the morning. I can vouch for that,” he declared. “Maybe an infantryman could have gotten through the snow but not with a load as heavy as an adult body. He would have dumped it…”

“Maybe he did dump it,” Sorensen observed.

“I thought of that, but we combed the whole area — there was a thaw the next day which made the job easier — and we didn’t find a thing.”

“Your reasoning is hardly as faultless as you think,” Sciss unexpectedly broke into the conversation. “First of all, you didn’t find the dead cat, but if you had really conducted a careful search you would have—”

“Excuse me,” said Gregory, “but we were looking for a human corpse, not for a dead cat.”

“Exactly! But there are so many places to hide a corpse in such a large area that you might just as well conclude that it isn’t there.”

“The perpetrator could have buried the body,” Farquart added.

“He snatched it just to bury it?” Gregory asked with an innocent air. Farquart snorted.

“Maybe he buried it when he saw he couldn’t get away.”

“But how did he know he couldn’t get away? After all, we weren’t announcing the roadblocks on the radio,” Gregory retorted. “That is… unless he has a contact in the department, or unless he’s a police officer…”

“That’s not a bad thought,” Sciss smiled. “But in any case, gentlemen, you haven’t exhausted all the possibilities. What about a helicopter?”

“What nonsense!” said Dr. Sorensen contemptuously.

“Why? There aren’t any helicopters in England?”

“The doctor apparently believes that it’s easier to suspect a psychopath than a helicopter,” said Gregory, smiling complacently.

“What about all the carcasses?” Sorensen added.

There wasn’t a sound from Sciss, who seemed to be absorbed in his lecture notes.

“The search for the bodies must be continued,” Sheppard went on. “We have to plan a much more comprehensive operation, including ports and dockyards. Some kind of surveillance of ships and cargoes. Do any of you have anything else to say? Any new ideas? Any theories? Anything at all? Please don’t be afraid to be outspoken, even too outspoken.”

“In my opinion, it’s not possible —” Gregory and Farquart began at the same time. They looked at each other and stopped.

“I’m listening.”

No one spoke. The telephone jangled. The Chief Inspector disconnected it and watched the men seated before him. A cloud of bluish tobacco smoke rose around the lamp. For a moment, silence reigned.

“In that case, I…” Sciss said. He was meticulously folding his manuscript and putting it into the briefcase. “… I have applied the constant which I explained to you earlier in order to determine the sequence and location of these phenomena in advance.”

He stood up, moved over to the map, and, using a red pencil, marked off an area encompassing part of the counties of Sussex and Kent.

“If the next incident takes place between tomorrow morning and the end of next week, it will occur in this sector, which is bounded on the north by the suburbs of East Wickham, Croydon, and Surbiton, on the west by Horsham, on the south by a strip of the Channel coast, and on the east by Ashford.”