‘I’ve had a lot of practice.’ Gregory began to pack away his things on the bed, bowed to the colonel as he saluted and made his way out into the court.
Half an hour later he was on the Benghasi road, holding the Jaguar at 100, working off his tension and anger in a savage burst of speed. Free for only ten days, already he had got himself involved again, gone through all the agony of having to refuse help to someone desperately needing it, his hands itching to administer relief to the child but held back by the insane penalties. It wasn’t only the lunatic legislation but the people enforcing it who ought to be swept away — Bortman and his fellow oligarchs.
He grimaced at the thought of the cold dead-faced Bortman, addressing the World Senate at Lake Success, arguing for increased penalties for the criminal psychopath. The man had stepped straight out of the 14th-century Inquisition, his bureaucratic puritanism masking two real obsessions: dirt and death. Any sane society would have locked Bortman up for ever, or given him a complete brain-lift. Indirectly Bortman was as responsible for the death of Carole Sturgeon as he would have been had he personally handed the razor blade to her.
After Libya, Tunis. He blazed steadily along the coast road, the sea like a molten mirror on the right, avoiding the big towns where possible. Fortunately they weren’t so bad as the European cities, psychotics loitering like stray dogs in the uptown parks, wise enough not to shop-lift or cause trouble, but a petty nuisance on the caf terraces, knocking on hotel doors at all hours of the night.
At Algiers he spent three days at the Hilton, having a new engine fitted to the car, and hunted up Philip Kalundborg, an old Toronto colleague now working in a WHO children’s hospital.
Over their third carafe of burgundy Gregory told him about Carole Sturgeon.
‘It’s absurd, but I feel guilty about her. Suicide is a highly suggestive act, I reminded her of Muriel Bortman’s death. Damn it, Philip, I could have given her the sort of general advice any sensible layman would have offered.’
‘Dangerous. Of course you were right,’ Philip assured him. ‘After the last three years who could argue otherwise?’
Gregory looked out across the terrace at the traffic whirling over the neon-lit cobbles. Beggars sat at their pitches along the sidewalk, whining for sous.
‘Philip, you don’t know what it’s like in Europe now. At least 5 per cent are probably in need of institutional care. Believe me, I’m frightened to go to America. In New York alone they’re jumping from the roofs at the rate of ten a day. The world’s turning into a madhouse, one half of society gloating righteously over the torments of the other. Most people don’t realize which side of the bars they are. It’s easier for you. Here the traditions are different.’
Kalundborg nodded. ‘True. In the villages up-country it’s been standard practice for centuries to blind schizophrenics and exhibit them in a cage.
Injustice is so widespread that you build up an indiscriminate tolerance to every form.’
A tall dark-bearded youth in faded cotton slacks and rope sandals stepped across the terrace and put his hands on their table. His eyes were sunk deep below his forehead, around his lips the brown staining of narcotic poisoning.
‘Christian!’ Kalundborg snapped angrily. He shrugged hopelessly at Gregory, then turned to the young man with quiet exasperation. ‘My dear fellow, this has gone on for too long. I can’t help you, there’s no point in asking.’
The young man nodded patiently. ‘It’s Marie,’ he explained in a slow roughened voice. ‘I can’t control her. I’m frightened what she may do to the baby. Postnatal withdrawal, you know—’
‘Nonsense! I’m not an idiot, Christian. The baby is nearly three. If Marie is a nervous wreck you’ve made her so. Believe me, I wouldn’t help you if I was allowed to. You must cure yourself or you are finished. Already you have chronic barbiturism. Dr Gregory here will agree with me.’
Gregory nodded. The young man stared blackly at Kalundborg, glanced at Gregory and then shambled off through the tables.
Kalundborg filled his glass. ‘They have it all wrong today. They think our job was to further addiction, not cure it. In their pantheon the father-figure is always benevolent.’
‘That’s invariably been Bortman’s line. Psychiatry is ultimately selfindulgent, an encouragement to weakness and lack of will. Admittedly there’s no one more single-minded than an obsessional neurotic. Bortman himself is a good example.’
As he entered the tenth-floor bedroom the young man was going through his valise on the bed. For a moment Gregory wondered whether he was a 1.5W spy, perhaps the meeting on the terrace had been an elaborate trap.
‘Find what you want?’
Christian finished whipping through the bag, then tossed it irritably onto the floor. He edged restlessly away from Gregory around the bed, his eyes hungrily searching the wardrobe top and lamp brackets.
‘Kalundborg was right,’ Gregory told him quietly. ‘You’re wasting your time.’
‘The hell with Kalundborg,’ Christian snarled softly. ‘He’s working the wrong levels. Do you think I’m looking for a jazz heaven, doctor? With a wife and child? I’m not that irresponsible. I took a Master’s degree in law at Heidelberg.’ He wandered off around the room, then stopped to survey Gregory closely.
Gregory began to slide in the drawers. ‘Well, get back to your jurisprudence. There are enough ills to weigh in this world.’
‘Doctor, I’ve made a start. Didn’t Kalundborg tell you I sued Bortman for murder?’ When Gregory seemed puzzled he explained: ‘A private civil action, not criminal proceedings. My father killed himself five years ago after Bortman had him thrown out of the Bar Association.’
Gregory picked up his valise off the floor. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said noncommittally. ‘What happened to your suit against Bortman?’
Christian stared out through the window into the dark air. ‘It was never entered. Some World Bureau investigators saw me after I started to be a nuisance and suggested I leave the States for ever. So I came to Europe to get my degree. I’m on my way back now. I need the barbiturates to stop myself trying to toss a bomb at Bortman.’
Suddenly he propelled himself across the room, before Gregory could stop him was out on the balcony, jack-knifed over the edge. Gregory dived after him, kicked away his feet and tried to pull him off the ledge. Christian clung to it, shouting into the darkness, the lights from the cars racing in the damp street below. On the sidewalk people looked up.
Christian was doubled up with laughter as they fell back into the room, slumped down on the bed, pointing his finger at Gregory, who was leaning against the wardrobe, gasping in exhausted spasms.
‘Big mistake there, doctor. You better get out fast before I tip off the Police Prefect. Stopping a suicide! God, with your record you’d get ten years for that. What a joke!’
Gregory shook him by the shoulders, temper flaring. ‘Listen, what are you playing at? What do you want?’
Christian pushed Gregory’s hands away and lay back weakly. ‘Help me, doctor. I want to kill Bortman, it’s all I think about. If I’m not careful I’ll really try. Show me how to forget him.’ His voice rose desperately. ‘Damn, I hated my father, I was glad when Bortman threw him out.’
Gregory eyed him thoughtfully, then went over to the window and bolted out the night.
Two months later, at the motel outside Casablanca, Gregory finally burned the last of the analysis notes. Christian, clean-shaven and wearing a neat white tropical suit, a neutral tie, watched from the door as the stack of coded entries gutted out in the ashtray, then carried them into the bathroom and flushed them away.
When Christian had loaded his suitcases into the car Gregory said: ‘One thing before we go. A complete analysis can’t be effected in two months, let alone two years. It’s something you work at all your life. If you have a relapse, come to me, even if I’m in Tahiti, or Shanghai or Archangel.’ Gregory paused. ‘If they ever find out, you know what will happen?’ When Christian nodded quietly he sat down in the chair by the writing table, gazing out through the date palms at the huge domed mouth of the transatlantic tunnel a mile away. For a long time he knew he would be unable to relax. In a curious way he felt that the three years at Marseilles had been wasted, that he was starting a suspended sentence of indefinite length. There had been no satisfaction at the successful treatment, perhaps because he had given in to Christian partly for fear of being incriminated in an attack on Bortman.