Am I still handcuffed?

I do not know why I say they took me down (well, I do, of course) for we simply walked a little way along a corridor, past the lavatory, and through a steel gate. I confess I felt a qualm of fear, but that was quickly replaced by surprise: it was all just as I expected! There really are bars, there really is a bucket, and a pallet with a striped, lumpy mattress, and graffiti on the scarred walls. There was even a stubbled old-timer, standing white-knuckled at the door of his cell, who peered out at me in wordless, angry derision. I was given a piece of soap and a tiny towel and three pieces of shiny toilet-paper. In return I surrendered my belt and shoelaces. I saw at once the importance of this ritual. Cowering there, with the tongues of my shoes hanging out, clutching in one hand the waistband of my trousers and holding in the other, for all to see, the fundamental aids to my most private functions, I was no longer wholly human. I hasten to say this seemed to me quite proper, to be, indeed, a kind of setting to rights, an official and outward definition of what had been the case, in my case, all along. I had achieved my apotheosis. Even old Cunningham, even Sergeant Hogg seemed to recognise it, for they treated me now, brusquely, with a sort of truculent, abstracted regard, as if they were not my jailers, but my keepers, rather. I might have been a sick old toothless lion. Hogg put his hands in his pockets and went off whistling. I sat down on the side of the cot. Time passed. It was very quiet. The old boy in the other cell asked me my name. I did not answer him. Well fuck you, then, he said. Dusk came on. I have always loved that hour of the day, when that soft, muslin light seeps upward, as if out of the earth itself, and everything seems to grow thoughtful and turn away. It was almost dark when Sergeant Hogg came back, and handed me a grubby sheet of foolscap. He had been eating chips, I could smell them on his breath. I peered in bafflement at the ill-typed page. That's your confession, Hogg said. Feel like signing it? The lag next door cackled grimly. What are you talking about? I said. These are not my words. He shrugged, and belched into his fist. Suit yourself, he said, you'll be going down for life anyway. Then he went off again. I sat down and examined this strange document. Oh, well-named Cunningham! Behind the mask of the bald old codger a fiendish artist had been at work, the kind of artist I could never be, direct yet subtle, a master of the spare style, of the art that conceals art. I marvelled at how he had turned everything to his purpose, mis-spellings, clumsy purpose, mis-spellings, clumsy syntax, even the atrocious typing. Such humility, such deference, such ruthless suppression of the ego for the sake of the text. He had taken my story, with all its – what was it Haslet said? – with all its frills and fancy bits, and pared it down to stark essentials. It was an account of my crime I hardly recognised, and yet I believed it. He had made a murderer of me. I would have signed it there and then, but I had nothing to write with. I even searched my clothing for something sharp, a pin or something, with which to stick myself, and scrawl my signature in blood. But what matter, it did not require my endorsement. Reverently I folded the page in four and placed it under the mattress at the end where my head would be. Then I undressed and lay down naked in the shadows and folded my hands on my breast, like a marble knight on a tomb, and closed my eyes. I was no longer myself. I can't explain it, but it's true. I was no longer myself.

That first night in captivity was turbulent. I slept fitfully, it was not really sleep, but a helpless tossing and sliding on the surface of a dark sea. I could sense the deeps beneath me, the black, boundless deeps. The hour before dawn was, as always, the worst. I masturbated repeatedly – forgive these squalid details – not for pleasure, really, but to exhaust myself. What a motley little band of manikins I conjured up to join me in these melancholy frottings. Daphne was there, of course, and Anna Behrens, amused and faintly shocked at the things I was making her do, and poor Foxy as well, who wept again in my arms, as I, silent and stealthy about my felon's work, pressed her and pressed her against that door in the empty, moonlit room of my imagination. But there were others, too, whom I would not have expected: Madge's niece, for instance – remember Madge's niece? – and the big girl with the red neck I had followed through the city streets – remember her? – and even, God forgive me, my mother and the stable-girl. And in the end, when they all had come and gone, and I lay empty on my prison bed, there rose up out of me again, like the spectre of an onerous and ineluctable task, the picture of that mysterious, dark doorway, and the invisible presence in it, yearning to appear, to be there. To live.

Monday morning. Ah, Monday morning. The ashen light, the noise, the sense of pointless but compulsory haste. I think it will be Monday morning when I am received in Hell. I was wakened early by a policeman bearing another mug of tea and lump of bread. I had been dozing, it was like being held fast in the embrace of a large, hot, rank-smelling animal. I knew at once exactly where I was, there was no mistaking the place. The policeman was young, an enormous boy with a tiny head, when I opened my eyes first and looked up at him he seemed to tower above me almost to the ceiling. He said something incomprehensible and went away. I sat on the edge of the cot and held my head in my hands. My mouth was foul, and there was an ache behind my eyes and a wobbly sensation in the region of my diaphragm. I wondered if this nausea would be with me for the rest of my life. Wan sunlight fell at a slant through the bars of my cage. I was cold. I draped a blanket around my shoulders and squatted over the bucket, my knees trembling. I would not have been surprised if a crowd had gathered in the corridor to laugh at me. I kept thinking, yes, this is it, this is how it will be from now on. It was almost gratifying, in a horrible sort of way.

Sergeant Cunningham came to fetch me for the first of that day's inquisitions. I had washed as best I could at the filthy sink in the corner. I asked him if I might borrow a razor. He laughed, shaking his head at the idea, the richness of it. He thought I really was a card. I admired his good humour: he had been here all night, his shift was only ending now. I shuffled after him along the corridor, clutching my trousers to keep them from falling down. The dayroom was filled with a kind of surly pandemonium. Typewriters clacked, and short-wave radios snivelled in adenoidal bursts, and people strode in and out of doorways, talking over their shoulders, or crouched at desks and shouted into telephones. A hush fell when I came through – no, not a hush, exactly, but a downward modulation in the noise. Word, obviously, had spread. They did not stare at me, I suppose that would have been unprofessional, but they took me in, all the same. I saw myself in their eyes, a big, confused creature, like a dancing bear, shambling along at the steel-tipped heels of Cunningham's friendly boots. He opened a door and motioned me into a square, grey room. There was a plastic-topped table and two chairs. Well, he said, I'll be seeing you, and he winked and withdrew his head and shut the door. I sat down carefully, placing my hands flat before me on the table. Time passed. I was surprised how calmly I could sit, just waiting. It was as if I were not fully there, as if I had become detached somehow from my physical self. The room was like the inside of a skull. The hubbub in the dayroom might have been coming to me from another planet.

Barker and Kickham were the first to arrive. Barker today wore a blue suit which had been cut in great broad swathes, as if it were intended not for wearing, but to house a collection of things, boxes, perhaps. He was red-faced and in a sweat already. Kickham had on the same leather jacket and dark shirt that he was wearing yesterday – he did not strike me as a man much given to changing his clothes. They wanted to know why I had not signed the confession. I had forgotten about it, and left it under the mattress, but I said, I don't know why, that I had torn it up. There was another of those brief, stentorian silences, while they stood over me, clenching their fists and breathing heavily down their nostrils. The air rippled with suppressed violence. Then they trooped out and I was left alone again. Next to appear was an elderly chap in cavalry twill and a natty little hat, and a narrow-eyed, brawny young man who looked like the older one's disgruntled son. They stood just inside the door and studied me carefully for a long moment, as if measuring me for something. Then Detective Twill advanced and sat down opposite me, and crossed his legs, and took off his hat, revealing a flattish bald head, waxen and peculiarly pitted, like that of an ailing baby. He produced a pipe and lighted it with grave deliberation, then recrossed his legs and settled himself more comfortably, and began to ask me a series of cryptic questions, which after some time I realised were aimed at discovering what I might know about Charlie French and his acquaintances. I answered as circumspectly as I could, not knowing what it was they wanted to know – I suspect they didn't, either. I kept smiling at them both, to show how willing I was, how compliant. The younger one, still standing by the door, took notes. Or at least he went through the motions of writing in a notebook, for I had an odd feeling that the whole thing was a sham, intended to distract or intimidate me. All that happened, however, was that I grew bored – I could not take them seriously – and got muddled, and began to contradict myself. After a while they too seemed to grow discouraged, and eventually left. Then my chum Inspector Haslet carne sidling in with his shy smile and averted glance. My God, I said, who were they? Branch, he said. He sat down, looked at the floor, drummed his fingers on the table. Listen, I said, I'm worried, my wife, I – He wasn't listening, wasn't interested. He brought up the matter of my confession. Why hadn't I signed it? He spoke quietly, he might have been talking about the weather. Save a lot of trouble, you know, he said. Suddenly I flew into a rage, I don't know what came over me, I banged my fist on the table and jumped up and shouted at him that I would do nothing, sign nothing, until I got some answers. I really did say that: until I get some answers! At once, of course, the anger evaporated, and I sat down again sheepishly, biting on a knuckle. The ruffled air subsided. Your wife, Haslet said mildly, is getting on a plane – he consulted his watch -just about now. I stared at him. Oh, I said. I was relieved, of course, but not really surprised. I knew all along Senor what's-his-name would be too much of a gentleman not to let her go.