Advance Praise for

Karma Lawyer

“Karma Lawyer magnificently transcends literary genres. Raymond Chandler meets Albert Einstein, Robert Johnson riffs with Elvis. The pairings of the popular and the arcane are many and echo throughout the book, both in the chapter headings, and eclectic references to such as fractals and electro-magnetic energy within the work itself. But always in the foreground are the triumphs and very real dilemmas of our anti-hero, Maitland Fairweather. This balancing act between fact and fiction succeeds by the skin of its teeth because it ultimately provides a rich and rewarding read. On one level it is a novel but on the other it is a vehicle of ideas. Big, life changing ideas. A book that involves us not only in the karma of its anti-hero, but also the karma of our planet. The consequences of the narrative are alternatively personal and geopolitical. We neglect both at our peril. Nigel Lesmoir-Gordon cannot be accused of hiding his light under a bushel. So be illuminated. Read this book.”

Alistair Findlay, Actor

I found this book very funny. Nigel’s prose has a way of gliding over cruel acts to make them bearable to read and, in the end, I actually liked his hero, Maitland Fairweather, which came as a surprise to me. He is a likeable narcissist.

Deborah Shorrocks, Psychotherapist

“I think the story is great. It’s what makes the book.”

Brendan Hayes, Martial Arts Instructor

“I found this novel gripping and intriguing.”

Lois Kleffman, Editor

“Karma Lawyer is a darkly mysterious and comic book, cut through with unexpected twists and turns. It never failed to surprise and delight me. Quality penmanship again from this author.”

Vincent Prochard, Physicist

“Karma Lawyer is a most engaging novel. I see Maitland as a total psychopath. I know the author tried to redeem him, but that first impression stuck with me. Without the darkness, there would be no contrast. We would never be challenged or tested. It's only in combat that one learns how to fight.”

Mary Thomas

“Nigel Lesmoir-Gordon apparently exists in a Space-Time of his own creation which is wonderfully expounded upon in his many adventures and novels, either realized, created or dreamt, and to read his words is to join in his vast knowledge and unique awareness. Karma Lawyer is no exception and another mind-bending pleasure. WARNING: Before reading, clear your mind of anything you think you know or have learned and be sitting or lying down to avoid becoming dizzy and falling and hurting yourself.”

Pasquale Falbo, US Air Force Instructor Pilot

“Karma Lawyer is a very disturbing story that throws a spotlight on the whole human experience, asking searching questions of us all. For example, are we an amalgam of good and evil, oscillating between two extremes, held together by the glue of ‘so-called’ ethics and rules? Or have we moved so far away from the centre ground that we are faced with a stark choice: either to make a pact with the devil or to surrender to God?

“Nigel Lesmoir-Gordon’s latest novel features the rich and successful criminal lawyer, Maitland Fairweather, who is shocked to discover that his wife, Sarah, is cheating on him. Despite his deep love for her, he cannot cope with her betrayal and decides to kill her. He gets hold of a gun, but when he realises he can’t go through with it, he hires a hit squad to kill her. Unconcerned by her subsequent murder, he maintains an innocent façade, convincing both the police and his wife’s parents of his sincere shock and grief yet continues to live his life as if nothing has happened. Maitland’s brilliance in court as a defence lawyer has prepared him well for an acting career. And who better than a criminal lawyer to use crime to his advantage?

“Maitland’s ability to enjoy his life to the full so soon after his wife’s disappearance doesn’t escape the eyes of the Law, and the detective in charge of the case is suspicious. But Maitland doesn’t care; he’s too busy fighting cases and entertaining new clients like Mary, a scientist whose company manufactures deadly scalar-electromagnetic weapons – weapons so devastating they could destroy the world – and he eventually falls in love with her. He is her saviour, and she trusts him. But he never shows his bad side or his mania for control, preferring to share his Utopian vision and spiritual revelations with Mary with the help of hallucinogenics.

“Despite his evil streak, Maitland does have a conscience. He cares for the people around him. He’s a philosopher and a believer too, aware of his own human frailties and inadequacies. But when one of the hit squad he hired to kill his wife blackmails him and demands money, he reverts to type and personally arranges her death. There is no remorse. It’s as if he’s engaged in a personal crusade to relieve the world of bad people – especially those that resort to betrayal or greed. He is providing a service to mankind; morality doesn’t come into it.

“Knowing that one day he will eventually be caught and tried for murder, Maitland prepares for his anticipated incarceration by adopting the personality of Adolph Hitler. By morphing into the personality of a psychopath, Maitland hopes that the forces of law and order will take pity on him and send him to a mental hospital rather than prison. But it is soon clear that the foul language that emerges from his lips is also his own. When evil is faced with evil only evil can result.

“Nigel has written a tragedy but at heart it’s a comedy. Despite its dark bleakness the author manages to leave the reader feeling hopeful of finding love and an end to suffering.

“I fully recommend reading Karma Lawyer. It will shock and amaze you in equal proportions. I only hope that I never meet people like Maitland in my life and that they remain figments of the author’s imagination.”

Paul Sinclair, Author of Fatal Consequences and Bay of Killers

Ananda Moi Ma’s Lightning Bolt

What is ordinarily called love is not Prema, true love, but Moha, attraction through delusion. Prema cannot exist between individuals. People say, my love for such and such a person is true love and not worldly love. But they are deceiving themselves. Love for what is mortal is invariably Moha and it leads to death. Have you not noticed how when you find it impossible to get the object of your love you either wish to kill it or to die yourself?

Introduction

I do not know to what extent I should have accepted writing an introduction to Karma Lawyer. I feel somewhat daunted by the task of having to introduce such a unique work of literary art, yet having accepted the charge, I will carry it out after overcoming an inner resistance. I owe so much to the author by way of personal inspiration that it is an honour and a privilege to encourage you, the reader, to grasp this opportunity of discovering the illuminating abstractions of instinctive writing presented here by Nigel. Most of the time he did not know himself what was going to happen in the storyline, as he has often told me. That part was turned over to a process of unconscious cerebration. What is perhaps the book’s essential part, he entrusts to instinct. If he was not a born writer, he could never have brought his dramatic works to realisation in this way. His unique literary style and finely tuned perception are given ever new expression in Karma Lawyer. Poetry, laughter and tears are the ingredients of his dramatic invention.

The main protagonist in the novel is the antihero, Maitland Fairweather. He is a narcissistic, manipulative lawyer trying to redeem his conscience and his past. Falling in love with a beautiful, bona fide heroine and performing meritorious deeds of valour and compassion bring only temporary relief, failing to absolve the inner darkness of his psyche which is so full of fury and guilt. Paradoxically, the atoning acts of righteous deeds and his newly found love only serve to accentuate the agony and powerlessness he is eventually forced to face. They become as flowers and roses lining the road to death. While the inner struggle between denial and guilt gathers momentum challenging him to face himself, he chooses instead to completely evade facing reality. He disassociates and in doing so creates an inner conflict and unbearable tension that in turn creates a psychological Gordian Knot which the reader is inevitably drawn into like a vortex.

The moments of the novel's greatest dramatic intensity are crowned with quotes like heirlooms from beyond and the ordinariness of some of the images at the end of the chapters become miraculous abstractions. By way of contrast and surprise there is also humour to offset the sense of foreboding that propels one along the precipice of suspense. The reader may very well find themselves laughing out loud in places. In the final analysis, the disturbing conundrum of evil presented here compels the reader to explore the deceptive nature of desire and fear which set the trap and provide the plot. Human frailty is laid bare.

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it. Omar Khayyám

Within the framework of contradictory polarities, the stark reality of the grand finale emerges from the ricochet of events like an arrow released that finds its mark with unerring accuracy. It cannot be turned back once it has left the bow.

To conclude, Frederico Garcia Lorca in his play, 'Blood Wedding' presents the same concept of human fatality lending it poetic form:

With a knife

with a little knife,

on their appointed day,

between two and three,

these two men killed each other for love.

With a knife,

with a tiny knife

that barely fits the hand,

but that slides in clean

through the astonished flesh

and stops at the place

where trembles, enmeshed,

the dark root of scream.

A tiny knife

that barely fits the hand

fish without scales, without river,

so that on their appointed day, between two and three,

with this knife

two men are left stiff

with their lips turning yellow.

Lorca ~ Blood Wedding

Countess de La Torre

2 Romantic Love

What Is This Thing Called Love?

Cole Porter, 1929

My name is Maitland Fairweather and I was the baddest and meanest man the world had ever seen. I was also senior partner in the law firm Whitlock, Fetlock and Fairweather. I was a rich man, well-built and good looking with dark wavy hair and a strong chin. I was 46 when this strange adventure occurred. I was a brilliant, successful lawyer, ruthless, amoral, extremely well paid and I was suffering. After just one year of marriage Sarah, my wife, had left me for another poorer and younger man called Robin Makepeace. Makepeace and Fairweather indeed – huh!

Under pressure Sarah had shown me a photo of her lover. He was not a looker. He was a bus driver, so he didn’t have a big salary and he didn’t own a car. He cycled to work and on wet days he used public transport. Clearly Sarah hadn’t left me for money or social status or for the man’s looks. So why, I pondered obsessively night and day? I could find no good reason. I must just say that I have nothing against bus drivers per se. It’s worthy work, but I’m sure glad I didn’t have to do that to earn a crust!

The pain of separation was as intense as the romance had been. Even though Sarah had given nothing away I was amazed that I hadn’t seen it coming. I was puzzled, lost and confused. It got me thinking about the meaning and purpose of romantic love. Did it, I wondered, serve any purpose at all. Perhaps, I conceded to myself, it played its part in the continuance of the human race. I couldn’t see how though. As I understand it animals, fish and insects and all the rest reproduced without having to fall in love. They just did sex without all the fuss and bother. I knew too that once the honeymoon period was over the romance soon faded into habit. What seemed to work in the long run was friendship, sharing a life together in partnership. My parents had married in their late teens and stayed together for 20 years. They used to walk together hand-in-hand, enjoying the same things for a while – books, films, holidaying in the sun and walking in the country. Sadly, that didn’t last and things did go pear-shaped.

It struck me that the expression ‘falling in love’ was significant because we don’t ‘rise in love’ or ‘climb in love’. We fall in love because something of what we are has to go. Not necessarily the whole of us, but at least a part of us must collapse.

Sarah was a mystery to me. Always had been and now always would be.

Late one sleepless night I was hit by a terrible desire. I thought that if I couldn’t have her then no one else should either. I was overwhelmed by a most powerful desire to kill her and this desire pursued me relentlessly. It gave me no respite. For the first time I knew – I really knew – what evil was. I found I had it in me and that surprised me, and I didn’t know what to do with it. I had often wondered if there was such a thing as evil. Was Hitler evil? Pol Pot? Stalin? Fred West?

The Bible postulated that the Devil was a real force to be reckoned with and fought against, of course, and the Hindus speak of the Negative Power, which they call Kal. This word also translates as time and death.

I wasn’t a great cook, but making my dinner one evening I heard a recording of the Scottish folk song on the radio called ‘The Water is Wide’:

The water is wide I can't cross over.

And neither have I wings to fly.

Build me a boat that can carry two

And both shall row, my love and I.

There is a ship and she sails the sea.

She's loaded deep as deep can be,

But not so deep as the love I'm in.

I know not how I sink or swim.

Oh, love is handsome, and love is fine.

The sweetest flower when first it's new,

But love grows old and waxes cold

And fades away like Summer dew.

Build me a boat that can carry two

And both shall row, my love and I.

I was moved to tears. When the song finished I turned the radio off and pondered on the lines:

But love grows old and waxes cold

And fades away like the morning dew.

Was this what had happened with Sarah, I wondered, when the first flush of passion died, and the honeymoon was over? Of course, I didn’t know the answer to that. I had no idea.

It was strange that Omrita Chatterji, an extremely beautiful and wildly bright Indian girl, would come into my thoughts at that moment. I flipped open my wallet and found the photo of her that I always carried with me. Seeing her face again I was reminded of her glowing mystical beauty. It was funny how she had never lain in my arms as anything more than a friend. How different our lives might have been if we had let our love grow.

4 Love is Blind

…But love is blind and lovers cannot see The pretty follies that themselves commit; For if they could, Cupid himself would blush...

To see me thus transformed to a boy. William Shakespeare. The Merchant of Venice

Georgie got me a Sig-Sauer P227, but I couldn’t do the deed. In the end I had to tell him what I had in mind and he introduced me to Candida* Florette. He was discreet, and he was cool, and he didn’t want to know the details and be compromised. I liked that quality in a friend. Still do. Candida was a hit-woman and very expensive to hire, but that wasn’t an issue. One thing I had was plenty of money with more and more flowing in every day. Money makes money that’s for sure. Employing a girl to do the deed seemed sort of quirky and, in a perverse kind of way, not a little sexy. Ain’t life strange?

_______________

*Candida Albicans is a type of yeast that is a common member of the human gut flora. It does not proliferate outside the human body.

I met up with Candida out of London on the beach at Durdle Door in Dorset one evening in early October. It’s a most beautiful place at any time. It had been a cold one for the time of year even though the sun had shone brightly in a clear blue sky throughout the day. When I arrived on the beach the sun had set, and the moon was big and high in the sky. The waves pounded and bounced up the beach in a foaming frothy stream. I was there first and stood transfixed by the ocean pushing through the dramatic arch of the Door. I did not see or hear Candida until she was on the beach and the crunching pebbles announced her approach.

‘Give me your phone, Maitland,’ was the first thing she said. She took it and pulled a phone from her coat. She hurled both of them far out into the sea. ‘We’ll leave no easy trace of this arrangement.’

She watched them drop into the waves. ‘I want you to leave the country within the next 12 hours and stay away for one month.’

‘Won’t be a problem. I have a job in Atlanta and I was going there anyway.’

‘Excellent. Naming no names, whatsa job?’

‘Defending a dubious politician. His daughter shopped him for dealing cocaine.’

‘No shit!’

‘No shit.’

‘D’you think he’s guilty?’

‘That’s of no interest whatsoever to me I’m just paid to defend him – get him off.’

‘OK.’

‘I’ve got an office and an apartment in the city.’

‘Good. Get yourself a new phone and call your wife and tell her you’ve been called away on urgent business. Call your home landline and her mobile at regular intervals over the following three days then contact her parents. Tell ‘em you’re worried and ask ‘em to look for her and ring around her friends. If they can’t find her, which of course they won’t, ask ‘em to call the police and report her missing. OK?’

‘Got that.’

‘Make sure you keep your profile high in Atlanta.’

‘No problem. I’ll be right in the spotlight and high on the news agendas with this case.’

‘Perfect.’

‘So how you gonna do it?’

‘You don’t need to know, Maitland.’

‘I guess not.’

‘I’ll tell you this much. I have a team of four working for me – all girls. They’ll do the snatch and I’ll be out of the UK too.’

‘So…?’

‘They’ll watch your wife for 24 hours, choose a time then grab her. No one’ll see ‘em do it.’

‘And...?’

‘And what?’

‘The body.’

‘When they’ve done with her there won’t be a body – nothing.’

‘How...?’

‘Chemically. There won’t be a trace of her left when they finish the job.’

‘Cool.’

‘Yep. Cool.’

‘You got the cash?’

I handed her a large brown envelope. ‘In fifties.’

‘Good.’

‘Do I get a receipt, Candida?’

‘You’re joking.’

‘I am joking.’

Candida turned to go back up the cliff. ‘D’you want her to suffer any?’

I thought about this. ‘Yes. I want her to know that she’s going to die and why she’s gonna die. I want her to be frightened – terrified, full of regret, shame. Nothing physical mind. Don’t beat her... just let her know what’s coming her way. Mental torture only. Clear.’

‘Gotcha.’

‘One other thing. I want her lover to suffer too – as much as possible. I want him to be the prime suspect.’

‘He will be, Maitland.’

Candida walked away and climbed back up the cliff. I waited on the beach until I heard her car start and drive away. I went up to the Bugatti and headed back to London.

I was in Atlanta the following day and feeling very good.

6 Maitland

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

I read that fighters in the terrorist group Islamic State publicly executed 19 Kurdish women. They were burned alive in iron cages in a city square. The women belonged to the Kurdish Yezidi minority. They were punished for refusing to have sex with IS militants. Hundreds of local residents witnessed the brutal executions but couldn’t do a damned thing about it.

Reading this left me feeling that I hadn’t commissioned such a bad thing – just one woman, not 19. And Sarah hadn’t been burned alive in public. Come on! Of course, I didn’t know just how she died and if her captors tortured her before they put her in the acid bath or whatever it was they put her in that disappeared her body. I could only guess, and I preferred not to do that. I read about her disappearance online and on the TV news. I knew that to begin with Robin had been the prime suspect and had been held on remand while the cops pursued the case. After a few days they had let him go, holding onto his passport and keeping him under surveillance. I guessed he was a worried man and I loved it. I wallowed in his misery for a while, but eventually I tired of that and got on with my life.

Three days later with my business completed satisfactorily I left the Peach State and headed back to Blighty. On the flight home I pondered on what I’d achieved. I had won the case for the politician and got him off cool and clear. I knew he was guilty as fuck, but I didn’t let that get in the way of doing what I’d been paid to do. I was a whole lot richer and that was that.

My driver Spanish Nick met me at Heathrow in the Bugatti. I wanted to drive myself, so I told him to take a cab back into London. Nick’s father was Spanish and his mother Welsh. Strange mix I thought. He always dressed impeccably. Saville row suits, Bond Street shoes, silk shirts, black tie and a natty chauffeur cap. He was an ex-Royal Marine. He’d seen action in Afghanistan and Iraq and some other places he wouldn’t talk about. He was a hard man, built like a brick shithouse, and he looked pretty scary, but inside he had a heart of gold and I loved him. He was a good man to have around if things turned nasty on the street which with me they often did. No one wanted to take Nick on I can assure you of that. We’d been in some pretty nasty scrapes together, but we always came out on top. Hey ho.

I climbed into the car and told her to start up. The engine kicked in with a deep and healthy roar.

‘Mother-fucker!’ I called out to no one except me and the beautiful car. I cruised away from the airport and over to Richmond Park. I parked the Bugatti in the Kingston Gate Car Park and took a stroll. A translucent mist swirled among the trees. Bright, fluffy white clouds skated across the shining sky and the dewy grass shone under my feet. All in all, I felt surprisingly good about myself and the world. Having said that, always lurking at the back of my mind was the John Lennon song Instant Karma. I knew that song off by heart. I had it on my iPhone for years and used to sing along with it:

Instant Karma's gonna get you

Gonna knock you right on the head

You better get yourself together

Pretty soon you're gonna be dead

What in the world you thinkin’ of

Laughing in the face of love

I knew it wouldn’t make any damned difference that I’d not actually killed Sarah myself. In fact, I’d spread the karma around like a bad disease. I’d given the infection to Candida and her girls. Two threads in the song struck home hard: ‘Pretty soon you’re gonna be dead’ and ‘What in the world you thinkin’ of laughing in the face of love?’ As for the former, yes, pretty soon I am gonna be dead and wonder what the Grim Reaper will think of me. Eternal damnation or a forgiving God, I don’t know. Who does? Should I repent and seek to be forgiven? I hadn’t so much as laughed in the face of love. Love had more likely laughed in my face. Isn’t it so? All these thoughts made my head spin somewhat. And anyway, would thinking about these things help? Probably not. Best thing for me I concluded was to look to the future with optimism and work hard, shoving my guilt and regrets aside.

A light breeze swept over the park thinning the mist, revealing a small herd of deer. It was magical, idyllic. Like a fairy tale. I moved towards them and several of the animals looked round lazily at me. I didn’t trouble them. They were used to the presence of human beings. I paused, and they went back to grazing. I was transfixed and if I’d been a poet or a painter I would have tried to capture the moment, but I wasn’t. I was a rich and ruthless lawyer, who did what he wanted and took what he wanted. Ethics and conscience be damned! It did strike me as odd though that people ate these animals. Seemed kinda wrong to me at that moment.

My phone rang and Myra Tumbleweed, our receptionist, asked me to come into the office ASAP. Something interesting had come up. I explained that I had a meeting with Archibald Crumcrisp in an hour’s time and that I would come in as soon as that interview was finished.

Crumcrisp seemed a decent enough bloke and intelligent to boot. He was polite but pressed me hard on what I thought might have happened to Sarah. He didn’t seem in any way suspicious, but his questioning was intense and thorough. The interview was recorded, and I had the feeling that behind the one-way glass on one of the walls there were others watching and listening. In any event I got out of there unscathed and drove to my office.

7 Scalar ElectroMagnetic Industries

We wind a simple ring of iron with coils; we establish the connections to the generator, and with wonder and delight we note the effects of strange forces which we bring into play, which allow us to transform, to transmit and direct energy at will.

Nikola Tesla

‘So, what’s up, Myra?’

She nodded in the direction of a small, bald and dapper little chap.

‘Professor Grant Sydbord. He’s from Scalar ElectroMagnetic Industries. He says he needs to talk to you… urgently.’

‘OK. Send him to me in ten, please. I wanna to check on a coupla things before we meet.’

Myra nodded again.

I’d heard of the business and knew of it as SEMI. I was also aware that major aspects of the work of this corporation were kept secret for reasons of so-called ‘national security’. I knew that electromagnetic weapons were capable of achieving destruction on an unprecedented scale.

I went online to the official SEMI website and read that their work…

“…is a purely scientific endeavour aimed at studying the properties and behaviour of the ionosphere, with particular emphasis on being able to understand and use it to enhance communications and surveillance systems for both civilian and defence purposes.”

The site explained that the ionosphere is the delicate upper layer of our atmosphere which ranges from about 30 miles to 600 miles above the surface of the Earth. Scalar Directed Energy is so powerful that it could be used to heat the ionosphere turning weather into a weapon of war. Floods and tornadoes could be created, and cities destroyed. Focused SDE could wipe out electronic systems even close down a city. All electronic devices could be rendered useless or permanently destroyed.

I had read that Nikola Tesla is generally considered the father of scalar electromagnetics. Tesla's name for this energy, also called scalar energy or zero-point energy, was Radiant Energy. Tesla worked in the first half of the last century and was clearly a genius. He made a free energy device called the Tesla Turbine and even converted an automobile to run on radiant energy.

When Tesla died the United States government swooped in immediately and confiscated his papers so many of Tesla's secrets were held by government. Even then there were powerful interests working to keep his discoveries secret. The last thing the oil companies or the energy cartels wanted was free energy for everybody.

That’d be the end of them!

The powers that be at SEMI claimed that using Scalar Electromagnetics it will soon be possible to engineer physical reality directly, even engineering at the molecular level, creating new impossible molecules and even transmuting elements. It will even be possible, they claimed, to make radioactive waste non-radioactive.

They also claimed that this new science will unlock the secret of gravity and anti-gravity allowing us to manufacture a whole new range of air and space craft. Also, that it will give us cures for cancer and Aids. The site listed these important implications flowing from the discovery of longitudinal waves:

The solution to the energy crisis and the oil problem. Oil-wars will soon be completely unnecessary. There will be endless energy available freely.
Unbelievably powerful weapons are, not only possible but already operating in several nations.
Mind control on a mass scale will become achievable and the machines that do it are already in place in certain nations. It will become possible to mentally enslave whole populations with the twist of a few dials.

Myra showed Sydbord into my office. He sat down opposite me across the desk.

‘So, Professor, what can I do for you?’

‘Firstly, Mr. Fairweather, what d’you know about SEMI?’

‘Enough to be going on with I believe.’

‘Fine. I’ll fill you in with any other facts as we go along.’

‘Am I right in assuming that you want to employ me?’

‘Correct?’

‘Why me?’

‘Because, we are told, you’re the best man for the job.’

‘Which is?’

‘To defend us against a leak.’

‘A leak?’

‘More precisely a leaker. We have a mole in our organisation.’

I pondered on this bit of info. ‘Sounds like a job for the police to me.’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘It’s... too delicate a matter to take to the police.’

‘Sounds like you might have something to hide.’

‘Well, yes... I guess we do...’ He paused.

‘Yes?’

‘What?’

‘So?’

‘We believe that the mole is our CEO.’

‘Wow!’

‘Precisely.’

‘What makes you think he...’

‘She.’

‘Ah.’

‘Ah, what?’

‘Nothing. It makes no difference of course.’

‘Of course.’

‘OK, Professor, let’s pause this thing right now. I’m not an investigator or an enforcer. I’m a lawyer.’

‘Precisely.’

‘Explain, please.’

‘We want to remove the mole through legal pressure without revealing what’s going on to the public or the media.’

‘I see.’

‘We cannot afford for this... matter to come under public scrutiny. We’re at a very delicate point in the development of our new... technology.’

‘Which is?’

‘Not relevant with regard to what we want from you.’

‘I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that.’

‘Why?’

‘If I don’t have the facts I’m in danger of being compromised... exposed.’

‘There’s no danger of that.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes.’

‘I can’t take your word for that.’

‘Why not?’

‘Put simply. I don’t know you or your corporation. I’m in the dark.’

The intercom on my desk buzzed and I picked up the phone. ‘OK, right. I’ll be with you in ten minutes.’

Sydbord looked surprised.

‘We’re not finished yet.’

‘On the contrary I think we are.’

‘But...’

‘Yes?’

‘I...’

‘We cannot take your commission unless you tell me everything.’

‘But...’

‘Look, when I’m defending a client on say, a murder charge, it’s essential that the defendant tells me the truth – the whole truth. Only then can I defend him or her.’

‘I had no idea it worked like that.’

‘Didn’t you? I’m surprised. That’s the way it’s done, Prof. That’s why you have to be completely up front with me. Think about it. OK? I have to conclude this meeting now. If you decide to tell all contact me and we’ll meet again.’

Sydbord was disappointed and it showed. I stood, and he followed me to the door.

‘Look, Fairweather, we’ll pay you whatever you ask.’

‘Money’s not the issue. As I’ve already told you the issue is coming clean and telling me all.’ I waited. ‘OK?’

‘I guess... You work in a very strange, shadowy world if I may say.’

‘You may say so.’

I shrugged and then glared at him.

‘And I’d say your world seems somewhat murky too, Prof.’

‘It’s not…’

‘What?’

‘It’s just that...’

‘Right. That it’s for now.’ I led him out of the room and shook his hand in reception.

‘Good day, Professor.’

Sydbord didn’t respond. He left with just a shrug.

I gave him the finger.

Myra laughed.

8 The Law of Karma

Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap.

Galatians VI

I didn’t hear from SEMI again for over a week and then I received an email. It wasn’t from Professor Sydbord. It was from Mary Dulleston, the corporation’s CEO. The plot was def thickening.

The email contained an attachment. I ran a virus scan on it before I opened it.

This is what it said:

“SEMI is part of the U.S. military defense program which has generated quite a bit of controversy over the years in certain circles. Though denied by SEMI officials, some respected researchers allege that the secret electromagnetic warfare capabilities of SEMI are designed to forward the US military’s aim of achieving full world dominance by 2025. Others go so far as to claim that SEMI can and has been used for weather modification, to cause earthquakes and tsunamis, to disrupt global communications systems and more.

Major aspects of the program are kept secret for reasons of national security. SEMI and electromagnetic weapons capable of being used in warfare do exist. Electromagnetic Scalar Weapons pack an invisible wallop hundreds of times more powerful than the electrical current in a lightning bolt. Enemy missiles could be blasted out of the sky by the weapon or it could be used to blind soldiers on the battlefield, or to control an unruly crowd by burning the surface of the skin. It isn’t just conspiracy theorists who are concerned about SEMI. In January of 1999, the European Union called the project a global concern and passed a resolution calling for more information on the health and environmental risks.

Despite those concerns, at SEMI we insist the project is nothing more sinister than a radio science research facility. However, the EU ‘considers SEMI by virtue of its far-reaching impact on the environment, to be a global concern and calls for its legal, ecological and ethical implications to be examined by an international independent body before any further research and testing.’

Directed energy is such a powerful technology it could be used to heat the ionosphere to turn weather into a weapon of war. Imagine using a flood to destroy a city or a tornado to decimate an approaching army in the desert. The military has spent a huge amount of time on weather modification for battle environments.

If you still doubt that such devastating secret weapons have been developed, here is a quote from an article in a leading newspaper, the New Zealand Herald:

Top secret wartime experiments were conducted off the coast of Auckland to perfect a tidal wave bomb declassified files reveal. United States defence chiefs said that if the project had been completed before the end of the war, it could have played a role as effective as that of the atom bomb. Details of the tsunami bomb, known as Project Seal, are contained in 53-year-old documents released by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. If the military secretly developed a weapon which could cause a tsunami over half a century ago, what kind of advanced deadly weapons might be available now? And why is it that the general public still doesn’t know about secret weapons developed over 50 years ago?

The many layers of intense secrecy both in the military and in government result in very few people being aware of the gruesome capabilities for death and destruction that have been developed over the years.

There are of course many examples of major defence projects being kept successfully out of the public’s eyes for years and even decades. As my colleague Delbert Narunja pointed out, The Manhattan Project is an example. The building of an entire city to support the project in Oak Ridge Tennessee was successfully kept secret even from the state’s governor. The stealth bomber was kept top secret for many years, and the public still has no way of knowing its full capabilities.

It’s through the use of the organized military and intelligence services that the power elite of our world, working in cooperation with key allies in government and corporate ownership of the media, are able to carry out major cover-ups and secret operations like those involved with us at SEMI.

Some researchers have even raised questions about the possible involvement of SEMI in major disasters like the earthquake in Haiti, the Indonesian tsunami, and hurricane Katrina. Could these have been SEMI experiments gone awry? Might they even have been caused by rogue elements which gained control of this devastating technology? Of course, disasters like these happen regularly on a natural basis, yet there is something strange about them.

So, Mr. Fairweather, I know that Professor Sydbord’s been to see you and that he probably attempted to commission you to deal with me. I’m in danger – mortal danger even. I need to meet you and very soon.

Please delete this email immediately and call me on this secure number ASAP:

77777 333 4444.

Faithfully,

M. Dulleston.”

I deleted the email as requested and called the number. It rang just twice and was picked up. I heard this instruction:

‘Arts Theatre Cambridge tomorrow night for the 7.00pm performance. Go to the box office and ask for the ticket in the name of Shafer Shaftsbury. I have booked a box. I’ll be sitting at the back out of sight in the shadows. Join me. I suggest you leave the theatre after we’ve had a brief chat. Goodbye.’

9 Cool Water

Like me I guess

He'd like to rest where there's no quest

For water.

Cool, clear water...

Hank Williams

As you’ll have picked up, dear reader, I already knew much of what Dulleston had gone into in her email, but her material did something to focus my mind and whet my appetite to get involved.

I travelled to Cambridge by train in first class, of course. Even that was a little rough and ready, but I felt the Bugatti was somewhat ostentatious and would attract attention. There weren’t that many on these islands.

To pass the time on the journey and take my worried mind off things I was reading a romantic comic thriller. It was called Buff and the Ferret written by Jack Ferrandino and I wasn’t enjoying it. It wasn’t funny or romantic nor was it an exciting book. In fact, it was very boring crap and I gave up on it. I binned it then, in a moment of unaccustomed guilt, I salvaged it and took it to Oxfam on my way to work next day.

I stared vacantly out of the window. It was dusk. The train was rolling along through tedious Hertfordshire. I got to thinking about a friend I had at Harrow known as Wanko Muesli. Just recalling him made me laugh out loud. Luckily my carriage was empty. Wanko played the saxophone and he was good at it. He also wanted to be black. He wasn’t and there was nothing he could do about that. Thing is he was double-jointed and could suck his own dick, which impressed and entertained us a lot. All of us in his dormitory wished we could do that too for obvious reasons. When he came in his mouth we applauded loudly. He said it was recycling and that he was practising full conservation of his resources. I guess there was some truth in that.

I collected my ticket and made my way to the box. I let myself in and caught sight of a shadowy figure in the corner.

‘Sit here next to me please, Mr Fairweather.’

‘Maitland, please. And I’ll call you Mary if that’s OK.’

‘OK.’

I shook her hand as I sat down. It was small, cool and delightful to touch. Even in the shadows I could see that Mary was very beautiful with fine features and cascading honey-coloured waves. She was elegantly dressed and exuded a most attractive, natural scent. I was immediately drawn to her.

‘I’ll cut to the chase.’

‘OK.’

‘SEMI want rid of me.’

‘Why?’

‘I know too much.’

‘About what, Mary?’

‘The scalar weapons programme.’

‘What d’you mean by you know too much?’

‘I’m a scientist and I know the ins and outs of how the weapon can be built and how to use it.’

‘So, what’s the problem?’

‘The prob is I also know that they intend to sell the technology to a rogue state. Well, anyone really who’s prepared to pay the price.’

‘Why’d they do that?’

‘Money and power, Maitland.’

‘The usual things.’

‘You’re dead to rights there and I may be dead too very soon if they’re not stopped.’

‘Stopped?’

‘I can do it.’

‘How?’

‘I can’t tell you that. You don’t need to know.’

‘Really.’

‘Well, not yet.’

‘I guess.’

The curtains opened, and the musical began with a big production number – all singing and dancing.

‘I’m going to ask you to do something for me and I’ll pay you well.’

Here we go. Money again I thought, but asked, ‘OK. What d’you want me to do?’

‘Easy. Play along with Sydbord.’

‘And do what?’

‘Do what he asks but keep me informed.’

‘Why should I help you and not him?’

‘Because he’s a very bad man.’

Like me, I thought, but didn’t say!

‘How do I know he’s the bad guy and that you’re not, Mary?’

‘Meet him again and you’ll find out soon enough.’

‘And then?’

‘Call me again.’

‘And...?’

‘We’ll work out how to proceed.’

‘OK.’

‘I’m going to disappear.’

Another one, I thought and smiled.

‘Is that funny?’

‘No. Just something...’

‘Go now, Maitland. Everyone’s attention is on the stage.’

‘But I don’t have a contact for Sydbord.’

‘Don’t worry. He’ll get back to you.’

‘How’d you know?’

‘He believes you’re the man for the job. He considers you’re in a class of your own – a cut above the rest.’

‘And he’s probably right.’

‘I like a man who’s modest.’

I had to laugh.

‘Goodbye, Maitland.’

‘Goodbye, Mary.’

I slipped out of the box and left the theatre without encountering anyone. I walked across the market square and took a cab out to the station. I arrived just in time to catch a fast train to Liverpool Street. I had a lot to think about.

10 Forgetting

We must believe in free will. We have no choice.

Isaac B Singer

Now and again I felt bad. Even though I’d done what I’d done, I still missed Sarah terribly. I invited her best friend Dolly to have dinner with me at The Oblix Restaurant on the 32nd floor of The Shard. The view over London was striking.

Dolly was waiting for me when I arrived. I was ten minutes late and apologised profusely. Like Sarah she was a very pretty girl, but she looked stressed and drawn.

‘So, Dolly. How you?’

‘Good enough. Thanks Maitland.’

I sat down and looked out over the lights of the city.

‘Amazing view.’

‘Isn’t it just.’ She paused. ‘How you coping?’

‘Not too well, my dear.’

‘I miss her so much, Maitland.’

‘Me too.’ I did my best to project a sad face.

A waiter brought menus and a wine list to our table, which I glanced through then ordered a bottle.

‘Where d’you think she could be, Dolly?’

She looked uncomfortable, from which I deduced that she knew about Robin Makepeace.

‘Dunno. She hasn’t called, and she doesn’t answer her phone.’

‘Likewise.’

‘It’s mighty strange, Maitland.’

‘It is. But people have been known to disappear temporarily and just turn up again.’

‘I know.’ She glanced out at the cityscape. ‘I live in hope.’

‘Me too’ I said then added, ‘I’ve found her passport.’

‘Good sign.’

‘Yes, ‘tis.’

The waiter brought the wine and poured a little into my glass. I sipped it and then nodded at him to continue.

‘Her parents haven’t heard anything either, Dolly. They’re worried sick and there’s nothing I can do to help.’

I did feel a little strange saying this, but I was used to lying. I did it in court – in my job – all the time. It was the nature of the beast. I always took some pleasure exercising my thespian skills. It was something I was good at. Practice makes perfect. My mind drifted.

‘D’you think I should go and see them?’

‘Sorry... who?’

‘Sarah’s parents.’

‘Well, my dear, it wouldn’t hurt.’

I was finding that this game I was playing was giving me power over others, which was something I hadn’t expected. I wondered why I continued to feel no conscience. Was there something the matter with me? Had I no empathy? I was getting a kick out of schadenfreude. I was empowered and wondered when my karma was going to catch up with me. Was it going to be in this life or the next?

I hadn’t a clue. Who has?

‘I will then, Maitland.’

We lapsed into silence. Our starters arrived, and we ate. I was surprisingly hungry.

‘Is it OK?

‘Delicious. Thanks.’

‘My pleasure, Dolly.’

My pleasure, indeed! What is my pleasure I wondered? If only Sarah had remained faithful none of this would have happened. My mobile rang.

‘Excuse me.’ I answered. ‘Hello.’

It was Mary. She was short and sweet. She told me that Sydbord would call me tomorrow to ask for a meeting ASAP. I acknowledged that I’d got the message and hung up.

‘Sorry ‘bout that. Client.’

‘Money talks.’

‘Doesn’t it just.’

11 I’m Gonna Walk Before They Make Me Run

Gonna find my way to heaven, ‘cos I did my time in hell.

Keith Richard

I was in my office early the next morning and had only been there about five minutes when Sydbord called.

I told him I could spare him half an hour at 11. He said he’d be there. I had barely put the phone down when Crumcrisp called. He told me they’d come up with something and that they had a lead. I was shaken and wondered what they could’ve found. He asked if he could see me this morning. I said I could be with him within the hour. I called Spanish Nick and asked him to meet outside the office with the Bugatti in half an hour.

In the meantime, I worried. Everything seemed to be kicking off at once and I didn’t know what the hell was happening on either front. I was most worried about the cops and wondered if Candida had done a thorough job. I prayed that the girls had not been seen doing the snatch or left any traces – literally – of Sarah. I could only hope.

I took the keys off Nick and skimmed the Bugatti round to the cop shop. I was shown into Crumcrisp’s bland, untidy office. He stood when I was shown in and offered me a chair.

‘Coffee?’

‘No thanks.’

He studied me. It was unnerving.

‘So, what’s up?’

‘There’s been a sighting of your wife.’

‘Wonderful! Where?’ I put on a cool act and, again, I was pleased with my performance.

‘Salisbury Cathedral.’

I was taken aback but continued manfully with my full-on desperate husband act.

‘When?’

‘Yesterday.’

‘But…’

‘Yes, Mr. Fairweather?’

‘Who recognised her?’

‘A choir boy.’

‘No shit! How’d he recognize her?’

‘Her picture was in some national papers.’

‘I never saw...’

‘You were in Atlanta.’

‘Of course.’

‘So?’

‘D’you or does your wife know anyone in Salisbury, Mr. Fairweather?’

‘As far as I’m aware, no.’ I paused for effect. ‘Well, she might.’

‘How’s that?’

‘She went to the Godolphin School.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘Not sure. The name’s Mill... something...’

Crumcrisp typed on his laptop keyboard and watched the screen. ‘Milford Hill.’

‘Yes, that’s it. But it’s years since she was there. I doubt she’d know anybody there... now.’

‘She might.’

‘Yes, she might. That’s true.’

‘Did she ever say much about her time at the school?’

‘No, not really. Well... maybe... only that she liked it. She enjoyed her time there as far as I know.’

‘So, she might have gone back there.’

‘She might have.’

‘We’re going to make enquiries. Have a look round... the school.’

‘And the choir boy?’

‘He’s being interviewed now.’

‘It’s...?’

‘What?’

‘All very strange.’

‘Why?’

‘Can’t figure out why she’d go there.’

‘Nor can we of course... yet.’

Crumcrisp stood. ‘Thank you for coming in, Mr. Fairweather.’

‘You don’t have to thank me. I want to do everything I can to help.’

‘Naturally.’

‘Well... OK.’ I stood and turned towards the door. ‘I wish you all the best. I do so hope you find her.’

‘Well, we might get a lead at least. We can at least hope for that.’

‘OK. Hope springs eternal, doesn’t it?’ I opened the door.

‘Indeed, it does.’ He paused. ‘We’ll keep you updated. Probably call you again today or tomorrow morning at the latest.’

‘Thanks, Inspector.’

I left the station and drove back to the office to meet Sydbord. What a roller-coaster ride! It was wholly irrational of me, but I kept seeing a connection between SEMI and Sarah. I felt walls closing in on me and that I was a vector, a focus. My nerves were jagged shards and I was losing my grip. Paranoia crawled all over me like a rampant rash.

Sydbord was waiting in reception. I breezed through to my office, nodding to him. He jumped to it and followed me in. I sat behind my desk and gestured to an empty chair which he plopped into. I pressed a recorder activator on my desk. I knew that Mary would want to hear this.

‘So?’

‘What?’

‘What’s happening?’

‘You mean...’

‘Yes. Why’d you wanna to see me, Prof?’ I studied him with my practised lawyer’s eyes. It was hard to see how this squat little chap could be dangerous. Bad possibly, but...

‘We want to hire you to represent us in a case we plan to bring against our current CEO.’

‘Who is?’

‘Mary Dulleston.’

I took notes. ‘On what grounds?’

‘Fraud and conspiracy.’

‘You have evidence of this to back this up?’

‘Of course.’

‘Show me, please, Professor.’

‘Not until you’ve signed a non-disclaimer agreement.’

I didn’t respond but looked hard at him.

‘You know what that is, Mr. Fairweather?’

Again, I didn’t respond, but fixed and held him with a piercing look.

‘It’s a legal contract between at least two parties that outlines confidential material, knowledge, or information that the parties wish to share with one another for certain purposes but wish to restrict access to or by third parties.’

‘I’m a lawyer. I know that.’ I put on an act of irritation, got up from my desk and walked over to the window that looked out over Mayfair.

‘Of course. I’m sorry, Mr. Fairweather.’

I shrugged and continued to stand at the window in silence. I wanted to intimidate him, and I was achieving just that. I watched him squirm some and sweat not a little.

‘Were I to sign the agreement, what next?’

‘First sign the agreement.’

‘Dunno ‘bout that. Better get my lawyer to look at it.’ I laughed, walked back to my desk, sat down and held out my hand.

Sydbord passed me a document, which I read slowly. I made him wait. I glanced up at him.

‘So?’

‘So, I’ll need to run this by my partners,’ I replied with some nonchalance and a touch of thespian concern.

‘Why?’

‘Because it’s not something I – we – would normally agree to.’

‘And why’s that, Mr. Fairweather.’

‘Because it would tie our hands and leave us open.’

‘Open to what?’

‘Exposure to compromise and not being able to speak freely and openly.’

‘Surely not.’

‘Surely, yes.’ I walked round my desk, went to the door and opened it. ‘I’ll call you in the next couple of days. Please leave your contact details with my receptionist.’

‘But... I...’

‘Goodbye, Professor.’

I turned my back on him as he shuffled over to the reception desk. I called Mary. She picked up. ‘He’s been here again, and I recorded our conversation. Wanna hear it?’

She did, of course.

‘OK. I’ve got a smallish house in Ashdon, Essex ‘bout ninety minutes from Mayfair. Wanna meet me there tonight ‘bout eight?

Yup. Will do.’

‘Come by taxi.’

She agreed.

‘Good. I’ll text you the postcode and I’ll have the recording put on a USB stick.’

‘See you then.’

‘Bye.’

12 A Love Divine

Love divine, all loves excelling.

Joy of heaven to earth come down.

John Wesley 1747

An hour later I was sitting in a small but very classy Italian restaurant on Albermarle Street. I was lunching with Richard Pritchard. He was out on bail. I was defending him in nasty case of body-snatching. Richard was an affluent Funeral Director. He owned close on three hundred parlours throughout the width and breadth of the land. When I first met him, I was struck by his black eye patch. There was something strangely Dylan-esque about him. I couldn’t immediately put my finger on it, but I got it the second time we met: the one-eyed undertaker from Bob’s Shelter from the Storm:

Well, the deputy walks on hard nails

And the preacher rides a mount.

But nothing really matters much. It's doom alone that counts.

And the one-eyed undertaker, he blows a futile horn.
Come in, she said, I'll give ya shelter from the storm.

Apparently, the funeral industry is just about the biggest in the world, estimated to annually generate one and half trillion dollars’ worth of business. Think about it! So, Richard was a very rich man with a stately home in Yorkshire, a flat in Knightsbridge and a house on a private island in Florida, but he was worried. One thing concerned him was that if too many people decided to give their bodies to science he’d likely go out of business. The numbers doing this had grown steadily over the decade. His problem with the law was that he’d snatched a body before a dead man’s children had notified his chosen hospital to pick up the corpse.

He was late. While I waited I pondered on the arranged marriage system prevalent amongst Hindus. As I understood it many, if not most, arranged marriages worked well and were long lasting. This puzzled me. Where did romantic love fit into this scheme of things? It didn’t of course. So, again, I asked myself, was there meaning and purpose behind romantic love? I thought too about popular music and the innumerable songs concerning broken hearts and the pain and suffering caused when a relationship based on romantic love fails. I thought about this and the bad dreams I’d been having recently. I couldn’t immediately see the connection. Abruptly, my old psychotherapist, Dr Jenoir Quaint-Quieble, popped into my mind. Her thing was dream interpretation. In truth it wasn’t hard to see the connection between arranged marriage and dreams of claustrophobia. In the dreams I was always caught in small rooms – court-rooms, bedrooms, cupboards or in confined places, narrow, dark alleys, balconies with high walls – places like that.

Richard arrived in a state. After he’d ordered he told me the whole story. It was very boring, so I won’t bother repeating it. A very pretty blond girl came into the restaurant and I was momentarily struck dumb. Her resemblance to Sarah was uncanny and it gave me the horrors. I was hit hard by a tsunami size wave of guilt tinged darkly with trembling fear. It must’ve shown.

‘You alright, Maitland?’

‘I...’

‘What?’

I scrambled around for something to say. My mouth was dry. I drank half a glass of water and did what I could to calm my racing heart. I took a deep breath.

‘I’ve just... remembered something really important I should’ve done. Must go back to my office and right now. Sorry. But don’t worry, I can deal with the body thing. I can see a way to fix the issue and get you off the charge.’

‘You can? Really?’

‘Sure. Relax. I’ll call you in a coupla days.’

I put two 50s on the table and made a dash for the door, taking care not to look at the pretty blonde. Matter of fact I hadn’t the faintest idea how to deal with Richard’s case, but I was sure I’d come up with something. I knew the law inside out. I’d find a hole in the prosecutor’s case. There’s always a hole in an argument if you’re smart enough to find it and I was, if nothing else, smart. Fact is, my partners and I had discovered how to use an algorithm to solve legal problems and predict the outcome of a case in the light of the character of the defendant, the prosecutor and the judge as well as helping the team to devise a court-room strategy that would lead to the desired outcome.

Funny thing though was that Richard’s problem involved body-snatching. Now if that wasn’t a fucked-up coincidence, what was?

I walked back to my office, picked up the USB stick and drove up to Ashdon. Apart from the heavy traffic on the M11 it was an easy ride. Behind the wheel I calmed right down. It was such a sweet car to drive and I arrived half an hour before Mary which was as it should be. It was chilly in the big old house, so I carried in some logs, lit a fire in the sitting room’s vast red brick inglenook fireplace and boosted the heating on the AGA stove. I wanted to make Mary feel welcome. I liked powerful women and to be honest I quite fancied her.

I heard a taxi pull up outside the house and the moment I opened the front door for her I caught that certain look in her eye and took in the way she walked. Alluring was the word that sprang to mind. I looked it up later and saw that it meant: powerfully and mysteriously attractive, fascinating, seductive. Well, that was about it. I wondered for a moment if she might have brought a toothbrush. All was to become clear later of course when we lay naked on my big brass bed.

But before we get to that point I’ll wind back. While we cooked dinner together we listened to the recording I’d made of my brief conversation with Sydbord on the big speakers in the kitchen.

We sat down to eat with a fine wine and we talked fraud and conspiracy.

‘They took on a computer nerd – a hacker – behind my back and had him set up a bank account in my name. Over a period of six months they pushed just over two million quid into the account, so it’d look like I’d siphoned off the money from the corporation. Now they’re threatening to expose me if I don’t quit.’

‘Why’d they want you to quit?’

‘So’s to shut me up and discredit me. I’ve threatened to go public with a deal.’

‘What deal?’

‘They want to sell our scalar weapons technology to the Chinese or the Russians or the God knows who.’

‘Shit!’

‘Could be worse.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, at one point they were thinking of North Korea.’

‘You’re kiddin’ me.’

‘I’m not Maitland. They don’t give a fuck for the consequences. Just take the money and run.’

‘Run where?’

‘Good question.’

‘There’d be nowhere to run.’

‘You could say.’

The conversation lapsed for a few seconds while we both considered the stakes. I broke the silence.

‘So what d’you want me to do.’

‘Right now, take me to bed.’

I kept my head - just, ‘And?’

‘Just play along with Sydbord. Get him to show his cards – all of ‘em. Then we’ll come up with a way to discredit him and prevent any deal going through.’

13 Unconditional Love

To give and not to count the cost,

To fight and not to heed the wounds

To toil and not to seek for rest,

To labour and not to ask for any reward,

Save that of knowing that I do your will

Saint Ignatius Loyola

The following morning dawned clear and sunny. I was happy to wake beside Mary. We’d really hit it off. Sarah and the murder had temporarily sunk beneath my radar. I did have a major wobble though when I considered what Mary would think of me if she knew the truth. She’d doubtless run a mile and as fast she could, go straight to the cops and that would be that. Then I suffered a heavy punch of guilt and wondered if I’d done something terrible and unforgivable – ever! Would my crime, I wondered, pursue and torment me throughout eternity? Had I sold my soul to the devil? Could I ever be forgiven? I didn’t know. Does anyone really know anything?

I rang my office and informed Myra that I wouldn’t be in until late the following day. I also asked her to call Sydbord and set up a meeting with him.

Mary and I set off for a stroll in the windless woods behind the house. We walked deep into the trees. We stopped when we heard a pretty and somewhat ethereal child’s voice singing these strange words somewhere out ahead of us:

It is as if I strangely sit between unfoldment and the pit

Turn the heart and bend the lip of ageless silent

Sun and trees of passing pageants aimed to please.

This play is not what you have made but is the

Evening’s splendid ray that fall on ruins old and new

On tower street and avenue where tired feet that

Cannot stay fall on and on monotony and pave the

Way to gluttony.

Enchanted and spooked at the same time, we headed towards what we thought was the source of the singing. We searched through the trees and came eventually to a grass covered clearing. As we entered the singing ceased. We agreed that this had to be the spot where it had emanated from. There was no one there, but the grass in the centre of the space was flattened in a swirling wave just as I’d seen in crop circles back in the early ‘90s. It was weird, but there was a feeling of peace, which we both picked up on. It was calming and uplifting, and it made us both feel good. We looked up at the overhanging branches and saw they were pushed back to create a hole in the foliage.

I recalled reading in Robert Mason’s Vietnam War memoir Chickenhawk how dust-off Huey helicopters often had to cut through the trees with the chopper’s blades to land or take-off after dropping off or picking up troops in the jungle. We stood for a while staring up at the sky then I opened the camera on my phone and took several shots of the ground and the gap in the trees. Mary watched in silence.

It was most mysterious, and we were both puzzled and confused, but not frightened. There was nothing immediately sinister about any of this even though we couldn’t begin to explain what we were seeing or had heard.

We walked back to the house in awed silence. Abruptly the sky darkened, and the heavens opened. Lightning forked into the salad of trees behind us as we ran back to the house. As we skipped and slid across the fields I recalled that famous if somewhat obvious comment attributed to Benoît Mandelbrot that lightning does not travel in straight lines. Obvious but true. Lightning is fractal. But more of this later.

We were soaked to the skin and dried ourselves by the Aga stove then went back upstairs to the main bedroom for a couple of hours.

After lunch we rested in the sitting room in front of a big log fire. The storm had passed, and the air was clear and sparkled like there were diamonds hanging in the sky.

‘When I was living here in the early ‘90s a crop circle appeared in a field near a village called Ickleton, which’s about five miles from here. I read about it in the Cambridge News. The paper featured an aerial shot of the formation that’d been identified as a perfect rendition of a mathematical object known as the Mandelbrot Set...’

Mary interrupted. ‘The what?’

‘Hold on. I’ll tell you all about it in a minute.’

Mary was starting to lose interest. I could see her attention was drifting away to I knew not where. So, I pressed on with the story with as much enthusiasm as I could muster.

‘Listen, Mary. Pay attention, please.’

‘OK, OK. Keep your hair on, Maitland. I am listening.’

‘Right. This thing had really grabbed my attention, so I drove over to the farm where the field was. I met the farmer - a chap called Dick Wombwell - and he offered to take me out to the site. As we walked into the formation I was struck by the fact that it could only be seen from the air. It wasn’t in view from any roads. What did catch my eye was the way that the corn was laid down in a clockwise manner and that each stalk was bent over at the same height above the ground – about half an inch. The stems weren’t crushed, and the ears of the corn were intact.

When I looked closely I could see that the seeds were still in their husks. Wombwell commented, “No one could’ve made this in the dark. And if they’d used lights we would’ve seen ‘em from the farmhouse.”

I was impressed.’

‘Fascinating as it all sounds, why’re you telling me ‘bout this, Maitland?’

‘Because they’re still being made today and because the way that the grass was lying in the clearing was the same.’

‘So?’

‘There’s a connection.’

‘So, what?’

‘There’s a theory that the corn circles could be made by aliens.’

‘Unlikely.’

‘There’s another theory, Mary.’

‘Which is?’

‘That the formations – and some are extremely intricate and detailed – are created by weapons being tested from space satellites.’

‘Ah... is that possible?’

‘Of course, it’s possible. You should know that.’

‘OK, fair enough, but, who might be doing that?’

‘No idea, Mary. But...’

‘Yes?’

‘Maybe SEMI is testing a scalar weapon.’

‘What!’

‘Just maybe.’

‘But, Maitland, I’d know about it.’

‘Would you?’

‘Yes.’

‘But, correct if I’m wrong, you’re the CEO but you’re not hands-on with all the technology, right?’

‘True.’

‘So Sydbord and his crew could do this without your knowledge. Yes?’

‘I have to admit, they could. You’re right, I can’t watch over every single activity that SEMI’s involved in.’

‘Fair enough, Mary. But what’s puzzling me is the effect we saw in the woods – the flattened grass, the pushed-back branches and particularly the ethereal voice. On the basis that they don’t know you’re here, I think it was a warning aimed at me.’

‘What! Why?’

‘To frighten me, to show me how powerful they are and to demonstrate what they can do with their scalar beamed energy.’

‘Seems unlikely.’

‘Yes, it does.’

‘How’d they know you’re here?’

I thought about this. I stood and walked to the window.

‘Perhaps they fitted a tracking device on my Bugatti.’

‘It’s possible.’

‘It’s more than possible, Mary. It’s highly likely.’

‘So, what do we do, Maitland?’

‘Nothing right now. We’re safe enough here. I’ll activate the burglar alarm and the exterior lighting, which’ll kick in if anyone approaches the house. I’ve got a hot line to the local cop shop.’

‘Mary visibly relaxed and I went down to the cellar and came back up with a bottle of my best red wine, which I opened. I poured two glasses and sat down on the big couch next to her. I took her hand. She smiled.

‘Let me tell you about the Mandelbrot set.’

‘If you must.’

‘I must.’

‘OK, Maitland, hit me.’

14 Al Gore’s Rhythm

An algorithm is a process or set of rules to be followed in calculations or other problem-solving operations, especially by a computer.

Anon

I opened my iPad and scrolled through some files until I found the photograph I wanted to show her. I handed the iPad to Mary.

‘This is a shot of the Mandelbrot set formation I was telling you about. It seems extraordinary to me that anyone would go to the trouble of making this without claiming it to be their work. And it could only be seen in its entirety from the sky.’

She studied the photograph.

‘As a matter of fact, although the dimensions of the object are spot on it’s a very basic design. Far more complex circles have been created since then, but still no one takes credit for the work.’

‘I agree, Maitland, it’s very strange not to lay claim to something as amazing as this. So, please, do tell me more about this Mandelbrot set. I’m intrigued.’

‘OK.’ I took back my iPad and opened another file. ‘This is an article which was published recently. I gave the tablet back to her. ‘Have a read of it. I’ve gotta make a coupla calls. When I’m done I’ll make us some coffee.’

This is what Mary read:

On 1st March 1980 at IBM’s Thomas J Watson Research Center in upstate New York Benoît Mandelbrot discovered the now iconic Mandelbrot set. With its thrilling visualisations and infinite nature, it brought the world of mathematics back into public consciousness.

‘The Mandelbrot set is one of the most beautiful and remarkable discoveries in the entire history of mathematics. And yet it was discovered as recently as 1980.’

Sir Arthur C Clarke

Clarke has called the Mandelbrot set one of his seven wonders of the world. He wrote: ‘No matter how much we magnified it, a million times, a billion times - until the original set was bigger than the entire Universe - we would still see new patterns, new images emerging because the frontier of the Mandelbrot set is infinitely complex. And when I say infinitely, I really mean that. Most people when they say infinitely, they mean - oh - only, rather big. But, this really is infinity!’

The seeds of this discovery were in fact sown decades before the M-set was first seen. In Paris, in 1917, two French mathematicians, Gaston Julia, a student of Henri Poincaré, and Pierre Fatou, published papers connected with complex numbers. The result of their endeavours eventually became known as Julia sets. Although Julia and Fatou never saw a Julia set! They could only guess at them. And it would not be until the advent of modern computers that Julia sets could be seen for the first time.

The world that we live in is not naturally smooth-edged. The real world has been fashioned with rough edges. It’s a wiggly world! Smooth surfaces are the exception in nature. Throughout recent human history mankind has accepted a geometry that only describes shapes rarely - if ever - found in the real world. The geometry of Euclid describes ideal shapes - the sphere, the circle, the cube, the square. Now these shapes do occur in our lives, but they are man-made and not natural. As Benoît Mandelbrot wrote:

Clouds are not Spheres

Mountains are not cones

Coastlines are not circles

Bark is not smooth

Nor does lightning travel in a straight line.

Mandelbrot was a visionary who has given science a new language to describe roughness and the way things really look, feel and sound. Fractal Geometry is an entirely new way to study and describe the natural world. The discipline has opened up a host of new directions in science.

Fractals are aesthetically pleasing, frequently revealing stunning beauty in most subtle ways. The Mandelbrot set defies verbal description. Fractals seem intimately connected to the concepts of beauty and elegance. Amazingly, until recently, there was no word to describe the familiar shapes of nature. Now we can see that there are fractals everywhere. Now we can view the universe through fractal eyes.

The Mandelbrot set is the most famous fractal of all. It's not easy to describe it visually. It looks like a man, a cat, a cactus or a cockroach. It has little bits and pieces that remind us of almost anything we can see out in the real world particularly living things.

There is indeed an infinite variety in the Mandelbrot set just indeed as there is in the world of nature. We see shapes that remind us of elephant trunks, tentacles of octopae, sea horses and compound insect eyes.

There is certainly some connection between the Mandelbrot set and the way nature operates. The Mandelbrot set is one of the few discoveries of modern mathematics to be assimilated by society as a whole. It has appeared on mugs, t-shirts, record sleeves, and in pop videos even in cinema and television commercials.

When Benoît was exploring this set he never felt that he had invented it. He never felt that his imagination was rich enough to invent all those extraordinary things. He knew he was making a discovery. ‘They were simply there, even though nobody had ever seen them before. It's marvellous’, he said, ‘that such a very simple formula explains all these very complicated things! So, the goal of science is starting with mess to explain by simple formulas. It's the kind of dream of science. And in this case the dream was implemented in a fantastic fashion.’

Though the stunning beauty of the images the Mandelbrot set generates appeal to us on many levels, the psychological reasons for this appeal are still a mystery. Perhaps there is some structure deep in the human mind that resonates to the patterns in the set. Like the M set life is richest on the boundaries between land and sea, between earth and sky. Consciousness and life itself exists at the edge of chaos. Nature often finds the same solutions to many different problems. Like how to drain water from the land into the oceans, and how to get blood from our hearts to our fingertips and back again. And the templates that nature uses are fractals.

Fractal geometry is the language of nature, of the familiar and apparently random forms like trees, coastlines, rivers, lightning, the human body, a winding coastline, the branching structure of a fern, the spacing of stars in the night sky.

With fractal geometry the maverick Benoît Mandelbrot has given us a new language, which is applicable throughout all the sciences, and is one which has a mind-opening effect on most people who come across it. This new language is changing our lives and the world of scientific endeavour.

I returned to the sitting room and sat down beside Mary. She didn’t acknowledge me or the cup I put in front of her on the table. I waited. When she finally handed the iPad back to me her coffee was cold.

‘Well?’

‘Amazing, Maitland. I knew nothing at all about fractals let alone the Mandelbrot set. To be honest I’d not even heard of ‘em.’

‘Not surprising. Matter of fact not many people have, which really amazes me.’

‘Where does your interest in fractals spring from? I don’t see you as a mathematician.’

‘I’m not.’

‘So?’

‘So, my law partner Jimmy Fetlock is.’

‘Really? You surprise me.’

‘Life’s full of surprises. Mary.’

‘Smart arse.’

We both laughed.

‘Thing is Jimmy and some pals at Oxford have developed an algorithm to solve legal problems.’

‘No shit!’

‘Indeed, no shit.’ It works.’

‘What’s it do?’

‘From data we supply it can determine if a defendant is telling the truth and it can analyse the character of a judge and work out how he or she is likely to decide on a case. Same goes for the defence and prosecution of course. The programme outlines a strategy for the court-room.’

‘That’s cheating.’

‘Oh, come on, Mary. The law’s a cheat. It’s a game and it has nothing to do with justice.’

‘D’you really believe that?’

‘Absolutely. As Bob Dylan sang, “To live outside the law you must be honest” and I’ve been in the game long enough to see how it’s played and it doesn’t play fair I can assure you of that.’

‘I’m shocked.’

‘No, you’re not.’

‘I am, Maitland.’

‘Then, with due respect, you’re very naive.’

‘Well, thank you, kind Sir.’

‘My pleasure, Ma’am.’

15 Freedom

Freedom does not come without a price. We may sometimes take for granted the many liberties we enjoy but they have all been earned through the ultimate sacrifice paid by many members of the armed forces.

Charlie Dent. American Politician

While I was driving down the sluggish M11 back to London my mind wandered as I looked around at the other cars, the drivers and the passengers, and concluded that they all looked so uncool. This was, I realised, OK. Not everyone could be wealthy, successful, cool and a killer like me. If they were, who would play the part of being ordinary, poor and uncool? Most people in the world were indeed poor, boring and uncool. Well, that was OK by me.

I went first to Hampstead and to Lumiére Motors where my favoured mechanic Libertine Lukasz worked. He met me as I swung the Bugatti into the yard.

‘Got your message, Mr. Fairweather. Is there a problem with ‘er?’

‘Not exactly, Lukasz. Well, that is, I’m not sure.’

He waited.

‘I have a suspicion that someone may have attached some form of trackin’ device. I want you to check her over as quick as you can. I need to know if she’s clear by, say, noon. Can you do that?’

‘No prob, Sir. I’ll put a couple of my boys onto it right now. Should be done and dusted by soon after eleven.’

‘Thanks, Lukasz. Call my mobile just as soon as you’re done.’

‘Will do.’

I joined Jimmy in his office around 10.30. Sydbord was due in at eleven.

‘Could you run the algorithm on a Professor Grant Sydbord? He’s with SEMI.’

‘Which is?’

‘Scalar ElectroMagnetic Industries’.

Jimmy nodded. ‘What’s he want from us?’

‘He wants to contract us to somehow discredit his CEO, Mary Dulleston.’

‘Why’s he wanna do that?’

‘She’s gettin’ in his way.’

‘Of doing what?’

‘Of selling their scalar weapon technology to the highest bidder.’

‘What’s her problem?’

‘She has integrity.’

‘Ha! That’s a tough call, Maitland. Having integrity and all in this life. Not guilty.’

‘I guess not.’ I shrugged. ‘Just run the alg please. Jimmy.’

‘Sure. Get back to you.’

‘Soonest, please.’

‘Will do.’

I left him at it, went through to my office and set up to record my forthcoming meeting with Sydbord. He arrived ten minutes late. Myra showed him in.

‘Mornin’, Prof. Have a seat.’

‘Good day, Mr. Maitland.’

‘Let us hope.’

‘Indeed, let us hope.’

He looked at me. I waited and pressed the record button under my desk.

‘So?’

‘So, will you sign the agreement?’

I replied without hesitating over much.’ Yes, I will.’

He looked first surprised and then obscenely delighted.

‘In fact, I have signed.’

He held out his hand.

‘Not yet.’

‘Why?’

‘I want you to tell me first if you’re currently running any live tests with your scalar technology.’

‘What, now?’

‘Yes, now... at this time.’

‘Uhhhm... well, I er…’

‘Yes?’

‘Maybe.’

‘What’s that mean?’

My mobile rang, and I answered the call. ‘Scuse me.’

Sydbord was visibly relieved.

‘Hi, Lukasz... Yes, as suspected... Please put any info on the device in an email... manufacturer’s name, model number, serial number and all that crap... ASAP, please.’

I walked over to the window. I had to buy some time. ‘D’you know Saffron Walden?’

‘Saffron what?’

‘Saffron Walden. It’s in north Essex.’

‘Why d’you ask?’

‘I was staying last night in a village near there. It’s called Ashdon.’ I paused.

‘I’m sorry, Mr. Maitland, but I don’t understand why you’re telling me this.’

‘Don’t you?’

I scrutinised him. ‘I think you do.’

My tablet pinged. ‘Excuse me, Prof.’ I opened Lukasz’s email and read:

“Type: V Vector. Model: C3 Alpha Widesweep. Serial number: CXPQT300NI43”. I typed a reply: “Good work, Lukasz. Thanx a mill. Maitland”. Then I looked up at Sydbord.

‘V Vector.’

‘What?’

‘V Vector.’

No reply.

‘Look, Prof, you better come clean or we’re stuck.’

He stood abruptly. ‘I’ve had quite enough of your fooling around.’

‘Have you now?’

‘I have.’

‘Well. You just think long and hard about V Vector before you come back here.’

‘I won’t be coming back.’

‘Very well. I’ll have our accounts department prepare you a bill and get it out to you this week.’

‘Your bill!’

‘Yes, Prof.’

‘For what?

‘My time.’

‘But you’ve done nothing.’

‘Like I said my time and I don’t come cheap.’ I stood and advanced on him. ‘V Vector.’

He scuttled for the door like a frightened rat. I went back to my desk laughing loud and turned off the recorder.

I called Myra on the intercom. ‘Come into my office, please.’

She appeared a few seconds later.

‘Yes, Sir.’

‘I want you to find out from a company called V Vector who purchased one of their devices. Take a note of this. It’s called a C3 Alpha Widesweep. Serial number: CXPQT300NI43.’

‘What is it exactly?’ she asked as she wrote down the info.

‘A satellite-based tracker.’

‘What if they don’t want to play ball?’

I thought about this, opened a desk drawer, took out a mobile phone and handed it to her.

‘OK. Use this phone and when you have a number go outside the building and walk a couple of blocks before you call.’

‘And?’

‘Tell ‘em you’re CID and that you work for Chief Inspector Archie Drumcrisp.’

She laughed.

‘No, seriously.’

‘What if they don’t buy that?’

‘Stamp on the phone, bin it and come straight back here. I’ll be in for another hour.’

‘OK, boss. Got it!’

‘Good girl, Myra. See ya later.’

‘See ya later.’ With that she left my office.

Twenty minutes later she came back and handed me the phone.

‘So?’

‘Doddle.’

‘How so?’

‘Told some pipsqueak guy I’d found the device on the side of the road and wanted to return it.’

‘And he bought that?’

‘Hook, line and sinker.’

‘My, God, Myra. Didn’t think it’d be that easy.’

‘Me neither.’

‘Doesn’t say much for their security methods.’

‘Security! Non-existent. I walked all over ‘em.’

’You surely did that. So, what’d you get?’

‘It was purchased three months ago by SEMI.’

‘Thank you, Myra.’ I walked to the window as she left my office. I was right. I had hit that nail right on the fuckin’ head. I drove home, went to bed and had some nasty dreams.

16 The Jonny Chakra Big Band

Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.

Albert Einstein

Myra had managed to pull me a box at The Albert Hall for the following evening. I wanted to take Mary to a concert to hear my favourite big band. Myra also had the good sense to book us a table at Charlie Duke’s Knightsbridge restaurant. Good girl, that Myra. I called Mary on her hotline.

‘Hi, there young lady… What’re you doing tomorrow night? You free?... Cool.’ I told her about the concert and gave her the address of the restaurant. She didn’t know much about the band. I hoped she’d like it. Well, matter of fact I didn’t see how she couldn’t. I just had to wait and see though. Fingers crossed.

The following evening Mary arrived on the dot looking radiant. I ordered wine.

‘I have a confession to make, Maitland.’

My heart fluttered. ‘Oh, dear. What’s that?’

‘I’m a vegetarian.’

I had to laugh.

‘Is that funny?’

‘No, it’s that…’

‘What?’

‘This restaurant’s up to speed. They keep pace with taste. Have a look at the menu. You’ll find that you’ll be spoilt for choice. Mary opened it and read through the options.

‘Well, well, Maitland. You’re right there. Plenty to choose from.’

‘So, you approve of my choice?’ I remembered that it wasn’t actually my choice and that Myra had booked the table, but I let that go.

‘I do indeed.’

‘Fact is I don’t eat much meat these days. I understand that eating dead flesh is not so good for the health.’

‘Right. And not just physical health, but spiritual too.’

‘Is that so?’

‘Sure, it’s so. You’ve heard of the law of karma?’

Whoops! I thought of Sarah and felt a grey gloom coming over me, but I managed to push that aside before it took hold.

‘Of course, I get it. Thou shalt not kill.’

‘Just so.’ She paused then added, ‘You know what Leonardo da Vinci wrote?’

‘Nope. Can’t say I do.’

‘I have, from an early age, renounced eating meat. The time will come when we’ll look on the murder of animals as we now look upon the murder of human beings.’

‘Can’t say fairer than that, Mary. Nicely put.’ That’s how I responded, but an icy stab ran right through my guts when I thought again of what I’d done or paid to be done.

She smiled sweetly, oh so sweetly, and I melted. We ordered.

I gathered my wits together and said, ‘I’ve got some news for you.’

‘Tell, please.’

‘OK. I took the Bugatti into my garage and had ‘em check it over for a tracker.’

‘And?’

‘They found one.’

‘My God.’

‘Yes. And I found out that the device had been sold to SEMI a few months back.’

‘No way.’

‘It’s a fact.’

‘You’re really onto something.’

’I am indeed.’

She smiled. I waited. ‘So, what’s to be done?’

‘I’ll pick up the tracker tomorrow and put it in the office safe.’

‘And then?’

‘We’ll plan a campaign.’

‘To achieve what exactly?’

‘Well, first and foremost discredit Sydbord and then expose SEMI’s illegal testing of scalar weaponry.’

‘And how d’you plan to do that?’

‘Don’t forget I took photos of the effect in the wood which we can link to the fact that they put a tracker on my Bugatti, and so they knew where I was.’

‘True ‘nuff. But how’re you goin’ to make anything of these...’

‘Dunno yet. But don’t forget I’m a very successful lawyer.’

‘Your modesty becomes you, Maitland!’

We laughed and picked up our glasses. ‘Here’s to it, Mary.’

‘Cheers.’

17 Mary, Mary, Quite Quantrary

Movies only make me sad.
Parties make me feel as bad
‘Cos I'm not with you.
I just don't know what to do with myself.

Dusty Springfield

The concert was just wonderful. We both enjoyed it enormously and for a little while we forgot our troubles. We went back to Ashdon in the Bugatti. My dreams that night were good ones.

We were up at six next morning and on our way to Thorpe Waterville in Northamptonshire half an hour later to visit Georgie Dove. I had explained to Mary that I wanted to discuss our issue with him. What he didn’t know about the world and its ways wasn’t worth knowing.

It took just over an hour to reach Dove Grange, his beautiful manor house on the edge of the village. It was built around 1580 in pale grey Oundle Stone. We parked outside and sat for a few minutes enjoying the morning before we knocked on the huge wooden door. If nothing else Georgie had taste and, of course, shed loads of wedge. I was there primarily to give him back the Sig-Sauer he’d loaned me, but I also wanted to discuss strategy with him.

Georgie was tall, handsome, debonair and a real charmer with his blonde corkscrew hair and deep brown eyes. Women were drawn to him and not just because of his wealth. I introduced Mary and he was clearly taken with her. I noticed that she wasn’t so taken with him.

He showed us into his vast wood panelled lounge. A log fire burned in the inglenook fireplace. Paintings by old masters hung on all four walls in between fine silk wall-hangings.

‘Have a seat.’ He gestured to the deep lounge chairs in front of the fire. ‘I’ll get some coffee. Should be brewed.’ He left the room.

I sat, but Mary didn’t.

‘I don’t trust him, Maitland.’

‘What! Why?’

‘Just call it female intuition.’

I was instantly on the defensive. I found her irritating. ‘Look, I’ve known him since prep school. We’re old and best friends.’

‘Sorry, Maitland, but I can’t help what I feel.’

‘Fuck!’ I was angry and thwarted. She was pissing me off. I pondered on how women could be so damned contrary, controlling even.

‘I don’t want to discuss SEMI with him – here, now, today.’

‘But I do.’

Our first confrontation. It had to come sometime, I guess. I was torn and felt I’d smashed straight into a brick wall. Georgie came back into the room carrying a tray.

‘It’s cook’s day off. I hope I’ve done it right.’ He sat next to us and poured. No one spoke until he broke the silence. ‘So, what brings you here so early?’

I didn’t know how to respond.

Mary picked up the baton and ran with it. ‘A friend told me that Mary Quant lived near here – just outside Oundle. I’m a fan and I’d like to see where she lives.’

‘First I’ve heard of it,’ Georgie replied.

She had succeeded in shutting me up. I ran with it. Anyway, I could talk to Georgie in my own sweet time.

We chatted about this and that and left an hour later. I didn’t manage to give him back the gun. Some other time. I recalled Sarah telling me that if you see a gun early on in a film it will eventually be used. I wondered whether this had anything to do with me.

It started to rain as we drove back to London.

‘Your namesake, then?’

‘Hardly. But I was reading about her in Vogue the other day and her name just sprang to mind.’

‘So, you made that up about Oundle and all.’

‘I did.’

‘Clever.’

‘Not really. My brother was at Oundle and I visited him there a few times, so I know it’s near Thorpe Waterville.’

‘I’m impressed, Mary. You can certainly think on your feet.’

‘So, you didn’t mind not talking to Georgie about SEMI and all?’

‘Matter of fact, I did.’

‘Sorry, but…’

I made no comment and we drove on in silence for a while. I thought it was time to open the can of worms so I asked, ‘Did you read about the woman Sarah Fairweather, who’s gone missing?’

‘Nope. Don’t read a paper.’

‘Very wise.’

‘What about her?’

‘She was… I mean, is, my wife.’

‘No shit!’

‘Indeed. I shit you not.’

‘What happened?’

‘I don’t know. I was in Atlanta when she disappeared without a trace.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Thank you.’

‘When was this?’

‘A coupla months back.’

‘And nobody knows anything?’

‘The police, her parents, her sister, friends – no. Nothing.’

‘It must’ve been terrible for you.’

‘Still is.’ We were silent for a while and then I added, ‘There’s been a claimed sighting of her in Salisbury, but nothing came of it.’

‘So, what’s happening now?’

‘The police are still looking, enquiring.’ I wasn’t sure how to go on.

‘D’you feel bad about us?’

‘No, Mary, I don’t. Things weren’t going well with me and Sarah. We’d only been married a year and it hadn’t worked out. Fact is she had a lover.’

‘Wow! You two sure didn’t last long.’

‘You’re right there. Over in a flash you could say. But life goes on without her.’

‘I have to say, Maitland, I’m shocked. Don’t really know how to handle this.’

‘Me neither.’

‘This thing with us wasn’t… planned.’

‘Know that. Just happened. And I… I’m very glad it did, Mary.’

‘Are you?’

‘Yes, I am… really.’

Again, we lapsed into silence, pondering. The rain stopped, and the sky brightened at the same time as the traffic on the road built up.

‘So, what about Sydbord and SEMI, Maitland?’

‘I dunno where to take it yet… the best way forward.’

‘We know who put a tracker on your car. So what d’we do? What’s the law say?’

‘The law says you can only gather someone’s personal data if you have their explicit permission to do so. Article 8 of the Convention on Human Rights states that only public authorities are exempt from this law if they can justify the need for gathering personal information without their subject’s knowledge and permission.’

‘Wow. You know your stuff.’

‘Well, Mary, it’s my job to know the law.’

‘I guess.’

‘What we need is to find a way to link what we found in the woods to the tracker.’

18 We Are The Hollow Men

I resign. I wouldn’t want to belong to any club that’d have me as a member.

Groucho Marx

I guess I knew it’d happen again sooner or later. Crumcrisp called. He came to my office an hour later.

‘Have a seat, Chief Inspector.’

‘Thank you.’

‘What can I do for you?’

‘We want an update from you. Have you heard anything from anyone?’

‘No, nothing. What ‘bout you?’

‘There’s been another sighting.’

‘Where?’

‘In Bali.’

‘Bali!’

‘Have you or your wife ever been there?’

‘Yes, I went there in my gap year. I was there for nearly three months. As far as I know Sarah’s never been there, but she might’ve been. Thing is we’d only been married for a year when she… I was still finding out about her and her past. Let’s face it there must’ve been a helluva lot I didn’t know.’

‘Of course.’

‘And maybe I never will.’ I did my best to look lost and heart-broken.

‘I… I’m sorry, Mr. Fairweather.’

‘It’s OK. It’s not your fault.’

‘Well, that’s true ‘nough. But still.’

‘Please find her for me.’ I laid it on thick.

‘We will try. We’ll really try. I can promise you that.’

‘Thank you.’ I considered for a moment if I should tell him about the tracker but decided against it.

He left a few minutes later. I had to figure a way to connect the woods’ effect with the tracker for full impact. I was beginning to feel like a crusader, part of a mission to save the world. I realized I had to keep a check on this. No need to get carried away! I thought about all this for a couple of days and decided to invite Georgie Dove to have dinner with me in that Italian restaurant in Albermarle Street. I told him the whole story, everything – that Sarah had left me and that I’d hired a girl hit squad to kill her and dispose of her body.

He responded immediately, ‘Way to go man. Cool. Never did like her all that much.’

He was a real hard man. Very little phased or surprised Georgie.

I wanted his advice. Naturally I didn’t invite Mary.

I told him everything I knew about SEMI, Mary and Sydbord. I pitched it well and waited for a response. Georgie thought about it for a minute or so then responded. ‘I’ve got a pal, a junior engineer, who works at NASA's James Webb Space Telescope at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. He goes by the somewhat exotic name of Lacon Lazaal.’

I thought, cool, but didn’t say so.

‘He’s not earning big money so if you could put some serious wedge his way, Maitland, I think he could be persuaded to use his network to find out who’s flying the satellite that was carryin’ the tracker link.’

‘How much?’

‘I’ll start at ten grand and if he doesn’t bite I’ll bung it up to twenty. What d’you think?’

‘JFDI, Georgie, no matter what it costs.’

’You what?’

‘Just fuckin’ do it.’

‘Way to go, Maitland.’

The meeting had taken the project forward, but I was feeling low and lonesome driving home that night, so I called up Radio 4 on the Bugatti’s audio net. I caught the tail end of a talk. The visual display announced that the speaker was the American philosopher and film maker Jim Grapek. I selected record.

He was saying:

“What an exciting and nerve-wracking time it is to be alive. As we stand at this critical juncture, here’s the million-dollar question: What will it be, destruction, or a new dawn? It’s becoming clear that the answer lies within each one of us. Scientists have uncovered a new set of natural laws, based on quantum physics, which are much more fantastic and comprehensive than anything previously known. And once you understand these new laws, you come to realize that everything, and I mean everything, falls under the heading of natural, from telepathy to angels and ET’s to time travel even immortality. Yes, you heard me correctly.

Getting back to our million-dollar question, ‘What will it be?’ It turns out there are two wild cards in the mix which I believe will help tip the scales in favour of those who prefer a new golden dawn to a dystopia. Regardless of what seems to happen around us we always have a choice of whether to be happy and live well or not.

Wild card one: For the first time in 26,000 years, our solar system is beginning a 20- year passage through what the Mayans called the Dark or the Great Rift that snakes along the Galactic Equator. This is supposedly a unique region of space with very unusual characteristics including what they call gravity waves which are ideal for spiritual rebirth according to the Mayans. As long as the gravity waves don’t make us get heavier I’m totally up for it!

Wild card two: According to NASA and the other space agencies, our solar system is now passing through an interstellar cloud so unusual that physicists say it should not exist. Yet, it does. And it’s unlike anything we’ve ever experienced. Since our passage began around 2009 cosmic radiation on earth has increased to levels never before recorded. Discoveries surrounding the nature of this anomaly, which the scientists have playfully named Fluff - perhaps because it’s anything but, - are rewriting the very foundational understandings of our solar system. Why haven’t we heard more about this? The answer is, because the world’s space agencies have lots of questions and very few answers. Meanwhile, the Fluff plasma anomaly is very close and it’s getting closer. There are going to be changes the scientists say and this is not a prophecy.

Looking at these wild cards, it’s a good bet that some cosmic intervention (whatever that means) will be working on some level to assist us. Evidence has already appeared that the increased cosmic rays are helping to advance consciousness and with it our evolution. This doesn’t mean we can sit back on our laurels, though. It turns out that each of our better world dreams is only a possibility until we make it a probability, then an actuality. In other words, the shifts must first start in our hearts and our minds. It’s the old tuning fork, the resonance, principle. When we can resonate with the vibrations of something, when we can embrace and be those vibrations that emanate from within us those intentions show up in life. This is the key to our challenges today. Perhaps Buckminster Fuller had it right all along when he said you never change things by fighting the existing reality. You change things by building a new model that makes the existing one obsolete.

With these new scientific discoveries each of us can build a new model, a new life and a better world, beginning with our intentions, our dreams, and our words. Yes, words contain great energy and power. According to scientists and sages alike, when we’re sure about what we want, and we’re filled with passion then this passion, this powerful emotional driver, accelerates the speed in which our dreams will physically manifest. It just takes a little learning, some quiet time and some practice. So, with science and spirit now speaking the same language, I think we can comfortably say that in these most extraordinary times, focusing on our inward desires will be as important as focusing outwards.”

He wished his listeners well and signed off. I liked what he’d said, and the broadcast left me feeling both edgy and optimistic too. I decided I’d get Myra to transcribe it just in case I could find a use for it. Obviously, I did. You’ve just read it.

When I reached home I checked my voicemail. One message was from Sarah’s parents. I called them. I got her mother, Denise, and she sounded exhausted, wasted, finished. I felt bad. She wanted to know if I had any news. I told her about the Bali sighting and I felt her spirits rise. I told her not to pin her hopes on this report and that I wasn’t. I told her that we had just got to keep the faith and hope for the best. I felt a wave of guilt and compassion wash over me. I started to drown in it but managed to get my head above the water and swim free. I wished Denise well and called Mary. I explained that I’d had dinner with Georgie and told him everything. She was furious and was about to hang up on me until I informed her about his NASA friend and what we hoped to achieve with Lacon Lazaal. She cheered up immediately like I knew she would. It was as if I’d turned on a light inside her. I told her I missed her, took a shower and went to bed.

19 What Is Mine?

The landlord says, ‘my garden…’ and his gardener laughs.

Chinese Wisdom

After breakfast I called the office and instructed one of our company interns, Flux MeerMaier, to pull a check from Myra, go to our bank, draw out forty grand in US dollars and bring the cash round to my house. You know, just in case. As they say in the Scouts, be prepared. Always one step ahead of the game, that’s me. I think!

When Flux had delivered the dosh, I drove up to Dove Grange to hand it over to Georgie. Any excuse to take the Bugatti out for a spin! He called Lacon and arranged for us to meet up.

The engineer settled for twenty, so everyone was happy. We agreed to fly to the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport the following day. I called Myra and asked her to book us two seats in first class out of Heathrow and rooms in a hotel near the Space Flight Center. I phoned Mary and told her I was going across the pond for a couple of days on business and to hopefully link-up with Lacon Lazaal.

We took the I-495 North, arriving at the Space Flight Center just an hour late for our meeting with Lacon. He met us in the main reception and showed us to his tiny, messy office. He seemed pleased to see us and, judging by what he was wearing and the size of his office, I could understand why. He was nervous, but Georgie’s charm and the promise of the twenty soon put him ease. I told him everything I could about the tracking device and where exactly on the grid we had witnessed the weapon’s effect. Lacon took notes and asked for the money and for a day or so to complete the job.

We handed over ten and promised the other half when he delivered the goods. We shook hands and were out of there.

We checked into the Greenbelt Marriott, which was just four miles from the Center. Georgie disappeared for an hour and came back to the hotel with five grams of charlie. God only knows how he got hold of it. I didn’t ask. We just got seriously stuck in and watched Apocalypse Now twice and of course didn’t get much sleep.

Next morning, we were still feeling pretty bright, if somewhat wired. We went over to the airport and flew up to New York for the day. Georgie had a girl friend called Kathy Golitely who worked for HBO. We spent a fun day with her and crashed in her apartment that night. I prayed that Lacon was making good progress and slept very well.

The following morning, we flew back to Washington. Soon after we took off Georgie was asleep, and I found myself pondering on the meaning of ownership. It was nuts. In the eyes of God, I assumed it was a meaningless concept: my house, my car, my job, my money, my publisher, my achievements, my son, my wife and so on. What a load of bollocks! I reasoned that I couldn’t really own any of these things - certainly not my wife (even if she wasn’t dead). I didn’t even own the body I lived in. I didn’t know how it worked. It just went on day by day doing its own thing independent of me and my wishes, or so it seemed. I mean realistically how can one part of the one universe own another part?

It made no sense but having said that, much of my work had to do with this so-called ownership issue. The Russian Prince Pyotr Alekseyevich Kropotkin developed a philosophy of life in the late 1800s, which was based on anarchism – a system of cooperation. He used evolution as a blueprint for society. He held that the more mutually dependent a species was, the higher it stood in life’s hierarchy. Homo Sapiens, at the summit, had evolved to be the most communal of all.

Our lust for wealth and war marked a step down the biological ladder – an aberration brought on by a sick and unjust way of life. Once the tyranny of banks and of nations was abolished man would return to the more generous realm where he belonged. Kropotkin believed that society had been ruined by the artificial medium called cash which matured into capital and led to exploitation. He held that in an ideal world we would give what we could and get what we needed. In time money would lose its raison d’être and a grand global system of mutual aid would begin and I agreed with him. So, there it is – way to go.

I also thought about the gun and wondered if and, more likely, when I’d have to use it. Anyway, it wasn’t my gun. It was on loan.

Back at the Marriott I called Lacon and he told me he’d got it. I said we’d send a cab over immediately to collect him and that he should come straight up to my suite.

‘So, what you got?’

He looked pleased with himself. ‘Everything. The works.’

‘Spill it, man.’

‘OK. The tracker and the scalar emitter are both housed in a Chinese...’

‘Wow! Chinese...’

‘Yup. In a quantum wave communication satellite run by ChiSat .’

‘All from the one satellite?’

‘Yup. All from the one.’

‘How’d you do it?’ asked Georgie.

‘Can’t tell you. Trade secret.’

‘Fair ‘nough.’

I asked, ‘So, what can you give us as proof?’

‘This, Mr. Fairweather.’ He handed me a USB stick. ‘All the evidence – everything you need’s on this.’

I took the stick and walked over to my laptop while Lacon watched full of greed and expectation. Georgie joined me, and we scrolled through the files, opening them up as we went along.

I turned to Lacon. ‘Good work. Well done. Give him the other ten please, Georgie.’

He took the money and was making for the door.

‘Hold on a sec.’

He stopped in his tracks.

‘One other thing.’

He looked worried. ‘It’s OK, relax. I just wanna to know about the singing in the woods. How was that done?’

‘Easy. The scalar wave carried the audio wrapped up in it. When you entered the clearing, what happened?’

‘The singing stopped.’

‘Just so. You collapsed the wave function with your bodies and it switched off.’

‘No shit.’

‘No shit, Mr. Fairweather.’

‘Alright, son, on yer bike.’

Lacon nodded and left the suite, walking on air. Georgie and I did a high-five and laughed.

My phone rang. It was Crumcrisp. Whoops!

He wanted to see me soonest. I explained that I was in the US of A, but said I’d be flying back later in the day.

The call brought me down with a bump. What now, I wondered?

21 Marie-Anne Toilette

She gives pleasure. She’s delightful and pleasing.

Danger Smith

I took a call on my mobile a week later from a girl calling herself Marie-Anne. She told me she worked for Candida Florette. She announced that she wanted half a million quid to keep her mouth shut about Sarah’s murder.

I didn’t respond. I cut her off, noted her number and called Georgie.

‘What d’you think, Georgie?’

‘Let’s make that a what should we do, old boy?’

‘Good for you, Georgie. Thanks. So, what should we do?’

‘Can’t tell you over the phone so get your sorry arse into that Bugatti and cruise up here.’

I was at Dove House in under two hours. As I drove an image of the gun passed across my mind.

‘This is how it is, Maitland. You gotta grease that fuckin’ bitch.’

‘Grease her! What d’you mean?’

‘I mean waste her for fuck’s sake.’

‘Kill her!’

‘Just so, bro’.’

‘Bit extreme, don’t you think?’

‘Nope. Clearly you can’t go to the cops and solicit support from that side, now can you?’

‘True ‘nough.’

‘So, settle it once and for all. If you give her what’s she’s asking for she’ll only be back for more. She’ll bleed you ‘til you’re dry.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, really. Oh, come on, Maitland, Wake up!’ She’ll have you over a barrel, old boy, and she’ll just keep on rollin’ that thing.’

‘You sure ‘bout that, Georgie?’

‘Sure, I’m sure. That’s the way the world works. You of all people should know that by now, Maitland.’

I thought about this, saw the sense in what he’d said then asked, ‘So how’d we do it?’

‘You call her, tell her you’ll give her the wedge, arrange a drop off point and when she goes to get it we jump her.’

‘And?’

‘We tie and gag her, drive to my chopper, pop her in. Weigh her down, fly out towards the Channel Islands and drop her in the drink. She’ll sink like stone and we fly home. Job done. Easy as that.’

‘Fuck!’

‘So what d’you think of that?’

’Cool,’ was all I could think to say.

‘We tell her that the money will be in a bag on the back seat of my dark green Aston Martin, which’ll impress her, and that the car will be parked on the road down from the Victoria Inn to Holkham Beach in Norfolk. Tell her you’ll pay her train and taxi fares.’

‘You sure can think on your feet, Georgie.’

‘True ‘nough, Maitland.’

‘And?’

‘When she’s reaching in for the bag we grab her and bung her into the Bugatti then drive over to a friend’s farm near Hunstanton where I’ll have the chopper standing by. In she goes and off we go into the wide blue yonder. I’ll pilot the plane and when we’re far out to sea and no one’s watching I’ll drop down to a few feet off the waves and you push that mother-fucker out the door and we fly back to Blighty home and dry.’

The snatch went off like clockwork. She was a pretty girl with long black hair and beautiful dark eyes. She had no idea what’d hit her or what was in store for her. I admit I did feel sorry for her.

I knew that this wasn’t going to add one iota to my store of good karma and that it was a nasty way to die, but I was committed.

Bound and gagged we loaded her into Georgie’s Jet Ranger. We tied her tight to two very heavy iron rods which we’d had the good sense to pick up on route to Holkham. She squirmed and wriggled but there was nothing the poor girl could do. The fear in her eyes all but made me puke and I had to look away. Guilt washed over me, and I glanced at Georgie. His face was set hard. There was no compassion there that I could see.

I had a bad attack of nerves too when I thought about the vulnerability of the craft we were flying in with its over 10,000 moving parts and how they all had to work and in unison and without any one of them failing to keep us in the air. So many things could go wrong – things that could cause the aircraft to drop out of the sky and into the waves taking all of us with it. I pushed that paranoia aside to concentrate on the job in hand.

Georgie took the chopper down fast until we were skimming the wave tops then he nodded at me to open the side door. Wind blasted into the cabin and boomed around us. The girl was shaking from head to toe as I heaved her unceremoniously out of the door.

Georgie pulled the chopper into a steep climb as I watched the body disappear into the deep, dark, briny ocean.

I felt relieved that the blackmail attempt had been removed once and for all and that I hadn’t had to use the gun. Marie-Anne hadn’t been a good girl and that was for sure. But what about her friends and family? How were they going to deal with losing her? Another disappearance and no stiff to be found to give closure.

The bodies seemed to be piling up and I wondered when this killing spree was going to end and where, if anywhere, all this was heading.

I noticed that Georgie was looking pleased with himself when he handed his helicopter over to the pilot who was going to fly it back to Thorpe Waterville.

‘Aren’t you at all concerned that we might get caught?’

‘No, Maitland, I’m not. The body will never be found. The fishes will strip her clean and the skeleton will still be attached to the weights, so she’ll be staying on the ocean floor for the foreseeable. That girl had it coming, and we did the right thing.’

‘What about Candida?’

‘Well, matey, she’s not gonna bark, is she now?’

‘I guess not.’

‘So, relax ‘bro’ and be pleased with a job well done.’

But I wasn’t relaxed. There were now two things I had to hide from Mary and events seemed to be escalating in a way I really didn’t like. Paranoia poured over me in grim, cascading waves.

I couldn’t get rid of the image of Marie-Anne sinking into the sea. I had an overwhelming desire to come clean and confess and get things over and done with, but two things held me back. One was that Georgie was involved and the other was that I had pledged to assist Mary in her fight against Sydbord and SEMI.

My head was spinning with contradicting drives, but I realised that I had to stand firm at least in the short term.

25 High Noon

Do not forsake me, oh my darlin'.
You made that promise as a bride…

Frankie Laine

I read in Scientific American over breakfast one morning that salamanders regenerate tails, limbs, jaws and even eyes but they are less accomplished than the fresh water polyp known as the hydra. A salamander can grow a leg but a leg, as they say, cannot grow a salamander. The Hydra’s ability to sprout a new head or a new body was the key to the modern science of embryonic development and adult repair.

In the eighteenth century a biologist called Charles Bonnet suggested in a remarkable prediction of later discoveries that these creatures contained ‘sleeping embryos’ - cells that remained ageless until summoned to action. They wake up whenever a part of the body’s removed and then replace the absent piece. The outburst of cellular youth known as cancer is now considered to be a disease of sleeping embryos. Later in the same article the author wrote…

Cancer of the colon is the third commonest form of the illness after breast or prostate cancer for women and men respectively, and lung cancer. One person in twenty is diagnosed with cancer at some time in their lives. The biologist J. B. S. Haldane (who left University College London for India after a row about library hours and who was a major figure in the study of the evolution of ageing) wrote of his own experiences in a memorable poem not long before his death called Cancer is a Funny Thing. “So now I’m like the two-faced Janus, the only God who sees his anus.”

I found this very funny.

I was pondering this article and how all this stuff related to life after death and the law of karma when I heard Larissima letting herself in and hanging up her coat and hat. She came into the dining room and asked if there was anything I wanted. I thanked her and told her there wasn’t. She set about clearing the table.

I watched her in silence and thought about Candida and not for the first time.

The law was clear. The person who kills is guilty of murder, typically first-degree murder or its equivalent and killing someone for money is usually punished by life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. The hitman is also guilty of conspiracy to commit murder since he (or she in my case) conspired with the buyer to arrange a killing. The hirer is also guilty of first-degree murder or its equivalent and of conspiracy to commit murder for putting the plan into motion.

I wondered how Candida would have reacted to Marie-Anne’s disappearance. Would she look for her or would she just shrug it off? Of course, I had no idea. But it bothered me. I worried that one day the law might catch up with Candida and that she might be encouraged to spill the beans on all her commissions, dropping me right into the poo. It could happen. I knew that. Georgie would get caught up in the shit storm too. I wondered what I’d got us all into.

It felt like more than a bit of a mess. I considered transferring all my funds offshore, buying myself a new identity, getting some high-quality plastic surgery and doing a runner. Thing is money talks and can buy a lot of things, not love of course or peace of mind come to that, but a lot of things nonetheless.

I decided I should maybe discuss this option with Georgie in due course. In the meantime, I was missing Mary and wanted to see her again very much. I rang The Ritz, reserved a suite for a couple of nights and invited Mary to stay. I booked myself in as Pavel Svelick (occupation shoe sales executive) to cover my tracks.

Mary arrived in my suite that evening looking beautiful and most elegant in a tight-fitting, pleated, low cut red dress. Alluring didn’t do her justice. Gorgeous might sum up the effect. I went weak at the knees and my head spun. I was standing by the window when Hermann, my hotel valet, let her in. She walked across the room, took me in her arms, held me tight and kissed me. I can only say my head buzzed and my body filled with a warmth that I imagine junkies experience when they shoot up after a long break. Wow!

We undressed and spent the next two hours in love.

Later we sat down to a delicious vegan dinner. Frank Sinatra crooned songs of love on the stereo.

‘I think it’s time we made our move on Sydbord, don’t you Mary?’

‘I do indeed.’

‘OK. We’ll hit him with a hand delivered letter, which’ll explain clearly what we know about the satellite, the car tracker and the fraudulent deposits he made into your bank account. We will offer not to press charges if he commits to dropping his efforts to sell your scalar technology – hardware and software – to the highest bidder and get the fuck outta your company.’ I paused while she absorbed this then asked, ‘How’s that, for starters?’

‘Shit, Maitland!’

‘What d’ya mean, shit?’

‘I mean hot shit. Really hot shit.’

She laughed, and I laughed too.

The letter was delivered the following morning and Sydbord called me two hours later.

‘Good day Mr. Maitland. I’d like to arrange to meet with you today at my house in Maida Vale.’

‘OK.’

‘So, you can do that?’

‘Yes, I can do that. What time?’

‘Would noon be OK for you?’

‘That’ll be fine.’

‘Good. I’ll text you the exact address later.’

‘Gotcha.’

I called Mary and asked her to come to the meeting with me and to join me at my office at 11.30. She confirmed she’d be there. I took the Sig-Sauer out of my desk drawer, cocked it, putting one up the spout and set it comfortably in the inside pocket of my grey flannel suit with the safety on.

We arrived at Sydbord’s house early. We were buzzed into the entrance hall. Two black suited hoods in black shades, looking like something out of Reservoir Dogs, showed us into the grand downstairs reception room. They closed the door behind them and went back into the hall. Sydbord was lounging on a deep, dark green velvet chaise longue. He was evidently shaken to see that Mary was with me. He did his best to hide his surprise, but he didn’t pull that off. We had clearly caught him off guard and thrown him onto his back foot. My eye was caught by a huge tasteless and ostentatious chandelier hanging low in the centre of the room. Sydbord stood politely when we came in. We shook hands and he offered us chairs. He asked if we’d like a drink. We both declined.

‘Very well. To business then.’

‘And what business might that be?’ I asked fixing him with a steely eye.

‘The letter you sent that threatened legal action.’

‘And?’

‘We must find a way to settle this between us without...’

I cut across him. ‘I don’t think that’s gonna happen. D’you agree, Mary?’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘You must comply with the demands in the letter or we’ll take this further, a lot further. And we’ll blow this thing wide open. The press’ll have a field day.’

‘And you’ll be fucked,’ added Mary.

‘Completely fucked.’ I confirmed as I stood to face him.

He stood too and called out, ‘Jasper, Marcus. In here now!’

The door burst open and the hoods came towards us full of menacing intent.

‘Get them!’ barked Sydbord.

I pulled the li’l old Sig from my pocket and aimed it at them. They stopped in their tracks, considering this development, then came on again and I barked, ‘Stay right where you are, or I’ll fill you with hot lead.’ It was a corny line, but I liked it. I felt I was in a Western movie and glanced at the big wall clock. It was noon and I was Gary Cooper.

One of the hoods turned to the other and said without much conviction, ‘He’s bluffing!’

‘You think so. Wanna test me out.’ I was enjoying myself. They lunged at me and I loosed off a round which conveniently tore the chandelier right of the ceiling. It fell with a spectacular crash and shards of broken glass flew off in all directions. We all ducked instinctively, but I’d made my point and broken the will of the two hoods. I had their full attention.

‘Git outta here... now!’

They followed orders and slunk from the room. I heard the front door slam. With the Sig-Sauer still in my hand I walked over to Sydbord and noticed that he’d pissed himself. I stood over him. He was shaking from head to foot. I took out my mobile and called Myra.

‘I want Flux to join me here right now.’ I gave her the address.

‘OK, Prof, listen up.’

He just managed to raise his head and look at me.

‘My man Flux is on his way here and he’s going to your office with you where you’ll shut down and deactivate the ChiSat scalar projector and close down all your links to the potential purchasers of the technology.’

‘I...’

‘Yes?’

‘Please... no.’

‘Oh, yes.’ I put the muzzle of the Sig-Sauer against his knee. ‘Unless, of course...’

‘Please...’

‘You will also resign from SEMI and transfer all your shares to Mary.’

‘No, not that. I’ll have nothing left.’

‘You’ll have this house, Prof.’

‘I don’t own it.’

‘Tough shit.’

I sat down opposite him to wait. Mary went to the window.

Fifteen minutes later the doorbell buzzed, and she went to let Flux in. He looked puzzled as I explained what I needed him to do. I told him not to worry and that all would be well if he did exactly what I asked him. I turned to Sydbord.

‘If you give this boy a hard time you’ll pay for it in spades. Am I clear?’

Sydbord nodded.

‘I’ll go upstairs with you while you change your trousers.’

26 If Only Dogs Ruled The World

If you saw two dogs and one of them craps and the other carries it, who would you say was in charge?

From the Book of Angelic Wisdom

When Sydbord had done everything that we’d demanded I drove Mary in the Bugatti to Berlin and had Myra book us into the Hotel Adlon Kempinski on Unter den Linden for two nights. That car was such a joy to drive and I had it in my mind to surprise Mary with a very special present. I believed that a change was as good as a rest and Berlin was one of my favourite cities. I thought Mary would like it too and I was right.

Whenever I visited I was struck by the beautiful spacious avenues and boulevards, the abundance of parks and the popularity of dogs. The bicycle seemed to be the most accepted form of transport in the city. Thinking about bicycles reminded me of Robin Makepeace, then Sarah, then Marie-Anne, then Crumcrisp and then Georgie and so on. I didn’t want to go there. It just didn’t help going around and around those gloomy circles. It was just too much of a paranoid paradox.

I introduced Mary to my old friend Count Markus Goering. He had a passion for fine art and he bred vegetarian Cavalier King Charles Spaniels humanely and with love. Markus was a true eccentric. He lived in a crumbling gothic pile on the outskirts of Berlin. The house had no central heating and the dogs lived in much greater comfort than he did. He was a poet and an excellent violinist, dedicated to his dogs and his art. He was an aristocrat of a very noble and ancient line and he was a true gentleman of the old school. Mary took to him immediately, which was a great relief to me as she hadn’t liked or trusted Georgie, which had disappointed me no end. Markus was a very clever man and had more degrees than I’d had hot dinners.

We sat in his cavernous and warm kitchen with ten of his Cavaliers. Mary had a kingly Ruby on her lap and a Blenheim curled at her feet. We discussed Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler. Markus had recently given a speech at the Freie Universität Berlin’s Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology. Pacing around he repeated it for us verbatim. ‘Rarely in modern political memory has a candidate so personalised a candidacy. Certainly, no other U.S. political figure comes to mind, who dared to make such an exclusive claim on truth. A saviour complex may have befallen some of them, but who was bold enough to voice it as plainly as Trump? “I alone,” claimed Trump in his speech when he accepted the Republican nomination for president, “can save America, save the world and save you.”

That doesn’t mean there is no historical precedent for campaigning and ruling on a platform of messianic certainty. One man who did it to perfection was Adolf Hitler of course. Hitler was ultimate evil. Trump is no mass murderer; Trump is no Nazi; Trump has launched no wars but to any serious student of Hitler’s frightening and unforeseen rise to power in Germany, the recurring echoes in Trump’s speeches, interviews and his underlying thinking have become far too blatant to overlook.

No resemblance is stronger than Trump’s claim that he alone could rescue America from its misery. Hitler famously conjured the model of the genius, the great man who alone held the key to a country’s destiny. Calling democracy a joke, Hitler fiercely disdained what he called weak majorities. Progress and civilization could only be achieved through ‘the genius and energy of a great personality.’ So, wrote Adolf in Mein Kampf. Among his choice of great personalities, he included Frederick the Great of Prussia, Napoleon Bonaparte, Otto von Bismarck and, by implication, himself.

Hitler was building the case for the Führer Principle, a belief in the iron infallibility of the leader. It was an elaborate, historically wrought version of the I alone principle. With it, Hitler eventually won power in Germany and governed as an absolute despot.

Deflecting calls for specifics with assertions of superior ability is a technique that Hitler used. He increasingly monopolized the Nazi movement during the 1920s until the idea, as his followers called National Socialism, was identical with the man. Likewise, Trump likes to call his juggernaut a movement, but it is really a one-man show. ‘In business,’ Trump wrote in his 1987 memoir The Art of the Deal, ‘everyone underneath the top guy in a company is just an employee.’

Hitler saw himself as singularly endowed to avert Armageddon and reach national greatness. For Hitler, there was no middle ground between the total downfall threatening Germany at the hands of a Jewish-Bolshevik world conspiracy and his vision of a renewed German glory ‘a vision of an instant leap from despair to utopia’ as historian Fritz Stern put it.

Hitler climbed to the mountaintop in the very first paragraph of Mein Kampf. In his opening words, he invoked Providence to describe the moment and place of his birth. Providence was Hitler’s surrogate for God throughout the book. Personality was his euphemism for the characteristics that mark the Great Man. “Personality cannot be replaced,” Hitler wrote. “It is not mechanically trained, but inborn by God’s grace.”

This is the core of a messianic complex and the central pillar of the Führer myth. By shifting to the magical realism of God-given prescience, Hitler made it easier for people to discard scepticism, shelve their demands for actual solutions and excuse all of the coarseness they saw in him.

When the Great Depression hit in late 1929, Hitler’s missionary style began pulling voters over the line of their own resistance to the oddball Nazi, making his party the second-largest in Parliament in the 1930 elections. In 1932, Hitler doubled his vote to 37.4 percent, and the Nazis became Germany’s largest party. By January 1933, they were in charge. Fate accompli.

Trump seems profoundly ignorant of history. In a recent New York Times interview, he claimed not to know that his America First slogan was also used for an isolationist movement that flirted with Nazi-sympathizing in the 1930s and early 1940s. Although Trump may know nothing of Hitler’s techniques, his instincts are uncannily reminiscent of them.’

Markus stopped speaking. He stood with his back to the fire.

‘That was brilliant, Markus.’

‘Thank you, Mary. I’m not known for my humility, so I’ll say I think so too.’

They both laughed, and I smiled.

‘Maitland phoned me before you left for Berlin. He explained that you had recently lost a dog, a Jack Russell, who meant a lot to you and he asked me if he could buy two of my dogs for you. It would seem that you have already been chosen. The elegant boy on your lap is Felix and Viktor is at your feet. I will take no money for them. They are our gift to you if you’ll accept them.’

Mary looked close to tears. ‘Accept them! Indeed, I will. Thank you both so much. They are the best present I’ve ever had.’ She stood and, clasping Felix close, she walked to Markus and hugged him. I stood up and she came to me, held me close and kissed me. Bliss!

On the drive back to London Felix was still on Mary’s lap and Viktor on the floor in front of her.

‘I’m very touched by your gesture, Maitland. They’re such a wonderful gift.’

‘Well, thank you Ma’am. My pleasure.’

‘You know for all your professional arrogance, self-importance and high opinion of yourself, you are a very caring man at bottom with a truly big heart.’

‘You’re too kind, Mary, but thank you.’

I was filled with a mix of love and remorse. Remorse for what I’d done, and that I could never tell Mary the truth. As I’ve said, if I told her she’d run a mile and if she didn’t report me to the cops she’d be guilty of obstructing the course of justice, just as Georgie was already. Whichever way I looked at it I was doomed to lurk in the shadows.

The really odd thing was that I felt no guilt for murdering the two women and seriously wondered if I needed psychiatric help. Of course, that was right out of the question. I felt there must be something wrong with me. Surely, I should have felt some remorse - just a tiny amount – and not just fear and paranoia. Don’t you think, dear reader?

The drive home was bliss. The car was sweet, Mary was an angel and the dogs were... what can I say? I’ll settle for a joy to behold.

27 Closing In

Yeah though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil

‘cause I’m the meanest mutha fucka in the valley.

From the Book of Angelic Wisdom

I knew I’d hear from him again and I did. Same old, same old. Would I please come to his office as soon as I could make it? I ignored the call for a couple of days. I was helping Mary license the scalar technology to a big and reliable pharma to be developed medically – healing cancer, heart disease and AIDS. With the advance she received we commissioned the destruction of the ChiSat vehicle and its Scalar payload. The Chinese sent us visual and hard evidence that the work had been completed. Job done! I also ensured that all negotiations for the sale of the weapon technology were closed off to Mary’s satisfaction. The future for SEMI looked bright and she was very grateful. Of course, I refused all payment for the work which pissed off my partners no end. But I stood my ground and wouldn’t budge. So that was that.

‘Come in, Mr Fairweather.’ Crumcrisp pointed to an empty chair. ‘Coffee?’

‘No thanks.’

As I sat, there was a knock on the door. ‘Come in.’

The door opened and a stony-faced woman in an elegant grey suit came in. She walked to the chair next to me and swung it around so that it faced my profile. She sat without a word.

‘This is Detective Sergeant Grimsthorne.’

‘Really?’

‘Really what?’

‘Is that really her name?’

‘Yes. Why d’you ask.’

‘Well... it’s just that...’

‘What?’

‘’Never mind.’

I turned and nodded to Grimsthorne and she nodded back. Neither of us cracked a smile.

‘So, what’s happening, Crumcrisp? Got any news? I hope you’re gonna tell me you’ve made some progress at last.’

He thought about this. ‘No... no, we haven’t.’

‘So why’m I here?’

‘We rather hoped you’d have something to tell us.’

‘Like what?’

We sat in a silence which I broke. ‘Look here, detectives. Would you mind getting to the fuckin’ point.’ I glanced at Grimsthorne. No reaction. I shrugged. ‘Right then, I’ll be off.’

I stood and Crumcrisp did too. ‘Err, just a minute.’

‘What?’

‘We may have a lead.’

‘You may have a lead, indeed!’

‘Yes.’

‘And what might that be?’

I wondered when Grimsthorne was going to say something. It was a bit creepy just having her there staring at me – kinda intimidating.

‘Well?’

‘Well, we...’

‘Yes?’ She was either lost for words or was just keeping up the intimidation routine.

‘We’re investigating a hit team, who’re known to have been employed to target women.’ She kept me fixed in her unflinching stare.

I shook inside, but I didn’t show it. I knew how to handle myself under scrutiny. I’d have made a good poker player had card games appealed to me which, thankfully, they didn’t.

‘Matter of fact I knew another cop called Grimsthorne. He was a DS based at the Holloway Road station and like you he was something of a waste of space.’ I attempted deflection. It often worked for me in court.

She didn’t react.

‘Any relation?’

‘Yes, he’s my father.’

‘Ah well, that explains it.’ She still didn’t rise to the bait, so I added, ‘Like father, like daughter.’

She shrugged.

‘So, you called me in here to tell me that you’re investigating a hit team. You could’ve called or sent a text to that effect. But no, you had to bother and inconvenience me.’ I stood and turned to go. ‘Fuck you. Goodbye.’

Even though I felt deeply paranoid I still had a laugh as I left the building.

28 Facial Discrimination

Facial discrimination occurs when a person is treated less favourably than another in a similar situation because of their face.

From the Book of Wisdom and Folly

Hank Williams died in the back of a car somewhere between Knoxville and Blaine. There's a photo of him at 14 where he looks uncannily like Arthur Rimbaud at the same age. Rimbaud disowned his poetic past when he was just 21 and went to live in Ethiopia. The great blues poet Robert Johnson wrote, ‘I'm booked and I gotta go. If they ask for me, you tell 'em I'm down in Ethiopia somewhere'.

I understood that Robert Johnson had a Creole girlfriend in New Orleans who introduced him to French Symbolist poetry. Some of his lines like, ‘Blues falling down like rain', reminded me of Rimbaud’s free-form word associations. Arthur Rimbaud finally settled down in Aden in 1880. He was appointed to be the head of the Bardey Agency. However, he quit the job in 1884 to become a merchant on his own account in Harar, Ethiopia. The commercial trades of Rimbaud mainly included coffee and weapons. During this time, Rimbaud developed a close friendship with the Governor of Harar, Ras Makonnen, father of the future Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie.

Thing is I felt a bit like Rimbaud. I wrote poetry at school and some short stories and I had some of both published. Then at Oxford University my head was turned by greed, greed for money and power. The art just slipped through my fingers.

Again, like Rimbaud I was a fearsome businessman, also blessed by good looks and a fine physique and I knocked all the girls dead. Facial discrimination happily was not something I had to put up with. Many did, but I wasn’t into bullying and teasing. So, no bad karma there!

Mary and I went up to Ashdon for the weekend. I suggested that we go back into the woods to check out the spot where the scalar wave had hit. I wasn’t sure exactly why I wanted to do this or where it was. Random trees in a wild wood look more or less the same to me from any angle. In the event it wasn’t hard to find. Amazingly the circle carved out by the wave was a sea of Fly Agaric mushrooms.

Now I’d read about these things in a future-world novel called A Glass of Two Milks, so I knew they were red with white spots like the ones you see in fairy tale books. I also knew their Latin name, Amanita Muscaria, and that they were a highly potent psychedelic, containing naturally occurring N-Dimethyltryptamine commonly known as DMT.

‘This’s very weird, Mary, don’t you think? I mean I’ve never seen these mushrooms in these woods before or anywhere else in Essex come to that.’

‘Certainly is. I’ve not seen one either in all my life. I saw pictures in books of course when I was a little girl. Alice in Wonderland and all.’

‘So, why here?’

‘And why now, Maitland?’

‘Indeed.’ I walked round the circle and studied the fungi. There sure were a lot of ‘em and they were big, and they looked like they might pack a punch. ‘D’you think this has anything to do with the ChiSat projector?’

She thought about this. ‘It might. No, it must do... but I don’t know how.’

‘Like some kind of enchantment.’

‘How’d you mean?’

‘Well, Mary, this type of mushroom is highly hallucinogenic and these look particularly... potent. Wouldn’t you say?’

‘Well, yes...’

I bent down to examine them and pulled two of them out of the ground. They came free with a crisp little pop. ‘Shall we try it?’

‘You mean eat ‘em?’

‘That’s just what I mean.’

‘Dangerous, isn’t it?’

‘Not, I’m told, if you prepare them by the book.’

‘So, you’ve tried ‘em before, Maitland?’

‘Nope... I...’

‘What?’

‘I’m sure we won’t regret it, Mary. What d’you say we give it whirl just for the hell of it. Might be fun... or something...’

‘OK. I’m up for it.’

‘Good girl. Let’s get back to the house.’

‘When shall we do it?’

‘Not today, Mary.’

‘Why not?’

‘You in a hurry?’

‘Not particularly, but I am keen.’

We reached the bottom of the garden and walked towards the house. ‘I want to do some research.’

‘Like what?’

‘First I’m going online to read up on the preparation methods.’

I booted up my iPad and searched for: How to prepare Fly Agaric for consumption.

I read this out loud to Mary.

‘First dry them on a screen in the oven on the lowest setting with the door just cracked open for an hour or so. Then put them through a spice mill so they come out like baking powder. Next boil a little water and bring it up to within a few degrees of 190. Once that temperature has been reached stir in the powder and leave it to steep for at least 30 minutes. Let it to cool a little and then drink it.’

‘OK. Simple as that. So, what else have you to do before take-off?’

‘Get plenty of logs in and go into Saffron Walden to get supplies.’

‘Like?’

‘Plenty of fresh and dried fruit. I also want to clear my desk and talk to my secretary and get her to postpone all my appointments ‘til the middle of next week. You should do this too.’

‘Why?’

‘I read in that book I mentioned that the full trip will last at least twelve hours and we’ll need a couple of days to slide back into the normal, everyday state.’

The following morning, we skipped breakfast. We were very excited and brim full of expectation. I filled a kettle and switched it on.

‘Thing is I understand we may have out-of-body experiences ‘n’ stuff like that. We may see and communicate with supernatural entities. We might feel we can fly. Also, we may become one with the things we see and hear.’

‘How d’you mean?’

‘What happens is what they call ego loss, getting out of this state of I-ness.’

Mary looked puzzled.

‘I guess I mean... to put it bluntly it’s like dying.’

‘You’re kidding me... like dying?’

‘Just so. I understand we’ll feel limitlessly creative and ecstatic.’

‘And the downside?’

‘We’ll probably be very sick and throw up all over the place.’

‘Ughh. Really?’

‘Probably.’

‘And what else?’

‘Could be dangerous.’

‘How’s that?’

‘I guess if someone who takes it is mentally unstable it might lead to a psychotic reaction... episode. Might not be reversible.’

I paused. ‘Like with Syd Barrett. He was mentally unstable when he took LSD back in the 60s and he didn’t recover. He flipped completely.’

‘And Pink Floyd sailed on without him.’

‘And became enormously successful of course.’

‘And incredibly rich.’

‘Quite so. But it was Syd who started them off. His genius.’

29 A Glimpse Of Higher Planes

We must believe in free will. We have no choice.

Isaac B Singer

The most potent strain of the Fly Agaric mushroom is found on the Siberian Steppes. When I remembered this, it set me to wondering if there was a link between the Ashdon Woods, the ChiSat scalar vehicle and Russia. This made me dive into an even deeper level of paranoia if that was possible. It was. Fact is though, that at the time of writing possession of the sacred mushroom was not against the law in the UK. Fly Agaric grows wild in woods in various parts of these islands so if some very stupid ass tried to make possession illegal, as a lawyer I’d say, they’d be really up against it. No chance. Never happen.

I must add that though I was somewhat disturbed by the appearance of the mushrooms. It was odd and disconcerting. How did they get to be there? Would they be dangerous to take – poisoned perhaps by whoever had placed the spores there - if anyone had? Although it seemed highly unlikely I wondered if they came in somehow on the scalar wave. I couldn’t see how that could be done, but then what the fuck did I know about this technology? Next to nothing if the truth be told.

Having said all that, we did go ahead and ingest the mushrooms with astonishing and truly wonderful results. I ran JS Bach’s Saint Matthew’s Passion on the sound system. I locked the doors to the house, unplugged the phones and we settled quietly side by side on a pile of luxuriously decorous cushions with two bowls beside us to throw up in.

Within half an hour my body was infused with a rushing, prickling warmth. My stomach started to contract and heave. The actual vomiting was not unpleasant, quite the contrary. It felt something like God must have experienced when he brought this universe into being, a glorious explosion of light and musical energy. My consciousness gradually expanded to fill the room.

I must jump in here and make it clear that ‘my’ consciousness is fallacious. It’s not ‘mine’ or ‘my’. It’s the consciousness. It doesn’t belong to me. Whatever me is. It is simply what it is. The mushroom wipes away that ol’ familiar feeling of I-ness, leaving only this-ness in its place.

So, the consciousness expanded through the house, the village, the county, the country and the world to eventually fill all space, everywhere and at all times. To say this felt good would be the biggest understatement of all time. Looking at Mary I saw an angel ringing in the radiance. She was smile and love personified. We raced through the cosmos like one burning comet on wings of pure joy.

You might find it odd, dear reader, that after what I’d done and was guilty of I could feel this free, this liberated, this unencumbered by regret and self-loathing. Fact is I could. So, there it is.

Colour was sound, and sound was a blissful deep chiming in the vault of the heavens. We were bonded in the infinite, eternal consciousness bliss of love. In the heyday of LSD back in the ‘60s the Beatles sang:

Nothing you can make that can't be made.
No one you can save that can't be saved.
Nothing you can do, but you can learn
How to be you in time
It's easy.

All you need is love.

That was then, but it still applied. Love conquers all. So, I often wondered if I could ever be saved from my sins. If I could be redeemed, made whole again without blemish and be completely purified.

This is now and looking back I realised that my extreme anger with Sarah sprung from the fact that we loved each other so much and yet she turned her back on this great gift and left me high and dry.

In the First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, Chapter 13, Verse 2, he wrote:

And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

We shared love that was true, deep and real. Sarah left me nothing but disappointment, anger and a broken heart. What’s a man to do with that, I ask you? Kill the bitch, I guess. And so, I had.

Anyway, back to the mushroom trip. It gets harder to describe because there was no one having the experience. There was simply the experience. I recall passing through what I can only call regions of differing lights and sounds. If I opened my eyes I saw a world of extreme beauty and harmony. Everything fitted together perfectly – Mary, the room, the view of trees and sky through the window. Everything flowed in tune with Bach’s exquisite music. The Passion had been an excellent choice. It was intuition. I just had the feeling that this most beautiful, spiritual music would accompany us well on our journey, and it did. It was spot on. Good choice.

At one point the front door bell rang. It was harsh and jarring and, even though the sound was familiar to me, it had no meaning. It was out of place. A cloud of darkness and confusion fell on the consciousness, but that inevitably passed as the tinny bell echoed away into the ether, but it left me in a realm of fractured planes, uncertain volumes and shifting, multiple viewpoints.

Looking back, I can see that this was a worldview not unlike that of Pablo Picasso. It had nothing of the rich and flowing organic, fractal world of nature. I have observed that The Cubists decomposed objects into simple Euclidean shapes. To some extent, this affected their choice of subjects. After all, there are few cubist paintings of trees, clouds, rivers or ferns, are there? I know that many astute people love and admire the work of Picasso, but not me. Oh no! I preferred art that sprung directly from nature – flowers, clouds, mountains, animals, fish, insects and the human form - and that looked recognisably like them and were seen from just one point-of-view.

So, this particular region was harsh, discordant, unwelcoming and far from alluring. Again, there followed a shift into something more joyful, beguiling and pleasant.

A deep resounding bell engulfed us, and bright, benign and shining angelic figures flew alongside and through us. Without words we knew that we were climbing into yet another and higher plane of consciousness. God spoke and there was light - light ineffable and so it was. But he spoke first. Om. This sound was the source of all and we were in it. We were it. The thing in itself.

My dead dad was cremated the following day.

Given that Myra and I were the only two souls in attendance you will understand, dear reader, that it was a somewhat lacklustre affair. I just shrugged it off.

Good riddance I thought, but obviously kept that feeling to myself.

Life went on without him just as it did when he was in the world. Heh ho.

30 The Sound of Creation

Light will one day split you open

Even if your life is now a cage...

Love will surely burst you wide open

Into an unfettered new galaxy.

Mohammed Shams al-Din Hafiz

I told Mary that I had a girl friend at Oxford called Omrita Chatterji. She was very beautiful - a classic Indian beauty – and not just pretty. She was refined and elegant and bore herself with a natural, easy charm. She was studying Theology and her thesis was to be on The Upanishads. Ours wasn’t a romantic attachment, at least not on my part. We simply got along very well and inspired each other.

I was chatting with Omrita one windy, wet afternoon with the rain beating hard against the leaded widows of her college rooms and she told me that Om was the primordial sound through which the universe was brought into existence - not unlike the Greek Logos. Om, she told me, is a Sanskrit syllable, called a seed syllable. It’s the underlying sound of all creation, the sound of the world coming into being, decaying and being reborn.

‘So, you have a name that contains this... reference to the primordial sound.’

‘Well, yes, you could say that, Maitland, but it also has another meaning in Bengali.’

‘And what’s that?’

She blushed. ‘A very beautiful girl.’

‘Ah. Yes. Well, you certainly are that.’

‘Thank you, kind sir.’

‘You’re welcome.’

‘So please tell me more,’ I asked, ‘about the sound.’

‘OK. It’s like this: Om is the vibration underlying all other sounds. Om supports the universe from the creation on. I’m talking about the whole of creation. It’s a symbol for all life.’ She paused. ‘Are you with me, Maitland?’

‘Yes, sure. I’m with you. Please go on.’

‘According to the Rig Veda...’

‘Hold on.’

‘What?’

‘The Rig Veda?’

‘The oldest text in any Indo-European language. It’s believed it was composed in north-western India most likely between 1500 and 1200 BC.’

‘Wow! That does make it pretty ancient.’

‘Certainly does.’ Omrita stood and walked to her desk. She looked through her files and brought one with her to her chair. She opened it. ‘OK, Maitland, at the risk of boring the pants off you, I’ll read you some of my thesis.’

I settled back in my chair. ‘That’s fine by me.’ She was such a joy to behold that she could, if I’m honest, have read me anything.

‘This is some of what I’ve written so far.’

‘Fire away,’

‘God first created sound, and from this sound the phenomenal world arose.’

She glanced at me briefly to check that I was listening and went on.

‘So, it follows, you see Maitland, that this is the power, which preceded the universe and from which we’re told all the gods were created too. It’s the root sound, the cosmic vibration that holds together all the atoms in the world and the heavens too. The Upanishads tell us that Om is simply God in the form of sound. A beautiful explanation of Om,’ she continued, ‘is found in the ancient Vedic and Sanskrit traditions. The marvellous Mandukya Upanishad explains that the four elements of Om are an allegory of the four planes of consciousness.’ Omrita paused and look at me. ‘Am I boring you, Maitland?’

‘No, no. I’m fascinated.’ Her voice was like music to me.

‘How come?’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘I mean you’re studying law and I thought that you wouldn’t be interested in this kind of thing.’

‘Lots of stuff interests me, Omrita. I pride myself on keeping an open mind.’

‘When you study law, what exactly does that mean?’

‘Well, obviously, the law of the land... and...?’

‘And?’

I laughed. ‘The law of the jungle and the laws of maths, physics and the universe.’

Omrita laughed. ‘So much!’

‘And why not?’

‘Why not, indeed.’ She waited. ‘Shall I go on?’

‘Of course. You must.’

‘Very well. Here I go. In reality there is neither an observing subject nor an observed object. All are one, and nothing. Before the creation only pure consciousness existed, unseen, pristine, latent, covered with darkness. This is the cosmic night, the interval between the cycles of creation, the womb of the divine Mother. In this state the consciousness of the individual is turned inwards, and the dreaming self-beholds an enthralling view of the world behind the lids of the eyes.’

‘Deep stuff.’

‘And profound.’ She waited. ‘As a matter of fact, Maitland, this point of view is supported by quantum physics.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, for sure.’ She glanced at me.

‘Go on.’

‘It’s the understanding that there’s no observer and nothing is observed and that in fact there’s only an observing taking place.’

‘No shit!’

‘No shit, indeed.’ She was really warming to all this. Her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes literally sparkled. She was enchanting, and I was enchanted.

‘OK. I’m not, as you know, a physicist, but this is how I see it.’

‘Know that, Omrita, my dear, but please go on.’

‘You asked for it. Let’s agree for starters that atoms are mostly empty space with just a few tiny particles whirling around inside.’

‘Yup.’

‘An atom is an energy field. In fact, it’s described as a wave. So, if everything is simply waves of energy how is it that apparently solid objects exist?’

‘Dunno. You tell me.’

‘Physics tells us that our consciousness collapses the wave function and our collective consciousness agrees that a table is a solid table even though it’s really empty space.’

‘Far out!’

‘Yes, Maitland, far out, but true. In fact, Indian mysticism takes just the same view - that our entire manifested reality springs from our consciousness.’

‘Wow!’

‘You’d better believe it!’

31 The Divine Demon

I weep for you, I weep for you

You’ll only end in dust, in dust.

Marquis de Sade

D’you find yourself wondering, dear reader, how this story’s going to end? I know I did from time to time as things went along. And what about that goddam gun?

A few days after the mushroom adventure Mary and I were strolling across Hyde Park under gentle summer clouds.

‘So how did things go on with Omrita?’

‘They didn’t.’

‘How’s that?’

I wasn’t sure how to respond to this question. It was hard for me to speak about what happened to Omrita, but I went for it. ‘Fact is she’d been studying one morning at the Bodleian Library and was walking down Catte Street on her way back to her college. A guy called Snetterton had a stroke and lost control of his car. It ploughed into Omrita crushing her into a wall, breaking her back and smashing her head wide open. I know it wasn’t his fault, but I wanted to fuckin’ kill him. I’m glad I never met him or even made an attempt to seek him out.’

Mary gasped, and I started to sob.

‘What is it, Maitland?’

‘It’s just that I never told her I loved her.’

‘Did she die?’

‘No.’

‘So?’

‘I went to visit her a few times in hospital, but it was unbearable to... her smashed and paralysed body... all her hopes dashed... literally.’

Mary studied me intently.

I steadied myself and pressed on.

‘Thing is, Mary, she didn’t seem to recognise me, couldn’t speak even.’

‘That’s awful... tragic.’

‘You could say.’ I paused then added, ‘About the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.’

‘Mary thought about this. ‘Worse than Sarah leaving you?’

‘Can’t compare them, Mary.’

I was getting a grip on myself. ‘Thing is it was so ghastly for dear Omrita. I felt sure she was fully alert inside, trapped in her broken body. ‘Course I may have been quite wrong about that, but no one knew what was going on in her dear head.’

We walked on for a few minutes in silence.

‘After a while I stopped going to visit her. It was futile, and I found it... unbearable.’

‘I can understand that, Maitland.’

‘Hope you can.’ Part of me screamed inside to tell Mary the truth at this moment about what I’d done. But I didn’t... couldn’t. I was in turmoil remembering Omrita and the things I’d done since then. What a mess!

‘Did you ever hear anything more about her... what happened?’

‘No, I didn’t but now I will call the hospital where she was and see if they can tell me anything.’

And I did just that. They checked Omrita’s records and told me that she had been flown back to India by her parents. I asked for a contact number, which they were unwilling to release, but after some gentle persuasion in the shape of a smallish donation they helped me out.

It was daytime in Bengal, so I called the number from my office. The phone was picked up by a woman, who I judged to be a servant. I asked if I could speak to Mrs Chatterji and she asked who I was and said she would call her to the phone. After a minute or so I heard a voice that reminded me of Omrita.

‘Can I help you?’

I wasn’t quite sure how to start, but I got stuck in. ‘Good day, Mrs Chatterji.’

‘Good day.’

‘I’m calling about Omrita.’

‘Yes?’

‘I knew her quite well at Oxford. We were fellow students.’ I paused gathering my thoughts. ‘I went to visit her in hospital after her accident... and…’

‘Yes?’

‘I wonder how she is now.’

‘She’s with us here at Kolkata.’

‘And... how is she?’

‘She is still paralysed, Mr...?’

‘Fairweather... Maitland Fairweather.’

‘Ah, yes, Mr Fairweather. I remember her mentioning your name.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes.’

‘You said that she was still paralysed, but how is she... otherwise?’

‘The good news is that she’s regained her cognitive abilities.’

I breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Oh, that’s good news. Very good news.’

‘Yes, it is.’

‘So, can I speak to her?’

‘I’m afraid that isn’t possible.’

I made a snap decision. ‘OK. But can I come to Kolkata to visit her?’

‘Of course. That’d be fine.’

‘Great.’

‘I’ll tell her that you’ll come to see her.’

‘Good. Good.’

‘When might you come?’

‘Tomorrow if I can get a flight.’

‘So soon!’

‘The sooner the better.’

‘Very well.’

‘Can you hold on for a minute please while I get my secretary to look into flights for tomorrow?’

‘Of course.’

‘Good.’ I got Myra on the internal net and waited. Two minutes later she confirmed that there were first class seats available on the one morning Air India flight from Heathrow. I told her to book me a seat, which she confirmed. She gave me the departure time, the flight number and the time I would arrive at Kolkata. I conveyed this info to Omrita’s mother and she said she’d send a car to meet me at the airport.

‘I’ll tell Omrita to expect you tomorrow. I’m sure she’ll be delighted. She always spoke highly of you.’

‘Did she... really?’

‘Yes. She did.’

‘Thank you. Thank you very much, Mrs Chatterji. I look forward to meeting you.’

‘Likewise, Mr Maitland.’

I hung up, told Myra to send my ticket over with Spanish Nick when he picked me up to drive me to Heathrow. I went home to pack.

I called Mary and told her what I was going to do. If the truth be told she clearly wasn’t too happy about it. I made the point that Omrita was still paralysed and that seemed to set her mind at rest. She said she’d like to come with me, but that she was in Geneva to present a paper called Recent Rapid Advances in Scalar Medicine at the World Scalar Energy Forum and so couldn’t join me. I said that was a pity, but I didn’t mean it. I wanted to go alone.

When Nick arrived, he came into the house to get my bags and joined me in the sitting room.

‘Evenin’, boss? You ready to rock?’

‘As I’ll ever be.’

‘D’you wanna to do a line before we leave?’

I laughed. ‘Thanks, Nick, but I don’t think doing charlie before a long flight is quite the thing.’

‘Point taken, boss. I’ll put your bags in the car.’

The flight was more or less on time. I cleared customs and was met by a liveried chauffeur. He showed me to an elegant, cream vintage Roller. The heat and humidity hit me like a shock-wave. I staggered into the car’s air-con luxury.

The drive to Omrita’s house in Bidhannagar, or Salt Lake as it is popularly called, took just under 45 minutes. I was nervous, which is understandable. I didn’t know what to expect.

The chauffeur carried my bags into the house. It was big and very stylish art deco. He showed me into the hall and asked me to wait. A minute later a most elegant woman in a purple and blue saree glided up to me with her palms pressed close together across her chest. I bowed spontaneously. She reminded me of Omrita in many ways – her posture, her smile and even the timbre of her voice, which rang like fine tinkling bells.

‘You are welcome, Mr Maitland.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Omrita’s waiting for you. She’s most excited at the prospect of meeting you again, but she’s worried about how you’ll respond to her present... condition.’

‘She needn’t be. As I told you, Mrs Chatterji, I saw her several times after the accident and...‘

She asked me to follow her.

Omrita was lying back on a couch. Her face was radiant, and her smile of greeting melted my heart. I wanted to hug her, hold her close, but I held back. She pointed to a chair beside her. She held out her tiny hand and I took it gratefully and kissed it gently.

‘My dear Maitland I’ve missed you and I’ve wondered if you’d ever find me and come to visit. And here you are.’

I felt tears welling into my eyes.

‘Don’t be sad, my friend. Things could be a lot worse.’

‘I know that, Omrita.’ We looked at each other in silence. The scarring to her face had gone whether naturally or by dint of surgery I couldn’t tell. She was so very pretty. She had one of the loveliest faces I have ever seen.

‘You’re as handsome as ever, Maitland.’

‘You are too kind, my lady.’

I laughed as I remembered our happy days in Oxford in those seemingly endless days of summer.

‘Our youth is behind us now, but we have our memories to cherish.’

‘Indeed, we do.’

I glanced at the open iPad and the pile of books on the table beside her. She watched me taking these things in.

‘I’m still studying, researching and writing.’

‘I’m glad to hear that. What are you working on?’

‘Same old stuff.’

‘It won’t be old stuff coming from you, Omrita. Whatever it is you’ll make it fresh and lively.’

‘And you are too kind, my lord.’

We laughed again.

‘I have a book coming out in the autumn.’

‘Brilliant. What’s it about?’

‘You’ll never guess.’

‘I think I will.’

‘Go on, try.’

‘My guess it’ll be something about quantum physics and mysticism.’

‘Spot on, my boy.’

‘So, what’s it called?’

‘Sitting Astride the Sun.’

‘Wow! That’s a good ‘un. Most evocative.’

‘Thanks again, Maitland.’

‘So, what is it?’

‘Something bolder that Fritjof Capra’s Tao of Physics and more out there than Michael Talbot, Zukav’s The Dancing Wu Li Masters, Ken Wilber and the rest.’

‘Tell me more.’

‘You’d better read it, Maitland. I’ll send you a copy.’

‘Look forward to that.’

I got up, stretched a bit and looked out over Salt Lake. ‘Good spot this.’

‘Yes, I’m blessed to live here.’

I stood at the foot of the couch and touched her toes.

‘No, I can’t feel that.’

She understood completely what was going through my mind.

‘Can’t move my legs. Can’t feel them even.’

As I stood there a germ of an idea started to take root. ‘Tell me please, Omrita, what you know about your injury.’

She didn’t respond.

‘I’m sorry. Is it something you don’t want to talk about?’

‘No, that’s not it, Maitland. I don’t mind talking about the damage.’

‘OK. That’s good.’

Again, she remained silent.

‘So, what can you tell me?’

‘I can only say that my back was broken, and the nerves were severed. I don’t know any details.’

She paused. ‘The details of the injury frankly don’t make much sense to me. I’m not a neurologist.’

‘I know that Omrita, but...’

‘But, what, Maitland?’

‘I have a friend who’s the CEO of a company called SEMI.’

‘Which stands for?’

‘Scalar Electro-Magnetic Industries.’

‘And what could that possibly have to do with me and my back?’

‘I’m no scientist but I know that scalar technology is advancing in leaps and bounds and that there’s a huge potential in medicine in general and healing injury in particular.’

‘This all sounds good, but I still really don’t see what this has to do with me and I don’t want you to give me false hope. I’ve adjusted to what I am. I wish it were otherwise, but I have come to terms with it.’

There was a gentle knock on the door and Mrs Chatterji came in. ‘It’s time for dinner now. Do you want to eat in here?’

‘No thanks, Ma. We’ll join you in the dining room.’

‘Very well.’ She turned to me. ‘Please come with me, Mr. Fairweather. An attendant will help Omrita into her wheel-chair and bring her to us.’

I followed her mother and left the room.

There were just three of us. There was no fourth chair.

‘Thanks so much for welcoming me into your home, Mrs. Chatterji.’

‘Anindita, please, Mr. Fairweather.’ She smiled.

‘Maitland,’ I responded also with a smile.

Omrita joined us and I glanced at her. She smiled too.

‘Are you happy to eat vegetarian food, Maitland?’

‘I’m fine with that.’

The first course was served.

‘I am most happy to see Omrita again... and looking so well.’

‘She’s an inspiration to us all.’

We ate in silence for several minutes.

‘I’m looking forward to reading her book.’

‘Aren’t we all?’

‘You’ve not read it, Anindita?’

‘Oh, no. She’s not shown it to anyone, let alone me!’

‘Well, then, we both have something to look forward to.’

Omrita blushed. I took her hand.

‘This young lady was an inspiration to all our friends at Oxford. Everyone admired and respected her.’

‘He’s exaggerating, Ma.’

‘I am not.’

‘She’s a modest girl, Maitland.’

‘I know.’ I paused. ‘Her accident shocked and left us all confused. Why it should happen to... It seemed unjust.’

‘Life is just, Maitland.’

‘Yes, but...’

‘We accepted it as God’s will. We had no choice.’

I wasn’t sure if I should mention scalar medicine at this time, but I went for it - in for a penny in for a pound. ‘A friend of mine in the UK is working on developing a new type of treatment for damage to the nervous system and I wonder if...’

‘What?’

‘You’d allow me to take copies of Omrita’s medical record – x-rays and all back to the UK.’

Anindita regarded me questioningly.

‘In the strictest confidence of course.’

‘Would she be... how you say, a guinea pig?’

‘Not exactly. But I agree these developments... new treatments are at a very early stage.’

‘Is anyone interested in what I think about this?’ Omrita looked irritated, but she managed a sort of smile.

‘Of course, we are, darling.’

‘I’m on your side.’

‘I know you are Maitland, but...’

I took the bull by the horns and went for it. ‘OK. Let me tell you what I know about Scalar Electromagnetics. In the late 19th and early 20th century a Serb called Nikola Tesla worked on accessing and utilising zero-point energy.’

‘Zero-point energy – what’s that?’

‘Well, as it’s been explained to me, Anindita, it’s the energy of the absolute nothingness which existed before the universe came into being.’

I glanced at Omrita, confident that she’d put me right on this if I got it wrong. She nodded.

I went on, ‘Aside from nuclear fusion by far the most significant development in science lately has been in the quantum vacuum zero-point energy machines, based on electromagnetic waves which exist only in the vacuum of empty space. These waves constitute an ocean of infinite energy, which can be coaxed to pour into our 3-dimensional world from their 4-dimensional realm.’

‘Can this be done?’

‘I can assure you, ladies, from what I’ve read and understood, it is being done and that it will eventually provide electricity to power all transport and to possibly create weapons of enormous and unimaginable power.

But importantly – as far as we’re concerned here and now - it has the potential to heal the body of many diseases and to repair damaged tissue – be that in the muscles, the bones and even the nervous system.’

‘So, do you think this technology might be able to repair the damage to my spine?’

‘I do indeed, Omrita. That is, I believe and hope that it could.’

‘It’s just that... I don’t want to raise false hopes and then to have them dashed.’

‘I understand. I really do.’

Neither woman responded.

I added, ‘Nothing ventured, nothing gained.’

32 Chilled And Frozen Friendships

When I was young

I had a face like a clown.

I stumbled around

‘Til a lady with her body

Set out to bring me down.

She was such a sad lady

With no name

She came one day

To give me a whirl.

She picked me and

Put me down.

Then she sighed herself

Out of me

And left me muttering...

Danger Smith

The following afternoon a courier delivered copies of Omrita’s medical history and the relevant x-rays that I’d need if I was going to achieve anything. I called Mary and told her what had happened at Salt Lake and that I’d be returning home immediately. I asked her again if there really was a possibility of healing Omrita’s injured spine. She thought about this before she answered.

‘It does depend on the severity of her injury and the extent of the damage of course. But, following the last Geneva conference I am prepared to stick my neck out and say, yes, there’s every chance.’

‘Thank you, Mary. I’ll tell her.’

‘OK.’

‘I’ll catch up with you tomorrow night.’

‘Look forward to it.’

‘Tell you what, Spanish Nick is meeting me at the airport and we could drive by your place and pick you up. We could’ve dinner then go over to my house. How ‘bout that?’

‘Cool by me.’

‘I’ll call you when I’ve cleared customs and got my bags.’

Nick was waiting for me and as we strolled over to the Bugatti he asked me, ‘Have a good trip, sir?’

‘Yup. Mission accomplished.’

Once we were in the car he activated the window blinds and offered me a snort. This time I didn’t refuse. The coke nearly blew the top of my head off.

‘Wow, Nick, that’s good shit!’

‘Only the best for the best boss in the business.’

‘No need to exaggerate.’

‘I mean it. I’d do anything for you.’

‘Anything?’

‘Well, almost anything!’

‘I’ll remember that. You never know...’

‘Indeed, you don’t, sir.’

Mary was somewhat cold and distant when we picked her up.

‘Where to, sir.’

‘Singapore Garden. Book us a table, please, Nick.’

‘Will do, sir.’

We were in Swiss Cottage twenty minutes later. Nick dropped us off at the restaurant and went in search of a parking space. Even with the charlie coursing through my veins I was still hungry and craved a glass or two of the best white they had in the house.

Mary was a joy to behold. We chatted as we ate.

‘At the rate things are going we could be in a position to operate on Omrita in maybe a couple of months.’

I caught a faint note of jealousy in her voice which was at once pleasing and frustrating. I didn’t have Omrita in my sights for sex or anything like that. Sure, I loved her, but not in a way that put her in competition with Mary. She needn’t have worried, but for some reason I chose to say nothing.

I knew I was playing with her heart but Miss Chatterji was in Salt Lake and Mary was here.

And that was that.

‘What’s she like, this Omrita?’

‘Not like you... except that she’s bright and very pretty too.’

‘I’m not quite sure what to make of that.’

‘How’d you mean?’

‘Did you ever...’

‘Have sex with her...?’

‘Yes.’

‘We never did.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because our relationship was... what?... platonic.’

‘But she was pretty, attractive.’

‘For sure, but... a fuck isn’t the only thing I want with a pretty woman, Mary?’

‘Isn’t it?’

‘Oh, come on, Mary. There are other things.’

‘Like what?’

‘Are you serious?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then you don’t rate me very highly.’

‘OK. OK. So, tell me what you... liked about her?’

I thought about this and smiled. ‘Do I detect a hint of jealousy?’

Mary blushed. ‘Well... yes... maybe.’

‘Why?’

‘Maitland, you know I love you.’

‘I love you too and there’s nothing for you to be jealous about. OK, she’s a woman and she’s undeniably beautiful, but she was just a friend... an inspiration.’

Mary’s jealousy brought back my shame and fear of discovery and my heart pumped harder. I felt again that I was def. the meanest mother fucker in the valley.

‘Tell me more.’

‘About what?’

‘About why she inspired you?’

‘Ah...’

‘Yes?’

‘She could talk about mysticism and quantum physics in one sentence.’

‘And that impressed you?’

‘Sure.’

‘Didn’t know you were big on mysticism or physics either come to that.’

‘I’m not. I mean I don’t know much about either, but Omrita did and I like to learn stuff like fractal geometry, the M-set and all.’

‘Really?’

‘Of course. I’m a lawyer. I need to know... things.’

She laughed. ‘You know, Maitland, sometimes you’re really funny when you don’t mean to be.’

‘Is that a compliment?’

‘Yup.’

33 Karma

The wound is where the light enters.

Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī

Omrita once told me the 19th century folktale about a young fellow who went about town slandering his best friend. One day he went to his friend’s home and asked for forgiveness. The kindly friend, realizing that this man had not grasped the gravity of his transgressions, told him that he would forgive him on one condition: that he go home, take a feather pillow from his house, cut it up and scatter the feathers to the wind. After he had done that he should then return. Though he was puzzled by this strange request, the young man was happy to be let off with so light a penance. He quickly cut up the pillow, scattered the feathers, and returned to the house.

“Am I now forgiven?” he asked.

“Just one more thing,” his friend said, “Go now and gather up all the feathers.”

“But that’s impossible. The wind has already scattered them.”

“Precisely,” he answered. “And though you may truly wish to correct the evil you’ve done, it’s as impossible to repair the damage done by your words as it is to recover the feathers. Your words are out there in the marketplace, spreading hate, even as we speak.”

Omrita was one smart cookie. There wasn’t much that girl didn’t understand about human nature, mysticism and the ways of the world.

It did strike me as unjust that such a good and honest woman should be so badly injured. Was it some kind of punishment, I wondered? Was it paying back or paying forward. Of course, I couldn’t tell and doubt that any living soul could either. I was driven to help her, to make her well again. I called Mary.

‘Have you had a chance to go through Omrita’s records and look at the x-rays?’

‘Yes, we have.’

‘And?’

‘First impressions over here are that we can most likely help her. Maybe not to a full recovery of her motor functions, but we can surely make some improvements.’

‘Wow!’

‘Wow, indeed, Maitland.’

‘What should I tell her?’

‘Just that.’

‘And how long before she should come over.’

‘Right away for a preliminary examination.’

‘I’ll get on it.’ I glanced at my watch. ‘I’ll call her now.’

‘OK.’

‘Later.’

‘Check.’

I dialled the Salt Lake number and fortuitously Omrita answered.

I explained that Mary was positive about improving her condition and that she’d suggested that she came to London soon for a preliminary examination. Omrita agreed immediately and I proposed that she fly over at the weekend. I told her I would book her a flight in first class and that I’d set up for her to have a companion to help her on and off the airplane, to and from the toilet etc. So that was agreed. I was beginning to seriously wonder where all this was going.

I realised that the Bugatti wouldn’t do the trick, so I went online and found a site for Hummer sales and bought a brand-new khaki customised H1. If you’re not interested in the spec of this vehicle I advise you to skip the next paragraph and move on.

The Hummer was fitted with a Duramax 6.6 LBZ engine with custom mounts and a 6-speed Allison transmission. It had a 2/4-wheel drive transfer case with a Raptor ECM programming ECU, 18-inch all terrain wheels with GT adjustable shocks, a custom high-pressure steering system, racing steering wheel pump and steering box, custom turbocharger, custom intercooler, custom turbo manifold with a central tyre inflation system, custom chassis uplift and custom prop shafts, brake rotors and brake pads. It came with a hand-held ECU computer programming device and the engine power and torque maps could be selected from as low as 220bhp to almost 500bhp. It had six DVD screens and more speakers than I could count.

I asked them for an additional power-assisted, military spec wheelchair ramp, lift and locks to be fitted. Also, I commissioned a compartment in the driver’s door for the Sig-Sauer. I instructed that the compartment be lined with an undetectable alloy X-ray shield and a hard-to-detect slide panel for access. The whole thing set me back just over 95 grand, but what the fuck! It was a bargain and Omrita was worth every penny and the rest.

I drove the beast out to Heathrow with Mary beside me. She looked nervous. She didn’t know what to expect or how this whole thing was going to pan out and nor did I of course. We were there in good time to meet Omrita’s flight. When she and her companion finally cleared immigration, and reached us, she looked tired and drawn. My heart went out to her and I saw that Mary’s did too, which lifted my spirits.

The Hummer did everything it said it would do on the tin. I called Larissima to announce that we were on our way, that she should prepare a slap-up vegetarian meal for us and to run a hot bath for Omrita as soon as we arrived.

34 A Dream Called Hope

Optimists are those who go after Moby Dick in a rowing boat with a bucket of tartar sauce.

Zig Ziglar

Back at Oxford Omrita had explained that a potentially fatal flaw had appeared recently in the idea that the thermodynamic arrow explains time’s asymmetry.

‘In an experiment run in Brazil in 2015,’ she told me, ‘it was shown that there was a general irreversibility even in the quantum world, right where the physics is meant to go either way. And it wasn’t just the collapse of the wave function, it was wider than that. It showed that there was also a thermodynamic irreversibility at the quantum level. The whole idea was that at a very small scale, you had a reversible process, but at a larger scale and at a more superficial level, the direction of time emerges due to increasing entropy. It was found that the directional entropy went right on down to where the reversible physics was meant to be. And it seemed that those reversible laws, to which people attached so much importance, were an incomplete description of the world. It seemed that the world wasn’t reversible down there after all. It highlighted the need for a new view of time.’

‘Well, fuck me!’ was all I could say. I just loved the way she knew all this stuff and that she wanted to share it with me. Me! It was amazing.

Nick drove us over to the SEMI lab the following morning. Mary came out of reception with a nurse to meet us and together they helped Omrita out of the Hummer and into the clinic. Mary took me aside and told me that only two days ago they had brought a Scalar Imager on stream and that it was working well and producing astonishing results – far better than the team had thought possible. I left them to it and strolled out onto Piccadilly and down to Green Park. It was a windless, misty day and it made me feel nostalgic for Oxford and my long-gone days of innocence. I was infused with a warm sense of optimism. Things were looking better and better by the day for dear Omrita. Boy, she deserved it.

As I walked I pondered on what might be the correct position to take towards our precarious state in this life. My take was that it was always best to be an optimist and look on the bright side, living in hope of goods things to come. Only thing was that if we did this we were setting ourselves for possible disappointment. On the other side of the coin pessimism, although it allowed for pleasant surprises, felt like one might be asking for bad shit to happen. Then there was realism, whatever the fuck that was. It came down to what will be, will be, I guess. But wasn’t it better to go about with a smile on your face rather than a scowl? Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys once wrote that the smile that you give out comes back to you. I went along with that, but let’s call a spade a spade, shall we, and agree that life’s a paradox. It is, isn’t it?

I caught sight of three hooded and scummy looking white teenage boys hanging over an Indian girl sitting on a bench in a clump of trees. I could see they were giving her a hard time. Before I knew, it my feet were propelling me towards them. Maybe it was because she reminded me of Omrita. I don’t know.

‘What you think you’re doing, fellas?’ I bellowed as I got up to them.

‘They turned towards me and one snapped back, ‘What the fuck you want?’

‘To help a lady in distress.’ I smiled at the girl. She was shaking but managed to crack a small smile back.

‘Well, you can piss right off.’

‘Sorry, but that’s not going to happen.’

‘You gonna take us on to help this slime?’

‘That’s right, I am.’

‘You gonna regret that, smart-arse.’

They were pretty damned confident, looking at me in my sharp suit, expensive shirt and Oxford tie. They advanced towards me and I knew I had bitten off far more than I could chew. But just before the biggest of the three could throw a punch and deck me they froze in mid-stride. I looked over my shoulder and there was Nick looking hard and mean as shit.

‘Beat it boys, lest you wanna spend a week or two in hospital.’

‘Uhhh’, one them grunted. Nick moved forward, and they turned as one and fled like frightened chickens.

‘Thanks, Nick.’ I held out my hand to the girl and helped her to her feet.

‘And thank you’, she said. You’re very kind… and gallant.’

‘Nah.’ I smiled. ‘It’s my man Nick here you’ve gotta be grateful for.’

‘OK. But thank you both. That was pretty scary.’

Nick and I walked with her back onto Piccadilly. She headed for the tube. We strolled back to SEMI. I went into reception and Nick walked over to the Hummer to wait it out. He was used to it. Just like they say in the army: ‘Hurry up and wait.’

A scientific paper lay open on the coffee table. I picked it up and started to read.

Characterisation of Low Frequency Gravitational Waves from Dual RF Coaxial-Cable Detector: Fractal Textured Dynamical 3-Space

Reginald T. Cahill

School of Chemical and Physical Sciences, Flinders University, Adelaide 5001, Australia

Experiments have revealed that the Fresnel drag effect is not present in RF coaxial cables, contrary to a previous report. This enables a very sensitive, robust and compact detector that is 1st order in v/c and using one clock, to detect the dynamical space passing the earth, revealing the sidereal rotation of the earth, together with significant wave/turbulence effects. These are “gravitational waves”, and previously detected by Cahill 2006, using an Optical-Fibre – RF Coaxial Cable Detector, and Cahill 2009, using a preliminary version of the Dual RF Coaxial Cable Detector. The gravitational waves have a 1/f spectrum, implying a fractal structure to the textured dynamical 3-space...

Holy shit! The word ‘fractal’ had caught my eye, but this was completely beyond me and flew straight out and over my head, making it spin wildly. I put the paper down and sat back attempting to recover my equilibrium. A copy of the alternative news magazine NEXUS caught my eye and I picked that up. I flicked through it and this article got my attention immediately:

Syria's War Spurred by Contest for Gas Delivery to Europe, Not Muslim Sectarianism

At least four years into the crisis in Syria, "most people have no idea how this war even got started", reported Mnar Muhawesh of Mint Press News in September 2015. In 2011-12, after Syria's President, Bashar al-Assad, refused to cooperate with Turkey in its proposal to create a natural gas pipeline between Qatar and Turkey through Syria, Turkey and its allies became "the major architects of Syria's civil war". The proposed pipeline would have bypassed Russia to reach European markets currently dominated by Russian gas giant Gazprom. As a result, according to Muhawesh: "The Middle East is being torn to shreds by manipulative plans to gain oil and gas access by pitting people against one another based on religion. The ensuing chaos provides ample cover to install a new regime that's more amenable to opening up oil pipelines and ensuring favorable routes for the highest bidders."

This I could get my head round. It was, as they say, an eye-opener. I realized I’d been conned and hoodwinked again by the corporate media. The article went on:

“In 2012, the US, the UK, France, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, along with Turkey, began to organize, arm and finance rebels to form the Free Syrian Army, consistent with long-standing US plans to destabilize Syria. These nations formed a pact: The Group of Friends of the Syrian People that implemented a sectarian divide-and-conquer strategy to overthrow President Assad. Muhawesh wrote of the timing: ‘This coalition and meddling in Syria came about immediately on the heels of discussions of an Iran-Iraq-Syria gas pipeline that was to be built between 2014 and 2016 from Iran's giant South Pars field through Iraq and Syria. With a possible extension to Lebanon, it would eventually reach Europe, the target export market.’ As Muhawesh noted access to oil and gas - not sectarian differences - is the underlying cause of the violent conflict and humanitarian disaster in Syria. The war is being ‘sold to the public as a Sunni-Shiite conflict’ by the Friends of Syria because ‘most people would not support any covert funding and arming of rebels or direct intervention’”.

Bells started to ring in my head. Was this the work of The New World Order, I wondered? I knew for a fact that in 2015 the US Special Operations Command (SOCOM) deployed Special Operations Forces (SOF) in 147 of the world’s 195 recognized nations. Are we talking world domination here, or what? It all made my crimes pale into insignificance – well, at least on the world stage. But for me and the bereaved families of my victims that was not of course the case. My killings were not insignificant to us. So, what to do? I had no idea. The Sig-Sauer? Was it going to be fired? I felt my world collapsing around me again. Then thankfully Mary and Omrita came into reception and they looked happy. I rose to greet them.

‘How’d it go, girls?’

‘We got great images.’

‘They were sharp and… very clear’. Omrita shivered. ‘Bit too clear…’ She turned and looked away out of the window.

‘So, Mary?’

‘First impressions from the team is that we can fix this thing.’

I felt my heart was going to burst, but I held myself to a beaming smile and took both girls’ hands in mine. ‘So, there’s always hope.’

‘It springs eternal’, added Mary.

‘Way to go, girls.’

35 Save My Soul From Sin

In Babylon

On the boulevard of broken dreams

My will power at the lowest ebb

Oh what can I do?

Oh buccaneer

Can ya help me put my truck in gear?

Can ya take me far away from here?

Save my soul from sin?

Deborah Harry and Chris Stein 1982

‘I like her, Maitland. I like her a lot.’

‘I’m so glad. I hoped you’d hit it off. She needs all the friends and support she can get.’

‘Of course.’

‘D’you think she’s...

‘What?’

‘I...’

‘Yes?’

‘I don’t want her to pin all her hopes on what your people will be able to...’

‘Come on, Maitland. We can do it.’

‘How can you be so sure?’

’Gut feeling.’

‘A gut feeling, Mary?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s really not good enough.’

‘It will work!’

‘Dreams get broken, Mary, and I just can’t face another one.’

I got hit then by that old overwhelming desire again to come clean and tell Mary the truth, but I kept my mouth shut. No good could come of it. She’d fly away, and I’d be left friendless and she’d be compromised. And then there was Georgie and Candida and her remaining girls. I realised again that the only way out for now was to say nothing.

Mary and I were sitting in the shade of an apple tree close to the patio in the small, but charming garden of her Hampstead home. We had decided that Omrita should stay in the UK until the SEMI team were ready to operate on her back. Mary had taken her in and the girls were getting along famously. In a funny way I was jealous of how close they’d grown and felt somewhat left out. Funny that. Anyway, better like that than them not being friends. It wasn’t as if they excluded me in any way, but when girls bond it can be quite formidable. They made a powerful team and you know how women are.

After 50 years of marriage Yehudi Menuhin was asked in an interview what was the secret behind its longevity. Menuhin thought about this for a few seconds then replied, ‘I can tell you in just two words.’ The interviewer waited, and Menuhin finally said, ‘Yes, dear!’ So, I figured that’s the way to go to make things work with women in this world.

Mary had commissioned a ramp from her sitting room French windows onto the decking patio.

Omrita wheeled herself out to join us.

‘I think the phrase is, my ears are burning... so, were you talking about me?’

‘Have to admit it, yes we were.’

‘And what were you saying?’

‘Just that...’

‘Yes, Maitland?’

I took a deep breath and went for it. ‘Just that I didn’t want us to be raising your hopes too high and then... things not working out.’

Omrita thought about this then answered. ‘OK, Maitland, fair enough, but I’m nothing if not a realist.’

Mary smiled.

The sun danced through the leaves of the apple tree. It was somehow a magic moment.

‘I don’t deny that I’ll be mad with disappointment if things don’t go well, but I’ll accept the outcome.’ She looked at us both with a deep intensity. ‘If nothing else I’ve got so much out of being with you again, Maitland, and from becoming friends with your truly delightful and inspiring girlfriend.’

Mary glanced at me. ‘Well said, Omrita darling. It’s been a real joy to meet you too and to become your friend. We just have to put up with Maitland is all.’

We laughed.

36 We Kept On Keepin’ On

If you want a safe compass to guide you through life... you cannot do better than accustom yourself to regard this world as a penitentiary or penal colony.

Arthur Schopenhauer

Yes, they had to put up with me just as I had to put up with myself. I was amazed that sleep did not elude me and that I wasn’t just wasting away. Having said that, when I looked around me and clocked all the suffering and grief on the streets of London I was puzzled. Of course, if I allowed my thoughts to stray further afield to Syria and Iraq and such hell holes then things looked a whole lot worse. In fact, unbearably worse. What the fuck I wondered was going on here on this planet, in this universe. Was this place a prison for paying back on previous misdeeds? If so, why did the misdeeds occur in the first place? Why couldn’t God have made a better job of creation and cut out all the crap – saved our souls from sin? What was the point of all the pain and suffering? Why was a bright and sparkling soul like Omrita made to suffer? Why did I kill those two girls? Misery, struggle, birth, bereavement, humiliation, madness. Come on! Pay-back is a mother fucker for sure. But whose paying who and for what? No answer to that question, so there we are. The dealer and the dealt. Way to go.

After several days off the grid I finally got back into the office to pick up a commission. My partners were most relieved to see me again. They had a job for me. The man I had to defend, as it happened, was a friend of Georgie Dove called Siggy Segue. He lived up to his name, moving with ease from one scene to another and he’d been busted for smuggling an extremely large quantity of coke. I wondered if Georgie was perhaps involved. Siggy’d been picked up in the Bay of Biscay by Spanish coastguards sailing his luxury yacht to Ireland. He was banged up in Barcelona and I flew down there with Georgie. I was fond of Barcelona, so I looked forward to this trip and to the challenges of the case. Siggy was clearly guilty so I’d have to work very hard to clear his name or get him extradited.

After a preliminary review of the case against Siggy we took a walk round Barcelona in the gentle evening light. I loved the Gaudi Cathedral, also known as the Sagrada Familia – the Sacred Family. It was while we were cruising round inside that mighty and magnificent edifice that I had a breakthrough.

‘OK, Georgie, this’s what we do.’

‘Tell me.’

‘We know who led the team that picked up Siggy, right?’

‘That Gomez guy.’

‘Right.’

‘Looked like a fat, shifty fuck to me.’

‘Takes one to know one, Georgie.’

‘Well, thanks for that.’

‘You’re not fat and you know it. So, no offence.’

‘None taken.’ We walked out into the sunshine.

‘So?’

‘So, we look into his past and maybe dig some dirt.’

‘Plan?’

‘Yup. We pull Spanish Nick down here to get inside the cop gang and have a nose round.’

‘Better do that quick.’

I already had my phone out and I was dialling Nick’s number. Half a minute later he picked up.

‘Get your sorry arse into the Hummer and roll her down here soonest. Bring Flux with you. Meet us at the 1898. It’s on La Rambla.’

Georgie looked puzzled. ‘Why the Hummer?’

‘Got to make an impression, throw some weight around and intimidate somewhat.’

‘Got it. Should impress the cops.’

‘Should.’

‘They’ll love it, Maitland.’

‘You’re right there, boy.’

Next day the four of us were lounging around in my top floor suite doing coke, hash and champagne.

‘So, boys, this is what I have in mind.’

I looked around and seeing that I had their full attention I proceeded. ‘The fat cop, Inspector Gomez, is the target and the aim is to discredit him. OK?’ I stood up to present my case. ‘Nick, you’ll walk point with Flux at slack.’

Georgie laughed. ‘Sounds like a military operation, Maitland.’

‘Just so, my friend. We will work behind the lines at company HQ. Nick and Flux will go in with a full-frontal attack.’

‘What’s the deal?’

‘It’s this, Nick. You contact Gomez by phone and ask him out for dinner. You tell him that you have info on an upcoming drugs deal – a big one. You give him a really good night on the town. Expensive restaurant first, followed by visiting a few classy clubs. Drive him around in the Hummer, keep him all night and win his confidence. Feed him some crap on a fake deal in dribs and drabs and get him interested, draw him in. Wind up by offering him shed loads of payback. Make it impossible for him to refuse. You do the talking Nick and you do the recording of the conversations, Flux. Be cool and get him to compromise himself. Right?’

Nick nodded his agreement and so did Flux.

‘But that’s only the beginning. He may be wary, suspicious that he’s being set up. So, I’m going to rent a big fuck off villa out on the coast and you’re gonna invite him there for the weekend. You can tell Gomez to bring his wife, his kids if he has any and/or a coupla friends. See who he’d like to bring. The bigger the party the better.’

Georgie laughed. ‘Sounds like a lotta fun, bro’.’

‘It will be, believe me.’ We all laughed and did another line.

‘How do I fit in?’

‘You’ll go in ahead of time, Flux, and wire the house with hidden cameras and mics.’

‘What’s this guy’s first name?’

‘Well, Nick, believe it or not, it’s Sancho.’

‘Sancho Gomez! You’re fuckin’ kidding.’

‘That’s it, honest to God.’

‘Now this is beginning to make me feel like we’re in some sort of spaghetti western.’

‘That’s about it, Flux.’

‘Make my day, punk.’

‘Nah, Georgie. That’s Dirty Harry.’

That reminded me that the Sig-Sauer was in the door compartment. As a matter of fact, the thought instilled me with added confidence should we need to fight our way out of any difficult situations. Added insurance you might say.

There it is.

37 The Taj Mahal

The Taj Mahal was commissioned in 1632 by the Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan, to house the tomb of his favourite wife, Mumtaz Mahal.

More than 22,000 workers were involved in the construction of the Taj Mahal. It’s said that thousands of builders perished constructing this tomb. Sounded like something of a folly to me. I mean was it worth it? Not to say it isn’t a really beautiful building which has attracted millions of tourists to India over the years. So, as they say, alright if you can get it. I fantasised erecting a tomb to celebrate Sarah’s life, but I couldn’t do that until her death was confirmed and until they found a body (which they wouldn’t ‘cos there wasn’t one) so that wasn’t going to happen. So much for that, then.

Nick reported that Inspector Gomez had been hard to get to but that his perseverance had produced and that he’d had an initial meeting which’d paid off in spades. The cop had taken the bait during a cruise around the city in the Hummer. As anticipated the vehicle had impressed him not a little. Nick had allowed him some time behind the wheel and he’d loved it which had hardly surprised me. It was an awesome piece of work and for something of its size it needed only the lightest touch to drive. Gomez had commented on this.

After Nick had reported in I called Mary and asked if she and Omrita were doing OK.

‘Yes, we’re good thanks, Maitland.’

‘Glad to hear it. So, what’re you two girls up to?

‘Having fun.’

‘Fun?’

‘Yup.’

‘Doing what?’

‘Last night we went to the theatre and then...’

‘What did you see?’

‘Twelve Angry Men, at The Garrick.’

‘With Martin Shaw?’

‘That’s the man.’

‘Was it good?’

‘Terrific. Shaw was brilliant and so was Robert Vaughn.’

‘Does Shaw play Juror Six?’

‘Yup.’

‘That’s a very demanding part.’

‘It sure is, Maitland.’

‘I’m always impressed how actors can memorise the scripts for these really big parts.’

‘Me too. I guess they’re worth their big salaries.’

I wished then that I’d been there with them and not in Barcelona farting about on this case, attempting to do the dirty on Gomez. But beggars can’t be choosers, I guess.

‘We went to party afterwards in Shepherd’s Bush at my friend Dorthe Jensen’s flat.’

‘Do I know her?’

‘Don’t think you’d forget Dorthe if you’d met her. She’s a larger-than-life fashion queen.’

‘What’s she do?’

‘Designs clothes, silly.’

‘Ah yes, of course. Hey... did Omrita enjoy the evening?’

‘Sure did, Maitland. As a matter of fact, she was very much the centre of attention.’

‘Really.’

‘You know there’s powerful magnetism in that girl.’

‘Yup, I know that.’

‘Guess you do.’

A couple of minutes after I’d said goodbye to Mary, Jimmy Fetlock called from the office.

‘How’s it going down there, Maitland?’

‘Could be better.’

‘How so?’

‘The cops have a strong case with plenty of evidence.’

‘So, how’re you going to deal with it?’

‘Working on it.’

‘What’s your angle?’

‘I’ll put it like this for now, Jimmy, in two words.’

‘Which are?’

‘Police corruption.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes.’

‘Sounds dodgy. Some of the cops down there are mighty hard-core and dangerous.’

‘Know that. That’s why Spanish Nick’s here with me.’

‘And Flux too?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Why’ve you got him there?’

‘Added support.’

‘Like what?’

‘Oh, come on, Jimmy.’

‘Sorry.’ He sounded embarrassed.

‘Relax, man. I know what I’m doing.’

‘Know you do.’

‘OK. Bye now.’

‘I’ll be in touch.

‘Okey dokey.’

I signed off and sat back, thinking about Flux. Matter of fact he’d shown me a photo after he’d got back from setting up the villa hire. It was a very grainy shot, which the villa agent claimed was of a UFO. He said his father had taken it back in the ‘50s and that he’d seen a similar craft at the same spot only the month before. He had given Flux a copy of his dad’s photo.

I have to say I was very doubtful. It looked staged to me and I wondered why it was so grainy. Flux was convinced of its veracity and I have to admit that it had whetted my interest and, in a way, I wanted it to be true. Don’t know why, except that I couldn’t believe that we were alone in this universe, given the uncountable number of galaxies, containing billions upon billions of stars, most of which would have planets of some kind in orbit and which could potentially support life. It did seem to my simple mind that the universe had been created in such a way that conscious life forms would evolve, must evolve, that this was what the whole thing must be about. Consciousness was the goal of the whole damned thing and more to the point self-consciousness, like we have, was the point of it all. I read that the physicist Freeman Dyson observed that, “The more I examine the universe and study the details of its architecture the more evidence I find that in some sense it must have known we were coming”.

I speculated that without self-consciousness the creator wouldn’t be aware of his own existence. It’s probably bollocks, but that’s what I thought was going on.

As a matter of fact, dear reader, I’d love to hear your take on all of this, but I probably never will for reasons that may well become abundantly clear at the end of this sorry tale. I was beginning to get just a hint, a felt sense, of what the gun might be for.

I did know, however, that when I got back to Blighty I’d have to talk to Omrita about this purposeful universe thing. I knew the subject would be of no interest to Georgie, but it might be something that would intrigue Flux and maybe Mary too. I’d have to wait and see. There were some dark deeds to be done and some grim sins to be committed before I could go home.

39 Carpe Diem

Envious time has passed: seize the day and put no trust in the morrow.

Horace

My court-room performance was, though I say it myself, nothing short of exquisite and, I guess, just about perfect. Siggy got off scot-free and the fat fuck Gomez caught eight years in stir. I felt no remorse or guilt. I mean, would it help? The answer’s no, of course. It would not have lightened his load one iota.

I was climbing into the Bugatti a couple of days later to head into the office for a morning meeting when two unmarked cop cars drew up. One parked behind the Bugatti and one in front, hemming me in. I realised immediately that this was it. Without thinking about it I went Third Reich.

Crumcrisp walked up to me with two goons in tow. ‘Mr Maitland.’

I looked around as if to see who he was addressing.

‘Who?’

‘Mr Maitland.’

‘No. Are you looking for him?’

‘We’ve come to see you, Mr Maitland. You’re under arrest for the murder of your wife, Sarah Maitland.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Sarah Maitland.’

‘Don’t know her. Never heard of her.’

‘Your wife.’

‘I’ve no wife.’

‘True... but...’

‘But what?’

The Führer beckoned from beyond the grave. I saw that I must get there too and escape this strangely paradoxical life. I answered, ‘I’ve never had a wife. I’m Adolf Hitler.’

‘You’re... who?’

‘Adolf Hitler.’

Crumcrisp was getting hot under the collar. ‘That’s quite enough.’ He nodded to the two goons, who stepped towards me. I pointed at one of them and asked, ‘Are you Jewish, officer?’

‘I beg your pardon.’

‘I think you heard me.’ I held up my hand. The goon froze. ‘Are you Jewish?’

‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

‘A lot?’

‘What?’

‘If you’re Jewish we’re gonna get you.’

‘Get me?’

‘Yup. Grease your sorry arse.’

‘I beg your pardon.’

‘Exterminate you along with all other Semites.’

‘What’re you talking about?’

‘Ridding the world of Jewish filth.’

‘Now, Mr Maitland, you’d better hold your tongue.’

‘Sorry. Don’t know this Maitland. I’ve told you I’m Adolf Hitler.’

‘Enough of this. Take him in.’

The goons took me by my arms and pushed me into the back of the car in front of the Bugatti.

An hour later I was still in the interview room with Crumcrisp and Detective Sergeant Grimsthorne and I was maintaining my position. Crumcrisp was finding the situation impossible. It was way outside his experience and his comfort zone.

‘I’m gonna have to kill you, Crumcrisp.’

‘I beg your...’

‘You don’t get it.’

‘Don’t get what.’

‘My pardon.’

The two just stared at me, slack-jawed.

‘You’re a fuckin’ Jew and you’re gonna die for it.’

‘I’m not Jewish.’

‘Prove it.’

Crumcrisp stood and headed for the door with Grimsthorne in tow.

Half an hour later Crumcrisp and Grimsthorne returned with another man. He was sharply dressed and had bright red hair.

Crumcrisp put a cup of coffee on the table in front of me. I picked it up and threatened to throw it over them. They all ducked, and I laughed, then proceeded to pour it on the floor.

Crumcrisp attempted to compose himself. ‘This is Dr Floyd. He’s here to assess you.’

‘Hello, Red.’

‘I’m...’

‘Well, your hair’s not pink. So, you must be Red Floyd. Am I right?’

‘No.’

‘OK, Red.’ I paused and glared at him. ‘You look Jewish to me.’

‘I’m not.’

‘Well, you look Jewish.’

‘Can we...’

‘Show us yer cock and prove it.’

‘What?’

‘Want to see if you’ve gotta fuckin’ foreskin.’

Floyd looked blank, trying to keep his cool.

‘You too, Crumcrisp. Show us yer cock.’

I didn’t budge from my position and things went on much like this for another 20 minutes or so. They finally gave up and left the room. I got my cock out and pissed on the floor for good measure. I thought I should make my point and show some disrespect. Yes?

Ten minutes passed. Crumcrisp and Grimsthorne returned with two uniformed officers. They tried hard not to look at all the mess on the floor but didn’t succeed. They led me to a blue van, opened the back doors and pushed me inside. The two uniformed cops joined me and away we went. There were no windows, so I couldn’t tell where we were going. Later I found out that the hospital was the Farnham High Security Mental Hospital, which was commonly known as Farflung and for good reason. We travelled for about an hour and I spouted some of Mein Kampf, which I’d memorised in German lessons at school:

‘Ich habe aber auch keinen zweifel darüber gelassen, daß, wenn die völker Europas wieder nur als aktienpakete dieser internationalen geld und finanzverschwörer angesehen werden, dann auch jenes. Volk mit zur verantwortung gezogen werden wird, das der eigentliche echuldige an dieses mörderischen ringen ist: Das Judentum!’ 1

The cops were gob-smacked. They didn’t know how to handle it or what the fuck I was saying. They tried to look anywhere, but at me. There was little else in the van to hold their attention and they had to suffer my Führer-rant in silence. I thought I was doing rather well and went on, taking my time and relishing each word.

Ich habe weiter keinen darüber im unklaren gelassen, daß dieses mal nicht nur millionen kinder von Europäern der arischen völker verhungern werden, nicht nur millionen erwachsener männer den tod erleiden und nicht nur hunderttausende an frauen und kindern in den städten verbrannt und zu tode bombardiert werden dürfen, ohne daß der eigentliche schuldige, wenn auch durch humanere mittel, seine schuld zu büssen hat. 2

I gave it a break for a while and stared hard at them with my best defiant court room glare. I only had a few paragraphs up my sleeve, so I had to ration them somewhat.

‘Das furchtbarste beispiel dieser art bildet Rußland, wo er an dreißig millionen menschen in wahrhaft fanatischer wildheit teilweise unter unmenschlichen qualen tötete oder verhungern ließ, um einem haufen jüdischer literaten und börsenbanditen die herrschaft aber ein großes volk zu sichern.’3

They were really starting to sweat. They knew it was bad shit, but not why, so I pressed on with full Hitler bluster and the occasional salute for good effect. The two cops must’ve wondered what the hell was going down. I hoped and prayed they’d put in a heavy and damning report.

After a few more miles I kicked off again with full-on gusto.

‘Das ende aber ist nicht nur das unde der freiheit der vom Juden unterdrückten völker, sondern auch das ende dieses völkerparasiten selber. Nach dem tode des opfers stirbt auch früher oder später der vampir.’ 4

The cops stared vacantly at the floor. I wondered how much more of this they’d be able to take when I heard gravel crunching under the van’s rubbers and concluded that we had arrived wherever it was we were going.

They led me into the building and into a bland reception area where we were met by two white-coated nurses and Red Floyd. I kicked off again with the full force of my Adolf act.

‘Gab es denn da einen unrat, eine schamlosigkeit in irgendeiner form, vor allem des kulturellen lebens, an der nicht wenigstens ein Jude beteiligt gewesen wäre?’ 5

It sounded positively vicious and obscene and I guess it was.

I paused for effect as Red and the nurses hustled me up some well-worn stairs and along a couple of grim corridors.

I got going again shouting at the top of my voice, ‘Sowie man nur vorsichtig in eine solche geschwulst hineinschnitt, fand man, wie die made im faulenden leibe, oft ganz geblendet vom plötzlichen lichte, ein Jüdlein.’ 6

Later that night as I lay on my bed, which was not too uncomfortable, I thought about God and got to wondering again why he bothered to make a universe at all. Was he, I pondered, a comedian, a sadist, a masochist, or just plain nuts? You gotta wonder. I know I did.

My last kick that night was to holler out to no one in particular and just for good measure, ‘Meine fucking vorhaut, jüdische mösen küssen!’7

40 Angina Vagina

A strangling pain in the pussy.

Danger Smith

The words that came out of my mouth amazed and shocked me, but I was desperate and easily led by the darker side of my mind. I guess I would have said anything to avoid conviction. I knew I was a coward and that was that. So, live with it. I had to.

Two days later the inevitable happened. I had visitors from the outside world. I sat with Mary and Omrita in my room. They both looked dazed and confused and that’s hardly surprising. I was still maintaining that I was Adolf Hitler. I was caught like a rat in a trap. I had to keep up the pretence even with the only two people in the world I truly loved. It must’ve been as terrible for them as it was for me. More so, maybe. The meeting all but tore me apart. It was ghastly, painful and heart-breaking.

Mary left me a collection of short stories which had just been published. They were written by a friend of hers, whose pen name was Danger Smith. The collection was called War Stories. Smith was also bipolar and had spent fifteen of his forty years in mental hospital. It had seemed to her an appropriate book to give me. I opened it. It was dedicated: To the man I love, who I will support, stand by and love forever. Mary.

I read the first story and it went like this:

Losing Little Captain Pollard

They hit the beach running and on full auto, clambering over grains of sand and scaling pebbles. The entire company could now see the reinforced bunker at the base of the dune. Their hearts sank. It was at least 35 centimetres from their position to the bunker and the guns, which they still had to silence. They had waited and waited for the artillery barrage from the battle ships offshore to kick in. They hadn’t. Pollard’s brain was spinning. Had they assaulted the wrong beach? Had they got the wrong time? Or was it just another fubar? A fuck-up higher up? He couldn’t tell. His arse was out in the breeze with a vengeance. And he wasn’t alone. His men were his responsibility. His men were his. His men, in a sense, were him.

Captain Pourquoi Pollard put his whistle to his lips and blew just once. This was it, then. Advance under fire.

They stood as one man on the whistle and faced forward. The two machine guns in the bunker opened up simultaneously, cutting a swathe through Pollard’s company. But they kept going. Kept up the pace. Pollard did not stop to think, except to check regularly on his radio operator, keeping the man close to him.

Private Bryan was the company Command Team radioman. It was a job he had worked for and won. He would have given his life to keep that radio going. It was a standard, vintage PRC 5. He called it his Prick 5, but he was devoted to it almost as much as he was devoted to his Captain. He trusted Pollard all the way. Pollard knew what was what. Pollard was smart. Very smart. Pollard knew how to fight, how to fire and manoeuvre and not die or get fucked up in the process.

Pollard and Bryan had already been through two campaigns together. North Africa and China. They had fought, and they had won. They had survived. Bryan believed that Pollard was invincible and that’s one reason why he stayed close. Real close.

The big, fat bullets continued to rain down on the company as the survivors hurled themselves under the lea of a shallow dune almost at the base of the bunker. They had made it under the guns’ lowest elevation. The company broke out grenades and fitted new mags to their weapons.

Pollard ordered up his flame-thrower. A wiry little guy called Klossowski slid up to him, almost invisible under the bulk of the thrower. Pollard pointed him forward to a large sand grain to their right where Klossowski would get a good, clean angle in on the gun ports. Klossowski squirmed like a snake and got himself behind the sand grain, brought the thrower up to his shoulder and opened up. The flame shot out, creaming across the gap to the bunker and straight into the gun port. The guns stopped immediately. The hellish, fearsome rattle fell away to be replaced by the piercing screams of the burning gunners.

Pollard was up and running immediately, drawing the remains of the company with him in a tight firing ball of fury. ‘Get some!’ he bawled above the screaming of their automatic weapons.

Enemy soldiers poured out of the bunker - some burning, others just running like fuck away from Pollard’s terrifying grunts. On they came, burning and firing at anything that moved in a uniform - or didn’t. They cut them down - left, right and centre.

‘Bang! Bang! You’re dead. And they were. Sweet, sweet victory. The company collapsed in a groaning, gasping mass.

‘Goddam!’ Pollard cursed between great racking gasps. ‘Goddam!’ He casts his eyes rapidly around the company command post, counting and naming his men quietly to himself. He called up his Executive Officer and four platoon Lieutenants to the CP and took their reports. He was slowing down, getting his shit back together again.

Master Sergeant James made his way up from the back of the company to Pollard. ‘Nineteen dead, sir. The wounded – twenty-seven of them - are with the medics behind that boulder.’

Pollard nodded. He had a far-away look in his eyes. The thousand yards stare. James had seen it before. Plenty. ‘We need a dust-off, sir. There’s some guys down there ain’t gonna make it. They need out and now.’

Pollard nodded again, turning to Bryan. ‘Get me Hummingbird Six.’

Bryan unfurled the aerial of the Prick 5 and cranked it up. Static hissed through the platoon until he clamped on his phones. Pollard picked up a handset.

“Six, this is Three. We have the beach. We’re gonna police right through the emplacement and see what we can find. We need a dust-off right now, sir. 27 of my boys are really torn up bad. A couple won’t make it, sir, if we don’t get ‘em out right now. Right now, sir.” Pollard paused, listening. Artillery pumped and rumbled in the distance. It started to rain.

“Roger. I have that, Six. Get back to you at 19.00. Out.” Pollard stood up, looking out over his platoon. “Choppers’ll be here in five. Get the wounded up by that grass line and put out green smoke when you hear ‘em. Got that, green smoke. Now, move it.”

Bryan snapped up the radio as Pollard had the company fan out, going over the ground and through the buildings in the back of the machine-gun bunkers. Bodies were strewn everywhere. Many still burning. Klossowski was a dab hand with the thrower and once he got going - well - one thing led to another and the shit just got hotter and hotter while the rush of victory was on.

Pollard knew what he was looking for and made his way straight to the enemy command bunker. He ordered all his troopers out, closing the door behind him. He had the place to himself and it hadn’t been torched. He saw the safe immediately, stowed his rifle and eased over to it. He tried the first of the combinations he’d been given. No go. He went through a dozen combinations until he hit it. The door eased open. There was a black metal box inside, which Pollard drew out gingerly. He took a key from his dog-tag chain and unlocked the box. Nestling in a bed of padded fabric was a stainless-steel vial about the length of Pollard’s pinkie. He put the vial in the breast pocket of his fatigues, at the same time removing an identical vial, which he put into the nested fabric. He locked the box, replaced it back in the safe and spun the dials on the combination lock. He picked up his rifle and left the bunker, letting his troopers know that it was out of bounds until the brass arrived.

Green smoke was up and five choppers were coming in weaving wildly, jinking and jerking, through the dune grass. Medics were plunging off the ships before their skids touched the ground. Satisfied that he had done his best for the wounded, Pollard went back down to the shoreline with one section from the platoon to mine the beach while he searched the horizon for ships. It continued to rain. Pollard was nervous.

At 19.00 he called his commanding officer to confirm that the position was secure throughout and that the platoon set up a defensive perimeter like a well-oiled machine. Nice to watch. Nice to be a part of. Team-work at its very, very best. But, it’s like that when life and limb are at stake. It works wonders focusing the mind.

Within minutes the company were prepared for a counter-attack, should it come. Pollard asked for reinforcements and resupply and received only vague promises. The battalion was stretched. They would have to wait their turn.

The men were preparing their evening meal. Pollard was too exhausted and too wired to eat. The mission was beginning to get to him. He could run a company of fighting men, no problem. But this cloak and dagger stuff added a whole new dimension to his stress levels.

He drank the treated water from his canteen and grimaced.

Private Bryan offered him some chocolate, which he refused. It was doubly hard keeping this whole thing to himself asking over and over, “why me?” Pourquoi. He had to smile. His name had always amused him fortunately, just as much as it had his friends, of course. His father’s joke, which might have misfired had Pourquoi been anything other than himself. Good-looking, very intelligent, confident, witty and charming - the works. Pourquoi had always been convinced that he could do anything, be anyone, anytime, anywhere. He knew that whatever he did, he would get to the top and that it wouldn’t be a big effort either. He had it all going for him right from the start. If he had a fault, it was pride. Pride in his qualities. He did his best to hide it, but it showed. It also marked him out in his chosen career. The Army. And the Army liked proud men. Pourquoi stood out. He was remarkable, no question. His superiors had quickly singled him out, marking him down to go far and to go there fast. He already had his hangers-on and promotion had been rapid. He knew that he would be colonel within the year at the rate he was going and, if this mission worked out to perfection, well, who knows? The sky’s the limit. He fancied a few more decorations and after the beach assault that was a certainty too. No question, boyo.

The company was mellowing out. The rain had finally stopped. The buzz of survival had chilled right down. Fatigue was setting in hard and fast. There wasn’t much talking now. Just whispers, murmurs.

More distant artillery - a heavy air raid somewhere out west. Some pup tents were up. Other men just stretched their poncho liners in amongst the wrecked buildings.

Pourquoi did his rounds with Klossowski. They walked the perimeter, checking fields of fire and the placing of anti-personnel mines. It looked cool. Pollard felt suddenly invincible. Funny that. They weren’t really that secure on this little strip of beach and with no fixed or defined lines of supply.

Then, with a strange and sudden wave of panic he was overwhelmed with a sense of vulnerability. He flashed with a felt-sense on the strangeness of his position here and the reasons for the assault on the beach.

There was something wrong. The pieces didn’t quite fit anymore. It was an unnerving sensation - strong but intangible. Pollard looked down at his hands and they were shaking.

Klossowski watched him intently. ‘You OK, Sir?’

Pollard turned slowly, ‘Sure, Ski. Sure. I’m just fine.’

They walked the three centimetres back to the CP without speaking. By the time they got there, they were both in their own ways pretty spooked.

Master Sergeant James met them with a message from headquarters. The top brass would be coming in at midnight. Good. Damned stupid of them, though to fly around these skies at night, but it suited him fine. He wanted rid of the vial. It felt cold and oppressive in his pocket. It was heavy and unpleasant. He touched it gently. Hard, unyielding. Pollard assumed it was some kind of weapon. Some kind of plague.

He shuddered and withdrew his hand quickly, but, too quickly. The metal case stuck to his grimy fingers and came out of his pocket too. He tried desperately to catch it, but he was tired, and his reactions were slow. The vial fell heavily onto a sharp pebble, sprang sideways as the lid popped off and a sealed glass ampoule rolled in among the sand grains. Pollard stooped, but before he could grab it, the ampoule burst showering Pollard’s face with a fine damp spray. He held his breath, wiped his face on his tunic, but it was too late. Far too late.

The damage was done. And Pollard knew it. He could feel it happening - whatever it was.

Growth is what it felt like. Growth. Hard to explain. Pollard’s view expanded. He could see further and further. He could see for miles. Strangely it was not disturbing. It was not disorientating. It felt right. And then he knew it. It was his size. He was a naked giant. His men were so small, they were virtually invisible to him. Time was slowed right, right down and he was transfixed. Enthralled.

To the company down below he had literally - slowly and inexorably transformed into an enormous rubber wall. The sole of his boots stretched high and dark above them. The rest of Captain Pollard disappeared into the wisps of distance and obscurity.

Pollard stood transfixed as suppressed and deep memories surfaced within him. Memories of a barren, polluted, starving planet overrun by human greed. Memories of failed attempts to colonise other worlds. Memories of a mad solution to a crazy problem.

Affine Transformations at the quantum level. That is, a fractal scaling-down using highly-accelerated particles to produce bonsai life-forms. It worked on all animal life - from the elephant to the virus - but it did not affect the planet’s vegetation - sort of Bonsai in reverse. Well, of course, it solved the population problem overnight and there was enough to eat! It took a while to get things sorted and up and running in the new environment, but, amazingly, it worked. There were human and animal casualties, of course. Millions and millions of them. But there were resources, resources, resources – a world of bounty and plenty.

What the brass had not told Captain Pourquoi Pollard was that the war was not about territory. It was about power. And lots of it. The ampoule contained the only remaining antidote to shrinking in the world. It was to have been synthesised and then fed straight to the chosen few. Well, now we know that would never ever happen.

Pourquoi pondered his position without moving. His thoughts came slowly, creakily, clumsily. His hands had stopped shaking. He was infused with a deep and delightful calm. He felt at one and complete - a delicious sensation.

At just about this time, the brass arrived in a vast gaggle of whomping choppers. They landed clumsily around the rubber walls.

The walls were so large that they were effectively invisible, incomprehensible. At first the generals just did not see them at all, did not take them in. The top brass collared the shaking Sergeant James, ‘Where the fuck is Captain Pollard?’

Bryan stared back blankly, blinking stupidly.

‘Did ya hear me, soldier? Where is Captain Pourquoi Pollard? I want him now. So, find him.’

Bryan continued to stare then croaked out, ‘We’ve lost him, sir. He’s gone... disappeared. We just have... there... these rubber walls. D’you see them, sir? Behind you.’

The general turned, confused and understanding at the same time. He saw the walls. The other brass did too. And they knew. The war was lost. The antidote was lost. And that was absolutely it. The generals knew they’d screwed it and that they were in deep shit. Deeper shit than Pollard. He was out of it. Literally gone to some world of the giants. Cut off. Out of touch. Alone, though not in the shit.

You know what they say: ‘pride cometh before a fall’. You gotta wonder, don’t ‘cha?

I lay back, closed the book and thought about it.

It was quite a story and it helped to lift me up. It was amusing in a dark and crazy way.

I silently thanked Mary and Danger Smith too.

41 Art For Art’s Sake

One produces two, two produces three and three produces all things.

Tao Te Ching

Three’s the key. My trinity was Mary, Omrita and Sig-Sauer. These were, I realised, my only true pals. I rest my case, your honour.

I joined the hospital art class, but quickly found that I didn’t have any talent when it came to drawing, to painting or sculpting – none whatsoever. Strange to tell, I tried knitting and discovered soon enough that I could do this and do it well.

When Mary came to visit she was more than a little surprised to see me quietly needling away in the day room.

I looked up from my work and smiled weakly. Mary looked strained. She was clearly very distressed.

‘How d’you feel, Maitland?’

‘I’m good.’

‘Good! How can you...?’

She looked desperate. I had a feeling that the shit had hit the fan and I was right.

‘Maitland...’

‘What?’

‘You’re a bad man, a very bad man. In fact you’re more than bad. You’re heartless. You’re... evil.’

Of course, I knew that, but it was horrible and heart-breaking to hear Mary speak those words. I knew then that all was lost – that she was lost to me and I was lost for words and for some way to respond. I felt like jelly.

Eventually I croaked out, ‘How?’

Mary could barely speak, and her voice came out as a strangled whisper. ‘Candida Florette and her crew have been arrested.’

Even though I had half expected this it still took me a few seconds to take the news on board and absorb it. Eventually I groaned out, ‘Not surprised. Had to happen sooner or later.’

‘Is that all you can say, Maitland?’

‘What else can I say?’

‘You could try and… explain.’

Throwing my knitting aside, I stood up on shaky legs. ‘I had no choice. I...’

‘What you’ve done is truly terrible... beyond belief.’

I walked to the window. I couldn’t face her or look her in the eye. ‘Sarah broke my heart... couldn’t bear it.’

‘But to hire killers to do your dirty work for you. You disgust me. You’re a coward.’

‘I know that I...’

‘You’ve broken my heart.’

‘I...’

‘And Omrita’s too.’

‘I guess...’

‘You guess! Is that all...?’

‘What can I say? I’ve done what I’ve done. I know that, but I wasn’t well.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, really.’

‘I don’t believe you. I can’t believe anything you say anymore, Maitland.’

‘Believe that I... that I.... that...’

‘No, I can’t.’

‘And you can’t forgive me?’

‘Forgive you! They’ve picked up Georgie and charged him as an accessory to murder. He aided and abetted you, yes?’

I didn’t respond immediately.

‘He did. Didn’t he, Maitland?’

I felt sick inside and really bad about the shit I’d dropped him in. ‘That’s right. He flew the chopper and I shoved her out the door.’

‘Oh, my God! How can you just... say it... like that?’

‘It’s just a fact.’

‘How...can you be so... cold... heartless?’

I shrugged. ‘Facts are facts.’ I paused. ‘As a matter of fact, it was his idea to... dispose of the girl.’

‘His idea?’

‘Yes. She was attempting to blackmail me, and he said I’d never have any peace, that she’d go on draining my funds until my pockets were empty.’

‘But you have deep pockets, Maitland. Very deep.’

‘I know. I know. I was weak. I just ran with his suggestion. He had it all planned, and I was easy to convince. After what I’d done to Sarah...’

‘Yes?’

‘My moral compass was all over the place and I just went in the wrong direction... again.’

‘You sure did that.’

‘I know. I know. Please...’

I caught a brief flash of compassion in her beautiful eyes and I flew on it.

‘So, you do have remorse?’

I thought about this. ‘Of course, I have. But I can’t undo what I’ve done, can I?’

‘No, you can’t.’

Mary started to sob and her shoulders sagged. I waited.

‘Can you forgive me... ever?’

She didn’t respond. I waited. My head was empty.

‘No, no. I can’t, Maitland. We can’t.’

‘Ah, Omrita.’

‘Yes.’

I was lost for words again. I really didn’t know what to say. All I could come up with was, ‘I’ve come out of my Third Reich state and dropped back to earth somewhat with this knitting and all.’

‘We don’t believe that you’re really mentally unstable. We believe you faked it to avoid prosecution.’

‘Do you?’

‘Yes, most emphatically, we do.’

‘Well, I...’

‘You are such a disappointment. I don’t know why I even came to see you again.’

‘I wish...’

‘Why don’t you just shut the fuck up, Maitland.’ She stood abruptly and left the room, slamming the door behind her. I sank to my knees and wept.

42 Fly Like An Eagle

I want to fly like an eagle
To the sea
Fly like an eagle
Let my spirit carry me
I want to fly like an eagle
Till I'm free

Steve Miller

Amazingly a week later Mary came back to the hospital. I was in the day-room knitting a red jumper when she arrived. I was more than just surprised to see her again. You could’ve knocked me down with the proverbial feather. I was gob-smacked but delighted of course. Did I deserve her? I don’t know. I really don’t think I did, but there she was. So beautiful, so elegant in a stylish navy-blue suit. She took my breath away. She must have found some reservoir of forgiveness, a need to stand by me and support me. Love conquers all, it appeared. I didn’t flinch when I saw her, and I didn’t ask what had happened to sway her my way. I just went with it. She sat in an armchair opposite me. She didn’t ask how I was to start with.

‘Omrita’s doing well back home in India. She’s going from strength to strength. She’s playing badminton and learning ballroom dancing. She’ll be coming back to London soon. Bless her.’ She paused. ‘So, Maitland, what’s... next...?’

‘With me?’

‘Yes, with you. Who the fuck else?’

Not sure how to respond, I replied weakly, ‘Oh, I dunno. More knitting. Probably have to stay here a bit longer.’

We lapsed into silence for a few minutes.

‘I’ve read the first story in the book you gave me.’

‘Losing Captain Pollard?’

‘Yup. That one.’

‘What did you think of it?’

‘It’s good. Very good. Really hit the spot.’

‘Great.’ She stood. ‘Shall we walk in the garden?’

‘If you want. I’ll ask the duty nurse.’ I walked over to a table where two nurses were sitting.

‘OK, if we walk in the garden?’

One of the nurses unwillingly nodded her assent. ‘I’ll let you out.’

We followed her to the back door, which she opened with a huge set of keys. Mary and I stepped out into the sunlight. It was a warm, windless day. The trees stood out green and bright against a clear blue sky. I held my face up to the sun, relishing the warmth. Mary glanced at me and managed a crooked smile. We walked slowly and in silence around the garden through the shrubs and flower beds. I had an overwhelming desire to come clean, to tell this beautiful, loving woman the whole truth about the killings and my fake madness, but I just couldn’t do it.

I do believe that when Mary left me she was happier and confident that I was facing up to what I’d done. I felt OK-ish in the present but desperately worried about the future. I have to say that feigning madness was beginning to affect me negatively. Some days I just literally didn’t know who I was.

That night I read another of Smith’s short stories.

Hyper-Spaced Out

I awoke staring up at a broken glass pane in a cracked and green-faded window frame. I could not remember who I was, where I was or how I got there. I lay in the dirt. I could feel sharp shards of broken glass, brick and plaster fragments scraping underneath me when I moved. Mind you, I couldn’t move far. My head was pressed awkwardly against a wooden door and my feet against the back wall. Side to side the space was less than a metre wide and the ceiling, which I assumed must have collapsed, was only inches above my head. Cramped, you might say. And you’d be right. It was about the size of a small toilet, but without the bowl. And it was silent in there. Absolute quiet. No sounds from outside of my confined space reached my ears. It was spooky. Whenever my mind strayed that way - to the silence - I drew it rapidly back and focused on other, less unusual things.

I was in a filthy state. My canary yellow jump-suit and matching suede boots and helmet were besmirched with mud, rubbish and what looked horribly like blood. Whose? I was beginning to worry. Had I done something really dumb this time? Pushed the boat out a bit too far?

The sticky, damp puddle I was lying in indicated that my lower back or upper leg had been hit. I felt cautiously along my legs and up to my buttocks and found the wound. It was immediately obvious how it had been caused. I know a bit about bullet wounds on account of my work and this wound had all the hallmarks of a ballistic impact. It was big. Large pieces of muscle and flesh flapped in my fingers. Exit, OK. But where was the entry wound? I scanned across my buttocks and up my lower back. I was scared. Even though when I rolled to the side I could hear and feel the ends of my shattered hip-bone crunching together, the bleeding had obviously stopped so there was no major arterial damage.

I recalled a time a group of us were recovering from an amazing fire-fight, rejoicing in our survival and checking our wounded. There was one guy dead, a Private First Class, we called Baby Cakes. We found a huge exit wound in the base of the private’s foot, or what was left of it. It took us another five minutes to find the entry. The thing was this: the 7.62 round had entered Baby Cake’s shoulder, leaving a tiny blue-red hole. The missile had deflected off his shoulder blade, then tumbled end-over-end right through his body and down his right leg, finding its way out through the sole of his foot. We could only speculate at the horrific mess the round must have created as it made its way, bouncing off bones, right through his body. The missile had been designed to tumble after it left the muzzle. The idea was that maximum damage would be achieved on impact with a soft target. Other rounds were designed to fly straight, but they were usually bigger and so made a bigger hole. They did not need to tumble.

The kind of round we all wanted was a Sugar Glider. Sugar Glider was the cuddly slang handle that Special Forces gave to bullets, which came with a half metal jacket. They’re powerful, dangerous and very effective. The tip of the Sugar Glider jacket is soft. The point of this is to make the bullet break up and fragment on impact with a human body, causing maximum damage. The bullet does not pass through the body but unloads all its energy into the victim and in a very short space of time. The result? Devastation.

Cutting a cross in rounds has always been fairly common practice among grunts over time. This idea had been taken to extremes with the Hydro-Shock round. These bullets were almost pure lead and, in order to obtain the desired expansion, they had a hemispherical recess in the nose, which was cast with an upstanding peg in its centre. The head mushroomed on impact and delivered a severe blow, leading to hydraulic compression of body fluid and the transmission of an awesomely destructive shockwave called Hydro-Static-Shock. Cool, if you’re putting the rounds out. It was extremely bad if you happen to be on the receiving end, as you can imagine.

The cracked glass above me seemed very meaningful. More than that, it seemed positively full of portent. It was meaningful, yes, but I could not put my finger - or my mind - on the meaning. It was elusive, slippery, a sort of felt sense. I studied the patterns of discoloration on the glass. The dried-out record of the fractal diffusions where oil had met water at some time in the past. The varying-sized drops of paint that spattered over the glass told a story of many sloppy paint-jobs. The glass itself was also impure with rippling waves, which distorted the watery sunlight, filtering through it. There was a brilliant blue-green algae colony in the lower right-hand corner, into which some bright spark had stuffed chewing gum. The grey and dusty lump still showed the teeth marks of the last owner. More history. There was plenty of that in the window, but sadly not in my mind. Blank. I lay back and attempted to relax and gather myself together.

I just had to think. Remember. Find some memory snippet to hang onto and build on. I looked at my watch. The glass face was smashed in. I couldn’t read the dials. Pity. I’d liked to have known the time and I had liked that watch. I remembered that at least! So, where did I get it? Who gave it me and when? Any clues? The watch strap tried to tell me something when I stared hard enough at it. Something... something, but what? A name, a face, a place? A quaint, perplexing ditty kept running through my mind. Over and over. Over and Over.

I looked up at a little tree

And saw a man I could not see.

I asked him what his name might be.

He said I’d have to wait and see.

With the stress always on the wait and see.

I knew that if I was going to survive I had to do something fast. I hadn’t the time to wait and see. I had to get help. Attract attention somehow. I hunched myself up again and reached out to touch the glass. As my hand approached the surface it expanded away from me, looking more and more like the shining surface of a planet. It could have been due to loss of blood, but the vision was so utterly terrifying and unbearable that I passed out.

When I came to, I found that nothing around me had changed. I felt weaker. And that was it. Gathering the last threads of my fast-failing courage, I stared hard again at the glass pane and it really did look like the surface of a planet. Like I said, it had a shine to it. I focused on that shiny surface and watched it spread to fill all of space. The realisation slowly dawned on me that it was not the surface of a planet, after all. It was actually just two-dimensional. I was looking at the whole - the entire - universe of universes in two dimensions. Now that was odd.

I am often struck now by the fact that at the time I got it, I did not find it odd. It made sense then, even if it doesn’t always now.

It was an awesome feeling. I could see all of the two-dimensional universe spread out before me like a sheet - finite, but not bounded. Superb. Total. Well, from feeling like a complete scum-bag, torn-up, down-and-out, I was starting to feel like a veritable God. Because I was three-dimensional, I completely encompassed, enclosed and permeated the two-dimensional space. As I felt this feeling, I was in it. I was still the observer and the creator of the dimensions, but I was in it now. Sailing the side-on sea. Wheeee! I could make it happen. No, better than that: I did make it happen.

I could bend, fold and shrink this space. I could revert its time-line and be anywhere, anytime I liked inside it. You can imagine what a feeling it was. The only problem I had was that I was getting weaker and slowly losing contact with my scrunched-up body... wait and see.

Then I remembered my name and several other things - bits and pieces of information - came flooding back into my consciousness. I was Adré Naline. I was a soldier in the Solar Systematics. A grunt - a line doggie. I was on a solo mission. Then I got it. The bad bit. I was AWOL. I was out on a hunch. So, what was the hunch? And who the fuck shot me and why?

Now, we’d all been told time and again, we thought as a joke, that it took two to make and sustain a two-dimensional world in this space-time - one for the matter and one for the mind. Mandel Fork did the physical and Kumar Sant the mental. When they met for the first, which just couldn’t have happened by chance and was surely never intended, the world turned into a doughnut for a fraction of a fraction of a second. But nobody, we were told, noticed. Dimwits.

Fact is, if we apply the whole shooting-match, that is quantum theory, gravity and relativity in five or more dimensions - and not just the four we are familiar with - then they all slot into place and start making sense. Operating from the fifth or a higher dimension we would see our old, familiar four-way space-time laid out for us in all its detail. All of space and all of time at once. You just can’t get cooler than that. The thing is from the fifth or higher we would encompass and have dominion over all those dimensions beneath or, more precisely, within us. Before I was free of my body I could not affect the four dimensions because I was enmeshed in them. I was them. My multi-dimensional mind was trapped in the matter.

Now, I already knew all this intellectually as I creamed through the two dimensions of Fork and Sant. And then I got it for real. I realised I was above and beyond both time and space as I had known it. I could see that our time was as plastic as space itself. The true subjectivity of my experience came home to me like hot cross-fire in the darkness.

Did I have any reality outside my own dream? Were the mystics and the superstring theorists, both right? Einstein said that you can’t understand something until you can rise above it. The two-dimensional plane I was experiencing had no knowledge of the third and fourth dimensions, which were so familiar to me. If you were a one-dimensional being, you could never ever imagine a second dimension unless you were an off-the-wall point mathematician with amazing vision. So, in the fifth dimension all the secrets, all the mysteries of the four planes below were made clear.

My body back in the hole was failing fast. My poor heart was about to pump its last. I abruptly remembered riding an olive green Mobilio 10-Stroke at top speed across the wide, white, silent flats of Schrebrehan, lit in the subtlest pink light of dawn. The quivering metal flats were smooth, and the bike was too. The best. The best, at least, that Solar Systematics could offer. She would cruise at over a thousand knots and take in the toughest terrain. She was so, soooo amazingly flexible on the ground, she was nearly a bird.

I remembered two horses and two dark riders on a distant ridge aiming long, narrow rifles, which looked like lances. I remembered flickers of light and the snap of rounds passing near me. I swerved the Mobilio to make a harder target and ironically must have driven right into the bullet, which took me down. My inflato-bags, albeit punctured, saved me from annihilation when I finally hit the ground with a brain-blinding flash.

I had let myself get sucked into flatland, thinking I was in control. I had forgotten Fork and Sant and that this was their world.

When it came down to it, I was just like all the rest. We lived the same fantasy from the cradle to the grave. We all just thought we were real. We had no idea whatsoever that we were nothing more than the ephemeral projections of those two mega-bugs, Fork and Sant. You might ask, how can that be? Well, it’s like this: if you live in two dimensions and can summon up the vision and the imagination to conceive of a further dimension, you can make it. Creatures that live in three-dimensional space, unless they are unusually and particularly brilliant, cannot, like Ptolemy, imagine a space dimension other that the three they are familiar with. That is, height, width and breadth. Another space dimension beyond your own is not an easy thing to comprehend. Never has been.

So, who were the riders, why did they shoot at me and how the fuck did I end up in that oppressive little hole with the window? There was only one way to find out.

At that moment I remembered what my old Ma used to say: ‘A little pain never hurt anyone’. It sounds a bit of a contradiction, but it’s very Zen and it’s absolutely true.

And then it dawned on me. Fork and Sant. They must have set the whole thing up. I understood in that instant that it was unfortunately for me a Faustian thing. I had to give up the spark of my consciousness in return for my body, which I wasn’t so sure was worth saving. Or, more to the point, could even be saved if I went back to it. But, I had to get back. I felt impelled.

I don’t know why they picked on me and I don’t think I will ever know the answer to that. Pulling my way out of flatland was as easy as getting in now, that I had a goal in mind. That body I had concluded was worth having. There were things to be done with it. If it was worth destroying, it must also be worth saving.

When I got back in my body I felt like some kind of door between the dimensions, or - what I felt then were more like - realms. Yes, realms are a better description of the way things were and still are, I guess. The basic atomic and sub-atomic structure of that body was emptiness, energy, and connections. Well, that’s how I could feel so connected and at the same time disconnected.

I focused back on flatland and projected my mind into it. I saw myself as the carrier wave of the third dimension and that I could somehow pinch up those two dimensions and kind of stretch them out until they popped into my realm.

Cosmic forces, being what they are, this seemed like a real possibility. More than that - an inevitability. Like I was just a conduit, a funnel. Like I was directing the movie, but not in it. And I hadn’t written the script, nor did I work the camera or the sound. Just sat and watched and commented and made things stop and start. You know, like ‘action!’ and ‘cut!’. But not actually doing it.

As I thought that, my heart went out to humankind. I thought of cosmic powers. I thought of Mandel Fork and Kumar Sant. I thought of the great forces at work in this universe. And as I did this I felt your fear. I shared your sense of insignificance in the face of the great, brutal and mysterious majesty of the universe. And yet I knew you were capable of great things. You were capable of great acts of courage and selflessness. You were capable of sacrificing your precious life for others. It was amazing too that you were capable of such great loneliness and sadness. Deep, deep feelings - overpowering emotions. You didn’t even ask who fired up the sun, or wonder where these things came from? You didn’t think it was from Fork and Sant. And yet they held sway over us.

What did your sadness mean? What was the well-spring of your melancholy? Why did you have these feelings? What was the point? Where and how did these fit in with those Sugar Gliders and those other tumblers - the bringers of death and torment? Mortality brooded like a tired old eagle that couldn’t but help falling on you - on us - when our time was up.

And, as for time itself, well Fork and Sant invented that idea. Gave that dimension a linear feel, made us think it passes. Like it had somewhere to go to or to go from. The so-called passage of time. Ho ho. If a body wore out and died, it really had nothing to do with the passing of time. So, had the future already happened? No. Was it always now? Yes.

I wanted everything to go well for you, but it wouldn’t. I didn’t want you to suffer any more pain. The devil is never ever just black and white - and sure as shit stinks he isn’t just black. No, he’s shades of darkness - shades of doom and desperation. We do not forget that Satan is a fallen angel. He knows all about the light. He can remember it.

Did Adolf Hitler just wake up one morning and say, ‘Fuck me, I’m going to be Füehrer’, and there he was? No, it took years to get the mad bastard there and the whole world conspired in his making. There is nothing in this world as unconnected as thinking that we are not all connected. Everything that science and mysticism could tell us pointed to a holistic universe. If Quantum Mechanics and the Vedas could be believed, then we were most certainly dancing to the same tune. The dance of Shiva.

My exit wound felt enormous. Like most of my body was the wound and I was effortlessly draining myself out through it. And Mr. Death himself was standing very close. What I felt most of all then was how much I cared for you all.

How much I cared about your pain. I didn’t want you to ever lose anything or ever feel lonely. The fact was I couldn’t bear the thought of you suffering anything at all. It was a lovely, selfless feeling and I highly recommend it.

He said I’d have to wait and see.

And when you see is when you die. That is the it of the it.

My body was very weak now and pretty much bloodless. So, I had to let it out. I pulled back the cosmic foreskin, so to speak, for the first (and probably the last) time to reveal the glistening truth.

I enjoyed this story. It was wise. It made me laugh and it made me wonder about a lot of things including Adolf Hitler, of course. Coincidence? I wondered if Mary had read it recently and if she knew that it included a reference to Hitler. If nothing else it was, in my opinion, well written and entertaining.

I’d also been reading Alexander Waugh’s The House of Wittgenstein – A Family at War. For all their enormous wealth, the Wittgenstein’s were an unhappy and deeply fucked-up family. Three of the five brothers committed suicide. Paul was a talented concert pianist and he lost an arm in the First World War. Unperturbed he mastered the art of playing the piano with one hand and continued his career with great success and to significant acclaim. Ludwig was the renowned philosopher. He studied at Cambridge in the company of Bertrand Russell. Their friendship ebbed and flowed, but they remained connected.

I read one of Ludwig’s books, Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology and Religious Belief. It’s a very slim volume, which is a good thing as I couldn’t even begin to understand it! As far as I was concerned it wasn’t worth writing or reading, but that’s just my opinion.

I was however impressed that Ludwig was influenced by Leo Tolstoy’s Gospel in Brief. In his response called Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus he wrote: If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those in the present. Our life has no end in just the way our visual field has no limits. Bertrand Russell wrote the introduction to this publication, while admitting privately that he didn’t understand much of it even after Ludwig had spent the best part of a day attempting to explain its meaning to him. Unsurprisingly I found this reassuring!

I also came across this passage in the chapter called Nasty Mess:

At the same time as Schiele and his wife were dying in Vienna, Corporal Adolf Hitler, fighting the British at Ypres, was rendered blind and speechless by a chlorine gas attack on his line. ‘I saw my future. These questions flashed through my mind: “You never feared death – Why? You are still alive when others around you fell – Why? And I told myself, because fate has singled you out to accomplish something, I resolved to consecrate my life to my country – to the task of driving out the enemies within her borders.”’

As you can doubtless imagine, dear reader, that passage made a deep impression on me. Adolf Hitler and all.

[1] In classical Mythology, Chiron is a wise and beneficent centaur, teacher of Achilles, Asclepius, and others