Chapter I.10

'Have you ever had this sort of feeling for a child's toy before? Or was it just this one in particular that took your fancy?'

The policeman smiled and leaned forward in his chair, tapping the table beside the out of focus black and white photograph of Loofah holding Peony's doll.

'They do make them very realistic, don't they? Nice curvy bodies, legs that go on forever, pretty little faces. Perhaps you just got a bit—what shall we say?—carried away. Being away from home, on your own and a bit lonely.'

'But—but it was a doll, just a little plastic doll,' Loofah said, 'Why would I want to—?'

'Molest it? Pull its little panties off?' interrupted the second policeman, 'That's what we want to know.'

There were three of them in the room with him: a massive uniformed constable who stood impassively beside the iron door with his arms folded across his huge chest, a silent guardian of righteousness, and the two detectives—Inspector Truscott and Detective Sergeant Meadows—who sat facing him across the harsh wooden table. Truscott was a big man too, but with a small head, round like a ping-pong ball balanced on his well-padded slab of a torso. He smiled a lot, big wide grins that spanned the whole of his small face, though somehow always managing to miss out the eyes.

'But it wasn't like that,' pleaded Loofah, 'I've already told you—I was trying to keep its knickers on, not take them off.'

Both detectives watched him silently. He looked from one to the other, from Truscott the pin-headed bear to Meadows, hard and thin with a narrow face and a permanent sneer, like a sour tempered heron.

'It was getting sort of aroused, you see, squeaking and moaning and rubbing itself against me, and the little girl was on her swing and—.'

'Your sort make me sick!' spat Meadows, turning away.

It had been like this since the beginning of time itself: a windowless white cube flooded with a dead fluorescent light that percolated into every crevice of his being, with Truscott with his cheerless grins and endless questions, with occasional spurts of bile from Meadows, interjected like venomous punctuation—and all under the inscrutable gaze of the guardian of the door.

They had now lapsed into another era of silence. Loofah watched the anxious patterns squirm and flow in the grain of the table top while Truscott smiled at his hands and Meadows stared at the floor, his face twisted with disgust.

Eventually Truscott spoke.

'Let's talk about the dog, shall we?' he said, 'For a start, where did you get the underwear? And how did you know her size?'

'I've told you already: that wasn't me,' said Loofah, 'At least I don't think it was.'

The Inspector didn't reply, but with a cheerful smile opened the tattered folder on the table in front of him and pushed a second photograph towards Loofah; although blurred, it was clearly his face that the Weimaraner was licking.

'I think it was somebody else, actually,' said Loofah, lamely.

Meadows spun round and loomed across the table, lizard eyes blazing with hatred.

'Bollocks, you slag!' he spat, with drops of spittle bouncing off his lips, 'If that isn't you, who the fuck is it?'

Loofah stared blankly at the policeman's face, the force of its loathing cutting into him like a laser. He could not answer the question.

Truscott pulled more photographs out of the folder.

'There's a lot here,' he said, 'Forcing a dog, a harmless house-pet, to perform acts of a lewd nature. Wrecking a parking meter—'

'With forty minutes still on the clock,' added Meadows.

'Breaking into a house to assault a young mother—'

'And her little daughter.'

'Tampering with Mrs Frimpton's laundry,' said Truscott, enunciating each word with disbelief.

'Slaughtering a litter of puppies with an axe,' spat Meadows with even more venom than usual, clearly a dog lover.

'And a playground full of school children with a chain-saw.'

'Acts of gross indecency.'

'Robbery.'

'Rape.'

'Arson.'

'Murder.'

'Genocide.'

'Jay-walking'

'All documented.'

'Plenty of witnesses.'

'Photographic and forensic evidence.'

The detectives stopped suddenly, watching him closely.

'I—I—' spluttered Loofah, 'I think I remember the sheet and the doll. But the puppies and the chain-saw…'

'Just look at the photographs,' said Truscott, 'Is it the same person or isn't it?'

'I don't know—.'

'Is it or isn't it, scumbag?' snapped Meadows.

'They do look very similar—.'

'The same! The same! The same!' Meadows stabbed at each photograph with his finger, his voice rising to a shout.

Loofah looked from one to the other, his mouth opening and closing like a goldfish. Could they be right? Perhaps it was him in all the pictures, perhaps he really had done all those terrible things.

'But—why don't I remember?' he eventually stammered.

Truscott leaned forward and smiled affectionately.

'Terrible crimes, too terrible to think about. The mind blocks out, refuses to remember. It's a common phenomenon, almost universal in fact. Believe me, we see it all the time.'

Loofah glanced anxiously at the photographs, at the poor little puppies, at the ravished young mother, at the chain-sawed children. Images flashed through his mind: the cold glint on the axe blade, the scent of hollyhocks in the cottage garden, the savage whine of the chain-saw. He could remember!—so it was true. No, he was forgetting the cinema—he had seen these things in the cinema.

Or had he?

'Best to come clean, you know,' continued Truscott, 'Saves everybody's time—the judge doesn't miss his lunch, the jury can go home to their families. Then everyone's happy, everyone's on your side. Here, do yourself a favour—sign the statement, make a clean breast of it.'

With this he pushed a thick, neatly typed document across the table. Loofah took the offered pen and held it over the paper, poised to sign. It did seem the best thing to do, to bring this eternity in the white cube of hell to an end. And after all he was guilty—well, probably.

As he went to sign, however, his hand wouldn't obey him. He stopped and looked up at Truscott.

'Are you sure there's no-one else it could have been?' he said, in little more than a bleat.

'Pathetic scumbag!' spat Meadows.

Truscott sighed and smiled sadly. 'Right then,' he said with resignation, 'let's start again.'

Hours or even days later a metallic knock on the iron door echoed through the electric white silence. The uniformed giant opened the door a crack and muttered with somebody on the outside. Then he closed the door, crossed to the table and whispered briefly in Truscott's ear. The smile did not so much as flicker and the dead, cold eyes never once left Loofah. Then the Inspector leaned forward.

'You're a lucky boy, a very lucky boy,' he said, increasing the curve of his grin. Then he gathered up the papers and photographs into the brown folder, and both he and Meadows stood up. As he was going out of the door, Truscott turned, almost as an afterthought.

'You've got a visitor,' he said.

'A visitor?'

'Your brief.' Truscott smiled. 'But don't fret yourself,' he added, 'We'll be back.'

The two empty chairs on the other side of the table seemed no less threatening than Truscott and Meadows, and the silent colossus beside the door crushed him with its rock-like presence— did it have thoughts? what went on inside that enormous stone skull?

Loofah squirmed, the hardness of the wooden seat digging into his flesh. He was done for and he knew it. He had been so sure—well, fairly sure, anyway—that it wasn't him with dog in underwear or at the primary school chain-saw massacre, but now…? Unwelcome images swam in his mind, of him pulling the kickers off Peony's doll, drooling with lust, of him ripping apart the old lady's laundry and treading the shreds into her flower beds, of him ravishing a young mother on her pastry-strewn kitchen table, and of him standing in a school playground, reaching out to the young children, fountains of blood and gore spraying into the air as he dubbed them with his howling blade. He shrivelled inside, fighting sobs.

After half an eternity there was another knock. The constable unfolded his arms and opened the door, then stood aside to let someone enter.

It was the Under Manager, with a black suit stretched tightly over the plump curves of her body and a white neckerchief pinned under her chubby chin with a discrete gold pin. She carried a black leather document case, slim and elegant.

'Go away,' she said to the constable, with all her customary politeness.

The door closed on the departing policeman with a chilling finality. Then Miss Leggett sat down opposite Loofah and eyed him with distaste.

'Well?' she demanded, 'What have you got to say for yourself?'

'I—.'

'Please be quiet. We have a lot to get through and I would rather you did not waste any more of my time than is absolutely necessary. Is that clear?'

'Ye—.'

'You're in trouble. A great deal of trouble.'

'Yes, I know—.'

'I've seen the charge-sheet. Not a pleasant read. A thoroughly revolting read, in fact.' She shuddered and then stared hard at him to drive home his guilt. 'You're going away for a long time,' she went on, 'for a very long time indeed.'

She paused for breath, then leaned forward, pushing her face into his.

'And can you say you don't deserve it? Can you honestly say you shouldn't be locked away, that the decent people out there shouldn't be protected from your—your—ughh!' she spluttered, unable to find a word to encapsulate his vileness, glaring at him with utter revulsion.

Unable to meet her gaze, Loofah looked down at his hands and shook his head sadly.

'We are very disappointed, Mr Stobart and I, very disappointed indeed. We have given you every chance and yet time and time again you have let us down, betrayed our trust.' Throwing herself back into her chair, she slapped both palms on the table. 'Well as far as I'm concerned you can now have what's coming to you, your just deserts.'

She indulged herself with a long, hard glare and Loofah trembled under the baleful force of her righteous indignation.

'The Chief Executive, however, takes a somewhat different view,' she went on, 'He is a compassionate man, a forgiving, gentle-hearted man; too much so, I sometimes think. And—against my advice, I needn't tell you—he has decided that you are to be given another chance. You don't deserve it and you know it, but that's what he's like, Mr Stobart, generous to a fault.'

She waited, allowing him to digest the full extent of the Chief Executive's magnanimity.

'But understand this,' she added with her own quiet menace, 'This is the last chance you get—you betray us again and you're on your own. Is that absolutely clear?'

Loofah nodded sheepishly.

'Good,' she said, and then laid her document case on the table, unzipped it, and pulled out a mass of papers and photographs. These she proceeded to sort through, pondering each of several typed sheets and photographs in turn, shaking her head and from time to time and shuddering with revulsion.

Eventually she chose a photograph and pushed it across the table towards him. Loofah had seen it before: him with the Weimaraner in stockings.

'Disgusting.' She rolled the word over her tongue before spitting it across the table at him.

'I'm sorry,' Loofah stammered, 'I don't know what came over me.'

She picked another photograph, the one of him struggling with the screaming young mother as he ravished her on the stripped pine kitchen table, with her little daughter looking on and sucking her thumb.

'Unbelievable,' whispered Miss Leggett in blank horror.

The next showed him holding the chain-saw, blood and gore splattered over his tee-shirt and jacket, with tiny limbs and abdominal organs scattered over the hopscotch squares at his feet like the pieces in some macabre board game. This time she made no comment—none was needed.

'I just don't know what to say,' said Loofah, unable to look, shaking with sobs.

The Under Manager pushed the Weimaraner picture across the table.

'Tell me,' she said, 'How did you get the stockings on without laddering them?'

He looked at her blankly.

'On her claws, man, on her claws.'

'Um—I don't really know. Perhaps she put them on herself?'

'You can't remember who put her stockings on? Why not? It's an act of considerable intimacy, not usually forgotten.'

'I—I don't—.'

'What's that?' she interrupted, indicating a detail in the photograph of the rape scene.

Loofah looked closely; the young mother was lying on something, crushing it with her shoulder.

'It seems to be a pie. Or maybe a tart.'

'But what sort of pie? Apple? Lemon meringue? Or something savoury perhaps, like cheese and onion? Come on—what was it?'

'I don't know, I just can't—remember.'

Miss Leggett pointed to his chest.

'Your tee-shirt looks nice and clean,' she said.

Loofah glanced down at the luminous green and orange cotton and felt a small rush of relief; apparently inadequate personal cleanliness was one of the few charges that was not being levelled against him.

'Thank you,' he said, 'I never wear them for more than one day.'

'And how did you get the stains out?'

'Sorry?'

She tapped the chain-saw picture—here his tee-shirt was covered with infant blood.

'I suppose I washed it.'

'How exactly? Hand wash? Or perhaps in a machine, presumably preceded by an overnight soak in view of the heavy soiling?'

'I—I can't—.'

'You can't remember? There's not a lot you can remember about these crimes, is there?'

'I'm sorry, I will try harder—'

'And why's that, do you suppose?'

'I don't know.'

'Then I'll tell you—because you didn't commit them, that's why.'

He stared at her in frank disbelief. 'Are you sure?' he asked quietly.

'Positive,' she said, 'Because I know who did do them.'

Loofah's guts liquefied—somehow he knew what was coming next.

'Him,' said the Under Manager, pushing another photograph across the table.

An artillery shell screamed down through Loofah's skull and chest and exploded near the base of his spine, spraying guts and torn shreds of liver across the cell, and he slumped forward against the table edge, pole-axed. The photograph, in full colour, showed a man with thinning dark hair and glasses wearing a black leather jacket and a lime green tee-shirt with orange lettering. Iron bands tightened around Loofah's chest and he struggled to breathe, while every muscle in his body now went into tetanic spasm. At first there was only the terrible photograph—all mental processes had ceased—but then, very slowly, like an amphibian crawling out of the primal swamp, a clear image emerged from the pulped mess in his head, an image of this foul creature with the woman in red, and of himself watching as it casually strolled away over the crest of a low hill. Yes, he had seen it before.

'Who—? Or what—?' he asked quietly.

'A nasty piece of work,' said Miss Leggett, 'A very nasty piece of work indeed. What you see here is degenerate criminal scum of the worst kind. A completely depraved psychopath, capable of anything, absolutely anything.'

The creature seemed to be alive, as if peering at Loofah through a rectangular hole in the table and ready to spring out and seize him. His whole body shivered and his jaw clamped tight—it was a foul and loathsome thing, a monster. Black bile flooded into his veins, pumping pure hatred into every cell in his body.

'And there are others,' the Under Manager went on.

'Others?'

'Other anti-social elements, other scum. Enemies of the Company, enemies of all decent, law-abiding people. This thing helps them, it does their nastiness for them.'

The mess in Loofah's brain had started to clear, the swirling mixture of fact and fiction was beginning to separate. Of course he hadn't done those terrible things, the policemen had confused him, that's all. The concrete slab of guilt that had been crushing him became suddenly lighter.

'And so I'm—I'm innocent?'

She gave him a long hard look, then shook her head, almost imperceptibly.

'Not—quite,' she said.

'I don't understand.'

Miss Leggett did not reply.

'But I'm not guilty, I know that now. The police have been trying to frame me, trying to pin its crimes on me.'

'Two sides of the same coin,' she now said, enunciating each word with great care whilst tapping the photograph with her forefinger, 'Two halves of the same whole.'

'So I'm not innocent?'

'You don't belong here—and it doesn't belong here, either. And as long as you're here—and it's here with you—you're in trouble, big trouble.'

'I don't follow you. What sort of trouble?'

By way of reply Miss Leggett swept a pudgy hand over the photographs.

'But if I didn't do those things—'

'Two sides of the same coin,' she repeated, 'Two halves of the same whole. And Inspector Truscott isn't fussed which half he gets.' She leaned forward, narrowing her little eyes to menacing slits. 'And in any case, what about the other matters on the charge sheet? I'm sure you haven't forgotten about the little girl's doll, have you? Or the telephone kiosk? Or poor Mrs Frimpton's laundry?'

The slab crushed down again; the trap, which had opened briefly to show a glimpse of clear blue sky, slammed shut.

'So that's it, then,' said Loofah, as his heart dive-bombed, 'I'm done for.'

'Have you listened to anything I've just said?' snapped the Under Manager, 'We're giving you another chance.'

'Another chance?' he repeated in a dull tone, unconvinced.

'Help us to get rid of it, that's all we want.'

'Get rid of it?'

'Help us to get it out of here, to send it back where it came from,' she said, 'And you with it—back home, back where you belong.'

'But—how?'

'All you have to do is catch it, no more than that. We'll do the rest.'

With his brain now whirling with the implications of what she was saying, he glanced again at the photograph and shivered. She couldn't be serious—how could he possibly go near such a creature, let alone get hold of it?

'You mean I have to actually touch it?' he asked quietly.

'I've cleared everything with Truscott—if you co-operate with us, all charges will be dropped. It's not normal procedure, of course, but Mr Stobart's name does carry a lot of weight, as I am sure you appreciate. I just hope you're grateful that you've been given this opportunity to—.'

'Hold on to it?'

'Is there a problem?' she asked in disbelief, her tiny eyes blazing with sudden anger.

'But it's horrible,' he said, 'I don't think I could—.'

'What do you think this is? A party game?' She was on her feet now, leaning across the table.

'It's just that—.'

'Look at this!' she shouted, sweeping her hand across the photographs of the degraded dog, the ravished young mother, and the chain-sawed school children, 'Has this sort of thing got to carry on—because you're a bit squeamish? How many more innocent victims have got to be debauched, tortured and murdered—because of you?'

'I'm a bit—.'

'You're no better than it, are you? In fact you're probably worse. I don't know what I'm going to tell Mr Stobart—his kindness thrown back in his face.' She paused. 'But I know what I'm going to tell Inspector Truscott,' she added quietly, then stood up and strode towards the door.

'Wait!' She stopped and turned. 'Why me? Can't somebody else do it?'

Miss Leggett stepped back to the table and tapped the single colour photograph of the creature.

'The other side of the same coin,' she said, 'Your pigeon, I'm afraid.'

Loofah glanced down at the photograph and then back to the Under Manager. But as the words of his final plea for clemency were collecting themselves into sentences ready for delivery, her left breast purred at him with a gentle electronic murmur.

Turning away from him, she held the mobile to her face, muttering angrily into the mouth-piece for a few seconds, then snapped it closed and returned it to her inside jacket pocket.

'Right. No time to waste.' She spoke quickly, with a new edge of agitation. 'The enemy has been sighted. It seems it's in the neighbouring town, doing some shopping.'