Stuart glanced at the book on her lap. His mind was still on his unfinished crossword, and Schadenfreude was no more than a diversion. He wondered how one might conceal such a word in a crossword clue. It would lend itself to an anagram, of course; most German words were good candidates for that, and this was a gift: Freud had . . . No, that wouldn’t work. Sacred feud hen?
. . . Sudden face her?
“The question is this,” went on Irene. “Why do we feel pleasure in the suffering of others?”
“Do we?” asked Stuart.
“Yes we do,” snapped Irene. “Not you and I, of course. But ordinary people do. Look at the way they clap and cheer when 94
somebody they don’t like gets his come-uppance. Remember how the papers crowed when that man, that annoying person, was sent to prison. They loved it. Loved it. You could more or less hear the church bells in London ringing out.”
“That’s because he played such a great pantomime villain,”
said Stuart. “And anyway, that’s simply justice, isn’t it? We like to see people being punished for what they’ve done. Is that really Schadenfreude?”
Irene’s answer came quickly. “Yes. If it weren’t, then punishment would be handed out with regret.”
“This hurts me more than it hurts you?” said Stuart. “That kind of thing?”
Irene nodded. “Precisely. It’s interesting, you know. I’ve never felt the desire to punish anybody. And I’ve never felt any pleasure in the discomfort of others.”
Stuart looked at her. Crossword clues were forming in his mind. All colours out on this monument, except one (whited sepulchre). Or, more simply: Sounds like one recumbent, teller of untruths (liar).
“Are you sure?” he said mildly.
“Of course I am,” said Irene. “I, at least, know what I think.”
Stuart thought for a moment. There was much he could say to this, but there was no point in engaging with Irene when he was tired after the office. His head was reeling with the statistics with which he had wrestled during his day’s work, and there was an unfinished, and possibly unfinishable, crossword in his briefcase. He decided that he would have a shower and then he might play a card game with Bertie before dinner. Bertie always won the games because he had invented them, and the rules inevitably favoured him, but Stuart enjoyed these contests between a mind of thirty-six and one of six. The advantage, he thought, was with six.
There was to be no time for a shower.
“That’s the bell,” said Irene. “Would you answer it, Stuart?
You’re closest.”
Stuart went to the front door and opened it. Two burly policemen, radios pinned to their jackets and belts weighed down
95
by truncheons, stood on the doorstep. Stuart looked at them in surprise. Had Bertie been up to some sort of mischief? Surely not. Irene . . . ? For a brief moment he felt fear brush its wings against him. Yesterday was the day that Irene had gone to report the theft of their car, and she had lied. She had lied to the police.
A quinquennium within, just punishment? he thought: five years inside.
“Mr Pollock?”
He felt the relief flood within him. They did not want her; they wanted him, and he had never lied to the police.
His voice sounded high-pitched when he answered. “Yes.
That’s me.”
“Your car, sir,” said the policeman. “We’ve found it.”
Stuart smiled. “Really? That’s very good of you. Quick work.”
The policeman nodded. “Yes. We found it this morning, up in Oxgangs. It was parked by the side of a road. It would seem that whoever took it had abandoned it.”
“I’m surprised,” said Stuart. “It’s a nice car . . .”
“Old cars like that are often abandoned,” went on the policeman. “Not worth keeping.”
“I see.”
The senior policeman took out a notebook. “Perhaps you can explain, though, sir,” he said. “Perhaps you can explain why, when we searched this vehicle, we found a firearm hidden under the driver’s seat? Perhaps you have something to say about that?”
Stuart was vaguely conscious of the fact that Bertie had slipped into the corridor and was standing immediately behind him.
Now Bertie stepped forward and tugged at his father’s sleeve.
“Tell him, Daddy,” said Bertie. “Tell him about how we got that car from Mr O’Connor. Tell him about how we can tell that it’s not really our car at all.”
“Not now, Bertie,” whispered Stuart. “Go and finish your scales.”
