Well, you're good tempered… and one day you'll make a huge success.
Hmm. I dunno about the good temper.
She pulled his face down to her. When he had kissed her, she said:
Shall I tell you something? I decided to make a beeline for you the first time I met you at Aunt Gertrude's. I shouldn't really tell you that, should I?
Why not?
It might make you feel chased.
I am chaste.
Not that chaste, silly! I mean it might make you feel you're being chased.
I'm that too.
I know you are. Does it worry you?
Not in the least. Look, sweet, I've got to take Oliver his dinner. Come and have some more wine.
No. I haven't finished this yet. Anyway, I don't want to go in there again. I'll say goodbye now. Don't come down.
As he kissed her, she pressed herself against him. He was certain she was aware of the rising need in him, yet her body clung to him, infusing its warmth. When she had gone he inhaled deeply, then expelled the air in a long sigh. He felt an ache across his chest and back, as if someone had beaten him with some padded object. The desire throbbed in him, subsiding.
Glasp was sitting on the bed, reading one of the Notable British Trials. He began to eat quickly, ravenously. After swallowing two mouthfuls, he said, in an oddly throaty voice:
Oaaaaah! I was bloody hungry!
Sorme said smiling: Good.
He was too preoccupied with the thought of Caroline to feel any inclination to talk. They ate in silence for ten minutes, and Sorme refilled both glasses. Glasp put his empty plate on the floor, and attracted his attention with a growl like an animal.
You said you hadn't heard about that last murder of the Ripper?
That's right.
It's here.
Glasp swallowed, cleared his throat, then read:
'In the early morning of the 18th of July 1889 an unknown woman was murdered in Castle Alley, Whitechapel, her injuries being similar to those sustained by the earlier victims. At 12.15 on the morning of the murder a police constable had entered the alley and partaken of a frugal supper under a lamp. At 12.25 he left the alley to speak to another constable who was engaged on the same beat. Returning at 12.50 he found the body of a woman under a lamp where he had previously stood. The ground beneath the body was quite dry, although the clothing of the woman was wet. A shower of rain had fallen at 12.40. The murder was therefore committed between 12.25 and 12.40, when the rain commenced to fall…'
I didn't see that, Sorme said. What book is it?
The trial of George Chapman.
Ah yes. I found that in the room when I moved in last Saturday. But doesn't it say the woman wasn't identified?
She was. It was my Great-aunt Sally. Sally McKenzie.
The wine bottle was almost empty; Sorme opened a second one. Glasp relaxed against the wall, stretching his legs on the bed and yawning. He said:
That was good. You're bloody lucky, you know, Gerard.
Why?
Oh, enough money to do as you like.
Haven't you?
Blimey no! My slender income comes from a bloody shark of a dealer who sucks me dry!
Does he take all your paintings?
No. Only the things he thinks he can sell. Like street scenes, and pretty-pretty landscapes.
You make a living from it. That's something.
Not much.
Anyway, why should my few hundred a year make me lucky? The only lucky man's the man who can create. I've been stuck on the same book for five years.
Why don't you finish it?
I can't. I keep trying. There's something missing.
What?
Oh… the inspiration, I expect.
Is that all?
Sorme looked at him. It was obvious that Glasp's mood had mellowed considerably with the meal. He said:
No, that's not all. I've got other problems too.
Such as?
Sorme said, smiling: I don't know that I can explain them to you without your flying off the handle.
Eh? Glasp said. Me? What do you mean?
Oh… such as when we were discussing the Whitechapel murders earlier this evening.
Oh, that's different…
Not entirely. Because I can see certain aspects of myself reflected in the murderer.
Can't you?
No. Anyway, what's that got to do with finishing your book?
All right. I'll try to explain. I ask myself: Why does a man commit a sex crime? I know it's partly sheer weakness… But that doesn't answer it. I read in a newspaper the other day that seventy per cent of the sex crimes in the States are committed by teenagers.
Why is that, do you think?
Glasp shrugged:
Because they've less self-control at that age.
Not only that. Because they think they're going to get more than they really ever get. I once read a case of a youth who was driving a lorry, and passed a girl on a lonely road. He turned the lorry round, knocked her down, and raped her in the back of his lorry.
Then he dumped her body down a well and blew in the well with dynamite. They caught him eventually and electrocuted him.
He paused, to give Glasp a chance to comment. Seeing that Sorme was looking at him, Glasp said:
Well, it served him right, didn't it?
Yes, but that isn't what strikes me about it. What impressed me is the stupidity of it, the waste, the pathos. Try to put yourself in his place… Can you do that?
I expect so.
Supposing he'd got away with it. What would you feel afterwards, looking back on it… even if you weren't afraid of detection? Wouldn't it be the stupid gap between your motive and what you actually got out of it? He sees a desirable girl on a lonely road.
Suddenly, she represents for him all the taboos and frustrations of his adolescence. He feels he ought to be allowed to possess her. You remember how, in Greek mythology, Zeus went around raping everybody — changed himself into a swan, a dove, a bull? He gave his sister Demeter a daughter, then raped the daughter too… Do you see what I mean? Well, he feels just that… the god's prerogative. He revolts against his limitations, he turns the lorry around… But he's not a god, and he lives in a state with laws, and the laws condemn him to death.
Glasp had begun to grin as Sorme talked. He interrupted:
And he's not as intelligent as you seem to think either. Do you think he had any thoughts about Zeus and Leda when he turned his lorry round?
No. I'm trying to get at his feelings, even if he couldn't express them…
I know. But it's not true. He's probably a bloody bull-necked yokel who thinks of nothing but how many
