Those Who Feel Nothing (11 page)

She was alive. Her eyes moved as she watched you reach behind her to cut the rope. Her face contorted in agony but she made no sound as she started to fall. You caught her and hoisted her over one shoulder. You took a firmer grip on the weapon in your other hand. She too smelt of sweat and shit and vomit. She weighed scarcely anything.

You started to reverse your steps. You couldn't see Rogers but you knew he was there. Thirty yards to go.

A shout off to the left. A clatter of movement by the gate. More shouts. A rattle of gunfire from Rogers aimed at the tower away to your right. Single shots whizzed by you. None close enough to worry about.

Twenty yards. A searchlight burst on to you.

You moved to the right and Rogers turned his fire on the guards at the gate. You ran the last few yards, conscious of the woman gasping as her body jogged on your shoulder.

Rogers shot out the searchlight.

You kept going to the gap in the barbed wire and ducked through. You'd thought your unit might leave one of the lorries. Both had gone.

‘Fuck,' Rogers said from behind you.

‘We're on our own,' you said.

‘Let's get the hell out of Dodge.' Rogers pointed towards a block of flats about fifty yards away. ‘Let's get there.'

Rogers was big, much bigger than you. He hoisted Westbrook over his shoulder. He set off at a staggering run. You followed. The woman was making odd mewling noises now.

‘Sorry, love,' you whispered.

You were aware of single shots pocking the ground pretty randomly around you. They came from the guard in the tower who had been firing at you earlier. He couldn't shoot for shit.

The block of flats was built on concrete stilts with a kind of through road running between the stilts to the street on the other side. You ran beneath the building. Rogers leaned the man against the wall. You kept the woman on your shoulder.

Rogers looked back at the prison and shook his head.

‘I can't believe they've fucking left us.'

‘They were on a schedule,' you said.

‘Yeah, but the job was to get three people. They're one short.'

‘It's me they've left, not you,' the man croaked.

‘I never asked about these three people we were rescuing,' Rogers said. ‘But, of course, I had my suspicions. Sailors drifting into Kampuchean waters? Only three kinds of sailor would go anywhere near this nuthouse country: drug traffickers, smugglers or spies.'

Rogers looked across at the rangy man leaning against the wall. ‘Which are you?' Rogers stepped in front of Westbrook. ‘Looking into your eyes and seeing how alert you are I'm going with spy. But then I'd always kind of assumed that. The British government wouldn't sanction an illegal mission just to get back some tourists.'

‘But what interest would Britain have in Cambodia?' you said. ‘How are Britain's interests affected by what's going on in Cambodia? Is it a Pacific thing? Australia? An Indian sub-continent thing?'

Rogers stepped back. ‘Above my pay grade, that kind of information.' He turned to you and gestured towards Michelle. ‘And then there's you and Mata Hari here, sonny boy.'

You ignored him and turned to watch the street between the prison and the block of flats. A dozen or so soldiers were milling around the broken wire, looking out into the street but with no clear focus.

‘They have no idea what to do,' you said.

‘And we do?' Rogers said.

‘We just head back to the harbour.'

‘On foot with two banged up people?'

You hefted your machine gun. ‘Sure.'

Rogers shook his head. ‘I think we make a stop and wait until it quietens down.'

You thought he might say that. ‘It's three miles maximum,' you said. ‘And unless we meet a tank we're better armed by far than anyone we're going to come across.'

‘It's not about being better armed,' he said. ‘It's about numbers. They have a whole bloody army in the city.'

‘You know that how? What's left of their army is on the border with Vietnam. What's left in this city is their equivalent of the Home Guard. I think even you can handle Private Pike, can't you?'

Rogers looked at the woman. ‘We need to get her arms back in their sockets.' He shook his head. ‘She must be in bloody agony. I don't understand why she's not screaming non-stop.'

You looked out into the street. The guards were fanning out along the pavement. A number of them were looking your way.

‘I think we need to move from here first,' you said. ‘At least a couple of blocks.'

You glanced towards Westbrook, who was watching you intently.

‘I can walk,' he croaked. He reached behind you and stroked Michelle's head, murmuring something in French. You didn't hear her respond. He looked at you. ‘Thank you.'

You led the way to the back of the block of flats. There was an alley directly across from you. You navigated between three decaying bodies at the entrance.

‘The City of Death,' Westbrook croaked, his legs flexing awkwardly as he jerked along almost robotically, his joints stiff and inarticulate.

‘How did they get you?' you said, aware that the woman was moaning constantly now. ‘What were you even doing here?'

Westbrook glanced across. ‘That's a long story.'

‘That may be. But is there stuff you need to be telling me in case we split up and you don't make it?' No point sugaring the pill.

The man grimaced. You thought he was trying to smile.

‘What I know about anything I could write on the back of a postage stamp.' He raised his bloody hand. ‘Were I able to hold a pen, that is.'

‘Michelle?'

You were reaching the end of the alley now. It was dark down here so you paused for a moment.

‘Long story,' he said. ‘We were in Angkor Wat.'

‘She has information?'

‘Long story,' he repeated, touching her hair again.

You knew Rogers was listening as he watched the street. He seemed to sense you watching him.

‘They'll be sending out patrols by now,' he said. ‘This place will be humming. We've got to get going before the whole city goes into lockdown.

You looked at your watch. Still a few hours of daylight. ‘We need to circle round to get back to the harbour.'

‘Lead on, Big Mac,' Rogers said.

‘I think you mean Macduff,' you said.

‘Whatever,' Rogers said. ‘As long as dill pickle features.'

G
ilchrist had arranged an urgent appointment with a psychologist called Mike Simeon at Sussex University to see if he would do a psych evaluation of Rafferty before they decided how to proceed.

She and Heap got lost on campus. They were eventually directed to an office block set against a steep slope. There was no reception so they just followed signs to Simeon's door, which was open, as was his window. Papers fluttered on his desk from the through breeze.

Dr Simeon was a lanky man with a three-day growth and untidy hair. He was wearing jeans and a denim shirt poorly tucked into his waistband. He sat with them at a table by the window, in the cooling breeze.

Gilchrist had filled him in on Rafferty on the telephone.

‘He sounds like he might be the kind of person I'm studying,' Simeon said now. He had a quiet, calm voice that Gilchrist found soothing.

‘And what kind of person is that?' she said, conscious she had lowered her voice in response.

‘People born without empathy.'

‘Empathy,' Gilchrist repeated.

Simeon cleared his throat. ‘Empathy is the urge to respond with an appropriate emotion to another person's thoughts and feelings. But there are those people who feel nothing. People who don't give a damn about the rest of us.'

Gilchrist gave a little snort. She'd known a few of those in her time.

‘Born without it or had it destroyed in them?' Heap said.

Simeon chuckled. ‘Ah – the old nature versus nurture argument. I believe these people are fundamentally born without empathy but, yes, a bad environment would make them worse or paralyse empathy in someone. Child soldiers in Africa, for instance. Those involved in genocide in Rwanda or, before that, Cambodia, say, under Pol Pot. Terrorists who plant bombs in crowded markets or on planes.'

‘Although Rafferty's interest is in the long-dead,' Gilchrist said. ‘Can any of us be expected to have empathy with a skeleton?'

‘Of course – if only as a memento mori,' Simeon said.

Gilchrist glanced at Heap, her walking encyclopaedia. He didn't disappoint.

‘As a reminder of our own mortality,' he murmured.

Simeon looked from one to the other of them and smiled. ‘Simon Baron-Cohen is
the
expert on autism. He reckons an autistic child can't grasp either their own or other people's thoughts and feelings. Feelings are like an alien language to them. That's why they are so socially inept. Baron-Cohen calls it mind-blindness. He's also come up with the idea of the Extreme Male Brain.'

‘He must have met Detective Sergeant Donaldson,' Heap blurted, then flushed.

The psychologist smiled but shook his head. ‘Extreme male doesn't mean macho, if that's what you're thinking,' he said.

‘What does it mean?' Gilchrist said.

‘Baron-Cohen – he's related in some way to that
Borat
guy, by the way – thinks people are all somewhere on a spectrum between empathy and systemizing.'

‘Systemizing?' Gilchrist said.

‘Yes – you know: organized, interested in how things function or making sense of things by identifying or creating a system around them. You might say that's what founders of religions have done to make sense of the world. But you're mostly talking scientists, technologists, engineers and maths geeks.'

‘This is the Extreme Male Brain?'

‘It is primarily a male thing, yes.' Simeon gave a little shrug. ‘On the whole women empathise, men systemize. But the Extreme Male Brain is at the extreme systemizing end of the spectrum. No empathy at all.'

‘Most women are more empathetic,' Gilchrist said. ‘That's clearly true. But you're saying autism is an extreme form of maleness?'

‘In this narrow context, yes.'

Heap leaned forward. ‘Sociopaths feel nothing – does that make them autistic?'

‘Good question – but no. Baron-Cohen identified two kinds of empathy. Cognitive and affective.'

Gilchrist sat back. ‘I was doing so well too. Speak as if to a child, doctor. I'm just a Plod.'

He seemed to take Gilchrist at her word, which miffed her a bit.

‘OK, cognitive empathy is where you're trying to figure out what a person's feeling and thinking. Affective empathy is the way you respond when you do figure it out.

‘So, autistic people and people with Asperger syndrome have no clue what mental shape another person is in. They get a zero for cognitive empathy. But, often, once they are told about someone's state of mind they know how to respond in an appropriate way. Now this response is most likely learned but it means that, after a fashion, they can operate in society.'

‘Sounds like a sociopath to me,' Heap said.

Simeon shook his head. ‘A sociopath is the other way round. They have cognitive empathy but no affective empathy. Sociopaths can figure out what a person is feeling and thinking but they don't use that information to respond empathetically, they use it to manipulate them. Further, autistic people aren't cruel – not deliberately, at least – although they might be cruel by default. Sociopaths are manipulative and use their cognitive empathy just so they can hurt others.'

‘Which is Rafferty?'

‘Well, I'm not sure I know how to answer that because, as you said, detective inspector, he's not trying to relate to living people. He's dealing with bones – so he doesn't have to worry about what they're feeling. But in his puzzlement at how other people react I'm guessing he's not got much cognitive empathy.'

‘Except that he did this activity in secret, at night,' Heap said. ‘As if he knew it was wrong.'

Simeon looked at him for a moment. ‘Surely that was just so he wouldn't be caught.'

The ensuing silence was interrupted by Gilchrist. ‘So in this theory it's definitely nature over nurture?'

‘Sure – except for what autistic people can learn. It's also averaging out – it doesn't mean that any individual man or woman is typical. And it doesn't mean every autistic person is going to be great at taking a bike apart and putting it back together.'

‘Even in Brighton?'

Simeon gave an unexpectedly broad grin. ‘Maybe here.'

You spent the next hour dodging foot and vehicle patrols as you made your slow way back to the waterfront. You'd dosed Michelle with morphine and she was out cold.

You gave Westbrook sugar solution and water. He got stomach cramps and he squatted in a corner for a while, afterwards casting around for something to wipe himself with. When he started moving again, he seemed a little stronger.

He walked with Rogers as you carried Michelle. The two men carried on a low conversation.

When you'd come up the Mekong you had disembarked some kilometres down the coast then done a loop round the back of the city. Now your plan was to go directly to the port and steal a boat.

You were better armed and better trained than anybody you were going to come across but you knew the enemy could strike lucky. Even so, you felt your chances were good if you kept your wits about you. You were forgetting the state of undeclared war with Vietnam.

You estimated you were within six blocks of the harbour when your way was blocked by a much bigger patrol than you had yet encountered. You scurried down an alley to the right. There was another patrol on the next street. On the next street it was the same story.

You and Rogers exchanged glances.