The Trawlerman, стр. 26
‘What kind of bad news?’
‘He lost some money in an investment that went wrong.’
‘That doesn’t sound so bad. It’s only money.’
‘Well . . . maybe it is for him.’
‘It’s no reason to be rude, though, is it?’
Alex was shocked. ‘Was he rude?’
‘He was drinking whisky and he told me to just go away.’
Alex went to put her arms around Zoë, but her daughter backed away.
‘Whisky?’
‘I don’t know why people drink it. It tastes absolutely disgusting.’
This time she had been right; a bad thing had been about to happen. And now it had. When Bill South had come out of Maghaberry Prison he had started drinking and it had taken him a while to get sober. He had stayed that way for two years; until now.
Nineteen
Terry Neill’s house was whitewashed; from the road it looked square and unprepossessing, but these were houses that faced out onto the beach beyond.
She rang the bell and Terry appeared at the door in shorts, a white T-shirt and bare feet.
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘You.’
‘You weren’t at the golf club, so I thought I’d come here and try my luck.’
‘How did you know where I . . . ?’
‘I’m a police officer, remember?’
He stood back. ‘Actually, your colleague was here this morning.’
‘Jill? So you heard already then? I’m sorry. I just thought you ought to know . . .’ She half turned to go, then said, ‘How are you?’
He shrugged and smiled. ‘It’s more that I feel really stupid and that people like you know how stupid I’ve been.’
‘It was obviously a good con.’
‘Yeah, well. That’s me. Only the best. Why don’t you come in and have a coffee?’ He stepped back to let her in.
She hesitated, then stepped inside. If it was unimpressive from the road, inside the house was very different. The 1930s interior had been obliterated and replaced with a male modernist fantasy. The ground floor was a long rectangle with a kitchen at one end and an enormous desk at the other, with a pair of Eames armchairs facing a free-standing wood burner in the middle of the room. White bookshelves lined the wall to the left; on the right hung pictures, a mixture of large modern abstracts, smaller landscapes and a few prints. What saved it from looking like a glossy executive magazine spread were the unwashed dishes in the sink, a scuffed rug, and a pair of socks, discarded on the tiled floor.
‘I realise, of course, that I’m the classic fraud victim. I think I’m clever.’ He poured coffee beans into the top of a silver machine on his kitchen counter. ‘There’s plenty of research to show that victims of financial fraud aren’t little old ladies who hide their cash under the mattress . . . Is that sexist?’
‘Yes.’
‘The most common target of financial fraud is in fact a middle-aged man like me who thinks he knows a bit about money. We think we’re smart enough to think we can game the system so instead it games us. Do you like it strong?’ he asked.
When he’d made the coffee, he opened up the doors beyond his enormous wooden desk to a deck that looked out onto the dunes.
‘Who was it who told you about the scheme?’
‘You know who it was? And you know why I can’t feel bitter about it? Because it was poor Ayman. He really thought he was doing me a favour.’
He had cut himself shaving, she noticed. A small nick just below his lip.
‘I gave your colleagues some other names too. Other people from the club. We all feel kind of stupid.’
The marram grass was almost silver in the high summer light. She looked directly at him. ‘Do you think someone might have been angrier than you about what happened?’
‘That’s exactly what Detective Constable Ferriter asked me.’
‘And what did you tell her?’
‘All I’ve learned is that anyone is capable of anything, given the right stimulus. These people are my friends, though. It’s hard for me to imagine any of them doing it. Do you and your daughter often come here . . . to this beach?’
‘We live at Dungeness. You take your life in your hands, swimming there.’
‘And how are you?’
She had come to ask him questions; instead he was asking them of her.
‘So-so. My counsellor says he thinks I keep seeking out situations which put me in danger.’ She looked directly at him.
He smiled back at her. ‘Maybe you are. Back in the sixties, when you could still do these kind of experiments, these two American psychologists took some dogs and divided them up into two groups. The first they gave electric shocks to. The dogs could stop the pain by pressing a lever. The second they also gave electric shocks to, but when these dogs pressed the lever, the shocks kept on coming.’
‘Poor dogs.’
‘Poor dogs, yes. They did this for a little while, then they put both sets of dogs into boxes which they could escape from just by jumping straight out. When they gave the shocks to the first dogs, out they jumped. But the second dogs just lay there whimpering, even when they were being shocked, doing nothing.’
‘The dogs didn’t want to leave the situation that caused them pain?’
‘Trauma had effectively rewired the dogs’ brains so that they became incapable of taking the kind of action they needed to take to stop themselves being hurt.’ He stopped.
‘Are you saying I’m like the dogs in the second box?’
He lowered his head a little, as if looking over the top of glasses that weren’t there.
‘That’s a scary thought,’ she said.
‘You’re a police officer. You must have dealt with victims of abuse. Have you ever noticed how they return to their abuser? Or find new partners who are just as bad as the old ones? Freud called it the compulsion to repeat. Trauma rewires your brain.’
‘You make my emotions sound like parts of a car engine.’
‘Sorry,’ he said, with a small smile.
‘Don’t