Merrick said that would be good of him. Pinky went into Richardson’s office and came back with the diary. Merrick was now sitting. An hour was agreed and written in. Pinky took the diary back and put it on Richardson’s desk. When he returned Merrick had the green folder and was examining the cover. For an instant Pinky was alert but Merrick didn’t open the file and when Pinky was back at his desk he put the folder down. Then, smiling in a friendly way, he adjusted his artificial arm, as if it needed easing. The black-gloved artefact was held out, closed. He prised the fingers open. In the palm of the glove lay Pinky’s watch.
He said, ‘I think this is yours.’
Pinky did not remember with any clarity what happened next. On the whole he thought he just stared at the watch while Merrick sat waiting for him to react. The next thing Pinky was fully conscious of was Merrick standing with the watch in the artificial hand and the green file in the other saying: ‘My understanding from Captain Richardson was that these files were always kept under lock and key and were available to no one when he was not in the office himself.’
And then:
‘I take it you have managed to obtain a key. You were at the filing cabinet the last time I came at this time of evening. If you have such a key you would be well advised to hand it over now.’
Pinky did so.
‘Is this the only file you have removed tonight?’
Pinky nodded.
‘Does this telephone go through to the hospital or the civil exchange?’
Pinky mumbled through dehydrated lips that it went through to the hospital exchange but that the hospital exchange could get any number.
‘Right,’ Merrick said. ‘Wait outside. You will be wise to wait and do nothing foolish.’
Pinky stumbled into the passage. Merrick closed the door behind him. He found himself out on the verandah without knowing how he got there. Shock had affected his ability to co-ordinate what he did and saw with any sort of understanding of it. For instance he was aware of a figure leaning against a pillar, gazing at him, but the figure to him was simply a deformation of the pillar. When he realized it was a figure he assumed he must be hallucinating because it was a copy of the figure of the man who had procured the Indian for him the night before.
After a period of time, borrowed from and never repaid to him, he heard Merrick closing the door of the office. He got unsteadily to his feet, knowing the real shame began now, waiting somewhere for the military police, whom Merrick had obviously been phoning, to come and escort him to a guard-room.
But what happened was quite different. Without even a glance in Pinky’s direction Merrick walked away up the path, followed by the procurer – or, let’s give him his proper name, the Red Shadow. When they were out of sight Pinky began running. Then, wondering where he was running he ran back where it was safe. But it wasn’t safe. So he was sick. After he had been sick he ran off again. Again he ran back and covered the vomit with sand. After he had done that he felt like a visitor, a stranger to the scene. Lights were coming on in windows of other huts that he could see through the trees. The evening was real. He wasn’t real, but the evening was, and this unreal self had to lock Captain Richardson’s office up. Before that he had to close Captain Richardson’s office windows.
The green file was still on the desk. Automatically he went with it into Richardson’s office. The cabinet wouldn’t open. He felt for his key. Merrick had it. Or had he? Pinky turned on lights and started hunting for the key. There was no key; only the locked cabinet and the rogue file that couldn’t be put back into it. If he could only get the file back into the cabinet and lock it he might be able to say he hadn’t done it and that Merrick was lying. He knew this was impossible but that’s the way his mind was working. Then he remembered that the key and the file were quite unimportant in comparison with the wrist-watch. Perhaps he could find the watch. If Merrick had left the file lying round perhaps he had left the watch. There wasn’t a watch, though. Merrick had the key and the watch and he, Pinky, had the file. He hid the file in a drawer in his own desk. He shut all the windows and turned off the lights, locked the doors and ran back to his quarters. He went to the latrine. What he evacuated was liquid. He sat in the latrine in the dark with the liquid streaming from him. Then he did a very odd thing. He manipulated himself into a state of excitement and then out of it and leaned back exhausted. Subsequently this puzzled him. He asked Sophie if Sophie could explain why he did a thing like that. Sophie couldn’t but remembered later and told Potter that he’d read somewhere that when a man was being executed by the rope he sometimes suffered an involuntary emission as though that part of him too was saying good-bye.
*
In the morning, unable to face what had to be faced, Pinky reported sick. The duty MO couldn’t find anything wrong with him but he looked so terrible that to be on the safe side the MO sent him to the staff sick-bay for observation. There was no one in sick bay except an Indian orderly. Pinky lay on a bed fully clothed. He was given a nimbopani and drank it gratefully but immediately afterwards brought it up. A QA sister arrived to chart his temperature and pulse. The temperature was slightly above normal and the pulse was rapid. An hour later he brought up another nimbopani. The duty MO came over. Specimens of urine and blood were taken. Pinky was put into hospital pyjamas and bedded down. He lay curled in the embryonic position. He hadn’t slept at all the previous night. Mercifully he slept now, shutting the world out. He slept right through the most traumatic part of the day – the hour of Merrick’s appointment with Richardson. When he woke in the late afternoon Richardson was sitting on his bed.
‘My green file on the ordnance officer, Captain Moberley,’ Richardson said, quite gently. ‘Can you tell me where I might find it? I have an interview with him this evening.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Pinky said. He felt calm now. ‘It’s in the bottom left-hand drawer of my desk.’
‘Thank you, Pinker.’ Richardson stayed on the bed. Pinky could see that he was considering a number of alternative statements. Richardson was not a great talker. He was so used to listening. ‘All things considered, Pinker,’ he said eventually, ‘I think you’d better remain here for a day or two, even though there is nothing physically wrong with you. I don’t mean that you’re malingering. I mean that your illness is psychosomatic. I take it you yourself are in no doubt of that?’
Pinky nodded. There was nothing Richardson could do for him but Pinky felt at least he understood. Richardson’s was the last friendly face he was likely to see until he came out of prison. But he did not think he would ever come out. He would die of terror and humiliation. He hoped so. How could he ever face his parents again if he survived to be sent home? Two years. In an Indian prison. For a crime he hadn’t committed and had never intended to commit. He had only wanted a bit of love.
The next morning he felt not better but somehow purged. The QA sister said she was pleased with him. He had expected that by now everyone would have heard about him and he had steeled himself to bear their contempt. So he guessed that whatever Richardson was doing he was doing as discreetly as he could.
Allowed up, he sat on the sun-verandah of the sick-bay and opened his mind slowly to his ‘case’ – the strange and puzzling aspects of it. The business of the files was of minor importance, surely. What Merrick was after was the nailing of men like him: queers. Probably Merrick had taken one look at him months ago and thought ‘Ah.’ His discovery that Pinky was sneaking looks at confidential files – gloating over them – would simply have reinforced a poor opinion of his character. And yet. And how long had Merrick had him watched and followed? When Pinky thought back to those weeks patrolling the bazaar he went cold.
Pinky had never seen the Indian procurer before but he must have seen Pinky. Was he in Merrick’s pay or a fellow-victim of Merrick’s cleaning-up operation? And what had happened to Tommy, the Indian lad? Had he been working with the procurer or had he been pounced on afterwards and made to hand the watch over? And then what happen
ed? Had Merrick pounced on the procurer? Pinky became dizzy trying to work out the permutations. So he closed his mind to his case and lay on the sun-verandah all day trying hard to think of other things like home and times when he had been happy.
But throughout the day one question kept nagging at him. Why me?
*
After two days in sick-bay he reported for duty at Richardson’s office. He had already packed a military criminal’s kit – his small pack. When he arrived he found another NCO at his desk. The new lance-corporal said it would be helpful if Pinky could show him the ropes. He asked Pinky where he was going. All Richardson had told him was that he was to take over Pinky’s job. Pinky said he didn’t know yet but thought he’d better not interfere unless Richardson gave him official permission to hand over. He waited outside. Richardson arrived. Pinky saluted smartly. Richardson told him that since he was up and about he might as well show the new NCO some of the routine. A spark of hope was kindled. Logic said he should have been in a guard-room long ago. It was very odd. He spent the morning and afternoon helping his successor. Richardson came and went. He was neither friendly nor unfriendly. About five o’clock he came back and as he went into his office he told Pinky to come in.
When Pinky was inside with the door shut Richardson handed him a piece of paper. Pinky read it. He read it twice. It was a posting order to a Field Ambulance in a division that was preparing for something called Operation Zipper. When Pinky finally understood what this meant he sat down without asking permission and cried.
He cried from relief and out of gratitude. The only explanation he could find for his escape was that somehow Richardson had managed to suppress the terrible charge. How, he could not begin to imagine. For a moment he did not care.
Richardson let him cry the cry out. It didn’t last long and wasn’t noisy. The lance-corporal in the other room could not have heard it. Richardson poured him a glass of water and then went and stood in a characteristic position, with his back to the room, looking out of the window, his hands in his trouser pockets.
When Pinky had quietened down he stood up, ready to leave. He said that before he went he wanted to apologize for having abused Captain Richardson’s confidence in the matter of the files. He knew it had been very wrong and he was very sorry. He didn’t know what else to say because he couldn’t bring himself to mention the thing that Richardson had only referred to obliquely – so obliquely that it was almost as if he hadn’t referred to it at all.
Richardson said, ‘Yes, I suppose it was an abuse. Between us we might have overlooked it, but in all the circumstances I decided you would have to go. If it’s any comfort to you, Pinker, although I suppose I ought not to say this, I think you were extremely unfortunate to have come up against that particular officer. However, there it is. You did. And no experience, however disagreeable, is ever wasted.’
Richardson left the window, smiling, as if nothing much had happened. ‘Also, if it’s any comfort to you, from observation I’d say that you’ll actually be much happier in the field than in a place like this. Your conduct sheet is clean, there’s no reason why it shouldn’t stay like that, is there?’
Richardson offered his hand. Dumbly, Pinky took it.
‘Tell me,’ Richardson added, putting his hand back in his trouser pocket. ‘How long was Major Merrick trying to get me on the telephone the other evening?’
‘Get you on the telephone, sir?’
‘He said he tried to ring me so that I could come over and deal with – this problem. He said he tried there and then, from this office.’
‘He sent me outside, sir.’
‘Yes. I see. How long were you outside?’
‘I honestly don’t know, sir.’
‘Quite. Well, never mind, but actually I was in my quarters the whole evening. You didn’t by any chance palm him off with a dud number?’
‘He didn’t ask for a number, sir. Just whether the phone was on hospital or civil exchange.’
‘Well I only wondered, because my phone never rang. But it’s of no importance. The operators probably ballsed the call up. That wouldn’t be new, would it, Pinker? But perhaps it was as well they did. These things are much better discussed in the cold light of the day after. Wouldn’t you say? Goodbye, Pinker. Good luck.’
Pinker said goodbye and thanked him. He tried to say more but couldn’t. He had the impression that Richardson was really asking him to say more. But he shirked it. Just before he reached the door Richardson said:
‘Oh, Pinker, I nearly forgot. This is yours, isn’t it?’
He was holding out Pinky’s watch.
‘I think it must need a new strap otherwise you’ll lose it again.’
Slowly, disbelievingly, Pinky took the watch. His face was burning. He mumbled something like thank you sir and goodbye sir, and then, remembering, came to attention. He was still at attention when Richardson said:
‘If it’s any interest to you, I found it among the Ms. I suppose it slipped off your wrist when you helped yourself to Captain Moberley’s file.’
That evening, in the midst of his packing, Pinky stopped, sat down and looked at the watch: the gift of his parents when he joined up. Then he threw it on the floor and stamped on it with the heel of his boot until it was in pieces. This was what he had done with his life so far. He resumed packing, pausing every so often to wipe his eyes and cheeks. He kept telling himself to be a man. But that didn’t help. Thus, Sophie found him.
*
There were only two explanations for the returned wristwatch. The first was that Merrick had given it to Richardson and told him how it had come into his possession and that Richardson had persuaded him not to take the matter further but leave him to deal with it. This was the explanation Pinky believed was the correct one – the only one that made sense to him and which bore out his opinion of Richardson’s stout character. It didn’t make sense to anyone who knew Merrick as I knew him. It didn’t make sense to Sophie and Potter but neither had an alternative explanation.
From their point of view here was an officer who had gone to a great deal of trouble to nail Pinky on a charge of gross immorality. Without compunction he had used another man (obviously, according to Pinky’s description, his own servant) to act as agent provocateur and perhaps even a third man, the Indian lad, in order to get incontrovertible evidence. Sophie said he was familiar enough with British police methods in dealing with homosexuals not to find anything in the least remarkable about an officer of the Indian police using similar methods to shop a soldier. If Pinky had ever been charged and tried, Sophie said, we’d have been amazed at the transformation from fact to fiction in the statement made about how the evidence was obtained.
But then, after all this trouble, Merrick had done nothing more. Why? Had Richardson given Merrick a bad time? Had he seen through whatever story Merrick told him and warned Merrick that he would kick up a stink about the deliberate provocation he could see had been used? Had Merrick been scared off, been persuaded to hand over the prime bit of evidence – the wrist-watch – even been glad to get rid of it and slink off none the richer but wiser?
Pinky accepted this as the explanation because he wanted to. Sophie and Potter didn’t accept it but couldn’t conscientiously refute it. At one time after Pinky had gone Sophie was prepared to see Richardson and ask, but Potter dissuaded him. So, failing a revelation, they had both settled for the fact that Merrick had set Pinky up, sadistically using powers which were his but which finally he hadn’t exercised to the full extent open to him – just possibly because after talking to Richardson (but why had he waited to do that and not called the MPS then and there?) he dared not take that risk.
Not dare take the risk? They didn’t know Merrick. He certainly set Pinky up and having set him up used him. If there had been any further advantage to be had out of persecuting Pinky he would have taken it. He was the kind of man who worked for preference within a very narrow margin of safety where his own reputation was concerned. H
e courted disaster. Deep down, I think, he had a death wish. It came out in this way, pushing his credibility to the limit, sometimes beyond it.
But once he had got what he wanted – in the Pinky affair as in any other – he was no longer interested except to the extent that it pleased him to see his victim suffer. What he wanted in this case was not, I think in one sense, very important to him, but he had made up his mind to have it and had seen how he might get it. He had a talent, one that amounted to genius, for seeing the key or combination of keys that would open a situation up so that he could twist it to suit his purpose.
Originally Merrick went to see Richardson to discuss someone who had been one of Richardson’s patients. This may have taken Richardson by surprise and like any psychiatrist he would have been reluctant to discuss the case in any detail. He would not have told Merrick much, only as much as an ordinary man would have realized he had to be satisfied with. But during that interview Merrick realized that there were files – a green one in particular – which would tell him far more, tell him as much as Richardson knew himself and which he was absolutely determined to have a look at. Sheer luck, coming upon Pinky at the filing cabinet the night before, acute observation and shrewd deductive powers, had already shown him the way in which to get that look.
So what Merrick wanted, all that Merrick wanted, was a look at the green file, the private file about the patient he went to discuss. It was as simple, as absurd as this. Even while Potter was telling me the sordid little story I was – because I knew Merrick – casting about for the unconsidered trifle, but the significance of the file did not really emerge until later when I talked to Rowan.
While Pinky was outside on the verandah counting the grains of sand in the fire bucket or whatever he subconsciously did when in the grip of that sense of unreality, Merrick telephoned nobody. He opened the cabinet with the key he had guessed Pinky had and which he had terrified him into handing over and at his leisure looked through the file. The Red Shadow was there to continue terrorizing Pinky but also on sentry-go to warn Merrick if someone not in the little mise en scène approached. When Merrick finished, he placed Pinky’s watch in the cabinet – not in the Bs where the file he had been reading belonged but with the Ms which was the section to which he knew the file on Pinky’s desk belonged, because he had looked at and memorized the name on the cover. He had then locked the cabinet and come away leaving Pinky sitting outside. He must have enjoyed that, leaving his victim in that sort of sickening suspense. He kept his appointment the following day, gave Richardson the key and shopped Pinky – not for sodomy but for abusing Richardson’s trust. Precisely what Merrick said nobody knew, except Richardson.