The Fanatic Read online

  ‘I’ll be devastated,’ he said. He put his hand over her wrist and grinned at her. She smiled back weakly. The tour had to be better than this. He was making her feel sick.

  Carlin lit the two candles in their holders on the shelf above the fireplace. They flickered for a minute, then the flames shaped themselves and became steady. With his thumb and forefinger he traced their outlines as if he were a potter tapering them out of clay. He liked that, a light that was steady yet not still. He liked the way the glow concentrated onto his face reflected in the mirror. He stood impassively between the flames.

  He’d had it again. The horrors. That was an expression they used in the old days, but then it meant delirium tremens. He’d read it in books. In the dictionary it also said extreme depression. Maybe that was what he was suffering from. Well, it was the horrors right enough. He’d get so far along the Cowgate and then he’d be hit with it. A feeling of helplessness, of events running out of control. Of having been born into the wrong life. Chance could land you on a bed of roses or a torturer’s table. You had no say in the matter at all. And when you realised this, you began to break up physically. You ached, you poured sweat, you trembled like a caught rabbit. You could raise your eyes above the pain but there was nothing up there, no redemption.

  The sweat had dried on him. He’d cut away from the tour again. No doubt he’d be getting his books from Hardie – not that there were any to get. He’d forced his breathing back to normal, walking across the Meadows. It was light relief that he needed. He looked at himself very steadily, an idea forming. Then the mirror started.

  ‘Your name, please?’

  ‘Andrew Carlin.’

  ‘Your occupation?’

  ‘Ghost impersonator.’

  ‘Your chosen specialised subject?’

  ‘The Life, Times and Sexual Deviations of Major Thomas Weir.’

  ‘Andrew Carlin, you have two minutes on the Life, Times and Sexual Deviations of Major Thomas Weir, starting … now by what nickname relating to his reputation for extreme devoutness was Major Weir sometimes known?’

  ‘Angelical Thomas.’

  ‘Correct. In a letter to Sir Walter Scott the antiquarian Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe hinted in some doggerel verse that in addition to mares and cows Major Weir had had sexual relations with which other animal?’

  ‘His cat.’

  ‘Correct. Weir had an incestuous relationship with his stepdaughter Margaret Burdoun and when she became pregnant disposed of her in what way?’

  ‘He married her off to an English soldier.’

  ‘Correct. When in charge of the Marquis of Montrose in the Edinburgh Tolbooth in 1650, how did Weir make himself obnoxious to his prisoner on the night before his execution?’

  ‘He smoked tobacco in his cell.’

  ‘Correct. In the nineteenth century Weir’s house was briefly occupied by one William Patullo who awoke with his wife one night to find what apparition in their room?’

  ‘A calf with its forefeet up on the bed?’

  ‘Correct. In the 1650s Weir lodged in the Cowgate and became acquainted with the terrorist James Mitchel. In whose house did they both stay?’

  ‘Grizel Whitford’s.’

  ‘Correct. A spot on the road between Kinghorn and Kirkcaldy, where Weir and his sister Jean supposedly first committed incest, was marked by what feature ever after?’

  ‘Er … a cross?’

  ‘No, it remained bare and no grass would grow there. Weir was first accused of bestiality in 1651, when a woman claimed to have seen him having sexual relations with which animal while on his way to a prayer meeting at Newmilns in Ayrshire?’

  ‘His horse.’

  ‘Correct. At his trial Weir was found guilty unanimously of incest and bestiality, and by a majority of two further crimes. What were they?’

  ‘Adultery and fornication.’

  ‘Correct. What would be an appropriate response to the suggestion that I am a ludicrous old buffoon?’

  ‘Well ye are, but whit’s that got tae dae wi Major Weir?’

  ‘Correct. Jean Weir claimed that her mother had the ability to read people’s minds. What mark on her forehead signified this power?’

  ‘A mark like a horseshoe.’

  ‘Correct. Weir helped to find James Mitchel work as a chaplain on at least one occasion. What is the Scots term for a clergyman who fails to find employment?’

  ‘Stickit. A stickit minister.’

  ‘Correct. In which of Sir Walter Scott’s novels does a “great ill-favoured jackanape” called Major Weir –’

  ‘Redgauntlet.’

  ‘Correct. In which book’ – BZZZZZ! – ‘I’ve started so I’ll finish, in which book by George Sinclair, Professor of Moral Philosophy at Glasgow University, were the Weirs’ crimes, including their supposed sorcery, described in 1685? And you may answer.’

  ‘Satan’s Invisible World Discovered.’

  ‘Correct. And at the end of that round, Mr Carlin –’

  ‘That was never two minutes.’

  BZZZZZ!

  ‘I can assure you, Mr Carlin … As I was saying, at the end of that round you have scored thirteen points, and no passes!’

  BZZ! BZZ! BZZZZZ! It was the entryphone. Carlin’s entryphone hardly ever buzzed. He gave the mirror two fingers and went to the intercom by the door. He lifted the receiver and listened into it. He could hear a car passing on the street.

  ‘Hello? Andrew, are you there? It’s Jackie, Jackie Halkit. Can I come up?’

  Carlin said nothing. He held the receiver away from himself for a few seconds. Then he pressed the switch that would open the door to her.

  People took ages to come up his stairs. He was on the fourth floor, and the last flight was a narrow stair that led to his flat only, in what had once been the attic space. It belonged to a man who owned one of the third-floor flats, had done a conversion years ago, and who now rented out both and lived off the income elsewhere in the city. Carlin had been there for ten years.

  Jackie peched up to his door. ‘Bloody hell, that’ll keep you fit,’ she said. He held the door open for her and she stauchered in.

  ‘Where do I go?’ she asked. But it was obvious really. The lobby was a tiny rectangle, one end filled with the bulk of a big mirrored wardrobe. There was a door with a glazed window which was the bathroom, and a doorless galley next to it which was the kitchen. She followed herself into the only other room.

  It was bigger than she’d expected. There was a wide dormer window looking out over the roofs of other tenements: a row of bookshelves ran round it below the glass. There was a big armchair in the space in front of the window, with a small table beside it. Opposite, on another table, sat a television and a VCR. She noted the gas fire and the fake fire-surround, with the mirror above it and the candles burning on the shelf. There was another chair, wooden, with a straight back, and a chest of drawers. Under the sloping roof on one side of the window was a narrow bed covered with a folded tartan rug. A radio on the floor beside the bed. A few clothes lying about; a dirty coffee mug; more books. A photograph or two; some pictures on the walls. These were her immediate impressions. There was a general stour about the place, but this wasn’t bad at all. She’d expected Carlin to live in a complete cowp.

  She turned round. He was standing silently behind her. No doubt he was expecting an explanation.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. She shrugged. ‘I don’t really know why I’m here. Is it all right?’

  He smiled. He seemed quite relaxed, she thought. Maybe being on his own territory …

  ‘Is it all right you no knowin why ye’re here?’

  ‘I mean, is it all right me having come? Just turned up? I’m sorry.’

  ‘Is that whit ye’ve done? Jist turned up?’

  He was still playing at his word games then. Although, of course, there was subtlety in it. He knew fine well she hadn’t been just passing.

  ‘You might think I’m invading your privacy.’
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br />   ‘Aye, I might.’ She decided to treat this neutrally. One thing about Carlin, if he wanted you out he would say so. No – he wouldn’t have let you in in the first place.

  ‘You just stay here yourself then?’ she asked.

  Again he smiled, gave a half-nod.

  Her question was superfluous. It wasn’t a bad-sized room, but the more she looked at it, the more folded in on itself it seemed. The ceiling was low, and on either side of the window the coombs sloped down, making it even lower. Also, the place was more full of furniture and other objects than she’d first thought. Especially books. There seemed to be piles and cases of books everywhere, not just under the window.

  ‘I was on the tour,’ she said. ‘Just to see what it was like. I thought you were very good. Realistic. No, that’s daft, not realistic. You had the desired effect. Gave folk a fright, a thrill. Did you know that?’ She was nervous, talking too fast and too much.

  He shook his head. ‘Aye, well. I don’t hang around long enough tae see, but … I guessed. Frae the screams and that.’

  ‘It must drive the local residents crazy,’ she said. ‘Every night. I mean, if there are any local residents round where you do your stuff.’

  ‘Sometimes we go a different route. So as no tae disturb them.’

  ‘That’s good.’ She was surprised, marked a wee plus for Hugh Hardie. ‘That’s considerate.’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘So,’ she said. ‘How come you’ve not been staying the course? You’re good at it. Hugh’s impressed – has he told you? But he says you don’t always stick around. To the end like.’

  The faint smile vanished off his face. ‘Is that why ye’re here? Her master’s voice or somethin?’

  ‘He doesn’t know I’m here. He doesn’t even know where you stay.’

  ‘No unless he’s done whit you’ve done. Followed us hame like? That’s whit ye did, eh?’

  ‘Couldn’t stop myself,’ she said. ‘You went one way, the tour went the other. I had to make a choice.’ She wouldn’t say that Hugh had been on the tour too. That he’d thought Carlin was wonderful at the first encounter. He’d not be thinking that now.

  They’d been following Gerry along the Cowgate, in among the other folk, and Jackie, who’d been half-watching for something to happen, thought she saw a figure that might have been Carlin cowering away in the shadow of the bridge. She took a chance. ‘I’m sorry, Hugh, I’m just shattered, I’m going to leave it here. I’ll go up to Chambers Street and get a taxi.’ He tried to protest – ‘Oh, come on, are you sure?’ – but she started to walk away, and he had to turn and catch up with the party. ‘I’ll phone you!’ he called. She crossed the street, as if heading for Chambers Street, but then when Hugh had stopped looking she doubled back in the direction they’d just come from. A little wave of excitement ran through her: up ahead, going at a pace that made his cloak fly out behind him, was Carlin.

  Now Carlin was staring at her, a kind of dull cold anger. It occurred to her that nobody knew she was there, she’d come alone, uninvited. This room was homely enough but through in the wee kitchen there could be human heads and other body parts pickling in preserving jars; saws, axes, black bin bags, buckets to catch the blood, all the paraphernalia of a bad dream.

  ‘A choice,’ he said. ‘You niver made a choice. No the night onywey. Ye’d awready decided, hadn’t ye?’

  She sighed. ‘Aye, all right. I was on the tour before. I met Hugh for a drink earlier. He said you’d not being doing things right. You know, fulfilling the terms of the contract. But I don’t suppose there is a contract as such, is there?’

  ‘There isna a piece of paper if that’s whit ye mean.’

  ‘Well, Hugh’s kinda like that, I imagine. He’d rather deal in cash and keep no records. I guess what he meant was you’re not sticking to the spirit of the agreement.’

  ‘That cuts baith weys. Whit exactly was he girnin aboot? Forget it, I dinna want tae ken. D’ye want a cup o tea?’

  She thought he must be joking. But he indicated the armchair, saying, ‘I’ll boil the kettle.’

  She took off her coat and laid it on the bed. She glanced along the bookshelves below the window. A lot of Everyman classics and worn-looking Penguins, some of them the old orange-jacketed ones; she picked a couple out and saw the pencilled prices of secondhand shops on the first pages. There were guide-books to various European countries, a few years out of date: Germany, Holland, Hungary, Austria, Switzerland, Italy. Carlin had been in other places, it seemed, or at any rate liked to think about being in them.

  She sat down in the chair and saw herself in the blank screen of the television. She couldn’t imagine Carlin watching TV. Reading books, yes, but what would he watch? Sitcoms? Game shows? Old movies? Ah, maybe that was it. He was a movie buff. The video-player: there was probably a stack of classic movies somewhere. Or a stack of porno flicks. Come on, Jackie, she told herself, grow out of it. You’re both adults now, whatever you thought of him when you were a student.

  She noticed there was a video box lying on the floor beside the television table, half covered by a newspaper. She reached for it. It was empty: the tape was in the VCR.

  A picture of a brick wall, with a coat or cape discarded in the wet at its foot. On the back of the box the haunted, trapped figure of Peter Lorre stared out at her. It was Fritz Lang’s film M. She’d seen it herself years ago. She remembered bits of it: a little girl’s innocence, and its destruction.

  Carlin came back in with a tray: a teapot, two mugs, a carton of milk. ‘I’ve nae sugar,’ he said.

  ‘That’s okay. I didn’t know you could get this on video.’

  He put the tray on the table beside her. ‘You can get maist things on video these days. Ye have tae look aroon but.’

  ‘This is good,’ she said.

  He nodded. ‘Aye.’

  He poured out the tea. ‘Whit d’ye think the M stands for?’

  She’d thought it was obvious. ‘Murderer,’ she said. ‘That’s what the blind guy, the balloon-seller, chalks on his back – I mind that bit.’

  ‘No,’ said Carlin. ‘The blind guy recognises him frae the tune he’s whistlin. It’s yin o the beggars that marks him wi the chalk. It’s 1931, right; the heart o the Depression. The polis have been eftir this killer for years but they’re useless, so the underworld decides tae hunt him doon. Mind the mob boss Schränker – “the best man between Berlin and Frisco” – he says he needs these invisible people, folk that can go anywhere, tae track the killer. And somebody else says, there’s nae folk like that. Well, there is, a haill army o beggars.’ He paused. ‘Why d’ye think the beggar writes M on his coat?’

  Jackie had never heard him say so much, nor sound so animated. ‘Well, you’ve obviously watched it more recently than me,’ she said. ‘The M is to show he’s the murderer.’

  ‘Tae show he’s the murderer. Aye, right enough.’

  ‘What else?’

  He took one of the mugs and waited again for a moment, as if he couldn’t make up his mind.

  ‘I think it stands for a lot o things. A lot o things that begin wi M.’

  ‘Such as.’

  ‘Well, I’ve been watchin it lately, and it makes me think o anither guy on the run, in the shadows. Here in Edinburgh. A guy called James Mitchel.’

  ‘I don’t recognise the name,’ Jackie said. ‘Recently?’

  ‘Na, a long time ago. The Peter Lorre character reminds me o him.’

  ‘Was he a child-murderer then?’

  ‘Na, he was mair intae bishops. But he’s like him somehow.’

  She said, ‘It’s a while since I’ve seen it.’

  ‘I watch it aw the time,’ he said. He laughed and sat on the bed, moving her coat aside. ‘Surprised I huvna worn it oot.’

  He leant forward and picked up the remote control. Flicked on the TV but with the volume off, and started the tape. There was a shot of Lorre with his hands pulling down his cheeks in a mirror. There was a subtitle, part
of a longer sentence: a certain indolence, even lethargy. Carlin fast-forwarded it a bit, his glance shifting between the screen and Jackie while he sipped at his tea. She felt self-conscious. Had he really meant what he’d just said, that he watched this all the time, or was he just playing with her?

  ‘So what’s happening?’ she said.

  He nodded at the screen and hit the ‘play’ button. Somebody was analysing the murderer’s handwriting. The subtitle read: I’m sure that except when he has his fits he’s just a harmless-looking fellow who wouldn’t hurt a fly. It reminded Jackie of something, something from another film about a different killing. Carlin fast-forwarded again, frowning.

  ‘On the tour, I meant,’ she said.

  ‘Whit d’ye mean, whit’s happening?’

  ‘Why did you plunk it?’

  ‘Oh. Dinna ken. Somethin’s gettin tae me.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Research. I’m researchin somethin and it’s havin an effect.’

  She waited, but he didn’t elaborate. After a minute she tried again.

  ‘What effect?’

  He clicked the remote control. The film played at normal speed. There was a big old building of some kind, dilapidated. A disused distillery. Two ragged men were taking a struggling man up some stairs, then down some others. They had his jacket pulled up inside out over his head, blindfolding him.

  ‘This is the trial scene. D’ye mind this?’

  ‘What is it that’s bothering you out there?’ she said. But he hunched forward and began to watch.

  ‘The crims hold an illegal court,’ he said. ‘Awbody’s there. Look at this guy in the leather coat. That’s Schränker. In a couple of years, when the Nazis come tae power, ye jist ken this guy’s gaun tae be an officer in the Gestapo.’

  The subtitle said. We want to render you harmless. You’ll only be harmless when you’re dead.

  ‘Talk to me, Andrew,’ said Jackie.

  ‘Power shifts,’ he said. ‘First it’s one gang, then it’s anither. It’s the same everywhere. When things are in turmoil people need a scapegoat. They need someone tae blame. An M.’

  ‘I feel,’ Jackie began. ‘I wish … I wish I could help.’