The spectator, p.19
The Spectator, page 19
“Why was that?”
“No special reason. It bored me to tears, that’s all. I wanted to get out and discover the world rather than sitting in classrooms staring out the window. This so-called education wasn’t doing me any good at all. I came out of school knowing precisely nothing about anything. Perhaps I wasn’t paying sufficient attention, who knows? I don’t blame anyone.”
Roger pauses for more questions but none come. He thinks that either the psychologist isn’t so curious about him after all, or that it’s that timeworn technique where they just want you to go on blabbing about yourself in the hope that something meaningful finally emerges that they can get their fangs into.
Assuming it’s the latter case, Roger drones on, about the newspaper and what he has done there over the past few years. Just the facts; nothing about what he feels about anything.
“Tell me about your relationship with these men you killed,” the psychologist finally asks him.
“I didn’t kill them, you git,” Roger replies rudely. “Haven’t you read the file? I am innocent of the charges against me.”
“Let’s not get insulting. I meant to say these men you are accused of killing, of course. I’m on your side, you know.”
“No, I didn’t know. How do you figure that one?”
“Are you impulsive and disinhibited, sometimes?”
“Look, Doc,” says Roger. “Let’s not play games. I didn’t even enjoy them when I was a child. Just ask me specific, direct questions on the facts, and I can get out of here.”
Do you think I should tell him about you, Roger asks me? That would set the cat among the pigeons, wouldn’t it? He’ll be taking me for Ted Bundy in no time.
I advise him against it. Very prejudicial. If the man learns that Roger has another voice in his mind, that’ll open the floodgates to every flavour of insanity ever dreamt of in the history of criminal psychology. Maybe he wouldn’t go to prison for life, but he’d be interned for ever in one of their hospitals, for sure.
“Would you like a coffee?”
“Yes, I would. Thanks.”
The psychologist goes off, asking the police guard outside the door if he’d like a coffee too. Roger meanwhile stares out of the office window.
I could make a run for it right now, did you notice, Roger asks me? Like Ted Bundy, actually. He escaped from custody, believe it or not. Twice, in fact. But he didn’t have any plans on the outside, except more crime. If one were to do it, one would have to be prepared in advance… He is suddenly feeling more cooperative and thinking that perhaps coming here was not such a bad thing, after all.
“You were asking if I am impulsive,” Roger tells the psychologist when he returns with the coffee. “I suppose I am, indeed. I like making decisions on the spur of the moment.”
“Without much thought, then? Not reasoned?”
“No, I wouldn’t say that. Don’t you think that in most situations we find that we’ve already a history of reasoning and a pattern of behaviour? We don’t start that all over again each time, do we? I think, nevertheless, that we still have choices: do it, don’t do it, that kind of thing, and can decide in a flash. That’s what I meant. It doesn’t imply that we make mistakes, for all that. Just that there are constantly alternatives, several options even, at our disposal about what action to take. As for ‘disinhibition’ – I believe that’s the word you used – I reckon I have the inhibitions of any normal person in society. I’ve never remarked the contrary, in any case.”
That’s it, my boy, I tell Roger. Talk the man into a stupor! Once you’ve got through with him, he’ll wish he’d never taken on your case!
Roger is encouraged by my support and talks his head off for another half an hour on a dozen subjects that pass through his mind, all unrelated, happily, to war criminals, vengeance and justice. Maybe he will have to explain his views on all those questions in court, we haven’t yet figured that one out. After all, with the evidence now available about his investigations into Sok and Archie, how could he possibly justify, other than with the dangerous truth, why he had taken them out to the seaside on an excursion in the first place? A real dilemma lies ahead, for sure.
In the meantime, I can’t resist telling you already the conclusions of the psychologist’s report read at his trial. Roger is “impulsive and narcissistic” and suffers at the same time from “obsessive compulsive and attention deficit hyperactivity disorders.” And much else from the manuals of psychiatry. He is judged sane, though. For better or worse.
A truly shocking experiment
From the day of his arrest to the beginning of his trial, Roger P. spends six months in prison, which is quite a short wait as such things go in our times. For an innocent man, it is nevertheless an eternity, as you may imagine.
Roger has been placed in solitary confinement; he has a cell all to himself, in other words. This is not a punishment, though, as is usually the case. He is alone for his own protection. The prison authorities have judged that the ‘Hack’ has so many enemies that it wouldn’t be impossible to find a few in this very prison who might want something unpleasant to happen to him.
We are delighted, Roger and me, with this situation, of course. We amuse and entertain ourselves very adequately alone. It has always been surprising for men who like to be alone, who perhaps even yearn for it, to hear that prisoners who are isolated in this way very often go crazy, or at least suffer terribly. They need, indiscriminately, the company of other men, it seems.
Though this has been known for centuries by torturers and punishers of all kinds, it was happily confirmed in recent years by another very amusing psychological research project undertaken by our dear American friends. Roger and I had a great laugh when we learnt about it, I can tell you.
A US university recruited hundreds of undergraduates and innocent civilians to undergo experiments of being shut alone in rooms with no means of communication or stimulation other than their own minds and thoughts. At one point, they are each confined in this way for fifteen minutes, equipped only with a button which they are told will give them a strong electric shock if they choose to press it. The poor, innocent psychology professors imagined that “it wouldn’t be that hard for people to entertain themselves” alone for this short moment without self-inflicting physical pain. However … more than two-thirds of the men cracked before the quarter hour was up and actually electrocuted themselves! The brilliant conclusion of this and other experiments in the project was that men are “markedly less happy when spending time inside their heads”.
That’s amazing, don’t you think? But one other thing: a little mystery of the electric shock business was that only twenty-five percent of the confined women, i.e. far, far fewer, pressed the button. Make of that what you will! It would clearly be a research project all of its own that would, though I reckon no one will dare to try and get to the bottom of the matter, since they might have to walk over very thin ice … (When Roger excitedly told Sandra the story on one of her visits, she said, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world: “Women aren’t as stupid as men, that’s not a scoop, darling. Deliberately electrocuting yourself, indeed.”)
So, man is terrified of being left alone with himself to think! Think about that if you would. Or just ask Roger. Before he reached an accommodation with me, he might well have been one of these self-electrocutioners, we have to admit it, if he were deprived for fifteen minutes of his chosen maelstrom of pleasure, as we once so prettily described it.
To be honest with you, though, it would have been quite possible also for the psychologists in this lovely little experiment to have drawn a diametrically opposite conclusion than the one they came up with. That, paradoxically, those who pressed the button simply had much more going on up in their craniums than the others in the way of thought and that, far from the professors’ expected entertainment, this was actually torturing them. I’m sure that you, like Roger, have from time to time had to wait not for fifteen minutes, but for an hour, two hours perhaps, in a hospital waiting room, and observed that the majority of people are quite capable of staring at the wall without even twitching all that time, their thinking processes apparently having not even been activated, and that you can spot the ones who clearly have something going on upstairs by their visible impatience, even distress. In other words, that it was not, as the psychologists supposed, that the electrocutioners were especially bored, but that they couldn’t handle the thoughts they had to deal with. If we believe rather in this explanation, it’s actually quite encouraging. It would mean that something was indeed going on in the heads of two-thirds of the men, but that they didn’t like it at all. Couldn’t control it, perhaps? Didn’t, just for instance, have the quality of dialogue with themselves that Roger and I have established.
Who knows?
At first, Roger imagined that he would spend his pre-trial months studying homicide law in his cell, like they do in the movies, at least when the murderers have chosen to defend themselves. He acquired a handful of basic texts on the matter, but soon abandoned them. They were astonishingly tedious; we agreed on that. And had clearly not been written to help innocent men, either.
Roger thinks that his case is hopeless. Yes, the evidence against him is purely circumstantial, but everything points towards his guilt. At times, until I rein him in, he even develops the very arguments for his culpability. I wanted them dead, he tells me; I took them there with the intention of killing them; I abandoned them at nightfall in a dangerous spot. What more could you ask for as reasons for conviction? Only that you are nevertheless innocent, I remind him. And that no one at all, other than Sandra, of course, knows that you ever had plans for murder.
What do you think actually happened, he kept asking me? Do you think that they jumped, in some kind of desperate suicide pact, believing that their crimes were to be imminently exposed, and that they would be arrested and shamed and punished? Or did they simply fall in the dark; an act of providence? The geologist ruled out a landslide, unfortunately.
I could never give Roger a satisfactory answer, because there was no way anyone could ever know, of course. I like to think that they disobeyed the signpost and leapt to their deaths, knowing they were at the end of the road with no chance of escaping their fate. The only thing I’m sure we can rule out with certainty is that they killed themselves from guilt or remorse; that goes without saying.
This is not Kafka
What can I tell you about the trial, dear reader?
It was fair, at least, something for which we should all be grateful. In half the world today, verdicts are decided in advance and the judges do what they are told. The accused have little if any opportunity to defend themselves; they are often deprived of lawyers; the proceedings take place well away from the inquisitive eyes of the public and the press; there are no juries of the people. Yes, that is still the sad state of justice among men on much of our earth, I’m afraid. Even Socrates got a better deal two thousand four hundred years ago.
Roger is allowed to talk himself to death if he wants. He has rejected legal representation, as I mentioned, but that’s entirely his choice. No one can claim the judge has been told how to do his job; the relations between the judiciary and the government are sufficiently strained as it is without politicians daring to meddle in the cases of individuals.
The jury has been selected according to time-old practices and it wouldn’t cross anyone’s mind to suggest that they have been interfered with outside the courtroom. Yes, they bring with them each day, in addition to their sandwiches, a whole array of prejudices and surely also a rich variety of the famous cognitive biases, but there’s not a lot anyone can do about that, is there? We don’t know if they are readers of ‘The Daily Hack’, but it wouldn’t be very surprising if at least some of them were. Whether this is helpful to Roger or unhelpful, it’s impossible to say.
What is certain is that Roger quickly puts the judge in a bad mood when he is asked to confirm his name and his employment.
“Roger P., Your Worship. Investigations Editor at ‘The Daily Hack’.”
“Your Honour,” says the judge.
“That’s too much. Please do call me Roger.”
The judge is not amused at all. Roger, please, behave yourself, I exhort him. This is not the time nor place for being a smartarse. The rest of your life is at stake!
“Let me tell you one thing before this trial gets underway, Roger P.,” says the judge. “We are inclined to make certain allowances in cases where the defendants have chosen, wisely or not, to represent themselves. I’d like to make it clear that these do not extend to sarcasm or attempts at wit. The Court, Mr P., does not have a sense of humour, most particularly when the charge is one of murder, two murders, in your case.”
In order to spare you a lot of tedious procedural matters and excruciating clarifications about this or that legal detail, dear, impatient reader, I shall condense this account of the trial itself in the same way as they do in the cinema.
The prosecution presents its case: Roger P. spent weeks investigating the pasts of his two victims and found that, in his opinion, they were both guilty of war crimes. Neither Sok Charya nor Archie Samuels are on trial, so the Court and the jury will not be asked whether or not there is any foundation at all to his accusations. That is in any case completely irrelevant, says the prosecutor, and can play no part in considerations of whether the defendant is guilty or innocent of murder as charged.
In short, Roger P., who was angry at what he suspected were their crimes, and deeply frustrated that they would never in his view be brought to justice, lured them out to a location which in everyone’s estimation is extremely dangerous and, quite clearly, pushed them over the cliffs to resolve this internal conflict of his. The case is really cut and dried.
In support of this narrative, and aside from showing photographs of the cliffs, the picnic area, the beach and the broken bodies, the prosecution calls and examines only two essential witnesses – Sheila Samuels and Fred Bowdler, though various others briefly appear to confirm material aspects of the case. Roger will save his testimony by calling himself as a witness.
Sheila Samuels spends her time in the stand bawling her eyes out and adds little or nothing to the prosecution’s case except, perhaps, to soften up the jurors. She confirms that the accused’s wife has, in a most underhand manner, sought information of a slanderous nature about her ex-husband’s professional activities, and passed it on to the defendant. All of which the court is now aware of from the prosecution’s introductory remarks. She will say no more; may her Archie rest in peace.
For better or worse, Roger doesn’t even bother to cross-examine her. We both agree that it would not produce any useful information and that he might worsen his standing in the eyes of the jury by appearing to bully the poor widow.
Fred Bowdler is another type of fish entirely. Roger and I have speculated in advance about his testimony, but have not been sure at all which way he might play it. He possesses most of the information to condemn Roger, but surely will be loyal to his favourite reporter and, without saying anything false, of course, will try and smooth things out for him.
We are rapidly proven comprehensively wrong.
As Bowdler takes the stand in turn, the judge asks him for a clarification on his identity.
“Was it not your newspaper, ‘The Daily Hack’, which infamously defamed several of my greatly esteemed colleagues with a front-page headline calling them ‘Enemies of the People’?”
“No, no, Your Honour. That was another publication. We would never be so disrespectful.”
The judge clears his throat, apparently to indicate his scepticism, and then signals to the prosecutor to get on with his witness examination.
Roger has thought to intervene and ask Bowdler if it is nevertheless true that they had investigated the judges in question, making homophobic remarks about one of them and implying that they were all three actually drunkards. I tell Roger sharply to keep quiet; we want Bowdler to be on our side, as far as it’s possible.
Our hope is in vain.
Bowdler tells the Court that Roger P. was once his most prized reporter, but that he had gone completely downhill after becoming paranoiac about two of his friends and neighbours, who he set out, for reasons beyond Bowdler’s comprehension, to cast as very wicked men, even war criminals, as the prosecution has said. Bowdler had thought from the very start that they were cock and bull stories, these allegations about Archie Samuels and biological weapons and this case of mistaken identity over an upstanding Cambodian refugee given shelter by our country. He had told Roger to cease his wild speculations and get back to his job of dealing with matters of immediate concern, in the current climate of crisis, about events in this country.
“What was Roger P.’s reaction to your refusal to let him pursue these fantasies?” asks the prosecutor.
“He got very angry. Spoke to me in a very insolent manner and told me he wouldn’t leave things there, that he’d find a way of bringing these men to justice without the ‘Hack’s’ help.”
That was the case. In a nutshell. It doesn’t matter in the slightest, Roger sees, that his so-called ‘fantasies’ are factually true. All the jury will need to understand is that he believed them to be true and that, as the judge explained to them at the outset, he thus had reason and intent to do these men harm, to exact his own justice.
Roger has only one question for Fred Bowdler in cross-examination.
“Isn’t it true that when ordering me to cease my investigations into these cases, you actually told me: ‘I’m not interested in your fucking war criminals or the fucking Cambodian genocide or fucking Syrian chemical attacks and nor are our fucking readers. I’m interested in the price of chickens.’? Or words to that effect. I just want the Court and the public to know what kind of a man and what kind of newspaper we’re dealing with here.”
