The Insult by Rupert Thomson Read Free Book Online

was money for research!’ Visser said. ‘Perhaps you’d like to dictate a letter to the government on my behalf.’
    This was an extremely clever riposte, and I had no choice but to chuckle quietly and let the matter drop. After he’d gone, I thought back over what I’d seen the previous night. Had my eyes deceived me? Or was Visser lying? And, if so, why?
    During the next week or two I tried on several occasions to return to the walkway in order to verify my findings. Kukowski’s memory techniques proved worse than useless. One night I found myself outside, in the vegetable garden. In frustration, I pulled up half a dozen carrots, brushed the mud off them and ate them on a bench in the moonlight. Another night it was the laundry: washing-machines with drums the size of jet engines and huge cast-iron calendar-rolls for pressing sheets. Once I even mistakenly walked into the Reminiscence Room. It was while I was there, sitting on the therapist’s chair, that I decided that I didn’t have a past. I had a present, though, and it remained a mystery to me.
    The summer faded, and the nights grew cooler. I started wearing socks for my clandestine expeditions. Visser toured the ward each day, the truth concealed beneath a white coat that seemed as crisp as the leaves that now lay strewn on the clinic lawn.
    One evening I woke from a nap to see Nurse Janssen bending over me. She was wearing all her clothes, and gave no sign that she might be about to take any of them off. I’d referred to her performance once or twice – the references had to be oblique, of course – and she’d promptly accused me of being ‘just like all the others’. I’d disappointed her, she said. She’d thought I was different. ‘I am different,’ I told her, though there was no way she could understand what I meant by that.
    ‘You’ve got a visitor,’ she said.
    ‘What, again?’ I said. ‘I’m not here.’
    ‘It’s the police. The gentleman who came before, if you remember. Detective Munck.’
    ‘Oh, well,’ I said, sitting up, ‘in that case. Yes, of course. What a relief.’
    ‘It’s not often you hear that, as a policeman,’ Munck said.
    He stepped out from behind Nurse Janssen, who turned and walked away, leaving us alone together. This was the first time I’d seen him. He was a tall, gangling man, with dark hair that was neatly parted and rather dry, and teeth that were ridged, like celery.
    ‘No, I suppose not.’ I laughed. ‘I thought you were my fiancée. My ex-fiancée, I should say.’
    ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ Munck drew up a chair.
    ‘No, no. Don’t be. It was over long before all this,’ and I gestured to include the ward and all the blind men in it. ‘This just made everything clear to me. Does that sound odd?’
    ‘Paradoxical, perhaps. Not odd.’
    I liked Munck. He was somebody I could talk to. He had a brain. And that sleepy voice, I now saw, was perfect for the work he did. It was an instrument for winning confidence. He could use it to coax information out of witnesses. Or lull criminals into confessions.
    He opened his briefcase, took out a brown-paper bag and put it into my hands. ‘I don’t know whether you like pears,’ he said.
    ‘How kind.’ I opened the bag. Inhaled.
    ‘I was passing the market and, well –’
    ‘Thank you.’ I told Munck about my trips to the city as a child and how my grandmother always used to bring a pear for me to eat on the tram.
    He was nodding. He seemed happy to have chosen the right fruit.
    ‘But this is not a social visit, surely,’ I said. ‘Is there some news?’
    ‘No, I’m afraid not. Not really.’ He leaned his forearms on his knees, hands dangling. How old was he? Forty? Forty-five? ‘There was something I didn’t ask you before. I didn’t think it was worth mentioning …’
    ‘Oh?’
    ‘The night you were attacked, a woman saw a youth running out of the car-park. He was wearing a T-shirt with a message on it. A slogan.It said, THIS