She asked the man she cleaned for to help her out. At first he couldn’t think what kind of girl to introduce to a cripple. She’d have to be able to look after him, of course, so she’d have to be strong and she couldn’t be an idiot. But it didn’t really matter what she looked like. In the end he found an ugly girl, a real minger. He told her that her future husband’s legs were a bit stiff, but he could walk a bit. When she found he couldn’t even stand up, she turned them down flat.
Next he tried someone from the country — if a girl was poor enough she’d do anything to escape. He came back from a remote village in Sichuan with a beautiful girl. Everyone thought she was wonderful, but one day the mother stumbled out of the house, yelling that their deposit book and their ID cards were gone. The girl had taken them and cleared out their savings. Turned out she’d given them a false address as well.
Now they didn’t even have a dowry.
The mother started getting bruises. She’d greet her neighbours with a good morning and a cheery smile, but her face was covered in marks. The neighbours were not surprised. A mother gives her child everything, and her only fear is having nothing to give. A mother would cut flesh from her body for her son to eat. They tried to intervene, but the mother said ‘It doesn’t matter. Let him hit me, if it makes him feel better.’
There was an old guy who lived a few streets away with his retarded daughter. She was violent too. When she got angry she’d hit her father so hard he’d run across the street and swear at her. Someone made a crack about their two households being well matched, but the mother took it seriously. She went and cooked for the old man. She did his washing and looked after his simple daughter. She brought her son round on her back and made him play with the daughter, even though she barely had the brains of a three year old.
How could a retard look after a cripple? But the mother wasn’t that stupid. She was counting on the two of them having a child. When the child grew up, it could look after the disabled parents.
The plan went wrong the night she moved her quilt to the old man’s bedroom. Her son was in with the daughter on a mattress laid out on the floor, but the retard got bored of playing with him and dragged him out of her room like a dead dog. She left him in the middle of the street, blocking the road, and when a truck couldn’t get past the driver woke all the neighbours with his horn. They peered out of their windows and saw the cripple dragging himself along in the dirt, his neck rigid with effort as the girl shouted ‘Go away! I don’t want to play with you any more.’
His mother begged on her hands and knees, but she refused to have him back. That girl must have had some smarts because she ran to a telephone box and called the cops. They carted him off in a car. The neighbours said that his legs thrashed about under the cop’s arm but his eyes were full of despair. They didn’t see much of them after that.
2. THE INTERROGATION
Some suspects deny all charges. Some play dumb, others play the innocent. But I’d never met a suspect who simply ignored me. He couldn’t look at you straight, he had to screw up his face and squint sideways, but as he sat there in the interview room his gaze was fixed off to one side, as if he was already somewhere else.
With his mother dead, there was no one left to look after him. He couldn’t eat, he couldn’t go to bed, he couldn’t piss or shit without help, so the cleaners had to do everything for him while he was locked up. They made a fuss about it all right, but when they helped him go to the toilet they’d say, ‘Aiya, that guy’s cock is huge.’
But I didn’t care about his cock. I just wanted him to confess.
I watched him in his cell one night, thinking he might drop his guard. He was writhing about on the floor, banging his head against the wall, sobbing maybe — I guess if you’d killed your mother you’d be sorry, no matter what. He struggled frantically, like a dying animal, and called out ‘Mum!’ His whole body suddenly shook and he was still. He looked like he was dead.
After a long time, he propped himself up on one arm, flopped over and groped blindly for the wall. He stretched out a hand and rubbed the wall. Then he lay down again and let out a long sigh.
When we went to fetch him the next day for a court appearance, the wall was covered in spunk. The whole cell reeked of it, that male smell of sex. It was revolting. An officer dragged him straight to the interview room.
‘What were you doing last night?’ I shouted
No answer.
‘You did nothing?’
‘What am I supposed to have done?’
‘I’m asking you.’
‘I didn’t do anything!’
‘Then what’s that on the wall?’
‘Nothing.’
‘I just went in your cell.’
Grin.
‘What is that stuff?’
‘Snot.’
‘Liar. Let me remind you. We’ll go easier on you if you’re straight with us. Screw us around and you’re in big trouble. Tell us the truth.’
‘About what?’
‘You wanked off!’
He looked down.
‘I didn’t.’
‘Didn’t what?’
‘I just didn’t.’
I needed him to say it. He had to say it. He was ready to talk. I had picked at his scab and now it was bleeding. He glared at me and jerked his head like a chicken being strangled.
‘What makes you think you’re so great,’ he shouted, ‘with your arms and your legs?’
‘I am an officer of the law,’ I answered.
‘And what if you were a cripple?’
‘I wouldn’t murder people. I wouldn’t murder my mother.’
‘Shut up.’
‘Did she kill herself then?’ I sneered. ‘What did you kill her for?’
‘We couldn’t live together.’
‘You got angry?’
‘I hated her.’
‘Why? Was it her fault you were a cripple?’
‘Yes!’ he shouted.
He didn’t say anything more. He just sat there rocking back and forth with his arms as if he wanted to get up and go. He swayed from one side to the other, then slid to the floor with a groan. I called in the cop who had brought him. The cripple scrambled on to his back like a child, desperate to get away.
‘You hated her, didn’t you?’ I shouted. ‘Is it because she stopped you wanking?’
The cop put him back on the chair.
‘Did your mother find out about your disgusting habit?’
He didn’t answer.
‘So you’re not going to talk,’ I said. ‘Fine. But you killed her because you hated her.’
‘I didn’t hate her!’ he shouted. ‘I didn’t hate my mum!’
His whole body shook as he glared at me, choking with fury. He gave a hoarse cry, his eyes bulging, and then slumped back, gasping for breath with his face dangling backwards over the chair as if his throat was cut.
‘You hated her,’ I said. ‘You hated your mother, and so you killed her.’
He didn’t deny it.
‘Because she gave birth to you?’
He nodded.
‘If she couldn’t make me happy, why have me?’ he said.
‘But you didn’t get sick until you were two years old.’
‘She should have killed me then.’ He gave an odd laugh. ‘One shake and that would have been it. A grown-up is stronger, it’s harder to die.’
‘Stop thinking about death.’
‘Easy for you to say. You can have whatever you want. A job, a wife … ’
‘You could too,’ I said. But I knew that wasn’t true.
‘Yes, I could,’ he said and laughed again. ‘But what kind of girl would she be? I’ve met the ugliest, stupidest girls in the world. Why would I want to get hitched to one of them? My mum said I should get married, because that’s what normal people do. But I’m not normal, am I.’