14. THE DRUG TAKER

Who is the professor and who is not?

“I have a big problem,” muttered Inspector Wasp to his sergeant, “and that is which one of the two men actually is Professor Styx.”

“They both are if you believe the clone story,” muttered Sergeant Stone, “but I don’t. Do you remember the fuss over Dolly the sheep, the first complex animal to be cloned years ago?”

“Yes. Dolly. Besides the biological difficulties there were moral ones, I seem to remember. Poor old Dolly! And his wife’s called Dolly. Coincidence or deliberate misdirection?”

“If it is it’s clever stuff,” replied Stone, “because I checked up on as many records as I could get my hands on and she’s been Dolly since she was a child. Her real name is Dorothea, but she didn’t like that. She used to say it sounded foreign, so she only responded to Dolly.”

“And are they brother and sister? If they are, and he seemed to say they were, it sounds a bit, what shall I say, unsavoury.”

“They got married best part of fifty years ago and she wasn’t his sister back then. In fact, there’s no mention anywhere of him having a sister. He is, apparently, the only child of Doctor Styx who was surgeon to Lord Wimpleskin of Walmsley, or something like that. Back in those days you had a personal surgeon if you could afford it! His mother was an actress who gave up her trade when he was born, and never returned to it. There are suggestions that in her early years she specialised in, what shall I call them, rather specialist short films.”

“You mean, blue ones? Porn?”

“I don’t know what they were called back then, sir. Remember, it was before the second world war and a lot of stuff was still silent. Apparently she was quite a looker and liked to show it off. The doctor fell for her hook, line and sinker after he attended a secret showing of one of her films at his club.”

“So our professor is the love child of an eminent surgeon and a porn actress.”

“I don’t know too much about love, sir. Apparently they lived separately soon after he was born and he was brought up by the doctor with the help of a series of nannies. None of them lasted long and it was rumoured they left the service of Styx senior because he made personal demands of them.”

“So our professor had a difficult childhood. Having to adapt to a series of nannies can’t have been an ideal way for a boy to learn his place in the world.”

“He had no contact with his mother, it seems. His parents never divorced, it wasn’t the done thing back then, apparently, but they lived very separately, he in that mansion where we arrested him just now and she in New Zealand where she made a comeback in the film world and bigamously married a sheep farmer.”

“But, Sergeant, interesting as his back story is, it gets me no closer to knowing which version of Professor Styx to interview: the one who was waving that gun about or the one who’s just about learned to master two-syllable words if he’s faced with the familiar.”

“There can’t be two, sir. The bit about wiping the old man’s memory is poppycock. What he’s done is probably a mixture of unnecessarily unpleasant drugs and fairy tales. Anyway, we’ll know soon enough now that he’s away from the big house and in our custody. The dope they fed him on will wear off sooner or later.”

“If it hasn’t done any permanent damage, that is...”

“Of course, sir. There’s always that.”

“That’s another thing, We can’t hold onto him for much longer. The law is the law, you know.”

“What about asking him what he wants to do and where he wants to go?”

“He can barely talk, Sergeant.”

“He’s improving. I reckon the young Professor has kept him sedated and now that he’s away from whatever drugs he’s been plied with he should return to his old self, whatever that was like.”

“It’s a hope. I wonder who he is, though? The younger version, I mean. He’s either a damned good actor playing the part of somebody whom he incidentally resembles quite closely, or he’s the real thing with a dream of world domination and the science to achieve it.”

The conversation would have continued as the two men both felt the need to bring their different perspectives to the problem, but they were interrupted by a young constable.

“There are two kids at the front asking for you, sir,” she said to Inspector Wasp.

“Two kids? I don’t know anything about two kids...” began toe Inspector.

“It isn’t a pair of girls bright enough to light up the county is it?” put in Sergeant Stone.

“If you say so, sir,” grinned the constable, “I’ve put them in an interview room just in case what they reckon might be important actually does turn out to be something we can’t do without hearing.”

“It’ll be, what’s they’re names? Sarah and Jane something or other,” said the sergeant, “that’s the girls who found the canal lass. Sensible they were, too, not hysterical or anything like that.”

“So what can it be they want to say? We’re busy enough without having childish nightmares to deal with!” muttered Inspector Wasp irritably.

“I’ll see them. It shouldn’t take long,” smiled the sergeant, “and if you don't mind, constable, you can come with me and chaperone me. You know what girls can be like these days!”

He wandered off with the constable. If it was the pair of girls who seemed to be intrinsically interwoven with this investigation they might be some help. He had enough experience with police work to know that sometimes the greatest insight into seemingly intractable problems came from the most unexpected sources.

He was right. It was the pair who had both discovered the body and seen Ruby in his red knickers on the park.

“Well, ladies, what can I do for you?” he asked.

Jane giggled. “We’re not ladies yet,” she said, “but we thought of something that might be important, so we decided to tell you.”

“Then go ahead, girls,” he said, putting an emphasis on the last word.

“It’s the man in the park,” said Sarah, “I knew there was something familiar about him...”

“You mean, besides his taste in underwear?”

Jane giggled again. “Yes, besides that,” she said, “go on, Sarah, tell him.”

“It’s just that last term at school, soon after we went back after the Easter holidays, he came along and gave us a talk. We both agree it was this same man. You see, he said he was a scientist and he spoke for ages about something called genetics.”

“I know what that is,” nodded the sergeant, “and I’m surprised you do!”

“Oh, we know lots of stuff,” smiled Sarah, “and we know, don’t we, Jane, about the dangers of taking drugs. And he told us, in the talk, that there are drugs that can make a person change completely. Can make them forget everything, even, he said, their own names.”

“Yes, I know,” murmured the Sergeant slowly. “But what’s that got to do with genetics?”

“He said that those horrible drugs can do all sorts of nasty things to a person’s mind, but they can’t alter his genes. It helps, doesn’y it, when it comes to knowing who a person is?

“Well, when we saw him in the park he looked exactly like he said people look if they’re on those drugs. Exactly, And when I say exactly we mean … exactly!”

© Peter Rogerson 25.09.19