Simon Lewis: Comrade Hack

Strangers on a train, Patricia Highsmith, 1950

The train tore along with an angry, irregular rythmn

Guy is good egg; a talented young architect on the up – the only flaw in his life is his vicious estranged wife. On a train journey he meets decadent mother’s boy Bruno, who impulsively plans the perfect double murder – he’ll knock off Guy’s wife, if Guy takes out his father. Without apprarent motive, they’re bound to get away with it…

This was the first and maybe the best of a long list of psychological thrillers. Instead of the traditional antagonist/protagonist Highsmith gives us two men locked in a destructive bond. The strange relationship that develops between Guy and Bruno is like an illicit gay affair; they are said to be joined ‘closer than brotherhood’. Bruno says he loves Guy but after he kills Guy’s wife insists that Guy honour his half of a bargain that was never made – then blackmails the man until he cracks. Guy can never quite break away from Bruno’s grip; in one sequence he even saves Bruno from drowning. Cornered, forced into murder and about to be caught, Guy can still describes Bruno as ‘his own cast-off self, what he thought he hated but perhaps in reality loved.’

As in many of Highsmith’s books, the interest is in the perverse psychology of the characters. Her novels are always astute, well written and twisted. Graham Greene called her a ‘poet of apprehension’.

Hitchcock filmed this one, of course, and though it’s a decent film he neutered its perversity by having Guy refuse to kill anyone. Shame.