Aiding and Abetting (4 page)

“Christina. They call me Kirsty.”

“Kirsty, I want a double malt whisky. I want smoked salmon to start followed by lamb chops and the trimmings.” “Your room number?” she said.

“I’ll pay the restaurant bill in cash.”

He paid everything in cash, on principle. His source of cash was here in Britain. Nowadays, he came twice a year to collect it personally from his old friend, rich Benny Rolfe, who always, since Lucky’s operation to change his features, had a fat package of money ready for him on his visits. Benny on this occasion was abroad, but he had arranged for the package of pounds sterling to be placed in Lucky’s hands, as he had done twice a year since 1974 without fail. Most of the cash came out of Benny’s own pocket, but there was always a certain amount contributed by Lucan’s other old friends and collected by Benny Rolfe.

“Aren’t you disgusted, ever, by what I did?” Lucky had asked Benny on one of these occasions. “Aren’t any of you horrified? Because, when I look back on it, I’m horrified myself.”

“No, dear fellow, it was a bungle like any other bungle.

You should never let a bungle weigh on your conscience.”

“But if I’d killed my wife?”

“That would not have been a bungle. You would not have been the unlucky one.”

“I think of Nanny Rivett. She had an awful lot of blood. Pints, quarts of it. The blood poured out, all over the place. I was wading in it in the dark. Didn’t you read about the blood in the papers?”

“I did, to tell you the truth. Perhaps murdered nannies have more blood to spill than the upper class, do you think?”

“Exactly what I would say,” Lucan had said. He was disappointed that Benny himself was not available on this visit. He ate through his lamb chops. He studied Kirsty and compared her to Hildegard. From the window of the dining room the North Sea spread its great apparent calm. Benny Rolfe was now in his mid-seventies.

Nearly all Lucky’s old staunch aiders and abetters were over seventy now. Who would provide him with money when his benefactors were gone? So mused Lucky, never letting his mind embrace an obvious fact: one of these days he, too, would be “gone”: a solution to the cash problem. But Lucky did not think along those lines, and he was now filled with nostalgia for Hildegard, that dear doctor. “We are washed in the Blood of the Lamb.” He looked warily over his shoulder at this thought. After dinner he went for a stroll, stopping at a little arts-and-crafts shop which was open late, precisely for people like Lucky to stop at. Among the hideous Scottish folk jewelry he found a fine piece of carved crystal, a pendant, for Hildegard, for Hildegard. He waited while the bearded young fellow wrapped it up for Hildegard, paid over the price and tucked the little parcel in his breast pocket.

All along the shelves under the three windows of Hildegard’s consulting room was placed her collection of miniature cactus plants. It was of such an extreme rarity that Hildegard was quite annoyed when one of her patients innocently presented her with another cactus. It was never of an equal rare status as her own ones, and yet she was obliged to have the new little plant on show at least for a while. Walker had brought her such a plant; it was good but not quite good enough. She placed it with pleased carefulness on the shelf, quite as if it was of the last rarity.

Hildegard waved Walker to his chair.

“There are two of you,” Hildegard said.

Walker looked put out. “Oh, there has to be two of us,” said Walker. “One who committed the crime and one who didn’t.”

“And which of the two is the real Lucan?” “I am,” he said. His eyes shifted from the window to the door as if entrapped.

“Well, you’re a liar,” she said.

“I often wonder about that,” said Walker. “After years of being me, it’s difficult, now, to conceive being him. How did you know there was a pretender?” “A man called Lucky Lucan is one of my clients. He claims to be the seventh Earl.”

“What a sneak, what a rotter!” Walker was really upset.

“The seventh Earl is myself.”

“Sneaks and rotters hack children’s nurses to death, you mean?”

“It was a mistake. Nanny Rivett was killed in error.”

“And the hack-and-bash job on Lady Lucan?” “That was different. She should have died. I was in debt.”

“God, I’d like to turn you over to Interpol,” said Hildegard.

“You won’t do that, Beate Pappenheim. Don’t forget that I’m a professional gambler. I know when the odds are loaded against me. That’s why I’m on the run, that’s why I’m here, in fact. All I am asking for, Beate Pappenheim, is free psychiatric treatment. Nothing more. Just that. Your secret, your blood secret will be safe with me if mine remains safe with you.”

“And Lucky Lucan-my other client?”

“He shouldn’t have come to you at all. He’s a swine.”

“He looks awfully like the original.” Hildegard opened the file she had already placed on her desk in preparation for the interview. “See here,” she said, “Lucan aged thirty eight on the beach, Lucan in his ermine robes, Lucan in his tennis clothes, Lucan at a dance, and playing cards at the Clermont Club with his notorious friends. And,” she said, “I have also a photo kit of what he should look like now, based on computer-devised photos of his parents at your age, and here’s another police identikit which allows for plastic adaptations to the jawbone and the nose. Look at it. Look.”

“But look at me.”

“You look the same height. Your eyes are spaced convincingly. Your English voice is very probable. Yes, but you don’t convince me. How did you get together with Lucky Lucan?”

“I hired him. There were so many occasions when I was nearly caught, especially when collecting the funds that my friends have put at my disposal, that I thought I would take on a double. He effectively fools my friends when he goes to collect. Strangely enough Lucky, so-called, resembles me when I was in my forties more than he does now. And of course, they hardly want him to linger.” “And suppose it’s the other way round? My other client is Lucan and you are the hired substitute?” “No,” said Walker.

“Well, I can’t take you both on as patients.”

“You won’t need to. I’ll deal with Lucky, so-called.

People like us know how to deal with people like him.”

These last words of that afternoon’s conversation hovered over Hildegard’s imagination. “People like us know how to deal . . .” Of course Walker had meant to disturb her. She was aware of that. Once before he had said, when she had asked him why he had not taken the simpler course of giving himself up and standing trial for murder, “People like us don’t go to prison.” He was overfull of his aristocratic qualities, as he supposed them to be, and this was what had led Hildegard to assume he was a fake. “People like us know how to deal with people like him.” Perhaps, after all, he was the real Lord Lucan. “People like us know how to deal . . .” Did Lucan have that conviction in mind when he “dealt” with the woman he thought was his wife, when he “dealt” with the knowledge of his blunder that he had killed only the children’s nurse? People like us . . . people like them . . . It was almost melodramatic, but then, as Hildegard told Jean-Pierre that night, the very situation of Lord Lucan and his disappearance had a melodramatic touch. It was this very naive approach to his personal drama that had probably confused the police in the days after the murder. They were looking for upper class sophistication, but they got nothing but cheap showbiz from Lucan’s friends. Lucan had been drinking heavily, Lucan was hopelessly in debt. But no, Lucan is a friend of ours, he is one of us and you don’t understand that people like us . . . Lucan had sent letters to a friend while he was still so covered in blood that the stains appeared on the envelope. Lucan had turned up in a panic at a friend’s house that night of the murder, with a bloodstain on his trousers.

Blood. “What I’m afraid of,” Hildegard said when she discussed it with her lover, “is that Walker will murder Lucky. It would be in character.”

“But you say that you believe Lucky to be the real Lucan?”

“There is always a doubt. I could be wrong. But Walker sticks in my mind as an unscrupulous fake.” Jean-Pierre had been making notes. It was an hour before they would sit down to dinner. Jean-Pierre gave Hildegard her preferred drink, a small quantity of whisky dowsed in water, took one for himself, a dry martini, and got out his notebook. He read:

After twenty-five years of playing the part of the missing Lord Lucan he surely is the part. The operative word is “missing.” If indeed he has been Lord Lucan in an earlier life he had never gone missing before. After the murder he went without money apparently, without decent clothing, without a passport. He just disappeared.

If he was the real Lord Lucan the clandestine life must have meant a loss of innocence-that he had not known he possessed. The spontaneous pleasure, for instance, of just being in Paris, as so many English people experience. The boulevards, the banks of the Seine, the traffic, the bistros, the graffiti on the walls-all lost in the new life of careful watchfulness. The odds would be against him, as he must have known if he was Lucan the professional gambler. The police were active in those early months of his clandestine flight.

And as the years piled up with nothing achieved but his furtive travels in South America, in Africa, in Asia, between intervals of quick, dangerous trips to Scotland and Paris to pick up his old friends’ money, what had he become? Someone untraceable with blood on his hands, in his head, in his memory. Blood . . .

My nature is subdued to what it works in, like the dyer’s hand.

When he disappeared in 1974 he was thirty nine. The detective assigned to his case, Roy Ransom, died in recent years. Sightings of the seventh Earl are still frequent. Lucan is here, he is there, he is everywhere. In a final message to Lucan, Roy Ransom wrote, “Keep a watchful eye over your shoulder. There will always be someone looking for Lucan.”

He must have gone through several false passports, several false names.

“Well, Hildegard,” said Jean-Pierre, “which of your Lucans fits my profile best?”

“Neither,” she said, “and both.”

“Why,” said Jean-Pierre, “are the Lucans getting psychiatric therapy?”

“They are sick,” said Hildegard. “Especially Lucky.

Sick, and he knows it.”

“I mean to find out,” said Jean-Pierre, “why they actually want psychiatric treatment.”

“Perhaps they need money. They want it from me,” said Hildegard. “It could be that Lucan’s source of income is drying up.”

“It could be. I’d like to know,” said Jean-Pierre. “I read a recent article in which Lucan’s friends claim that he is dead beyond the shadow of a doubt. ‘Shadow of a doubt’ were the words. If they never found his body or other evidence there is a shadow, there is a doubt. There is a possibility that he is alive and another possibility that he is dead. There is no ‘beyond the shadow of a doubt.’ None whatsoever. That is journalistic talk. There are shadows; there are doubts.”

“That’s what I thought when I read it. Not that I care one way or another. Only I have these Lucan patients and I’m under pressure of, well, call it exposure.” “Yes, I call it exposure, Hildegard. Let’s be clear. One gets nowhere by being muddy.”

“Nowhere,” she said, smiling gratefully at him. Their dinner was prepared and served by the two au pair young men, who were close friends with each other.

It was a convenient arrangement. Dick and Paul were former students at a psychiatric institution where Hildegard lectured. She had found them to be engrossed with each other, anxious to shed their families, and not at all keen to study. They were delighted to show their prowess at cooking (which was not very great) and general housekeeping. They got on well with Hildegard and in a chummy way with the maid Olivia, who came every morning to clean up. Dick and Paul went shopping for the household, and advised Olivia how to shop economically for her sexy clothes. It was a tranquil background for the love affair between Hildegard and Jean-Pierre. Only the facts of blood which hovered over Hildegard’s professional life and her memories of the past disturbed her.

The dinner consisted of a mysterious brown fish soup, a mousse of spinach and cream cheese with tiny new potatoes, and a peach ice cream with cherry sauce. Jean-Pierre and Hildegard ate it appreciatively, half consciously, happier with the fact of being cooked for and served at all than with the actual dinner. The young men, slip, tall and wiry, cleared the table and brought them coffee in the sitting room. It had been arranged at first that their status entitled them to join Hildegard and Jean-Pierre at the table for meals, but really they preferred to eat alone together in the kitchen, with occasional friends who had belonged to their student days, than with their employers. And this suited Jean-Pierre and Hildegard, too. They could talk more openly, for one thing.

While they dined they discussed that other supper in the bistro with Lucky. He had certainly absorbed his smoked salmon followed by lamb chops “like blotting paper,” as Hildegard put it.

“Well, it was very good smoked salmon; the lamb chops were very well prepared.”

“What did you make of him?”

“From the way he was talking I would say Lucky is Lucan, and his mind is giving up. His conscience is taking over. In his mind, God might tell him to kill again.” Walker appeared in Jean-Pierre’s workshop. There were no customers at that hour, 10:30 A.M. Jean-Pierre was working on a plastic eye which was intended for a statue. “My name is Walker.”

“I know who you are.”

“I want to speak to you,” Walker told Jean-Pierre.

“I have no money for you,” said Jean-Pierre.

Walker left the premises.

Hildegard was in her office talking to the patient known as Lucky.

“I’m not supposed to be here,” Lucky told her.

“I know. How long have you known Walker?”

“About ten years.”

“What is your real name?”

“I’m not at liberty to say.”

“What was your profession?”

“A theological instructor.”

“A priest?”

“I am a défroqué.”

“How very interesting. Why were you defrocked?”

“I got married,” he said.

“And now? Where is your wife?”

“That would be telling,” he said.

“I think you are Lucan,” Hildegard said.

“No you don’t.”

“Have it your own way. There is every sign that you are the wanted man.”

“My job is just to collect from the aiders and abetters.

Lucan is a name in the newspapers. He could be dead.”

“Why does Walker send you to collect?” “Oh, he sometimes collects himself. But I look more like Lucan.”

She studied his face. “Yes, in a way you do. In a way you don’t. It could be you were once a priest, though. You have a touch of that theological look that can never be thrown off. Only a touch. Now look, Lucky, you are going to deal with one question that I think only you can answer: Did you ever know Heinrich Esk, a theological student at a Protestant college in Munich, let us say about ten, eleven years ago?”

“Twelve years ago,” he said.

“I worked miracles,” said Hildegard. “And that is the truth.”

“Undoubtedly. But you were a fraud. A fake stigmatic.

Heinrich told me. He died of leukemia, you know.”

“What do you want from me?” Hildegard said. “Advice. I sold my soul to the Devil, as I’ve already told you.”

“And you want it back?”

“I want it back.”

“You must break with Walker for a start,” she said.

“That would be difficult.”

“I know. Well, I can’t take you both on as patients.” “I think you have no choice.” Suddenly, Lucky produced a small package. “I brought you this from Scotland,” he said, passing the little box to Hildegard. “You thought of me in Scotland,” she said, opening the little parcel with many exclamations of quite genuine appreciation of the crystal pendant.

“I thought of you all the time,” he said.

“That is a normal reaction towards an analyst. And what were you doing in Scotland, exactly?” “I’m afraid that’s a secret. Your other Lucan is furious because I came to you. In fact, I’ve been round the world in the past twenty-five years. I’ve been short of money at times and had to be a salesman of textbooks on Presbyterianism and physiotherapy; I’ve been a gentleman’s gentleman-

I did well. I’ve been a genealogist helping the Mormons to trace their ancestry-that was too dangerous, though-I had to make trips to London. What a pity: it was lucrative.”

“And how did you become a priest?”

“Well, I hid in a monastery for a time.”

“That didn’t make you a priest.”

“Well, not quite. I just went around with a dog collar.” “Most of the money wasted on psychoanalysis,” Hildegard said, “goes on time spent unraveling the lies of the patient. Your time is up.”

“Am I Lucan?” he said. “I want you to know that I believe in myself.”

Maria Twickenham, separated from her husband, attracted many men, but did not greatly encourage them. Maria’s reputation was not the subject of scandal or gossip. But the police inspectors who called at her house the day after the murder of Lord Lucan’s nanny in November 1974 were not to know that. They were unable to exclude from their minds a possibility that the two were lovers, beautiful as she was, handsome as he was.

It was on the morning of the day after Lord Lucan’s disappearance that the police were at Maria’s door. One in uniform, two in civilian clothes. There was no answer. They returned in the evening. A man of about forty answered the door.

The uniformed man said, “Good afternoon. Is Mrs.Twickenham at home?”

“She is my wife. She’s in South Africa. I am Alfred Twickenham.”

“May we have a word with you, sir?”

“What about?”

“I believe you and your wife are close friends of Lord Lucan. We’re wondering about his whereabouts in view of the tragedy that occurred at his home last night.” “What tragedy?” said Alfred.

“I’d have thought you would have heard,” said the policeman. “The children’s nurse was murdered and the wife severely wounded. The news has been on TV and it’s all over the papers. Surely you have heard?” “Oh, vaguely,” said the man.

“He was a friend of yours. May we come in a minute? We’re the Metropolitan Police. We’d like to ask a few questions.”

“Oh, I can’t help you. He isn’t so very close a friend.” They tramped in while he continued, “I don’t know Lucan all that well.”

In the dining room, where he took them, Alfred didn’t invite them to sit down. He stood twirling the atlas globe: his small daughter did her homework in here. “My wife,” he said, “knew Lucan better than me.”

” ‘Knew’?”

“Well, she probably still does know him. Remember, though, Lucky Lucan plays baccarat and we both play bridge predominantly. There’s a difference.” “Suppose,” said one of the plainclothes men, “that I told you a car that he was using was seen parked in this street at eleven or thereabouts last night?” “I don’t know about that. My wife is in South Africa just now. Perhaps she would know more about Lord Lucan.” “When did you last see Lord Lucan?”

“I can’t remember.”

“Roughly speaking?” said one of the men. “I can’t remember. I see so many people. I think I saw him a month ago at the races.”

“And this is the first time you’ve heard about the murder and the attack on Lady Lucan in Lower Belgrave Street last night?” The man’s eyes were wandering over the polished sideboard, the silver, as if he really wasn’t expecting a straight answer.

“But I don’t follow murders. I have quite enough to do, as you can imagine. I sell milk.”

“Sell milk?”

“Yes, I run a milk concern.”

“Oh, yes.” The other policeman had come to the rescue.

“Twickenham’s Dairy Products.”

“That’s right,” said Alfred.

“But isn’t it upsetting for you to hear about a murder in the house of someone you know? We are looking for Lucan. He’s disappeared. How does that affect you?” “It’s devastating. But he plays baccarat and poker, and my wife and I don’t. We always played bridge.” “Thank you, sir, for your cooperation.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Alfred felt strongly that his house and office phones were already being tapped. Next morning he stopped at the Army and Navy Stores, where he put through a call. “Have you heard the news?” he said to the man who answered the phone. “Well, he’s on his way to Caithness. Yes, you know where. Right. I’m calling from a box. If he passes by you . . . Of course, do just that. Oh, poor Lucky!”

At four in the afternoon Alfred went to pick up his daughter from day school.

“I wonder,” said the father, “if anyone asks you did I have a visitor last night, could you tell them to mind their own business. Just that. Mind their own business.” “Quite right, Daddy,” said the child.

“No one has the right to ask.”

“I know.”

The child was used to her father’s friends appearances. There was a maintenance and alimony case extending from the far-away mother, and the daughter was quite convinced that her parents had every right and reason to keep their private life private. Her best friends at school, five of them, were in roughly the same position. “Why did I do it?” Alfred asked himself in his more mature years. “Why did I cover up his whereabouts? Why? And so many of us did it. Why? The police knew very well we were doing so. There was something about Lucan. I wonder if that’s really him they’ve seen, wherever it is. And why, if so, do his friends feel they must protect him, with all that blood, let’s face it, on his hands?”

Blood on his hands. Blood all over his clothes that night of the murder. He did not go straight to Caithness after all, but to some other people in the country, and then to some others, and finally to Caithness, while someone else parked the car he had borrowed in Newhaven.

Maria Twickenham had been beautiful in a way which is not accountable, not to be reckoned by separate features. She was tall and gawky, long-legged, knock-kneed; her nose, too long, went very slightly awry; her mouth, a lovely shape, was definitely too wide; her grayish eyes were nicely spaced but dull and too small; her complexion, perfectly smooth, was, however, drab. How all these factors combined to make her into a striking beauty was inexplicable.