The Handshaker (6 page)

“Sorry to butt in, Mr Croft,” Millie apologised, “but where is all this leading.”

Croft suppressed his irritation at her interruption. “In order to understand what I’m getting at,” he told her, “you need to understand something of the background to The Heidelberg Case. Essentially, a man named Franz Walter, a hypnotist and homeopath, met a young woman on a train. She was only ever identified as Mrs E and Walter managed to hypnotise her. That was in 1927. In 1934, her husband complained to the police that this man had been defrauding his wife of thousands of marks. She was sent to Doctor Ludwig Meyer who hypnotised her and got to the truth. Over seven years Walter had not only taken money from her for treatments she never needed, but he raped her, sold her into prostitution, and when her husband got suspicious, he ordered her to murder him. She made six attempts and it was only by good fortune that she failed. Then Walter ordered her to commit suicide and she almost did. If it hadn’t been for the intervention of a housemaid, the woman would have thrown herself in the river and drowned.”

Croft paused a moment so they could take in the welter of detail. Judging by the irritation in Shannon’s eyes, he was not endearing himself.

The superintendent confirmed it. “All very interesting, but what does this have to do with The Handshaker?”

“I’m coming to that,” Croft replied. “Heidelberg blew away the notion that a hypnotised subject cannot be made to do something which goes against his or her moral standards.”

“But everyone connected with hypnosis says that it’s true,” objected Millie.

Alongside her, Croft noted, Shannon looked away briefly and irritably. He was obviously becoming more frustrated with what he saw as an unnecessary diversion.

Croft maintained his focus on Millie. “Of course they do, and every soap powder manufacturer tells you their powder will get your clothes cleaner, but that doesn’t make it true.”

Now Shannon, unable to hold himself back any longer, butted in. “That’s hardly the same thing.”

“No, it isn’t, but it is a valid analogy because it demonstrates that we are all suggestible,” said Croft. “The soap powder adverts work on precisely that principle, and hypnotherapy is nothing more than suggestion using direct access to the subconscious mind granted by hypnosis. It’s generally accepted that about five percent of the population are susceptible to rapid, deep hypnosis. I’m convinced that The Handshaker is using hypnosis, if only to subdue his victims. Counting this morning’s victim, he’s killed eight women, and there are about fifty thousand women in this town. That’s…” Croft paused to do the mental arithmetic. “Slightly over one hundredth of one percent. If he’s seeking his victims at random, it’s a safe average.”

Shannon appeared befuddled. “And the reason he wrote to you?”

“Murdering these women is his, er,” Croft groped for the words. “
Pièce de résistance
,” he said in an almost perfect French accent. “His magnum opus. He has you running in circles. You’re making no progress, and he probably takes a lot of satisfaction from that. Suddenly he decides it’s not enough to be clever. He needs others to know just how clever he’s been. He needs to sign his masterpiece. How can he do that without coming out into the open? By writing to someone who would understand.”

Across the table, the two police officers looked doubtful. It was apparent to Croft that phrases like, ‘he has you running in circles’ were not endearing him to them.

“Think about it,” he urged. “If he had sent this note to you, what would you have made of it?”

Millie did think about it for a few seconds. “We’d have run a check on Heidelberg in those dates to find comparable crimes.”

“And turned up nothing,” Croft assured her. “Because he wasn’t hinting at comparable crimes in Heidelberg. He was hinting at methodology, and you would have come up with nothing on that because The Heidelberg Case is so obscure. If you run a search on the Internet you’ll only get one or two genuine results, and one of those is mine, but even then you would have to enter The Heidelberg Case in the search engine. If you put in, say ‘hypnosis’ and ‘Heidelberg’ it might just get you there, but your man has been clever. He didn’t mention hypnosis. The reason he wrote to me is because he knew that I could make that vague connection.” He gave them what he imagined was a modest smile. “I’ve done more research on the case than anyone.”

“Because it has paranormal overtones?” Shannon asked.

“Superficially, yes,” Croft said with a nod, “but once I got into it, the whole concept intrigued me. Can you really get a subject to murder a loved one, or at least attempt it? Can you really get a subject to commit suicide? I found it fascinating.”

Silence fell once more. Croft was a happier man now that he understood. The Handshaker was not targeting him, he was not threatening him, he was not even admitting that he had been abusing a single woman in the way that Franz Walter had. He was simply announcing to the world the manner in which he subdued his victims.

“I don’t buy this at all.”

The superintendent’s announcement, cutting into the silence, crushed Croft’s contentment. But as Shannon went on, the hypnotist’s disappointment gave way to more alarm.

“If our man has been selecting his victims at random, as you claim, there would be those women he tried to hypnotise and failed. I don’t know how he’s supposed to be hypnotising them anyway, but if I choose to be generous and assume you’re right, how come we haven’t had a string of complaints from the women he
didn’t
succeed with?” Shannon sat forward. “You see what I’m driving at, Croft? If you’re right, we would have all these women whinging about it and we would have had a description of him. In fact we’ve had neither. All we have are some grainy images from odd CCTV cameras, and even then we don’t know that the man in those pictures is the man we’re seeking.” The superintendent leaned back again. “I don’t know how he gets to his victims, but it’s not some super-hypnotism.”

Croft was all at sea again. There was no refuting the superintendent’s argument. Choosing women at random, trying a rapid induction on them would have worked with some but by no means all, and the remainder would have come forward. And yet it all fitted; the reference to Heidelberg, even the nickname, The Handshaker, it all fitted with hypnosis.

“Tell me something.” Millie’s request brought him from his turbulent thoughts. “You say it’s possible to get a hypnotised subject to do whatever you want. Most hypnotists say it isn’t. How do you do it?”

Croft chose his words with professional, academic care. “It’s all about altering the perception of reality. Let’s say I want to eliminate you but I don’t want to be implicated? I find someone who is amenable to deep hypnosis. The kind stage performers use. I convince this person that you are in danger because the brakes on your car are loose. The subject needs to tighten them. I tell him how it’s done, but in reality, I’m telling him how to loosen the brakes. He does the job, you go off for a drive and the first time you use your brakes, they fail. You’re in an accident and if you were travelling at a good enough speed, you’re dead. At the very worst, the subject will be picked up for tampering with your brakes, but he’d go to prison, not me.”

“That simple, eh?” Millie commented.

“But it’s not simple,” Croft disagreed. “It takes a long time to get most subjects to such a depth of hypnosis that they could be duped like that, and that means you would need regular access to him so you could… of course. That’s it.”

Both officers were suddenly alert. “What?” demanded Shannon. “What’s it?”

“These women are not picked at random,” Croft told them with absolute certainty. “He knows them. He has had access to them for a long time, possibly years. That’s how he can hypnotise them so quickly. He knows they’re amenable to deep hypnosis, he’s installed enough post-hypnotic suggestions to hypnotise them with a single command and gesture, a gesture like… like a handshake.” Croft’s voice rose in triumph. “I’m right, Shannon. I know I am. That’s why he’s called The Handshaker. You didn’t think of it,
he
did. He wrote to you and signed himself off as The Handshaker, didn’t he? He hoped you might understand that the handshake induction is quite common amongst hypnotists.” Neither Shannon nor Millie commented, but their owlish stares were evidence enough for Croft. He was right and he knew it. “Ms Matthews told me earlier that The Handshaker writes to you after every crime. Any chance I could see those notes?”

Shannon shook his head. “I’m sorry, but the answer is no.”

Millie expanded on the superintendent’s declaration. “The texts are completely incomprehensible anyway.”

“You mean like a cryptic puzzle?” Croft shrugged. “I do cryptic crosswords for fun. Maybe I could help.”

“I said no, I meant no.” Shannon stood up. “Right, you can go. If you get any further correspondence from this man, you bring it straight to us. Don’t open it, don’t do anything with it, just bring it here.”

“Just a moment,” Croft insisted as the superintendent prepared to leave. “Is that it?”

Shannon paused at the door. “Yes. It is. I’ve heard enough drivel for one morning, and unlike you university people, I have real work to do, like catching a madman. Goodbye, Mr Croft.”

As Shannon left, Croft transferred his gaze to Millie, who was busy getting together her belongings.

“The fingerprints and DNA sample will be destroyed, Mr Croft. Thank you for coming in and I’m sorry if we inconvenienced you.” She dug into her bag and came out with a business card. “If anything else should happen, my direct number here at the station is on the card and so is my mobile number. It’s usually easier to get me on the mobile.”

Croft took the card with the thought that at least the woman had had more training in public relations than her superior.

“So what happens now?” he asked.

She smiled sweetly. “Nothing. I don’t think you’re in any danger, Mr Croft. You go back to your academic life and leave it to us now, unless anything else should happen.”

She, too, walked out of the room leaving the door open for Croft to go. Bemused, he got to his feet, tucked his newspaper in his jacket pocket, and followed her.

7

Twenty minutes later, with the time approaching noon, Croft climbed out of his car and gazed in dismay at the contrast between two conjoined houses.

The garden and surrounding fence of number 48 Sussex Crescent were pristine, well tended, kept in tip-top condition, the wood door was freshly painted and even in the dull November daylight, it shone. By contrast, there was little left of the fence around number 46, and the garden was no better than a scrub of dirt, soaked in engine oil, littered with old car parts, while the door was flaked and cracked, the paint peeling off in places, its letter flap hanging off.

With a sad shake of the head he walked up the path of number 46 and rang the bell. The vertical blinds parted, Sandra Lumb looked out and let the blinds close again.

Croft was still shaken by the morning’s events, and irritated by the speed and apparent disinterest with which the police had terminated the interview. It left everything hanging in the air.

Beneath that anger was still the sense of nagging worry. He had given The Handshaker murders no more than scant attention and that amounted to advising Trish to be wary of strangers when she was out alone. Her response had been typical.

“I work in Manchester, Felix, and he operates exclusively in Scarbeck.”

The only attention she paid the killings was legal. How she would go about prosecuting or defending the man when he was eventually caught and brought to trial.

Beyond that, beyond the sense of abhorrence at the senselessness of the murders, neither of them had taken much interest.

After leaving the police station, in an effort to clear some of his more disturbed thoughts and confusion, he tried to telephone Trish to pass on the morning’s events, but her mobile was switched off. There was nothing unusual or worrying about it. A busy barrister, there were many times when she was simply unavailable, and he recalled her saying that she would be in a chambers’ meeting and that she would be unavailable for a couple of hours.

So the problem nagged at him throughout the journey from Scarbeck to Sussex Crescent, and even as he rang the doorbell, it would not go away. It was there, at the back of his mind as Sandra opened the door.

Sandra greeted him with a bright smile. “Hiya. Come in.”

“Sorry I’m late, Sandra. As I explained on the phone, I was held up in Scarbeck.”

Sandra was not a particularly bright woman, and had a simplistic view of the world, but she was attractive in her own way. Slim, fair-haired and pretty, she regularly sported her husband’s trademark around her eyes. Sandra was one of those curious women who, no matter how much she was bullied and battered by her husband, stayed fiercely loyal, always shouldering the blame herself.

She noticed him eyeing her bruises and she smiled diffidently. “Slipped in the kitchen. Serves me right. I should know better than to go in there when I’ve just mopped the floor.”

Croft made no comment and followed her in. She closed the door behind her and led him through the house to the rear kitchen.

The place was furnished according to Sandra’s own ideas, which came from mail order catalogues. Wall units, a three-piece suite focussed on a widescreen TV set and its attached video recorders. The settee and armchairs were of dark, Italian leather, and her display cabinet, along with the TV and video units, were self-assembly affairs. The coffee table was covered in cigarette burns, and hung around the walls were mementoes of foreign holidays; Spain, Tunisia, Greece, Turkey, Israel. Sitting incongruously amongst them was a Manchester City scarf pinned up above the wall-mounted fire. Alf Lumb was a fanatic.