The Handshaker (8 page)

She dragged in another lungful of smoke and followed it with a drop of tea. “Ernie, that doesn’t make any sense. Not if you listen to Forensics’ early findings. If Croft made this Heidelberg stuff up, how come the Handshaker knows about it?”

“Because he’s read the book Croft put it in,” Shannon pointed out quite logically.

Millie took a further, irritable drag. “I had an idea.”

“Go on.”

Millie leaned forward, and tapped her ash into a waste paper bin. “Like I said, Croft is into crosswords and stuff. Why don’t we let him see The Handshaker notes and see if he can make sense of them?”

Shannon gave her a glare. “I said no, I meant no.” He softened a little. “Tell you what though, I’m snowed under with the latest woman, Susan Edwards, so why don’t you scoot off to the university, follow it up and see what he has to say about whatever.”

She thought about it briefly. Spending an afternoon in the academic atmosphere of the university would not be her ideal means of passing the time, but it was preferable to spending it here, listening to the same old tired arguments on The Handshaker and his trail of victims.

“What’s the point?” she asked.

“Well, there is the possibility that you and he are right,” Shannon admitted. “The Handshaker could be using some kind of control over these women. I don’t buy it, but I may be wrong. I also think Croft is up to something and I’d like to know what.”

“What makes you think so?” Millie pressed.

Shannon gave a half shrug. “Call it copper’s nose.”

She gave a fat chuckle. “That and the fact that you don’t like him.”

“That’s right,” replied Shannon with a grimace. “If he isn’t guilty of something, then he should be. Just play the softly, softly game with him and see what you get.”

9

“Eyes open, wide awake.”

Croft snapped his fingers before Danny Stubbs’ lolling head, and Danny snapped awake.

There had been no change in the room’s constant 60
^o
temperature, but almost immediately, Danny began to shiver. His skin temperature dropped, respiration and heart rate increased slightly to draw in and distribute more oxygen. On the video monitor, fed from a camera focussed on Danny’s arm, the hairs on his arm stood up and goose pimples broke out on his skin.

Croft liked Lecture room 107. Located on the first floor of the North Western University’s main building, it was twice the size of a normal classroom, and equipped with audio-visual aids, including a video camera and monitors. Worktables were arranged in rows facing a small dais at the front and as usual there were about 30 people in the room, mostly first year psychology students, but there were also two junior doctors from Scarbeck General Hospital: a sure sign that the NHS was taking a greater interest in alternative medical practices.

The morning’s events still bubbled away at the back of his mind. After leaving Sandra Lumb, declining an invitation to join Gerald Humphries for a cup of tea and a chat – he pleaded pressure of time – he had returned to his car and tried to ring Trish again, to no avail. Her mobile was switched off.

Croft was not worried. The chambers meeting could have gone on longer than she anticipated, or a new brief could have been delivered, with a client interview to follow. But he urgently wanted to detail the morning’s events to her, if only to get them off his chest.

Unable to do so, he had driven quickly to the university, grabbed a quick bite of lunch in the cafeteria, then arrived for his two o’clock lecture.

Of all his work at the university, the hypnosis demonstrations were the most popular with students. The legend had grown over the years to the point that they were now considered as much a sideshow as education. It was, however, a bit of a cheat. Danny, who worked as a groundskeeper on campus, had been his volunteer for the last five years and Croft had no need to go through the entire induction to hypnotise him. A simple touch on the arm accompanied by a command, ‘sleep’ would be enough.

The students made their notes. Most used pen on paper, one girl had a laptop computer open and tapped away on the keyboard, and one of the medics whispered softly into a digital pocket recorder.

Allowing them a minute or so to note their observations, Croft concentrated on Danny again. “Cold?”

“Freezing,” the gardener confirmed. “Has someone turned the heat off?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Croft instructed. “Sleep.”

Danny’s head lolled forward again and the monitor readings returned to normal.

Croft shut down the video camera and moved it to the rear of the dais. Returning to his lectern, he addressed the audience again. “So, as we can see…”

He trailed off. At the rear of the room, the door opened and Millie Matthews stepped in. With all eyes on her, she took a seat at the back and offered Croft a bleak smile of apology.

Croft went on with his lecture. “We can see that under my hypnotic suggestion, Danny’s skin temperature, rate of respiration and pulse all changed, in order to accommodate the imaginary changes. His arm even broke out in goose pimples and the hairs stood up to trap more heat. I don’t want to get sidetracked into the work of the autonomic nervous system. It’s beyond my province anyway, so you can read up on it yourselves. For now, it’s sufficient for us to know that it can be manipulated simply by persuading the subconscious mind that there have been changes to the physical environment.”

He stepped over to Danny and removed the electrodes from his arms and put them the carefully to one side. He faced the class again. “So how deeply ingrained is this phenomenon of suggestibility?”

Croft turned his attention to the volunteer. This was the part of the lecture the students enjoyed most.

He spoke to Danny in a strong, commanding voice. “When you hear the music begin, you will imagine that you are the best Elvis Presley impersonator ever, and you will give us your interpretation of Elvis on stage. When the music stops, you will wonder why you did it. Eyes open, wide awake.”

He snapped his fingers before Danny’s eyes and suddenly the volunteer was wide-eyed and alert.

“All right, Danny?” Croft asked, crossing back to his table.

“Yeah. Fine, Mr C.”

“Good.”

Croft pressed the play button on his cassette recorder and the room was filled with the sound of Elvis Presley singing
Hound Dog
. Danny leapt to his feet and began miming to the music, his lip curled, hips swaying, holding an imaginary microphone before him. The small audience laughed, but Danny appeared completely unaware of their presence.

Croft allowed the humorous demonstration to run for about 30 seconds, then cut the music off. Abruptly, Danny ceased all activity, and frowned in puzzlement.

“You okay?” Croft asked.

Danny nodded. “Yeah. Great, Mr C. Never felt better.”

“Good.” Croft held out his hand. “Shake hands, Danny.”

Danny took the paw. As he did so, Croft ordered, “Sleep,” and Danny’s head lolled forward once more.

The hypnotist stared directly at Millie.

***

Another 45 minutes passed before Croft brought the lecture to an end, detailing the work he expected the students to cover before the next tutorials. While his class filed out and he packed away his notes and equipment, Millie left the rear table and joined him.

“So, Inspector Matthews, you decided to take me seriously?”

“Ernie Shannon doesn’t believe one word of your theory of The Handshaker using hypnosis to take his victims,” she admitted, “but we’ve been on this investigation so long that he’s prepared to consider anything. The trouble is, you left us with more questions than you answered and I’m hoping you can fill in a few gaps.”

Croft picked up his cassette player and briefcase. “Let’s retire to my room. At least we can get a decent cuppa there.” He led the way out.

Coming out onto the bland, first floor corridor, Croft closed the lecture room door. To the right were two wall slots holding signs in chocolate brown with white lettering. One read,
Quiet please, lecture in progress
, and the other,
Mr A Croft, Hypnosis
. Croft paused to remove the signs, and tucking them under his arm, ambled along the corridor towards the lift. “No doubt you checked me out? Beyond what you know from having read my book, that is.”

“We know all about you, Mr Croft,” Millie nodded. “Right down to the council tax bill on your mansion.”

“Please call me Felix. You looked over my website?”

She nodded. “I told you. If there’s anything to know about you, we know it. I thought it was interesting what you had to say about smoking and hypnosis. Everyone claims it’s the miracle we smokers have been waiting for, yet you insist it’s no better and no worse than other methods.”

He gave a wry smile. “Your lackeys did do well.”

She frowned. “I can assure you, Mr Croft… Felix, I’m no lackey.”

Croft paused a moment to telegraph that her rebuke to his offhand remark had struck home. “You did well, Millie – may I call you Millie – and the one thing you should have learned from your research is that I am
the
authority on hypnosis.”

“Modest too.” She gave him a cynical smile.

“Modesty is a British problem,” he declared. “It’s the reason we lag behind so much of the world when it comes to business.”

Reaching the lifts, Millie, in deference to Croft having his hands full, pressed the call button. While they waited, she said, “I was impressed with your mastery of your subject back there.” She jerked her head in the direction of the lecture room and her blonde curls swayed seductively about her dusky face.

Croft shuffled the bits and pieces he was carrying, easing the slight discomfort caused by their weight. Millie offered to take some from him and he declined with a smile.

“That was child’s play,” he said, finally answering her observation. “Any half competent stage hypnotist can do that with a day’s training and the right subject. Danny always acts as my volunteer and I’ve hypnotised him so many times he’s mine in a matter of seconds.” Croft smiled thinly. “A classic example of post-hypnotic suggestion. I’ve programmed him to go into hypnosis on certain prompts.”

The lift arrived with a chime, and the doors sighed open. Croft stepped in followed by Millie. To her surprise Croft did not press the down button but, unable to move his arms because of his baggage, stretched up on the balls of his feet and jabbed the button for the second floor.

“You looked straight at me when you shook his hand to put him under,” she observed.

“A little theatrical, Millie,” he confessed, “and yes, it was strictly for your benefit. Under normal circumstances, I don’t use a handshake induction, but I thought I’d show you that it could be done. You’re looking for a man who calls himself The Handshaker.” He grinned. “I’m sure he thought of it, not you. I assume the note I received was from him, and my demonstration was intended to show you how quick such an induction can be.”

The lift stopped, the doors opened and they stepped out onto a replica of the first floor; bland walls and composition floor tiles. A few yards from the lift, the corridor turned left onto a long landing scattered with doors on either side. Two doors down on the left, his hands full, Croft pressed his briefcase against the wall with his chest, and fumbled into his jacket pocket for his keys. Retrieving them, he manipulated a double deadlock key between thumb and forefinger, slotted it into the lock, turned and pushed, inviting Millie to go in ahead of him.

Croft kicked the door shut behind him and dropped his equipment into a nearby armchair.

Most people were surprised, even alarmed by the room, and many of his visitors hated it, but Croft was at his calmest here.

Everything said ‘old’. A mahogany desk stood by the windows, its stout supports and dull top chipped and flaked, revealing that it was wood and not laminated MDF. The three armchairs were part of an aged, brown leather suite, the kind that was popular in the 60s. The walls were lined with bookshelves, containing many old cloth and leather-bound volumes, there was a shabby, two bar electric fire to one side of the desk, an occasional table between the armchairs, its top beaten and stained. In the far corner was a sink and drainer and next to it, standing on top of an old fashioned refrigerator, another throwback to an earlier era, was a stainless steel Russell Hobbs kettle and a range of mugs, one of them a souvenir of the 1969 investiture of Prince Charles as the Prince of Wales. On the desk was a stack of students’ work awaiting assessment, and the only modern incongruities amongst the room’s accoutrements were Croft’s laptop computer and a plasma screen PC, the property of the university.

Switching on the kettle, Croft noticed her studying the surroundings with surprised eyes, and he grinned. “I said this morning, I’m a sixties freak. Would you prefer tea or coffee?”

“Tea please. Milk and one sugar.”

While waiting for the kettle to boil, Croft looked through the window and felt at peace.

Situated in 400 acres of parkland to the northeast of Manchester and west of Scarbeck, the University of North West England was an oasis of academic calm in an area of commercial and industrial bustle, and the view from the second floor was disposed to the academic. There was no trace of civilisation, just acres of green, interspersed with clutches of oak and elm, and the groundskeeper’s hut standing amongst the trees a hundred yards away. Even the continuous rain, which formed rivulets down the windows on this leeward side of the building, had a calming effect upon him.