“Literally it’s something hidden. It describes belief systems which are built on special knowledge which is only available to the select few—as opposed to Christianity, which is based on God’s revelation in Jesus Christ and available to all.”
“The word ‘occult’ is used very loosely and inaccurately nowadays,” remarked Lewis, sketching a witch on his notepad. “People use it to describe anything from Wicca practices to Satanism, but strictly speaking, occultists are devotees of Gnostic ideas propounded in various esoteric books which have been enjoying a revival in recent times.”
“But surely this is all quite harmless?”
“Certainly it can feature eccentrics who are more pathetic than dangerous. But unfortunately these societies can be infiltrated and corrupted by a wide range of undesirables: people who get their kicks out of power, people who are addicted to manipulating others and people who are dedicated to destroying things as painfully and nastily as possible.”
“But why can’t the police be involved?”
“They are,” said Nicholas, tapping the keys again with a new instruction. “We often work with them, but people like Mrs. Mayfield are usually skilled at operating just within the law . . . Ah, here we go. Mrs. Elizabeth Mayfield, aged fifty-one, nationality British, no husband, an address in Fulham, currently operating as a psychic healer, no professional qualifications, runs groups in Hendon, Hammersmith and Wapping—”
“Wapping’s where Kim went last night.”
“—possible links with a pornography ring but nothing proven . . . associated with past sex-groups but nothing criminal proven . . . questioned by police over distribution of obscene videos but no charges brought. However, if we go further back we find a criminal record. We have soliciting, procuring, perjury, indecent assault on a minor—”
“Christ!” I exclaimed before remembering where I was. In embarrassment I muttered: “Excuse me.”
“Colourful stuff, isn’t it?” said Nicholas, gaze still on the screen. “But all that was back in the 1960s. She did time and emerged wise enough to set herself up behind a respectable façade. She disappeared for a while in the late seventies and early eighties, but she wasn’t in prison and the police suspect she may have been operating under another identity for reasons which aren’t clear but which could be consonant with criminal activity and/or occult involvement—and I’m now using the word ‘occult’ in its strict sense.”
“That’s why Sophie’s mention of the occult is so interesting to us,” said Lewis abruptly to me. “Was Sophie using the word loosely, as so many people do nowadays, or was she talking specifically about an occult society?”
Nicholas added in explanation: “We’ve never known for a fact that Mrs. Mayfield is involved in any occult society. We know she’s a psychic who advertises as a healer and makes money out of vulnerable people; we know she runs sex-groups under the guise of group therapy; we suspect that in these areas she stays within the law by never dabbling in extortion and always dealing with consenting adults—though we know she does a great deal of psychological damage and can bring those adults to breakdown. But we’ve never been able to connect her with any corrupt occult society which would inevitably be involved in criminal activity.”
I swallowed with difficulty. “What kind of criminal activity?”
“Blackmail. Offences with minors,” said Nicholas colourlessly, “and animals.”
“The groups usually start off by operating within certain parameters in order to obtain what they believe to be enlightenment,” said Lewis, who I was beginning to realise had no hesitation in calling a spade a spade, “but they never stay within those parameters because when people get their kicks out of perversions they always wind up needing a bigger and better fix to maintain the level of satisfaction. Usually the group divides into different levels of initiates—and there’s always an inner circle where just about anything goes.”
I slid my tongue around my lips. “Such as Satanism?”
“Not necessarily,” said Nicholas before Lewis could give another blunt reply. “The media hype up Satanism, but most of these people like Mrs. Mayfield wouldn’t call themselves Satanists and wouldn’t practise any Satanic rituals.”
Lewis said severely to him: “That doesn’t mean they’re not capable of being far more destructive than a bunch of misfits who get together to celebrate a black mass for kicks! You shouldn’t play this down, Nicholas—you shouldn’t gloss over the degradation and defilement, the abuse of the human spirit, the dismantling of personalities, the—”
“I’ve no wish to gloss over anything,” said Nicholas, “but I think we should remember we’ve no proof that Mrs. Mayfield’s involved in criminal activity, we’ve no proof that Sophie used the word ‘occult’ in a sense which might imply a corrupt society, and we’ve no proof that Kim’s secret life has ever extended beyond visits to Mrs. Mayfield in Fulham and to the group in Wapping.”
Gripping the arms of the tub-chair so hard that my fingers hurt I managed to say: “I still can’t understand how Kim, who’s a very tough, sophisticated man, could ever have got involved with someone like Mrs. Mayfield.”
But Lewis had no trouble explaining this. “You can be outwardly very tough and sophisticated,” he said, “but inwardly poorly integrated. Mrs. Mayfield has probably been exploiting an inner vulnerability which drove him to seek help originally from a strong-willed woman who would win his trust and make him feel secure.”
Nicholas added: “It would be this inner vulnerability which would make it difficult for him to leave her, and you can be sure that Mrs. Mayfield would want him to stay—she’d use all her skills in psychological manipulation to undermine his will. As a successful businessman with a wide range of wealthy contacts Kim would be a great prize for her, even if she’s not involved in the kind of occult society which always seeks such people.”
My throat began to ache. I whispered: “I’m sure he’s a good man deep down,” but as I spoke I realised I was sure of nothing now which related to Kim.
“Time to remind ourselves again about what we know and what we don’t know,” said Nicholas, instantly detecting the rise in my distress. “We know Kim’s involved with Mrs. Mayfield and at least one of her groups. But his story is that he quarrelled with her on his marriage and this could well be true—and if it is true this would support Carter’s belief that he’s a good man keen to make a fresh start. We don’t know for a fact that he was conspiring with Mrs. Mayfield to fake the disturbances at the flat. (All right, I haven’t forgotten the contents of the Jiffy bag but maybe he really did leave both the key and the organiser behind by mistake at Mrs. Mayfield’s house.) We also don’t know for a fact that he was in Oakshott tonight, and we certainly don’t know for a fact that he was responsible for Sophie’s death. Let’s try to keep our minds prised open an inch here.”
“What really bothers me,” I said, grateful for this reassuring perspective but still feeling distressed, “is that I keep thinking I’ve found out the whole truth but there always turns out to be more. What actually was it that Sophie wanted to tell me? At first I thought she just wanted to tip me off about his secret life with Mrs. Mayfield. Then I thought she wanted to tell me about Kim’s Nazi past and the blackmail. And finally, thanks to Mrs. Mayfield, I’m facing a story about impotence, but there’s a hole in this story, and—”
“Mrs. Mayfield was out to undermine you,” said Lewis. “Be sceptical.”
“But even if I don’t believe her, how do I avoid suspecting there’s more truth still to come out? If Kim went to Oakshott tonight to beg Sophie to keep quiet—”
“But we don’t know yet he went to Oakshott, do we?”
Nicholas, who seemed to have drifted off into a reverie during this exchange, now interrupted us. “The part I’m getting odd vibes about,” he said, “is this whole business of Kim’s Nazi past. I feel there’s something off-key here . . . Could Kim really have worked alongside Jews for years, mixed with them socially and never been
detected as a fake?”
I said at once: “You misunderstand. He never claimed to be Jewish and he never claimed to have been brought up in the Jewish religion. He just represented himself as a sympathetic fellow-traveller, someone with a Jewish father but no real Jewish background.”
“But if he’s taken great care to pass himself off as a fellow-traveller for years, doesn’t this blackmail story of his make him seem uncharacteristically foolhardy? He was very cavalier in divulging potentially fatal information to this stranger who could just as easily have been a Jew as a gentile!”
“I thought that too,” I said, “but I’m sure the blackmail happened. Why invent such a story when he could blame a stockmarket disaster for his lack of capital?”
“Maybe his pride told him he wasn’t the kind of man to have a stockmarket disaster. And maybe he needed to cover up the fact that he’d been paying large sums to Mrs. Mayfield.”
“But he said how reasonable her charges were!”
“There’d inevitably be donations as well, probably to an offshore account.”
“Wait a minute,” said Lewis suddenly. “Let’s assume he really has been blackmailed; I doubt if the donations to Mrs. Mayfield would explain a major hole in his capital, because she wouldn’t want to alienate him by being extortionate. But let’s also assume that the true story of the blackmail is something he’s still covering up. If you were Kim, Nicholas, and you had a very unpleasant secret in your past which had ultimately resulted in blackmail, how do you prevent your second wife from learning about it when your first wife is dead keen to spill the beans? Answer: You keep the two women apart, you destroy your first wife’s credibility and finally you dredge up for your second wife another very unpleasant secret, such as your Nazi past, to act as a red herring.”
“No, that won’t wash,” I said promptly. “He didn’t tell me about the Nazi past voluntarily. Unless . . .” My voice trailed away.
“The disclosure by Mandy Simmons could have been staged,” said Nicholas with reluctance. “He’d need an excuse to bring such a secret out into the open.”
“Playing the Nazi card would have had several advantages,” pursued Lewis. “He not only makes it look as if this is the secret Sophie’s trying to divulge and thus kills Carter’s curiosity; the admission encourages Carter to show additional sympathy for him by revealing that he too was a victim of the Nazi madness, and it also allows him to show Sophie in an unsympathetic light by claiming she rejected him when he confided in her. And finally the story enables the blackmail to be plausibly relocated in a different set of circumstances in order to explain the hole in his capital. The only slip-up he made was not making the blackmail story more convincing, but on the whole I think he was very clever.”
“Time to rein ourselves in again,” said Nicholas, seeing my appalled expression. “This is just speculation. In fact all this conversation proves, Carter, is that Lewis and I are having a hard time building up a clear picture of Kim and that it’s vital we should meet him as soon as possible.”
As if on cue a bell jangled in the distance and a thunderous knocking broke out on the front door.
TWELVE
An immense amount of energy, ingenuity and money is devoted to keeping secrets, and also to uncovering them.
DAVID F. FORD
The Shape of Living
I
“Remember,” said Nicholas swiftly as the shock made me leap to my feet, “you don’t have to see him. But a meeting might be helpful in resolving the unanswered questions.”
“So long as you two are here I don’t mind.”
Nicholas moved at once towards the hall. As he passed Lewis he said: “You play Mr. Nice-Guy,” and Lewis gave a grunt of assent before slipping his notepad beneath a pile of files.
I heard Nicholas open the front door. By this time Lewis was standing very close to me as if he were a bodyguard whose client needed the highest level of protection.
In the hall Nicholas was saying politely: “Mr. Betz?” and Kim was demanding: “What the hell’s going on?” before shouting at the top of his voice: “Carter, where are you?”
“What a way to behave!” I muttered furiously, but I was sweating with fright and dread.
Lewis muttered: “If the worst comes to the worst there’s a panic button which connects us to the Wood Street police station,” but before I could ask him where the button was I heard Nicholas say, still faultlessly courteous: “Your wife’s in my study. If you’d like to come this way—”
Kim erupted into the room but stopped dead when he saw I was screened by a bodyguard.
“Mr. Betz!” exclaimed Lewis in delight. “We’re so glad you’re finally here!”
“Fuck off,” said Kim brutally, and swung to face me. “Carter—”
I made the split-second decision that attack was the best defence. “For God’s sake, Betz!” I yelled, launching straight into “the slammer.” “Shape up before these guys decide you need a head transplant! Where the hell have you been and what the hell’s going on?”
“That’s exactly what I was going to ask you! Listen, sweetheart—”
“Shut up! I’ve had the worst evening of my entire life, I’ve been scared out of my skull, I’m absolutely on the ropes—and now, to cap it all, I have to cope with you behaving like a bloody stormtrooper!”
“I’m sorry, but I’m appalled that you should be hiding out here with these two fakers, and what I want to know is—”
“These two gentlemen—repeat, GENTLEMEN—have been telling me all about Mrs. Mayfield! They know—”
“I don’t give a shit what they know! What I want to know is what the fuck’s been going on at the flat!”
“Your evil old cow trashed it! She’s bored with your plan to discredit Sophie and she’s now trying to terminate your second marriage by driving me out of my mind!”
“Don’t be ridiculous! Look, we have to talk right away, and if you think I’m going to spill my guts out in front of—”
“I’ve already told them everything.”
“You’ve what?” He was so shocked that he swayed on his feet. He even reached out for the edge of the table to steady himself, and I felt the balance of power shift between us as his anger dissolved into confusion.
“It’s all right,” I said automatically, “there’s confidentiality. If you could just stop playing the stormtrooper for a moment—”
“Okay, okay, okay.” He finally came to his senses and tried to remodel the tough line. “I’m sure we can work this out,” he said, “but please—let’s have a couple of minutes together on our own.” And before I could reply he was adding to the men: “I’m sorry. Excuse me. I’ve been out of my mind with worry and stress.”
At once Lewis said sympathetically: “Of course,” and it was left to Nicholas to ask in a neutral voice: “How do you feel about this suggestion, Carter?”
“I’ll go along with it,” I said, “because I think it’ll be the quickest route to achieving a discussion between the four of us, but I want to remain within sight of you and Lewis.”
We rearranged ourselves. Nicholas and Lewis stayed in the study but the door was left wide open so that they could see me as I withdrew with Kim to the far side of the hall. Leaning against the banisters at the foot of the stairs I glanced past Kim to Nicholas, who was standing with his right hand resting on his desk. I was suddenly sure his fingers were inches from the panic button; feeling more secure I turned to Kim but before I could utter a word he was saying in a low voice: “I love you. No matter what’s happened, that hasn’t changed.”
This was so very much the last thing I expected him to say that I was disarmed. The balance of power shifted again, hovering in an uncertain equilibrium.
“Hell, you’re sexy when you act tough!” he murmured, capitalising on the moment of intimacy. “If we were alone now—”
“Skip the gloss, buster. You were at Oakshott tonight, weren’t you?”
Instantly he abandoned the attempt to
sweet-talk me. “No, I was with Warren at the Savoy. Why should you think—”
“Did you kill her?”
He was stunned, so stunned that he was unable to rewrite his script. All he could do was whisper incredulously: “How on earth did you know she was dead?”
“You think I didn’t go through that unlocked back door and look for her?”
“But I figured you’d just ring the front doorbell a couple of times, hang around for a few minutes and then go away! You mean you actually went round to the back and—”
“Kim, did you kill her?”
“For Christ’s sake, no, of course not!”
“But you were there. Who else would have wiped my message from the answering machine?”
“Okay, I was there, but—”
“Was the death an accident?”
“God knows! When I found her dead I panicked—I know you’ll find that hard to believe, but—”
“No, I panicked too—I went around wiping away my fingerprints. I must have been out of my mind.”
“Then that makes two of us. God, if we both tinkered around with what may prove to be a crime scene—”
“—we’ll be in deep professional shit. But listen, Kim, what the hell do you think happened?”
“It did look like an accident.” He ran his fingers distractedly through his hair. “But on the other hand—”
“A nutter could have got in. If she was out gardening with the back door unlocked and the alarm not set—”
“I noticed the gardening gear on the kitchen table.”
“But would she have been gardening while wearing that rather smart red suit?”
“Oh, that was as old as the hills, strictly for pottering around in. Sophie didn’t like trousers. Her idea of casualwear was old clothes.”
“Okay, so if we assume she was gardening—no, let’s hold this discussion right there and go back to the clerics. I want them to hear this.”
“But I don’t understand—why involve them? In fact how on earth did you manage to wind up here?”
The High Flyer Page 27
