Unknown

by Muriel Spark

  “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’?”r />
  “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.

  On her return to London to finalize her divorce, Maria heard the story of Lucan’s visit from her husband. He felt the young daughter was bound to provide a version of Lucan’s visit followed by that of the exciting policemen. At the time Maria accepted Alfred’s actions as normal.

  And now, decades later, Maria Twickenham reads in the paper of yet another sighting of the missing seventh Earl. According to this report he was observed reclining in a hammock, in a British fruit merchant’s luxurious garden somewhere small and, to Maria, forgettable, in East Africa. He appeared to have been plastically altered but was still, with the help of a computer’s identikit system, recognizable. The reporter of this news had returned next day with a photographer but the hounded one, having sensed danger, had gone. At the house nobody could help. “A white man of about sixty lying in a hammock? You must be mad. People have been turning up here all morning. I’m going to rename my house Pilgrim’s Rest. Anyway, there’s no one here this time of year . . .” Maria thought back over the years which had done so much to change her life, her personality, her looks, her principles, her everything in a way, little by little. She thought back.

  To Maria the memory was like that pill-box veiled hat she had found among her old things, dating from the early seventies, last worn at the Derby. She could not wear the hat anymore, nor could she again accept the concealment of Lucan. Certainly, she knew that if it were to happen to her now, if it were to happen that a Lucan should turn up bloodstained and frantic with a perfectly ridiculous story about passing a basement window and seeing his wife being attacked by a man, Maria, herself, would not clean him up, feed him and pass him on to the next set of good friends. Friendship? Yes, but there can be too severe a strain on friendship. In friendship there is a point of collapse-a murderer revealed, or a traitor-they are people-within-people hitherto unknown.

  But what was the difference, Maria wondered, between then and now? More than a quarter of a century was the difference. Alfred had married again, had died. There was something in the air one breathed. Habits change. States of mind change. Collective moods change. The likeable, working-class, murdered young nanny was now the main factor. At the time the center of the affair was Lucan.

  Maria’s daughter Lacey, now over thirty, had started in her late teens to influence her mother in a quite natural and unpremeditated way. Having read the most sensible and well-informed of the books on the subject of Lucan, Maria’s daughter said, “How could you ever know such a type? What possessed Daddy to help him to escape? But how could he have been a friend in any case, such a ghastly snob? Anyway, if he could kill once he could kill again, no matter he wasn’t tried for murder, the risk of his being a killer is overwhelming. Hadn’t anyone any feelings for the poor lovely nurse-girl? Did everyone really believe he could be excused for attempting to kill his wife simply because he didn’t like her and didn’t want her to have custody of the children? Was Lucan mad?” In some cases, Lacey reflected, there comes a moment when the best of friends, the most admiring, most affectionate, when faced with a certain person’s repeated irrational behavior, have to admit that the person is more or less mad. “Mad” covers a whole minefield of mental conditions.

  Maria’s daughter, now beginning to be free, her children already in their teens, wanted to write a book. People who want to write books do so because they feel it to be the easiest thing they can do. They can read and write, they can afford any of the instruments of book writing such as pens, paper, computers, tape recorders, and generally by the time they have reached this decision, they have had a simple education. Lacey’s main experience was based on her mother’s, which was the fact that she had known the missing, probably the late, Lord Lucan. Lacey took her mother’s bundle of press cuttings, she read all the articles and books about Lucky Lucan that she could lay hands on. Then she started on a series of interviews with some of the living remnants of his life. Not many would consent to see her, and those few who did were mostly convinced that Lucan had committed suicide, either to avoid justice or to avoid injustice, as the case might be. One charming widower, a former acquaintance of the missing Earl as an undergraduate, was more forthcoming. He had retired to a stone house in Perthshire.

  “If I had my time again,” he told Lacey, “I would have looked into the affair with meticulous thoroughness. I would have solved the mystery.
”

  “Don’t you feel that enough was done at the time?”

  Lacey said.

  “I certainly don’t. There was a kind of psychological paralysis, almost an unconscious conspiracy to let him get away. It was not only that he was a member of the aristocracy, a prominent upper class fellow, it was that he had pitched his life and all his living arrangements to that proposition. His proposition was: I am a seventh Earl, I am an aristocrat, therefore I can do what I like, I am untouchable. For a few days after the murder, this attitude overawed the investigators and his friends alike. Besides, it was not an ordinary murder, not a shooting affair, it was a horrible bloody slaughter; his wife was in hospital with gaping head wounds which she said were inflicted by him. He was seen by friends with blood on his trousers but they couldn’t, or in other words didn’t, want to believe he had perpetrated all that violence. In those first days, and even first weeks, he managed to get away. He did so on the sheer strength of his own hypnotic act. A similar case, before your time, was the escape of the traitors Maclean and Burgess. Maclean was particularly upper-class-conscious (although he was nothing, really) but it took everyone in, rooted them to the spot when the facts broke in the Foreign Office. They got away purely on the hypnosis of their lifestylish act.” Lacey listened intently. Before Dr. Joseph Murray, as his name was, had finished his meditative discourse, she had started, with hope in her heart, to form a plan. “You say if you had your time again . . .” said Lacey. “Yes, I would have plunged right in. I think I could have nabbed him. The police were slow. The friends who aided and abetted Lucan ran rings around the police.

  Those police were used to lowlife criminals from the streets and from the rooming houses of Mayfair and Soho. Clever sharpsters, they were unnerved by the stonewalling toffs; they were not exactly abject, not at all. But they were hesitant, out of their depth. When one of the friends of Lucan exclaimed when approached, ‘Oh dear, and good nannies are so scarce!’ the police took this for heartless reality instead of a quip in poor taste. That sort of thing. I would have known how to deal with the situation the very night of the murder. I wouldn’t, believe me, Lacey, have been overwhelmed.”