A Willing Victim (2 page)

A large desk stood in the middle of the room on top of a thread-bare brown rug. Peering over the typewriter and other clutter, Stratton saw Jeremy Lloyd. Dressed in a tweed suit, with the handles of a large pair of scissors protruding from the right-hand side of
his neck, he was sprawled on the floor, face waxen, eyes closed. Walking round the desk, Stratton could see that the dead man, who looked to be in his late twenties, was flat on his back with his arms by his sides and his legs bent awkwardly to the right, as if someone had tried to turn him over but only partially succeeded.

Stratton squatted down for a closer look and saw that there were wounds on the chest, too – slits in the tweed and the shirt beneath with small amounts of reddish-brown staining around them. As he leant forward to touch the man’s cheek – cold – he saw that what he’d initially taken to be blood on the side of his face was, in fact, a plum-coloured birthmark that disappeared into the dark mass of curly hair. It surprised him that there didn’t seem to be much blood at all around the wound, or on the handles of the scissors.

He stood up and looked about the room once more. There was some calligraphic writing, decorated with leaves and vines, in a picture frame beside the grimy window:
The secret of life is to cure the soul by the means of the senses, and the senses by means of the soul.
It didn’t actually seem to mean anything to Stratton, although as far as ‘the senses’ went, anyone searching for physical signs of a perverse sexual appetite would certainly be gratified by the dark circles under Lloyd’s eyes and his blue-white pallor – he would lay money on this man’s not having been dead long enough for either to be caused by the beginnings of decomposition. This, though, was the room of a scholar. He wasn’t going to find a cupboard full of flagellant pornography sent under plain wrapper, or anything like it.

He turned his attention to the bookshelves, reading the spines:
The Secret Path
,
The Projection of the Astral Body
,
Esoteric Orders and their Work
,
In Secret Tibet
and a lot more of the same, interspersed with a few philosophers whose names he recognised, such as Confucius and Plato. Leaning forward to blow dust off the pamphlets strewn across the narrow table under the windowsill,
he read:
Within You is the Power
,
The Power to Be Well
,
The Lemon Cure
– blimey – and
Can I Be a Mystic?
by someone called Aelfrida Tillyard. In his case, thought Stratton, the answer was ‘not bloody likely’ and he didn’t need some woman with a daft name to tell him so.

‘Mumbo-jumbo.’ The voice made him jump and, turning, he saw the elongated and austere form of the pathologist Dr McNally. He nodded towards the ‘secret of life’ thing in the picture frame. ‘Sort of thing that attracts long-haired men and short-haired women. Let’s have a look him, shall we? Has the photographer been yet?’

‘No. I’ve only just got here myself,’ said Stratton, backing away as far from Lloyd as he could without colliding with any piles of books. ‘No sign of anyone from Fingerprints, either, so be careful . . . Lloyd’s hair’s not too bad, actually,’ he added, as an afterthought.

‘Still, nothing a short back and sides wouldn’t cure.’ McNally squatted down beside Lloyd, angling his head for a closer look at the scissor handles sticking out of the side of the dead man’s neck. ‘And there are plenty of male cranks with short hair, after all.’

‘Don’t I know it. I had a visit from a chap this morning who said he’d had a communication from Venus about a space war and we’ve got to be prepared.’

‘Well . . .’ McNally paused, and looked up at him, a challenge in his eye. ‘When you think about it, it’s no stranger than the Son of God being born to a virgin, and millions of people believe that, even nowadays.’

‘No,’ said Stratton, mildly. ‘I suppose it isn’t, really.’

McNally peered at him, momentarily disappointed, then turned his attention back to Lloyd.

‘Do you think someone’s tried to move him?’ asked Stratton.

‘Could be . . . if they did it must have been when the limbs were more pliant, of course. There’s some rigor, and he’s cooled down a lot . . .’

‘Do you think they closed his eyes, too?’

‘It’s possible.’ McNally sounded dubious.

‘He couldn’t have done this himself, could he?’

‘Can’t be sure yet – depends if he’s left- or right-handed.’

Stratton glanced at the desk. ‘Pen and pencil on the right-hand side, but that’s not conclusive.’

‘Someone’ll know. I’d be surprised if he did it himself, though.’ McNally stared intently at Lloyd’s neck, then said, ‘A suicidal stab to the throat is very unusual – I’ve certainly never seen one. Doesn’t mean it’s impossible, though, except . . . You didn’t touch him, did you?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Didn’t move his head at all?’

Stratton sighed. ‘No.’ McNally may have been a bloody sight easier to work with than some of the more celebrated pathologists he’d encountered, the types who, treated by the press (and, often, juries) as infallible, were constantly photographed, bowler-hatted and thoughtful, staring down at the gruesome remains of some tragedy or other, but he still asked stupid questions. Stratton was about to add something to the effect that he knew better than to touch anything when a clattering on the stairs heralded the photographer, with Redfern from Fingerprints in close pursuit. The small room now being very crowded, Stratton decided to leave them all to it and went downstairs to find Canning.

‘Lloyd’s been living here since . . .’ Canning, who’d been waiting for him at the foot of the stairs, consulted his notebook, ‘April. Hardly ever had visitors, except for the priest from the RC church in Soho Square – Mrs Linder says he came about once a week. No relatives that she knows of, and she laughed when I asked about a girlfriend and said he wasn’t the sort . . . Then she said he wasn’t the other sort, either. Said she’d often wondered if he
wasn’t a bit funny in the head, but he’d share his last crust with you and wouldn’t hurt a fly. Didn’t have a job, but paid his rent in good time . . . Always going on about some book he was writing. Told her he knew Ambrose Tynan.’

‘The famous writer?’ Stratton had read a couple of Tynan’s books – a lot of guff about attempts to take over Britain by sinister foreign powers who could harness dark forces for their dire purposes (but never, of course, succeeding) and some pretty hot stuff about rogering virgins on altar-tops and Satanic orgies and the like. At the time, he’d enjoyed them mainly because they were full of things one couldn’t have, such as nice food, wine and cigars. Not that he’d ever particularly enjoyed cigars, but that was probably because he’d never smoked a Hoya de Whatever it was – and nor, come to think of it, was he ever likely to. Tynan’s name tended to appear in the society columns of newspapers, along with a lot of oleaginous twaddle about witless baronets and neighing debutantes, and Stratton couldn’t imagine what possible connection he might have with somebody like Lloyd.

‘That’s the one,’ said Canning.

‘I suppose Lloyd might have written to him asking for advice or something,’ said Stratton.

‘I had the impression it was a bit more than that. Mrs L. said he’d gone to visit him.’

‘And fancied himself part of a secret brotherhood, no doubt.’ Stratton sighed, envisioning himself and Canning having to spend the week dealing with a procession of wild-eyed conspiracy theorists and crackpots. ‘Did she mention any family?’

‘Not so far as she knows.’

‘Visitors last night?’

Canning shook his head. ‘Mrs L. was at the pictures –
A Kid for Two Farthings
at the Tivoli. She doesn’t recommend it.’ Canning’s mouth twitched slightly. ‘Thinks Diana Dors is vulgar. Anyway, she went with her pal Mrs Heilbron and her husband, and afterwards to the Nellie Dean for a drink . . . It’s a regular date, apparently. I’ve got all the details.’

‘And later?’

‘Says no one came into the house between quarter past eleven – which is when she came in and went to bed – and half past six, when she got up. Says she’s a light sleeper and she’s on the ground floor – she heard one of the lodgers come in at a quarter to twelve—’

‘How did she know it was a lodger and not someone else?’

‘She got up and had a look. Bloke’s name is Wintle . . .’ Canning turned a page, ‘Christian name Harry. Youngish chap, out at work at the moment. Mrs L. says she doesn’t know where – he’s a painter and decorator and they go all over – but he comes back at lunchtime if he’s working near enough. And there’s another one she called “Old Mr Beauchamp”. He’s not been here the last few weeks – on the halls, apparently.’

‘Music halls?’ Stratton imagined some rouged and wizened horror, tottering night after night through a fifty-year-old routine.

‘That’s right. Well, what’s left of them, anyway. Tours around a bit. Then there’s her aunt who lives up at the top.’

‘Right-oh. I’ll go and see her. Tell Standish to let me know if Wintle arrives. Oh, and ask Mrs Linder if she knows whether Lloyd was left- or right-handed, would you?’

Mrs Linder’s aunt turned out to be a hunchbacked crone called Violet Hendry, clad in a musquash coat with a flowery pinny and several cardigans underneath, her extremities covered in fingerless gloves, and socks and slippers respectively, and her legs mottled red from sitting too close to the fire. Once they’d established that she’d heard nothing and seen nothing and that Mrs Linder was very good to her, she volunteered the information that poor Mr Lloyd was a very clever man who
knew about things
.

‘What sort of things?’ asked Stratton.

‘Eh?’ Mrs Hendry cupped her hand to her ear.

‘You said Mr Lloyd knew about things.’

‘He knew about the spirits,’ said Mrs Hendry. ‘The afterlife. Like my friend.’ She fumbled inside her clothes and handed Stratton a dog-eared pasteboard square.
Why Remain in Doubt?
he read.
Madame Beatrice Worth, Famous Trance Medium. Seances and readings. Inspirational Messages by Post. Fees to Suit All. 361 Oxford Street, W1 (over hairdresser’s shop).

‘She’s marvellous. I’ve had such comfort since my husband passed on. She talks to the spirits, you see. Really talks to them – doesn’t make it up, like some. He understood all that, Mr Lloyd. Writing a book about it, he was. He said that one day . . .’ Mrs Hendry lowered her voice dramatically, ‘one day, what was in that book would change the world. You know,’ here she put a hand as dry and gnarled as a hen’s foot on his arm, ‘that’s probably why they killed him.’

‘Who’s “they”?’ asked Stratton.

‘Sorry, dear.’ Mrs Hendry cupped her hand to her ear again. When Stratton repeated the question, she peered suspiciously round the room as if there might be spies crouched behind the enamel kitchen unit or under the bed, and then whispered, ‘Unbelievers. They were against him.’

‘Did he tell you this?’

‘Yes. Enemies of truth, he called them. Beset on all sides, he was, like Our Lord. He said it was like the Bible – reviled and persecuted, he was. Reviled.’ Mrs Hendry repeated, looking at Stratton intensely, to make sure he was taking it in, ‘and persecuted. Aren’t you going to write it down?’

Feeling foolish, Stratton scribbled the words hastily in his notebook.

‘If you want to find out who killed him,’ said Mrs Hendry, ‘you look for his papers. Oh, yes.’ She nodded sagely. ‘You’ll find the answer there, all right.’

Heart sinking, Stratton returned to Lloyd’s room and waited while the photographer finished doing his stuff and Redfern made the room even dustier than it was before. Once they’d gone, and McNally had finished his work and was packing his bag, he said – not expecting much in the way of a response – ‘Is there anything you can tell me now?’

‘Well, it wasn’t the wound to the neck that killed him. Look.’

McNally having turned Lloyd’s head slightly, Stratton saw that the scissors, blades hardly bloodied, were lying on the rug. ‘Did you take them out?’ he asked, surprised.

‘They weren’t in – just wedged between his neck and the floor. We couldn’t see because of all that hair. The wound on the neck is hardly more than a scratch. Probably done just before, or just after, death. Accounts for the lack of blood.’

‘But there’s not much blood anywhere else, either.’

‘Puncture wounds – such as those on the chest – don’t bleed much, or at least not externally, and unless I’m very much mistaken’ – McNally’s face suggested that he thought this was most unlikely – ‘it was one of those that killed him. That is not, of course, an official diagnosis.’

‘Of course,’ murmured Stratton. ‘And the time of death?’

‘Hard to be sure. There’s not much meat on him, and the room’s not warm . . . Ten or twelve hours ago, maybe a bit more. That’s the best I can do.’

Stratton glanced at his watch. ‘Midnight?’

‘Or it could be earlier. Or later.’ McNally picked up his bag. ‘I’ll get him collected. All being well,’ he added, ‘I’ll be able to let you know my findings in the next couple of days.’

The body having been removed, PC Canning, who’d informed Stratton that Lloyd was, according to Mrs Linder, right-handed, stood in the centre of the room staring gloomily at the sagging bookshelves. ‘Blimey. Just look at this lot. Somebody else with too many ideas.’

‘You can say that again,’ said Stratton. ‘He was writing a book, apparently. Told the woman upstairs it was going to change the world. She seems to think that was why he was killed.’

Canning shook his head. ‘God help us,’ he murmured.

‘Well,’ said Stratton, grimly, ‘it doesn’t look like any other bugger’s going to be much use. Unless that lodger . . .’

‘Wintle, sir.’

‘Unless Wintle knows something – but it doesn’t sound as if he’s going to be here for a bit, so let’s get cracking. You can start on the shelves and I’ll do the desk.’

Canning stared round the room. ‘I like a book myself, but this lot . . .’ He shook his head again. ‘I’m surprised the floor hasn’t caved in. He’s got a lot by Ambrose Tynan – I’ve read quite a few of them, too.’ He started pulling them off the shelves as he spoke. ‘
Who Dines with the Devil
. . . that was a good one . . .
The Fourth Horseman
,
The Curse of Moloch
. . . Tynan’s written in this one.’ Canning held out a book to Stratton, open at the title page on which was inscribed, in a dashing scrawl,
To my dear friend Jeremy – May the courage and wisdom of the Timeless Ones, who order all things, be your guide, Blessings be upon you – Ambrose.