3

Walker kept his appointment with Hildegard.

“I am not really interested in whether you are Lord Lucan or not,” she told him. “I am interested in you, what you are doing here, why you need a psychiatrist, why your nerve has failed you if that is so. I am interested in a number of important factors, but not greatly in what your name may have been in 1974. You are prompted to see me now, in these weeks. Why?”

“In England,” he said, “I have been declared officially dead in order to wind up my estate. I have come to think of myself as a dead man. It distresses me.”

“It is believed by some people,” she said, “that the real Lord Lucan committed suicide shortly after he had murdered a girl over twenty years ago. It is a rational belief.”

“His body was never found,” said Walker. “Naturally. Because I am Lucan.”

“You are not the only claimant,” she said.

“Really? Who is the other?”

“There could be many others. Several, at least. At what scope or advantage I can’t imagine. I should have thought you’d want to keep it quiet.”

“I am keeping it quiet,” said Walker. “My secret is safe with you.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

“I have only to ring Interpol.”

“So have I.”

“To give yourself up?” she said.

“No, to give you up, Dr. Wolf.”

“Me? What do you mean?” Her voice had changed as if she had difficulty swallowing, as if her mouth was dry.

“You are Beate Pappenheim, the fake stigmatic from Bavaria who was exposed in 1986, who disappeared with so many millions of marks from the Pappenheim Catholic Fund that nobody knew how many, who—”

“What you are saying,” she said, “means nothing to me. Let’s return to your problem, which, as I see it, is one of identity.”

“I know who I am,” he said. “I have friends. Helpers. People who know who I am.”

“Perhaps, then, you don’t need me,” she said, arranging the pens on her desk a little more neatly than they had been.

“Beate Pappenheim,” he said, “how long does a warrant for arrest last? A whole lifetime?”

“My name is not Pappenheim,” she said, “and I am not a lawyer. I imagine a warrant for arrest in most countries lasts a lifetime or until the event of an arrest being made, but surely among your friends and helpers there is one who knows or practices criminal law?”

“My friends are getting old and some have died,” said Walker the so-called Lucan. “None of them has practiced the law. They are gentlemen, they are millionaires, but not lawyers.”

“You come here,” said Dr. Wolf, “with your story of being Robert Walker alias the seventh Earl of Lucan, a fugitive from British law, wanted for murder. What proof can you offer that any of this story is true?”

“I don’t need to prove anything.”

“If you wish to continue as my patient you do,” she said. “Especially since I have another patient, Lucan, who claims that he did do the murder; in fact, is almost proud of it.”

“Dr. Pappenheim . . .”

“Mr. Walker, it’s money you want, isn’t it?”

“Partly.”

“Bring me proof that you are Lucan and I’ll pay you, partly. And now your time is up, for which you pay me. You pay at the desk and no fooling.”

“Next Friday, Dr. Pappenheim?”

“Get out.” She glared at him but he smiled at her as he rose, suave, casually dressed, rich, manicured, simply awful.

Hildegard took out of her handbag a small scent-spray which she puffed on either side of her neck. She put the spray back in her bag, thinking, I’m an animal trying to put that man off the scent. Where did he come from, that muckraker? She phoned Jean-Pierre, knowing confidently of his admiration for her methods and his respect for her fame. “Yes, I am being threatened,” she said, “about some past life of mine, something in another world. It’s upsetting me. Not rationally, of course. But I don’t know quite what to do.”

“We can discuss it tonight, Hildegard. Why are you upset? Don’t you expect your patients to be nuts?”

“It’s that first Lord Lucan, Walker by name. Who do you suppose Walker really is?”

“A private detective,” said Jean-Pierre. “Someone making enquiries about the real Lucan, it could be.”

“See you later,” she said.

Jean-Pierre was seven years her junior. Their difference in age was not apparent. Hildegard had a charming face and form, with dark well-cared-for hair, a pale skin and large gray eyes. Jean-Pierre was a man of big build, already grisly-gray with a beard. For over five years now he had shared his life with Hildegard. He could think of no one else, practically nothing else, but Hildegard.

Jean-Pierre was a metal- and wood-worker, with a workshop and foundry where he spent his working days. Jean-Pierre had a genius for making things, such as bells, fire irons, horse brasses, doors, windows, and especially adjustable bookcases. He also restored objects which had been broken; he made lamps out of vases and mended good china jugs. His workshop was like a junk heap of Europe, a history of antiquity, with its corner cabinets and consoles filled and littered with little boxes, primitive telephones, shells, ancient coins, everything. He used coins for eyes, frequently, when he felt in the mood to make up a mask in wood and iron. He liked wooden shoe-forms. This place or business was in the suburbs, by road (he had a Fiat van) half an hour from the center outside of the rush hour. He now lived with Hildegard in the rue du Dragon on the Left Bank.