‘The performance began at 7:45, you’re on stage at around 8:30 and off at 8:40. Then you go on again at about 9:50 and the curtain comes down at about 10:10.’
‘What are you suggesting? That I went all the way to Ebury Street, killed MacIver and came back between 8:40 and 9:50?’
‘No.’
‘Then how? And why?’
‘I’m not concerned with the motive at the moment; but I do know how you did it.’
‘I didn’t. And anyway it’s impossible,’ I said, but Bentley was quite sincerely convinced I had done it. He and his sergeant did a lot of ‘Why don’t you make it easy on yourself and confess now?’ stuff, to which I responded with the contempt it deserved. I pointed out to them that I had an unshakeable alibi for the time between 9.40 when MacIver phoned the police and 9.53 which was when the police finally broke into MacIver’s flat.
‘Only if he was killed then, which he almost certainly wasn’t.’
‘He can’t have been killed before he rang the police.’
‘If it was MacIver who rang the police.’
‘Even if someone faked his voice—and I suppose you think it was me—he can’t have got back to his flat much before 9.40 if he left Harpo’s at 9.10.’
‘If he ever did go to Harpo’s.’
I told Bentley that he wasn’t making any sense at all. He leaned back in his chair and contemplated me. It was not a look of hostility; in fact I don’t think I’m flattering myself if I say that he was looking at me with admiration. Misplaced, of course.
‘I told you that I thought that all the little inconsistencies and oddities of this case had a single solution. The trick was to make some sort of leap of the imagination and find it. I began to suspect you very soon after we had first met. You were so eager to oblige. There is a type of psychopathic criminal who loves to help the police with their investigations, especially investigations of their own crimes. It somehow confirms their cleverness. At that stage the suspicion was only a vague uneasiness, but one learns to pay attention to these intuitions. Then there was your performance at Harpo’s, again almost too good to be true, even down to imitating MacIver’s little mannerism of tapping his glass with his fingernail. Of course, it could all have been an uncanny coincidence. It occurred to me then that you might have known more about MacIver than you were letting on, and that out of some actor’s bravado or vanity you were incorporating that knowledge into your performance. This led me on to the even more radical possibility that the mannerism was not, after all MacIver’s, but yours.’
I could do nothing but shake my head in bewilderment. He went on: ‘The barman recognised that little mannerism as MacIver’s because he had seen MacIver do it in the bar on the night he was murdered. But what if that wasn’t MacIver in Harpo’s bar. Mightn’t it have been you?’
‘Impossible. I was at the theatre all night.’
‘Harpo’s is in Dean Street, about five minutes very brisk walk from Wyndhams. You came off stage at 8.40 which gives you a good twenty-five minutes to change out of your costume and into MacIver, slip past the stage doorman—elderly and not very attentive, as I discovered—and go to the club. You had stolen MacIver’s wallet when you killed him, so you had his membership card, not that you needed it. You have one drink, establish your presence there and leave. Plenty of time to change back and make your final appearance on stage in the last act at 9.50.’
‘You’re forgetting the phone call from MacIver’s flat at 9.40.’
‘It might not have been from his flat. It was from his mobile which could have been anywhere. I suspect that you took the mobile to some remote corner of the theatre’s backstage area and made the call using your excellent impersonation of his voice. Then after the theatre you went to Ebury Street and threw the mobile under a car expecting that it would probably be found in the morning after the car had driven away. Anyway, we’re liaising with the phone company now: they may be able to pinpoint the specific location where the call was made. We should have the results back very soon’
I had to concede that his conjectures appeared possible but hardly likely. Perhaps the phone company would come up with something. But it was intolerable to be accused in this way, so I felt it my duty to find some flaw in his argument. I pointed out that he was forgetting that MacIver had been heard and seen leaving his flat at 7.05.
‘That was you again. The fact that the man seen leaving the flat did so rather noisily suggested that he might have been drawing attention to his departure. As soon as I realised it was you all the little problems seemed to resolve themselves. The fact that it was a hot night and yet MacIver was found dead on a warm electric blanket in an overheated room always suggested that someone was trying to confuse us about the time of death which must actually have occurred at about seven. The fact that the man seen leaving was wearing a fawn overcoat on a sultry night was also suggestive. That overcoat was a characteristic garment of his and would provide an effective yet simple disguise for you. Once it was off, you could become yourself. You wore it again at Harpo’s and then you got rid of it. Everything is explained, you see from the missing overcoat to the apparent missing two hours of MacIver’s life between seven and nine.’
‘It’s a theory,’ I said. ‘That’s all it is, and there’s no way you can prove it.’
‘Until we hear back from the phone company, that is,’ he replied carefully.
‘If they can give you the information you require. Which I doubt.’
After this there was a long pause and then Bentley said: ‘I’m aware of that. I just wanted to tell you that I know how. But I’d also very much like to know why.’
So would I, as it happens.
**
He was standing in my way. That’s the clearest explanation I can give, though I know it’s hopelessly inadequate. Like Magus Zoroaster who met his own image in the garden, he blocked my path. I am an actor, a good one. I need success. I didn’t realise it at first when I began to see him on television. It irritated me, that was all. There was this impostor with my face, mouthing pseudo-intellectual rubbish, favouring a reluctant public with his ingenious, inane opinions. I would watch him fascinated, regardless of whether his wretched programmes were interesting or not.
Then I noticed something. I leave you to draw your own conclusions. Whoever ‘you’ are, because I don’t want anyone to read this, naturally. I have to pretend that there is a ‘you’ to share my thoughts.
Where was I? Yes. Those television programmes with MacIver in them. I began to realise that after I had been watching them, I felt mentally and physically drained. I was exhausted; I couldn’t think straight. Sometimes the feeling lasted into the next day and I could barely get up in the morning. I tried to stop myself from watching him, but it was hard. And whenever I saw him on television it was as if he was sucking out my brain cells through the screen. At last I understood. He owed his success to the fact that he had found some way of drawing on my energies, because I was his double. Somehow he had found out about me and now he was living off two bodies, two brains, his and mine. No wonder he was a success. No wonder my career was on the slide. I had to confront him and tell him that I knew what he was doing and demand that he give me my life back. The problem—I was fully aware of this—was that he could just laugh in my face, tell me I was mad. Because that’s what it must seem like to the outside world, just a mad delusion, though I happen to know it’s true. So, reluctantly—
That quotation from Shelley which the pretentious git wrote in my book; remember what it went on to say? ‘Magus Zoroaster, my dead child . . .’ (My italics.)
He was dead. Why? Because he met his own image, and because there was only life enough for one. The Doppelgänger legend states that if you meet yourself, you will die soon. MacIver was slowly killing me, so it was kill or be killed. Self defence really; though I doubt that would stand up in court as an excuse. I’m not stupid enough to think that.
I followed him around a bit, got to know his habits. I laid
my plans slowly, though I knew I had to do it during the run of the play. Small part, you see, not enough energy for a big one. Then, I only had to meet him. How? Well, at last this force, this energy which had been running against me for so long started to favour me. MacIver had just brought out a book and, as I was passing Waterstones in Piccadilly, I saw a poster announcing that he would be signing copies there the following week. So I went at the appointed time, bought a copy of his book and joined the queue in front of his desk to have it signed.
I could see the fear in his eyes when he saw me. He knew that I had found him out, but he made a very adequate pretence of seeming unconcerned. After he had signed my book he handed me a card.
‘Here’s my number. Give me a call some time. Let’s have a drink.’
I have to admit, I had no idea what his game was. Perhaps he saw this as an opportunity to finish me off, drain the last ounce of energy and success out of me. How, I was not sure. That I discovered later. As far as I was concerned he had issued a challenge, and I must take it up. What he didn’t know, and what gave me the edge, was that I had been laying my plans for this meeting for weeks before. I rang him up the following day, said I would be passing Ebury Street on my way to the theatre round about a quarter to seven and could I take him up on his kind invitation?
Bentley was correct, of course, about all the superficial details, the mechanics if you like, of the killing. I respect Bentley as a professional; and I believe he respects me too, as a professional. But what he couldn’t know—or understand—was what happened between MacIver and me.
I arrived there at twenty to seven and he let me in. He was in a buoyant mood. He gave me a drink and started to ask me about my family. He seemed obsessed by the idea that our resemblance had some sort of genetic origin, but I knew this was just a blind. Well, we drew a blank on the ancestral front. We were not related, and we both knew that the explanation lay far deeper than that anyway. MacIver paused and smiled: the first skirmish was over.
‘I’m doing a Sunday Arts programme on self portraits,’ he said at last. ‘Perhaps we could use you. I can’t think how at the moment, but it’s an interesting idea.’ He led me towards the huge mirror he had over the fireplace. We stood side by side looking into it. I was marginally taller, I suppose, with perhaps a little more hair, but otherwise it was uncanny. Once or twice I found myself looking into my eyes and then realising that they were not my eyes but MacIver’s. That must have been a trick of his, to make me do that. He smiled, then he said: ‘Have you ever fantasised about having sex with yourself?’
I stayed calm, but it was a horrible moment. MacIver had planned to take the last drop of energy and spirit from me by means of the sexual act. My last vital fluids would be absorbed into him and he would be filled with my life. It was something finally to know his game. Swallowing my revulsion, I smiled at him.
‘It’s an intriguing idea,’ I said.
‘The charm of novelty,’ he replied. Our eyes locked in the mirror and again I had the odd sensation of looking at myself and then finding that it was him. He put his hand on my shoulder and with a friendly compelling movement pushed me through into the bedroom. When he took his jacket off I knew the moment which comes only once had arrived, so I took the knife out of my pocket and stabbed him to death.
Now they suspect me of murder. I don’t mind that because after all it’s true. Bentley is a smart man and I would have been disappointed if he hadn’t guessed. We both know that a jury cannot convict on an ingenious theory alone. I had been very careful not to leave fingerprints or other traces. I even took precautions at Harpo’s, though I must admit that that little trick of tapping the glass with my fingernail (which is my mannerism) was a mistake. The tricky thing will be the phone records. I still don’t know what the results of their enquiry have been. But if they’re bluffing, as I suspect, my position is still very strong, which means there will be a stalemate.
All the same, I am annoyed that they won’t believe me when I say I am being stalked. I am being stalked; it happens more and more; I can barely stir outside my flat without hearing the footsteps behind me, but they won’t believe me. I also know who is following me. I caught a glimpse of him in a shop window; and they certainly wouldn’t believe me if I told them who it is. I’m not afraid, though. He’s not a threat to me now that he’s dead, just a damned nuisance. The police should believe me and do something about it; that’s what they’re there for: to help the living, not the dead.
Aristotle said that one of the advantages of being thought a liar is that no-one believes you when you tell the truth. Of course, he was being ironic. (How the hell did I know that about Aristotle?)
**
Note by D.I. Bentley:
The above document was found on an encrypted computer file after a second, more extensive search of Soames’s flat. It was this which finally secured his conviction for the murder of MacIver. He received a life sentence because he refused to plead diminished responsibility. Oddly enough, though at the time I didn’t believe the story about his being followed, it did turn out to be true. I had put Soames under surveillance and D.S. Weyman, who is not given to imaginative flights, swears that he saw a man shadowing him on a number of occasions. What Weyman also swears is that Soames’s pursuer looked uncannily like Soames; and uncannily like MacIver for that matter. Weyman tried several times to apprehend the stalker, but failed. I leave readers of this file to draw their own conclusions.
During the trial some facts emerged about the origins of Soames and MacIver which could be of significance. They were twins and had been secretly adopted by two sets of parents. This had never been disclosed to them because the birth mother and father, as well as the surrogate parents, had all been members of a strange cultish commune called the House of the Moon which had broken up amid considerable scandal in the late 1960s. The true parents of Soames and MacIver could not be traced because they were only ever known by their cult names of Baphomet and Selene. Rumour had it that they were brother and sister.
The last word should go to Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound which was, in a way, what had turned my vague suspicion of Soames into a conviction, so to speak:
For know that there are two worlds of life and death:
One which thou beholdest; but the other
Is underneath the grave, where do inhabit
The shadows of all forms that think and live
Till death unite them and they part no more . . .
THE TIME OF BLOOD
The dream came again last night with greater intensity.
It was a warm night and so in my dream I got out of bed to open the window, but the view that met me was not the familiar one of the town square and the mairie. Instead, under the moonlight, a great sea stretched from a distant horizon right up my hotel’s façade against which it slapped and lapped. It was not a rough sea, but something stirred beneath its surface like a restless sleeper under a blanket. Then from the far distance a speck of white began to move towards me. The speck resolved itself into a young woman in a white shift streaked and splashed with blood and she was running over the sea towards me. I could see now that, as her bare feet struck the surface of the sea, it sent up little splashes onto the bottom of her shift, and the splashes were not of water but red blood. So, as she ran towards me over the sea of blood, she became bloodier and bloodier from the splashes. I could see that her eyes were bright and fixed on me with a dreadful purpose. By this time I had become aware that I was dreaming, and I knew that it was absolutely necessary that I should wake before she reached me. I began to struggle in the straitjacket of sleep which held me sluggish and half paralysed. At last I snapped the bonds and broke the surface into wakefulness, sweating and struggling for breath. The room was stifling, so I walked to the window, opened it and looked out. The mairie and the town square stood still under the moonlight. Far away on a road below the town, a solitary motorbike roared its way to an unknown destination, an oddly reassuring sound.
**
Montjouarre in Burgundy is one of those French provincial towns you pass through on the way to somewhere else. You might even have broken your journey there for a coffee or a beer, because it is a pleasant looking if unspectacular place. It is situated on the Petit Morin, a tributary of the Marne, in fertile arable land. It has a fine Romanesque church on its highest point and near to the war memorial in the municipal gardens can be seen the ruins of an Ursuline convent built in the sixteenth century, but they are neither extensive, nor particularly interesting. The former convent had been the headquarters of the local Gestapo and was razed to the ground when the Germans withdrew in 1944.
Two days ago I arrived there on a soft grey September afternoon when the whole town seemed to be so fast asleep that I wondered if it would ever wake up. I booked into the Hotel du Commerce in the main square, then walked across it to the mairie which stood opposite. There I managed to rouse a somnolent concièrge to make an appointment to see M. Le Maire the following morning.
It was three o’clock in the afternoon, and there was nothing else to do. I looked at the church and then walked into the municipal gardens. In a dusty open space flanked by two rows of heavily pollarded plane trees stood the war memorial. It was carved from a mottled grey stone and showed a stolid, bucolic looking poilu, in an aggressive pose, rifle clutched in his big, clumsy stone hands. Underneath the words MORT POUR LA PATRIE was a long list of those from Montjouarre who had been killed in the First World War. A shorter list of names from the 1939-1945 conflict were carved on the reverse of the monument. The stone poilu, turning his head, stared fixedly, and, as I thought, rather fearfully at the ruins of the convent which were situated in the shade of a grove of plane trees to his left. I walked in the direction of the poilu’s gaze towards the ruins, because, after all, it was they which had brought me to the little town of Montjouarre.
The Complete Symphonies of Adolf Hitler Page 13