Aiding and Abetting Read Free

“There is always that possibility. Anyone any time could have something in their past. I can’t think . . . but it would be unlikely, unbelievable. What would such people want with my past?”
    “Perhaps nothing,” he said.
    “Perhaps-what do you mean, Jean-Pierre?” “Well, I don’t mean exactly that you yourself might be wanted by Interpol. On the other hand . . .”
    “On the other hand, what?” She had become uneasy, menacing. Jean-Pierre decided to back off. “There is no other hand,” he said, “since you are not on the wanted list.” He smiled very fetchingly at her. His affection was real. “If one of these men is the missing Lucan he might feel it safe to confide in you if he knew of something in your past life that you wanted to hide. But as that is not so, since you say it isn’t, that theory is ruled out, isn’t it?”
    “No,” she said. “If one of them is the real Lucan he might imagine that he had something on me. Anyone might get that idea. They are probably in it together, is all I say.”
    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