Death and the Conjuror by Tom Mead

Author:Tom Mead [Mead, Tom]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781804540879
Publisher: Head of Zeus

XI

SNAKEMAN UNMASKED

When the two men parted company a little later, Flint was evidently dispirited at the outcome of Spector’s lecture. But Spector himself seemed suddenly enthused. He told Flint he was heading to the Pomegranate to try and get some information out of Della Cookson. This was, however, a half-truth; on the way over there he stopped by the Rees house for a quick consultation with Lidia.

She had taken up residence in her late father’s office, and she was sitting behind his desk when Olive Turner ushered Spector in. She wore a pair of thick bottleglass spectacles as she pored over a large volume.

“Good afternoon, madam,” said Spector, discreetly scanning the room. The pool of blood, he noticed, had been covered by a discreet mohair rug.

“Mr Spector,” she said, barely looking up from the book. “Please sit down.”

Spector settled himself on the couch and said: “I would like to ask your professional opinion on something, Miss Rees.”

“Go on.”

“I would like you to tell me about ‘fugue states.’”

Whatever she had been expecting, it was clearly not this. She thought for a moment.

“A fugue state is a fragmentation of the memory. A distancing between oneself and one’s consciousness. From the individual’s point of view, he may have blacked out entirely and simply come to once again at the right moment.”

“Could this hypothetical fellow do things in a fugue state which he would not do in his waking life?”

“Certainly. Go anywhere. Do anything.”

“Could he commit a crime?”

“Oh, easily. He could do anything. Anything at all.”

“What else do you know about the affliction?”

“Well, it remains something of a mystery. Typically it stems from childhood coping mechanisms. A child who is troubled will devise a means of separating himself from the events in question, of convincing himself that these events are happening to somebody else. And eventually, this will become the truth. His personality—his very self—will splice. He will slip into this almost trancelike state, during which time he will have no knowledge whatsoever of his actions.”

“So if your father was killed by a man in a fugue state, you’re saying the fellow couldn’t be held accountable?”

“No. Because, you see, it was scarcely him at all. It was somebody else. A kind of phantom stranger within his skull.”

Spector ruminated. “It’s a frightening thought.”

“Mm. But imagine how frightening it is for the man himself. To know that all these things are happening, that you are the one responsible, but that you have no free will to control them.”

“So a man may conceivably commit murder in one of these fugue states?”

She looked at him closely, with the aspect of seeing him truly for the first time. “A man may do anything,” she said.

“And what can you tell me about dreams?”

“Floyd Stenhouse’s dreams, you mean? I assume you’ve been reading my father’s notes.”

“I have indeed. A dream, your father states, is like a poem. It invents and reinvents its own language. It’s lyrical, ambiguous. And most importantly, it never quite gets to the point. So a dream is the pursuit of clarity, the unpeeling of images and symbols.

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