Read Games of the Hangman Online
Authors: Victor O'Reilly
"And?"
said Fitzduane.
"Nothing
found," said Buckley.
"A very healthy young man, apart from being hanged, that is.
Mind you, I'm not saying it was absolutely
impossible.
There are a staggering
number of drugs and chemicals available today.
What I am saying is that we found no evidence that he was drugged or
poisoned in any way.
The lab people are
well practiced and
expert,
and it is unlikely they
would have missed an alien substance in the body.
A more likely possibility would be that a
more remote substance might take longer to identify.
But let me repeat, no alien substance was
found."
"What
about hypnosis?
"
Fitzduane wasn't sure he
believed in such a possibility himself, but Buckley was the expert, and he'd
seen some decidedly odd things in the
"I don't
know," said Buckley in a deadpan voice.
"There could have been a witch doctor hidden in the tree.
All I can say is that I didn't find a shiny
gold watch dangling in front of his eyes when I carried out the
examination."
Fitzduane
didn’t feel particularly amused.
He knew
pathologists had a reputation for ghoulish humor, but the blown-up images of
Rudolf on the screen weren't doing much for his own sense of fun.
Buckley was
not insensitive to his reaction.
"More seriously," he went on, "the evidence available
suggests that it is most unlikely an individual will deliberately
cause
himself harm even when under hypnosis.
The survival instinct is strong.
Of course, there are recorded circumstances
of quite extraordinary happenings in Africa, India, and so on, but in those
cases the victim was normally preconditioned for his whole life to accept that
a witch doctor was normally preconditioned for his whole life to accept that a
witch doctor or whoever had the power to put a spell on him that could result
in his death."
"Preconditioned?"
"Preconditioned,"
said Buckley.
"An unlikely
happening for
a you
man brought up in the heartland of
Western capitalism."
Fitzduane
smiled.
"Unlikely."
Buckley
switched the projector off and allowed it to cool for a few minutes.
The room was now lit only by the reflecting
glow of an angle desk lamp.
Fitzduane
stood up and stretched.
One way or
another he had been sitting for most of the day, and he was tired and stiff
from the long drive.
Click!
The lower two-thirds of Rudolf von
Graffenlaub filled the screen.
Buckley
pressed the button on the illuminated pointer, and the little arrow of light
indicated the stained area around the crotch of the dead youth's jeans.
"You will
observe," said Buckley in his lecturer's voice, "that the deceased's
bowels evacuated as he was dying.
You
may think that this indicates poisoning or something of the sort.
Such is not the case.
In fact, it is reasonably common, though not
inevitable, for such an occurrence to take place during the convulsions of
dying.
It is also not uncommon in the
case of a male for ejaculation to take place.
As it happens, in this case there was no evidence of ejaculation.
"Police
inquiries disclosed that the deceased attended breakfast in the college
refectory a couple of hours before his death.
This gave me a little concern when I read the report before making my
examination, since it's my experience that suicides rarely eat much in the
period immediately prior to the taking of life.
However, on examination of the stomach contents, I was relieved to find
that he had not actually eaten at breakfast, though he had drunk some
tea."
"Yet
another indication of suicide," said Fitzduane.
"Well, if
that was what he was contemplating, it was scarcely surprising that Mr. von
Graffenlaub's mouth felt somewhat dry at the time."
Buckley reverted to his lecturer's monotone.
"You will observe that the zip of the
jeans if fully done up and the penis is not exposed.
That tends to eliminate the possibility of a
sexual perversion that went wrong."
"Of
what?" said Fitzduane, taken
aback.
"Its'
part of the world of bondage, masochism, and similar perversions," said
Buckley mildly, "and it's not confined to high fliers in
It happens wherever there are people, such as
in this good Catholic city of
You see, partial asphyxia can be a sexual
stimulant.
This is often discovered
accidentally, such as when schoolboys are wrestling.
The next thing you know some youngster is
locking
himself
in the bathroom or lavatory and
playing games with ropes or chains around his neck as an aid to
masturbation.
Then something goes wrong,
and he slips or puts the rope in the wrong place.
He just nicks the vagus, and that's it.
He's work for the likes of me.
His parents have forced the bathroom lock or
whatever, and there is little Johnny, cyanosed, looking just like Rudolf here
except for his penis hanging out and dribbling semen.
And often porno magazines
all over the place."
"This is
all news to me," said Fitzduane, "and I never thought I lived a
sheltered existence."
"Well,"
said Buckley,
"to each his own.
Your average person knows more about football
than hanging."
*
*
*
*
*
Fitzduane
followed the pathologist's Volvo across the city, along
hill to the Arbutus Lodge.
The box of
slides and a photocopy of the pathologist's file on the dead Bernese lay on the
seat beside him.
There seemed to be
little doubt that the hanging had, in fact, been suicide.
The matter of the motive was as obscure as
before.
It never
seemed to be easy to park in
The cramped hotel forecourt jammed full of
cars made maneuvering difficult, and it took some minutes and rather more
frustration before they were able to squeeze through to the hotel's lower
parking lot, where a corner was still free.
The sleet had
stopped,
thought the wind was viciously cold.
For a brief moment
,
after
they had locked their cars,
Fitzduane and Buckley stood side by side and looked across to where the River
Lee rolled by below them.
Its route was
outlined by streetlights on its banks.
There was the occasional glint of reflected light on the black, oily
surface of the river, and below and to their right they could see the lights of
merchant ships tied up at the quays.
"Many of
my customers are fished out of that river," said Buckley.
"
We had so many drownings last year that one of the mortuary attendants
suggested building a special quay for suicides and supplying them with marker
buoys and anchors."
"I guess
it's the parking problem," said Fitzduane.
*
*
*
*
*
Buckley looked
at the last morsel of carefully aged Irish beef with a slight hint of
sadness.
With due
ceremony he matched it with the remaining sliver of buttered baked potato.
The carefully loaded fork made its final
journey.
"There is
an end to everything," he said as he pushed his plate away.
He looked across the table at Fitzduane and
grinned benevolently.
"What I'm
saying," said Buckley, "is that it doesn't do to make too much of a
suicide.
In the small patch of
with about a hanging a fortnight last year.
There is some poor sod making his greatest gesture to the rest of
mankind, and all it adds up to is a few hours' work for us employees of the
state."
Fitzduane
smiled.
"An
interesting perspective."
"But
you're not persuaded?"
Fitzduane
sipped at his port and took his time answering.
"I have a tight focus," he said, "and it isn't how Rudolf
killed himself that primarily concerns me.
It's where and why.
He
did
it
on my
doorstep."
Buckley
shrugged.
For the next few minutes the
cheese board became his primary concern; then he returned to the subject of
suicide.
"It's a funny
business," he said, "and we know nothing like enough about the
reasons."
He grinned.
"Dead people don't talk a lot.
One survey in
hundred suicides and estimated that either physical or mental illness was the
principal cause in about half the cases.
Well, I can tell you that Rudolf was in excellent health, there was no
evidence of early cancer or venereal disease or anything like that, and the
reports I received would tend to rule out mental illness.
So, according to the researchers, that leaves
what they term social and personal factors."
"And what
exactly does that mean?"
"Hanged if I know."
"Jesus!"
groaned Fitzduane.
"Suicide
statistics," continued Buckley, "leave a lot to be desired.
For instance, if I am to believe what I read,
so
low as to be almost
irrelevant.
So where, I ask myself, do
all those bodies I work on come from?
Or
is
He shook
his head.
"The reality is that
people are embarrassed by suicide, so they fudge the figures.
A suicide in the family is considered a
disgrace.
As recently as 1823, for
example, a
crossroads in
Now,
there is a nice example of social disapproval."
Fitzduane put
down his glass.
"Let's get back to
Rudi.
Is there anything — anything at
all — that you noticed about him or the circumstances of his death?"
"Anything?"
said Buckley.
Fitzduane
nodded.
The port
decanter was finished.
They left the
now-empty dining room and retired to have a final brandy by the log fire in the
annex to the bar.
Fitzduane was glad
that he was staying the night.
How
Buckley remained upright with so much alcohol inside him was a minor
mystery.
The pathologist's face was more
flushed, and he was in high good humor; otherwise there was little overt sign
that he had been drinking.
His diction
was still perfect.
"Anything at
all?" he repeated.
"Think of
it as the classic piece in the jigsaw," said Fitzduane.
Buckley picked
up a fire iron and began poking the fire.
Fitzduane removed his jacket, rolled up his left sleeve, and thrust out
his arm.
For a moment, Fitzduane thought
that the pathologist was going to hit him and that he was unlucky enough to be
spending an evening with someone whom
drink
turns
violent.
"Look at
this," said Buckley.
Fitzduane
looked at the proffered arm.
A snarling
bulldog's head wearing a crushed military cap was tattooed on the forearm;
under it were the words “USMC 1945.”
"The
Marine mascot," said Fitzduane.
"I saw it often enough in
"You
don't have any tattoos?"
"Not that
I've noticed," said Fitzduane.
"Do you
know the significance of the bulldog to the Marines?"
"Never
gave it much thought," said Fitzduane.
Buckley
smiled.
"The choice of a bulldog as
their mascot goes back to the name the Germans gave the Marines in
1918.
They were called
Teufelhunden
, devil dogs.
It was a tribute to their fighting
qualities.
Well, jobs were scarce in
was a young lad, so I ended up serving a hitch in the U.S. Navy as a medic and
being attached to the Marines.
The
tattoo was a present from my unit.
It
means more to me than a Navy Cross."