‘That was very cleverly done,’ said Iredale with sudden enthusiasm. ‘As expert a job of tattooing as I’ve ever seen, as also was the birthmark on the right jaw.’ He leaned back in his chair. ‘In my field, of course, I come across a lot of tattooing but I specialize in removal rather than application.’ He leaned forward again and traced a line on the photograph. ‘The hairline was adjusted by depilation; nothing as crude as mere shaving and leaving the hair to grow out. I’m afraid Mr Denison has lost his hair permanently.’
‘That’s all very well,’ said McCready, coming forward. He leaned over the table, comparing the two photographs. ‘But just look at these two men. Denison is thin in the face, and he’d look thinner without the beard. Meyrick is fat-jowled. And look at the differences in the noses.’
‘That was done by liquid silicone injection,’ said Iredale. ‘Some of my more light-minded colleagues aid film stars in their mammary development by the same means.’ His tone was distasteful. ‘I palpated his cheeks and felt it. It was quite unmistakable.’
‘I’ll be damned!’ said Carey.
‘You say that Denison lost a week of objective time?’ asked Iredale.
‘He said he’d lost a week out of his life – if that’s what you mean.’
‘Then I can hazard a guess as to how it was done,’ said Iredale. ‘He was drugged, of course, and kept unconscious for the whole week. I noticed a dressing on his left arm. I didn’t investigate it, but that was where the intravenous drip feed was inserted to keep him alive.’
He paused, and Carey said in a fascinated voice, ‘Go on!’
‘The cut would be made at the corner of the eye, giving it a full week to heal. Any competent surgeon could do that in five minutes. Then I suppose they’d do the tattooing. Normally there’d be a residual soreness from that, but it would certainly clear up in a week. Everything else could be done at leisure.’
He picked up the two photographs. ‘You see, the underlying bone structure of these two men, as far as the heads go, is remarkably similar. I rather think that if you had a photograph of Meyrick taken fifteen to twenty years ago he would look not unlike Denison or, rather, as Denison used to look. I take it that Meyrick has been used to expensive living?’
‘He’s rich enough,’ said Carey.
‘It shows on his face,’ said Iredale, and tossed down the photographs. ‘Denison, however, looks a shade undernourished.’
‘Interesting you should say that,’ said Carey, opening the folder. ‘From what we have here it seems that Denison, if not an alcoholic, was on the verge. He’d just lost his job – fired for incompetence on June 24.’
Iredale nodded. ‘Symptomatic. Alcoholics reject food – they get their calories from the booze.’ He stood up. ‘That’s all I can do tonight, gentlemen. I should like to see Denison tomorrow with a view to restoring him to his former appearance, which won’t be easy – that silicone polymer will be the devil to get out. Is there any more?’
‘Nothing, Mr Iredale,’ said Carey.
‘Then if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go to bed. It’s been a long day.’
‘You know where your room is,’ said Carey, and Iredale nodded and left the room.
Carey and McCready looked at each other in silence for some time, and then Carey stirred and said over his shoulder, ‘What did you make of all that, Ian?’
‘I’m damned if I know,’ said Armstrong.
Carey grunted. ‘I’m damned, too. I’ve been involved in some bizarre episodes in this game, but this takes the prize for looniness. Now we’ll have to see what Harding comes up with, and I suspect he’s going to be a long time. I think somebody had better make coffee. It’s going to be a long night.’
Carey was right because more than two hours elapsed before Harding returned. His face was troubled, and he said abruptly, ‘I don’t think Denison should be left alone.’
‘Ian!’ said Carey.
Armstrong got up, and Harding said, ‘If he wants to talk let him. Join in but steer clear of specifics. Stick to generalities. Understand?’
Armstrong nodded and went out. Harding sat down and Carey studied him. Finally Carey said, ‘You look as though you could do with a drink, Doctor. Whisky?’
Harding nodded. ‘Thanks.’ He rubbed his. forehead. ‘Denison is in a bad way.’
Carey poured two ounces of whisky into a glass. ‘How?’
‘He’s been tampered with,’ said Harding flatly.
Carey handed him the glass. ‘His mind?’
Harding sank half the whisky and choked a little. He held out the glass. ‘I’ll have water in the other half. Yes. Someone has been bloody ruthless about it. He has a week missing, and whatever was done to him was done in that week.’
Carey frowned. ‘Iredale suggested he’d been unconscious all that week.’
‘It’s not incompatible,’ said Harding. ‘He was probably kept in a mentally depressed state by drugs during the whole week.’
‘Are you talking about brain-washing?’ asked McCready sceptically.
‘In a manner of speaking.’ Harding accepted his refilled glass. ‘Whoever did this to Denison had a problem. The ideal would have been to get Denison into such a condition that he thought he was Meyrick – but that couldn’t be done.’ Harding paused for consideration. ‘At least, not in a week.’
‘You mean the possibility of such a thing is there?’ asked Carey incredulously.
‘Oh, yes,’ said Harding calmly. ‘It could be done. But this crowd didn’t have the time for that, so they had to go about it another way. As I see it, their problem was to put Denison in the hotel as Meyrick and to make sure he didn’t fly off the handle. They didn’t want him to take the next plane to London, for instance. So they treated him.’ From Harding’s mouth the emphasis was an obscenity.
‘How?’ said Carey.
‘Do you know anything about hypnosis?’
McCready snorted and Harding, staring at him with suddenly flinty eyes, said coldly, ‘No, it is not witchcraft, Mr McCready. Denison was kept in a drug-induced hypnogogic state for a long time, and in that period his psyche was deliberately broken down.’ He made a suddenly disarming gesture. ‘I suspect Denison was already neurotically inclined and no doubt there were many ready-made tools to hand – irrational fears, half-healed traumas and so on – to aid in the process.’
‘What do you mean by neurotically inclined?’ asked Carey.
‘It’s hard to say, but I suspect that he was already a disturbed man before this was done to him.’
‘Off his head?’ interjected McCready.
Harding gave him a look of dislike. ‘No more than yourself, Mr McCready,’ he said tartly. ‘But I think something had happened which threw him off balance.’
‘Something did happen,’ said Carey. ‘He lost his job.’ He took a thin sheaf of papers from the file. ‘I didn’t have time to discuss this with you before, but this is what we have on Denison. There’ll be more coming but this is what we’ve got now.’
Harding studied the typed sheets, reading slowly and carefully. He said, ‘I wish I’d seen this before I went in to Denison; it would have saved a lot of trouble.’
‘He was a film director for a small specialist outfit making documentary and advertising films,’ said Carey. ‘Apparently he went off the