Free Lifeforce by Colin Wilson Page A

prison, and he told me that these cannibal feasts had sent him into states of ecstasy for hours. I took his lambda readings while he was telling me these things — they increased by more than 50 percent.”
    “And cannibals too.” Carlsen was so excited that he spilled whisky on the typescript; he mopped it with his sleeve. “Cannibal tribes have always insisted that eating an enemy enabled them to absorb his qualities — his courage and so on…”
    “Quite. Now, that is an example of what I call negative vampirism. Its aim is total destruction of the victim. But in the case of sex, there is also positive vampirism. When a man desires a woman, he reaches out towards her with psychic forces, trying to compel her submission. And you know yourself that women can exert that same kind of power over men!” He laughed. “One of my lab assistants here is an ideal subject. She is literally a man-eater. It’s not her fault. She’s basically quite a sweet girl — tremendously generous and helpful. But a certain kind of man finds her irresistible. They hurl themselves at her like flies on flypaper.” He pointed to the typescript. “Her lambda readings are in there. They reveal that she’s a vampire. But this kind of sexual vampirism is not necessarily destructive. You remember all the old jokes about ideal marriages between sadists and masochists? They are basically accurate.”
    The telescreen buzzed. It was the lab assistant they had seen earlier. “The body’s arrived, sir. Do you want me to go ahead with the tests?”
    “No, no. I’ll come across now.” He turned to Carlsen. “Now you can see my methods in action.”
    In the corridor, they stood aside to let past two ambulance men who were wheeling a stretcher. Both saluted Fallada. In Lab C, the assistant, Grey, was examining the face of the dead girl through a magnifying glass. A middle-aged, bald-headed man sat on a stool, his elbows on the bench behind him. When Fallada came in, he stood up. Fallada said: “This is Detective Sergeant Dixon of the Crime Lab. Commander Carlsen. What are you doing here, Sergeant?”
    “I’ve got a message from the Commissioner, sir. He says not to go to too much trouble. We’re fairly certain who did it.” He gestured towards the body.
    “How?”
    “We managed to get fingerprints off the throat.”
    Carlsen looked down at the girl. Her face was bruised and swollen. There were strangulation bruises on her throat. The sheet had been pulled far enough back to reveal that she was still clothed. She was wearing a blue nylon smock.
    Fallada asked: “Was he a known criminal?”
    “No, sir. It was this chap Clapperton, sir.”
    “The racing driver?”
    Carlsen asked: “You mean Don Clapperton?”
    “That’s right, sir.”
    Fallada turned to Carlsen. “He disappeared in central London on Tuesday evening.” He asked Dixon: “Have you found him?”
    “Not yet, sir. But it shouldn’t be long.”
    The lab assistant asked: “Do you still want to go ahead, sir?”
    “Oh, I think so. Just for the sake of a routine check.” He asked Dixon: “Now, let me see, Clapperton was last seen at what time?”
    “He left his home at about seven o’clock, on his way to a children’s party in Wembley. He was supposed to give away the prizes. He never arrived there. Two teenagers say they saw him at about seven-thirty in Hyde Park with a woman.”
    Fallada said: “And this girl was killed by him about eight hours later, in Putney?”
    “Looks like it, sir. Suppose he had some kind of brainstorm. Probably lost his memory and wandered around for hours…”
    Fallada asked Carlsen: “What time did your space vampire escape from the S.R.I. building?”
    “About seven, I suppose. You think —”
    Fallada raised his hand. “I’ll tell you what I think when we’ve examined the body.” He told Grey: “I want to show Commander Carlsen how we test for negative life energy. So could you set up the apparatus on the man over