Free Lifeforce by Colin Wilson Page B

there?”
    Dixon said: “I’ll leave you now, sir. The Commissioner says he’ll be in his office until seven o’clock.”
    “Thank you, Sergeant. I’ll tell him the result.” The body of the dead man was still lying on the trolley near the door, now covered with a sheet. Carlsen guided the other end of the stretcher as they wheeled it to the other end of the laboratory.
    Grey said: “In through that door.”
    It was a small room that contained only one bench. Suspended above this was a machine that reminded Carlsen of an X-ray apparatus. Carlsen helped the assistant transfer the body to the bench. Grey pulled off the sheet and dropped it onto the trolley. The man’s flesh was yellow and rubbery. The line made by the rope was clearly visible in the flesh of his neck. One eye was half open; Grey closed it perfunctorily.
    Attached to the wall behind the bench was a large L-field meter, the scale calibrated in millionths of an amp. Next to this was a television monitor. Grey attached one lead to the man’s chin, clamping the other to the loose flesh of his thigh. The needle on the meter swung over. Grey said: “Point nought four. And he’s been dead for nearly forty-eight hours.”
    Fallada came in. He looked at the reading, then said to Carlsen: “You see, this man also died by violence.”
    “Yes, but by his own hand. That’s not like being beaten and strangled.”
    “Perhaps. Now what we are going to do is to induce an artificial life field with this Bentz apparatus. Watch.” He pressed a switch; a faint blue light glowed down from the apparatus above the corpse, accompanied by a rising sound that soon passed beyond the range of audibility. After about a minute, the needle of the lambda meter began to climb steadily. Seven minutes later, it had climbed to 10.3, slightly lower than that of a living body. The needle wavered there. Fallada said: “I think that’s as high as it will go.” He snapped off the switch, and the light slowly died. Fallada indicated the meter. “Now it should take about twelve hours before the life field leaks away. And that is in spite of the decomposition that must have started in his intestines.”
    Grey undipped the leads. This time, Fallada helped him to transfer the body back onto the trolley. Grey wheeled it out. A moment later, he returned with the body of the girl. He removed the sheet and they lifted it onto the bench. She was wearing a tweed skirt under the nylon smock. A pair of tights hung loosely around one foot.
    Carlsen asked: “Who was she?”
    “A waitress from an all-night transport café. She lived only a few hundred yards from her work.”
    Without ceremony Grey pulled up the skirt. Underneath, the girl was naked. Carlsen observed the bruises and scratches on her thighs. Grey clipped one electrode to the soft flesh inside her thigh, and the other to her lower lip. Fallada leaned forward. Suddenly, Carlsen was aware of his tension. The needle of the meter climbed slowly and stopped at .002. Grey said: “It’s dropped two thousand milli-amps in seven hours.”
    Fallada reached out and pressed the switch; the blue light came on. When the hum faded, there was absolute silence. As slowly as the minute hand of a watch, the needle climbed to 8.3. After another minute, it was clear that it would stay there. Fallada said: “Now,” and switched off the machine. Almost immediately, the needle of the lambda meter began to drop. Fallada and Grey looked at one another, Carlsen noticed that Grey was sweating.
    Fallada turned to Carlsen. He said quietly: “You understand?”
    “Not quite.”
    “It will take only about ten minutes for her artifical life field to disappear. She cannot hold a life field.”
    Grey was watching the needle. He said: “I’ve seen ruptured life fields before, but never anything as bad as this.”
    Carlsen said: “But what does it mean ?”
    Fallada cleared his throat. He said: “It means that whoever killed her sucked the life out of her so