Aiding and Abetting – Muriel Spark (2000)

Aiding and Abetting was my final read of 2019, it was a strange, quirky little tale from Muriel Spark. Her inventiveness and altered view of the world are never dull. Spark’s satire is never in short supply in this novel, in which she takes one of Britain’s most notorious murder cases as her inspiration.

“Lucky Lucan believed in destiny. By virtue of destiny he was an earl. His wife had been destined to die, according to his mad calculation. It was the madness of a gambler.”

In 1974, Lord Lucan allegedly murdered his children’s nanny – in mistaken identity for his wife, attacked his wife – and then disappeared into the night. It has since been generally assumed that the 7^th Earl of Lucan died by his own hand that same night, though his body was never found. However, there were many who thought he had manged to escape, for decades there were rumoured sightings of him all over the world. Some people always believed that he had been helped by his network of wealthy friends who had provided him with money and opportunities to pass through international borders. These people, his aiders and abetters. The case has fascinated for decades, and Muriel Spark’s unusual take on it, is wickedly subversive.

“‘I have come to consult you,’ he said, ‘because I have no peace of mind. Twenty-five years ago I sold my soul to the Devil.’”

When, more than twenty years after the case hit the headlines, a man walks into psychiatrist Hildegard Wolf’s Parisian office claiming to be Lord Lucan she has one particular reason for doubt. For, Dr Wolf already has another patient claiming to be the missing aristocratic murder suspect, and they clearly can’t both be telling the truth. Perhaps neither of them is. Both men bear a passing resemblance to the missing Earl bearing in mind the passage of time, each of them able to spin a fairly credible tale.

Dr Wolf is something of a strange character herself, for a start her method of therapy is quite unorthodox, she mainly talks about herself. She is also hiding a secret from her past, a secret one of her Lucan claimants knows all about. It is made clear that if she doesn’t keep the Lucan secret, then her secret will also be revealed.

Dr Wolf is not the only one trying to discover the true Lord Lucan. One of Lucan’s old friends, and the daughter of another acquaintance (who wants to write a book) team up in a bid to finally unravel the mystery.

“People who want to write books do so because they feel it to be the easiest thing they can do. They can read and write, they can afford any of the instruments of book writing such as pens, paper, computers, tape recorders, and generally by the time they have reached this decision, they have had a simple education.”

One of the things I really liked about this novel is that Muriel Spark reminds us that at the heart of the mystery is a young woman who was brutally murdered. So often Sandra Rivett is almost an add on to the mystery. If Lucan really did have people helping him escape justice – and despite Lucan being declared dead in 1999 we may never really know this – they did so in the knowledge that he had done a terrible thing. To those aiders and abetters, she really was unimportant.

There is a great little twist at the end of the novel – would you expect anything less? – as Spark explores the nature of the Lucan myth in her own inimitable fashion.

Anyone familiar with Muriel Spark will know she never shied away from difficult or even distasteful themes, and with this novel she certainly treads a fine line between the satirical and the downright unpleasant. She is I think just clever enough to stay on the right side of that line, though some may think the subject matter inappropriate to be satirised in this way. However, what Spark does do well is to remind us that a young woman died horribly, and if Lucan survived that terrible night – he must have had help and plenty of it.

A personal note: I am struggling with the blog at the moment, I haven’t been well for weeks, and despite being off work and able to blog whenever I want to – I find I don’t often want to. Posts have been a bit lacklustre I suspect lately – reflecting my mood, so thank you for sticking with me while I get back to normal.