Under a Watchful Eye(65)

‘You have to realize too that his patients had to dedicate to a long haul, and cough up the cash for months at a time, before getting a private session with Dr Hazzard, or even Diane if they were lucky. And those private tuitions didn’t come cheap.’

‘Do you know what he was he like, I mean, as a person?’

‘My contacts hardly ever saw him. But they said he was some kind of David Niven type. Sharp dresser. Shades, porkpie hat. Very posh. Came across as fussy, brittle and prickly. Bit superior. Assured, one of them said, but always with a promise of confrontation in his tone. He was said to have a penetrative, intense stare, too, that could be absolutely withering if anyone challenged him. Or if he took a dislike to someone, and that was, apparently, a common occurrence.

‘The narrators in his short stories, and they’re all written in the first person, are always self-important and easily offended. I get the impression that no slight would ever be forgotten by old Hazzard. Achieving his will over others was paramount.

‘He also had two sports cars, one for him and one for his female persona. He’d greet people either as a man or as Diane, do his emotive pitch and then piss off upstairs. He had one entire floor to himself. But Diane was very posh, apparently, always immaculately done up. Quite convincing, Liza said, because Hazzard was small for a man. And this was when Hazzard’s life seemed to get even more interesting, at the Tor, but the trail of breadcrumbs thinned once he was off official radars.’

‘But you found some people, some members?’

‘Survivors, more like. But no one from the classic period in the sixties. They must have died by the time I was researching. And I only found three people who were involved with the SPR at the Tor. Liza, and two women who weren’t there for very long. They freaked out and got very frightened of the whole deal, but this was after it had been going for years. I’m pretty sure they had psychotic reactions to the “formula”. But Liza put me in touch with them. They all kept in touch after they left the SPR.’

‘How did you find her, this Liza?’

‘I posted an ad in a mind, body and spirit magazine. But that’s not her real name. She didn’t want me to use it.

‘She was only at the Tor for a few months, towards the end, a couple of years before Hazzard died. But what she told me was still pretty incredible. I don’t think Liza ever recovered from her experience either. She came away traumatized. And even as an old woman she was still terrified of them finding her. Which they did, in her head, if you know what I mean.’

Seb swallowed. ‘How so?’

‘She said they would visit her occasionally as she was falling asleep, to let her know that they were still watching her. Crazy. But in reality they left her with nothing but a failed second marriage, estranged children, bankruptcy, terrible night terrors and bad health. She was my main motivation for writing the book, and I dedicated it to her.’

‘Do you think that something might have happened there?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘That it wasn’t just a scam. You know, maybe there was some validity to what Hazzard claimed?’

Fry laughed. ‘You’re pulling my leg! It was a scam. The whole thing was a Hazzard cash cow, make no mistake. He was totally unethical and unscrupulous if it served the interests of the society, which of course were his interests. He was the sole beneficiary financially. There was some kind of complicated pyramid scheme going on through subscriptions and exorbitant fees.

‘According to Liza, people suffering from prolonged illnesses always produced the best results, in combination with fasting. How convenient. Hazzard’s subjects were often ill, or even terminally ill, and desperate. But they were always well-off. I don’t think it’s unlikely that he hastened a few ends either with his unconventional treatments, but that’s speculation on my part.’

Seb was almost lost for words, but not quite. ‘It’s incredible that he got away with it for as long as he did.’

‘Liza reckoned he’d basically imprisoned and terrorized some of the more infirm and elderly members too, who were paying him huge fees to live there. And if anyone caused trouble or challenged him there, they were kicked out. No refunds. But Hazzard was clever enough to choose his patrons and patients carefully. He vetted them for their suitability for manipulation, coercion, and intimidation if it became necessary, before he signed them up. But nothing ever got physical. He left no bruises that you could see. The damage was deeper, from psychological bullying. He got them hooked, Patty Hearst syndrome, gaslighting, the works. He even got Prudence to change her will and leave Hunter’s Tor to him when she died. She passed in the seventies and that pile on Dartmoor was still legally Hazzard’s when he followed her.’

‘Dartmoor? It’s on Dartmoor?’

‘Sure is.’

‘But . . . do you . . . ? I mean, did Liza think that she could actually leave her body? That there was some basis of truth to what Hazzard claimed?’

Fry laughed again. ‘Let’s just say that there was no doubt in Liza’s mind that the experience was real. And the other two I interviewed thought the same thing. They were all convinced because they’d all done it, repeatedly. Projected.’

‘But you aren’t buying it?’

‘That? All fantasy. Isolation, the creation of an environment and atmosphere, sublimation to his ideas, the selection of susceptible people. Just add hallucinogens, fasting and mantras and you can make people believe anything. He must have been pretty convincing at his peak too. But it was all in their heads.