White Corridor Part 3

'You are quite astonishingly disgusting. No wonder I never come up here from the morgue.'

'Too much paperwork, no doubt.'

'No, too many stairs. I was wondering if you'd heard anything about the equipment I was supposed to be getting. I've been promised new tanks, a small-parts dissection table fitted with a decent stainless steel drain and a second mobile instrument cart for seven months now, and the cover is still off my extractor fan. Plus, one of my refrigeration cabinets is on the blink. I suppose it was you who left several wine boxes and a tray of sausage rolls in there.'

'They're for your send-off.'

'Ignoring the fact that it is unsanitary and illegal to keep foodstuffs in a refrigeration unit reserved for body parts, the sausages are past their sell-by date.'

'So are you, old bean. I thought you'd be pleased.' Bryant narrowed his watery eyes in suspicion. 'You haven't become a vegetarian, have you?'

The pathologist looked troubled. 'I have the awful feeling that by retiring at this late stage in life, I may find myself with no purpose. I can't just wither away in Hastings.'

'No choice, old sock. Your retirement's been accepted and processed. You can sit on the pier and throw stones at the seagulls.'

'But I like seagulls.'

'After a few months of watching them you won't. Just think of all the fun that lies ahead.' Bryant stapled some papers together and sniffed. 'Personally I've always found Hastings to be positively suicide-inducing, but I won't be living there. I'm sure you'll discover some advantages; it'll be as quiet as your morgue, and you won't have me pulling hideous practical jokes on you anymore.'

Finch gloomily picked something unpleasant from his nails. 'I suppose that's true. I worked it out the other day. Over a period of more than forty years, you've played a mean-spirited trick on me at least once a week, which comes to well over two thousand j.a.pes, jokes, hoaxes, wind-ups and pranks played out with a straight face against my person, while I am trying to carry out the serious business of ascertaining causes of death to make your department look good. You tricked me into cutting up my credit cards over the phone, nurturing a rare mollusc that turned out to be a mildewed mango seed, calling my wife to accuse her of conducting a fict.i.tious affair with a limbo dancer and telling my son that he'd been adopted following his rescue from a Satanist cult. You super-glued my office door shut, put gunpowder in my cigarette filters, sewed prawns into my jacket pockets, dropped a live eel down my toilet, relabelled my sandwich box with plague bacillus warnings, hid whoopee cushions in my cadaver drawers and retuned my radio to receive fake "end of the world" bulletins. No wonder I've never had any respect around here. Poor Raymond Land, I've finally come to understand exactly how he feels.'

'You'd better sit down, Oswald, you've gone scarlet. You don't want to have a heart attack the week before your retirement, eh? Everyone knows that your sense of humour petrified as soon as death's dark caul wrapped itself around you. Besides, you know I only play jokes because I respect you. You'll be sorely missed.' Bryant had secretly pet.i.tioned the Home Office to have Finch's pension increased. 'At least we've got young Giles Kershaw to take over the position. I was thrilled to nominate him in your place.'

'I've been meaning to talk to you about that. I'm afraid I turned down Kershaw's application.'

'What on earth did you do that for?'

'In my opinion, he doesn't have enough experience.'

'But he'll be devastated, Oswald. The job was all but promised to him.'

'Then it will teach him not to be so ambitious,' said Finch. 'These overbearing young graduates come along thinking the world owes them a living, when they have to pay their dues.'

This wasn't like Oswald. Bryant a.s.sumed that the pathologist was out of sorts because the reality of his long-pending resignation had finally sunk in. Everyone knew he was happiest when he was elbow-deep in somebody's chest. Physical and mental health problems had a way of crowding in when one's purpose in life was removed, and Finch's purpose was to provide resolutions to unfortunately truncated lives.

'You're looking done in, old friend,' said Bryant gently. 'Why don't you go and put your feet up?'

'I don't trust you when you're nice to me,' Finch complained. 'Besides, I can't. It's my last week, and the workload will be starting up again.'

'I haven't seen any cases come in this morning.'

'That's because the unit's officially shut from today, so Faraday has been instructed to release me to the Met, to help out with their overload. That means I'll be dealing with Sergeant Renfield, G.o.d help me. I daresay I'll be kept busy right up until the moment of my departure.'

'Then you should have shared your work with Kershaw. I think I'd better have a talk with him. You've made a wrong call there, Oswald. He's a bright lad and deserves to go far, even though that upper-cla.s.s accent makes him sound as if he's being strangled. He did a great job on that business with the Highwayman. I hope you won't have disappointed him too much.'

'What about me? I was having a farewell party on Friday, but now there won't be anyone here to see me off.'

'Never mind,' said Bryant jovially. 'We'll post your cake to Hastings.'

8

CONTROL The morning sky was such an impossibly deep shade of blue, it seemed as if the earth's atmosphere was barely thick enough to protect them from the cruel infinity of s.p.a.ce. Madeline and Ryan sat on an outside table at La Vieille Ville and enjoyed the sun's warmth on their faces. The scent of pomegranates and jasmine blossom hung in the warm air. In the kitchen behind them, Momo the chef was stirring the bouillabaisse he prepared for the village's housebound residents once a week.

'I think I could live here.' Madeline pushed back her book and rested her chin on her hands. 'Clean air, birds singing, lots of flowers, no litter. Do you like it?'

'There's no-one to play with. We're stuck here without a car. There's nowhere to go. You're always reading.' Ryan stirred the long spoon about in his ice cream. His complaints had become a refrain the past few days. During the winter season, the trains only called at the little station once an hour, turning every outing into a day trip, and day trips became expensive.

'You would like to go somewhere?'

She looked up and saw the young man who had rescued her handbag at the parade. He was wearing the same clothes, even down to the leather satchel at his side.

'There is a very beautiful building on Cap Ferrat, the Villa Rothschild. It has many gardens and a waterfall, and is open to the public. I have a car.' He pointed back at the blue open-topped Peugeot. 'We could drive there.'

She saw the boy's face brighten and realised how much he still missed his father. Ryan had seen a lot more of his good side, and was young enough to be able to forget the bad. Jack Gilby had portrayed himself as a hero to the boy, turning her into a villain in the process.

'Can we go, Madeline?' Ryan was already pushing his ice cream aside and rising from the table.

She regarded the young man with a cool eye, but he did not move beneath her critical gaze. 'That's a pretty underhand trick, Mr Bellocq,' she told him as Ryan began tugging at her hand.

'Please, call me Johann.' He gave a tentative smile, anxious to be accepted.

As they drove, he thought back to the first time he had seen her, standing on the empty railway platform with a map and a backpack, the boy's hand held tightly in hers. Her floral dress was English and cheap, her trainers disproportionately large for her thin bare legs. After he had spoken to her, he'd realised that she was everything he had ever wanted in a woman. Down here, away from the mountain villages, there were only blank-eyed American tourists and pompous English couples in ridiculous straw hats. The permanent residents were elderly and sour, too rich to concern themselves with being pleasant. This one-the boy called her Madeline-was different. There was an innocence, a vulnerability about her. She had been hurt by a man and left without money or confidence. She would not sneer at him as others had done. The boy was the key-he needed male companionship; otherwise, he would get on her nerves and drive her away from the village.

He had broken into the garage of a locked-up summer home in Rocquebrune and taken the Peugeot, carefully repairing the door behind him, knowing it would be weeks, possibly months, before anyone realised it was missing. The vacation villas of the wealthy provided him with everything he needed. From Ma.r.s.eilles to Monte Carlo there were thousands of poorly protected properties, and each fell under a different police jurisdiction. Half the time, the prefectures failed to maintain proper contact with one another. People travelled during the winter months, and the gendarmeries were short-staffed. It was the time of le chomage, le chomage, the form of unemployment that kept this part of France empty for six months of the year. The perfect time to live a little beyond the law. the form of unemployment that kept this part of France empty for six months of the year. The perfect time to live a little beyond the law.

He turned to smile at the boy in the pa.s.senger seat, sensing that he had already won the battle for her heart.

'I don't know, he seems like some kind of exile. From the way he speaks English I suppose he's French, but there's another accent. Did I tell you he has pale green eyes? Hold on, I'm lighting a cigarette.' Madeline tucked the mobile under her right ear and dug for a throwaway lighter. Her one extravagance was a weekly phone call to her half sister in Northern Spain. The pair of them would have gone to visit, but Andrea had married a taciturn mechanic from Bilbao whose eyes had followed Madeline a little too closely when she last stayed there.

'Well, he stands out, I suppose. There aren't many people out on the streets down here, or in the houses by the look of it, and Jack's settlement cheque hasn't come through yet so I'm pretty much stuck here. Of course I look! I go to the bank in Beaulieu every other morning but there's nothing.' She checked to make sure that Ryan was not within listening distance. 'Well, I don't know, he's a typical Mediterranean type I suppose, rather good-looking, a little younger than me, and I have the feeling he's just as lonely. Far from home. I know, of course I've got Ryan, but I need adult company as well. No, I don't know if I'd go out with him, he hasn't asked me. It's just that-I always seem to be running into him. It's a small village, there aren't that many places you can go, but even so. I hardly ever see the same people twice in London. It just seems a bit odd that we keep b.u.mping into each other.'

Perhaps he just fancies you, Andrea had suggested. Andrea had suggested. You're finally free to do what you want. Jack knows that if he comes near you again, the police will be on him. Maybe you should go on a date with this guy You're finally free to do what you want. Jack knows that if he comes near you again, the police will be on him. Maybe you should go on a date with this guy.

The problem was, she had forgotten how to be single. Besides, she had Ryan to look after, and the boy was already getting stir-crazy. She stepped back from the balcony into the neat little room, hemmed between the sheer granite cliffs and the glittering green sea, and wished there was someone she could ask for advice. The afternoon at the Villa Rothschild had pa.s.sed like a hazy waking dream. Johann had paid the admission fee for the three of them, and they had walked through the j.a.panese garden beyond the pink palazzina palazzina villa that straddled the cape, watching Ryan run after iridescent dragonflies. villa that straddled the cape, watching Ryan run after iridescent dragonflies.

The exotic themed gardens-nine in all-that surrounded the former home of the Baroness Ephrussi de Rothschild were trained into the form of a vast land liner that crested the outcrop of land. To complete this illusion, they had once been crewed by twenty gardeners in white sailors' outfits with red pompom hats. The place was absurd, vulgar, ostentatious and beautiful, filled with grottoes and pergolas, temples and waterfalls. Tall pines and cypress trees, ancient agaves and tunnels of bamboo fended off the glare of the low afternoon sun, hemming the cadenced emerald lawns in jewelled shadows that crossed the gra.s.s like a rising tide. The cicadas all ceased at the same moment, leaving only the sound of sea wind in the treetops.

She had looked across at Johann and found him staring at the pulsing fountains, lost in thought. His eyes were deep and dark, set close to his brow, as serious as a statue's. If he realised she was studying him, he gave her no sign of it. They walked beside each other as Ryan ran ahead, but the silence between them was far from easy. 'Come.' He smiled. 'There is a gift shop. I will buy you some postcards of the beautiful gardens, for you to remember me whenever you look at them.'

He knew she was watching, but was careful not to show emotion. It was important to make her understand that he was a gentleman, and that meant being in control. He had not felt like this around a woman before. Madeline was unlike any of the girls he knew from the villages. He saw things in her eyes none of the others had, strength and grace and acquiescence. She had made mistakes and overcome hardships, but there was nothing of his mother about her, only kindness.

Most importantly, she was ready for him. He had never been close to anyone since he was a child, but he knew how to make himself appealing. It was as much about hiding bad traits as displaying good ones, and essentially, she could not learn of his predisposition towards breaking the law, which meant arranging their conversations in such a way that she would see nothing wrong.

If he managed to keep up the subterfuge, he wondered if there was a chance that she might become more than just a conquest. Her pale skin had tanned down, drawing out freckles, even in the days since he had been watching her. He had seen the full repertoire of her wardrobe now: one summer dress, a couple of T-shirts and a pair of faded jeans. He wanted to hold her, to rea.s.sure her that life could be good once again. In turn, he knew she would not disappoint him. He looked up into the sunswept sky and tasted salt, felt cool sea breezes in his hair. If he was to do this, to finally get close with a woman and share his life and his secrets, it meant hiding them for a while longer.

He was not sophisticated when it came to the subtleties of expressing affection, but he had seen films and watched enough television to provide pa.s.sable imitations of various emotional states. The next evening, he asked her back to his room for a drink, but when she made an excuse and shied away, he realised he had made a mistake. It was too soon to exclude the boy from a meeting. Persisting, he invited the pair of them to join him for a pizza-it was a Sunday night, and there was nowhere else open in the village-and she accepted, although she insisted on paying her share of the bill. She was determined not to owe him anything.

The conversation was easier to control when Ryan was seated there between them. He could deflect her questions and ask something about the kid. The challenge would come, he knew, when they finally met a deux a deux. He just wanted to do what was right, what she deserved.

On Monday night it rained, and Mme Funes offered to take Ryan along with her sons to see an animated movie playing in English at the little side-street cinema in Beaulieu.

It could have been the night for him to make his move, but he resisted. Instead, he took them both to Monte Carlo.

9

THAW The statue was of a man in a tall top hat with a bird on his arm.

Given its spectacular setting, it was a surprisingly modest and slightly ridiculous monument. Flags covered with red and white harlequin diamonds hung from either side of Monte Carlo's slender square, and parades of palmiers palmiers were swathed in tiny white lights. In the centre of the park, water cascaded with immaculate symmetry into stepped fountains. The arcing lawns were blade-perfect, the flower beds as plucked, scented and primped as nightclub hostesses. The view pointed in one direction between the palms frosted in luminescence, towards the icing-and-marzipan splendour of the casino, its base encrusted with polished Lagondas and Maseratis. Only the gawping tourists lowered the tone; untidy and loud in Mambo shorts and Nike socks, they snapped each other standing beside gull-wing sports cars. The tiny, densely built princ.i.p.ality of Monaco stood between cliffs and sea, its secret money and tainted glamour lending it a faintly sinister air. were swathed in tiny white lights. In the centre of the park, water cascaded with immaculate symmetry into stepped fountains. The arcing lawns were blade-perfect, the flower beds as plucked, scented and primped as nightclub hostesses. The view pointed in one direction between the palms frosted in luminescence, towards the icing-and-marzipan splendour of the casino, its base encrusted with polished Lagondas and Maseratis. Only the gawping tourists lowered the tone; untidy and loud in Mambo shorts and Nike socks, they snapped each other standing beside gull-wing sports cars. The tiny, densely built princ.i.p.ality of Monaco stood between cliffs and sea, its secret money and tainted glamour lending it a faintly sinister air.

Madeline looked on in awe as a pair of angular fashion models in white mink coats paraded before a crouching photographer.

'Don't be fooled by all of this,' said Johann. 'I read that the average resident here has seven bank accounts, but you won't see any of them around town. They're up in the hills. This is just a display for tourists.'

But it was obvious to Madeline that Monte Carlo was geared to amusing thin white rich people. As she pa.s.sed a silver Baby Bentley, its licence plate carrying the blue and white Monaco coat of arms, she felt herself shrinking into insignificance. The policemen looked like male models, and the streets were as clean as expensive restaurants. Down in the bay, elderly couples watched television on gleaming yachts in the world's most expensive floating trailer park. This was Old Europe at its richest and creepiest, attracting serious wealth while simultaneously fish-eyeing the tourist cla.s.ses, pocketing money while making you feel like a grateful nonent.i.ty.

Ryan had taken to holding their escort's hand as they walked. Shafts of sunlight slanted between the green cliff peaks, tilting the town even further towards the sea.

'I don't think this is my kind of place,' said Madeline. 'I don't feel comfortable here.'

'I like it.' Johann pointed up to the lampposts. 'The cameras? Everything that happens here is filmed by the security system. There is no crime. They see everything.'

'I suppose that's a good thing,' said Madeline doubtfully.

The cameras simultaneously protected and threatened. Johann liked that. They watched for petty crime and bad behaviour, but missed the fact that he had broken the law. It was the beauty of Europe; so many countries with different rules and moral codes, b.u.t.ted up against one another, and none of them communicating. Paradoxically, he felt safer here than anywhere else, knowing that the technology was more efficient than those who operated it.

'Let's go back.' He took up the hands on either side of him and led them back to the underground car park where the shining floors squeaked and the walls played music.

She watched the pa.s.sing lights through the windscreen as they pa.s.sed out of town towards Cap-d'Ail. 'What happened to your other car?' she asked, touching the polished dashboard of the silver Mercedes.

'There was a problem with the gearbox.' He did not take his eyes from the road. Ryan was asleep in the back.

'Really? It seemed fine to me.' She knew quite a bit about cars; Jack had always discussed his work with her. 'Where did you get this?'

'My brother has a half share in a secondhand-car dealership. He lends me vehicles from time to time.' The lies came easily. They always had.

'I thought you said you were an only child, Johann.'

'I call him brother. Our family adopted him to raise as their own.'

'Does he live nearby?'

She was asking too many questions. Impatiently, he floored the car and allowed it to glide around the angle of the cliff road. 'He is in Ventimiglia.'

'He must trust your driving ability.'

She was thinking things through; he could see something going on behind her eyes. He changed the subject. 'Why did you not pick Spain for your vacation here? I thought the English preferred the Spanish coast.'

'A certain type of English, I think.' She looked back at the sleeping boy. 'Maybe I should have taken Ryan there. He'd have more friends, and we'd have been able to save money. Things are more expensive here.'

'I have money. I can lend you some.'

'No, it wouldn't be right.'

'It is only money. You must not misunderstand my purpose, Madeline. I mean, it would help you to stay. I will miss you if you go.'

'I didn't mean-it's very kind of you to offer, Johann.' She placed her hand on his and smiled. The barrier between them thawed a little further.

'Tonight I take you to El Morocco. You like couscous?'

'I don't think I've ever had it.'

'Then I show you what you are missing. Then we put Ryan to bed and I take you for a drink.'

'Only at my hotel.' It was not a refusal. This time he was unable to keep the smile from his face. Perhaps he worried too much about hiding his feelings. Where was the harm? He could feel she was genuinely starting to care about him. He allowed himself to dream about her a little.

It was a dream that did not include the boy. He had always imagined that true love would arrive in the form of a virgin, not a single mother as old as himself. He knew he would have to adjust. Nothing was ever what you expected. That was the beauty and the terror of life.

Smiling to himself, he pushed down on the accelerator, and the Mercedes crested the curve of the Moyenne Corniche Moyenne Corniche with a wealthy roar. with a wealthy roar.

10

EMBARKATION Very early on Tuesday morning, John May arrived at his partner's house in Chalk Farm to find him already outside, trying to close the doors of Alma's van.

'There's a mile of string tied around this engine,' he said, peering beneath the bonnet of the old white Bedford. 'It looks like it's holding the distributor cap on.'

'Your obsession with reliability is misguided,' Bryant replied cheerfully, opening the pa.s.senger door and checking the musty interior. 'My father used to make deliveries all across London in one of these, right through the 1950s. It took them ages to catch him.' This was the sort of annoying remark Bryant was wont to make, in that it obscured as much information as it illuminated. 'Do you think it will hold the Garden of Eden?'

'I'm sorry?' May looked up from under the hood. His partner's conversation always left you feeling you'd missed something.

'The closing night show is taking comparative religious myths as its theme. We need to get a hardboard Garden of Eden in the back, along with several apple trees, a horn of plenty, two plastic gazelles and a partial view of a mountain built for Alma's church production of The Sound of Music The Sound of Music that's still covered in goat pellets. We're staging the fall from grace without a volcano, as our Adam had to be taken to the infirmary suffering from smoke inhalation last time we ignited it. It wasn't my fault; the ventilation in St Peter's Holborn is a disgrace. I suppose I made the production a touch too theatrical. When the snake turned into Satan accompanied by the detonation of an Ariel Bombsh.e.l.l, the ladies in the front row looked as if they'd just given birth.' that's still covered in goat pellets. We're staging the fall from grace without a volcano, as our Adam had to be taken to the infirmary suffering from smoke inhalation last time we ignited it. It wasn't my fault; the ventilation in St Peter's Holborn is a disgrace. I suppose I made the production a touch too theatrical. When the snake turned into Satan accompanied by the detonation of an Ariel Bombsh.e.l.l, the ladies in the front row looked as if they'd just given birth.'

The news that Bryant had reenacted the Creation in a city church came as no surprise to May. At this time of the year, and at a time in life when most men were fantasising about spending their afternoons in a soft armchair, Arthur was more likely to be found organising a conference for ufologists or leading a hunt across the East End in search of the Dagenham Strangler. He seemed able to draw on reserves of strength that powered him through the winter and propelled him towards another spring, much as a vehicle low on petrol might charge a hill in order to coast the next down slope.