by Peter James
He followed her into the kitchen. 'Pleased to see me home?'
'It's a surprise.'
'Nice surprise?'
She pushed the plug into the sink, ran the cold tap, then cast her eyes around for a suitable vase. Ross came up behind her, slipped his arms around her waist, nuzzled her neck. 'How about some champagne? Some of the vintage Pol Roger? Winston Churchill's favourite. To celebrate.'
'Celebrate what?'
'That we're going to beat this thing you have.'
She saw him glance at the headline of the newspaper. He would have seen in The Times that the suspect in the killing of Dr Harvey Cabot was dead. He would have heard it on the car radio. But he made no mention of it.
'What news of your patient who's so ill? Lady Reynes-Whatsher-name.'
'Not good. Her husband's been threatening to sue me and everyone else.'
'And they think she's picked up this meningoencephalitis in the Harley-Devonshire?'
'Seems probable. A case of septicaemia with the same strain of bacterium was diagnosed three days ago. With some of these bacteria, no one can be sure how they're carried. Could be in the air-conditioning, the water, anything.'
'Is it going to affect the clinic?' She didn't know why she was asking the questions, she didn't care, she was already viewing her life with Ross as history. It was something to distract him from nuzzling her neck.
'No.'
'Unless, of course, there are more cases?'
'I don't think it's likely,' he said emphatically.
She found a vase, ran some water into it, up-ended it and tipped out a dead spider. Then she filled it again. 'Why's that? If you've had two cases and don't know how they've caught it, how do you know there won't be more?'
'I'll get a bottle of Pol Roger up from the cellar.' He let go of her and turned away.
'What do you feel like eating?' she asked. 'I was only going to make myself a tuna salad. Are you OK with something from the freezer? Lamb chops? Pizza?'
'We'll go out, save you cooking.'
There was something — something, she couldn't put a finger on it — strange about his tone. Almost as if it wasn't Ross himself who was at home, but a lookalike who was acting him a little too perfectly. 'What about Alec?'
He looked at his watch. 'Bit late to start trying to get a babysitter.' He hovered by the cellar door, and shot a second, rather surreptitious glance at his watch. 'Suppose we'd better eat in. Let's not worry about it for a while. We'll have a nice drink, a good talk. I'll go down to the cellar — still got one bottle of the eighty-three and it should be stunning.'
Faith glanced at her watch: 6.55. Then she glanced at the kitchen clock. The same. Ross was fanatical about all clocks in the house keeping accurate time. She'd promised Oliver she would call him at seven. He was distressed by the death of the suspect. They'd spoken briefly at lunchtime: the police had given him information that had not been released to the media. The dead man had had traces of cordite on his clothes, showing he had recently fired a gun. He had been carrying a gun of the same calibre as the bullet that had killed Harvey Cabot. He was on police files and had done two spells in jail, once as a juvenile for a violent mugging, once for car theft, and he was known to have underworld connections.
The police, Oliver had said, were convinced that this was their man, but they had not yet found any connection between Harvey and the other dead man, Barry Gatt. They were lacking a motive, but still felt strongly that Harvey's death had been a professional hit.
Oliver was upset that the suspect was dead. He needed answers, explanations and, one day, justice. He was scared that, with this man dead, the police might not dig as hard as they should.
She called down to the cellar. 'I'll just whiz out — won't take me ten minutes — see what they have at the fish counter at Tesco. They might have some scallops,' she said brightly.
Ross came barrelling up the steps. 'No, I don't need scallops. I'll have a tuna salad, that's fine, I need to lose weight. Let's relax, for God's sake. You said a while back that we never get the chance to sit down together and have a drink in the evening. Let's go into the library, have a glass of champagne and relax. Yes?'
'I'll get the nice glasses out,' she said, trying to mask the reluctance in her voice. 'And I think there's a tin of those anchovy olives. Would you like some?'
'Why not? I'll go and take my tie off.'
In the bedroom, Ross checked his watch again. Seven. Opening the bathroom cabinet and taking out the box of Calvin Klein Obsession For Men, he did a swift mental calculation. Timing was everything now.
And quantity. That was crucial, too.
79
It was just over two weeks to the longest day. Normally Faith loved these early weeks in June when spring suddenly became summer, when the garden was lush, the colours vivid, everything coming into bloom, her tomatoes starting to ripen in the greenhouse, her Jersey Royals ready for digging, her courgettes hoisting their flowers like flags. At this time of year there seemed to be such promise in the air. Such confidence. And, on such days, in the face of such intense celebrations of life, it was almost impossible to think dark thoughts.
Today, though, the thought of winter disturbed Faith as it never had before. She was frightened that when this summer had gone, she might never see another.
'Cheers,' Ross said.
Through the bay window behind him, Faith watched a grey squirrel run up a grand old beech tree on the lawn. Tree rats, some people called them. The little bastard had stripped bare great patches of the beech's bark, and now it was at risk of infections that might kill it. A whole family of squirrels was doing all kinds of damage to the trees. Perhaps Ross should shoot them — but how did you decide what to kill and what to let live? Was the beech tree more beautiful than the squirrel? That was subjective. Was it more important to the planet? The squirrel didn't know it was doing harm, any more than the amoebae munching away at her central nervous system did.
Everything was trying to survive. Life. The eternal food chain. Here was an irony she did not enjoy: a sentient human being, a creature at the top of the food chain, was nothing more than a damned canteen to a billion brainless amoebae.
'Hallo,' Ross said. 'Darling, hallo! Cheers! Anyone home?'
She came out of her reverie and raised her glass with a bleak smile.
'You'll never taste a finer champagne, I promise you,' he said.
She took her first sip, and he was right, it was magnificent, honeyed, rich, incredibly moreish. And, what the hell? she thought, drinking another, larger sip. Maybe this would lift her mood. Oliver had told her of the importance of thinking positively, being determined throughout every waking minute to beat those bastard amoebae.
'It is good,' she said. It was after seven, she was thinking. She wanted to speak to Oliver. Tomorrow she would see him again. Tomorrow, she hoped, they would make love again. She wanted to lie with him in bed, wanted to touch his skin and to feel him inside her. She felt closer to him than she had ever felt to Ross. As if she knew him better than she could ever know Ross. She must speak to him tonight. With luck, Ross would go into his study to work while she made supper. She would do it then.
Ross beamed at her. 'You look beautiful. I haven't seen you looking this good for weeks. See the benefit from the pills already?'
She said nothing.
He passed her the olives. She took one and ate it, enjoying the briny tang of the anchovy, and she took another sip. Against her salty palate the champagne tasted even denser and richer, and she could feel it fizzing in her veins, lifting her mood.
Oh, no.
Just the faintest motion. As if the room was a railway carriage, travelling fast around a bend. The tilting sensation. So slight she thought she had probably imagined it. She drained the rest of her glass, needing suddenly to get that alcohol inside her, needing to feel it working her system, getting her going, cheering her.
'That's it, down the hatch!'
'You look worried,' she said.
'Me?'
His voice sounded stranger than ever. Are you really Ross?
'Why don't you smoke a cigar?' she said. 'It seems strange seeing you drink without a cigar.'
'The champagne's too delicate. The cigar will kill it.'
'Bullshit!' she said.
He grinned and she realised she was grinning too, like a Cheshire cat, and laughing. God, I'm pissed! On one glass! 'You're not Ross,' she said. 'I think you're an alien who looks like him and you've been sent here to get me pissed.'
Then, suddenly, he began to melt, turning to liquid, pooling into his chair. And there was a strange sensation inside her head, as if someone was trying, very slowly but firmly, to rotate her brain within her skull. They were succeeding: all she could see now was the inside of her skull, like a cave, uneven ridges on the walls, the curved bowl, then the weird pink helter-skelter shape of her ear, daylight filtering weakly down the corkscrew tunnel.
Now she could see out through her eye-sockets again. This was great! It was as if her brain was resting on a turntable: a lazy Susan, didn't they call it? She could just spin it round at random. Spin it until her eyes were at the back of her head. Giggling, she told him she had eyes at the back of her head.
Ross was solid again now. Solid but indistinct around the edges. There seemed to be intense orange light where the contours of his body met the air. He was looking out of the window. 'Are you waiting for a bus?' she asked. 'Or a train?'
Then she shivered as panic filled her. She was outside her body again. Not up on the ceiling this time, just not in sync with her organs. Disembodied. She heard a voice that might have been her own but she wasn't certain. The voice said, 'Ross, I'm feeling very strange.'
He was still looking out of the window.
I'm dead. That's why he isn't turning round. I'm dead and he can't hear me.
She tested herself, mouthing each word in turn, listening to see if her voice corresponded. She wasn't sure how she could move her mouth, but by thinking about it, it seemed to happen. 'Ross, please help me,' she said. 'It's happening again, this thing, please —'
A car was coming down the drive. A taxi. It seemed to be gliding. Rasputin was barking but she couldn't see him. She called his name, wanting him to come into the library so she could see him, see that he was real, and that she wasn't dead and imagining him.
'Am I dead, Ross?'
He didn't turn his head. He walked out of the room as if he hadn't even heard her.
Voices. It sounded like the chatter of a cocktail party. The dog barked. She wanted to go and join them but she was scared to leave her body behind in case she couldn't find her way back to it. Or in case someone took it, thinking she was dead before she could explain that she wasn't, not totally.
'Ross,' she heard a voice say. It sounded like her own.
'Rasputin?' That sounded like her, too, but Rasputin didn't come. Instead, a car was gliding down the drive, a similar car to the one her mother drove, a small blue Toyota.
A voice she recognised said, 'Hallo, Faith.'
A tall, gangly man with glasses was standing in the doorway, looking at her, It was David DeWitt, the psychiatrist who had been invited here last Saturday night, for dinner with his wife. Why was he back? Had he forgotten something?
Then he came into the room, and standing in the doorway behind him was Michael Tennent, another psychiatrist, who had also been here for dinner on Saturday night. Had he forgotten something too?
Or was her brain getting time all confused?
'I think,' she heard her voice say, 'that things in the kitchen are going astray. You'll have to remind me whether we've eaten or not — it's really hard to tell at the moment, with these long summer nights.'
'How are you, Faith?' David DeWitt said.
A voice that might have been hers replied, 'How would you feel if you were part of the food chain? Do you have any idea how much damage bindweed can do to an asparagus bed?'
DeWitt and Tennent were looking at each other, some signal passing between their eyes. Behind them, Rasputin was still barking and she wished he would be quiet.
Suddenly, her mother was in the room, too.
'Mummy?'
Margaret was wearing something inappropriate for a dinner party: a lightweight nylon anorak. Maybe she was just going to babysit. She saw her mother's mouth move, but her voice seemed to come from somewhere different.
'Hallo, darling.'
'You might not be able to hear me,' Faith heard herself say, 'because I'm dead. Could you explain this to Ross, Mummy, please. He keeps ignoring me. Please explain to him that I'm dead and I need somehow to be back in my flesh again.'
Jules Ritterman was in the room now, staring at her. He said something to Ross but she couldn't hear the words. Then he came towards her, followed by Tennent, DeWitt and her mother.
Now Ritterman was speaking to her in a gentle, scolding way as if it was her talking to Alec. 'Faith,' he said, 'Ross tells me that you aren't being a good girl, that you won't take the medication that's been prescribed for you. Is that right?'
She heard her voice say, 'I'm dead, you see. It doesn't help taking anything when you're dead.'
They were all asking her questions now. She heard Tennent say, 'Do you hear voices, Faith?'
DeWitt asked, 'Have you been experiencing visions?'
Then Tennent said, 'Tell me, Faith, have you had any unusual experiences?'
Another voice said quietly, 'She seems confused. Has she shown evidence of being suicidal at any time in the past?'
She answered some questions, but most of them drifted around in balloons inside her head. After a while everyone went out of the room but she could hear them talking in the hall, debating, her mother among them answering questions about her.
She heard Ritterman say, 'It's normal practice to bring a social worker into a decision of this nature.'
Ross said, 'We can get round that, Jules. It can be a close relative instead of a social worker.'
Faith drifted in and out of consciousness. Suddenly they were all in the room again, staring silently at her. Jules Ritterman was holding something in his hands, but they were hidden behind his back. She felt a prick of fear.
Ross went down on his knees in front of her. 'I love you, Faith, I love you so much, I just want to make you better. We all want to make you better. Please understand that.'
Now she could see what Jules Ritterman was holding. It was a hypodermic syringe and a small vial.
A scream filled the room.
It was her scream.
She tried to get out of the chair, but hands were holding her arms, pinioning her. Ross was holding her, and DeWitt.
'No, please, leave me, leave me!' she heard herself scream.
Her mother was standing in front of her now. 'We love you, darling. We're doing this for you.'
Someone was rolling back her sleeve. Her arm was being held in a grip of iron.
She felt a sharp prick. Something forcing its way into her arm muscle, some dense fluid. She saw Ross's eyes. Jules Ritterman's eyes. Her mother's eyes. Michael Tennent's eyes. David DeWitt's eyes.
Her mother said, 'We all love you so much, darling.'
The light in the room was fading.
In the silence, she heard a bird trilling outside. A sound of summer.
It was singing for her.
Then it stopped.
80
'Seven fifty p.m., Tuesday June the eighth. Tape nine. Detective Sergeant Anson interviewing Dr Oliver Cabot.'
The detective checked that both tapes were rolling, sat back in his chair, arms folded, his face greasy with perspiration, and popped a sunflower seed into his mouth. He was a tall man, even by Oliver Cabot's standards, dressed in a brown suit, white shirt and a club tie with shields all over it. He had huge shoulders, bulging eyes that hinted at a thyroid problem and a ridiculous haircut, the kind of pudding-basin style a mother gives a small boy to save going to the barber, shorn at the back and sides and br
ushed forward into a limp fringe on top.
Detective Sergeant Anson wanted to go home. They both did.
His way of policing was the kind shown in those television detective dramas everyone in England was so keen on, Oliver decided. Courteous, plodding, one step at a time, laborious notes on paper despite the tape-recorder that was always running. God, he wrote so many goddamn notes. And all the time, Oliver knew, the man was trying to trip him up.
Oliver was almost beyond caring, numb from the loss of his brother and from a whole day spent in this windowless interview room at the Notting Hill police station. For the first time in his life he was beginning to understand how confessions could be forced out of people. You could easily get to a point where you'd say anything just to be released from a room like this.
Outside it was a warm summer evening, but it could have been winter, could have been any damned time of the year, it didn't matter. Harvey was dead. Before Oliver had even got out of bed this morning, he had been exhausted, up most of the night on the phone, talking across the Atlantic to Harvey's widow, Leah, in Charlottesville, North Carolina.
It had taken a day and a half for the news to sink in with her, and now she was probing, wanting to talk through everything that had happened from when Harvey had stepped off the plane in London, and then beyond that, every detail of his life, back into their childhood together. She wanted to talk about religion, philosophy, anything other than listen to the silence of her house or her kids sleeping.
You could be dignified in dying, Oliver thought. It was possible, too, that you could be dignified in death. It was harder to be dignified in grief, which stripped everything from you. It took away the floor beneath you, the chair you were sitting on, the walls.
Leah was a good woman, attractive, intelligent, caring. She didn't deserve to be a widow at forty-three. John-John, Tom and Linda, fourteen, twelve and ten, didn't deserve to lose their father. And this world didn't deserve to lose Harvey Cabot. He had too much to give, too much to teach.
And, Oliver thought, he did not deserve to lose his brother. Losing Jake had been already too much to bear. Aristotle said that the gods had no greater torment than for a mother to outlive her child. He could equally have said it of a father. And a brother to outlive his brother.