The Secret Anatomy of Candles

by Quentin Smith

  Jasper turned off the engine and stared at the house for a moment. The curtains were drawn, the white panelled garage doors shut, and it appeared as if nobody was home. The front lawn was neatly manicured and trimmed along the pathways, exuding an impression of tranquil normality, while all around them birds twittered in the chestnut trees that swayed harmoniously in a gentle breeze.

  But Lazlo’s inquisitive eyes missed nothing; at a glance he knew that the postcard suburban bubble was not what it appeared to be.

  “Look, guv,” he said, pointing towards the doorstep.

  Jasper’s edgy eyes followed Lazlo’s sausage-like index finger to the collection of milk bottles standing guard beside the coir mat. One, two, three, four, five pint bottles, he counted.

  “A pint a day?” Lazlo asked, turning to Jasper, who sat ashen faced in the driver seat playing nervously with the car keys.

  Jasper nodded, biting his lower lip that had begun to pull sideways rhythmically.

  “And a daily newspaper,” Jasper said.

  Protruding from the letterbox were several rolled up newspapers with a few mail items tucked randomly in between.

  Jasper opened the car door and crunched on to the gravel, his footsteps the only sound disturbing the tranquillity of the breeze and the chattering birds. The crisp winter air smelled of moss and wood smoke that curled from neighbouring chimneys. On a whim, Jasper pressed the remote control that operated the garage door. It clattered into life and began to rise noisily. Hearing Lazlo climb out of his car, Jasper turned towards his investigator and from the grave look on Lazlo’s face his unease grew even deeper.

  “Give me the keys, guv,” Lazlo said.

  Jasper watched in astonishment as Lazlo’s meaty hands reached inside his spacious, brown leather jacket and extracted a compact black pistol.

  “Lazlo?” he queried, as a look of puzzlement washed over his face. His movements felt thick and slow, his brain stuck in treacle, but despite this his heart was beating incredibly fast.

  “You didn’t see this,” Lazlo said, glancing at the illegal pistol and shaking his head, “now, please give me the keys, guv.”

  Jasper turned and looked into the open garage, which revealed Jennifer’s matching silver Audi TT. He winced, unable to rationalise the contradiction – Jennifer’s car was home but she was not. Jasper began to walk to the front door, lurching slightly and fumbling with keys in his pocket. Lazlo drew level with him beside a pair of standard white roses and placed a restraining hand on his shoulder. Their eyes met silently for a moment.

  “The keys, please guv.”

  Lazlo’s fleshy hand was waiting, palm up, in front of Jasper.

  His eyes darting between the small, oily smelling Beretta pistol and Lazlo’s palm, Jasper was suddenly overcome with a sense of bewilderment.

  “What’s going on, Lazlo?”

  “I’ll have a look and we’ll see,” Lazlo said in a calm, reassuring tone.

  “I want to go inside,” Jasper said.

  “I’ll go in first, guv.”

  After what seemed like minutes, Jasper finally dropped the keys into Lazlo’s palm with a deep sigh, feeling his face dissolve into a staccato salvo of warm tics. This time, though, he did not have the inclination or self awareness to rub them or attempt to cover them.

  Lazlo moved smoothly to the front door and fiddled with the keys, his great bulky frame filling the neat white timber portico. Finally, a key opened the door and he cautiously pushed it open, gripping the Beretta tightly, though he did not know why. Lazlo didn’t go far, he just stood and stared.

  “Well, what is it?” Jasper asked. His voice was tight and flat.

  Lazlo turned back to the pallid face of his boss who was staring at him expectantly, fear visible in his pained eyes. His face bore a look Jasper had never seen before.

  “Don’t go in, guv.”

  Lazlo took a step back but was too late to stop Jasper, who suddenly rushed forward and barged in. Jasper’s thumping heart was in his throat and he felt a dragging sensation deep in his bladder, as though he could soil himself at any moment.

  The sight that met Jasper in his beige carpeted hallway almost knocked the breath right out of him. A visceral moan wheezed from his throat as it closed in on him. His knees weakened and he felt his bladder yield.

  “My God! Oh my God! Jennifer, what have you done?”

  Hanging hideously from a rope was the engorged body of Jennifer Candle. Jasper stared in horror and disbelief. His eyes travelled from the rope, tied crudely to the landing banister, down to her glazed, staring eyes, swollen purple-black face and tongue, framed by clean, straight, golden hair. The rope twisted her head grotesquely to one side above a sleek, red, knee length dress, her once shapely legs discoloured and blotchy from the lividity of pooled blood no longer able to defy gravity. Finally, his eyes came to rest on her lifeless feet pointing towards the floor. One fluffy slipper had fallen to the carpet and lay in a pool of oily straw coloured body fluid that dripped off Jennifer’s painted toenails.

  “I’m so sorry, guv,” Lazlo said softly, rather sheepishly tucking the Beretta back into his jacket.

  “Why? Jennifer, why did you do this?” Jasper cried, finding it difficult to breathe.

  The central heating was on and in the dry, contained heat the smell of fresh decay was almost tangible in the stagnant air. Jasper stared with disbelief at his wife’s body, trying to recall when he had last held her warmly in his arms. He could not remember and now it was too late.

  “We should go outside, guv.”

  Jasper kept looking up at her face, at those hollow, empty eyes staring at him, accusing him perhaps. He was overcome with a rush of remorse and guilt that sliced deep into his heart. Suddenly Jasper turned and rushed outside, bending over the manicured lawn as he retched and dripped sour, coffee flavoured vomit.

  Lazlo took a few steps into the house and glanced around, looking for something, anything, he did not know what. But there was nothing, no sounds, no mess, no indication of a disturbance. The house inside was perfect in every way, not a single thing out of place.

  The investigator in him suddenly kicked in and he decided that he must look around before the police arrived. Walking through the rooms, his eyes searched for anything unusual. In the spotless kitchen he found a cold cup of tea beside the kettle whilst the milk in an adjacent jug had curdled and separated.

  The master bedroom upstairs was neat, the emperor size bed made up and the gold quilt untouched In the en-suite bathroom he found evidence in the toilet bowl of vomit that had not been flushed away.

  But search as he did, Lazlo could not find a note or a letter anywhere.

  SIXTEEN

  “He’s a private investigator, I’m telling you,” Mandy said.

  Mandy was dressed in a light blue tunic, with red and black pens protruding from a breast pocket beside a post-box red plastic fob watch. Her yellow lapel badge read ‘Staff Nurse Mandy Shaw’. She emitted an overpowering smell of sweet perfume.

  “How do you know that?” Billie said, leaning her beach ball frame back in the reclining desk chair in her small office. The dark blue tunic strained at every crease around her midriff.

  “I saw him coming out of this solicitor’s office, not just once either.”

  Mandy’s ink black hair was pulled back from her overly tanned face and tied tightly at the back of her head. A pair of white, narrow framed spectacles were pushed right up her thin, shapely nose, accentuating her hazelnut eyes.

  Matron Billie Gibson shook her head with a wry smile on her round face.

  “You’ve an overactive imagination, girl,” she laughed.

  “What have you told him?”

  Billie’s smile vanished.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I know you two have been out. My Stevie saw you with him at The Shakespeare on Friday night.”

  Billie’s face flushed slightly and her assured gaze faltered.

  “Lazlo is just a guy, a good
laugh, that’s all.”

  “How did you find him?” Mandy persisted, leaning forward.

  Billie hesitated and looked across towards the piles of light brown patient case notes bound with elastic bands on her desk. In the centre stood a single framed photograph of a boy of around twelve years, with the same spherical build as his mother.

  “Actually he found me…”

  “There! I told you, he’s after something. I bet it’s to do with Mr Burns. You know how the managers have been all over us about that case, wanting to know everything.” Mandy said triumphantly, wagging an index finger knowingly in the air.

  Billie opened her mouth to speak but paused for a moment.

  “I really think you’re jumping to conclusions, Mandy.”

  Mandy shook her head dismissively.

  “I just know he’s an investigator and Stevie agrees with me.

  What does he talk about?”

  “Whatever, all sorts of stuff. We like the same sort of beer, the same music, we both love food and…”

  “Does he ask about work?” Mandy said.

  Billie screwed up her face. Her small button nose wrinkled up and took ten years off her features, aged by deep worry lines around her forehead and eyes and framed by black hair streaked with grey invaders.

  “Sometimes, I suppose. But he’s interested in me, so why would he not want to know about what I do?”

  “Have you asked him what he does?” Mandy said.

  “Something to do with the council, housing I think.”

  “What, with binoculars in his car and a camera with a long lens?” Mandy said dismissively.

  “How do you know that?” Billie asked.

  “Stevie.”

  Mandy contemplated her senior colleague for a moment, the fire of determination still burning brightly in her face.

  “Have you two…?” Mandy asked quickly and with a cheeky smile, making twirly motions in the air with her index finger.

  Billie blushed warmly.

  “That’s none of your business,” Billie said with mock seriousness, before bursting into shy laughter.

  Mandy covered her open mouth with her hand and sat back in the hardback chair.

  “Oh my God. You won’t even remember what you’ve told him then.”

  “Of course I do,” Billie protested.

  Mandy shook her head slowly from side to side.

  “Pillow talk, Billie. Everyone gives away secrets in bed. What has he asked you about?”

  Billie shifted uncomfortably in her seat and thought for a moment before replying.

  “We have talked about procedures on the ward, hygiene and stuff, how we practice barrier nursing… oh my God…”

  “Does he know about Edward Burns?” Mandy said, leaning forward and narrowing the gap between her and Billie.

  Silence as Billie’s deadpan face revealed nothing of the frenzied chaos in her brain. Suddenly she lowered her head.

  “Yes,” she barely whispered

  Mandy gasped.

  “Shit, Billie. I’m telling you, they know, he’s digging for evidence.”

  Billie’s expression was now sombre as she bit the inside of her cheek thoughtfully. Had Lazlo simply been using her to gather information? Had she perhaps compromised herself and her staff by taking him into her confidence? Desperately she tried to recall some of their conversations in her mind as she felt a cold shiver dance up her spine. Was it even remotely possible that she and her staff could be held responsible for the death of a patient, for Edward Burns’ death? She had been worried, but now she was scared.

  SEVENTEEN

  Debra Kowalski stared indifferently at her arms as she contemplated the question. She was sitting up in a very neatly made hospital bed, with the sheet and woven powder blue blanket pulled up to her waist, her arms lying limply at her sides. Debra studied the clear plastic intravenous tube that snaked its way down to her wrist, entering her pale, silky skin through a pink cannula. On the other arm she wore a light green identity bracelet bearing her name, date of birth and hospital number in hand written block lettering.

  “Why did you do it?” Dr Montgolfier had asked her. “Why did you swallow all those pills?”

  Her mind was too numb to think clearly and her head seemed to hang forward slightly, barely defying gravity. Debra breathed in deeply, aware of little beyond the insipid smell of starched linen and floor polish. The stark white room looked and smelled as bland and sterile as she felt inside.

  “This room needs flowers, don’t you think.” Debra said eventually, continuing to stare at her flaccid arms.

  Dr Montgolfier crossed his chocolate brown, corduroy clad legs, pulled the spectacles off his nose and sucked one of the curved ends. In the breast pocket of his dark green tweed jacket, a pair of silver pens peeped out.

  “Do you have family in America?” he asked, glancing down at the notes in his lap.

  Debra shook her head.

  “My parents died long before I came to England, and I am an only child.”

  “What about extended family?”

  Debra pulled a face of disapproval.

  “Somewhere in the mid west, but we were never close. I doubt they even know I’ve lost Harry, let alone…”

  Montgolfier replaced the spectacles on his nose and flipped over a page of the notes in his lap.

  “Why did you go to the Bailey School yesterday?”

  Debra shrugged like a petulant teenager. She wondered whether the fluid dripping into her arm was reversing the effects of the powerful tablets she had swallowed and what would happen if she pulled the tube out. Would the tablets once again exert their soporific effect?

  “I suppose I wanted to see that boy,” Debra said in a monotone drone.

  “Seamus Mallory?”

  Debra nodded.

  “You blame him for the death of your son?”

  Debra looked up, her piercing eyes narrowing and glaring at Montgolfier. It was the most animated that he’d seen her.

  “Who else is there to blame, Doctor? He is the boy who infected my Ollie with measles, which you know is the reason he… was taken from me.”

  “I know about the terrible loss you’ve suffered, Debra. I’m trying to understand why you blame a three year old boy.”

  “And his parents,” Debra said quickly.

  Montgolfier sucked his spectacles again and frowned.

  “His parents?”

  “They chose not to have him vaccinated with MMR, that is the reason he caught measles and brought it into the school. It’s reckless, don’t you think, irresponsible, a decision that endangered all the children at school.”

  Montgolfier took a deep breath as he made a brief note.

  “I want you to know that I understand your pain and the grief you are suffering from the loss not only of your son, but of your husband also. I am just not sure that pursuing a course of revenge is going to help you to come to terms with it all.”

  Debra held his gaze.

  “It’s not revenge, Doctor, it’s closure. That’s what I desperately need.”

  Montgolfier pursed his lips and nodded thoughtfully.

  “Do you not think it is wrong that a child and his parents can be allowed to play Russian roulette with the lives of other children? Is this acceptable behaviour in a civilized society?” Debra added.

  “My concern is not society’s problems, it is your problems, Debra,” Montgolfier said gesticulating at her with his spectacles.

  “I’ve been to see a medico-legal solicitor who deals with personal injury claims like this, who assures me that I will find closure through this process. He thinks I have a good case, a worthy case,” Debra said.

  “I just think that pursuing this protracted course of action keeps the wounds raw, keeps the hurt fresh and in the present. Is that going to help you?”

  Montgolfier seated the spectacles on his nose, then adjusted them and peered into the case notes.

  “I can’t forget my husband and beautiful so
n, Doctor, if that’s what you’re implying. Pretending that nobody is to blame is certainly not going to give me a normal life again. I have lost everything and I will do anything to honour their memory. Closure, Mr Candle told me, is a very valuable end result of apportioning blame.”

  Montgolfier looked up suddenly, removing his spectacles again.

  “Jasper Candle?” he surprised himself by saying.

  “Do you know him?” Debra asked.

  Montgolfier suddenly realised he was at risk of breaching confidentiality and cursed his unguarded outburst.

  “I’ve heard of him,” he said casually, looking away.

  “They say he is the best, that is why I went to him.”

  Montgolfier sucked his spectacles and played with his beard.

  “I don’t doubt that, Debra. I just want you to consider whether blame and retribution is the route to the closure that you seek. Hope is a good thing. Revenge, on the other hand, I’m not so sure about.”

  Debra leaned back on the pillows behind her, twisting her wrist back and forth as she studied it.

  “To answer your earlier question, Doctor, about the way I felt yesterday, seeing that boy so carefree outside the school, running to his mother, laughing, and knowing that they took my Ollie away from me without a thought, let alone a consequence. I was overcome with a sense of desperation and emptiness that I have never experienced before.”

  “Did you really want to die, Debra?” Montgolfier asked.

  Debra flopped her arms back on the blanket, palms turned upwards submissively.

  “When I saw Seamus with his family, I realised I have nothing left to live for. There is no fairness in what has happened to me and as a result I have lost everything.”

  “Surely no-one is that alone in life, Debra. Do you really feel that way?”

  Debra shrugged, her empty eyes having once again lost their fire.

  “There are no flowers in my room, Doctor, are there?”

  EIGHTEEN

  Jasper was still sitting on his front door step when the police pushed Jennifer’s body out of the house on a steel gurney. She was zipped up in a black body bag that quite effectively masked the smell of ripe death. He had been unable to go inside the house while Jennifer was still hanging from the landing, preferring to sit outside and stare ahead at the falling golden chestnut leaves, and beyond that at the blackbirds picking worms out of the fields across the river.