“What, guv?”
“Read it.” Jasper passed the letter to Lazlo, who applied a pair of gold framed reading glasses to his broad face.
Lazlo’s great head moved from side to side as he scanned the sentences, his lips moving ever so slightly as he read in silence.
“Jennifer couldn’t face terminating the pregnancy, so she took both of their lives,” Jasper said quietly, almost as if thinking out loud.
Lazlo removed the reading glasses and looked up at Jasper.
“What is Huntington’s disease?”
“Haven’t the foggiest idea,” Jasper said, gesturing into the air with the hand covering his mouth and then returning it.
Lazlo replaced the spectacles and passed the letter to Jasper, who looked at it with disdain.
“What the hell does ‘prior patient confidences’ imply?” Jasper said.
Lazlo leaned back and took a deep breath, rubbing his unshaven chin back and forth with a spade-like hand.
“I think it means that he knows more than he is letting on,” Lazlo said.
Jasper nodded thoughtfully.
“What I do know is that if my unborn baby does not have the HTT gene, then Dr Eldabe is going to be held accountable for Jennifer’s death.”
FIFTY THREE
Jasper stared at the jars containing human tissues and organs, wondering if amongst them, somewhere on one of these dusty shelves, a piece of Jennifer, or perhaps a piece of his unborn child, might be floating in formaldehyde. A chill ran down his spine. He was sitting patiently in the worn office chair, his legs crossed at the knee and his elevated foot tapping the air to a repetitive and anxious beat.
Suddenly the door opened and Sally Whitehouse burst into the office wearing green surgical scrubs and a green paper theatre hat.
“This is an unexpected surprise, Mr Candle.”
He uncrossed his legs, but before he could even straighten to stand up she had flopped into the swivel chair in front of a desk strewn untidily with folders, papers and unopened mail.
“Thank you for seeing me so…”
“You said it was urgent. What is it?” she said, slightly out of breath.
She shook her rebellious copper hair out of the theatre cap and fluffed it with her hands as it burst into life.
“Do you still have the foetus you found in my wife?”
She frowned and pursed her lips.
“Why would you think that?”
“Do you still have it?” Jasper said somewhat sharply.
Whitehouse straightened in her seat.
“No, of course not. Human remains have to be destroyed or appropriately buried, Human Tissues Act 2004.”
Jasper’s eyes wandered across the multitudes of jars on shelves as his face was ravaged by tics.
“I want the foetus to be tested for the HTT gene.”
Whitehouse sat forward and pulled out a pad from the top drawer of her desk. Picking up a pencil, chewed on one end, she began to write.
“What is this about, Mr Candle?”
Jasper pulled Eldabe’s letter out from within his charcoal jacket and offered it to her. The letter shook in his trembling hand.
“Jennifer saw this doctor, a neurologist, who told her that the baby would very likely have something called… Huntington’s disease. He urged her to consider an abortion.”
“Oh my God,” Whitehouse said, taking the letter and reading it.
“I think he was responsible for Jennifer’s decision to er… you know…”
She lowered the letter when she had finished reading it and met his eyes.
“And you want the baby tested for the HTT gene?”
Jasper hesitated. His tongue felt thick and stupid in his mouth, disobedient, insolent. He tried to form words but they wouldn’t come out of his throat.
“I need to know… if he was wrong,” he managed to say, slowly.
Whitehouse sat back, and ran fingers through her copper hair.
“The foetus is buried along with Jennifer Candle.”
“Don’t you have any of its tissues left in the lab?”
She shook her head emphatically.
“We need to exhume the body then,” Jasper said with a casual shrug of his contorting shoulders. The words began to flow more easily again.
“Mr Candle, the law in this country protects human remains buried in consecrated ground. You cannot just go exhuming them on a whim.”
“This is hardly a whim, Doctor.”
“You need to make application for a petition, the local authorities have to consent and the Home Office has to issue a licence.”
“A petition?” Jasper said pulling a face.
“You will need a compelling reason to desecrate a human grave. Exhumation licences are not granted lightly.”
Jasper paused for a moment and rubbed his chin; the muscles in his left leg were rippling and his left shoulder rolled spasmodically inside his jacket.
“Is a foetus of ten weeks technically a human being yet?” Jasper asked, fixing Whitehouse with an intent stare.
She hesitated, mouth slightly open, looking away.
“I forget you are a lawyer, Mr Candle, for whom the perspective of being human rests on an article of law. Strictly speaking, a foetus of less than twenty four weeks’ gestation does not require a licence for exhumation, you are correct.”
Jasper separated and then clapped his hands together in mock adulation.
“Well then, there we go.”
“It’s not so simple, Mr Candle. The foetus is inside your wife’s grave and it would be her remains that have to be exhumed.”
Jasper leaned forward.
“A technicality, surely. You must know the coroner very well, Doctor. Let’s get the process started then.”
Whitehouse studied Jasper with a look of perplexed intrigue.
“There is no guarantee your application will be granted.”
“Oh, I think it will,” Jasper said.
Whitehouse frowned and sighed deeply.
“Do you really want to go through with this, Mr Candle? She has only been buried, what, a week? Think of her family, think of her memory, think of yourself.”
Jasper’s eyes never left hers, fixed with a steely determination to prevail.
“I am thinking of myself, Doctor, and I am determined to find out who put my wife in that grave and exactly why.”
FIFTY FOUR
“Charlotte, it’s Jasper,” he said into his iPhone, shielding it from the breeze.
“Fine thank you, and you?”
“Yes, we found the letter.”
Jasper was crossing Prebends Bridge en route to his office. The late afternoon light was fading fast and autumnal gloom accentuated icy patches of unthawed frost on leeward ground.
“Uh-huh. Jennifer definitely knew she was pregnant, Charlotte, that’s why she went to see Eldabe.”
A red bicycle with a wicker basket on the handlebars brushed past Jasper, pedalled by a student with his girlfriend sat astride the bar.
“She was asking about Huntington’s disease, apparently runs in the family. Do you know anything about this?”
“Are you sure?”
“Well, Eldabe told her that the baby might very well have inherited it. That’s why I think she…”
He waited.
“No, he did mention an abortion, but I don’t think Jennifer could go through with that.”
Suddenly Jasper’s right arm writhed violently and the iPhone fell from his grasp and clattered to the flagstones on the bridge.
“Brad Pitt!” he cursed loudly. “You tomtit, bottomless pit.”
He bent down, red in the face, to retrieve the phone and took a deep breath to calm down.
“Sorry, Charlotte, I dropped the phone.”
He rubbed his nose and turned to face the parapet.
“Did Jennifer ever mention this disease to you? Do you know anyone in your family who had it?”
He listened.
“Uh-huh. Wha
t next, you say?”
Jasper rubbed his chin thoughtfully, suddenly conscious of voicing his unpleasant intentions.
“I have discussed how to have the foetus tested for this HTT gene.”
“Why? Well if the baby was not affected, then Eldabe was wrong to push Jennifer past the edge of despondency, of course.”
He listened, rubbing his forehead. The right arm convulsed spasmodically and two passersby stared briefly in Jasper’s direction.
“No, there are no samples left. It would necessitate a formal… er… exhumation…”
“Yes, that’s what I said.”
“Oh come on Charlotte, please don’t say that.”
Jasper’s face hardened.
“Please, whatever you do don’t formally object.”
“Charlotte, I’m just trying to figure this whole… bloody tragedy… out. Don’t you want to know what happened?”
“Charlotte?”
“Charlotte!” he shouted.
Jasper took the iPhone from his ear and stared at it, his eyes burning, shaking his head in disbelief that she would hang up. His face twitched, his arm rolled and writhed and three times his trunk twisted first to one side and then the other, as if he had an insatiable itch beneath his skin.
In a sudden fit of silent and deeply frustrated rage, Jasper flexed his arm like a cricketer and hurled the phone off the bridge into the dark waters down below. The tiny splash was virtually inaudible.
He wanted to scream. He wanted to scream at the top of his voice and expunge the demons that were suffocating his life. But, conscious of the wary stares of a few passing people, he closed his eyes, took several slow breaths and pushed his trembling hands deep into his coat pockets, hiding them from the watching world.
Beneath an early evening crescent moon rising just above the trees, he began to walk somewhat unsteadily off the bridge.
FIFTY FIVE
It was well past six o’clock when Jasper finally reached his office, where he was surprised to find Stacey still sitting at her desk. Looking particularly Gothic with deep eye shadow softening the fringes of freshly dyed midnight black hair, she was tapping her short black fingernails on the neatly kept desk. Her bright purple coat was a welcome distraction from the sombre stygian shades, but did not soften her sullen mood.
“I’ve been waiting for you, Mr C.”
“You didn’t need to,” Jasper said quickly.
“I’ve been calling you. Didn’t you get my messages?”
Jasper hesitated and inclined his head slightly to one side, just in time to disguise a twisting roll of his neck and shoulder.
“I… er… lost my phone.”
Stacey shrugged.
“Mrs K has been sitting in your office since four o’clock. She is extremely upset and won’t leave until she sees you.” Stacey inclined her head towards the door to Jasper’s office and pulled a face.
Jasper closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead; this was the last thing he needed. It had been a long, emotionally draining day and, to rub salt into the wound, one during which he had denied himself even a drop of Chivas to pass his desperate lips. He was beginning to feel as irritable as a caffeine addict.
“I’m sorry, Stacey. Get yourself home.”
Stacey stood up and walked past Jasper to the door, pausing as she realised the depth of dispiritedness written across his face. She half turned and studied him from behind, observing the subtle writhing of his shoulder muscles beneath his camel great coat.
“Do you need anything, Mr C?”
He was silent for a moment, not turning around to face her.
“No.”
“Are you going home tonight?”
Silence.
“Coffee and croissant in the morning?” Stacey said.
“Make it a bacon roll.”
“Sure.”
He turned his head just enough to make brief eye contact with Stacey.
“Thanks.”
Debra Kowalski spun around to face the door as Jasper entered. Her face was puffy, her eyes red and swollen as she dabbed at them with a tissue balled in her claw-like fist. She looked more upset than when he had first met her.
“I’m sorry Debra, I didn’t know you were waiting for me,” Jasper said, walking straight to his swivel chair behind the desk.
She sniffed and blew her nose into the tissue.
“You promised me justice for Ollie. You said we had a strong case,” she said with a thick and emotionally charged voice.
Jasper frowned and placed his elbows on the desk, clasping his errant hands together tightly.
“Yes, I did.”
“Why did you lie to me?” Her face contorted as she suppressed a strong urge to cry.
Jasper’s gaze faltered and he blinked several times.
“I don’t understand.”
“Ten thousand pounds! Is that all Ollie is worth?”
Jasper unclasped his hands and leaned forward, his eyebrows knitted and almost meeting in the midline.
“Where did you get that from?”
Debra lowered the crumpled tissue from her face and fixed Jasper with an intense stare.
“Is it true? A dead child is worth ten thousand pounds in compensation?”
Jasper rubbed his forehead, trying to maintain Debra’s fearless eyes.
“It’s not just about the money, Debra, I told you that.”
“Is it true?” she said, angrily as tears rolled down her cheeks and dripped into her lap, staining the light green skirt like droplets of blood.
Jasper slumped back in his swivel chair with a vanquished sigh and covered his eyes with a trembling hand in an attempt to assuage the tics ripping into his face.
“More or less, yes.”
Debra emitted a noise that sounded like a sob and a gasp combined, the moan of a wounded and hurting animal.
“Ten thousand pounds, for the life of a healthy, perfect little boy, with everything in this world ahead of him.”
Jasper nodded sadly.
“It was increased in 2002, it used to be even less.”
It was a statement of fact, but he regretted saying it the moment the words left his mouth. Debra emitted a muted scream.
“I trusted you, I believed you when you told me this was a big moment, a possible landmark case, that Ollie’s death would not be in vain.”
Jasper sat forward suddenly and erupted.
“I did not lie to you. It is a big case and it’s about the verdict, the apportionment of blame, not the ten thousand pounds.”
Debra’s mouth fell open as she shrivelled under his stern tone.
“A child death is worth less than an adult death in compensation terms because adults have earning capacity and responsibilities, that is how the actuaries calculate compensation multiplicands. The highest awards go to severely injured children needing lifelong care with medical costs. That’s just… how it is.”
Jasper’s frustration boiled over, but in the end his voice softened and tailed off in silent recognition of her evident suffering. Debra burst into tears, bowing her head and sobbing into her lap. Jasper lowered his head and rubbed his tired, rippling face.
“I’m sorry, Debra, I didn’t mean to… I’ve had a pretty bad day myself,” he said quietly.
His head turned to the drinks cabinet in the corner and he stared longingly at the bottle of Chivas. God, he needed a drink so badly, today of all days, he thought.
“Would you like a drink?” he said, breaking the silence.
Without looking up, she nodded, as the sobbing gradually subsided. Jasper walked to the drinks cabinet and poured the whisky.
“Ice?”
“Please.”
He returned with a glass and offered it to her before sitting down again. Debra took an immediate sip, the tumbler shaking in her lily white hand. Jasper’s gaze was fixed on the golden amber liquid as he imagined it lingering on the back of her tongue, warming, soothing, easing those rough edges.
“Remember wha
t I said, Debra. It is closure that you need and you will only get it once you’ve been through the entire process. Don’t feel denigrated by the compensation value. It is not a reflection of Ollie’s worth as a human being. It is not a reflection of the extent of the love you felt for him, or the depth of your loss. It is merely an actuarial calculation, a cold, heartless figure, nothing more.”
“You’re not drinking?” she observed.
He paused and rubbed his trembling hands together as his left knee banged against the side of the cherry wood desk.
“I’ve given up.”
FIFTY SIX
Stacey found Jasper sound asleep in the corner bed in his office when she arrived in the morning. Beside his bed an empty bottle of Chivas lay next to an upturned photograph of Jennifer and the tumbler beside his bed still contained a little whisky. The room smelled sour and she made a discreet exit.
Half an hour later he emerged from the small en suite bathroom having showered, shaved and dressed in fresh clothing from the small wardrobe he kept in the office. Stacey knocked and entered the room to find Jasper staring at the tall, Mexican cactus, inclining his head this way and that as he studied the prickly plant.
“When last did you water the cactus, Stacey?” he said, without turning.
She stopped, pressing her lips together as her eyes scanned the room in contemplation.
“All the plants in our… my house… have died. It’s a good thing that cactuses don’t need much care, don’t you think?” Jasper said.
She shrugged.
“The perfect plant for me to look after.”
Jasper turned round to face Stacey, who was wearing a slate grey, double breasted blouse and black slacks.
“Here is your bacon roll and coffee, Mr C.”
She placed a brown paper bag on the desk.
“You’re not drowning in black today, Stacey,” Jasper observed, taking a sip from the coffee cup.
“I thought you needed some cheering up, Mr C.” She forced a smile and produced a small square of paper. “Two messages, a new client has an appointment this morning and someone called wanting to meet you in Wharton Park at noon.”
Jasper frowned.
“Wharton Park? Who?”
The Secret Anatomy of Candles Page 19