A Lovely Way to Burn

by Louise Welsh

  Outside the drill rumbled on in sporadic bursts. She let its noise mask the sound of her progress, moving when it moved, freezing when it stopped, all the time holding the knife firmly in front of her.

  Someone had taken her flat apart. There had been no malice in the act. There was no graffiti on the walls as there had been last time, no turd coiled on the rug. The breakin had been carried out thoroughly and methodically, by someone looking for something.

  Books and CDs had been spilled from their shelves in the sitting room, cushions tossed free of the couch and easy chairs, the furniture itself turned on its back to make sure nothing had been hidden below, or taped to its base. Drawers were pulled from the sideboard, their contents dumped on the floor. Stevie saw her mother’s rings, her own cheque book and emergency credit card, and realised that nothing had been stolen.

  Shirts, trousers and dresses were tumbled together in her bedroom like massacre victims. The duvet had been dragged from the bed, the mattress tipped to the floor. The wardrobe door was ajar, a few dresses still hanging drunkenly on their hangers.

  The drilling stopped and Stevie stopped too, holding her breath until the racket resumed. She managed three steps forward, three steps closer to the darkness behind the half-open door, before the drilling paused again. She primed herself, like a sprinter waiting for the starter’s gun.

  Her mobile phone chirped news of a message, loud as an aeroplane crash.

  Stevie lunged forward and yanked the door wide, holding the knife high above her shoulder, plunging it into the darkness, letting out a yell she had never heard before.

  There was no one there.

  She leant into the wardrobe’s empty shadows, laughter bubbling from within her. She wanted nothing more than to close the closet door and sit there in the must and the black, but she forced herself to check her office and the bathroom. When she was sure there was no one lurking anywhere in the flat, she pulled her mobile from her pocket. The message had come from Joanie’s phone. It was short and to the point: Take the laptop to Iqbal. An address in Clapham followed.

  Stevie texted back:

  I’ll get there ASAP

  Thanks

  The front-door lock was beyond her ability to repair, the door itself splintered but still sure on its hinges. Stevie closed it and put on the security chain. She dragged the Ercol sideboard she had been so proud of from the living room and set it against the door. Some empty wine bottles had been dumped on the floor with the rest of her recycling. She gathered a few and put them on the table. The arrangement wouldn’t stop an intruder but it would make a racket if anyone disturbed it.

  Stevie undressed and stood in the shower, letting the water course over her body. She dried herself, smeared her cuts with antiseptic cream and swallowed two anti-inflammatory pills. Normally she would have walked naked through the rooms of her flat, letting the air soothe her skin, but now she went straight to the bedroom and sorted through the muddle of clothes until she found underwear, a running vest and a black tracksuit. Even stripped of its sheets the bed looked like the perfect haven, but she ignored it, pulled on fresh clothes and went through to the shattered kitchen. There were two ill-assorted Lean Cuisines, a beef chow fun and a shrimp Alfredo, in the freezer. Stevie packed a dishtowel with ice cubes, blasted both of the ready meals in the microwave, and ate standing at the worktop, holding the ice to her swollen face.

  The apartment had meant a lot to her. It had been her touchstone, the sign that she had made something of herself since she had first arrived in London, armed with only her journalism degree. Now she wondered if she would ever live there again.

  It was half an hour since Derek’s text. Stevie put a bottle of water, some energy bars, a packet of painkillers, her phone charger and the carving knife in the satchel beside Simon’s laptop. She covered the worst of her bruises with make-up, then went through to the living room, slipped her mother’s rings over her grazed knuckles, and left the apartment. Stevie pulled the door shut behind her, but didn’t bother to look back and check if it stayed closed.

  Twenty

  Stevie had just tucked her satchel under the passenger seat of the Mini when her phone jangled into life. She scrabbled it free from the side pocket of her bag and saw a number she didn’t recognise flashing on the screen.

  ‘Stephanie Flint?’ The voice was male and unfamiliar.

  Stevie had heard of spy software that could follow you via your mobile phone, tracing your movements across virtual maps, and an image flashed into her head of her car parked at the side of the road, while her attacker gazed down on it, huge and godlike. She slid her key into the ignition.

  ‘Who is this?’

  ‘Alexander Buchanan from St Thomas’s Hospital. Is that Ms Flint?’

  She remembered him. The chemist, Simon’s other colleague, a pale man with translucent eyes, some kind of handsome in his strangeness.

  ‘Yes. Do you have some news about Simon?’

  ‘In a manner of speaking.’ Buchanan sounded assured, but there was an underlying hesitation in his delivery, as if he was uncertain of how much he should tell her. ‘I wondered if you might be available to meet. As you may have gathered from the news, we medics are rather pushed at present, but I’d prefer to discuss this face to face if possible.’

  Stevie held the phone away from herself for a moment, trying to weigh up her priorities. She had parked in a side street round the corner from her flat, but she could see a glimpse of main road from where she was sitting, the parade of shops that the estate agent had described as ‘convenient’ when she had bought her flat. She lifted the phone to her ear again.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ She made her words crisply efficient, trying to match Buchanan’s public-school-followed-by-Oxford-or-Cambridge confidence. ‘I’ve an appointment I mustn’t miss.’

  ‘Afterwards perhaps?’

  ‘I’m not sure that will be possible. Can’t you tell me what this is about over the phone?’

  Now it was the chemist’s turn to pause. Stevie let the silence hang between them. Buchanan had called her, and much as she wanted to hear what he had to say, that made him the seller and her the buyer.

  After a moment he said, ‘I asked to be present at Simon’s autopsy. The results were consistent with what I believe you were told when you found him.’

  ‘Sudden adult death syndrome?’

  ‘Yes, but SADS is notoriously hard to diagnose; it can be a bit of a catch-all really. I felt an obligation to a friend and colleague to make sure that there were no underlying causes, so I asked to examine the body myself.’

  The body. Death had turned Simon and Joanie into objects. Stevie resisted the urge to press her forehead against the hard edge of the steering wheel.

  ‘What did you find?’

  ‘Simon was in good shape for a man of his age. He had no undiagnosed heart defects, and hadn’t suffered an embolism or any of the other biological catastrophes usually responsible for sudden deaths.’

  ‘Does that mean there’s no way of finding out …?’

  The chemist interrupted her. ‘Like I said, Simon was a friend as well as a colleague. I conducted some extra toxology tests of my own. Simon’s blood contained faint traces of a sedative, too faint for standard checks to detect.’

  Stevie scanned her memory of Simon’s en suite. The bathroom cabinet had been neat and well stocked. She couldn’t remember any sleeping pills, but he was a doctor and presumably able to acquire prescription drugs when he wanted them. She said, ‘If Simon was feeling under the weather he might have decided he needed a good night’s sleep and taken something to help him get one.’

  ‘That’s certainly possible, but the faintness of the sedative traces intrigues me. If Simon took a sleeping pill before going to bed and died within the next five to seven hours, I would have expected there to have been more left in his system. It could be that he lingered on in a coma and the sedative left his system during that time, but sudden death syndrome is usually swift and unexpected
, hence the name. You found his body in bed, which suggested to me that Simon had died in his sleep. That set me wondering if he might have taken anything else, some narcotic which wouldn’t leave any residue in his body.’

  ‘Simon wasn’t into drugs. He didn’t even drink much alcohol.’

  It was true. Simon had possessed so much energy that he often seemed a drink ahead of her, even when he had been sticking to mineral water for the sake of an impending operation.

  ‘I realise that.’ The hesitation was back. It made the chemist sound like a man about to break bad news, reluctant to give voice to what he was about to say. ‘I wanted to ask if you’d noticed anything odd about Simon in the weeks before he died. Did he seem anxious? Depressed?’

  It was the same question that Simon’s cousin and the policeman who had interviewed her had asked.

  Stevie said, ‘He was distracted, worried maybe, but if you’re asking me if I think Simon committed suicide, then the answer is no, I don’t.’

  ‘You sound certain.’

  ‘I am.’ Stevie had a sudden impulse to tell Buchanan that she was also sure Simon had been murdered, but he would be bound to interrogate her and any opportunity to draw out what he knew would be lost. Stevie looked beyond the window of the car. The street was empty, but it was lined with apartment blocks and whoever had searched her flat might be hiding behind one of the anonymous windows, ready to follow her. She pushed the doctor, the way she might put pressure on a merchant in a souk, by pretending to walk away. ‘I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to go.’

  ‘Forgive me.’ The chemist took a deep breath. It was silent at his end of the line for a moment and Stevie wondered if the connection had been broken. Then he said, ‘Simon and I were at school together, and I still think of him more as a brother than a friend. He didn’t really have any close family members left, and so it’s up to me to find out as much as I can about how he died.’ Buchanan let out a short, embarrassed laugh. ‘I hope that doesn’t sound too melodramatic. I still can’t believe he’s dead. I guess what I really want to ask is, did Simon leave anything that might explain what happened, a note or a diary?’

  ‘No, nothing like that.’

  ‘Just the package for Mr Reah?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The chemist paused again, as if trying to decide what to say next.

  Stevie turned the screw. ‘I’m sorry I can’t be much help …’

  Buchanan interrupted her, as she had hoped he would.

  ‘I know you refused to let Dr Ahumibe take responsibility for the package, but I wonder if you would consider allowing me to take a look at it?’

  It would be a simple thing to hand the laptop over to Buchanan with a warning that someone was after it. Simon had been clear that she was to trust no one except Reah, but both Simon and Reah were dead, and there was no bringing them back.

  It was as if the chemist sensed the uncertainty in Stevie’s silence. He added, ‘Things are pretty bloody here, but I could send my son William to collect it if you tell me where you are. He could be with you in no time.’

  It was silly to think she would hand the laptop over to a stranger. Simon had entrusted it to her and she had fought for it with her life. Stevie said, ‘Simon never mentioned you or your son.’

  ‘He was William’s godfather.’ Buchanan sighed. ‘Simon had a tendency to compartmentalise. He never mentioned you either.’

  It was nothing she didn’t know already, but Stevie was surprised by a quick throb of disappointment. She asked, ‘Was he good with children?’

  ‘William’s twenty-nine, not a child any more, but yes, Simon was one of his more popular uncles. He wasn’t the most attentive godfather, prone to forgetting birthdays and rather too inclined towards dangerous presents for my ex-wife’s liking, but William adored him. He’s pretty cut up about his death. We all are.’

  Stevie heard the grumble of a car engine and saw a blue Fiat speeding along the main road. There was something about the Fiat that bothered her, but she wasn’t sure what. She asked, ‘What was Simon like as a boy?’

  Alexander Buchanan paused for a moment, and then said, ‘Rather like he was as an adult: brave, inclined to recklessness, clever and – just as important – capable of applying himself. He had a silly sense of humour, but he was kind too, not a quality to be taken for granted in small boys. I joined the school as a day pupil when I was twelve. Simon was a boarder. Normally they looked down on us part-timers, but he took me under his wing. I lacked the charm to match Simon’s popularity, but for some reason he took a shine to me and that won me a grudging acceptance with the rest of the boys. Maybe that’s part of the reason I feel such an obligation to Simon now. I owed him a lot.’

  Another car sped along the main road and Stevie realised what had bothered her about the blue Fiat. At this time of day the traffic should have been too heavy to allow cars to travel much above a crawl. Somewhere a door slammed. Stevie scanned the street but there was no one in sight. She slid down the driver’s seat, hiding her face in the dashboard’s shadows.

  ‘How convinced are you about your narcotics theory?’

  ‘I’m not convinced at all. It’s a working hypothesis, but without more evidence that’s all it is.’

  ‘But supposing you are right, how would Simon have taken whatever it was?’

  ‘Orally.’ There was the tiniest of pauses, the type that Stevie and Joanie had been trained to avoid when they joined the shopping channel. ‘Or by injection.’

  The pause had told her what she wanted to know, but Stevie asked, ‘Was there evidence of an injection on Simon’s body?’

  There was silence on the line again. Stevie could feel Buchanan trying to make up his mind whether to answer her or not. She already knew that he would. The chemist had been led too far for him to retreat now.

  Buchanan let out a breath that was all acquiescence.

  ‘There was a puncture between his index and middle finger which might have been consistent with a needle piercing his skin.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’

  ‘If Simon did kill himself, and I’m not saying he did, but if he did, he went to a lot of trouble to make it look like he died from natural causes. Who am I to undo his last wishes? Look.’ Buchanan became briskly efficient, as if suddenly realising he had given her all he could and had nothing left to bargain with. ‘I wish you’d let William collect the laptop. All I want to know is whether Simon committed suicide, and if so why.’

  Surprise galvanised Stevie. She put her mobile on speaker, turned the key in the ignition and guided the car from its parking space.

  ‘I never mentioned what was in Simon’s package. What makes you think it contained a laptop?’

  Buchanan’s answer was fast and bewildered in its innocence.

  ‘Dr Ahumibe told me. Perhaps he guessed.’

  Stevie had been careful not to mention the laptop to Ahumibe. She said, ‘Thank you for your call, Dr Buchanan. I take it you’re still at the hospital?’

  ‘No, I’m at my lab. I’m part of the international collaboration trying to find an antidote for V5N6. It would be a great help if you could let me see the package. It may seem silly with so many other lives at stake, but I’m finding it hard to concentrate. I keep wondering if Simon killed himself and if he did, what could have made him so unhappy.’ The chemist spoke quickly, as if he was afraid she might suddenly cut the call. ‘If you don’t want to trust William, why not bring it here yourself? I promise it won’t leave your sight.’

  ‘Tell me where your lab is and I’ll think about it.’

  Buchanan gave her an address, sounding suddenly weary. ‘I’ll be here for the foreseeable future. Where are you?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. I’ll know where to go, if I need you.’ Stevie might have been telling him to fuck off and die.

  ‘Please don’t hang …’

  Stevie turned off her mobile and stabbed the address Derek had texted her into the satnav. Iqbal’s place lay on t
he opposite side of the river. She turned a corner, narrowly missing a taxi. She raised a hand in an apology that turned into a two-fingered salute when the driver pressed the horn and drew a finger across his throat.

  ‘Better men than you have threatened to kill me,’ Stevie whispered, though she had no evidence that they were better men at all.

  The near-collision had shaken her and she drove slowly, keeping her eyes on the road, trying to work out what the conversation with Buchanan had revealed. One thing was clear. If the chemist’s hypothesis worked for suicide, then it also worked for murder. A sedative could easily be slipped into a drink; warnings about nightclub predators with a penchant for Rohypnol had taught her that. Once it had taken effect, all that the killer would have had to do was inject Simon with whatever poison they had chosen, and then sit at his bedside and make sure he didn’t wake up. It was a horrible image, the assassin waiting quietly in a chair by the bed, the murderer and victim caught in a pastiche of doctor and patient.

  Turn left in one hundred yards, the chilly female voice of the satnav instructed. Stevie did as she was told, glad to surrender control to someone else, just for a moment.

  Twenty-One

  It said something about her own prejudices that she had expected Iqbal to be overweight, dressed in pizza-stained sweatpants and pale from too many hours at a computer keyboard. The man who answered the door was young and slender with dark, long-lashed eyes. Stevie felt suddenly, ridiculously, shy.

  ‘Iqbal?’ The young man nodded and Stevie said, ‘I’m Stephanie Flint, a friend of Derek’s, I mean PC Caniparoli. He said you’d be expecting me.’

  ‘Yes.’ He hesitated on the doorstep for a moment, as if wondering if their business could be conducted there, then stepped back and let her into the apartment.

  ‘Could you take off your shoes, please?’

  A magazine was neatly positioned inside the door. Stevie unlaced her trainers and placed them on it.