'I don't know.'
'We…' Carriscant paused, not knowing quite how to express this. 'We have these scalpels in the San Jeronimo.'
'I know,' Bobby said. 'And in the San Lazaro and the First Reserve hospital.' He carefully put the scalpel back in his pocket. 'Could you tell if one of these was missing?'
'Possibly.'
'I'd appreciate it.'
Carriscant looked back at the corpse. The soaked clothes were plastered to the small thin body. He could see that the belly was markedly distended. The mouth was slightly open showing stained front teeth. His brain was working quickly, troubled and agitated.
'I think you'll find,' he said to Bobby, 'that this woman is pregnant. Four or five months.' He pointed to the swell of her belly.
'Really? God… ' The information seemed to have disturbed Bobby unduly. 'That's awful.'
'I'll confirm it at the hospital,' Carriscant said. He made his farewells.
On the ride back to Manila he found his mind returning again and again to the same troubling conclusion. The scalpel found by the woman's body, he was sure, would be traced back to his operating theatre at the San Jeronimo. He could not explain where this conviction came from. But it came to him with the numinous clarity of a revelation. Someone had stolen it and that someone, or some people, had placed it by the body for the sole purpose of implicating him in the murders.
THE BLUE AFTERNOON
'We've had terrible problems,' Pantaleon said. His face looked drawn and his chin was dirty with stubble. 'But I think we've solved them.'
They were in the doorway of the nipa barn looking out at the rain falling steadily on the meadow. Behind them in the musty gloom stood the Aero-mobile, almost complete, lacking only one propeller.
'Problems of torque,' Pantaleon went on. 'The propellers make the plane want to pull to the right and I've had to counterbalance one propeller with the other. Very complicated.' He pinched the bridge of his nose. 'And weight. I need extra fuel. It's put me back by several weeks, but we're almost there.'
'Don't exhaust yourself, Panta,' Carriscant said, laying a gentle palm on his friend's shoulder. 'You can't hurry these things. One day, I'm sure, you'll take to the air.'
'No, you don't understand,' Pantaleon said excitedly. 'I'm not alone. There are others.'
'Other what?' Carriscant was beginning to grow concerned about him now; the mood was too sustainedly febrile and neurotic.
'Other flyers. You've got Santos-Dumont in France, Bosendorf in Germany, that fellow in America – what's his name?-with his manned gliders.'
'But you're practically there,' he turned and gestured at the machine. 'Look at it. Amazing achievement.'
'Chanute, that's him. But it's Santos-Dumont I'm most worried about. He's extremely rich. Money no object, you know.'
'Panta -'
'And this!' He actually shook his fist at the rain. 'It's not due to start for at least another two months. What's going on? Look at that field. It's a quagmire, practically underwater. That's why I bought this place. The ground is meant to be drained naturally. The farmer swore on his children's heads that would happen.'
Carriscant peered up at the sky as Pantaleon ranted on about the' farmer's duplicity. It was noon and the clouds seemed to be thinning. He could not be sure but he thought he could make out a bluey haze beyond the pale grey blanket.
'You need a road,' he said, without really thinking. 'A metalled road, like the ones the Americans are building in Intramuros. Take any amount of rain-and smooth-then you could – ' He stopped. Pantaleon was staring at him, his thumb and forefinger pinching his bottom lip. 'What is it?'
'A road… Of course.'
'Something firm, anyway. A beaten track, a-'
Pantaleon strode out into the downpour, heedless of the wet, measuring out the ground with his big strides. Carriscant sighed, erected his umbrella and followed him out into the field, tugging his collar away from his neck, the dampness making it chafe. He had actually found mould on a shirt in a closet that morning. A perfectly good white shirt with blue mould growing on it, mildewed like a cheese.
He caught up with Pantaleon at the end of the meadow. Through a fringe of guava trees was a paddy field and beyond that the swollen brown mass of the estero, dotted with more than its usual cargo of water cabbages, like vivid green footballs, no doubt. The Pasig had been full of them this morning, he had noticed, as he crossed the Colgante bridge.
'I'll build my own,' Pantaleon said fervently, holding his arms out straight in front of him, pointing back at the barn. 'A base of crushed stones, bamboo poles set a metre apart, wooden planks nailed to the top of them.'
'Panta, that's almost a hundred yards. Think of the cost, man!'
'No, no. It's an excellent idea. Thank you, Salvador.' He gripped his hand and shook it excitedly. 'Thank you, bless you.'
'My pleasure.'
They squelched back towards the barn.
'Have you reconsidered, Salvador? You know how important it is to me.'
'I told you, I can't possibly. I'd be terrified, I'm not like you. I'd be useless. Train some youngster. I'm too heavy, anyway.'
'No, no, we can take the weight. It has to be you. I've calculated everything based on your weight.'
'No, Panta, really -'
'Don't say 'no'. Don't. Just think about it some more.'
The rain let up momentarily as Carriscant was driving back to Intramuros. The wind was coming from the east and he could see huge cloud continents building over the foothills of the Benguet mountains. Only a temporary respite, he thought, taking off his hat and mopping his face with a handkerchief, we'll really catch it this evening.
At the hospital, in his consulting rooms, he saw the inventory he had asked his senior theatre nurse to prepare. Numerous items were missing from the stores including one Merck and Frankl straight, sharp-pointed bistoury, as he had surmised. Who could say when it had gone, however? It could have been lost, it could have been stolen months ago, it could have been thrown out accidentally in a bundle of soiled swabs… So why did he suspect the hand of Drs Cruz and Wieland? He started, as methodically as he could, to explore the ramifications of this supposition but stopped after two minutes, exhausted by its crowding implausibilities and inferences. In this kind of mood, he realised, anyone was capable of being turned into an enemy – Cruz, Wieland, even Bobby. Perhaps Bobby had planted the scalpel there, to unsettle him, to test him out in some way… But why? What did that imply? This way lay madness, he knew, and put the whole matter out of his mind. There was a long queue of patients outside his consulting room door.
Later, his work over for the day, he stood at the rear window of his office looking out at a corner of the hospital's garden. The air was loud with the mumblings of distant thunder and tall plum-coloured clouds were building high over the city. Yet to the west, over Manila Bay, the sky was clear and the sinking sun was shining brightly, filling the garden with a heavy creamy light, making the ancient tiled roofs of Intramuros glow, their vibrant terracotta temporarily renewed, set starkly against the boiling bruised mass of the thunderclouds. The first drops began to fall, silver like coins, through the garden's radiant light and, as the clouds hunched over the city as if to smother this audacious sun, a brief blending of mauve thundercloud and late afternoon luminescence turned the air blue, it seemed to him, almost changing its nature from something invisible to something there, tangible, as if the blue light that filled the garden was a fine mist of droplets suspended in the atmosphere. Enchanted, rapt, not really thinking, Carriscant opened his window and stretched his hand out like a child trying to catch, trying to touch, this beautiful phenomenon. His fingers closed on nothing. He saw instead the hundreds of shades of green
