four inches across. Gone. No flap. No pieces. Your skin just vaporized.”
He whistles impressively through his teeth. “You had a pulse but you were bleeding out when they found you. Then you stopped breathing. You were dead but we brought you back.”
He holds up his thumb and forefinger. “The bullet missed your femoral artery by this far.” I can barely see a gap between them. “Otherwise you would have bled to death in three minutes. Apart from the bullet we had to deal with infection. Your clothes were filthy. God knows what was in that water. We've been pumping you full of antibiotics. Bottom line, Inspector, you are one lucky puppy.”
Is he kidding? How much luck does it take to get shot?
I hold up my hand. “What about my finger?”
“Gone, I'm afraid, just above the first knuckle.”
A skinny looking intern with a crewcut pokes his head through the curtains. Dr. Bennett lets out a low-pitched growl that only underlings can hear. Rising from the chair, he buries his hands in the pockets of his white coat.
“Will that be all?”
“Why can't I remember?”
“It's not really my field, I'm afraid. We can run some tests. You'll need a CT scan or an MRI to rule out a skull fracture or hemorrhage. I'll call neurology.”
“My leg hurts.”
“Good. It's getting better. You'll need a walker or crutches. A physiotherapist will come and talk to you about a program to help you strengthen your leg.” He flips his bangs and turns to leave. “I'm sorry about your memory, Detective. Be thankful you're alive.”
He's gone, leaving a scent of aftershave and superiority. Why do surgeons cultivate this air of owning the world? I know I should be grateful. Maybe if I could remember what happened I could trust the explanations more.
So I should be dead. I always suspected that I would die suddenly. It's not that I'm particularly foolhardy but I have a knack for taking shortcuts. Most people only die once. Now I've had two lives. Throw in three wives and I've had more than my fair share of living. (I'll definitely forgo the three wives, should someone want them back.)
My Irish nurse is back again. Her name is Maggie and she has one of those reassuring smiles they teach in nursing school. She has a bowl of warm water and a sponge.
“Are you feeling better?”
“I'm sorry I frightened you.”
“That's OK. Time for a bath.”
She pulls back the covers and I drag them up again.
“There's nothing under there I haven't seen,” she says.
“I beg to differ. I have a pretty fair recollection of how many women have danced with old Johnnie One-Eye and unless you were that girl in the back row of the Shepherd's Bush Empire during a Yardbirds concert in 1961, I don't think you're one of them.”
“Johnnie One-Eye?”
“My oldest friend.”
She shakes her head and looks sorry for me.
A familiar figure appears from behind her—a short, square man, with no neck and a five-o'clock shadow. Campbell Smith is a Chief Superintendent, with a crushing handshake and a no-brand smile. He's wearing his uniform, with polished silver buttons and a shirt collar so highly starched it threatens to decapitate him.
Everyone claims to like Campbell—even his enemies—but few people are ever happy to see him. Not me. Not today. I remember him! That's a good sign.
“Christ, Vincent, you gave us a scare!” he booms. “It was touch and go for a while. We were all praying for you—everyone at the station. See all the cards and flowers?”
I turn my head and look at a table piled high with flowers and bowls of fruit.
“Someone shot me,” I say, incredulously.
“Yes,” he replies, pulling up a chair. “We need to know what happened.”
“I don't remember.”
“You didn't see them?”
“Who?”
“The people on the boat.”
“What boat?” I look at him blankly.
His voice suddenly grows louder. “You were found floating in the Thames shot to shit and less than a mile away there was a boat that looked like a floating abattoir. What happened?”
“I don't remember.”
“You don't remember the massacre?”
“I don't remember the fucking boat.”
Campbell has dropped any pretense of affability. He paces the room, bunching his fists and trying to control himself.
“This isn't good, Vincent. This isn't pretty. Did you kill anyone?”
“Today?”
“Don't joke with me. Did you discharge your firearm? Your service pistol was signed out of the station armory. Are we going to find bodies?”
Bodies? Is that what happened?
Campbell rubs his hands through his hair in frustration.
“I can't tell you the crap that's flying already. There's going to be a full inquiry. The Commissioner is demanding answers. The press will have a fucking field day. The blood of three people was found on that boat, including yours. Forensics says at least one of them must have died. They found brains and skull fragments.”
The walls seem to dip and sway. Maybe it's the morphine or the closeness of the air. How could I have forgotten something like that?
“What were you doing on that boat?”
“It must have been a police operation—”
“No,” he declares angrily, all pretense of friendship gone. “You weren't working a case. This wasn't a police operation. You were on your own.”
We have an old-fashioned staring contest. I own this one. I might never blink again. Morphine is the answer. God, it feels good.
Finally Campbell slumps into a chair and plucks a handful of grapes from a brown paper bag beside the bed.
“What is the last thing you remember?”
We sit in silence as I try to recover shreds of a dream. Pictures float in and out of my head, dim and then sharp: a yellow life buoy, Marilyn Monroe . . .
“I remember ordering a pizza.”
“Is that it?”
“Sorry.”
Staring at the gauze dressing on my hand, I marvel at how the missing finger feels itchy. “What was I working on?”
Campbell shrugs. “You were on leave.”
“Why?”
“You needed a rest.”
He's lying to me. Sometimes I think he forgets how far back we go. We did our training together at the Police Staff College, Bramshill. And I introduced him to his wife, Maureen, at a barbecue thirty-five years ago. She has never completely forgiven me. I don't know what upsets her most—my three marriages or the fact that I pawned her off on someone else.
It's been a long while since Campbell called me buddy and we haven't shared a beer since he made Chief Superintendent. He's a different man. No better or no worse, just different.
He spits a grape seed into his hand. “You always thought you were better than me, Vincent, but I got
