‘Perhaps I misheard,’ Mary said, disappointed. She was already glancing towards the bed, obviously wanting to get back to her husband.
‘I’d better go,’ I said. ‘If there’s anything I can do…’
‘I know. Thank you.’ She paused, frowning. ‘I almost forgot. You didn’t call Tom last night, did you?’
‘Not last night. I spoke to him yesterday afternoon, but that was about four o’clock. Why?’
She gestured, vaguely. ‘Oh, it’s probably nothing. Just that Summer said she heard his cell phone ring right before he had the attack. I wondered if it was you, but never mind. It can’t have been anything important.’ She gave me a quick hug. ‘I’ll tell him you stopped by. He’ll be pleased.’
I retraced my steps and went back outside. After the oppressive quiet of the ICU the sun felt glorious. I tilted my face up to it, breathing in the fresh air to clear the smell of illness and antiseptic from my lungs. I felt ashamed to admit it even to myself, but I couldn’t deny how good it felt to be in the open again.
Mary’s words came back to me as I walked back to my car. What was it Tom had said? Spanish. I puzzled over it, wanting it to make some sort of sense rather than be further evidence of his confusion. But try as I might I couldn’t think what it could mean, or why he should have wanted her to tell me.
Preoccupied with that, it was only when I was driving away that I remembered what else Mary had told me.
I wondered who might have been phoning Tom at that time of night.
The pan has boiled dry. You can see the tendrils of smoke coming from it and hear its contents hissing as they start to burn. But it’s only when the smoke begins to cloud above the stove that you finally rouse yourself from the table. The chilli is blackened and hissing with heat. The stink must be intense, but you can’t smell anything.
You wish you were as immune to everything.
You pick up the pan but let it drop again as the metal handle stings your hand. ‘Sonofabitch!’ Using an old towel, you lift it from the cooker and carry it to the sink. Steam hisses as you run cold water into it. You stare down at the mess, not caring one way or the other.
Nothing matters any more.
You’re still wearing the uniform, but now it’s sweat-stained and creased. Another waste of time. Another failure. And yet you’d come so close. That’s what makes it so hard to stomach. You’d watched from the shadows, heart hammering as you’d made the call. You’d worried your nerves might give you away, but of course they hadn’t. The trick is to shock them, to tip them off balance so they don’t think clearly. And it had gone just as you’d planned. It had been almost pathetically easy.
But as the minutes ticked by he still didn’t appear. And then the ambulance had arrived. You could only watch helplessly as the paramedics ran into the building and returned with the unmoving figure strapped to the trolley. Then they’d bundled it inside and driven him away.
Out of your reach.
It isn’t fair. Just when you were on the point of triumph, of parading your superiority, it’s been snatched away. All that planning, all that effort, and for what?
For Lieberman to cheat you.
‘Fuck!’
The pan clatters against the wall as you fling it across the kitchen, leaving a trail of water and swinging flypapers. You stand with your fists balled, panting, desperate to feed the anger because behind it is only fear. Fear of failure, fear of what to do next. Fear of the future. Because, let’s face it, what do you have to show for all the years of sacrifice? Worthless photographs. Images that show only how close you came, that have captured nothing but one near miss after another.
Tears sting your eyes at the injustice. Tonight should have gone some way towards countering the despair that’s built up as one disappointment after another has emerged from the developing tray. Taking Lieberman would have made up for some of that. Would have shown that you’re still better than the false prophets who claim to know it all. You deserve that much, at least, but now even that has been snatched away. Leaving you with what? Nothing.
Only the fear.
You close your eyes as you’re blasted by an image from childhood. Even now you can still feel the shock of it. The chill from the big, echoing room soaking into you as you step through the doorway. And then the stink. You can still recall it, even though your sense of smell is long since defunct, an olfactory memory like the phantom tingling of an amputated limb. You stop, stunned by what you see. Rows of pale, lifeless bodies, drained of blood and life. You can feel the pressure of the old man’s hand as he grips your neck, indifferent to your tears.
‘You want to see somethin’ dead, take a good look! Nothin’ special about it, is there? Comes to us all, whether we want it or not. You as well. Take a good long look, ‘cause this is what it all comes down to. We’re all just dead meat in the end.’
The memory of that visit gave you nightmares for years. You’d catch sight of your hand, see the bones and tendons covered by a thin layer of skin, and you’d break out in a clammy sweat. You’d look at the people around you and see those rows of pale bodies again. Sometimes you’d see your reflection in the bathroom mirror and imagine yourself as one of them.
Dead meat.
You’d grown up haunted by that knowledge. Then, when you were seventeen, you’d stared into a dying woman’s eyes as the life—the light—went out of them.
And you’d realized that you were more than meat after all.
It had been a revelation, but over the years it had become harder to sustain your belief. You’d set out to prove it, but each disappointment had only undermined it more. And after all the work and planning, after all the risks, tonight’s failure was almost too much to take.
Wiping your eyes, you go to the kitchen table where the Leica is partially disassembled. You’d started to clean it, but even that pleasure has turned to ashes. You slump down on to the chair and consider the pieces. Lethargically, you pick up the lens and turn it in your hand.
The idea comes from nowhere.
A sense of excitement starts to grow as it takes shape. How could you have overlooked something so obvious? It was there, staring you in the face all along! You should never have let yourself forget that you have a higher purpose. You’d lost sight of what was really important, let yourself become distracted. Lieberman was a dead end, but a necessary one.
Because if not for that you mightn’t have realized what a rare opportunity you’ve been given.
You feel strong and powerful again as you contemplate what has to be done. This is it, you can feel it. Everything you’ve worked for, all the disappointment you’ve endured, it was all for a reason. Fate had dropped a dying woman at your feet, and now fate’s intervened again.
Whistling tunelessly to yourself, you start to strip off the uniform. You’ve been wearing it all night. There’s no time to take it to the laundry, but you can sponge it down and press it.
You’re going to need it looking its best.
CHAPTER 14
THE OVERWEIGHT RECEPTIONIST was on duty at the morgue when I arrived. ‘You heard ’bout Dr Lieberman?’ he asked. The singsong voice was cruelly mismatched to his huge frame. He looked disappointed when I said I had, tutting and shaking his head so that his chins quivered like jelly. ‘It’s a real shame. Hope he’s OK.’ I just nodded as I swiped my card and went inside.
I didn’t bother to change into scrubs. I didn’t know if I’d be staying or not.
Paul was in the autopsy suite where Tom had been working. He was poring over the contents of an open folder on the workbench, but glanced up when I entered.
‘How was he?’
‘About the same.’
