Dr Castelli was wrapping his forearms and hands in soft dry lint. ‘Just to keep the burns infection-free,’ she said. ‘But you should have them treated properly.’ She looked at his face by the flickering light of the almost burned-out car and shook her head. ‘You even singed your eyelashes. You could have cooked, like your friend.’
MacNeil got to his feet. Shock was setting in now, and he felt his legs shaking. ‘Let’s take a look at him,’ he said, and they crossed to the back of the truck.
Pinkie was lying on a canvas stretcher, bulbous eyes staring up at the roof, his breath rattling and gurgling in airways damaged beyond repair by the heat of the fire. The smell of burned meat, like a barbecue gone wrong, was almost overpowering. He presented such a grotesque vision MacNeil could barely bring himself to look. Much of his clothing had burned away, what was left sticking to charred flesh oozing red and amber fluids. The backs of his trousers and parts of his jacket remained, where they had been protected by the seat of the car. There were still portions of his shoes and socks visible in amongst the soot of burned flesh. The remnants of a collar clung to his neck.
His face was horrific, ears burned to shrivelled nubs, his nose, too, a dried, charred nubbin, the nasal ala pulled back like a bizarre parody of Michael Jackson in his last days. The eyelids were gone, simply burned away, and his eyes wept. His mouth and cheeks were dreadfully distorted, lips contracted around his teeth towards the gums in a hellish grimace, almost as if he were smiling. His hair was reduced to a short, ginger stubble.
MacNeil felt sick. Perhaps it would have been kinder to have left him to die in the car. ‘Can he see?’ he asked the doctor.
‘Probably, although his vision will be impaired. He might only see black and white.’
‘But he doesn’t feel any pain?’
‘No.’
‘How’s that possible?’ MacNeil said. ‘My hands are still hurting like hell.’
Dr Castelli made a sad little shake of her head. ‘Because he’s been burned right down to the subcuticular fat,’ she said. ‘That’s the layer of fat under the skin. Which is deeper than the pain receptors, which are located in the dermis — the layer just under the top layer. So he feels no pain. That golden amber colour you see, charred in crispy highlights like... like a crème brulée...’
‘Jesus, doctor...’
‘That’s the exposed fat. And you can see those red rims around some of the less burned areas. That’s the blood in the remaining skin getting pushed up by the drying out process. If they do anything at all, the surgeons will need to cut through some of the top burned layers to allow circulation in the deep tissues underneath. When the skin or the remnants cool and dry, they contract and choke off the underlying circulation. So the surgeons’ll make deep, lengthwise cuts to allow the tissue to split open and relieve the pressure.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Debriding the burned areas is barbaric,’ she said. ‘The poor guy’ll be unconscious, but the doctors get huge carving knives, and with a few assistants with electro-cautery at the ready, will literally carve off large patches of the burned tissue, down deep until they get to a layer of tissue that is healthy and bleeding. Then the assistants jump in and cauterise off the bleeding vessels. I had to assist in that once in med school.’
‘But you said he wouldn’t survive.’
‘Not a chance. His body’s losing fluid constantly. Let’s face it, there’s no skin left to regulate fluid loss through the pores. I mean, look at him. He’s leaking serum all over the place.’
‘So how long has he got?’
‘With treatment, if he’s lucky — or unlucky, depends how you look at it — maybe a day. Without, he’ll be dead in a couple of hours.’
They walked slowly back towards their car. The blaze was over, the BMW a charred, burned-out skeleton. The remains of its second occupant could be seen, curled up foetally between the front seats. The Thames flowed calmly beneath their feet, reflecting the lights of the deserted city. The tide had turned, and was pushing upriver from the estuary.
‘We need to get those burns of yours treated,’ the doctor said.
‘I’m not going to a hospital,’ MacNeil told her. ‘You never know what you might catch.’
‘Where, then?’
‘Drive me back to the police station. It’s only a few minutes away. We’ve got first aid stuff there.’
IV
Pinkie lay in the back of the truck, every word the doctor had spoken reverberating around his head. Why did doctors always talk about you in your presence as if you weren’t there? Perhaps she had simply dismissed him as dead already. But she was right. He felt no pain. Although she was wrong about his vision. He saw quite well. It just felt strange not being able to blink.
In fact, all things considered, he felt not too bad. His breathing was the worst thing. That was difficult, and painful. He tried moving his arms and legs in turn, and found that they responded quite well. He had to fight against the stiffness caused by muscles contracted in the heat. But he could do it. He had no intention of letting the surgeons — what was it the doctor had called it? — debride his burns. The idea of them wielding large knives to slice away his flesh was more than he could contemplate.
And, besides, he had not yet finished what he had started.
The soldier at the back of the truck who had radioed for the ambulance came forward to see how he was. The young man crouched over him, and Pinkie was glad that his mask hid his horror. He reached up towards the soldier and the trooper reflexively recoiled. Pinkie gurgled and whispered, trying to form words that the boy could hear. The soldier leaned forward, trying to catch what he said, and Pinkie found enough flexibility in his fingers to slip the knife from the sheath strapped to the young man’s belt.
He gurgled again, and the soldier leaned in closer, and Pinkie enjoyed the way the shock and surprise registered in the boy’s eyes as his own blade slid neatly between his ribs.
When his comrades in arms returned to the truck they would find him dead, his SA80 rifle missing, and Pinkie gone without a trace, except for a few charred footprints on the road.
Chapter Twenty-Three
I
She had held his hands and arms under running water for nearly fifteen minutes, breaking every five minutes to ask how he felt, and whether or not his hands were numb. ‘We don’t want you going numb,’ she said, ‘because that can damage the surrounding tissue.’ The pain had eased considerably, to a level MacNeil felt he could bear without being constantly distracted by it.
Now Dr Castelli carefully bandaged his forearm with a fresh dressing, and wrapped fine lint around individual fingers so that he would still have the use of them. ‘A pair of gloves to protect the dressing,’ she said, ‘and you’ll be right as rain.’
His gloved hands felt thick and clumsy, but at least now he no longer felt incapacitated by the burns. From his locker he retrieved jeans and a donkey jacket that he kept for undercover work, and a pair of Doc Martens. Dr Castelli looked at him appraisingly. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘if you were going to a fancy dress party as an undercover cop, you’d probably win first prize.’ Which made him smile, in spite of everything.
DS Dawson said, ‘A fine way to spend your last night, Jack. Were you trying to get yourself killed?’