"If I can help somebody," he crooned raggedly as he entered the block where his office was situated, "as I pass along ... "
He boarded the elevator and pressed the button for the 11th floor.
"Then my living shall not be in vain ... "
The elevator wound upwards. Head bowed, Hejar was engrossed in the half-remembered song.
"Then my living shall not be in vain ... Oh ... "
The elevator shunted him into the nth floor berth. He opened the door of his office.
"My living shall not be in va-a-i-i-n-n-n ... "
The woman in the guest chair had red-rimmed eyes but she watched him intensely.
"Good evening," he said calmly. He was used to finding such women in his office. One pair of red eyes looked much like another.
"I've been here for hours," she said.
"I didn't know you were waiting," he said, obviously. He did not concede the necessity for an apology. Instead, he smiled.
"You are ... Mr Hejar, the ... reclamation ... man?" Hejar's smile had disconcerted her, as it had been meant to do. The smile therefore broadened.
"I've been sitting here, looking at your ... pictures," she said, gesturing vaguely at the Ben Maile skyline and the Constable pastoral. "They're not ... what I ... would have expected."
Hejar hung his hat and coat carefully on the old-fashioned stand. He took his seat behind the desk and built a cathedral nave with his fingers while the smile lay dozing on his face.
It was always best to let them talk — as much as they wanted to, about whatever they wanted to. Gradually they would work their way round to the inevitable plea.
"What had you expected, Mrs ... " He deliberately left the sentence hanging in the air.
"An office without a single rounded edge. No softness anywhere ... everything sharp and cold and soulless."
She would tell him her name and the reason for her presence in her own time. He would not prompt the revelation because it was important to maintain a singular lack of interest.
"I think pictures add another dimension to an office," he said "Constable had a way with water, an eye for minute detail. I often think he sketched every leaf. Maile, now ... "
"You're probably wondering why I am here," said the woman. She was fortyish, plump, not unbecoming. She was in pain, with her loss, with the alien circumstances in which she now found herself.
"Take your time. I know how it is ... "
"I'm Elsie Stogumber."
Stogumber. Hejar switched on the audiostat which unscrambled the data from the long-winded secretary computer.
"Stogumber," he said into the feeder piece.
"There would hardly be anything recorded yet," said the woman.
"Today?"
The woman twisted her gloves in her lap.
"He asked for you," said Hejar.
"Small comfort to me now." The woman seemed mesmerised by the anguished play of finger and nylon. Hejar waited.
"They say you — you had his head."
"That's right."
The woman watched his face for perhaps five seconds. Then she went back to her glove play.
"You wouldn't still have it?"
Hejar's stomach churned. His vocation was bloody enough, even viewed with the detachment he brought to it, but ...
"Why?" he asked. The smile had gone.
"I suddenly couldn't remember my husband's face. It terrified me. If I could just ... "
"I no longer have it. My clients demand prompt delivery."
"Your — clients?"
"Come now, Mrs. Stogumber. I'm sure you realise the complete situation. You already know exactly what came to me. You also know why and that I am only an agent in this ... "
She screamed once, sharply. But her face was unfrenzied. It seemed impossible that such a sound had uttered from her.
"Who has it now, then?" she asked. Her voice was controlled, but only just. "Who has it?"
"My dear Mrs. Stogumber ... " Hejar found another smile and slipped it on. "Will you not be satisfied if I say that your husband is beyond any inconvenience or pain and that his last thoughts, to my certain knowledge, were of you?"
"No. It is not enough."
"What would you want, Mrs. Stogumber?"
"Ideally, my husband. Or at least, some part of him."
"But he's dead, Mrs. Stogumber. He's gone. He is nothing without the spark of life. Why prolong the parting? Why mess up your pretty dress, Mrs. Stogumber?"
The woman crumpled visibly in the chair. Her shoulders shook and she took in great gulps of air.
"Don't you have any movies of him? No threedees, maybe?"
"He went out after breakfast and I'll never see him again. You — you buzzards chop him up before I can even ... identify him."
The fight for breath became less laboured as tears began to flow. Hejar let her cry, thankful for an escape valve. He wondered what he could say when she came out of it. Evening edged a little closer to night. Her sobs softened to an occasional sniff. She blew her nose and then looked up.
"It usually helps if I explain," began Hejar. "You see, when in 1973, the Central Committee rescinded the Anatomy Act of 1823 and the Burial Act of 1926 ... "
"I've seen you," she said. "All of you. Waiting at busy road junctions, chasing ambulances, trailing feeble old men ... "
Her voice was close to hysteria. He rose, walked round the desk and slapped her hard. She fell silent.
"You might feel different if you understood our mission," he said. "We are not buzzards. We play a vital role. To benefit the living, we make certain adjustments to the dead. Nobody suffers by it. The Salvage of Organs Act of January, 1974, gave us the full power of the legislature. This was tantamount to a declaration that the racket in kidneys and heart valves and limbs that had thrived up to that time was accepted as inevitable and made conventional. We have new thinkers now. Wasting precious sentiment on a pile of gone-off meat was not progressive. Surely you can see that."
The woman took a deep breath. For a moment she teetered on the verge of more weeping. Then she struggled on.
"I accept it in theory," she said. "It seemed to make good sense at the time. Things like that always do when you are not involved ... But I've seen the way you work. You salvage men don't just wait for death — you prompt it. Surely, if you are the public servants you say you are, you shouldn't have to compete with each other."
Hejar swung his feet up on to the desk. Now the situation had resumed a calmer plane, he could pick and choose his words. He clasped his fingers behind his head.
"Now there, admirable Mrs. Stogumber, you have hit upon our problem. This is a living as much as a vocation. I must play as others shape the game. If there is a certain — over-enthusiasm, it is not of my choosing. But I have to absorb it if I am to continue in the practice. As long as there are people who deplore this trend, there is a chance that it will be thrown out. You see, there are so many new people trying to make out. As yet, we have no control over membership. The dignity that once went with this calling ... the pathological training ... Well, you know how it is. You open a door and all manner of undesirables flock through it."
"I'm sorry," she said. "For acting like that, I mean. It was childish of me." She pried a wintry smile.
"I am sorry, too, Mrs. Stogumber, for having to resort to such extreme measures. Your present composure impresses me considerably. Perhaps you find the situation a little easier to accept now."
She smiled again, a little more like autumn now.
"When somebody takes the trouble to explain, it helps," she said.
"The 1974 amendments to the Human Tissues Act of 1961 ... " said Hejar. She stopped him with a raised hand. "Now Mr. Hejar. I fear you are trying to blind me with science."