The hands grabbed me again and slammed me against the wall before returning me to my seat. This time I sat hunched forward, in pain, without the strength to right myself. There was silence for a while and then the mandarin said, ‘It makes no difference to us. We can arrange for your mangled corpse to be found in the wreck of a stolen car, wrapped round a tree somewhere. We will do it tonight. It makes no difference to us.’
I pulled myself up. ‘Please don’t.’
The chaplain smiled as if he hadn’t noticed what they did to me. ‘Raspiwtin is looking for someone. When he finds this someone, you tell us. That’s all you have to do.’
‘Just tell you?’
‘Then you walk away a free man. There will be no repercussions. No one has been hurt yet, just think of that. It really is an excellent time to walk away from the table.’
‘Who is the man he is looking for?’
‘You don’t need to know that,’ said the brass hat.
‘How will I know when he finds him?’
‘You don’t need to know –’
The mandarin raised a hand to silence him. ‘Of course, it’s Iestyn Probert. There is no need to pretend. We know Raspiwtin has you looking for him. He believes some nonsense about Iestyn having a rendezvous with some aliens from a UFO. All you have to do is let us know if you find him. That way you don’t crash into a tree.’
‘I thought they hanged him.’
‘Well, they obviously didn’t make a very good job of it, did they now,’ said the brass hat.
‘There is nothing to deliberate about,’ said the mandarin. ‘The arrangement is so obviously to your advantage that you can’t be stupid enough to turn it down.’
The army chaplain took a scrap of paper out of his pocket and slid it across the desk.
‘This is a number you can call if you need to contact us. Just call and hang up, we’ll find you.’
I stared at the slip of paper, not making a move.
‘It’s just a number,’ said the chaplain, ‘it won’t bite.’
I paused and regarded him. ‘I knew an RAF pilot, once,’ I said. ‘He served during the Second World War; he said the chaplain told them God approved of their bombing, but woe betide them if they slept with the girls in the town.’
He forced a chuckle, trying to be my friend. ‘I’ve heard that story, too. It’s very funny.’
‘I always find it strange seeing a man who works for Jesus dressed as a soldier.’
‘Oh yes, why’s that?’
‘Jesus was a subversive. Are you?’
‘I like to think so –’
The mandarin slapped the table and made an impatient gesture to the men behind me.
‘We didn’t come here to discuss theology. The interview is over.’
I picked up the scrap of paper. The hands reached out again and lifted me to my feet.
‘You’ll be dropped back at your caravan,’ said the mandarin. ‘It’s a crap caravan where you live a life of squalid desperation. But I understand it’s all you’ve got. If you don’t want to lose it, I advise you to take the proceedings of this evening very seriously.’
Chapter 7
Calamity and I sat stiff-backed on a bottle-green chesterfield next to a Georgian window overlooking Laura Place. It wasn’t much of a ‘Place’ really, any smaller and it would have been called Laura Mews. But it possessed an air of modest affluence. It was the sort of square where you might expect to come across a film crew and a horse and carriage clip-clopping across the cobbles; just the sort of address, in fact, to which country doctors retired. We stared at a mantelpiece crowded with knick-knacks – framed photos, china figurines, a Toby jug holding letters from abroad, a brass shell case acting the part of a vase for dried flowers, a brass bowl containing hairpins, matches and a bottle of eye ointment.
‘I’m not sure I’d like to be treated by a doctor who moonlights at executions,’ said Calamity.
‘I know what you mean, but it’s not really moonlighting. It was a serious duty. If you are going to hang people, it stands to reason you need a doctor in attendance to certify the death and things.’
‘It doesn’t seem right for a doctor. Don’t they swear some sort of oath to preserve life?’
‘People thought differently about such things back then; they weren’t so squeamish. I’m sure he probably can hardly believe it himself, looking back.’
‘Still, it’s a bit ghoulish.’
‘You’re the one who dug up his name from the Cambrian News . . .’
‘Yes, I know. We have to ask him. Iestyn Probert. That’s quite a common name. They might have executed more than one. Maybe he’s forgotten.’
‘I’m sure he will remember the Iestyn Probert who took part in the raid on the Coliseum cinema; everyone else seems to.’
‘I’ll let the doctor know you are here,’ said Mrs Lewis, his housekeeper, from the doorway.
The gloom in the sitting room was as palpable as plasticine; you felt you could grab it from the air and mould it into shapes. Heavy velvet curtains, kept in check by sashes of braided gold, hung from curtain rails; closely packed lumps of mahogany furniture pressed down on the spirit; a grandfather clock stood sentinel and delivered tocks like water dropping in a cave. The tops of all the chests and cabinets were arranged with black-and-white photos, pictures of frozen happiness from the ’50s. A car, an Austin perhaps, with shiny chrome trim, amid the tufts of marram grass overlooking a beach. Caravans were discarded on the dunes like children’s blocks; a woman in a headscarf and sunglasses sat amid a picnic and gazed at the camera; from her expression, the mixture of tenderness and gentle reproach, it was possible to imagine the photographer peering inexpertly into the viewfinder of a Rolleiflex camera, giving instructions. Who was she?
‘You promise we’re going to see the farmer who saw the flying saucer after this,’ said Calamity.
‘I promise, even though I would like to put it on record that I think it’s an unpromising avenue of inquiry, although not as unpromising as advertising a black 1948 Buick in the Cambrian News.’
‘It’s a ’47, not a ’48.’
Mrs Lewis showed us up. The door was ajar at the top of the stairs and darkness seeped out, perfumed with the faint smell of formaldehyde that clings to the lives of old doctors. We walked in; there was a rustle of sheet; two ferret-bright eyes shone from amid the shadows.
‘Good morning,’ he whispered.
‘We’re sorry to disturb you . . .’ I began.
‘I wasn’t doing anything – apart from dying. Come into the light. It’s nice to see you whoever you are. I don’t get many patients these days; they don’t like my bedside manner. Isn’t that what they told you?’
‘They told us you were a fine doctor,’ I said.
‘They told you I was an awful doctor.’ He put on a cartoon voice: “I sent my little boy to him with tonsillitis and the damned fool told the boy he was dying”. Isn’t that how it goes? Well, I make no apologies for not sugar-coating the truth.’
‘You told a little boy he was dying?’ asked Calamity.
‘I tell all my patients they are dying; it’s the only diagnosis I can make with any certainty. You’d think they would be grateful. Set against the implacable fact of their mortality, what does a cold or case of tonsillitis matter? It’s all too trivial for words.’
‘Ultimately, yes,’ I said. ‘But it’s not trivial at the time.’
‘Tell me, do you follow the latest scientific developments?’
‘Not too closely.’
‘Just as well; you’d stick a paperknife into your heart if you did.’ He raised a feeble finger and pointed at Calamity. ‘Tell me, little girl, do you like flowers?’
‘They’re OK.’