‘Tom!’ cried Holly, throwing open the door. I climbed in beside her, leaned over and kissed the side of her mouth.
‘Not here!’ she giggled, drawing back. ‘Pooh! You’ve been drinking.’
‘Is it that bad?’
‘Fraid so.’ She pushed the car into gear and let in the clutch. ‘I’d lend you a peppermint if I had any.’
She smelt gorgeous and her body shone through her dress.
‘Only lend, Holly?’
‘Certainly. It’s time you realized the value of things.’
‘You sound like a schoolteacher I once had.’
‘Oh, thanks.’
‘I use the word advisedly.’
‘I’ll lend you a coffee when we get in if you like. What word?’
‘Had.’
‘You have been drinking, haven’t you? I think coffee’s a must.’
She parked the car and we walked in companionable silence across the tarmac to the darkened lobby of the Centre. As we were swallowed by its shadows, it sombreness seemed to reach into her. She stopped and put a hand on my arm.
‘Tom, why have you come back?’
‘To see you, gorgeous.’
‘No, really.’
‘Come and have a drink with me tonight and I’ll tell you.’
She smiled wanly. ‘I seem to have been here before.’
‘Let’s say about eight. Same hotel.’
‘Oh, all right.’ She pushed the dark glass of the door and stepped inside.
As we rounded the corner into the main corridor, a figure emerged from the Blood Bank, nearly bumping into me. It was Trefor. As he recognized me, his face registered three, maybe four, emotions within the space of a second.
‘Tom,’ he said colourlessly. ‘So, you’ve come back?’
‘Hello, Trefor.’
He forced a smile. ‘We’d better go to my office.’
‘See you later,’ I called to Holly.
As I followed his white-coated back, my mind followed the cascade of his expressions — surprise, anger, and then a resigned acceptance.
But between the last two, there had been something else. In the flicker of an eyelid, I had caught… fear.
So, what was he afraid of?
He pulled his office door shut, in control of himself now.
‘Why have you come back?’ he demanded.
‘To finish the job I started.’
‘You had finished.’
‘No, I—’
‘You had finished, by God! The Director told me what your real job was. You’ve driven poor David to killing himself, isn’t that enough?’
‘That’s hardly fair, Trefor, I—’
‘Tell his wife that. It’s finished, I tell you.’ With a crash he brought his fist down on the metal filing cabinet.
‘You’re nothing but a ruthless, callous opportunist, Jones, and by God you’ll get no help from me.’
He was about to say more, but I cut in coldly.
‘With or without your help, Trefor, I’m going to finish this job, so you’d better get used to it.’
He stared at me open-mouthed, and something seemed to fall away from him.
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean that,’ he mumbled, ‘I suppose you’re only—’
‘I’ll speak to you later, Trefor,’ I said, and left him before he could argue. Perhaps I should have put him under pressure then, but I wanted to see Chalgrove.
I knocked on his door and pushed it open without waiting for a reply.
He looked up from his writing, an eyebrow characteristically raised.
‘Oh. What can I do for you?’
‘Can you spare me a few moments?’
He looked at his watch. ‘A few.’
His voice was no different, but I could feel the temperature drop.
‘It’s difficult to know where to begin,’ I said.
Your problem, the deep-set eyes seemed to say.
‘Can I sit down?’
He waved me to a chair.
I touched my lips with my tongue, then plunged.
‘Holly tells me that you’re an expert on haemophilia?’
‘Well?’ The eyes studied me intently.
‘My brother’s a haemophiliac.’
‘Is that why you’ve come back?’
‘Partly.’
‘Go on.’
Slowly at first, then more easily, I told him about Frank and my own problems.
He nodded slowly.
‘Well, that explains one or two things. I’ll give you any help I can, but—’
It’s not just that, he’s got AIDS.’ I told him what had happened.
His expression didn’t change, but he reached over and patted my hand.
‘My dear fellow, I’m so sorry.’
‘Do you know anything about AIDS?’
‘A bit.’
‘Is it really incurable?’
He leaned back and thought for a moment.
‘Nobody has actually recovered from AIDS,’ he said slowly, ‘yet. New drugs and new forms of treatment are being described every week. One day, one of them is going to work. Your brother’s best chance is just to hang on as long as he can until that happens. Tell me about his present condition.’
I did so, helped by numerous promptings.
‘Hmm,’ he said at last, ‘he’ll survive six months, perhaps even a year or two.’ He looked up quickly. ‘I don’t mean to be callous, but you do want the truth, don’t you?’
I nodded.
‘The patients who survive longest,’ he continued, ‘are those with something to live for. That’s how you can help him.’
‘I’ve been wondering whether a transfusion of lymphocytes from me would help.’
He smiled fleetingly. ‘Well, you’ve obviously learned something from us. Unfortunately, it’s been tried, and it doesn’t work. You see—’ he leaned forward — ‘even if your lymphocytes matched his, which is far from certain, the virus would infect them as soon as they entered his system. I’m sorry…’ His voice tailed off.
‘How about a marrow transplant? From me.’
‘You’re serious about that, aren’t you?’
I nodded. ‘That’s why I came back. To see if you could help me. He’s in St Mary’s, Paddington.’ I added.
He studied me for a few moments. ‘I know what you’re asking, he said at last,’ and I… it wouldn’t be ethical for me… He broke off. ‘All right. I do know the immunologist at St Mary’s. I’ll speak to her, but I can’t promise anything.’
I thanked him somehow and found my way to the main corridor. I felt absurdly happy, and suddenly wanted to finish the job I’d been sent here for.
I glanced up at the clock. A quarter past three. The others would be guzzling tea by now, wondering where I was, perhaps. I’d enlighten them.
The talk stopped as I pushed the door open, but nobody gave me more than a glance. Except Adrian, who shot up and barged past me.
‘Do you mind if I have some tea?’ I asked.
‘Help yourself,’ said Trefor.
I did so and sat down.
There were just the four of them, Trefor, Steve, Pete and Holly. The page of a magazine crackled as Pete turned it over.
I cleared my throat. ‘I hope you can all understand why I’ve come back. I need to ask just a few more questions, then I can finish my report and go.’
‘Feel free,’ said Steve, without looking up. ‘Although what we can tell you that you don’t already know, I can’t imagine.’
Silence. It was as though we were playing a verbal equivalent of the ‘You blinked first’ game. I finished my tea and left.
I did go round the Centre and ask questions, for all the good it did me. The staff weren’t hostile, they just behaved as though I were a complete irrelevance. They moved; they performed their tasks, even replied when spoken to, but the carefree and happy spirit which had remained somehow uncrushed by Mike Leigh’s death was now so completely dead itself that I wondered whether it cou
ld ever come alive again.
‘Oh, Tom, I’m so sorry!’
‘Yes, but why did her eyes light up?’
‘What did Dr Chalgrove say?’
I told her.
Holly had picked me up at eight as promised, but hardly said a word until we arrived at the pub, a building so old it seemed to have grown out of the pebble beach on which it stood.
Then she had asked me again why I had come back, and I told her.
‘If Dr Chalgrove says he’ll speak to the consultant, then he will,’ she said now.
After a pause I said, ‘Why do you think I’d come back, Holly?’
‘It doesn’t matter now.’
‘It does, tell me.’
I cajoled her until eventually she gave in.
‘Well, if you must know, there’s a rumour going round that you’re some sort of private detective.’
I laughed, hoping it didn’t sound too hollow. ‘Who on earth started that?’
‘Adrian, among others.’ She found my eyes. ‘He really hates you, Tom. He’s been saying that you uncovered some minor misdemeanour of David’s and hounded him until he didn’t know what he was doing.’
So, Adrian knew about David’s ’misdemeanours’ now.
‘Is there any truth in it?’ she asked.
‘Not really,’ I lied easily. ‘My brief was to inspect your computer system for loopholes following the blood thefts in London. All Centres in the country are being checked, but there’s no point in broadcasting the fact.
She nodded slowly.
I said, ‘When Adrian came down that night looking for me, didn’t you realize he was going to attack me?’
‘No, that’s the strange thing, he said he just wanted to talk to you.’
‘Huh!’
‘Well, I’ve tackled him about it since, and he completely denies it. And if I hadn’t seen what he did to you with my own eyes, I’d have believed him.’
I thought about this for a moment.
‘Let’s not talk about it anymore,’ she said.
She bought me a drink and for a while we talked about Frank and his chances. Like Chalgrove, she was convinced that a cure, or at least a treatment, was not far off. Her optimism made me feel better.
As I got up to buy another round, she said, ‘Let’s have them outside and watch the last of the light on the sea.’
A few moments later I followed her out and found her sitting on a bench, her face lit by the sunset Ike the candle-glow of an Old Master.
I sat opposite her, tasted the subtle flavours of her face. Her eyes brooded on the sea which growled softly against the shingle beach twenty yards away. A zephyr touched her fine hair, she turned to me and smiled.
‘I hope you meant it about wanting a guided tour of Dartmoor. I thought this Saturday?’
I smiled back. ‘Fine.’
‘It was a surprise when you phoned. A nice surprise, though.’
I swallowed. ‘I’d been thinking about you. I suddenly needed to speak to you.’
‘Needed?’
‘Yes.’
The sun had vanished, but the top of its halo drove across the water, straight as a tramline. The breeze ruffled the bronze surface.
‘Beautiful,’ murmured Holly. ‘Let’s go nearer, Tom.’ She picked up her drink and walked towards the sea.
I followed. The pebbles gave a ghostly rattle.
She sat on a ridge of shingle just above the water. I sat beside her.
‘D’you know,’ she continued dreamily, ‘sometimes I wish I could dissolve and become part of all this. But now at this moment, I want to distil it, take it inside me to keep for ever.’ She turned to me. ‘Does that sound selfish?’
I put an arm around her, felt her warm skin through her dress.
‘We come from there,’ she breathed.
I listened as wave after wave reached for my feet, a sound so confident in its beginning, but inevitably failing and falling back in a death rattle.
‘It’s life itself,’ I said suddenly, ‘It’s no wonder we sometimes want to go back.’
‘No, Tom.’ Her face was very close. ‘There’s no going back. There’s never any going back.’
I turned my head to kiss her. Her lips were cool and salty and very soft.
‘Come on,’ she said, sometime later. ‘Time we were going.’
I didn’t move as she got to her feet and stood beside me for a moment. Her legs glowed in the light.
‘Tom.’ She held out a hand.
I took it, scrambled up, and we walked back over the pebbles.
The Metro buzzed through the night air and I opened the window against my burning skin.
‘Oh, lovely air!’ Her eyes never left the road. ‘Lovely trees, lovely life!’
I silently agreed, wanting more.
‘Thank you for a lovely evening, Tom,’ she said, as we stopped outside the hotel.
‘Thank you.’ I leaned over and kissed her cheek. ‘It doesn’t have to end now, come in for a while.’
‘Not tonight, Tom,’ she said matter-of-factly. ‘I want to go home. I’m tired.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ Without thinking, I seized her, pressed my mouth to hers. Her lips went dead under mine.
She pushed me gently away and I fell back, dazed.
‘You just don’t understand me, do you?’ she said.
‘No, I bloody don’t,’ I muttered, reaching for the door handle.
‘Think about it, Tom.’
I pushed the door shut, stumbling on the kerb as I stepped back.
I did think about her, nearly all night, but came no nearer to understanding her.
The next day, I sat fuming in the library, in front of me a piece of paper covered in names. They were all crossed out except one. Adrian.
And yet I still hadn’t got anything concrete against him, it was all circumstantial. I screwed it up in disgust and went to look for the hospital bar.
Two pints later, I didn’t feel any better. The attitude of the staff that morning had developed into a sort of passive resistance and I got absolutely nowhere. When I told Trefor that I had to talk to Adrian whether he liked it or not, he replied primly that any such talk would have to be in his presence.
I had avoided Holly.
I heard the word ‘haemophiliac’ and tuned into a group of medical students at the bar.
‘I tell you, haemophiliacs are nothing but a drain on this country,’ one was saying. ‘They’re costing the rest of us a fortune.’
I fled away before I hit him.
Adrian.
I was going to find him, accuse him, and beat the truth out of him if necessary. As I stalked down the main corridor of the Centre, people seemed to jump out of my way.
A hand on my arm. ‘Tom.’ I shook it off. ‘Tom, what’s the matter?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Well, if you could stop in your nothing for a moment—’ the cool grey eyes tempered my fury — ‘I thought I’d pick you up at about ten tomorrow. Is that all right?’
‘You still want to go?’ I said incredulously.
‘Of course, if you do.’
I looked away. ‘So, you think you’ll be safe with me all alone on a lonely moor?’
‘Apologize for that, or it is off.’
I apologized.
‘I’ve been kicking myself all night,’ I said.
‘Painful.’
‘I’ll show you the bruises if you like.’
‘Save that for tomorrow.’
Adrian appeared from nowhere beside us.
‘You were looking for me,’ he said tonelessly.
‘Was I?’
‘Trefor said you wanted to ask some questions.’
‘I’ll leave you to it.’ Holly slipped away.
‘See you tomorrow,’ I called after her.
‘You won’t, you know,’ he said.
‘Won’t what?’
‘See her tomorrow.’
‘And what’s to stop me?’
&n
bsp; ‘I am.’ He pushed his face closer. ‘I’m not like David. I don’t scare easily.’
The anger bunched up inside me again, then something made me look up, over his shoulder. Trefor was watching us from his office. Adrian followed my gaze, then with a sneer, turned and walked towards him.
I had failed, that was obvious now. Adrian was like a rock. Bennett couldn’t shift him, and neither would I. But did it really matter?
I was helping Frank. Seeing Holly tomorrow.
I thought about it all the evening at the bar. Yes, it mattered, but I could live with it.
Chapter Sixteen
I had been here before, of course, but the eyes of a seventeen-year-old squaddie see things differently from those of a thirty-two-year-old headcase. The Moor, we had called it, in the same jocular shortening as the inmates of Princetown; a place against which you had to pit your strength and skills.
Oh yes, after a twenty-mile hike in full kit you loathed the place, the stones that tripped, the mud that gripped your boots that were full of icy stream water anyway, and the grey clouds that pressed you against the dull green earth, pouring their rain into your eyes and down your neck and plastering hair on your forehead.
Oh yes, I was glad to leave — Gimme Salisbury Plain any day, as I said to my mates.
But today it was different, and the memory added a sparkle to a place I would have loved anyway.
First there was the suddenness. One minute you were climbing through the bland suburbs of Tamar, then with the drumming of tyres against a cattle-grid you were there, amid the gorse and heather and rank green grass that stretched everywhere.
I glanced behind. Virtually all signs of the city had vanished beneath us.
‘Takes you unawares, doesn’t it?’ said Holly happily.
‘Mmm.’
The engine buzzed furiously as she pressed her foot to the floor to climb a hill, then expanded with relief as we crested the top. Another hill, third gear this time, and then the moor lay before us like a carpet suspended at points by puppet strings that might pull it into a different shape at any moment. As we dropped, I could see the summit of each point, or tor, clutters of rocks grey and smooth as lava dribbled from an eruption.
‘Princetown,’ said Holly as we came to a junction. ‘Do you want to see the prison?’
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