Peter Robinson - Friend of the Devil

“You sound as if you know what it feels like,” said Annie.

Before Dr. Wallace could respond, footsteps sounded in the corridor, and Winsome appeared at the door with several uniformed officers behind her. Dr. Wallace lurched forward with the scalpel at her own throat. “Stop! Stop right there.”

Annie held her arm up and Winsome stopped in the doorway. “Get back!” Annie yelled. “All of you. Get back out of sight.” They disappeared, but Annie knew they weren’t far away, working out their options. She also knew there would be an armed response unit arriving soon, and if she had any hope of talking Liz into surrendering, she had to work fast. She looked at her watch. It had been half an hour since Dr. Wallace had picked up the scalpel. Annie had to try to keep her talking as long as possible.

Dr. Wallace glanced toward the door, and seeing no one there, seemed to relax a little.

“Do you see what I mean?” Annie said, trying to sound calmer than she felt. “People know I’m here. They’ve come now. They won’t just go away. Don’t make things worse. Give me the scalpel.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Dr. Wallace said. “It’s all over now, anyway. I’ve done all I can do. God, I’m tired. Too many memories.” She was leaning back on the blood-filled gutter of the postmortem table, the half-sewn-up body behind her. Annie was about five feet away, and she calculated whether she could get over there and wrestle the scalpel out of Liz’s hand. In the end, she decided she couldn’t. The damn thing was way too sharp to risk something like that. She had seen what damage it could do.

“Look,” said Annie. “There’s still time. You can tell your story. People will understand. I understand. I do. We can get you help.”

Liz smiled, and for a moment Annie could see the remains of what had probably once been a lovely young girl with a brilliant future, one who would take the world by the horns and go as far as she wanted. Christ, she had been almost killed by a monster and had then taken her revenge, and after that she had reinvented herself as a pathologist. But she seemed weary now, and there were deep cracks in the smile. “Thanks, Annie,” she said. “Thanks for being understanding, even though no one can ever really understand. I wish I’d known you before. This may sound weird, but I’m glad I got to spend my last few minutes on earth with you. You will take good care of yourself, won’t you? Promise me. I can tell you’ve been damaged. You’ve suffered. We are kindred spirits underneath it all, in some ways. Don’t let the bastards win. Have you seen what they can do?”

She opened the front of her smock, and Annie recoiled at the jagged crisscross of red lines, the displaced nipple, the parody of a breast.

“Kirsten!” she cried out.

But it all happened too fast. Annie launched herself forward as Kirsten drew the scalpel across her own throat. The warm spray of blood caught Annie full in the face, and she screamed as it kept pumping and gushing down the front of her blouse, all over her jeans. The scalpel fell from Kirsten’s hand and skittered across the shiny tile floor, leaving a zigzag of blood. Annie knelt beside Kirsten and became aware of movement all around her, soothing words, hands reaching for her, Winsome’s voice. She tried to remember her first aid and press down hard on the bleeding carotid, but it was impossible. When she did, all that happened was that the blood spurted faster from the jugular. And Kirsten couldn’t breathe. Like Templeton, she had a severed carotid, jugular and windpipe. Annie didn’t have three hands, and there was chaos all around her.

Annie screamed out for help. It was a hospital, after all; there had to be doctors everywhere. And they were trying. People milled around and manhandled her, bent over Kirsten with masks and needles, but when it was all over, she lay there on the floor in a pool of blood, her eyes wide open, pale, dead.

Annie heard someone say there was nothing more to be done. She rubbed her mouth and eyes with the back of her hand, but she could still taste the sweet metallic blood on her lips and feel it burning in her eyes. God, she thought, she must look a sight, sitting on the floor rocking, crying and covered in blood. And after what seemed like ages, who should come walking toward her but Banks.

He knelt beside her, kissed her temple, then sat on the floor and held her to his chest. People all around them were making various motions, but Banks’s presence seemed to silence them and create a cocoon of peace. Soon it seemed as if there were only Annie, Banks and Kirsten in the room, though she knew that had to be an illusion. Kirsten’s body was covered, and the lights seemed dimmer. Banks stroked her bloody brow. “I’m sorry, Annie,” he said. “I should have realized sooner. I was too late.”

“Me, too,” said Annie. “I couldn’t stop her.”

“I know. I don’t think anyone could. She’d come to the end. There was nowhere else for her to go. She’d already had a second lease on life. She didn’t want to live anymore. Can you imagine how terrible every day must have been for her?” Banks made a move to get up and help Annie out of the mortuary.

“Don’t leave me!” Annie cried, clinging on tight, not letting him move. “Don’t leave me. Not yet. Stay. Please. Just for a little while. Make them all go away.”

“All right,” Banks said, and she could feel him gently stroking her hair and humming a tuneless lullaby as she held on to him tight and buried her head deep in his chest, and for a moment it really did feel as if the whole world had gone away.

I would like to thank the people who read and commented on the manuscript of Friend of the Devil before its publication, especially Dominick Abel, Dinah Forbes, David Grossman, Sheila Halladay, Carolyn Marino and Carolyn Mays. Also thanks to the many copy editors and proofreaders who worked hard to make it a better book, and to the people behind the scenes who make sure it gets in the shops and doesn’t go unnoticed.

Peter Robinson’s award-winning novels have been named a Best-Book-of-the-Year by Publishers Weekly, a Notable Book by the New York Times, and a Page-Turner-of-the-Week by People magazine. Robinson was born and raised in Yorkshire, but has lived in North America for nearly twenty-five years. He now divides his time between North America and the U.K.