Tom Cain - Carver

Malachi Zorn had just vanished from the face of the earth.

Parkview Hospital, Wimbledon

Under any normal circumstances, the victim of a violent, potentially fatal attack on Southside Common would be taken three miles across the South London suburbs to St George’s Hospital, Tooting. A teaching hospital that has won national awards for its standards of care, St George’s has an accident and emergency department that sees around a hundred thousand patients a year. It is open every hour of every day, has a resuscitation area for critically injured patients, and is staffed by four consultants, forty junior doctors and around fifty nursing staff. But when the ambulance carrying Malachi Zorn raced away from the scene of the assassination attempt, it did not drive east towards that waiting A amp; E. Instead it double-backed across Wimbledon Common, before turning north and then dashing less than a mile towards a smaller, private hospital that had no emergency facilities at all. It did, however, boast a much more significant speciality: extreme discretion. And in the case of Malachi Zorn, a billionaire financier attacked by an impromptu black ops team unofficially commissioned by Her Majesty’s government, privacy and silence were far more significant priorities than quality of treatment.

By the time that the ambulance drove through the hospital entrance and into a forecourt hidden from inquisitive passing eyes by a tall, thick hedge, Carver had already arrived, parked his bike and was waiting to greet it. He followed the paramedics as they rolled the gurney carrying Zorn’s blood-soaked body across the tarmac, past the plain-clothed policemen standing guard by the front door, and into the hospital itself. There was no one at all in the reception area, except for a single doctor. He was dressed in a suit, rather than scrubs, and he was not waiting to carry out a swift examination of his patient’s injuries, as one might have expected in a case of this kind. There was no attempt to administer drugs and fluids or blast the motionless figure back to life with shocks from defibrillator pads. Instead he just raised the blanket that had been covering Zorn’s face, gave a quick, brisk, businesslike nod and said. ‘Take him to Room 68, top floor,’ before following the gurney, the paramedics and Carver into the lift.

The atmosphere was oddly calm as they rose three floors to the top of the building, just the usual mix of self-conscious silence and uneasy attempts to avoid one another’s eyes. Then the doors opened, and the doctor stepped out first with a brisk ‘This way,’ as he strode away down the corridor. Room 68 was at the end, occupying one corner of the building. It had that three-star-hotel look so beloved by private hospitals: all pastel walls and patterned curtains, with two visitors’ chairs and a flat-screen TV on the wall opposite the bed. The chairs were occupied, and the TV was on as Zorn was rolled into the room, lifted off the gurney and placed upon the bed, still in his bloodied clothes, uncovered by any blanket.

‘Ah,’ said Jack Grantham, switching off the TV and getting to his feet, ‘the moment of truth.’

He stepped close to Carver, and in little more than a whisper said, ‘Six bodies in a tunnel underneath Centre Court, and a home-made bazooka disturbing the peace of the leafy, Tory-voting suburbs. That’s a bit extreme, don’t you think? Even by your standards.’

Then, as the paramedics left the room, Grantham turned back towards the bed, assumed the cheerful demeanour of a drinks-party host greeting his guests, and said, ‘Good afternoon, doctor, my name’s Grantham. I work for the Secret Intelligence Service.’

‘Good afternoon, Mr Grantham,’ replied the doctor. ‘I’m Assim. Hmm

… your face seems familiar. There was some publicity at the time of your appointment, I believe.’

Grantham grimaced. ‘Yes, we’re not as secret as we used to be… More’s the pity.’

Assim frowned inquisitively at the man who had risen to his feet from the second chair, and was now standing at the foot of the bed, tugging nervously at his moustache. ‘And you must be…?’

‘Cameron Young. I work for the Prime Minister. Look, can we get on with this, please? I need to report back to Number 10 as soon as possible.’

‘This is Carver,’ said Grantham, paying no apparent attention to Young as he completed the introductions.

‘So what is your position?’ Assim asked, shaking Carver’s hand.

‘Self-employed,’ Carver replied. ‘A private contractor, you might say.’

‘I see,’ said Assim. ‘And you are responsible for the fact that Mr Zorn is with us here this afternoon?’

‘Yes, he’s here because of me,’ said Carver. ‘But he isn’t Malachi Zorn.’

Dr Assim looked puzzled. A slow, sly grin spread across Grantham’s face. And the tension on Cameron Young’s face was replaced by a look of appalled surprise.

‘What the bloody hell do you mean? Of course it’s Malachi Zorn. Just look at him!’ Young exclaimed.

‘All right,’ said Carver, ‘I will.’

He went to the side of the bed. ‘Malachi Zorn is five feet ten inches tall and weighs around a hundred and seventy-five pounds. Looks about right, wouldn’t you say? He has dark-blond hair: check. He has hazel eyes.’ Carver reached over and lifted an eyelid to reveal a sightless eye. ‘Check. His facial features look remarkably like these ones here.’

‘Yes, because he’s Malachi bloody Zorn!’ Young interrupted.

‘Except,’ Carver continued, unperturbed, ‘that Malachi Zorn is a lifelong bachelor. He’s never even got engaged, still less married. That means he’s never worn a ring on his wedding finger. So how do you explain this?’

Carver lifted up the body’s left hand and separated the fourth finger from the others. ‘Look,’ he said.

‘Look at what?’ asked Young. ‘It’s a finger, what’s the big deal?’

‘Look at the colour of the skin, just here, at the base of the finger. It’s paler than the rest, like skin that’s been covered for years by a ring. And if you look very closely, you’ll see that the skin is slightly indented, which is what happens when you wear a ring for a long time. Now, the skin is beginning to get some colour, and the indent is much less than it would have been when the ring was first removed, so I’m guessing it’s been a couple of months since he took it off. But even so, this man was married. So he can’t be Malachi Zorn.’

‘That’s it?’ asked Young incredulously. ‘That’s your entire reason for thinking this isn’t Zorn? I never heard anything so ridiculous! The whole point of this lunatic exercise was to strike back at Malachi Zorn because — or so you claimed, Grantham — he was a mass-murderer who had wreaked appalling damage on the UK economy. And now you’re telling me that we got the wrong man?’

‘I’m not telling you that,’ said Carver. ‘I got the right man. Well, the man I meant to get, anyway. Could you examine his face, please, doctor? Look out for signs of recent plastic surgery.’

Assim glanced around, seeking confirmation. ‘Go ahead,’ Grantham said.

The doctor stooped over the head of the supposed Malachi Zorn, and ran his fingers along the hairline, around the right temple, parting the first few strands of hair to reveal the skin beneath. ‘Hmm… very interesting,’ he murmured to himself. He turned on the reading light above the bed to give himself more light. ‘Yes, there is clearly some scarring here,’ he said. ‘And it would be consistent with a temporal incision for an endoscopic rhytidectomy. That’s to say: a mid-face lift.’

Assim leaned back a fraction, turned his head slightly to one side, and narrowed his eyes, focusing on the man’s nose. He took a tissue from a box beside the bed and rubbed it along an area of the bridge of the nose that had not been spattered with blood. ‘Concealer,’ he said, lifting the tissue to reveal a smear of flesh-coloured make-up. Then he looked again, moving his head to view the nose from a series of different angles before pressing his fingers delicately on the area that he had been examining.