Christopher Fowler - White Corridor

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of raised voices at the counter. Glancing up, he saw an emaciated young man with a shaved head attempting to grab Jezminder’s arm as Meera warned him off. Bimsley instinctively pushed back from the table and made his way over.

“Let go of the lady, mate,” he warned.

“I’ve told him,” said Jezminder, “he can’t come in here while I am working.”

“Who is he?” asked Colin.

“He used to be her boyfriend,” said Meera with a grimace of disapproval. “Jake, she’s told you before about turning up here. She doesn’t want to see you anymore.” He was half as tall again as the little detective constable. Meera was prepared to take on anyone, but even she stepped back as he tried to slap her with a bony fist.

“I’m her man, not yours, all right? So I’ve got the right to-‘

It took barely a second for Bimsley to assess the situation. The boyfriend was chasing cash, and he could see why; the urgency burned fiercely within his hollow eyes, robbing him of rationality. Heroin addicts were usually wheedling, pathetic, needy, but this one was dangerous. He grabbed at Jezminder’s bag, breaking the strap as the two girls tried to push him away.

Colin had trained for six years at the Hoxton Boys’ Boxing Club until his instructor had warned him to stay away, not because he lost his matches or failed training, or even because he lacked the essential hand-eye coordination of his profession, but because his reach was too short and his wildly swinging fists were potentially lethal.

He unleashed one now, the right, and listened as it connected with Jake’s jaw. There it was, the sound he remembered hearing at the gym, the tearing of jaw muscle as Jake went down.

“Ganesh!” said Meera, watching as he slammed onto the tiled floor, for her mother had taught her to invoke Indian gods rather than swear like a navvy whenever she was surprised. Jake was out cold.

“Do you want him in rehab, or do you just want him gone?” asked Colin, sitting his opponent upright and checking his jaw.

“Gone,” whispered Jezminder.

Back on the street, Meera looked at him warily, as if seeing a new side of her colleague.

“What?” he asked, not liking to be stared at. “I’m sorry about that. I’m usually a bit of a pacifist. I didn’t mean to hit him so hard.”

“Never mind.”

“Then don’t stare at me. You make me uncomfortable.”

“I was noticing. You have a heart of oak,” she said finally. “Probably got a head to match, though.” She saw that the knuckles of his right hand were scraped, dripping dark sap.

“I’m fine,” he told her. But he could sense that something had changed between them. For the first time, she was looking upon him with kindness and, unless he was imagining it, something altogether more interesting.

The fake-leopardskin coat scratched her neck, the red woollen two-piece suit was too tight across the bust, and the patent-leather heels pinched, but DS Janice Longbright looked good and knew it. This is no way to run an investigation, she thought, strutting across the illuminated green glass of the causeway that acted as a catwalk into Circe, but I know it’s what Arthur would have made me do. She strode up to the counter and asked to see the woman whose name was on the card she had been given. She had decided to pay her induction fee by using the credit card details Raymond Land had asked her to acquire for his wife. Leanne Land deserved to pay for having an affair with a golf caddie behind her husband’s back.

“I’m afraid Miss Grutzmacher is taking a class at the moment, but you can see someone else about induction suitability,” the receptionist told her, picking up a modular white trim-phone and smiling vacantly into the middle distance.

Juan-Luis was a ponytailed young Spaniard with more than a hint of the flamenco dancer in his movements. He shook Longbright’s hand so lightly that she felt touched by an angel, then led her to a white room bordered by recessed blue lights and deep-purple seating before flopping into the unit beside her. “You say you were recommended by Monsieur Alphonse for one of our rejuvenation courses?” he said, checking his PDA.

“I won’t be on the system yet,” said Longbright. “I only just saw him this morning. You come very highly recommended. A friend’s daughter has been receiving treatment here, a girl called Lilith Starr. I wonder, how is she doing?”

Clearly, the conversation had taken a turn for which he had not been prepared. A momentary fluster occurred in his composure before he returned to form. “I’m not sure I know who you mean-‘

“You must do. She was personally recommended by Mr. Spender.”

“Well, that wouldn’t be my area. I only handle induction. Besides, our client details are confidential.”

“But if you conduct all the inductions, you must have seen her.”

Juan-Luis sighed. Clearly, the subject was not going to go away. “I think she is no longer with us.”

“Really? I find that surprising, as she was singled out for special attention.”

“I heard the treatment proved unsuitable for her. A medical condition-‘

“Surely your treatments don’t require a doctor’s intervention…‘

“Everyone has to fill out an approval form, and she omitted to tell us about certain-ah-medications.”

“You mean not just prescription drugs but others associated with-‘

“-lifestyle choices. That’s correct.”

So he knows about her habit, thought Longbright. “But I thought she came to you for several treatments. My friend said-‘

“Look, as soon as we discovered she had filled the form in falsely, we cancelled her appointments.”

“Why would you do that, I mean if she had made her own choices-‘

“Because there are diets, exercise regimes and supplements we prefer our clients to take, and obviously we can’t risk their health.”

Or the lawsuits , thought Longbright. “So what was wrong with her?”

Juan-Luis could see she would not rest until he had provided satisfactory information, and he badly needed to hit this week’s client quota. He set aside his PDA and lowered his voice. “Apart from the recreational drugs she chose to use, she had been taking Haldol since she was a child. It’s a drug formerly used to control behavioral problems in children.”

“You mean her parents had it prescribed for her?”

“I imagine so, but it should have been stopped, because it has long been known to pose health risks, like low blood pressure and even cardiac arrest, and there’s potential cross-reaction with other chemicals that makes it unsafe at any dosage. Unfortunately, Haldol can also be addictive.”

“Do you prescribe drugs for your patients, antiageing potions, anything like that?”

“You’re a police officer, aren’t you.” He offered the statement as a matter of fact. “Listen, it’s not my company, I have no vested interests here, but I can tell you the rules are strictly adhered to. We provide our clients with medical supervision in the form of advice and, in certain cases, dietary aids. We never suggest they can stave off illness and live forever just by changing their diet and exercising more, like some clubs promise, but we show them how they can live healthier, more active lives for longer.”

“But in your brochure you recommend homeopathic remedies.”

“We make no claims that they’ll perform miracles, but I admit, sometimes women want to believe more than we can promise.” He shrugged. “It’s up to them.”

As she left the clinic, Longbright tried to make sense of what she had learned. It was possible that Lilith had not died as a direct result of her drug use, in which case someone else might have felt responsible for her death.