William Boyd - The Blue Afternoon

A manservant informed them that Dr Cruz was in his workroom and they were led around the house to the buildings at the rear. There was a large bamboo pen containing half a dozen mangy-looking mongrel dogs and, in an iron cage hanging from the rafters of an empty stable, two sad-looking gibbons groomed each other listlessly. The manservant rapped on the door of the largest hut and stepped back apprehensively as, after a pause, it was hurled open.

Dr Isidro Cruz was wearing a black alpaca suit with the cuffs unbuttoned and the sleeves rolled back to the elbows, his hands were dripping with blood and his waistcoat and jacket front were shiny with some other dark viscous fluid. He was a tall man, in his sixties, with a big powerful head, a grey pointed goatee and wiry hair brushed straight back from his brow. He started to swear venomously at his servant in Tagalog.

'Listen, you cunt of an ancient whore, don't you know -'

He saw Carriscant and beside him the solid uniformed figure of Bobby and halted abruptly. He gestured to his manservant to turn round and wiped his hands on his back.

'What do you want, Carriscant?' he said, changing to Spanish, his hauteur impeccable.

Carriscant introduced Bobby and explained who he was.

'We're looking for the body of Ephraim Ward,' Bobby started.

'Tell him I don't speak English,' Cruz said.

Carriscant knew that in fact Cruz spoke English passably well but he agreed, in the interests of maintaining some decorum, to translate. He patiently repeated Bobby's statement and then added a comment of his own in a lower voice.

'You had no right moving that body.'

'I had every right in the world,' Cruz said confidently. 'I am medical director, I would remind you, and on top of that I resent the tone of voice you employ.'

'It was the Chief of Constabulary himself who asked for-'

'It was Dr Wieland himself who asked me to do whatever I thought necessary to protect the evidence.'

'Dr Wieland has no authority in this case. Chief Bobby -'

'Where is it?' Bobby interrupted their argument, impatiently.

Cruz looked at him, face blank.

'Where is it?' Carriscant translated with a sigh.

'Here. And quite safe.'

After more terse exchanges Cruz agreed to let the two men into his laboratory. The room was lit with carbide lamps which cast an unnatural bleached glare. Long spiralled tapes of speckled flypaper dangled from the ceiling and there was a strong reek of putrefying meat in the air that made Carriscant's gorge rise. On a wide dissecting table were the spatchcocked bodies of two dogs. Bobby recoiled violently at the stench and lurched outside where Carriscant heard him raking his throat and spitting. With a piteous shake of the head Cruz picked up a tin pump-action carbolic spray and vigorously wielded it until the smell of disinfectant overlay the more feculent odours, not quite concealing, but helping, like a pomade on a sweating labourer. Carriscant held a handkerchief to his nose and looked about him. On another table were two further dogs, one with its chest cavity open and rubber tubes running from it and into the body of the other dog, which he could see was still shallowly breathing, its stretched ribcage rising and falling erratically. By the dog's head was a chloroform bottle and a wad of gauze.

'I kept these two dogs alive, on one heart, for five minutes, ' Cruz declared proudly. 'In case you were wondering.'

'Don't be absurd.'

'Your tiresome scepticism doesn't affect me, Carriscant.' He tapped a blood-smudged ledger. 'It's all there, witnessed too.'

'Witnessed by your servants, no doubt. Most reliable.'

'Those two dogs were alive for five minutes!' Cruz shouted, his big face red, suddenly enraged.

'Physically impossible. Unless you're Jesus Christ!'

'I won't listen to your filthy blasphemy!'

'Gentlemen, gentlemen!' Bobby re-entered, calming them. 'Where is Ephraim Ward?'

Muttering to himself, Cruz led them through to a back room. Here in the centre of the floor were two large wooden chests, eight feet long and four high. As Cruz effortfully lifted the lid of the first one Carriscant saw that there was another chest inside, made of lead, the gap between the two stuffed tightly with straw. The second lid was raised and there lay Ephraim Ward's naked etiolated corpse, packed on ice like a side of beef. Carriscant frowned, and reached forward into the chest and scooped away some ice granules beside the shoulder.

A woman's face was revealed, gaunt and bloodless. An india.

'For Christ's sake,' Bobby said, hoarsely. 'How many more have you got in there?'

'Three and some organs. What's it got to do with you?' Cruz said, in Spanish, forgetting he was not meant to understand English.

'There is no room at the hospital morgue,' Carriscant explained. 'Most surgeons have to store cadavers in their own premises.'

'But why?' Bobby said. 'Why not bury them?'

'For the advancement of medical science,' Carriscant said reasonably. 'How else do you think we are able to do so much? To cure, to heal?'

'Precisamente,' Cruz agreed, nodding his big head.

Carriscant watched Bobby's glance flit between the two of them, he could see he was troubled and unsettled.

'It's a common practice,' Carriscant said, gently, a little unhappy to find himself siding with Cruz, 'and essential.'

Cruz stepped away from them and pumped some gusts of carbolic spray into the atmosphere. Bobby gathered himself and had Carriscant explain to Cruz that Ephraim Ward's body was to be returned to the San Jeronimo morgue immediately. Cruz refused to do anything without the authority of Governor Taft. Bobby said he would provide him with that forthwith.

'That man is a monster,' Bobby said, passionately, as they drove away from Cruz's house. 'Those poor fucking dogs and monkeys. The bodies stacked up in the next room… It's not natural.'

'Always remember,' Carriscant said. 'He is a peninsularo. They assume the world is organised for them. In Filipinas they decide what is normal. Or at least they used to for three hundred years. It's hard for them to adjust.'

Bobby disagreed, but Carriscant was not really listening. He pursed his lips, frowning. He was thinking: those dogs… Two animals, one heart. What was the old fool trying to do?

Pantaleon spread the plans flat on the ground in front of the nipa barn and weighted the corners with stones. Carriscant squatted down on his haunches in front of them and made suitable noises of appreciation.

'The Aero-mobile,' he read. 'Good name.'

'I thought: you've got an automobile, what better description for a flying machine?'

'Sounds ideal.'

Carriscant scrutinised the fine drawings. What he saw looked like a cross between a cantilevered bridge and a stylised bird. There were two wrings, boxy with many struts and wires, but the tail at the end was curved and semicircular, with flutings, like the fanned tail of a dove, displaying. He found Pantaleon's dream of powered heavier-than-air flight touching, a harmless obsession, but he sensed his natural curiosity about the project growing, despite his scepticism, and despite the fact he had only invited himself here on a pretext.

'It's a competition,' Pantaleon said, explaining. 'Two businessmen, an American and a Frenchman, have set up this prize, the Amberway-Richault prize. They've offered ten thousand dollars for the first flying machine to lift itself off the ground under its own power and fly for one hundred metres. Under its own power, no ramps, pulleys, gradients. It must be fully authenticated, of course.'

'And you think this… this "Aero-mobile" can do it?'

'In principle, I'm sure,' Pantaleon said, with quiet authority. 'There are a few problems… Engine power is the major one, of course. But I'm on the right lines. The glider models have worked very satisfactorily.' He smiled shyly, confessing. 'It's what I've been up to this last year.'