William Boyd - The Blue Afternoon

Udo waggled his plump fingers over the display, selected a cigar and rolled it sensuously under his veined and bulbous nose.

' La Flor de la Isabella,' he said, wistfully. 'As good as the finest Havana. Have I ever told you that?'

'Emphatically,' Carriscant said. 'How are the pianos going?'

'Slowly. Did I tell you I was opening a laundry?'

They speculated a while on the inevitable success of this venture before Carriscant told him why he had called. A friend, he said, had ordered a piece of industrial machinery from France and he needed it shipped to Manila, but with discretion. This friend was concerned that as a Filipino he might not be permitted to import such a component.

'What is it?' Udo asked. 'A Howitzer?'

'An engine. It's… it's a special kind of engine. For a type of automobile.'

'Is he building a motor car? Very shrewd. I saw one the other day, down here at the docks. Astonishing. German, of course.'

'Something like that. And he can't afford to pay the duty.'

Udo assured him that the whole matter was very straightforward. It might cost a little extra but he knew many agreeable ships' captains and many shipping firms who would be happy to oblige. If the engine could be conveyed to Hong Kong then from that point forward the maximum discretion could be assured.

Udo limped to the top of the stairs to see Carriscant off.

'What's wrong, Udo?'

'Gout, or something. My leg's changing colour. Turning blue.'

'Come to the hospital, I'll have a look at it.'

'You'll have it off, more likely.' He looked at him dolefully. 'No disrespect, Salvador, but I don't trust you lot.'

He called down the stairs: 'How's Annaliese?'

'Ah… Well. Very well.'

'I'd love to see her again.'

'Of course, Udo. Very soon. Thanks for your help.'

Paton Bobby's office was on the second floor of the Ayuntamiento, Manila 's town hall, a huge over decorated coral and white building on the Plaza Mayor adjacent to the cathedral. Bobby sat behind his desk, out of uniform, wearing a light tweed suit and a bow tie. The effect was surprising: as if the burly law officer had turned into a university professor or music teacher. From his chair Carriscant could see one of the cathedral's domed towers with a seagull sitting preening itself on the top of the surmounting cross. Bobby was informing him of the series of unsatisfactory interviews he had undertaken with the men of Ephraim Ward's platoon: it seemed unlikely now, he reluctantly concluded, that Ward had been murdered by a fellow soldier.

The gull hunched itself into the air and soared off beyond the frame of the window.

'Somebody got him, though. He left his post and somebody fucking got him.'

Carriscant shifted in his seat: Ephraim Ward's fate seemed remote from him now.

'He definitely wasn't shot, was he? Someone couldn't have gouged out a bullet? You thought he was stabbed, right?' Bobby scratched his skull through his thin hair with the end of a pencil.

'I'm sure. By the way, Cruz has still not returned the heart. The liver, but not the heart.' Carriscant closed his eyes briefly and tried to set his tone of voice to neutral. 'My wife,' he began slowly, 'my wife met an American woman at one of her church functions the other night but she's completely forgotten her name. A young woman, late twenties, tall, freckled with reddish brown hair. Apparently'

'Jesus, Carriscant, do you know how many American women there are out here now? Wives, nurses, missionaries, teachers… Must be hundreds.'

'I told her. She wanted me to ask all the same… ' He paused. 'Perhaps she has a position of authority, some rank. She mentioned the Malacanan Palace. Some sporting club?'

Bobby thought. 'Reddish hair, you say. Quite a striking woman?'

'Yes. I mean, as far as I can gather.'

'Now you mention it, it sounds rather like Miss Caspar. What's her name? Unusual… Yeah, Miss Rudolfa Caspar. Rudolfa, that's it.'

'Miss?'

'Headmistress of the Gerlinger school. The new one in Binondo.'

'Thank you, I'll tell my wife.'

The conversation returned once again to Ward's murder, Carriscant suggesting it could be any criminal from the Tondo slums, Bobby reluctant to concede it might be as random as that. They walked to the door and Bobby followed him on to the wide marble landing above the main staircase.

'But why dump him miles away?' Bobby was saying. 'Why not leave him where he fell?'

A uniformed man walked by, stopped and turned. 'Hello, Bobby,' he said. 'Any news?'

Bobby introduced him to Carriscant – a Colonel Sieverance. He had a pleasant, boyish face and a thin moustache, a little patchy. If that was the best quality bristle your face could produce, Carriscant thought, then it would be better to go clean-shaven. Colonel Sieverance seemed remarkably young to hold such an elevated rank, and there was something familiar about him too, Carriscant thought… Perhaps they had met before, somewhere.

'Ward used to be in the colonel's regiment,' Bobby explained. 'Dr Carriscant examined the body-he has been most helpful.'

Sieverance smiled, he had an engaging, enthusiastic manner, not in the least warlike or military, Carriscant thought. 'A doctor?' he said, gladly. 'Are you a physician, sir?'

'- I'm a surgeon, I'm afraid.'

'Damn. Why can't the US army hire a decent physician?' He grinned ruefully. 'Thought you'd made my day. Nice to see you. So long, Bobby.'

'He's on the Governor's staff, now,' Bobby said, watching Sieverance stride off down a corridor. 'Agreeable fellow.'

'The fish are jumping,' Pantaleon said, 'time to dig for worms.'

Carriscant cut into the flesh of the loin. It was pulpy and oedematous, which made him worried. The man on the operating table, a money-changer from Binondo, had been one of Cruz's patients who had returned to the hospital after being discharged, complaining of pains in his abdomen and of a cloudiness in his urine. Carriscant cut through the integument and separated the muscles. He paused while the nurses swabbed and sponged.

'What did Cruz do with this fellow, Panta?' he asked.

Pantaleon checked his notes. 'He thought it might be malaria, or else – you'll like this – "obstinate constipation".'

'Good God.'

'He applied a hot fomentation over iodide of potash. Look, you can see the remains of the blistering.'

Carriscant felt disgusted. 'You know, sometimes I feel we might as well be living in caves fighting dinosaurs. This man's dying of perinephritis and Cruz is smearing ointments on him to blister his skin.'

'Don't forget the morphia given as a suppository.'

'You're joking!'

'And a diet of beef tea.'

Carriscant laughed loudly, joined by his theatre nurses. You had to laugh, he supposed. If people knew what misplaced trust in their physicians subjected them to…

The incision was held apart by retractors and Carriscant looked at the exposed organ. What he could see of it was an unhealthy grey, there was a lot of fat and fibrous tissue obscuring much of the surface. He inserted his finger into the cavity, feeling between the kidney and the diaphragm. There was a spurt of pus that spattered on to his sleeve. He smelt its farinaceous sweetness, noting that it was a brackish green in colour. He had found the abscess, about the size of a tangerine, he guessed.

'How's the new project going?' he asked Pantaleon as he stitched the wall of the abscess cavity to the lip of the wound.

'Very well. I must say the standard of local carpentry is astonishing. They'll make anything.'

'I know.' Carriscant pulled away with his fingers loose sloughs of cellular tissue and shook them off into a bowl. 'I remember having some marquetry replaced by a fellow who lived in Tondo. Just a little shack really. This stuff had been done in Japan. When he'd finished you couldn't tell the difference.'