William Boyd - The Blue Afternoon

The other coffer was dragged out and unended also. They found three dead dogs, and the lower trunk of an unidentified monkey.

Carriscant said: 'I told you this was a bad idea.'

The constables rooted around in the compacted ice chips searching for any other bits and pieces. Half a dozen others stood in a loose semicircle around Cruz's laboratory, their Krags held at the ready, keeping the astonished and befuddled servants at bay. In the bottom corner of the second coffer they found a canvas bag containing what Carriscant identified as two hearts, a human hand and a monkey's head with half the skull cut away.

'Is there any way you can say that hand was Braun's?' Bobby asked.

'No. The discoloration makes it impossible. Why have you brought me here, Bobby?'

'I need a medical man. I don't know what these lumps of meat are.'

'There are lots of American physicians on this island.'

'Yeah, but none of them know the case like you.' Bobby went into the lab with a lantern and came out a few seconds later.

'Where's everything gone?' he protested. 'The last time we came here those two coffers were chock-a-block.'

'I think Dr Cruz may have given up his experimental work.'

'Why should he -'

They were interrupted by an angry shout from the direction of the house and soon they saw Cruz appear, partially dressed, his shirt unbuttoned, exposing his comfortable body with its wobbling belly and its dense fur of grey hair.

Cruz swore and shouted until Bobby showed him the warrant he had permitting him to search Cruz's premises.

'This is your doing, Carriscant,' Cruz yelled at him. 'This is a deliberate attempt to destroy my reputation.'

'I asked Dr Carriscant to accompany me on this raid,' Bobby explained, when Cruz's oaths had been approximately translated. 'He was most reluctant to accompany me, but I insisted.'

Cruz faced Carriscant over the small scatter of remains, animal and human. The hand lay palm upward, as if begging for alms, the fingers slightly curved.

'You are suspecting me?' Cruz said in English to Bobby.

'I'm just investigating every area I think proper.'

Cruz pointed at Carriscant. 'This man, this man is man of violence. I have seen him attacking Dr Wieland. You ask Dr Wieland. I have heard him to threaten to kill Wieland. Wieland will tell you.'

'Wieland has been relieved of his duties,' Bobby said.

Cruz began to rant on in Spanish again, fulminating against this disgraceful intrusion, his household roused in the middle of the night, his reputation besmirched.

Carriscant looked down and made a little dust pile with the toe of his boot, his eyes roving over the pathetic remains laid out in a row. The liver was beginning to thaw and small oozings of blood and water were forming around it, already receiving the attentions of ants and other crawling insects.

He recognised the handwriting on the envelope. 'Dr Salvador Carriscant, San Jeronimo hospital. Confidential.' He smiled: it had only been a week since their last meeting. He ripped open the seal and. the familiar deckle edge of her writing paper was revealed. He unfolded the note and frowned. It read: 'On the Luneta, this evening' and was unsigned. He looked at his watch, suddenly unsettled: midday. What was she planning?

It rained in the afternoon but by the evening the skies had cleared so the Luneta was crowded. The carriages circled, the white-clad crowds lingered and chatted around the bandstand as the sky turned tangerine across the bay. Carriscant stepped out of his carriage and walked along the edge of the road by the sea wall. There was a gratifyingly stiff breeze coming off the sea this evening and, during certain gusts, he had to place his hand on the crown of his panama hat to hold it in place. He sat on the wall to wait and looked out over the silver water towards Corrigedor, swinging his head round until he could see the scattered lights of Cavite down the coast. He concentrated on the view, trying to enjoy the tranquillity and the rare moment of cool and comfort but a small tremor of foreboding was growing in him and he felt the worry-burn of indigestion flare behind his breastbone. What did she want? And why this method of seeing each other? He forced himself to be optimistic: perhaps she was bringing him good news? Nurse Aslinger was leaving, finally. Or maybe Sieverance had been killed by insurrectos in Mindanao. He felt ashamed by that last thought, it was cruel, uncharitable. It was hardly Sieverance's fault that he was married to Delphine; he had not set out to thwart Salvador Carriscant, exactly. However, it was galling to be confronted by Sieverance's luck. Sieverance's luck: that had brought him this woman that had provided him with a life with Delphine… No, he did not wish him dead. As well wish Annaliese dead, he thought. Wish them both dead… And then he began to feel disgusted with himself, at the direction his mind was turning. These were desperate thoughts. There must be other ways.

Then he saw her, with another woman, in a landau. She wore navy blue trimmed with yellow, and a small shoulder cape and her hair high in the Gibson Girl style. He watched them both descend and make for the bandstand. He pushed himself off the wall and followed them, skirting round the bandstand, full of loud crepitations as the band changed sheet music, to emerge-casually, coincidentally -in front of them.

'Mrs Sieverance, how do you do?'

'Dr Carriscant. What a pleasure. May I present you to my friend, Mrs Oliver. Dr Carriscant, the most famous surgeon in Manila.'

'That sounds suspiciously like faint praise, Mrs Sieverance. Like being the healthiest man in a leper colony.'

Laughter.

'You're teasing me, Doctor,' she said. 'You know what I mean.'

More conversation was indulged in: the strength of the afternoon's rain and the freshness it brought in its wake; the outrageous price of tinned goods in Escolta; the impossibility of providing a decent buffet in the tropics without ice to serve the cold cuts on.

Then Delphine said to Mrs Oliver, 'Oh, Shirley, you see that boy selling sweetmeats. Could you get me the coconut cakes, the little square ones? What about you, Dr Carriscant?'

'No thank you, I'm not partial.'

Shirley Oliver excused herself and they were alone.

'You look wonderful,' Carriscant said.

'There's a problem,' she said quickly, her face all of a sudden showing signs of strain. 'My menses. I've missed the last two. It's over eight weeks.'

'Oh my God… ' He felt his indigestion replaced by nausea.

'I wouldn't be alarmed, but… ' There was a catch in her voice and he could see from her eyes how upset she was. 'I'm so regular, normally. You could set your clock-' She could not continue. She turned away to compose herself, she sniffed.

'My God,' Carriscant said again: he felt stupid, thick-headed like a peasant. 'We must be sure.' Mrs Oliver was approaching with her booty. 'The nipa barn. Tomorrow afternoon.'

'I'll try – Shirley, well done! Sure we can't tempt you, Dr Carriscant?'

Carriscant waited in the nipa barn from 3 until 6 the following afternoon but she never came. As he sat in the musty gloom of the barn, hearing the rain showers pass overhead, various plans and schemes, some bizarre, some preposterous, skittered across his mind like the kinemato-graph images he had seen projected in the theatre in Quiapo. Imperfect, jerky, histrionic – but telling him something all the same. He supposed it might be a mistake-the only way to be absolutely sure was to hear the beating of the foetal heart, but it was too early for that – however there was no doubting the conviction in her own voice: she was absolutely certain. He made some quick calculations. If she had missed two… It was nearly nine weeks since that first time in his office. His mouth was suddenly dry, tasted rank. He realised that the delicious unreal limbo he and Delphine had been inhabiting for the last two months was now over, for ever. This was the watershed, this was the spur to action as well. But what to do? It was clear that something drastic had to occur – some confrontation, some confession – but where would that lead? And as he thought and speculated the one clear purpose that came to dominate his thoughts was that he must not lose her. Whatever they did should ensure that they remained together. That realisation relaxed him somewhat, that seemed to narrow the options. No attempt to smooth things over, to reconcile the respective spouses, could be attempted, and any public breach would make life in Manila quite impossible. As he sifted through the alternatives one simple course of action selected itself as the only practical method of both resolving this and allowing them to live together – escape.