The Possessions of Doctor Forrest Read online

  Driving home in the heart-sore company of Katya Kabanova, I found myself chuckling at the memory of a more high-spirited soirée at Grey’s, where Robert nonetheless contrived a bit of a row in relation to something I said about a patient of mine, a 50-ish Glaswegian guy whom I was mentoring through the needful steps in advance of gender realignment surgery – ‘the unkindest cut’, as Grey cheerfully called it. Whereupon Robert weighed in, sourly: ‘Jesus wept, those creatures depress me when I see them. The pre-ops? That straggly hair down their backs, and the wee totter they do like they’re practising to manage with heels and a handbag …’

  ‘They’re in pain, Robert,’ I said with my customary patience.

  ‘They soon will be,’ he snorted. ‘They have no idea of the pain that’s coming down the pipe. Come on, Stevo, that whole nonsense is such a sorry delusion. “Born in the wrong body.” Pish. What they are is the body they are. There is no person apart from a body.’

  ‘Such an essentialist, Robert,’ I murmured, meaning to deflate his bluster, but The Man From Selkirk was off and away.

  ‘I don’t deny the fantasy’s got a hold of them, right in its fist, I’m just saying, let’s call dysmorphism for what it is. Let’s admit we allow them these procedures, massively complex, hideously expensive, all to gratify a whim. Not a need. These fucking guys, they just want to play with dollies. They want to play at a version of “being a girl”, like they’ve seen in the magazines. Because it takes their fancy.’

  At Robert’s side Malena had been studying him with the ghost of amusement round her lips, and now she laid a hand on his arm. ‘Oh but darling – don’t you think we all do that, now and again? “Play”? I play at being a girl sometimes, you know. It’s fun. You play at being the great surgeon. What you do when you close the door behind you …’ She twinkled. ‘For all I know, you get out your dollies.’

  Malena had delighted the table, less so her angry lover, since, as I recall, we heard little more from him that night.

  15

  Dr Lochran’s Journal

  The Burnt Man

  September 9th

  This morning I attended MacCabe’s funeral at the Church of the Transfiguration in Kensal Rise. Malena asked me, and it wasn’t my place to refuse, despite my ill feeling for the deceased. The marks he left on Malena are still too wincingly visible. But she needed support, no question. She had told me he was on poor terms with his family, apparently a fractured (and fractious) mob in any case. His mother was there, plus a sister and a male cousin, all of Killian’s reduced stature, all stony-eyed and tight-lipped: some suppressed anger/recrimination at the ready. The clans kept apart, at any rate. I spoke only briefly to Malena, flanked stolidly by her parents, who will be taking her back to the family estate near Odense for the foreseeable.

  I was a tad late to the door, hearing the strains of a hymn from within, and was admitted discreetly by a kind verger who handed me a service booklet, then scooted past to deal with some black-clad wraith of a beggar who was loitering at the gate. Inside I tiptoed down the left aisle of the nave, the odour of old stone and wood polish in my nostrils. The strangeness of this funeral was compounded by it being an ‘art world’ occasion of sorts, quite a few notably dandified characters in the pews. But several of MacCabe’s peers spoke interestingly, and the religious service I found moving in spite of the flummery. I am a Protestant man, I suppose. Prayer and ritual always seem to me ineffectual, redolent of the dour school chapel at Kilmuir. But the handsomeness of this church, the soul of the organ music, the frozen grief of the statuary … these have a power, beyond the all-too-human straining, even if it’s mere human ‘artistry’ to which we respond.

  As we all trooped out I saw that Bill Hagen had attended, an honourable gesture on his part. He drew me aside, confided that someone has come forward with new information about the night of Killian’s death: a woman who boarded the train with her boyfriend around 2230 – twenty or so minutes after Killian abandoned his car and got on at Oakleigh Park, twenty minutes or so before he ‘dropped dead’. The couple can’t say they saw Killian, but were sure there was at least one other in the carriage save for themselves and a fellow sat opposite them. (In fact they changed carriages, somewhat to their shame, because this fellow’s face was awfully burnt and they were made uneasy by him: Robert’s old saw, sad to say – the stigma borne by the disfigured.)

  The crux of it, though: there is (and Hagen relayed this in clear dissatisfaction at the world’s annoying imprecision) some shadowy CCTV evidence of someone seeming to flee the train in haste at a station stop, five minutes or so before Killian was found. The ‘figure’ leaves the frame in such a direction as to permit no exit from the station other than back down the tracks from whence the train had come.

  What are we to make of that? How make it fit with all the other baffling facts? I don’t know where to begin, nor, I think, does the wily Hagen, who seemed vexed. I asked him if he had got anywhere in trying to locate Vukovara, and he indicated that had I been more bloody useful at the start then his task would be proving less bloody forlorn now.

  I thanked him for the ‘briefing’, phoned Steven from the car to keep him abreast, and hastened to the hospital. What awaited me was a Syme amputation on three-year-old Jessie Waugh for her congenital pseudarthrosis of the tibia. In this we were finally conceding the defeat of three previous failed efforts at bone-graft and limb-lengthening. Her mother was very much crushed, I must say. Even I find it harder to brace myself for this procedure when the life itself is not at stake – the crossing of the line is so profound, the amputation blade so fearsome when applied to a child, the stump so raw and piteous when it’s done – perfect white bone, red muscle, pink skin.

  I suppose I’ve always derived my satisfaction from the manner in which I can repair what the body itself cannot renew. Thus, when I am the one who taketh away … Perhaps today was just not a day on which I was fully girded to perform that function. But there’s no time for self-pity. Or else how could I face the mother and her child, having demanded all that fortitude of them?

  September 10th

  I begin to believe in premonition, and to forgive myself for it, because last night, once again, I dreamt of my late friend Edmond.

  Lying in bed it was as if I heard an entreating voice in my ear. I rose, belted my robe, padded downstairs. The rooms were dark and still. But I crossed to the rear reception window and there he stood in the garden below, sombre and silent. I couldn’t see his eyes, yet I knew he was staring fixedly at me. I went out and we set off together, trod the earth in silence, past what was real and familiar until we were deep in some blasted wood, where I had to take his arm.

  ‘Edmond, old man, I’m glad to see you. But you make me worried, my friend. Do you understand?’

  ‘Grey, believe me, I feel the same seeing you. But your concern, there’s nothing I can do for it. You’re right to be concerned.’

  The lucidity of the conversation was striking to me, even the convincing feel of soft earth under bare feet. I had released my hold on him, but then he took hold of me.

  ‘Do you see? Through the trees …?’

  I looked to where he was motioning, fifty or so feet away, glimpsed two obscured white faces, picked up faintly on two murmuring voices. I was starting to feel an unsavoury voyeurism when the two faces merged into one, and white hands clutched a broad black-clad back. I knew then that Edmond had gone, left me, but in that same moment I felt hot breath in my ear, and I spun round in fright, so crashing my forehead into the pillow …

  The clock read 4.17, and within minutes I knew I wouldn’t be getting back to sleep. I rose, quiet as a thief, pulled on soft clothes. At the front door I was minded to take my cane – I wonder now what clairvoyance possessed me? I stepped out, past the sober façades of the street, through a little morning mist. Ten minutes later I was at the Heath, wending up to Parliament Hill.

  I saw him at a point when to turn back or detour would have felt— unacceptably cowar
dly, somehow, whatever alarm bells were clanging inside me. A ‘street person’, a vagrant, clearly – slumped on a bench, in old black jeans and boots and a long black hooded anorak – his head propped on his fists, duffel bag at his feet, a piece of human wreckage, a picture of despond. It was solitude I’d wanted, not to be solicited, and for that reason, too, I could have simply turned heel. What is it in my nature, this denial of fear, this insistence on facing down every dark possibility? Who do I fool, since I don’t fool myself?

  It was only when I stole another glance at him, sat there like a man made of stone, back hunched, black hood thrown up, that I felt I recognised the posture and the garb – felt nearly sure this was the same character the verger had dealt with for lurking outside Killian’s funeral.

  Then I was past him. He did not look up. I pressed on, up to the crest of the hill, there surveyed the panorama, the hazy imprint of London’s grandeur, the dim rose-coloured promise of day. I chose then to look back over my shoulder, back toward the bench, saw that it was empty. And now I was afraid.

  In that same moment I heard the footfalls over grass, swivelled to see him trudging up the incline, out of the silence and the mist, head bowed, hands thrust in his pockets, monk-like. My skin prickled as he drew nearer, whereupon it was clear – something was very wrong under that hood of his. Ten feet away he stopped, raised his face, I saw only sleek shiny contours of black; realised I was staring at a mask – Robert’s mask – its leather straps and flaps hugging and hiding every inch of the face save for the eyes and nostrils, like the visor of some Corinthian warrior, or a baleful unbidden guest at a Venetian masquerade.

  ‘Robert …?’ I murmured. A reflex, I couldn’t help it.

  His hands came out of his pockets and straight away I saw the left was scarred by burning, missing two fingers. He threw back his hood, exposing some scant hair disarrayed in curls and horns around a reddened scalp. Then he gripped and un-strapped the sides of the black mask, lowering it to reveal a truly terrible sight. Half the face was as sorely disfigured as the hand – third-degree burns, skin livid and crusted by hard eschars, the thin lines of his mouth and eyelids cruelly distorted. And yet he gave me a piteous excuse for a grin, baring some poor teeth. Now I remembered the evidence of Hagen’s witnesses from the train – the stranger they couldn’t bear to face – and I felt danger much increased. Still, I had my cane in hand. I kept my composure.

  ‘You’ve an honest face, captain,’ he said, the words struggling out of that tortured mouth, with a slight escaping hiss.

  ‘Thank you. How did you come by that mask, my friend?’

  ‘This?’ Again, the nerve-straining hiss. ‘Found it in the street, boss. S’amazing, things you find …’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t believe that. Was it not maybe given to you? Or did you maybe take it from someone?’

  ‘You calling me a thief? Thief and a liar? And here’s you and me just met?’

  ‘No. No, but— I need a better explanation. Because that mask isn’t a thing you buy over a counter. It’s unique. It belongs to a friend of mine.’

  ‘Ahh. No good to him now, but. Right? And some comfort to me.’

  ‘So, you admit, you stole it?’

  ‘I do not.’ He stood there, swaying slightly, exuding what seemed the most unlikely insolence in light of his condition. I sensed he had a secret, one he was sure I could use – indeed the purpose of this confrontation. So I tried my luck.

  ‘Tell me, would you happen to know, where I might find that friend of mine? Robert Forrest?’

  ‘Robert Forrest … What would you pay, for that information?’

  ‘Not a penny. But if you know you’d better say so or else—

  ‘Or what? You’ll summon the law?’ He came a couple of steps closer, cocked that disturbingly raw, skull-like head at me. ‘Don’t you think I might be glad of that? Police cell, bone-dry, four walls … I’d not turn up my nose. The body is prison enough, captain – I suffer that way.’

  His odd croaking eloquence, the sad hash that his slit-like mouth made of the word ‘suffer’ was enough to disarm me momentarily.

  ‘I’m sorry for you,’ I said quietly.

  ‘Huh. Yes. Wretched, aren’t I? But, as low as I sink – the blood moves the body, drives me on. Life clings to life. But you know that. I’m not telling you anything, am I, Doctor Lochran?’

  That went straight to the hairs on my neck. I felt my fists clenching. ‘You know me, then, do you? And do I know you?’

  That lizard-skin gaze of his looked me over again. ‘No, no, kind sir, apologies … This is a new game to me. All I was hoping was that you could spare me a coin? Or two.’

  My hand went to my pocket but my eyes stayed on him, for I was weighing up how best to make a citizen’s arrest. He was still five good strides away from me. I had to be sure, if I got hold of him, that he would stay got. I pulled out a fistful of change.

  ‘Here you go then. Take it.’

  But his eyes hadn’t left mine. ‘No, that’ll never get me a room for the night. Four walls. That’s what I’m after, captain.’

  I shook my head. ‘There’s not a hostel in the land charges money. Why don’t you say what you really want?’

  ‘You wanted some information? Concerning Robert Forrest? I can tell you – he is incarcerated.’

  ‘Where?’

  The Burnt Man didn’t answer, merely rubbed the rough pads of his fingers together like Fagin. It had gone beyond the pale. I squared up, hefted the cane in my hand. ‘No, you’re mistaken, my friend. Now stop fucking me around, or you’ll regret it, I promise.’

  With a painful slowness his mouth made the shape of a sneer. ‘Dear, dear. I had hoped for a better reception – “my friend”. I’ll not forget this.’

  The eyes in his ruined face narrowed as he lifted the dangling black mask and refastened it in place. As he did so, past his shoulder I could see another figure coming over the heath, indeed two – some dog-walker with a Staffy frisking about at his side. My enemy glanced backward to where I was looking, and in that instant I resolved myself, rushed at him, grasping his sleeve. But he reacted, struck away my hand with a rising arc of a clout that caught my chin, rattled my teeth. For some moments I saw only fractals before me. The next I knew, he was haring away down the hill, a shambolic sort of a run but far too fast for me. The dog-walker looked to me in some alarm. His Staffy gave chase, only for the owner to call him back from what he evidently rated a bad scene. I thanked them both between gritted teeth, then hobbled off homeward as swift as I was able. En route I left messages for Hagen and Steven. The detective was a damn sight quicker in getting back to me, took my account commendably seriously, sent the patched-up DS Goddard round to ours.

  If this bizarre chain of events still fails to conform to any logic, nonetheless we know now what became of the goods Killian stole from Robert’s apartment. Hagen accepted my contention that the Burnt Man’s demand for money had been no simple act of beggary, not even a would-be mugging. Rather it felt like something more sinister, some kind of botched attempt at claiming a ransom.

  It wasn’t until tonight that Steven called, sounding not entirely healthy. And he didn’t like my story one bit – in fact, seemed so rattled that one might have thought it was he who’d suffered the disturbing encounter rather than me. Soon I almost felt myself slipping into my default position of trying to reassure, in this case that I’d just been so unlucky as to run across one more spot of feral London street-level nastiness.

  ‘But it was money he wanted from you, right?’ Steve’s voice crackled, riled. ‘How much, do you think?’

  ‘Ach, I don’t know if it was money or what he really wanted was to get under my skin. For whatever godforsaken reason. To earn my pity, even. Anyhow, it’s a police matter now, this guy’s wanted and he won’t find it easy just to melt into air. Not looking like he does. Le fantôme …’

  ‘That’s a rather sensational way to put it, Grey.’

  It was my turn to get
riled, by his censuring tone. ‘Well, it was a bit of a fucking “sensational” experience, Steve, and it happened to me, so I’ll call the guy what I bloody well want.’

  ‘I hear you, I’m sorry. I just think it’s important neither of us … go entirely mental over this.’

  ‘“Mental” is not a word I thought you used, doctor. But I agree. I prefer a reasonable line on things. At the moment, but, it’s hard.’

  I heard Steven’s long sigh. ‘I know, Grey, I know …’

  ‘It does make me wonder, Stevie, wonder again – whether Robert’s not been, y’know – done away with.’

  This, however depressing, was my genuine sentiment. And yet Steven’s reply stunned me. ‘No, Robert’s alive, Grey, I’ll bet on it. Maybe closer than we think.’

  ‘Steven, are you drunk? Or have you got some fresh evidence? Anything you want to tell me?’

  The line crackled back at me again, that uneasy breathing. ‘No, of course not. I’m just like you, old man. Putting things together that don’t add up. Maybe it’ll look better in the morning. Let’s get some sleep, eh? We both need it.’

  I was bothered, stood awhile over the dead phone. True, we are old friends, we deceive one another habitually, without malice. But I suspect Steven well knows – a joke to think otherwise – that neither of us will be drifting off easily tonight.