Читаем The Skeleton Man полностью

Once inside the unit Dryden was struck again by the quality of the light. The windows at ground level fell full-length to the floor. This far from town the sun’s rays were unimpeded and flooded in, glancing off the polished linoleum and the white walls. Dryden considered again the irony that the architects had designed the building as a receptacle for light, while so many of the patients in those early years had sat, their heads swathed, denied the joys of sight.

He climbed the stairs and passed a group of young men and women in white coats accompanying a surgeon, bow tie just visible beneath a grey jumper. On the top floor several patients sat in wicker chairs, an echo of the building’s original thirties decor. He walked towards Laura from behind but she recognized his steps, accepting his head as he stooped to kiss her neck. Her right hand tapped at the laptop.

The screen lit, revealing her message. LOOK. ROOM 118.

‘A story,’ she said, the voice nasal and still sluggish.

He squeezed her shoulders and walked the length of the observation gallery to a door at the end. Laura had been married to Dryden throughout his ten years on Fleet Street, a decade in which she had developed as acute a news sense as her husband’s. Many able-bodied nurses and doctors made a serious mistake in her company, which was to presume that the lingering symptoms of coma extended to a poor grasp of her immediate environment. In fact she was hyper-alert, and attuned to the subtle euphemisms of gossip and scandal. Since she had become a regular at the unit she had tipped Dryden off on several good tales – most of which had found their way into the nationals. All had reflected positively on the unit, and he’d actively stifled a couple of less wholesome exclusives, a luxury which had not been available to him during his years on the News.

Laura had briefly been admitted to the Zangwill for appraisal when she’d transferred to the NHS from private care a year before. She’d been in Room 106. So Dryden found his way to the corridor quickly and at the door of Room 118 glanced in through the porthole provided.

‘Well, well,’ he said, and jumped as a hand touched his shoulder. ‘Jesus. Don’t do that, Desmond.’

Desmond Samjee was the senior unit physiotherapist. He was close to Dryden’s height, with the unhurried movements which inspire confidence, and a voice entirely free of the inflexions of his Kenyan-Asian heritage. Dryden’s impassive face creased slightly in a smile: ‘Caught me,’ he said. ‘What ya gonna do?’

‘Firing squad,’ said Desmond, leaning in to take a look himself.

Sitting with her back to the porthole window was a female PC, while in the bed was the man the police divers had pulled from the reeds by the river that morning. His arm lay on the counterpane, the hand bandaged. A drip fed into his arm and his head was as immobile as his pillow, and just as pale. His hair flopped over his eyes. For the first time Dryden noticed a ring, a single gold band on the wedding finger of the uninjured hand.

‘Why’s he here?’ asked Dryden.

Desmond took his arm. ‘All I know is he was brought over straight from A&E once they’d dealt with his hand and given him a blood transfusion. He’d got hypothermia but he’s recovered well, he’s pretty fit, and he’s asked for police protection. We’re not involved so I don’t know the real details, which I wouldn’t give you anyway.’

As they watched the man woke and started, rising into a sitting position. His head jerked around the room, checking the view through the two windows, and finally he grasped the hand of the PC, who had stepped forward. Comforted, he subsided back on to the pillows, his eyes pressed closed as if trying to shut out the world.

Desmond looked into Dryden’s eyes. ‘Desperately sad. Can’t remember anything, they say. Just imagine that, Philip, waking up with no past.’

Dryden thought about it again and wondered if it would be so bad.

His friend knew him well enough to guess his thoughts. ‘But imagine wanting that past. And it’s there, just out of reach. Now that’s a nightmare.’

They retraced Dryden’s steps back to the observation gallery. Laura was alone in her wicker seat. Desmond walked round to face her. ‘Good work today, Laura, you know that, don’t you? That neck’s supporting your head beautifully now. Let’s keep up the hard work.’

Dryden pulled up a stool and sat, letting the sunlight fall on the side of his face. ‘So he’s said nothing, the guy from the river? He can’t recall a single thing?’ asked Dryden. They looked out over the sunlit fen to the west, the horizon pin-sharp at twenty miles.