The Lover's Children novel Chapter 111

KLEMPNER

When I wake again, Mitch isn’t there. But her perfume hangs in the air.

In my peripheral vision, something stirs but when I try to follow the movement, my head won’t turn.

Fuck…

Sliding my eyes sidelong, I see the figure leaning against the door frame: tall, casual, Scandinavian silver-blond. “Hi, Larry. Thought I’d drop by to see how you’re doing?”

“Let’s see, my neck in a collar, one leg up in a cast and that infernal fucking bleeping... How d’you think I’m doing?”

“But I see they’ve not amputated your charm.”

Ambling into the room, he snags the chart from the bottom of my bed, then traces a line down the length of the paper as he reads, muttering to himself.

He clips the chart back to the bed footer. “All I can say, Larry, is you’re built from something tougher than mortal flesh. How’s the headache?”

“Um… now that I think on it, better than it was.”

“Any nausea?”

“There was, but it’s gone now.”

“Hungry?”

“No, I… Ah… Yes, I am.”

“I’ll get something sent in for you.” He pulls up a seat and sits, straddling it, arms crossed over the chair-back. “You’re lucky to be alive, you know.”

“Tell me something I don't know.”

“I’d like to hear why you decided to engage in hand-to-hand combat with a car? Not that I don’t applaud your motives, but in a human versus internal-combustion engine fight, the vehicle usually wins.”

“I was chasing the Surgeon. He ran. I followed.”

“Yeah…” He droops forward, head hanging. “I still can’t believe that I missed it.” Disgust drips from his voice. “There I was, dealing with the aftermath of what that bastard put on my slab, and he was there the whole time, sniggering over my fucking shoulder while he admired his handiwork.”

“I wanted to ask you about that. Do you mind talking about it?”

Borje jolts upright. “Not at all. You spotted the sick shit out in the City, while I missed him right under my nose. What d’you want to know?”

I try to turn to face him more easily, then immediately regret it. Borje Tuts, then stands, dragging his chair with him. “I’ll move to the end of the bed, then you can see me without having to strain.”

“Thank you. That’s much better… Listen, Borje, Harkness was, as you say, right under your nose. Granted it’s with twenty-twenty hindsight, but do you think you actually missed anything? Or did he really hide all his signals?”

Borje grimaces, palming the back of his neck…

“…Everyone I’ve encountered who met him as ‘Pat’ described him the same way. Completely nondescript to look at, but he gave off bad vibes. Everyone backed away from him. I saw it happen more than once when I was following him.”

“… You knew him as ‘Ricky’. In retrospect, do you think you missed anything that now you’re thinking about it, you might have picked up?”

“Believe me, I’ve been asking myself the same question.”

Borje falls into silence, staring into space, opens his mouth to speak, then snaps closed again as a nurse bustles in. “How are we now, Mr Waterman? Would you like a cup of tea?”

“By cup, you mean one of those bottles designed for a three-year-old?”

She slants me a look. “Don’t be grumpy, Mr Waterman. When you’re capable of holding a cup and saucer again, I’ll be happy to bring it in to you. Do you want the tea or not?”

“Yes, I want the tea.”

“Well, that’s all you needed to say. Doctor Anderssen?”

“Thanks, Jean. Yes, I’d love a cup. And can you bring Larry here something to eat. Nothing too taxing on a delicate stomach.”

“Of course.” She smiles brightly, ducks her head and bustles off again.

As the door closes behind her, Borje speaks again. “Yes, in retrospect, I did miss some signs. Although, in my own defence, I don’t think I’d have made anything of it at the time even if I’d noticed.”

“What signs?”

“Mainly that he did more ‘morgue duty’ than most. As you would imagine, it’s not popular work among the orderlies. Medics at any level have to maintain some emotional detachment or else we couldn’t do the work, but dealing with the dead goes with the job description. All else being equal, I should have seen no more of Harkness than any other orderly. In practice, I saw a good deal of him.”

“How many orderlies are there in the hospital?”

He blows out his cheeks. “Ah… Offhand, I couldn’t say. Around the wards, typically two per corridor. Over the hospital as a whole, that adds up.”

“I can imagine. But you saw more of Harkness than most?”

“Yes. Definitely. Again, it’s in retrospect. I’d never thought about it. But…” He pauses… “I’ll check my records. When a body is delivered to the morgue, or removed again, it’s logged. There’s a chain of custody. I can probably put numbers to the degree of his unhealthy interest in corpses.”

“Go on.”

“Patrick Harkness was one of two children. There was a sister, Sophie. Unlike her brother, Sophie was unusually attractive, taking after her mother, Penelope. But Sophie vanished when she was fifteen years old. Patrick was seventeen at the time.”

“Vanished? Just like that?”

“Not quite. According to school records, Sophie would regularly arrive with odd injuries…”

“Just the sister?”

“Just the sister. The mother would always brush them aside as accidents of one kind or another…

“... Claiming she'd walked into a door or fallen down the stairs..."

“Exactly. And the social services could never make anything stick.”

“Is it suggested the mother was behind these injuries? What about the father?”

“There was no father as such, not in the long-term sense. Just a long line of ‘fathers’ by all accounts.”

“The mother was a hooker?”

Stanton tugs at an ear. “Not exactly. But there was a series of men who would come, stay a short while then, vanish from her life. Over time, Penelope Harkness had four husbands plus a series of live-in partners. She was an attractive woman. Her partners were typically well-off, earning above the average: a lawyer, a car salesman - his own business - a realtor, it goes on. But whenever a relationship broke up, she always came out of it well. Although having no apparent source of income, she lived, and lives still, in a green and leafy suburb in a very pleasant house.”

“What makes the mother so interesting?”

“According to everything investigators found, Penelope Harkness was narcissistic and controlling. She doted on the boy. Would hear no wrong of him. If reports were made of his bad behaviour, she dismissed them. Sophie however, she criticised at every turn, despite the girl being popular with her schoolmates, earning excellent grades and excelling at sports. The mother belittled and undermined the girl at every opportunity. It was suggested that, her daughter being something of a beauty, the mother saw her as competition…”

“Whereas Patrick Harkness is mediocre in every way…”

“… and no competition to anyone. Correct. The boy was considered…” Stanton lifts fingers in air commas… “…weird by the other children at his school, and was widely avoided, including by Sophie herself. There were also suggestions that Patrick had more than a fraternal interest in his sister.”

“I get your drift. Is it also suggested that the mother might have been complicit in the daughter’s disappearance?”

Stanton rocks a hand back and forth. “Nothing proven. And Sophie wasn’t the only disappearance. Over several years, a variety of local pets vanished; dogs, cats, rabbits. Some were spirited away from yards and cages when the owners were quite convinced the animal was secure. The rumours grew, but again, nothing was ever proved. Some neighbours moved away from the area, including an aunt, Penelope’s sister, with her daughter. When Sophie went missing, neither mother nor brother seemed unduly disturbed. Patrick maintained that she had run away to be with some boyfriend. The mother backed him up. And since no remains were ever found…”

“And Sophie Harkness, I’m guessing, was healthy, athletic and long-haired?”

“Give that man a cookie.”