Dr. Yes (38 page)

    'We
know now why you felt you had to comply with her cover-up, but why did Liam?
Presumably he wasn't making the kind of money you were? Did he have debts as
well?'

    'No,
he didn't make much, and he didn't owe anyone a red cent. Problem with Liam was
that he was in love.'

    'Ah,'
I said, nodding at Pearl. 'That's how she works.'

    'He
was in love with
me.'

    'Oh.
You mean he was

    'The
feeling was mutual. He didn't think he could tell the police about what was
going on because he knew about my financial difficulties and wanted to support
me. And because he didn't tell, he died.'

    Buddy
swallowed hard. His eyes grew a little misty. He raised a finger and pointed at
Pearl, in the process looking at her properly for the first time.

    'You
came to Liam's office and told him someone was asking questions and warned him
not to say anything. But he had to tell someone, and who else but the love of
his life? So we arranged to meet up, except he was followed, and he was
murdered.' He looked back to me. 'I was scared, real scared. Then Pearl calls
me, tells me there's a private detective has discovered all about the cover-up
and is trying to blackmail the clinic; we have to get rid of whatever evidence
there is, whatever happened to Arabella's wax head and torso? She nearly
freaked when I told her they were still in the house. She wanted them melted
down and Arabella's clothes we'd used to dress her burned.'

    'Why
Tollymore?'

    'This
isn't my country, and I know very little of it, but Tollymore was always
special to Liam and me. It just seemed logical to go somewhere I was fairly
familiar with.'

    'And
you told Pearl where you were going?'

    'Yes,
I had to. She wanted me out of the country, but she still owed me money and I
said I wasn't going anywhere without it. So she said she would bring it down.
Except it wasn't her that turned up, it was

    'Rolo.'

    '. .
. Rolo. I recognised him from the hotel, I knew he was in the business of
removing bodies, and I was convinced he wasn't there just to hand over the
money.'

    'So
you grabbed his gun and shot him.'

    'No!
Yes. Sort of. It was more than just that. He was
. . . odd.
He was in no
hurry. He sat down on a log beside the fire and said how lovely it was, it
reminded him of camping with his dad when he was a boy, but they'd had no car,
so they only ever camped in his back yard. He said he liked the trees. And the
smell of pine. He had a hip flask, whiskey, he gave me a drink. He said he knew
I was in a rush, but would I mind sitting with him for a while. So I sat with
him. And we drank. He took out this book he was reading. He said it was great
but he needed to finish it. Just one last chapter, he said. Don't worry, he
said, they're really short chapters. I remember him saying, "That Spenser,
he's some pup." I remember it because I didn't know what he was talking
about. He asked me if I believed in God, and I said yes. He said he'd lived a
terrible, evil life and was looking for salvation. He said he'd been sent down
to murder me; that he had been murdering people since he was a teenager. He
admitted killing Liam. He said he killed Augustine. He said they were the
latest in a long list. Problem was he knew too much about where the bodies were
buried, and that was fine as long as he continued killing, but once he stopped,
once he went soft, they would rub him out, the people who employed him, some
kind of agency he worked for. He said either he killed me, or I killed him. He
had had enough. He didn't want to kill anyone else, but at the same time he
couldn't let me escape. He took out his gun and handed it to me. There was no
way I was going to shoot him, because he was drunk and would probably regret it
in the morning, if he was alive, but he shouted at me to do it. When I
wouldn't, he made a grab for the gun, but I wouldn't give it to him because
that meant he might be shooting me instead, and so we wrestled for it, and he was
stronger than me and he was getting it off me, but my finger was on the trigger
and somehow it went off, and I killed him, and I might never be able to sleep
again.'

    You
could hear a pin drop.

    'I
killed him, but I am not a murderer. I buried him as quickly as I could. I was
just in a blind panic. I drove straight to the airport. But
this
man
called me. His shop is called No Alibis and that suits me down to the ground. I
have no alibi, but he convinced me that justice would look kindly upon me. So
here I am.'

    DI
Robinson remained by the door. He studied Buddy, sitting there in despair, and
said, 'We should talk. But first . . .' He nodded at me. 'You may as well see
this through.'

    I
said, 'Pearl, would you take the stand?'

    'It's
not a stand, you moron. It's a bar stool. In this crappy little shop. I don't
have to do anything.'

    She
was still lovely. And she was undoubtedly defiant. But then Dr Yes looked
across the Augustine fans and the towpath regular and said, 'God knows it will
sink us both, Pearl, but take the damn stand!'

    Pearl's
eyes narrowed.

    It
was a testament to Dr Yes's good work that they still could.

    She
stood up. She was three fifths stiletto. Buddy got out of the chair. He stepped
away left as she came from the right. As she sat, she crossed her legs. In the
crossing of them, everyone looked up her short skirt. It was a learned
reaction. It wasn't just the men, or the impure of thought. If the Pope had
been there, he would have looked. Mother Teresa would have taken a gander. The
chances of two Catholic icons turning up in a mystery bookstore on Botanic
Avenue were slim, particularly with one of them dead, but if they had, they would
have eyeballed Pearl's nether regions just the same as everyone else. There was
something about her. Even Alison was drawn in. Fact was there was nothing to
see. With my eyesight I could see nothing anyway, so it was necessary for me to
watch back the webcam coverage later, in high definition, and zoom.

    She
said, 'This means nothing; it's not a court, I've sworn nothing, my solicitor
isn't here, it's not a confession or a denial or an admission. But I will tell
you my story. My name is Pearl Knecklass and all I'm guilty of is falling in
love.'

    Dr
Yes lowered his eyes. His rotund companion was shaking her chins.

    I
said, 'Pearl, maybe you could tell us if that is your real name?'

    'Yes.
Of course.'

    'And
how did you come to be working in the Yeschenkov Clinic?'

    'I
come from Estonia. There's no money in Tallinn. I know, because I was an
accountant. I heard Belfast was nice. I came here. There's money here, but I'm
not an accountant. My qualifications were not recognised. So I got a job as a
cleaner with an agency, and they placed me in the clinic.'

    'You
have no accent.'

    'I .
. . lost it.' She looked pointedly at Dr Yes. 'He arranged it.'

    'How
do you mean?'

    'He
sent me for lessons, electrocution lessons Rolo used to call them.'

    'So
you knew Rolo for quite a while.'

    'Sure.
We were neighbours. Cleaners don't get to live in the Merchant.'

    It
was the best hotel in Belfast.

    'Why
would he send a cleaner for elocution lessons?'

    'Because
I was his little project.' She changed position in the chair, uncrossing and
recrossing her legs. The shop window steamed up a little more. 'I was working
night shifts. I was thirty years old but I looked forty. I was heavy. My teeth,
stomach, tits . . . everything was wrong. I looked and felt like a pig. I saw
women come in one way, go out another. I could only dream. I was depressed. One
night Dr Yeschenkov was working late; he found me crying. He was so nice. Men
tell you bullshit things, but he didn't. Or maybe he did, but in a different
way. When I said I had bags under my eyes, he said yes, you have. When I showed
him my fat tummy, he said yes, it is. Everything I hated about myself he agreed
with. I wanted to smack his face. But he said he could help me. I asked him how
and he said the best way for this clinic to promote itself was to show what it
was capable of. Women came in for their breast lifts, or tummy tucks, or eye
lifts, and they wanted it all done at once, but there was always a limit to how
much could be achieved in a couple of weeks. He wanted a long- term project. He
wanted to prove he could totally transform someone in every aspect of their
life. He said I had the bone structure and the height for it, the economic and
cultural background for it; if I wanted he could turn me into a goddess, his
crowning achievement. I said I couldn't afford to have my hair combed in his
clinic, never mind all that shit, but he said he would do it for free. Who
could say no to that?'

    'How
long did all of this take?'

    'Three
years.'

    'And
what exactly did he do?'

    'You
really want to know?' The women in the audience nodded. 'Okay. I had
liposuction, a tummy tuck, buttock implants, calf implants, arm lifts, thigh
lifts, breast enlargement, breast uplift and nipple correction.'

    'That's
certainly

    'I
had a facelift, cheek implants, rhinoplasty, my ears were pinned back, the bags
under my eyes removed, I had chin implants

    'Is
that ...?’

    'I
had dental implants, veneers, straightening. I had a gastric band. My vagina
was tightened.'

    'That,
uhm, yes. It was, ahm, pretty thorough.'

    'Then
there was the elocution, the fitness programme, the studying for my accountancy
exams, and at the end of it all, I was a new me, and I loved it.'

    'But?'

    'There
was no but. I was a cleaner, I became a receptionist, then his PA, and then a
director of the company. I was a director, but I still manned the front desk, I
was the first point of contact for everyone who walked through our doors. From
the day he put me there, business increased twenty-five per cent. We worked
very well together. Dr Yeschenkov is a wonderful, talented man, and we fell in love.'

    'You
had an affair?'

    'Yes.'

    Dr
Yes had bent forward, his elbows on his knees and his hands covering his face.
His solicitor sat stiffly beside him, glaring at Pearl.

    'So
at what point did the waxman cometh?'

    'Excuse
me?'

    'Why
did you start ripping him off over the wax portraits?'

    'I
didn't.'

    'So
he knew about them?'

    'No.
But there are a lot of things he doesn't know about. Dr Yeschenkov is a
remarkable surgeon, he likes to make love, he likes to play golf, he likes the
finer things in life, but he is not interested in the day- to-day running of
the clinic. I developed a number of services that to this day he is hardly
aware of, but they all make money, and it all goes directly into the company.
You can check the books.'

    'As
an accountant, you could fix them.'

    'We
have independent accountants.'

    'Pearl,
how did Arabella die?'

    'Is
she dead? You only have Buddy's word for it, a homosexual gambling addict and
self-confessed murderer. His work has been going downhill for several months. I
rejected his portrait of Arabella and he has obviously gone off the rails,
whether it's his debts or the death of his pal. In his madness he took Arabella
to their favourite spot and melted her down and got rid of anything that was
left somewhere in that forest before concocting this entire story. He's trying
to blackmail us.'

    'Buddy
is?'

    'Yes.
Isn't it obvious?'

    Buddy
sat shaking his head. He went to say something, but I held up my hand. 'You
forget there's another witness.' I pointed. 'You. With the tattoo.'

    Spider-web
was trying to look small and insignificant, which was a pity, because he was
large and significant. People around him shuffled sideways.

    He
said, 'What?'