Experiment With Destiny (8 page)

             
“Don’t panic Mr Elan. I’m sure we can bend the rules a little for the good old Echo. This way please.” The attendant began leading him from the reception area toward a large oak door that seemed out of keeping with the otherwise clinical fixtures and fittings. “I’ve been reading the Echo now for…goodness…forty-odd years. I doubt I’ve missed many editions in that time. Of course I recognised your name at once.”

             
“Not many people bother taking notice of bylines.” Steven followed into a subdued ante-room, sparsely furnished with a handful of chairs. He was led toward a second oak door.

             
“You’d be surprised. My name, incidentally, is Gwynfor, that’s g…w…y…n…f…o…r Evans. I’ve worked here for 32 years. Before that I was a mere porter at Llandough Hospital. You’ll be glad of your coat through here. So what other unusual professions have you been writing about Mr Elan?” Beyond the second door was a large white room with a white polished floor, brightly lit and with no obvious features other than a large funereal black curtain, eclipsing the far wall, and a further door, this time white, to the side. Steven was instantly aware of the sudden drop in temperature.

             
“Oh…a stunt registrar, a bridge painter…” Steven dug deep from memory. The ‘unusual professions’ feature was an annual in-the-bag-for-Christmas-standby-space-filler.

             
“A stunt registrar?” Gwynfor was busily pulling back a large funereal black curtain that tastefully obscured what could only be described as a giant filing cabinet.

             
“Yes…you know, for people who want to get married in unusual places…like while abseiling, bungee jumping or wing walking, that sort of thing.”

             
“Fascinating! I never knew Cardiff had one of those.”

             
“Two. There’s two in Cardiff, as it happens.”

             
“Fabulous. Never married myself.” That came as no surprise to Steven. “Now, this is what my job is all about.” Gwynfor gestured at the rows of numbered doors. Steven had never been inside a mortuary before but it did not take much guessing what lay behind each door. “It’s a shame that midwifery is not such an unusual profession or your feature might have had a hatched, matched and dispatched theme to it!” The diminutive mortuary attendant chuckled.

              Gwynfor Evans proceeded to explain, in laborious and sometimes uncomfortable detail, how important his ‘unusual’ job was. Steven, keen to sustain the necro-enthusiast’s trust, faithfully took down shorthand notes, occasionally asking for the spellings of technical terms. Jargon aside, as far as Steven could tell, Gwynfor’s vocation revolved around booking bodies in and booking them out again, after ensuring he had the necessary signatures on the release papers, of course. In between, his function was to ensure that the specialist equipment – a glorified refrigerator – was properly maintained, that nothing untoward happened to the bodies while they were in his care. An occasional highlight, usually when the supervisor was off duty, involved assisting relatives of the deceased and their police escorts in formal identifications. It was, Steven concluded, an altogether macabre and exceptionally unrewarding profession.

             
“I expect you’ll want to see a body, while you’re here.” Gwynfor finally offered.

             
“Well…” Steven did not want to appear overly keen. “Not really…but I suppose I’ll have to if I’m to get a true feel…” he squirmed inside, “…for the amazing job you do.”

             
“Of course. I believe you journalists refer to it as…colour.” Steven nodded. “Well, we had an overdose victim in first thing this morning. Only 28 she was, body absolutely riddled with needle puncture marks. Her left foot has early traces of gangrene too, by the look of it. Why the hell they do these things to themselves…” But Steven had been preparing for this scenario.

             
“What are the worst things you see in your job? What about the really gruesome cases? Perhaps a grisly murder…or a car crash victim? Perhaps I should see something like that to get a real…flavour…of how difficult your job is.” He was not aware of any murders within the last few days and he could only hope there had been no fresh fatalities on the roads this morning.

             
“Well…” Gwynfor scratched the back of his scalp, where the last of his greying hair clung with determination. “…motorbike victims are the worst usually, if we’re talking about physical damage, especially the despatch riders because they still use petrol bikes…higher speeds. Personally I find the who more upsetting than the how.” Gwynfor gestured to the giant cooled filing cabinet. “I hate to see little children brought in here…the years that should have been ahead of them…and teenagers. An awful waste.”

             
“Of course.” Steven agreed, hopes rising.

             
“We did have four RTA victims in last night. My supervisor booked them in.” It was too good to be true.

             
“What happened to them?” Gwynfor reached the wall of corpses.

             
“I only know what I heard on the radio news this morning. A stolen car, old Jaguar I think they said, came hurtling down the slip road onto Western Avenue, straight into the front of a bus. Amazing there were only four. Bus driver and three from the car. Waste-dwellers they were.”

             
“Uh-huh.” Steven’s legs were tingling with anticipation. Gwynfor was in for a surprise when he opened the relevant cabinets. “Sounds awful. Really messy was it?”

             
“I haven’t seen these ones yet. I’d imagine so. I think they were put in 191 to 194. Here we are. Take a deep breath now!” The first container, which held the body of 22-year-old waste-dweller Sally Redmountain according to its LCD display, slid open with a hiss and an icy draft. Steven felt instantly numb as the colour drained from his face, his stomach curled with nausea and the tingling in his legs turned to the shakes.

             
“What the hell…”

* * *

Steven was still off colour by the time he reached the Brasserie. It was 1:10pm and there was no sign of Giles so he bought a half pint of German Eurostate lager and barely glanced at the display cabinets of fresh steaks, seafood, game, salad and vegetables that he no longer had an appetite for on his way to a suitably discreet corner near the back.

His hand trembled as he lifted the glass to his lips and drank. He was in the mood for drinking…and for forgetting a weekend assignment that was already filling him with an unprecedented dread. Who would go to such lengths to conceal the identities of three deceased military or government personnel? And why?

There was no doubting the corpse he had seen less than an hour ago was that of a waste-dweller. True, she looked older than her 22 years but that was to be expected. The hallmarks were all there: missing or rotten teeth, filthy, knotted strands of hair, lines of deeply ingrained grime, the ugly scars of old untreated wounds and the deep trenches between each rib that signified severe malnutrition. Sally Redmountain was every inch the perfect example of a non citizen…or a make-up job to make Hollywood proud. Either way, she was not the woman whose picture he had taken on the roadside yesterday evening.

It was unlikely to be a mistake. Gwynfor, dismissing his outburst as “normal for a first time viewer”, went on to show him the other three bodies, each tagged in line with last night’s police statement. The only victim that looked familiar, certainly in terms of the uniform and the physical damage, was that of the bus driver. Strangely, the injuries of the three waste-dwellers appeared consistent with those you might expect for car crash victims, although all three’s features were intact, unlike the faceless corpse of the uniformed man he had photographed.

“Sorry I’m late.” Giles stepped up to the table, hands thrust deep into his pockets as was his habit. “Missed my monorail shuttle.”

             
“Glad you can afford to travel in such style! Grab a seat.” Giles accepted, extracting his hands from his pockets and occupying them by running his fingers through his perfectly coiffured shoulder-length hair.

             
“I’m issued with an all-destinations season pass. You know our lot. We love the pretence of supporting public transport.”

             
“Interesting definition of public. Can I get you a drink?”

             
“Cynic!” Giles laughed, as always a little too loudly. “They do a moderately decent South Australian chardonnay in here and I’m definitely thinking seafood at the moment. Thanks.” Steven searched the nearby tables for a waiter. It would be South Australian, complete with added Eurostate import tax. Still, major league expenses claim. “Caught a glimpse of the monkfish on the way past, looks fabulous. How about you?”

             
“Monkfish sounds fine to me. Excuse me!” A nearby waiter acknowledged him. “But I need to keep a clear head so you’re on your own with the chardonnay.”

             
“Excellent…I mean, what a shame…for you.” Giles produced a silver cigarette case from his coat pocket. “This is one of the few remaining restaurants in town that hasn’t banned smoking.”

             
“I wouldn’t know. I gave up…two years ago.” The waiter approached. “A bottle of South Australian chardonnay please and…shall I order now?” Giles nodded, selecting a cigarette from the gleaming case. “Two monkfish. White wine sauce?” Giles nodded again. “White wine sauce and vegetables of the day.” Giles lit his cigarette with an equally gleaming Zippo.

             
“Chips, sauté potatoes, baked potato or boiled new potatoes, sir?” The waiter spoke with a thick Eastern Eurostate accent.

             
“Definitely boiled, with butter,” said Giles, exhaling his smoke teasingly toward Steven.

             
“Me too. You didn’t want a starter?” Giles shook his head. “That’s fine, thanks.”

             
“Don’t mind if I smoke?” It was Steven’s turn to shake his head. “Good, it’s the only reason I come here. The food’s very…average. Now, let’s dispense with the chit-chat and tell me about this scandal of yours. I’d like to make the three-o’clock shuttle back home if that’s okay with you.”

             
Their monkfish arrived, along with a second bottle of chardonnay, by the time Steven had related the essence of the story to Giles, who seemed less than impressed, and reverted to intermittent small talk as they ate.

             
“As scandals go, it’s very low grade,” Giles eventually announced disparagingly between his last few mouthfuls. “I could tell you things that would really make your hair curl!”

             
“Don’t bait me.”

             
“Of course I wouldn’t. I’ve signed documents giving them the right to violently extract my entrails if I ever spill the beans on what goes on behind the scenes at party HQ. Seriously Steve, what’s the big deal about switching three dead MOD types for non people thingies? I’m sure their nearest and dearest will be delighted you haven’t been given a chance to splash it all over the Echo. Unless they were ministers or civil servants, you wouldn’t normally be given the IDs for personnel connected to the military. Not these days.

             
“But it’s wrong.”

             
“Maybe, but that’s life. Before the British Nationalist thing flared up again they were a bit more open about these things…but you know what it’s like now. Everyone’s a bit fried, we’re all a little more paranoid about who we give information to these days.”

             
“Whatever happened to the Freedom of Information Act, eh?”

             
“Why do you think I quit reporting? Freedom of the press, it’s all a sham, Steve. We can’t afford that kind of freedom any more or the lunatic fringe will have us blown to hell in no time and we’ll be back to the bad old days.”

             
“What bad old days?” Giles lit another cigarette and Steven fought the temptation.

             
“You know, the French invading and taking over the Eurostates and killing Jews…the Yanks hammering the hell out of our economy.”

             
“It was the Germans.”

             
“What?” Giles swigged the last of his chardonnay.

             
“The Germans, I’m pretty sure it was the Germans who invaded everywhere.”

             
“Whatever…I’m starting to sound like a devotee now, but whichever party you support we all agree on one thing. The Federation of Eurostates came about for a very good reason and without it we’d be totally…”

“Dessert sir?” The waiter was back.

              “Pardon? Oh…sorry…banoffi pie…and cream, please.” Giles seemed momentarily thrown by the interruption. Steven wondered how banoffi pie fitted the description ‘light lunch’.

             
“Not for me, thanks. You were saying…rather  loudly…we’d be totally…?”