Linger Awhile by Russell Hoban Page A

had big hands, rough and red, and he smelled of cows. ‘It never goes away,’ he said. ‘I’ve got an organic dairy farm outside Witheridge.’
    Rachael was in the mortuary at St Hubert’s Hospital. I took her brother there and sat him down in the little waiting room while I went through to talk to Morton Taylor, the technician. Taylor consulted his clipboard and wheeled a trolley over to the banks of refrigerated body trays. He raised the trolley bed up to No. 12 and slid Rachael Darling’s tray on to it. Then he transferred her to another trolley with a blue floral-print skirt, put a pillow under her head and a blanket over her, and wheeled her into the chapel of rest where the lighting is subdued so the paleness of death won’t be too startling and the atmosphere seems hushed by virtue of a large wooden cross on a stand. I always expect a recording of non-denominational organ music, ‘Tales from the Vienna Woods’ or whatever and I’m always thankful for its absence.
    At this point I brought Ralph Darling in. He came over to the bier, looked down at her, sobbed and covered his face with his hands. After a few moments he took his hands away. ‘That’s her,’ he said, andclenched his fists. ‘She looks so pale, like a ghost. How’d she die?’
    ‘We can’t know for certain,’ I said.
    ‘I think you
do
know. Don’t play games with me.’
    ‘All right, but you won’t like it.’
    ‘Go on, Inspector.’
    ‘All the blood was drained out of her body,’ I said.
    He was becoming very angry, I thought he was going to hit me and he was about two stone heavier than I was. ‘How?’ he said. ‘Who did it?’
    I pointed to the wound in her neck.
    ‘What?’ he said. ‘Is this some kind of horrible joke?
    Are you telling me there are vampires in London?’
    ‘I’ve told you all I know,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry.’
    He stood there shaking his head for a while. ‘Could I have a look at her flat?’ he said.
    I took him round to Beak Street. On the way there I said, ‘Was she married?’
    ‘No,’ he said.
    ‘Anyone in her life, a boyfriend?’
    ‘No, why are you asking?’
    ‘When a case is still unsolved like this I try to find out as much as I can,’ I said. When we got to the flat I removed the police tapes from the door, and we went inside. He stood there taking in the goneness of his sister. London silences always have the background of London traffic. ‘Could I be alone in here for a few minutes?’ he said.
    ‘Certainly, I’ll wait for you outside.’
    After about ten minutes he came out. ‘Do you think you’ll find whoever did this?’ he said.
    ‘We have a suspect that we want to talk to,’ I said, ‘but that’s all I can tell you just now.’
    ‘I understand,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’ We shook hands and he walked away slowly.

30
Dr Wilbur Flood
    31 January 2004. I was coming through Cecil Court early in the morning on my way to the lab when I heard a woman singing with a down-home accent:
    Tweedle-O-Twill, puffin’ on corn silk,
Tweedle-O-Twill, whittlin’ wood,
Settin’ there wishin’ he could go fishin’
Over the hill, Tweedle-O-Twill.
    That’s a Gene Autry song, and the last time I heard it was back in Tennessee about thirty years ago. My daddy used to sing it when he was working on his old Ford pickup.
    She was sitting in a doorway with a man slumped against her. I noticed that she was wearing cowboy boots. She didn’t look homeless and neither did the man. I stopped in front of them and she said, ‘Howdy.’
    ‘Howdy,’ I said. ‘Been having a late night?’
    ‘I been saving the last dance for you,’ she said.‘Whyn’t you come a little closer, honey.’
    It’s hard to say no to a good-looking woman even if she seems a little the worse for wear. ‘Won’t your friend mind?’ I said.
    ‘It don’t make no never-mind to him,’ she said. ‘He’s dead to the world.’ She reached up and pulled me down to her and gave me a big wet slobbery kiss with her