Red rainbow, p.20
Red Rainbow, page 20
Hilaire asked Patience, whose flow had started to ebb, to read over the handwriting of this conspirator. She baulked at this. Writing it out was one thing, reading it another. She reluctantly complied, Chablis reading it over her shoulder. Chablis placed her finger on the misspelt Caesar before she said, “Oh yeah, that wouldn’t mean anything to her. He’s called César. My lover, the Love Phantom.”
“Nobody should technically have it in for him,” Hilaire said. She knew that Florence, who claimed to have no feelings for him whatsoever, was fascinated by him. Which was the worst news possible, her fascination like a cat with a mouse, but she was not indifferent, her plans to free him stemming from this. “That sounded so cynical, sorry. I do believe in his power.”
“Maybe spirits are immune to it?” Patience suggested. “But what fire connected to him would kill that many people?”
“I know where,” Chablis said. “It’s the when that’s going to be difficult.”
“Tell me where and I’ll go there,” Hilaire offered selflessly. They were getting on great, and it felt genuine and triggered that old nostalgia, the positive aspect of resistance.
“If you’re willing to do that, I’m willing to look for Maurice Cassard...” Chablis said.
“Shopkeeper!” Florence said, startling the lot of them by knocking loudly on the wall as she presented herself. “What are you buying here, Hilaire?”
“Nobody is buying anything. We’re making an alliance,” Hilaire said.
“You said you were going to the shops.”
“We’ve made progress. Just wait in the sitting room, I’ll join you shortly.”
“You can stop with those dumb cow eyes,” Florence snapped at Chablis, whose stare said it all. “Yes, I let myself in. It’s not your house either, is it?”
“No, but we were invited.”
“Your lover’s balls are in the gloved hand of a Nazi agent right now while you are eating... what is that – cabbage soup?”
“His balls are as safe as the rest of him.” Chablis did not sound as sure of this as usual, the reference from the spirit unsettling her. “And it’s spinach soup.”
“That’ll be about all he’ll be able to eat right now. I’m a cold-hearted bitch, but you... Ten days they’ve had him.”
“We’re aware of that, Florence, we currently have some other issues to take care of, which you can help me with, and we’ll look into liberating the Love Phantom after that, if the Foundation wants us to do so,” Hilaire said.
“She never will, fair-weather fuck that she is.”
Chablis wasn’t about to prove her love to please Florence, and her failure to do so was only going to antagonise Florence further. It was hard to tell who Florence was more jealous of – the Love Phantom’s lover or his interrogator. Hilaire asked Chablis for the address she believed was at threat, Chablis only able to tell her the name of the factory, not its actual address. Whether the drinks were flammable like alcohol, she had no idea about.
Florence gave Hilaire earache as they left them, refusing to wear the shawl Hilaire tried to give her. It was more important Florence was disguised than she was.
“You owe me a better explanation than you gave me in there. Sneaking off to see them behind my back is very poor,” Florence twisted. Her criticism particularly rankled with Hilaire because it was justified. That didn’t mean she was going to take it because she’d held back on criticising her as much as she could have for her extensive misbehaviour.
“I told you I was going shopping. I was going to do that too.” Hilaire toyed with offering a one-word apology, delaying it for the moment. Florence’s whining would almost certainly deter her from saying sorry.
“Yet you only mentioned the shopping. It’s a lie by omission. I’ve let you go and see them by yourself before.”
“Let me? Don’t even... I don’t have to justify where I’m going or what I’m up to to you or anyone.” Hilaire had endured years of that from Rollo in her teens and early 20s. Never, ever again. “You saw the Love Phantom by yourself.”
“So have you. He asked to see me alone, remember? I’d have had you come. I thought we were in this together.”
“We are. I just don’t understand why you’re so clingy and can’t let me do something by myself. We hadn’t seen each other for 36 years, no letters...”
“I didn’t want you to feel bad for having nothing interesting to write.”
“I was in a Resistance group raising hell with the son of Death, a dís and a poor Nazi experiment victim who could read men’s minds by fucking them. Is that interesting enough?” Hilaire should not have talked about Luc or Kass like that (Mayfly wouldn’t care), but Florence had riled her up. Her life had been very dull in parts in the 1910s and most of the 1920s. She knew that and accepted it and didn’t like Florence looking down on her for it.
“And your undead sister. That’s moderately interesting too.”
“Don’t go there. You say I’ve lied by omission. You’ve lied straight to my face. ‘I won’t go out’ – what happened, did you get claustrophobic each time I left?”
“We’re not all equipped to be alone, maybe I just wanted to mingle.” Changing tone from playful to sharp, Florence said, “You knew I’d go out, the way I said it made it clear.”
This was just a game to Florence, a game of life and death, but as she felt at no risk, it had no personal consequences for her. She’d lied, and Hilaire was to blame for pretending to believe her when she knew it was a lie. There was some distorted logic to that.
“You’re right, I did. I had no choice because, back when I still had my job, I needed money to look after you and keep you safe until this was over. You effectively spat in my face.”
“That was a shit life, the job was beneath you. We’re getting by fine without you working. You were wasting your energies which should be put into what we’re doing now. Resistance. I’m coming with you on this stakeout.”
“Good, I want you to.”
“That awful power of mine is useful sometimes, isn’t it?”
“I want you to come with me. I don’t need you to. Your choice.”
“Of course I’m coming, I want to be with you,” Florence cooed soppily. “Plus, I need to get my figures up, I seem to have stalled at 110.”
“I thought it was 101?”
“At the theatre, plus the policemen, yes. What, you think I’ve not eaten since? Less obvious, don’t get into a panic and end up joining them. Heart attacks in bed aren’t so strange.”
“Their ages might make it so. What do you mean, in bed? Has this been done from afar or...”
“Does it matter? We can say it was done from the sidelines, from outside their abodes if you like. If you prefer them to have seen the whites of my eyes in their death throes, we can say that.”
The yellows of her eyes was the first correction Hilaire wished to make but refrained from. When had she done this, how had she known who to target? Was it when she was still working, was she sneaking out at night? It was for the best Florence was coming with her where she could keep an eye on her.
Chapter 17
Dr Death
Gehring’s free time was now spent almost exclusively researching César Vadeboncoeur. He utilised his position in acquiring information whilst doing his best to maintain complete secrecy. Nobody was asking him to do this. Kretschmer would want to know why, thinking he still harboured a grudge. He did, yet it was not strictly personal. Vadeboncoeur posed a grave threat to them, their minds, their free will, the crucial choices they were about to make. A French devil was on their collective shoulders filling their heads with his claptrap. Gehring was deaf to it and looked for ways of freeing the others.
Emmanuelle had said that César visited the doctor frequently when they were together. That was a potential weakness. What was his malady? Some form of venereal disease was Gehring’s guess, hopefully one that caused maximum discomfort. Gehring tried to access his medical records, a mission which required visits in person. One of his former doctors, Friese, proved resistant to revealing anything about César even with Gehring standing over him slowly putting his leather gloves on. Threats failed so he tried honey. Medical infirmity could go in precious César’s favour, mitigation for his undisclosed behaviour that saw him arrested.
Dr Friese provided medical records up to April 21 ’39. That was when he referred César to Dr Karlson. Everything prior to that was nondescript stuff. No broken bones, only one bout of hospitalisation as a boy, a precautionary measure from the sound of it. The only point of intrigue was how often his parents took him to the doctors. The slightest sniffle or headache, they brought him in. The notes from varied doctors should have had them down as timewasters, hypochondriacs by proxy. But no, none of the doctors minded.
Gehring asked Friese why he referred him to Karlson. He looked down as he said, “Psychiatry is not my arena.”
“Why did you send him to a psychiatrist?”
“Karlson was a doctor of medicine and psychiatry and took over all aspects of César’s treatment.”
“I wouldn’t have thought you’d want to lose him as a patient,” Gehring sneered. A disease of the mind opened up new possibilities. The mirrored ceilings in César’s bedroom and bathroom suggested he loved himself as much as everyone else did – perhaps he wanted to be cured of this, his power less effective if he was a slave to it too. A pathological addiction to masturbation likely went hand in hand with this.
“I wanted what was best for him.”
You and everybody else. Karlson was a doctor. He didn’t make it through the war. Where were his notes? César had been seeing a doctor regularly during his engagement. Those records had to be somewhere – and if not, why not?
Five years earlier...
Dr Karlson was fascinated by medicine. His father was a surgeon, his grandfather a surgeon and professor. The tools of the trade had been in his family home all of his life, the calling stronger in him than his forbears. There was no other career path. To him, there was no other career of any real meaning. Yes, other jobs were necessary and useful, but that was not living. Medicine had riddles to solve, problem-solving on a daily basis with real stakes.
He had been practising medicine for 37 years when Dr Friese referred César Vadeboncoeur to him. He solicited unusual cases from his colleagues and further afield, the stranger, the better.
Vadeboncoeur’s case was not that strange on paper. It was a malady of the mind, Vadeboncoeur a narcissist with an inferiority complex. Karlson had theories before he met him. Depression seemed likely. Vadeboncoeur was a high achiever, a popular young man who was scared of being found out. He believed that everybody loved him and was compelled to do so by some powerful force but believed he was unworthy of it.
Their sessions were initially by telephone as per the patient’s request. Dr Karlson was able to reassure him that he did not love him after several of these sessions. That was apparently only because he had not seen him in person, of course. Karlson suggested they rectify this only for Vadeboncoeur to panic and ask for their therapy to continue by telephone. He respected that Karlson was not enamoured by him, polite enough while capable of being brutally blunt too.
Karlson pushed Vadeboncoeur to come to his office but played along with his delusions, for now... and only up to a point. A relative of a relative of Vadeboncoeur’s had been blinded in the Great War. As such, his aunt’s father proved immune to his power, treating him and his siblings equally whenever they met. Vadeboncoeur requested that Karlson wear a blindfold, an idea Karlson sharply dismissed. Why blind a doctor when a patient can be masked? Karlson arranged for paper masks to be provided by his nurse receptionist for each visit. She saw his face as did any other patients, visitors or colleagues. Vadeboncoeur was to place the mask on only before entering his private office. Vadeboncoeur felt self-conscious at first and commented on how odd he felt and surely looked. Karlson told him he could take the mask off at any time – but he would then have no faith in the impartiality of his treatment if his power was so strong that it would compromise his objectivity as a doctor.
Karlson had plans of getting Vadeboncoeur to remove the mask as their sessions progressed. It was a crutch to get him to the next stage, which would entail looking into the root of his problems. His parents were key to that, indulging him to the detriment of his siblings, at least in his version of events.
Those plans were discarded when the other staff began talking about him to Karlson. Did he want their help with this patient? What could he tell them about César? Professionalism out of the window. His nurse receptionist questioned why she made him of all patients wear a mask. Vadeboncoeur’s delusions began to make a little more sense as people fell over themselves to be near him and curry his favour. Was this some form of pheromone? But Karlson was immune to it, and he sat in close proximity to him for an hour at a time, longer than the other staff saw him. The difference was he didn’t see his face. He saw his hair and his hands (and chest at one point when Vadeboncoeur had a cough checked out) which was insufficient for him to consider him anything more than an interesting case. He had no desire to spend any time with him beyond doctor and patient, no need to impress him.
This development made him more interested in this case. Subject KVC17’s job paid him well, and he could easily afford to pay for his treatment. Karlson told him this was not necessary, insisting upon it as a condition of continuing to treat him. All of his treatment would now be free, with the understanding that Subject KVC17 came exclusively to him for all medical matters. Karlson would refer him as necessary to dentists and other areas outside his expertise, but he would control who saw him to ensure his notes were as thorough as possible regarding his new test subject.
Gehring tracked down Karlson’s closest colleague who had worked with him at his practice in the months preceding his death in September ’42. Dr Gaye was in his 60s, a contemporary of Karlson from way back. He agreed to meet Gehring at his practice but asked if he could finish his appointments first. Gehring did not like to be kept waiting but allowed it as Gaye seemed far more enthusiastic about talking with him than Friese had been. Gehring showed up at half five as arranged, sitting in the reception area as the patients filed out, most of the staff too. Dr Gaye escorted his last patient, a young man on crutches, to the door leading outside, which he opened for him. The young man joked about not needing to come back to see him for years after that visit, which had clearly been a marathon appointment. Gaye pointed at Gehring and said jauntily, “Mr Gehring! Come to my office.”
Gehring followed him, waiting until he sat down in the warm seat the patient had sat on at length to say, “You said 5:30.” It was close to seven now.
“It took longer than planned. Medicine is like that. Karlson would have been more thorough with him than I was, believe me. You got my attention with bandying his name about.”
“Your old colleague.”
“More than that. Good friend from my college days...”
Karlson introduced Gaye to Subject KVC17 as an observer during a session. Karlson asked him to talk about his fiancée, Subject KVC17 eventually able to speak freely about how he felt like he was conning her, her love unearned and undeserved. The mask which he’d been so self-conscious in now helped him open up two-and a-bit years into his treatment. Gaye was silent throughout the hour bar a cursory greeting and handshake and the same as Subject KVC17 left.
“You can tell he’s a handsome boy even with that on, but so what?” Gaye said, feeling that the hype that Karlson had built up around this patient turned out to be a let-down.
“Unremarkable, yes?”
“His mental state couldn’t be described that way.”
“Ask my colleagues what they think of him. They will hype him up more than me.”
“I doubt that. He’s not their guinea pig.”
“They’re my guinea pigs too, their reaction to him. I arranged it so that he sees the same patients before and after his appointment, made their slots coincide as much as possible. One man offered him work, another offered him to come to dinner with his wife and daughter. You’ve heard the man speak. I don’t find him charismatic.”
“He may hide those neuroses away outside of here.”
“I guarantee your opinion of him will change if you see him without the mask.”
“I’d bet my house it wouldn’t...”
Gehring didn’t have to ask many questions or explain why he was interested in Karlson. Gaye spoke at length without prompting, going back to their days sharing rooms in college, their zeal to learn.
“Karlson was always driven by his work. He lived to heal and was always keen to make breakthroughs. We were involved in an experiment with 10 test subjects. Four had minor adverse reactions so the experiment was cut short. He objected strongly and wanted to carry on with the other six who were all fine. Our teacher told us that 40% was too high a percentage and I recall his reaction – an ill-advised one. ‘60% is better than 40.’ He believed that pioneers made progress by carrying on even when things did get difficult. He looked to the bigger picture, the welfare of the world and future generations ahead of the people in front of him. The people who placed their absolute trust in him.”
“You started working together again after medical school.”
“Only two years ago. He was still a pioneer spirit, still had his experiments. They thought they were his patients. Three of them, in particular, were interesting projects. A man who caused havoc with any device, electrical or not. A woman with a gastrointestinal condition so virulent it swept through anybody who came into contact with her. Believe me, not a pleasant experience. And a man universally liked by everyone he met who saw his face.”
“César Vadeboncoeur.”
“Correct, Mr Gehring. These three cases were very, very dear to him – and he proposed giving them away for a prize greater to him. Medical ethics held him back. We know about the experiments some of your countrymen have been doing. I’m sickened yet interested in what they discover. I am very like him, but he was my canary in the mine – by looking at him, I could see where to stop. He didn’t have an equivalent to show him the line.”
