The Constant Gardener

One road only led to the fort and he strolled along it, keeping at the crown in order to avoid the trenches of fallen leaves. When she arrives I'll wait till she parks before I speak to her, he decided. Cars too have ears. But Birgit's car had no ears because it was a bicycle. At first sight she resembled some kind of ghostly horsewoman, urging her reluctant steed over the brow of the hill while her plastic cape filled behind her. Her fluorescent harness resembled a Crusader's cross. Slowly the apparition became flesh, and she was neither a winged seraph nor a breathless messenger from the battle, but a young mother in a cape riding a bicycle. And from the cape protruded not one head but two, the second belonging to her jolly blond son, strapped into a child's pillion seat behind her — and measuring, to Justin's inexpert eye, about eighteen months on the Richter scale.

And the sight of them both was so entirely pleasant to him, and so incongruous, and appealing, that for the first time since Tessa's death he broke out in real, rich, unrestrained laughter.

"But at such short notice, how should I get a baby-sitter?" Birgit demanded, offended by his mirth.

"You shouldn't, you shouldn't! It doesn't matter, it's wonderful. What's his name?"

"Carl. What's yours?"

Carl sends his love… The elephant mobile you sent Carl drives him completely crazy… I hope very much your baby will be as beautiful as Carl.

He showed her his Quayle passport. She examined it, name, age, photograph, shooting frank looks at him between.

"You told her she was waghalsig," he said, and watched her frown become a smile as she hauled off her cape and wound it up and gave him the bike to hold so that she could unbuckle Carl from his seat. And having released Carl and set him on the road, she unstrapped a saddlebag and turned her back to Justin so that he could load up the backpack she was wearing: Carl's bottle, a packet of Knackebrot, spare nappies and two ham and cheese baguettes wrapped in greaseproof paper.

"You have eaten today, Justin?"

"Not much."

"S. We can eat. Then we shall not be so nervous. Carlchen, du machst das bitte nicht. We can walk. Carl will walk forever."

Nervous? Who's nervous? Affecting to undertake a study of the menacing rain clouds, Justin swung himself slowly round on his heel, head in air. They were still there, two old sentries sitting to attention.

* * *

"I don't know how much stuff actually went missing," Justin complained, when he had told her the story of Tessa's laptop. "I had the impression there was a lot more correspondence between the two of you that she hadn't printed out."

"You did not read about Emrich?"

"That she had emigrated to Canada. But she was still working for KVH."

"You do not know what her position is now — her problem?"

"She quarreled with Kovacs."

"Kovacs is nothing. Emrich has quarreled with KVH."

"What on earth about?"

"Dypraxa. She believes she has identified certain very negative side effects. KVH believes she has not."

"What have they done about it?" asked Justin.

"So far they have only destroyed her reputation and her career."

"That's all."

"That's all."

They walked without speaking for a while, with Carl stalking out ahead of them, diving for decaying horse chestnuts and having to be restrained before he put them in his mouth. Evening fog had formed a sea across the rolling hills, making islands of their rounded tops.

"When did this happen?"

"It is happening still. She has been dismissed by KVH and dismissed again by the Regents of Dawes University in Saskatchewan and the governing body of the Dawes University Hospital. She tried to publish an article in a medical journal concerning her conclusions regarding Dypraxa but her contract with KVH had a confidentiality clause, therefore they suited her and suited the magazine and no copies were allowed."

"Sued. Not suited. Sued."

"It's the same."

"And you told Tessa about this? She must have been thrilled."

"Sure. I told her."

"When?"

Birgit shrugged. "Maybe three weeks ago. Maybe two. Our correspondence has also disappeared."

"You mean they crashed your computer?"

"It was stolen. In our burglary. I had not downloaded her letters and I had not printed them. So."

So, Justin agreed silently. "Any idea who took it?"

"Nobody took it. With corporations it is always nobody. The big boss calls in the sub-boss, the sub-boss calls in his lieutenant, the lieutenant speaks to the chef of corporate security who speaks to the sub-chef who speaks to his friends who speak to their friends. And so it is done. Not by the boss or the sub-boss or the lieutenant or the sub-chef. Not by the corporation. Not by anybody at all, actually. But still it is done. There are no papers, no checks, no contracts. Nobody knows anything. Nobody was there. But it is done."

"What about the police?"