The Constant Gardener

He kept walking. He had studied the handbook. The road widened and became a parade ground. The wind threw up grainy dust from the tarmac. On the far side of it stood an ivyclad pavilion and, enfolding it, three purpose-built blocks of steel and concrete. Long neon-lit windows sliced them into layers. A signboard in green and gold — Mrs. Dawes's favorite colors, thus the handbook — proclaimed in French and English the University Hospital for Clinical Research. A lesser sign said Outpatients. Justin followed it and came to a row of swing doors overhung by a curly concrete canopy and watched over by two bulky women in green topcoats. He wished them good evening and received a jolly greeting in return. Face frozen, his beaten body throbbing from the walk, hot snakes running up his thighs and back, he stole a last surreptitious glance behind him and strode up the steps.

The lobby was high and marbled and funereal. A large, awful portrait of George Eamon Dawes Jr. in hunting gear reminded him of the entrance hall of the Foreign Office. A reception desk, staffed by silver-haired men and women in green tunics, ran along one wall. In a moment they're going to call me "Mr. Quayle, sir" and tell me Tessa was a fine, fine lady. He sauntered down a miniature shopping mall. The Dawes Saskatchewan bank. A post office. A Dawes newsstand. McDonald's, Pizza Paradise, a Starbucks coffee shop, a Dawes boutique selling lingerie, maternity wear and bed jackets. He reached a convergence of corridors filled with the clank and squeak of trolleys, the growl of elevators, the tinny echo of quick heels and the peep of telephones. Apprehensive visitors stood and sat about. Staff in green gowns hurried out of one doorway and back through another. None wore golden bees on his pocket.

A large notice board hung beside a door marked Doctors Only. With his hands linked behind his back in a manner to denote authority, Justin examined the notices. Babysitters, boats and cars, wanted and on offer. Rooms to rent. The Dawes Glee Club, the Dawes Bible Study Class, the Dawes Ethics Society, the Dawes Scottish Reel and Eightsome Group. An anesthetist is looking for a good brown dog of medium height not less than three years old, "must be an ace hiker." Dawes Loan Schemes, Dawes Deferred Payment Study Schemes. A service in the Dawes Memorial Chapel to give thanks for the life of Dr. Maria Kowalski — does anyone know what sort of music she used to like, if any? Rosters for Doctors on Call, Doctors on Vacation, Doctors on Duty. And a jolly poster announcing that this week's free pizzas for medical students arrive with compliments of Karel Vita Hudson of Vancouver — and why not come to our KVH Sunday Brunch and Film Show at the Haybarn Disco too? Just fill in the Please Invite Me form available with your pizza and get a free ticket to a lifetime's experience!

But of Dr. Lara Emrich, until recently the leading light of the Dawes academic staff, expert on multi- and nonresistant strains of tuberculosis, sometime KVH'-SPONSORED Dawes research professor and codiscoverer of the wonder drug Dypraxa, there was not a word. She wasn't going on vacation, she wasn't on call. Her name wasn't included in the glossy internal telephone directory hanging by a tasseled green cord at the notice board's side. She was not in search of a male brown dog of middle height. The one reference to her, perhaps, was a handwritten postcard, relegated to the bottom of the notice board and almost out of sight, regretting that "on the Dean's orders" the scheduled meeting of Saskatchewan Doctors for Integrity would not be taking place on Dawes University premises. A new venue would be announced a.s.a.p.

* * *

His body screaming blue murder from cold and exertion, Justin relents sufficiently to take a cab back to his characterless motel. He has been clever this time. Borrowing a leaf from Lesley's book he has sent his letter by way of a florist, together with a generous bunch of lover's roses.

I am an English journalist and a friend of Birgit at Hippo. I am investigating the death of Tessa Quayle. Please could you telephone me at the Saskatchewan Man Motel, room 18, after seven this evening. I suggest you use a public call box a good distance from your home.

Peter Atkinson