Naked Angels

There was a noise. There were other people in that long room. The boy fled to hide, scuttling across the floor like a rat.

Joszef Molnar farted and Laszlo Kovacs giggled. It was the echo that made it so funny. Whistling was good for that, too. The corpse that lay between them on a trolley did nothing, of course. Not that you could always rely on a corpse to play dead. Sometimes they moved, sometimes they even sat up – it was something to do with the escaping gasses as they decomposed. Joszef and Laszlo had seen it all in their time.

The corpse was covered in the regulation green rubber sheet but attached to the sheet were two pink balloons and a badly hand-written card that read: ‘Happy Birthday Lisa’.

Lisa Janus was the local pathologist, a great heifer of a woman who was, nevertheless, the nearest thing to a sex object either man was ever likely to meet. They had been courting her half-heartedly for over a decade and the smell of Lysol was now like an aphrodisiac to them both.

As they heard her galoshes squeaking down the dark labyrinth of outer corridors both men assumed appropriately sober expressions. The aprons they wore covered their police uniforms and that was a shame, but it was the rules. Molnar cleared his throat in readiness and Kovacs licked at his moustache to make it neat. Not that it needed further neatening; he’d spent fifteen minutes on it already that morning, trimming it into a straight line with his wife’s toenail clippers.

Lisa Janus was not an ugly woman, although she could have been taken for one as her face puckered with annoyance at the sight of the two policemen. Every time those two brought a body in they behaved like fishermen displaying a catch. Then her eyes moved down to the rubber sheet and she noticed the pink balloons for the first time.

‘Is this supposed to be a joke, gentlemen?’

A grin broke out on Inspector Kovacs’s face.

‘Ta-daa!’ He pulled the rubber sheet back with a flourish. The sudden movement caused the corpse’s head to roll to the side and he straightened it quickly.

Lisa Janus let out a gasp and the two men smirked.

‘We thought you’d be impressed,’ Kovacs said. ‘The doctor was keen to get his hands on this one but we saved him for you.’

The body was that of a young man, not more than twenty years old at the most. He was tall and slim but – most of all – he was extremely, outstandingly beautiful. His fair hair lay curled and plastered around his face. His skin had yellowed but it was a clear complexion, showing that he had, at least, eaten good food at some time in his upbringing.

Looking at his slender corpse was like admiring one of the white marble statues in the National Museum. Earlier on, Kovacs had tied a red ribbon around the young man’s penis but then thought he might be taking the joke too far and removed it. Molnar had been disappointed at that – he had thought the red ribbon a hilarious touch.

‘Who is he?’ Janus asked. She was impressed. Her voice had shrunk to a whisper.

Molnar shrugged. ‘Who knows? Lowlife. We found him collapsed in the street. No one has missed him – can you imagine that? What a loss to womankind, eh?’

‘Someone might miss him,’ Kovacs said. He twisted the corpse’s arm a little. ‘Look.’ The name Paulina was tattooed on the white forearm. ‘I should imagine this proves he had at least one girlfriend.’

‘It might be the name of his mother.’ Janus leant closer, fingering the tattoo gently.

‘Can you work out what he died of?’

Lisa Janus tutted softly. ‘Drugs,’ she said, ‘he died of an overdose.’ There was no question in her voice.

The two men shared a quick glance over her head.

‘No.’ Inspector Kovacs sounded equally sure. ‘No drugs, Dr Janus.’

‘How can you tell?’ She sounded tired rather than angry.

‘No syringe nearby, no needle marks. I checked. The boy is clean. He must have had a weak heart, or a fit, or something.’

The pathologist gazed at him. Her eyes were a watery shade of hazel. Brown eyes. That meant she was not a true blonde. That meant …

‘Would you be prepared to risk money on your theory, inspector?’ she asked.

Kovacs sucked in his top lip. A bet? That was different.

‘Look.’ Janus leant forward and the men leant forward too, because her overall had gaped a little at the top. There was a sweepstake back at the station over whether she wore underwear beneath her gown or not. Confident of a captive audience, she held the corpse’s upper arm with both hands and squeezed. To the policemen’s amazement a tiny teardrop of red blood appeared at the inner elbow.

‘No apparent needle marks,’ Janus said. ‘He used a sharp syringe and most likely he was not an actual junkie. I suspect I could do the same trick with the other arm. He probably injected heroin in one and cocaine in the other. I believe they call it a Speedball in the United States. I dare say the heroin was too pure. There is a batch doing the rounds at the moment. We had a similar death in here last week.’ She smiled then, for the first time that day. ‘Never take appearances for granted, inspector,’ she said, ‘they can easily be deceptive, you know.’

‘He didn’t use drugs! He wasn’t a junkie!’ Anger had overcome the young boy’s fear and guilt and he stepped out into the full glare of the light for the first time. They all turned to see who had spoken. For a second they looked shocked. He stared at the adults’ faces; for a while they appeared guilty, then they started to look angry too.

He had a round, shining face, like an angel, and his eyes were swollen with tears. His nose was running because he had not dared to move in order to wipe it. His clothes were clean enough – cleaner than him, at any rate – but they were old clothes, well out of style, and looked strange, somehow not right. The policemen tried to gauge the boy’s age. Kovacs guessed eleven and Molnar thought maybe twelve. They knew his sort straight away; the streets were running with them in parts of the city. Lisa Janus did not know his type. She thought he just looked very young and very sad.

‘What are you up to, son?’ Molnar asked. He had three kids of his own at home and they all got up to tricks but none of them would have been stupid enough to hang around a mortuary for fun. Then he noticed the boy was shaking with fear.

‘I was sent here,’ the boy said. ‘I came to identify …’ He pointed to the corpse on the trolley in front of them.

‘You know this lad?’ Kovacs asked.

The boy nodded slowly. ‘He’s my brother.’

Even in the bright lights he could see the policeman blush. Kovacs looked down at the balloons. He prayed the boy was lying.

‘How can you tell?’ he asked. Perhaps he was lying. After all, he could barely see from where he stood.

‘I can smell him,’ the boy said. ‘I can smell his cologne. I could even smell it in the corridor. That was why I came in here. I knew he was here. I found him myself. He’s my brother. I would know him from his smell. He’s dead, isn’t he?’ He tried hard but his voice broke on these last words. Until you say it you don’t have to believe it. Now he had said it. Andreas was dead.

Molnar and Kovacs looked at each other.

‘How long have you been standing there?’ Lisa Janus asked the boy.

‘A few minutes. Before you arrived.’

The pathologist tugged the balloons off the sheet and threw them in the policemen’s faces.

‘Aren’t you ashamed of yourselves?’ she whispered. ‘At least let him come and see if he’s right, poor little fellow.’

Kovacs motioned the boy forward. He had to stand on tiptoe to see the body properly. The policemen stood back, their faces grave. Then the boy leant across and kissed the corpse full on the mouth.

Molnar looked away with an expression of distaste.

‘Peasants!’ he muttered, and Lisa Janus gave him a stern look.

Kovacs pulled the boy away, noticing it took quite a deal of strength to do so, even though the kid felt like a sack of bones underneath his clothes.

The boy was fighting for breath. He had to get some answers out of him before the tears started in earnest.

‘What’s your brother’s name, son?’ he asked.

‘Andreas.’

‘And your name?’

The boy stared at his brother’s body. He felt dead inside himself, now. Did it matter who he was? Would they arrest him for what he had done? ‘Mikhail,’ he said, though he had not heard his full name used for years, ‘Mikhail Veronsky.’ There was no point in lying now. Andreas was dead. Nothing mattered any more.

2

Boston 1966

The day they moved the old windmill from the cowfield behind Mrs Jackson’s house to its new home looking out over Saul Peterson’s cranberry bog, the local school turned out to cheer its progress down past the wild apple trees along the high street and around Jeakes’s corner. The truck doing the towing took the corner a shade too sharp, though, dragging strips of vine down off the white clapboard walls, and a smell of sour grapejuice filled the air along with the stench of the diesel.

Summer was sweet that year. The children ran barefoot down the old dirt track, skirting vast uncut fields that were thick with golden-rod and clicking with grasshoppers, and making for the cooler air that hung around the lower marshes. They waved at the workmen and the workmen waved back, and the sound of the World Series came at them from the radio inside the truck’s cabin, mingled with plumes of grey smoke from fresh-lit roll-your-owns.

One child did all the route-planning for the others. When Evangeline Klippel grew up she grew ugly-attractive. At six, though, she was just plain ugly – but that didn’t matter so much because she was rich enough not to have to notice.

Ever since the youngest of the O’Connell boys got expelled for doing things to Chimney, the school dog, Evangeline could claim quite fairly to be able to spit further and out-wrestle any of the boys in her class.

She cut a fearsome enough sight, running wild through the emerald marshes, her shock of crinkled brown hair bouncing with each beat of her small thumping feet and the sun glinting off her gleaming silver braces as she smiled her gummy, victorious grin.

She had grass stains on her dress, which would mean trouble at home that night. Not big trouble, just a grumble or two, maybe – and if Patrick jumped up at her the minute she got in, like he usually did, she could say it came off his paws instead.

No one ever scolded Patrick because he was easily the oldest hound the town had ever known – maybe even the oldest hound alive – just like no one scolded her baby brother Lincoln, because he was too little and wouldn’t understand.

Last month Evangeline had loved Patrick the most but the sun was no friend to old dogs and made them smell pretty bad. It was this month baby Lincoln had gone and learnt how to smile, too, and so Evangeline loved him far the best for the moment. His grip was getting good, as well – she tested it each morning with her finger. The way he was growing she reckoned they would be climbing the cedar outside the nursery window together by the fall, easily.

As Evangeline stood squinting in the sun Ryan Hooley landed panting at her feet and she squished mud into his ratty hair for losing the race so badly. At that moment Miss Starmount – the crabbiest teacher with the grey-flecked moustache – caught up with them, her face as red and shiny as a rose hip.

More winded even than Ryan Hooley, she was unable to speak and could do no more than stare. Evangeline smiled her gimpy smile at her as Ryan wiped cowpat off his shorts. No one scolded Evangeline because of who she was. Her parents were famous; not world-famous, maybe, but local-famous. They had even been in the papers and on the television.

Darius and Thea Klippel were Boston’s golden couple. Both respected artists, though Darius retained the celebrity tag while Thea was an also-ran for her occasional sculptures, they were every bit as beautiful as they were talented. Darius was beautiful; Thea was beautiful; baby Lincoln was drop-dead beautiful, even Patrick the dog was beautiful – in an old kind of way – which made Evangeline the odd one out, though everyone was far too well-meaning to mention it.

Besides, the whole town knew she was not Darius’s real daughter; he had adopted her soon after he’d married her mother, so that explained things, somehow. Evangeline had never set eyes on her real father but she knew he must be double-ugly, or she would never have looked as she did.

She had to shoe-up and walk back to school hand-in-slippery-hand with Ewan Goodman, which was punishment enough for running off because his father was a butcher and he smelt of raw meat.

They got back to the school by pick-up time, which meant parents were waiting and the drive was full of cars. Evangeline searched about but there was no sign of her mother’s dusty Oldsmobile, which was odd because Thea was always on time, even when she was sculpting.

Evangeline sat on the gatepost in the shade and waited. When the last car had left she was still there, too, shooing a bluebottle and kicking whitewash onto her sandals. A small speck of fear had started to itch at the back of her throat and she had begun swallowing a lot to keep it in check. If no one came she would walk. It wasn’t so far, after all – a couple of miles, maybe. She could go past where the windmill had come to rest for the night and see if the workmen would let her have a poke around inside.

It was quiet now, in the drive. She knew the duty teacher was watching her like a sea-hawk but she felt lonely, all the same. When did it start getting dark?

‘Did your mother say she’d be late, Evangeline?’ It was the same teacher that had chased them across the marsh. Her face had cooled down now and her cheeks were back to mottled purple-white.

‘Did she have a meeting or something?’

Evangeline just looked. Why make things easy for her? She must know someone would come for her eventually. There was no point kicking up a fuss. Her mother was always there.

Miss Starmount stared down the road, looking annoyed. ‘We’ll have to phone,’ she said, after a while.

She led Evangeline into the school, clutching her hand in a grip tight enough to mash corn. Thea’s phone was engaged. Damn it. Evangeline’s mother was getting her into all sorts of deep trouble.

‘I guess that means I’ll have to drive you home myself,’ Miss Starmount said, but she didn’t sound as though she cared much for the idea.

Her car was old and the insides smelt musty – a bit like Patrick did before Darius bathed him.

‘Do you own a dog too, Miss Starmount?’ Evangeline asked. The teacher shook her head. She was having some sort of fight with the clutch. There was no air conditioning in the car and you had to wind the windows by hand if you wanted more. Evangeline felt too hot, but didn’t want to wind the window without asking.

The journey was a long one and Evangeline thought about her supper. Then she thought about her father. When he was working at home Darius would always wait by the gates to surprise her when she got back from school.

Yoo-hoo!’ he would yell like a crazy man as she and Thea drove past, and they would both yell, ‘Yoo-hoo!’ back – at the top of their lungs – then he would climb in and sometimes tickle Evangeline until she begged for mercy. Darius was red-haired and wild. One time he had Mickey Mouse ears on and Thea had gunned the car right past him, fast, and that had made them all laugh till they wept, watching him race up the drive behind them, trying to catch up with the stupid old mouse ears on his head.

They’d put the ears on Patrick later, for a photo, and then on baby Lincoln, too. Evangeline had the photos of Lincoln and Patrick wearing the ears stuck in the wallet of her school bag.

No one yelled, ‘Yoo-hoo!’ today, though. The drive to Evangeline’s house was blocked with cars and the iron gates were hanging wide open. Was there a party? Miss Starmount pulled on the handbrake and got out to look. Evangeline watched her bottom wobble as she walked from the car and back again.

‘Come with me,’ she said, holding out her hand.

They squeezed past the cars and up the drive. Something was badly wrong. Patrick should have got her scent by then because he had been a hunting dog in his youth and could still smell familiar flesh a mile off. Maybe all the cars had scared him off. Miss Starmount snagged her skirt on a fender and tutted.

The big old house that was Evangeline’s home gleamed in the late afternoon sun. The summer before Saul Peterson had taken time off tending his cranberries to paint the whole place afresh and he had done it all white with black shutters, which was the old colonial style, according to Darius, who knew a thing or two about local history – maybe more than old Saul himself. You couldn’t see much gleam today, though, for all the people that were standing about outside.

The front door of the house was open, which was strange. Miss Starmount looked quickly down at Evangeline and her expression changed to one of embarrassment. There were blue lights everywhere and blue ribbons around the porch. They pushed on closer but a policeman stopped them. Miss Starmount whispered something into the man’s ear and they had a conversation, and then she let go of Evangeline’s hand and gave her an odd sort of look. So did the policeman.

People had begun to turn and stare. Someone held a camera out and a flash went off in Evangeline’s face, then everyone started pushing.

Things were wrong – really wrong. It was then that the small speck of fear in Evangeline’s throat started to grow out suddenly until it was choking her and, without knowing what she was doing or worrying whether it would scare anyone, Evangeline Klippel threw back her head and howled her longest, loudest-ever howl.

3

Cape Cod

Grandma Klippel made Miss Starmount look like the Sugar Plum Fairy. It wasn’t that she was bigger, exactly – or that she was uglier, either – but if it had come to a frowning and squinting competition then Grandma Klippel’s expression would have won the cup hands down every time.

The first thing Evangeline had to learn about her grandma was that she was rich – richer than Croesus – and then some. Grandma Klippel was so rich she’d even had holes put in her ears so she could hang her diamonds from them. She was nothing like her son Darius, who would wear baggy-kneed trousers and washed-out t-shirts. Darius had money, even Evangeline knew that, but Grandma Klippel was something else again.

She was smart, with perfect stockings and a buttoned-up cardigan, and she looked taller than she was. She had pale powdery skin on her face and freckled skin on her arms. Her teeth looked false but good, like a row of cultured pearls.

Evangeline had been Lincoln’s age when her grandmother last paid a visit, so there was no way she could recognize the old lady who arrived at the house and insisted on taking her off. Nor did she realize exactly how far away ‘off’ was. If she had done she would have fought to the death to stay right there in Boston until her parents got home and explained the joke.

It had to be a joke. They would never have left her there otherwise. It had taken her a while to realize – at first she had even been frightened – but once she cottoned on to the prank she had laughed until her eyes watered. It was a hoot, all right. They were hiding from her, waiting for her to find them.

Darius loved playing tricks and he’d fooled her many times in the past. This was a good one, though – the best. She just wanted him to get on with it and jump out from where he was hiding. She didn’t mind losing, just this once, but she wished they’d come out, that was all.

Evangeline had supposed they’d all be lurking somewhere in the house. She’d wandered off to hunt for them but a policeman had stopped her and taken her downstairs.

‘Where are you off to?’ he’d used the sort of kind tone people who have no kids of their own use when they talk to children. Evangeline had stared at him. It was her house. She had no need to explain. Thea never stopped her if she wanted a wander. She hadn’t been stopped since she was three years old and unsteady on the stairs.

‘I’m hunting for my parents,’ she told him. ‘They’re hiding here somewhere. It’s a game.’

The policeman’s expression changed. ‘Aren’t you the Klippel girl?’ he asked.

Evangeline nodded. The man looked sick suddenly, taking off his cap and running a white handkerchief over his forehead.

‘You’d better run on downstairs, honey,’ he said in a funny voice, ‘your mommy and daddy aren’t hiding here.’

It was not long after that that the Bentley arrived and Darius’s mother climbed out of the back with her tight little smile and her leather high-heeled shoes that matched her handbag, and stole Evangeline back to her house in Cape Cod. She had nipped her up like a pinch of snuff and stolen her away right from under Miss Starmount’s nose and the teacher had not said a word, just sobbed and waved a hankie as the car had driven off. Evangeline had always thought teachers were there to look after you until your mother arrived. She hoped Thea would give the woman a good hiding as soon as she got back and discovered what she had done.

‘I can’t stay long,’ she told her grandma as they drove off. ‘I have to get back for my tea.’

The old lady said nothing. She was sitting so straight her back never touched the seat and her eyes were runny-looking, as though she was trying hard not to laugh. Every so often her body gave a little shake, as though a snigger had finally leaked its way out, but when Evangeline looked she was never actually smiling.

‘You may eat your tea at my house.’ The answer had been so long coming Evangeline had forgotten the question. Grandma Klippel’s voice sounded thin and scratchy, like wire wool.

Evangeline looked troubled. ‘Do you have banana cake?’ she asked.

‘Thea allows you to eat cake?’ The old woman sounded surprised.

‘Every day.’ Evangeline needed to clear these points up. She’d heard about kids who only ate cake and sweets as a treat. She had never been one of them.

‘Anything,’ she added, for safety. ‘I’m allowed to eat anything. Whatever I like. So is Lincoln.’ She didn’t want her brother going short, either.

She expected an argument but Grandma Klippel was looking out of the window and had some sort of lace material pressed against her mouth. Maybe she got travel sick, like Patrick.

‘Evangeline, you’re going to have to learn to be good – very good,’ was all she said, and it came out in a whisper.

‘OK, Grandma.’

‘I can’t abide lying, Evangeline. You must always be truthful, dear. Whatever else you do you tell the truth at all times, do you hear?’

Evangeline nodded. She studied the boils on the back of the chauffeur’s neck for a while. Perhaps it was the sight of them that made the old lady queasy. She’d better not hang around Patrick in the winter, then, because the old dog would get lazy in the cold and mooch about the house all day, and that brought on boils that made the chauffeur’s look like mere pimples in comparison.

They drove on in silence past the bleak-looking sand flats, and the sky turned to slabs of slate, so that Evangeline wondered if it was night coming or a storm. A black crow circled the car for a while, making her shiver. She wasn’t scared of crows, not unless they got too near, but she was a bit scared of storms. She began to dig in her school bag.

‘What are you doing?’ Grandma Klippel perked up a bit, though her voice still sounded as though it came from far away.

‘Looking for my lucky picture.’ She pulled out the shot of Lincoln in the mouse ears. ‘Look.’ It just had to make the old lady laugh. That picture made everyone laugh, guaranteed.

Grandma Klippel took the photo from Evangeline. Her arm smelt of perfume, which was strange, because Thea only wore perfume when she was going somewhere special. She watched the old woman’s face. It was a while before she could turn her eyes towards the shot and when she did she didn’t laugh, she looked as though she’d been kicked. A bit of her mouth sort of crumpled away and her eyes got thinner, like stick-beans.