Hannibal Rising Page 0,49

and pushed it down the long corridor to the night entrance. One wheel of the gurney clicked on the stone floor and he made a mental note to fix it.

Standing beside the body was Inspector Popil. Two ambulance attendants transferred the limp and leaking burden from their litter to the gurney and drove away.

Lady Murasaki had once remarked, to Hannibal 's annoyance, that Popil looked like the handsome actor LouisJourdan.

"Good evening, Inspector."

"I'll have a word with you," Inspector Popil said, looking nothing whatever like Louis Jourdan.

"Do you mind if I work while we talk?"

"No."

"Come, then." Hannibal rolled the gurney down the corridor, clicking louder now. A wheel bearing probably.

Popil held open the swinging doors of the laboratory.

As Hannibal had expected, the massive chest wounds occasioned by theFresnes rifles had drained the body very well. It was ready for the cadaver tank. That procedure could have waited, but Hannibal was curious to see if Popil in the cadaver tank room might look even less like Louis Jourdan, and if the surroundings might affect his peachy complexion.

It was a raw concrete space adjacent to the laboratory, reached through double doors with rubber seals. A round tank of formalin twelve feet in diameter was set into the floor and covered with a zinc lid. The lid had a series of doors in it on piano hinges. In one corner of the room an incinerator burned the waste of the day, an assortment of ears on this occasion.

A chain hoist stood above the tank. The cadavers, tagged and numbered, each in a chain harness, were tethered to a bar around the circumference of the tank. A large fan with dusty blades was set into the wall.

Hannibal started the fan and opened the heavy metal doors of the tank.

He tagged the body and put it into a harness and with the hoist swung the body over the tank and lowered it into the formalin.

"Did you come from Fresnes with him?" Hannibal said as the bubbles came up.

"Yes."

"You attended the execution?"

"Yes."

"Why, Inspector?"

"I arrested him. If I brought him to that place, I attend."

"A matter of conscience, Inspector?"

"The death is a consequence of what I do. I believe in consequences. Did you promise Louis Ferrat laudanum?"

"Laudanum legally obtained."

"But not legally prescribed."

"It's a common practice with the condemned, in exchange for permission, I'm sure you know that."

"Yes. Don't give it to him."

"Ferrat is one of yours? You prefer him sober?"

"Yes."

"You want him to feel the full consequence, Inspector? Will you ask Monsieur Paris to take the cover off the guillotine so he can see the blade, sober, with his vision unclouded?"

"My reasons are my own. What you will not do is give him laudanum. If I find him under the influence of laudanum you will never hold a medical license in France: Look at that with your vision unclouded."

Hannibal saw that the room didn't bother Popil. He watched the inspector's duty come up in him.

Popil turned away from him to speak. "It would be a shame, because you show promise. I congratulate you on your remarkable grades," Popil said.

"You have pleased... your family would be-and is-very proud. Good night."

"Good night, Inspector. Thank you for the opera tickets."

Chapter 38-39

38

EVENING IN PARIS, soft rain and the cobbles shining. Shopkeepers, closing for the night, directed the flow of the rainwater in the gutters to suit them with rolled scraps of carpet.

The tiny windshield wiper on the medical school van was powered by manifold vacuum and Hannibal had to lift off the gas from time to time to clear the windshield on the short drive to La Sante Prison.

He backed through the gate into the courtyard, rain falling cold on the back of his neck as he stuck his head out the van window to see, the guard in the sentry box not coming out to direct him.

Inside the main corridor of La Sante, Monsieur Paris' assistant beckoned him into the room with the machine. The man was wearing an oilskin apron and had an oilskin cover on his new derby for the occasion. He had placed the splash shield before his station in front of the blade to better protect his shoes and cuffs.

A long wicker basket lined with zinc stood beside the guillotine, ready for the body to be tipped into it.

"No bagging in here, warden's orders," he said. "You'll have to take the basket and bring it back. Will it go in the van?"

"Yes."

"Had you better measure?"

"No."

"Then you'll take him all together. We'll tuck it under his arm.