The Collected Short Stories - Jeffrey Archer [61]
After gulping down a second cup of coffee, I kissed my wife on the cheek and made for the car. It was then that I decided to drop a note into Carla’s mailbox rather than cope with the embarrassment of a phone call.
“Forgive me,” I wrote. “Marcel’s, one o’clock. Sole Véronique on a Friday. Love, Casaneva.” I rarely wrote to Carla, and when I did I only ever signed it with her chosen nickname.
I took a short detour so that I could pass her home but was held up by a traffic jam. As I approached the apartment I could see that the holdup was being caused by some sort of accident. It had to be quite a serious one because there was an ambulance blocking the other side of the road and delaying the flow of oncoming vehicles. A traffic officer was trying to help, but she was only slowing things down even more. It was obvious that it was going to be impossible to park anywhere near Carla’s apartment, so I resigned myself to phoning her from the office. I did not relish the prospect.
I felt a sinking feeling moments later when I saw that the ambulance was parked only a few yards from the front door to her apartment house. I knew I was being irrational, but I began to fear the worst. I tried to convince myself it was probably a road accident and had nothing to do with Carla.
It was then that I spotted the police car tucked in behind the ambulance.
As I drew up with the two vehicles I saw that Carla’s front door was wide open. A man in a long white coat came scurrying out and opened the back of the ambulance. I stopped my car to observe more carefully what was going on, hoping the man behind me would not become impatient. Drivers coming from the other direction raised a hand to thank me for allowing them to pass. I thought I could let a dozen or so through before anyone would start to complain. The traffic officer helped by urging them on.
Then a stretcher appeared at the end of the hall. Two uniformed orderlies carried a shrouded body out onto the road and placed it in the back of the ambulance. I was unable to see the face because it was covered by the sheet, but a third man, who could only have been a detective, walked immediately behind the stretcher. He was carrying a plastic bag, inside which I could make out a red garment that I feared was the negligee I had given Carla.
I vomited my breakfast all over the passenger seat, my head finally resting on the steering wheel. A moment later they closed the ambulance door, a siren started up, and the traffic officer began waving me on. The ambulance moved quickly off, and the man behind me started to press his horn. He was, after all, only an innocent bysitter. I lurched forward and later couldn’t recall any part of my journey to the office.
Once I had reached the office parking lot, I cleared up the mess on the passenger seat as best I could and left a window open before taking an elevator to the washroom on the seventh floor. I tore my lunch invitation to Carla into little pieces and flushed them down the lavatory. I walked into my room on the twelfth floor a little after eight-thirty, to find the managing director pacing up and down in front of my desk, obviously waiting for me. I had quite forgotten that it was Friday, and he always expected the latest completed figures to be ready for his consideration.
This Friday it turned out he also wanted the projected accounts for the months of May, June, and July. I promised they would be on his desk by midday. The one thing I needed was a clear morning, and I was not going to be allowed it.
Every time the phone rang, the door opened, or anyone even spoke to me, my heart missed a beat—I assumed it could only be the police. By midday I had finished some sort of report for the managing director, but I knew he would find it neither adequate nor accurate.