The Killing Room Read Online Free PDF

said, ‘how long are you planning on staying?’
    ‘Don’t,’ Margaret said. ‘You sound like my mother.’
    ‘Jesus, I hope not.’ David laughed and gazed at her fondly. ‘You two never did get along, did you?’
    ‘Nope.’
    ‘I always reckoned you were more like your dad.’
    And Margaret remembered how David had never really known her. He had been attracted to her, physically, and that had been more important to him than anything else. She had thought he was good-looking, and the physical side of their relationship had always been rewarding – until she got pregnant. And then there had only been one course of action as far as he was concerned, and she had allowed herself to be talked into it. She had never forgiven herself. Or him. ‘You still in medicine?’ He had made the youngest ever cardiac consultant at Chicago Hope.
    ‘Sure.’ He laughed, although a little uneasily, she thought. ‘Still single, too.’
    Margaret hoped he had developed more subtlety in telling patients they were terminally ill. ‘I’m sure you had lots of girls after we split up.’
    ‘Lots.’ He drew on his cigarette and blew a jet of smoke over her head. ‘But, then, you were a hard act to follow.’
    She grinned. ‘Oh, come on, David, it’s me you’re talking to. I never did fall for your bullshit.’
    He returned the grin ruefully. ‘No, and neither has anyone else.’ He patted the top of his head. ‘And now I’m losing my hair I’m not such a catch any more. Women just pull out the hook and throw me back.’
    ‘Oh, sure. Like there aren’t a million women out there who wouldn’t die for a good-looking thirty-something cardiac consultant.’
    ‘Maybe I’ve just set myself too high standards. That’s what my mother thinks.’
    ‘She never thought too much of me.’
    ‘Yeah, but she never knew you like I did.’
    ‘Thank God.’ She grinned and he grinned back. And then there was an awkward silence that neither of them knew how to fill.
    But they were rescued from their embarrassment by the arrival of the soup. The taste of it was familiar and comforting, pieces of wakame and tofu cubes in hot dashi stock thickened by red miso . They slurped in silence for minute or two.
    Then, ‘Good food, weird people,’ David said.
    Margaret looked confused. ‘What?’
    ‘The Japanese.’ He grinned stupidly. ‘Don’t think I’d much like to be practising over there. Neither would you.’
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘You know, they got this weird religion in Japan. Shinto . It’s peculiarly Japanese, but it’s kind of soaked up bits of Buddhism and other stuff as well. They’ve got a pretty strange view of the sanctity of the dead body. And, you know, they only got around to defining brain death as a legal condition a few years back.’ He laughed. ‘Last time a doctor over there performed a heart transplant was in nineteen sixty-eight, and he got charged with murder.’
    Margaret said, ‘I can think of a few doctors who should be charged with that.’ And she remembered her fear in the moments before she lost consciousness in the operating theatre, and then coming to and knowing that they had killed her child. She looked at David and wondered if he even remembered.
    ‘I read all about you when that business was in the news about the rice,’ he said suddenly. ‘Jesus, Margaret, that was scary stuff.’
    She just nodded.
    ‘Nearly put me off sushi for life.’
    She managed a pale smile.
    He tried again. ‘You want to tell me about it?’
    She shook her head. ‘Nope.’
    ‘Okay.’ He raised his hand. ‘Margaret says subject off limits.’ He hesitated, then, ‘So what have you been doing in China all this time?’
    ‘Lecturing mostly. At the University of Public Security. It’s where they train their cops. Kind of like the Chinese equivalent of West Point.’
    ‘Does it pay well?’
    ‘Nope. The money’s lousy. But they give me an apartment I can just about swing a cat in, and as much rice as I can eat. So