Retromancer by Robert Rankin

Author:Robert Rankin [Rankin, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: thriller, Fiction, Fantasy, General, Science Fiction, Military, Humorous, Occult & Supernatural, Alternative History
ISBN: 9780575085008
Publisher: Gollancz
Published: 2010-07-01T07:15:18+00:00

32

We followed the white-coated fellow, who led us at length to the corpse. A number of similarly white-coated fellows stood about their fallen companion, clipboards under their arms and a-wringing of their hands.

Miss Newman was kneeling down by the body with big tears in her eyes.

Hugo Rune cleared a path for us with his stout stick and cried out the words, ‘Don’t touch anything!’

‘I loosened his collar,’ blubbered Miss Newman. ‘I thought he was having an epileptic fit or something.’

‘If this is the virus at work,’ I whispered to Hugo Rune, ‘we could all now be in a lot of trouble.’

‘We all heard that,’ cried a fellow in a white coat. ‘And that seems good cause for panic.’

And panic they began to do and run they were about to.

‘No!’ shouted Hugo Rune. And even the weird acoustics were unable to muffle his shout. ‘You will not panic. You will return quietly to your work. This is not the work of a virus. You are all intelligent men – has it escaped you that a deadly virus is not selective in whom it kills? If this, as the other deaths, was caused by some deadly virus, you would all have been struck down by it by now.’

A fellow in a white coat spoke up at this. ‘If it was a slow reactor,’ he said, ‘say, passing on the viral chain through an elliptical navigation of the-’ But his words were brought short by the stout stick of Mr Hugo Rune.

‘Return to your work,’ the guru’s guru said. ‘I will take charge here.’

Grumbling and mumbling, the men returned to their work.

‘Escort Roberta back to her office, Rizla,’ said Hugo Rune to me. ‘Sit her down, fetch her a nice hot-water bottle, splash a bit of lavender water on her wrists and, if needs be, employ the bottle.’

‘I can manage by myself,’ said Miss Roberta Newman. And with that said, she upped and tottered away.

‘Quickly, Rizla,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘Off with his coat and pants.’

‘Certainly not!’ I said, appalled. ‘I do not know what you think you are up to, but I will not get involved.’

‘We are checking for needle marks to see whether this man has been injected with poison.’

‘Oh, I see.’ And I helped Hugo Rune take down the dead man’s trousers. Though I certainly did not enjoy the experience.

‘He is wearing special garters to keep up his socks,’ I said. ‘And what is this – a gentleman’s girdle, is it?’

‘Think about yourself, Rizla,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘We wouldn’t want people to get the idea that you harbour a morbid interest in corpses’ undergarments.’

‘No we would not!’ I agreed. ‘But I do not see any needle marks.’

‘Then we must turn him over.’

‘Must we?’

‘Yes.’

So we did turn him over and we did peep into intimate places, but we found no needle marks. But to my horror I now noticed that the corpse was beginning to leak blood. From every available orifice.

‘That is me done,’ I told Hugo Rune. ‘I will find something to cover him up with.

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