He was poised for the doorbell, but the doorbell did not ring. There was no sound of rear doors thumping open, or of the gurney’s legs unfolding with a clatter as it slid off the carrier. He went to the window, and pulled the blind aside. Outside, the street was empty and snow-silent. Fat snowflakes drifted like ancient, amber stars through the light-cones of the streetlamps.
He had been mistaken.
He returned to the theatre, turned the wall tap on, and began to play the hose across the tiled floor. The room smelled of damp stone and disinfectant. He’d been mistaken. It hadn’t been an urgent job coming his way after all. As the hose in his hand spattered out onto the floor, he looked up at the steel drawers and smiled. None of his work was ever truly urgent, not, at any rate, to the people it most intimately concerned.
He was just turning the hose off when the doorbell rang. He froze for a moment, listening to the last of the water gurgling away down the floor drains. Had he imagined the bell?
He had not. After a long period of silence, it rang again. This time it did not sound as though someone had pressed the white stud on the brass plate beside his street door; it sounded as though someone had leant on it. The drawn-out blare of the electric bell rattled through his chilly, empty house.
Doctor Kolding took his hand off the wall tap and let the empty coils of the hose slap onto the floor. He wiped his hands on his apron. This was unseemly. This was a strange turn of events, and it disturbed him. It disturbed the very ordered pattern of his life. He attempted to manufacture scenarios in his head to explain things. The Civic Office had sent him some urgent work, but the crew driver was a relief fill-in, unfamiliar with Doctor Kolding’s location. He’d overshot. He’d driven past, perhaps as far as to the junction where Kepeler Place met Flamestead Street. In this weather, that was not surprising. He’d been obliged to turn around, to turn around in the snow and make his way back. This accounted for the interval between the sound of his vehicle, passing by, and the ringing of the bell.
It rang again, a third time. The finger stayed on the bell-press for a full, indignant, insistent ten seconds.
Doctor Kolding stiffened, and hurried from the theatre. He went up the stone steps into the long hall. The floor was polished dark wood, and it fuzzily reflected the white light of the glass shades overhead in circular splashes like pools of sunlight. He searched for his glasses, which were, of course, in his apron pocket, and put them on. Blue twilight took the edge off the hard, white lamplight.
He reached the door. There was someone on the other side. He could hear them shuffling.
‘Wh-who is it?’ he called through the heavy door.
‘Are you a doctor?’ a voice called back. It was a male voice, heavy, impatient or distracted.
‘Wh-who is there?’ Doctor Kolding called. ‘Please t-tell me who you are.’
‘Are you a doctor?’ the voice repeated. ‘I need a doctor.’
‘Y-you’ve come to the wrong place,’ Doctor Kolding called out.
‘You have the medicae sign on a pole outside. I can see it.’
The voice sounded irritated. Doctor Kolding hesitated. He did have the medicae sign above the door of his old townhouse, because that was his profession. It had been his father’s profession, and his father’s uncle before that. Nine generations of Koldings had worked as surgeons at this address on Kepeler Place, and that was why the serpent-staff of Asklepios hung proudly from the brass rail above his door. That couldn’t be denied. It was as plain as day, even with a crust of snow on it.
But, of course, it was more complicated than that, and it had been more complicated ever since the Famous Victory. Doctor Kolding felt very tense and unwell. This was a strange turn of events, and it disturbed him.
‘Hello?’ the voice outside called.
‘Hello?’ Doctor Kolding answered.
‘Are you going to open this door?’ the voice demanded.
‘A-are you from the Civic Office?’ Doctor Kolding asked, his cheek almost touching the cold black paint of the front door so that he could hear clearly.
‘The what?’
‘The Civic Office.’
‘No.’
‘Then I feel sure you have, as I said, come to the wrong place.’
‘But you’ve got the sign up.’
‘Please,’ Doctor Kolding began.
‘This is an emergency!’ the voice said, angrier than before. ‘It’s cold out here.’
Please go away, please go away, this is a strange turn of events and–
Knuckles banged against the door so sharply that Doctor Kolding jumped back.
Sometimes this happened. He’d heard of it happening to others who plied the same trade. The serpent-staff could attract visitors of other types to your door, undesirable types. They had problems of their own. They had needs. They had habits to feed. To them, the sign suggested a source of pharms, a medicae to be pleaded with or threatened, a medicine bag to be shaken out for stimms, a drug cabinet to be raided.
Doctor Kolding felt quite flustered. He opened the door of the long-case clock that stood at the foot of the stairs. The clock hadn’t worked for fifteen years, but Doctor Kolding had been unwilling to get rid of it because it had belonged to his father’s uncle and it had always stood there. It didn’t serve as anything more than a cupboard now. He opened the case door and reached inside. The pistol was there, on a dusty little shelf behind the impotent pendulum. It was the pistol that had been left behind. He snapped the safety off and held the gun against his palm in his apron pocket.
The knuckles banged on the door again.
‘Hello?’
Doctor Kolding reached up and tugged open the brass latch with his free hand. As he did so, he saw that his hand was shaking.
His hand was shaking, and there was a tiny spot of someone else’s blood on the back of it just under the knuckle of the middle finger.
Doctor Kolding opened the door.
‘What do you want, please?’ he asked.
A man was standing on his doorstep. He was a rough-looking man, a military man. He was wearing a black combat uniform. He seemed quite threatening. The people who came after pharms were often military or ex-military types with habits that were the legacy of combat tours. The man was standing on the doorstep with the snow coming down around him, lit by the single lamp above him in the roof of the stone porch. To Doctor Kolding, the dark street behind him was a blue void.
‘Are you the doctor?’ the visitor asked.
‘I… Yes.’
‘What’s the matter with you, keeping us standing out here? It’s freezing, and this is an emergency. Why did it take you so long to open the door?’
‘I was surprised to have a visitor this late,’ said Doctor Kolding. ‘It is a strange turn of events, and it disturbed me.’
‘Yeah, well, sorry to knock for you after hours, but emergencies choose their own moments to happen, you know what I mean?’
‘Not really,’ replied Doctor Kolding.
The visitor peered at him, puzzled.
‘What’s with the dark glasses?’ he asked.
‘Please tell me what you want,’ said Doctor Kolding.
‘I want to come inside.’
‘Explain your business first, please.’
‘It’s an emergency,’ said the visitor.
‘And the nature of the emergency?’
‘Well, up to a few minutes ago, it was something else, but now it’s that bits of my anatomy are about to freeze off!’
Doctor Kolding gazed at him. This was a strange turn of events, and it disturbed him.
It disturbed him even more when the visitor simply pushed past him into the hall.