The room was dark oppressive, the air was so still it almost hung between points of time, the only sound to be heard was the quite ticking of a small carriage clock standing on a table near the unmade bed. Opposite the bed two large French windows had been pushed wide open into the balcony. Dr Brown stood squinting into the small angled mirror sitting on top of the dressing table as he fastened his tie, this was not a day he had been looking forward to.

The dark wood paneling and the ornate carved furniture of the room, which on any other occasion Brown would have found agreeable, served only to help make the room feel more oppressive and Dr Browns mood more gloomy. Brown dropped his acking arms to his sides and gave a long deep sigh. His collar was curling slightly at the corners and needed starching, his tie was doing its level best not to be tied. Brown looked at himself closely in the mirror. Even in the dim morning light he could see his features were pale and drawn, there were dark shadows under his eyes, his skin was looking pale. Here was a man, thought Brown to himself, who had not had much sleep over the last few days. He looked at himself hard, then half smiled, he did not need a doctor to tell him that.

Brown decided it was time to prescribe himself a tonic, he turned from the mirror and went over to the side table near the bed, there stood a half empty bottle of Scotch whisky and a used glass. Not that Brown liked drinking this early in the morning but today he was in need of something to get him over what was to come in the next few hours. At least it was after breakfast he reminded himself, just a small thought to mitigate his conscience just a little.

Brown took a long drink then put the glass down and went back to the mirror with the thought of starting again on the tie, he decided it was probably as good as he was going to get it today, so went back over to the bedside table and picked up his whisky glass. Sipping the comforting liquid he wandered over to the french windows and stood for a while on the balcony. The morning was fresh and bright unlike the way Brown was feeling. Brown looked for a long time across the valley, what a way to start the new century he thought, in a few months time it will be nineteen hundred, what changes he had seen what changes were to come, but today, today. He finished his glass of whiskey and surveyed the scene once again, the morning sunlight was starting to catch the tops of the snow capped mountains sitting far off in the distance. Brown pondered for a few moments, spectacular as it was, it was not England.

Hospitals always depressed Brown, they shouldn't, they were places where people came to get better, but there was something about the buildings, the size, the formalisation of illness, people became patents, patents became numbers, numbers became files and the files inevitably got lost in the system.

Brown looked up at the large brick building, it could have been any one of a number he had worked in, the thought struck him that perhaps the same people built them all. Brown gave a half smile to himself, as a doctor he ought to be used to them by now he thought, if they give him the creeps what on earth did they do for the patents. He paid the driver of the carriage that had brought him giving him a large tip and asking him to wait as he would not be very long.

Brown slowly walked the few paces across the cobbled forecourt toward the grand portals of the main entrance, which with its tall stone columns tried to declare that it was a place of far grander importance than it was. As he entered the building he was met by the smell, sounds and starchy efficiency of the hospital system, he remembered now why he so disliked them, it was the dehumanisation of such places, here you did not treat people you treated patents. Once a person entered into the care of the hospital, they became an object to be treated and returned to the outside world as soon as practically possible. This of course was basically what the patents wanted and it was a kind of unwritten pact between the two that kept the whole system going. This was why he had left for India all those years ago. It was not a feeling Brown wanted to be reminded of today.

The heavy wooden door of the entrance closed behind Brown with a loud clank that echoed around the cavernous entrance hall, much to Browns embarrassment his shoe squeaked as he crossed the highly polished floor to the main reception desk situated at the far end of the room. The large oak counter was polished to a finish like glass and was on a slightly raised platform like a pulpit of some ancient cathedral. Sitting behind this desk was a hawk like figure of matron, in a uniform so starched it was a wonder she could move. Brown however did not have to say anything matron, who was eyeing him suspiciously, for as he got closer to the desk he realised the chief inspector of police was already waiting for him.

The inspector had been sitting on one of a group of chairs sited at an appropriate distance from the reception desk. The inspector stood up as Brown approached, the he was holding a flat peaked in his left hand and was wearing a very clean, well ironed uniform, with enough but not too much, gold braid. The inspector gave a little bow as Brown got close then put his hand out in greeting. Brown was slightly surprised that even at full stretch the inspector was a good six inches shorter than himself, he took the inspectors hand and gave it a cursory shake, there were no smiles it was not that sort of occasion.

The chief inspector introduced himself as Eskill Grunafel, adding that he wished they could have meet under more pleasant circumstances. He ask Brown if he was ready, Brown nodded.

The inspector slowly turned and started to walk towards a pair of doors at the rear of the hall. Brown followed making sure he stayed approximately half a pace behind, this would avoid the feeling that they had to make small talk as they made there way across the building. Before leaving the hall they passed under a large open staircase rotating around the outside walls of the reception hall and running above the doors they were heading for. Glancing upward Brown saw that the stairs rotated round and up five floors, here they terminated and a large glazed skylight in the roof which lit the whole area of the stair and main hall.

The inspector led Dr Brown through the double doors which opened onto very a long plain corridor, this was painted the standard hospital colour of creamy gray with a thick brown line, three inches wide, painted along each of the side walls at waist height, doors punctuated the walls every so often, these were painted brown to match the stripe and helped to make the place just that little bit duller, if that were at all possible. The passage was lit with triangular glass roof windows placed at regular intervals along its length, these accentuated the length of what was already a long passage.

A nurse came out of one of the side doors just ahead of them and her shoes clip clopped on the floor as she came down the corridor towards them, she brushed passed past Brown leaving a faint smell of disinfectant, she then clip clopped off into the distance behind. Ordinarily Brown would have glanced back to see if her bottom wiggled as she passed, today however Brown had other thoughts to occupy his mind as the made there way to the mortuary.

Even now as they walked slowly on their grim way Brown, although he knew in his heart otherwise, he still had a small glimmer of hope tucked away in the back of his mind, that perhaps, just perhaps the body he was about to see, would be a stranger to him.

They arrived at an even browner pair of double doors, at the very end of the corridor. These doors were distinguished by the simple fact they had no round view window in them. The Inspector pushed open one of the doors and held it open for Brown to enter.

Brown went in and found he was in a large room well lit room, there was a slight chill in the air and the inevitable smell of formalin. The room was high and distinguished, if that is the right word to use, by being completely white, everything was covered in white glazed tiles, only the floor had buff coloured clay tiles, these scrubbed as clean as they could get. Along each side of the long room, in neat rows, were oblong shaped tables, each one covered with a clean white sheet, some of these sheets had a familiar lumpy outline. They had bodies under them.

The Inspector closed the door and the pair made there way to the central isle between the rows of tables which ran the full length of the room. As Brown followed the Inspector the sound of their feet echoed around in the otherwise silence of the room. There was a damp chill feeling to the air from the night and their breath made small clouds of vapor as they walked. When Dr Brown and the Inspector were half way down the room a man appeared, he came out of a small office located at the far end of the room. The man wore a white coat and had the sort of grim expression on his face that one would expect from someone who only has dead bodies to talk to.

The Inspector and the man in the white coat met against one of the tables, they did not say anything. The inspector turned and introduced Dr Brown to the man in the white coat, saying it was Brown who was here to identify the body from the river. The inspector then stood to one side allowing Brown to stand a little closer to the table. The inspector watched Brown carefully as he nodded almost imperceptibly to the porter. The porter very gently folded the white sheet down from the top half of the body laying on the table.

Dr Brown looked at the pale white corpse on the table. Although he had prepared himself for this moment, it was still a bit of a shock. Quite a few moments passed before Brown was able to pull his thoughts together looked up at the inspector. Brown then walked round the table and lifted the left shoulder of the corpse so that he could see part of the back. There just below the shoulder blade was a long scar about eight inches in length, it was an old scar and had been neatly stitched together. It was Brown who had stitched it, few people knew about that scar and any doctor can recognise his own work, there was no doubt about it this time. Here in a stark cold room in a foreign country, far away from his beloved London, Pendelton Lawrence Park-Jones was most definitely dead.

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