In Death 21 - Origin in Death

contacts still, in certain circles."
    "If you want to use them, fine. Poke around. Carefully. How well did you know him, personally?"
    "Not well. People who come together in war often bond quickly, even intimately. But when they have nothing else in common that bond fades. And he was .. . aloof."
    "Superior."
    Disapproval covered Summerset's face, but he nodded. "That term
    wouldn't be inaccurate. We worked together, ate and drank together, but he maintained distance from those who worked under him."
    "Give me a personality rundown, deleting the sainthood level."
    "It's difficult to say with any accuracy. It was war. Personalities cope, or shine, or shatter during war."
    "You had an opinion of him, as a man."
    "He was brilliant." Summerset glanced over, with some surprise, as Roarke offered him a short glass of whiskey. "Thank you."
    "Brilliant's on record," Eve said. "I'm not looking for brilliant."
    "You want flaws." Summerset sipped the whiskey. "I don't consider them flaws when a young, brilliant doctor is impatient and frustrated with the circumstances, with the equipment and the poor facilities where we worked. He demanded a great deal, and because he gave a great deal, accomplished a great deal, he usually got it."
    "You said aloof. Just to other doctors, medics, volunteers, or to patients, too?"
    "Initially, he made a point of learning the names of every patient he tended, and I would say he suffered at each loss. And losses were .. horrendous. He then implemented a system assigning numbers rather than names."
    "Numbers," Eve murmured.
    "Essential objectivity, I believe he called it. They were bodies that needed tending, or reconstruction. Bodies that needed to be kept breathing, or terminated. He was hard, but circumstances demanded it. Those who couldn't step back from the horror were useless to those who suffered from that horror."
    "His wife was killed during that period."
    "I was working in another part of the city at that time. As I remember, he left London immediately upon being notified of her death, and went to his son, who was being kept safe in the country."
    "No contact since."
    "No. I can't imagine he would have remembered me. I've followed his work, and was pleased that so much of what he'd hoped to do came to be."
    "He talked about that? What he hoped to do."
    "To me? No." What might have been a smile passed over Summerset's face. "But I heard him speak to other doctors. He wanted to heal, to help, to improve the quality of life."
    "He was a perfectionist."
    "There's no perfection during war."
    "That must have frustrated him."
    "It frustrated us all. People were dying all around us. No matter how many we saved, there were more we couldn't reach, couldn't help. A man might be shot down in the street because he had decent shoes. Another might have his throat cut because he had none at all. Frustration is a small word."
    Eve chased through her mind. "So his kid's tucked away in the countryside, and his wife's working beside him."
    "Not beside, no. She volunteered in a hospital that had been set up to treat injured children, and to house those lost or orphaned."
    "He fool around?"
    "Excuse me?"
    "It's war, he's away from his family. His life's on the line. Did he sleep with anybody?"
    ''I don't see the purpose in so crude a question, but no, not that I was aware of. He was devoted to his family and his work."
    "Okay. I'll get back to you." She got to her feet. "Roarke?"
    She moved out of the room, heard Roarke murmur something before he followed her. She waited until they were upstairs before she spoke. "You didn't tell him anything about the data we found."
    ''No. And it's an uncomfortable position."
    "Well, you're going to have to be uncomfortable for a while. I don't know if his murder had its roots back as far as the Urban Wars, but it's something I want to think about. Unless his killer was able to shed a good decade surgically or through enhancements, she wasn't born during that time either. But..."
    "She had a mother, a father. And they would have been."
    "Yeah. Another possibility. War orphans. Could've started experimenting, treating, placing." She paced the bedroom. "It isn't tidy, is it, just to leave kids scavenging around on the streets, during a war, after the madness of war? Some of them won't survive, and you're in the business of survival. You're interested in improving that quality of life. But also appearance. See a lot of carnage during a war. Maybe it twisted him up."
    She