He turned momentarily toward his BMW, parked alongside three blue-and-white patrol cars with To Serve And Protect emblazoned on their doors, but decided against it. He was too shaken to think about driving. He had to walk. Under a furnace-like blue sky, he crossed the street, and started threading his way northward along the Embarcadero, his shirt sticking to his back, his eyes stung with sweat and tears. He had never seen a dead body before. Not even a peaceful, unmarked, cosmetically prepared dead body. Celia’s had been horrendous, blackened and reeking of petrol, raw. Her tendons had been tightened by the heat of her immolation, and she had been crouched in her grey-green body-bag like some terrible huge incinerated embryo. But he had known as soon as the zipper began to slide down that it was her. He had recognized her, he had recognized her. He had nodded desperately, swallowed, turned away, blinked back tears, while his mouth had suddenly filled up with hot orange-juice, regurgitated from breakfast.
