lock it and then set out at a fast walk towards the gatehouse. He was in the pants and the shirt of an Army tropical-issue uniform, with a white lab coat flapping open over them. There was enough metal punched through the collar of the shirt to indicate he was a high-ranking officer, and nothing in his distinguished bearing to contradict that impression. Reacher moved to meet him and Jodie followed. The silver-haired guy was maybe fifty-five, and up close he was tall, with a handsome patrician face and a natural athletic grace in his body that was just beginning to yield to the stiffness of age.
‘General Newman,’ Reacher said. ‘This is Jodie Garber.’
Newman glanced at Reacher and took Jodie’s hand, smiling.
‘Pleased to meet you, General,’ she said.
‘We already met,’ Newman said.
‘We did?’ she said, surprised.
‘You wouldn’t recall it,’ he said. ‘At least I’d be terribly surprised if you did. You were three years old at the time, I guess. In the Philippines. It was in your father’s backyard. I remember you brought me a glass of planter’s punch. It was a big glass, and a big yard, and you were a very little girl. You carried it in both hands, with your tongue sticking out, concentrating. I watched you all the way, with my heart in my mouth in case you dropped it.’
She smiled. ‘Well, you’re right, I’m afraid I don’t recall it. I was three? That’s an awful long time ago now.’
Newman nodded. ‘That’s why I checked how old you looked. I didn’t mean for the sergeant to come right out and ask you straight. I wanted his subjective
impression, is all. It’s not the sort of thing one should ask a lady, is it? But I was wondering if you could really be Leon’s daughter, come to visit me.’
He squeezed her hand and let it go. Turned to Reacher and punched him lightly on the shoulder.
‘Jack Reacher,’ he said. ‘Damn, it’s good to see you again.’
Reacher caught Newman’s hand and shook it hard, sharing the pleasure.
‘General Newman was my teacher,’ he said to Jodie. ‘He did a spell at staff college about a million years ago. Advanced forensics, taught me everything I know.’
‘He was a pretty good student,’ Newman said to her. ‘Paid attention at least, which is more than most of them did.’
‘So what is it you do, General?’ she asked.
‘Well, I do a little forensic anthropology,’ Newman said.
‘He’s the best in the world,’ Reacher said.
Newman waved away the compliment. ‘Well, I don’t know about that.’
‘Anthropology?’ Jodie said. ‘But isn’t that studying remote tribes and things? How they live? Their rituals and beliefs and so on?’
‘No, that’s cultural anthropology,’ Newman said. ‘There are many different disciplines. Mine is forensic anthropology,’ which is a part of physical anthropology.’
‘Studying human remains for clues,’ Reacher said.
‘A bone doctor,’ Newman said. ‘That’s about what it amounts to.’
They were drifting down the sidewalk as they talked, getting nearer the plain door in the blank wall.
It opened up and a younger man was standing there waiting for them in the entrance corridor. A nondescript guy, maybe thirty years old, in a lieutenant’s uniform under a white lab coat. Newman nodded towards him. ‘This is Lieutenant Simon. He runs the lab for me. Couldn’t manage without him.’
He introduced Reacher and Jodie and they shook hands all around. Simon was quiet and reserved. Reacher figured him for a typical lab guy, annoyed at the disruption to the measured routine of his work. Newman led them inside and down the corridor to his office, and Simon nodded silently to him and disappeared.
‘Sit down,’ Newman said. ‘Let’s talk.’
‘So you’re a sort of pathologist?’ Jodie asked him.
Newman took his place behind his desk and rocked his hand from side to side, indicating a disparity. ‘Well, a pathologist has a medical degree, and we anthropologists don’t. We studied anthropology, pure and simple. The physical structure of the human body, that’s our field. We both work post-mortem, of course, but generally speaking if a corpse is relatively fresh, it’s a pathologist’s job, and if there’s only a skeleton left, then it’s our job. So I’m a bone doctor.’