Melancholy: Book Two of The Cure (Omnibus Edition)

by Charlotte McConaghy

  I reel backwards. “I’m sorry,” I manage to utter, before I turn and dash outside.

  I feel dizzy as I wipe the spittle from my chin and neck. The sun is glaringly hot and sends an ache into my skull.

  I am a thoughtless, cruel idiot. To come here and not think how it would make her feel, given the whole settlement thinks I murdered her husband. I sit on the ground, in the dust, because I’m not sure what else to do with myself.

  *

  Luke

  The room is strangely still after Josi has gone.

  “I’m so sorry, Lace,” I say.

  The baby squirms, breaking the tension that’s permeated the air. May takes the child – I don’t know her name as she was born while I was in a coma – into another room and I am left alone with Lace. I should have come to see her and Batch when I woke up. I should have at least congratulated them.

  “Dual didn’t kill him,” I tell her simply.

  Lace slumps onto the couch. “I don’t think I care.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say again, sitting opposite. “He was a good man.”

  “What does that mean?”

  I’m not sure what to say.

  “What if he was a bad man? Would that make it better that he’d died?”

  “No. Sorry. I don’t know why I said that.”

  Her expression softens a little. “What do you want, Luke?”

  “I’m in charge of the case.”

  “The case.” Her lips twist into a humorless smile. “As though any one of us knows what to do in a ‘murder case’.”

  “I do.” Sort of.

  “Go on, explain it then.”

  “Basically I have to determine how Batch was killed, what weapon was used and where the murder took place. I’ve gotta gather the evidence. Then I have to start talking to people and working out who might be a suspect. I work out who has alibis for the night Batch was killed, which is tricky in this case because of the party. I need to work out who knew Batch well, if he had any altercations with anyone, if there might be a reason someone wanted him dead. Motive, means, opportunity.”

  “So am I a suspect?”

  “That’s what I’m here to determine. And to pay my respects.”

  “Isn’t it usually the spouse who’s guilty?”

  “Sometimes.” Often, actually.

  Lace leans her head back against the couch and stares at the ceiling. She starts ticking things off on her fingers. “I didn’t go to the party that night because I was here with Eve, so I didn’t have the opportunity. The only weapon I know how to use is a gun – I don’t even know how someone could cut off a man’s head – so I didn’t have the means. And as for motive, my husband and I just had a baby, so I’d say my motive to keep him alive is stronger, don’t you think?” Her voice is drenched with bitterness.

  “I know you didn’t do it, Lace,” I tell her gently. “But I will find out who did. Can I ask you a few questions?”

  She nods.

  “What time did you go to bed that night?”

  “I’m not sure. I’ve been trying to sleep when Eve does. So probably around seven. Then I woke up a few hours later to feed her. Maybe around one.”

  “Was Batch home then?”

  “No.”

  “So he didn’t come home at all that night?”

  “Not to my knowledge.”

  “You told Quinn yesterday that Batch came home and went to bed, then you woke to find him gone. Didn’t you?”

  She frowns. “I don’t even remember having a conversation with him. I don’t remember what happened two minutes ago. I haven’t slept more than an hour or two in months.”

  “Okay, can anyone verify that you were here with Eve all night?”

  “No, I guess not. Unless you want to interrogate my two-month-old daughter.”

  “When was the last time you saw Batch?”

  “Before he started his shift on the wall.”

  “Can you think of anyone who might have a grudge against him?”

  “No.”

  “Did you notice anything strange before that night? Anything that seemed out of place? Any unusual interactions?”

  “No.”

  “What about Batch’s behavior? Was he acting strangely?”

  “No.”

  “Okay.” I straighten up. This is getting nowhere. She doesn’t have a clue what happened, that much is obvious, and her new-mother brain is addled with sleep deprivation. It could be possible, as Josi suggested, that the kill was random – that Batch was in the wrong place at the wrong time and was used in some other plot. Which means there are no clues to be found here. “Thanks, Lace, I’m sorry I had to ask this stuff.”

  “You’re playing the part of the detective,” she points out. “You have to say your lines.”

  “I’ll figure it out,” I promise. I hesitate awkwardly for a moment. “Can you do me a favor?”

  She glares at me.

  “Not say anything to Dual about what happened between us last year?”

  Lace shakes her head with exasperation. Then without any warning she moans with deep, gut-wrenching despair.

  I lurch to my feet, unsure what to do, but May is already rushing to take her daughter in her arms.

  “Batch didn’t come home,” May tells me over the sobbing. “I would have heard him. Now go.”

  So I do. As the door shuts behind me the terrible sound of weeping is dimmed. Josi is sitting on the edge of the road, arms folded over her knees. She looks up miserably. “Is she okay?”

  I shake my head.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset her.”

  “She was upset anyway.” I reach for her hand and pull her up. She brushes the dust from her pants and we head toward the infirmary. “She probably needed to give someone a good slap.”

  “Glad I could help then.” She sounds sincere. “Did you get any clues?”

  “No clues. Which might be a clue in itself. She said that nothing out of the ordinary had happened, he’d been acting normally, and I believe she didn’t have anything to do with it.”

  “So are you thinking I might be right about the kill being a message or a statement or something? Rather than a personal gripe with Batch?”

  “Well I’ve spoken to the guys on guard duty with him, as well as his closest friends. They knew nothing, and said he’d been totally normal. Apparently he finished his shift on watch at midnight and then no one saw him again until you did.”

  “So we have a chunk of his time that’s unaccounted for – from midnight until about 5:30 am.”

  “And you didn’t go home until after 2, which means he wasn’t placed at the crime scene until after then, or you would have seen him.”

  “So where the hell was he between 12 and 5:30?”

  I shrug. “He wasn’t at home with his wife, according to both Lace and May. Yesterday Lace said he did come home, but I honestly don’t think she was lying – I reckon it’s more likely she got confused about the days. So it’s possible Batch could have been accosted on his way home and kept somewhere for a few hours, either dead or alive.”

  “Any idea where the killing took place?”

  I shake my head. “Had to be a hell of a lot of blood.”

  “So you have to either clean it or hide it somehow.”

  “Might be time for me to start searching houses for any remnants.”

  “That’ll make you popular.” We head inside Dodge’s lab to find him, Ranya and Mom all standing around Batch’s body laid out on a table. The three of them are peering closely, talking animatedly, despite the fact that Ben is hammering repeatedly on his glass cage.

  Meredith is cuffed, once again, to a nearby chair.

  “What do we reckon, gang?” I ask and they all look up.

  “Come here,” Mom says, ushering Josi and I closer. The body is losing some of its stiffness – yesterday the rigor mortis was at its worse, but it’s begun to lessen, making him easier to move. Batch’s head sits a little apart from the bo
dy. “See this bruising around the sever line?”

  Josi and I lean in close. The skin beneath where the head’s been chopped off is indeed dark blue. “Yeah.”

  “We think the cause of death might not have been the decapitation, but strangulation.”

  “So someone choked him to death and then cut his head off,” Josi surmises. “Would that explain why there wasn’t much blood at the site?”

  “It could.”

  “So he could have been killed where he was found?” I ask.

  “Yes, or he could have been killed elsewhere and carried to that spot, where the killer then chopped his head off.”

  “Is anyone else finding this very weird?” Josi asks.

  We all nod.

  “There’s no way this was a crime of passion,” I sigh. “You don’t take pains to set out a confusing crime scene like this unless it’s all premeditated.”

  “Unless you kill someone in a fit of passion, realize the mistake and then try to cover it up by making it look like a completely different crime,” Josi points out.

  “True. But by the sounds of it no one would have cause to kill Batch in a fit of passion.”

  “How do we know?” she argues. “Nobody really knows anyone. Just because his wife didn’t think there was anything weird going on doesn’t mean there wasn’t.”

  I look sideways at Josi. “Not everyone lies,” I tell her softly.

  “Sure they do,” she replies calmly.

  “The body wasn’t at the crime scene for long before it was discovered,” Meredith says abruptly and we all turn to stare at her.

  “How do you know?” I ask.

  “If a body remains undisturbed for hours after death, a process called livor mortis occurs. This means that the parts of the body touching the ground develop a discoloration, usually red or purple, from blood accumulation. This body hasn’t suffered that, which means it’s been moved too often since death for it to have occurred. Is it also true that the body had yet to develop rigor mortis when you first moved it here?”

  Ranya and Claire both nod.

  “Then it was within the first three hours of death.”

  “So he was killed not long before I found him,” Josi says. “It’s looking more and more like I did it.”

  “We know you didn’t do it,” I try to console her.

  “This is a bit gruesome for me. I gotta get to my shift in the fields,” she says, heading out into the midday sun.

  “Dodge,” I sigh, “can you do any DNA magic?”

  He shakes his head. “I don’t have the means to get external DNA off his body, I only know how to analyze his.”

  “Don’t bury the body,” I tell them. “I want it kept as long as possible.”

  “We don’t have the power to refrigerate it,” Ranya protests.

  “I’ll speak to Quinn about having some rerouted. He doesn’t get buried until this case is solved, alright?”

  “And where will you put him?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll sort something out.”

  Ranya throws up her hands and starts fussing about with things as though I have put her out personally.

  “You alright, Mom?” I ask.

  She nods and walks me to the door. “I know it’s a horrible thing to say given the circumstances, but I’m glad to have something to do.”

  I kiss her on the cheek.

  Meredith is watching us all very closely and there’s something creepy about it. She and Mom are both drones, but under the lab lights they don’t seem anything alike.

  *

  I spend the afternoon on a cooking shift in the kitchen with Eric, Rina and Grace, trying to come up with innovative recipes for potatoes, potatoes and more potatoes. And bread. There’s a shitload of bread.

  For once, my mind’s not on food. It’s stuck on Batch.

  “Any idea who did it?” Eric asks me when it’s clear I don’t have any input about dinner.

  Rina and Grace are both lean, hard women in their forties, and they watch me expectantly.

  “I shouldn’t talk about it,” I say. “But I’m close, and it’s definitely an isolated incident.” A big fat lie.

  “It’s pretty obvious who did it,” Grace snaps as she kneads dough.

  “Was it her?” Rina asks in her soft, high voice. Both women, I have good cause to know, are excellent fighters, and both are raising children in The Inferno.

  “Who?”

  “Don’t play dumb, Luke.”

  “It wasn’t Dual,” I tell them. “And I can tell you that for a fact.” Another big fat lie.

  “Never been a murder inside The Inferno before,” Grace says shortly.

  “And there won’t be another one,” I assure her.

  “Better not be, Luke. Else why should we raise our kids here?”

  I don’t know how it became my responsibility to stop them from killing each other, as the second newest member of the compound, but okay. I don’t point out that there isn’t anywhere else to raise kids, either. I just nod.

  “Get off your bum and grab me some herbs.”

  I do as I’m told, entering the big walk-in refrigerator. The air is cool in a direct contrast to the hot weather outside, so I hurry for the herbs, grabbing rosemary and mint. But at the door I pause with an idea. And I know immediately that it is not going to be a popular one.

  Chapter 16

  February 15th, 2066

  Josephine

  I sit between Hal and Pace, with Will hanging from my neck like a monkey. The Den is full, but we’re not here for a meal tonight. Quinn has called a community meeting, which is apparently pretty rare.

  “Sure you don’t know what this is about?” Pace asks me for the fifth time.

  “Yes!” I exclaim. “Why do you assume I get told what’s going on?”

  “Because your lover boy is on the council table.”

  “He’s not my lover boy, and he hasn’t told me anything.”

  Will makes mushy kissing noises in my ear and I push him away as Hal and Pace giggle.

  Quinn, Raven, Shadow, Ranya and Luke sit on a long table up the front of the hall, facing the rest of us who are perched around the place in no particular order. I find it amusing that they call it a council table, and can’t help feeling as though we are all children playing at grown-up games. Or maybe that’s just me.

  I’m of the opinion that Shadow shouldn’t be out of bed so soon, but he ignored me completely when I whinged at him to get back to the infirmary. He still looks pale from his gunshot wound, but he’s tough as guts like everyone out here, and determined to suffer in silence.

  “Okay, let’s get started,” Quinn calls over the din of two-hundred-and-sixty voices chattering curiously. Everyone settles down and there’s a general hush. “We have a simple matter at hand tonight, a decision to be made. I don’t feel comfortable making it myself, so we’ll explain the situation and put it to a vote. Luke?”

  Luke sits forward. “As you all know there’s been a murder in The Inferno. The day Batch died was a very sad one for all of us, because he was a member of our family. I’ve been made responsible for the case, and I promise that I will find out who committed this crime. In order to do that I need access to Batch’s body before he can be laid to rest.”

  “This isn’t a matter for public vote!” someone shouts. I crane my neck to see an old man I don’t know. “What happens to Batch’s body is a decision for Lace to make.”

  “I have already discussed it with Lace and she’s refrained from being involved in the decision. It concerns all of you because the only way I can think of to keep Batch’s body from decomposing is to convert one of the fridges into a kind of morgue and keep him there for the duration of the case. The kitchen is a public space, and you all need to agree to it before I’ll go ahead.”

  There is a general ruckus of outrage through the crowd.

  I sit back in my seat, admiring Luke for trying, but knowing this is only going to end one way.

  “This is
unconscionable disrespect,” May says loudly. “A man should be laid to rest, not kept in a kitchen fridge in the middle of a public area!”

  “What about the health risks?” another woman says. “We can’t be having a decomposing body around our food!”

  “We would of course remove all the food and block off the area – ” Luke starts.

  “And the practicalities – we need the space,” the woman goes on. “Have you ever tried to feed more than two-hundred mouths with only one fridge full of food? It’s not gonna happen.”

  “Oh for god’s sake, Grace,” someone else groans. “It’s not about the practicalities – have a scrap of empathy for once. This is about a man’s death, and disrespecting his body and his wife.”

  “And keeping the body where the kids might see it!”

  I watch as Luke slumps in his seat, rubbing his eyes wearily. “It would only be temporary – ”

  “How do you know? What makes you think you’re ever gonna solve it?” a man asks.

  “Well he certainly isn’t going to solve it if he doesn’t have access to the only piece of available evidence,” I snap, and everyone turns to stare at me. I feel my cheeks flare, but hold my ground. “It’s protocol in murder investigations to legally hold the body as evidence in the case and trial. It’s not disrespect – it’s correct practice and common sense. Sentimentality needs to be saved for later, when the killer has been brought to justice. Either that, or we leave a murderer walking among us.”

  Oh crap. I shouldn’t have said the thing about the common sense or the sentimentality. Or the murderer walking among us. A ripple of anger and unease moves through the crowd.

  “And what gives you the right to open your mouth?” someone asks. I can’t see who.

  “Oh, sorry, are we living in a fascist regime now?” I reply.

  As the hall erupts into voices, Pace cracks up beside me, thoroughly tickled. I meet Luke’s eyes and see the hint of a smile tug the corner of his lips.

  I shrug, silently telling him I tried.

  His expression replies thanks anyway.

  “Alright, alright, settle down,” Quinn barks over the hubbub. “Let’s call it to a vote. All those who vote to keep the body refrigerated as evidence until the case is solved, raise your hand.”