Beauty Sleep

by Kathryn Evans

  The policewoman said, “Let me see?”

  I handed her the file and reached in the drawer for another. Then my hand stopped. What if we were in there? Me and Alfie. I looked for “H” and found my file straight away.

  Subject: Laura Henley

  My head swam…

  Origination: Isolated parents

  Age on intake: 16 years

  Project: Cryopreservation

  Outcome: Success

  Second Phase

  Project: Cell regeneration (special circumstances, no extended research)

  Outcome:

  Inside, there was my picture, clipped to a sheet of paper. My hand trembled as I read:

  Parents: Mother, artificial implantation (Blackhurst 1969);

  father, specimen 7X0; egg donor LC

  Social situation: Isolated

  School: St Andrews Secondary

  Suitability: Excellent

  Health: Good

  I could barely take it in. “But I was sick… This says my health was good.”

  I handed the file to the police officer.

  How was that possible? Was Stacey right? Had we never had cancer?

  Alfie.

  I searched for his file. As I picked it out, a photograph fluttered to the floor – Alfie’s little face looked up at me.

  I read his notes:

  Name: Alfie Henley

  Origination: Isolated parents

  Age on intake: 5 years

  Project: Cryopreservation

  Outcome: Success

  Success?

  He was alive!

  So where the hell was he?

  I read down:

  Second Phase

  Project: Cell regeneration

  Outcome: Project interrupted

  What did that mean?

  I handed the file to the police officer, my voice shaking with hope and panic in equal measure. “This is my brother. He’s five years old. He has to be here somewhere. We have to find him.”

  She answered by calling on her radio: “We’ve found something of interest. Can the DI come to the apartment?”

  The officer in charge looked through the files and said, “Okay, let’s get forensics in here. Post someone on the door. Can we get a family liaison officer for the young lady, please?”

  I was whisked back to the kitchen with Batfink. A whirlwind of people came in. A youngish policewoman called Melody was introduced to me.

  “I’m here to help you, Laura. Anything you want to know, if I can tell you, I will.”

  “What’s going to happen? To Miss Lilly, to the people in the basement?”

  “Miss Lilly will be taken in for questioning. The rest, I’ll tell you as soon as I can.”

  “Can I help look for Alfie now?”

  She smiled sadly and shook her head. “Things need to be done carefully. We can move you to a hotel if that would make the waiting easier?”

  I cuddled Batfink and shook my head. I wanted to be nearby.

  “We’re going to need your phone and anything else Miss Lilly has used to communicate with you on, I’m afraid.”

  “Really?”

  “Sorry. They’ll check them ASAP and give them back. You aren’t under any suspicion.”

  As I handed them over, I remembered the photo Stacey had sent of the pods with the lights on. I showed it to Melody in case it was helpful. Someone came to take my statement. Melody stayed with me while I told them everything I knew. They took some blood from me and scraped a weird stick around my mouth.

  After they’d gone I was stuck in the kitchen with Melody. I sat at the table playing listlessly with Batfink and a feather on a string. Every now and then Melody went to the kitchen door to whisper softly to another police officer. Sometimes she came back with news.

  The paperwork in the hidden room showed that Miss Lilly had taken children from the streets and from their families under false pretences. Children who didn’t have a strong support network. The most vulnerable. I wanted them to go down to that basement and pull all the tubes and pipes out of those poor kids but Melody said they couldn’t do that until they fully understood what was being done to them in case it caused more harm than good.

  The nurses were no help. They knew they were extracting something but claimed they didn’t know exactly what or why. I found it hard to believe.

  I asked Melody if I could see Benjie but he was being held as a suspect. I could not fit the Benjie I knew – or Mariya or any of the others – with the monstrous thing that had happened below us all. But Benjie had told me my cancer had been cured. He was my doctor – he must have known I’d never been sick. My brain was in turmoil. I wanted to talk to Marsha but with no phone that wasn’t possible. Vera might have helped to make sense of the mess in my head but, you know, suspect.

  Batfink curled up on a chair and went to sleep while I paced the kitchen. Someone else came and whispered to Melody. She returned looking serious and sad and told me the photograph Stacey had sent of the cryo-pods was an old one that had been doctored to make it look more recent. There was a PAFA member undercover at the clinic but it wasn’t Stacey. It was Annie. She’d handed herself in straight away and was helping as much as she could. She had told the police Stacey had nothing to do with them since she’d come out of prison.

  For about a minute, I was furious with Stacey for lying to me. And then I realized she’d just been trying to show me something that would make me take notice.

  “There’s something else,” Melody said. “The basement search has revealed a number of rooms containing occupied and functioning pods.”

  “Is Alfie in one of them?”

  “We can’t say right now. We’re working our way through records that we hope will tell us. It’s all on paper, so it’s taking quite a long time to cross-reference everything.”

  Twenty-four hours passed while they searched every inch of the clinic. I barely slept. I put my head down on the kitchen table and dozed fitfully, my neck cricked, Batfink sprawled out next to me, purring in my face. I had no idea what time it was when I was woken by Melody muttering to someone in the doorway. I sat up, hope igniting in my chest, but she looked over and shook her head. “Nothing yet, but they found the room you were in with the screen showing your brother. They traced the source of projection. I’m so sorry, but what you saw was definitely a computer-generated image. It wasn’t real.”

  “It wasn’t Alfie?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Even though I’d suspected it wasn’t really him, it was a blow. My throat was too full of tears to speak for a moment. “What about Miss Lilly? Has she told them anything yet?”

  Another shake of the head. “So far she’s refusing to speak at all.”

  She knew where Alfie was. The fact she wouldn’t tell us sat like a rotten lump inside me. I was so angry, so hurt, but there was a strange part of me that felt a thread of connection with Miss Lilly that I didn’t understand. She had been kind to me. We’d had some really good times. It was like there were two Miss Lillys. The one I knew and the one who’d done…whatever it was she’d done.

  “What will happen to her?” I asked. As I said the words, another thought echoed in my mind: What will happen to me?

  “I can’t say for sure right now. Until we know more, she’s being held on suspicion of false imprisonment based on the information you provided about the young man you call Hedge Boy.”

  Part of me felt guilty, like I’d betrayed her, even after everything she’d done. I was overwhelmed for a moment – it was all such a mess.

  Sitting in the kitchen, just waiting, was driving me insane. I scooped Batfink into my arms and stood up. “Can I go to my room? I’m really tired.” At least it would be a different four walls to look at.

  Melody nodded and followed me upstairs.

  “I thought I wasn’t under suspicion?”

  “You’re not.”

  “Can’t you give me half an hour on my own then? Please? Maybe you could try and find out if
there’s any news on Stacey? I’d be really grateful.”

  I don’t know what she thought I was going to do. I couldn’t exactly interfere with evidence – paper-suited people were all over the apartment. One came out of my room.

  To her credit, Melody said, “Can Laura have a lie-down on her own bed?”

  “Sure. We’re done in there.”

  I closed the door behind them both. Through my window I could see what Melody called the “major incident centre” being set up – a giant white marquee on the lawn. It looked like a village fete was going on, staffed by police and scientists. All it needed was a cake stall and a coconut shy and they’d have nailed it.

  I put Batfink on my bed and lay next to her, hoping I might sleep. I was staring blankly at the ceiling when Melody knocked on my door. Instead of news of Stacey, she held out a letter from Keisha.

  Dear Laura,

  I’ve been trying to find out what’s happened but no one will tell me ANYTHING. And you NEVER ANSWER YOUR PHONE.

  I had a burst of anxiety that she’d think I’d been ignoring her until I remembered I had a cast-iron excuse: my phone and slate were still being examined by the police. I unfolded the rest of the letter, grateful that I could reply in my own good time. It felt a lot less demanding than the insistent ping of a phone.

  There’s loads of rumours going round about Miss Lilly – been a bit of a scandal really. The school relies on her money for all the scholarships so not sure what’s going to happen. I’m not blaming you, just a bit of a worry.

  Marsha’s gone, her dad must have pulled her out but I didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye and she’s not answering any calls either. I think she was okay though, no lasting damage from the tracking serum, Madam

  Hoosier said.

  Hope to see you soon,

  Keisha and Susan

  PS Susan says meditation is good if you’re feeling stressed. Try sticking your tongue out really far and opening your eyes really wide.

  What a mess. At least Marsha was okay, even if she had left the school. I put the letter down and went back to staring at the ceiling.

  Melody came back again later, this time with my phone and slate. I wasn’t sure I really wanted them.

  “They found tracking devices in them,” she said matter-of-factly, “but nothing unusual.”

  “Seriously?”

  She shrugged. “Most parents consider it their responsibility to track their kids. Be weirder if they didn’t have tracking devices. They’ve cleaned your slate up a bit. You had quite a few registered users on there. That’s not good for security, you know, Laura – especially letting your school friends register.”

  “I didn’t. None of my school friends were registered. Only Benjie, I think, and Miss Lilly.”

  “There’s definitely more than that. Not to worry, just a suggestion really.”

  I was puzzled by who else it could be. Then I remembered the time when I walked in on Marsha and my slate was awake and the time when I handed her the slate and it worked for her – could Marsha have installed herself as a user? Why would she have done that? How would she have done that?

  Melody said, “You’ll doubtless be thrilled to know that your school have sent some work over for you, but try and get some rest. It can wait.”

  She left me to it.

  I called Marsha but it went straight to a recorded message: “This number is no longer assigned to your contact.”

  I tried again. Same result. I threw the phone on my bed and woke up my slate. There was literally a ton of messages from Keisha, but absolutely nothing from Marsha. No word at all. I skimmed through Keisha’s messages. They mostly said Message me! in a gazillion different ways.

  I thought I should probably reply. I typed:

  Hey, Keisha. Have you heard from Marsha yet?

  Her reply was instant:

  OMG, you’re alive. Thank God. I was beginning to wonder. Don’t know about Marsha. She’s just gone, not answering her phone or anything. It’s crazy here, they’re saying school might have to close. About half the girls have scholarships that are paid for by Miss Lilly and she’s been arrested! You probably know that already but look at this…

  She’d attached a link to a news headline.

  I didn’t really want to read malicious reports about the wreckage of my new life. None of them would tell me where my brother was.

  I stared at her message for so long that my slate switched itself off. Batfink crawled into my lap and nudged her head against my hand. I sighed. I was probably going to see all the headlines eventually; why not do it with a cute little fur ball on my knee? I stroked her head and re-activated my computer, pinching up the link that Keisha had sent.

  FROZEN KIDS KEY TO KILLER LILLY’S CREAM

  A fistful of gnawing piranhas swam in my gut as I read:

  In a shocking twist to the fairy-tale story of real-life Sleeping Beauty Laura Henley, police have uncovered horrifying scenes in the basement of Blackhurst Clinic. Famed for its unrivalled beauty treatments, Blackhurst has many celebrity clients, including regular patients Iggy Foundling and Sasha Green, winners of this year’s Love Idle. They must be looking in the mirror this morning and wondering about the real cost of their glowing complexions.

  Unnamed sources allege that Crisp, known throughout the world as Miss Lilly, has been running a battery farm in the basements of her buildings, extracting the highly prized chemical hyaluronic acid from unwilling donors. Even more shockingly, the victims of this appalling crime are children, some as young as six years old.

  Hyaluronic acid has been synthetically reproduced for use in the beauty industry for many years but no other brand has been able to replicate the extraordinary results of Miss Lilly’s treatments. Experts are unsure why the extracted HA seems to achieve such startling results. Current theories suggest that the process of reviving the body from cryopreservation encourages the growth of super-healing cells, similar to those that are responsible for the regeneration of limbs in some reptiles.

  According to Annabelle Rush of the Institute for Paediatric Dermatology, removing the hyaluronic acid from these children is like removing lubricant from an engine. “They are likely to suffer from swollen and stiff joints, as well as premature ageing and some may even have been blinded by the process of harvesting…”

  I stopped reading. Images flashed through my mind: the children in the basement; the beautiful tiny-waisted women strolling the corridors of Blackhurst; those yellowed files in the hidden room – Phase 2: Cell regeneration. Alfie and me, all those kids in the beds, we were bears in a bile farm. I ran to the loo and was sick until my throat was sore. I slumped against the bath, exhausted. Batfink rolled around next to me, pushing her little feet against my leg.

  The woman who had been so kind to my face, so warm and loving…she was Dracula. Sucking youth out of her victims for a face cream. Destroying lives so rich people could look younger. And why wasn’t I being pumped for my super-healing cells? Why had Miss Lilly plucked me from her vampire programme? What made me special? I pictured our evenings on the sofa together, pressing our fingertips together like ET, the pamper day we’d shared. Oh God, I’d had a massage – had they used that stuff on me? I felt dirty, tainted, disgusting. I tore my clothes off and got in the shower and washed and washed until my skin was raw.

  The more I thought about her smiling, deceiving, betraying face, the more I wanted to confront her. The rotten lump inside me hardened into resolve.

  I picked up my slate and went to find Melody.

  She was in the kitchen, making coffee. “Do you want one?”

  I shook my head. “Have you seen this?”

  She read the article. “How the hell…? Someone has leaked this.”

  “You knew about it?”

  “Some. But I’ve only just been told.”

  “I want to see Miss Lilly.”

  “I don’t think that’s a very good idea.”

  “I want her to explain how she can have done w
hat she’s done. And I want her to tell me what’s happened to my brother.”

  “As far as I know, she’s refusing to speak to anyone,” Melody said – and then, as if she realized it might actually be useful, “but maybe she’ll speak to you. I’ll see what I can do.”

  That afternoon we left the grounds of Blackhurst through a throng of journalists – cameras, reporters, more cameras. I ducked down in the back of the police car. It was the same outside the prison where they were holding Miss Lilly. I was ushered in, surrounded by burly bodies as security.

  I thought Miss Lilly would have swung it so she’d have some kind of hotel suite, but we met in a small, square room that smelled of sweat and vomit. There was a metal table with one chair on her side and two on mine. A camera watched our every move, as did the stone-faced prison guard standing behind Miss Lilly.

  She was as neat and beautiful as ever, but in a grey sweatshirt and leggings, she didn’t have quite the same impact as she had on the outside. And then I realized what was actually missing – it wasn’t her clothes.

  It was her smell.

  She didn’t smell of anything; she just blended into that sweaty room.

  The guards made us sit down. Miss Lilly reached a hand out to me. “Darling girl, I’m so glad you came. I have something I must tell you…”

  Ignoring her hand I said, “Is it about Alfie?”

  She shook her head. I knew the best way to get her to talk was to stay calm and reasonable but anger and frustration bubbled up inside me and I blurted out, “How could you do it? All those children in the basement – you took their lives for a face cream?”

  “Face cream? Is that what they’re saying?” She shook her head. “We were working on more than face cream – that just helped to pay the bills, sweetheart. Don’t be too angry with me. Sometimes you have to make difficult choices; sometimes the end justifies the means.”

  “You can’t be serious? What ends could possibly justify what you did?”

  “There’s always a cost in medicine.”