Slow Decay t-3

by Andy Lane

  ‘Marianne.’ Her voice was coated with a patina of pain and worry. ‘Marianne Till.’

  ‘OK, Marianne, how are you feeling?’

  ‘Hungry.’

  ‘When did you last eat?’

  ‘I’m always eating. I can’t get enough food to stop the hunger.’

  ‘What have you eaten this evening?’

  ‘Chinese takeaway. Pizza. Some sandwiches I found in a bin.’ She hesitated. ‘A pigeon. Someone’s dog. I tried to eat this guy who bought me a drink in a bar, but he ran away. There was blood on his face, and he was screaming. And… and I ate a kebab.’

  ‘A kebab,’ Owen muttered. ‘That’s just sick.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Marianne. My name is Jack, this is Gwen, and that’s Toshiko and Owen. We’re going to be your friends, and we’re going to try and help you get over this.’ Without turning his head, or taking his gaze away from the girl, he said to Gwen, ‘Call Ianto. He’s parked just around the corner. Get him to drive over here as quickly as he can. We have to get Marianne back to the Hub.’

  Gwen stepped to one side and brought her mobile up to her mouth. While she was talking, Toshiko just stared at the creature. At the girl. At Marianne.

  ‘She’s so young,’ Toshiko said. ‘And so thin! How can she be that thin when she eats that much?’

  Owen shrugged. ‘Fast metabolism?’ he said. He reached out towards her face.

  For a moment Toshiko thought he was going to stroke her hair, but instead he reached around and felt the back of her head. ‘Bleeding’s stopped. You need to get that washed when you get back. I’ll give you some cream.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  With a quiet rumble of tyres, the SUV pulled up beside them. Its black surface reflected the warehouses, the cranes, the wharf, defining the car’s presence only by the way it distorted its surroundings. The driver’s door opened and Ianto stepped out, leaving the engine purring. As usual, he was dressed in a three-piece suit and tie. His shirt was double-cuffed, secured by cufflinks. He even wore a tie pin. Sometimes Toshiko thought that he wasn’t quite real.

  ‘I hope I’m not too late,’ he said calmly.

  ‘Ianto, you’re never too late and you’re never too early.’ Jack stood up and looked around. ‘That’s why we love you. Now, everyone, we need to get this young lady back to the Hub and find out what’s wrong with her. And just in case the various anaesthetics that Owen’s injected her with start wearing off, I recommend that we immobilise her. Ianto, did you bring the cuffs?’

  ‘I assumed you might be needing them.’ He brought his hand up to show that he was already carrying the thin metal tapes that could be wound around a captive’s wrists or ankles and, when pressed together, would meld into an unbreakable loop — unbreakable, that was, until they were irradiated with low-level microwaves, in which case they would revert back to their ribbon-like state. Toshiko had spent many months trying to determine how they functioned, without success.

  Ianto passed the tapes to Gwen, who bent down and pinioned Marianne’s ankles, and then her wrists. Ianto and Owen then picked Marianne up and placed her carefully into the back of the SUV.

  ‘I hope we’re not stopped by the police on the way back to the Hub,’ Ianto said. ‘Explaining why we’ve got a young girl tied up in the back could be tricky.’

  Jack smiled. ‘We’ll let Owen talk us out of it. I’m sure he’s had lots of practice.’

  They all climbed into the SUV and drove back through darkened city streets to the Hub. Ianto used a device fixed to the dashboard that automatically set the traffic lights to green as they approached.

  The trip was quick, but Toshiko found herself drifting into a reverie as they drove. The lights of the city elongated into ribbons of light that wound around each other in a psychedelic skein. She felt hypnotised. Anaesthetised, like Marianne. Part of her knew it was the shock of the attack and the after-effects, as her body reacted and then recovered, but the rest of her just wanted to curl up and let unconsciousness take her away. Let the darkness win, just for a while.

  She woke as they were arriving in the Hub via the hidden vehicular entrance in the basement of the Bute Place car park. As she climbed from the car, Ianto went to fetch a trolley. Together they all manhandled Marianne onto the trolley and rolled her through the Torchwood tunnels towards the area of sealed cells where occasional guests were kept.

  Still rubbing her eyes, Toshiko watched as Ianto and Jack carried Marianne into the cell, and Jack removed the metal tapes from her arms and legs while Gwen covered him with her automatic. Together they all backed out of the cell, shutting and sealing the entrance behind them.

  At which point, Owen asked the question that had apparently been in everyone’s minds. ‘So — what do we do with her now?’

  Jack grimaced. ‘We need to work out what’s happened to her. I don’t know whether it’s physical or psychological, but she’s somehow developed this ravenous hunger that nothing can satisfy. Owen — we need to find some way of getting some blood from her that you can run tests on. Might be best to do it quickly, before the horse tranquillisers wear off. Make sure Ianto covers you. Check for anything that might explain her actions. Gwen — I need you to work on her identity. She said her name was Marianne Till. See if she’s local, and if anyone’s reported her missing. She also mentioned biting a man in a bar; see if that’s been reported as a crime. I want to track her progress across the city. I want to track it back and find out where she started from. Tosh — I need you to work on non-invasive sensors that can give us a picture of what’s going on inside her. Microwave, ultrasound, magnetic resonance imaging, X-ray… anything you can get to work at a range of six feet through an aluminium screen. I know it’s a tall order, but we can’t afford to keep sending people in there to conduct tests. They’ll pretty soon become lunch. Which reminds me. Ianto — get on the phone to Jubilee Pizzas. We’ll need a whole load of stuff. Just get them to load the pizzas up with whatever they have and keep them coming. Tell them we’re having a party.’

  Owen, Ianto, Gwen and Toshiko turned to leave. Jack remained, staring at the girl. As Toshiko walked away, she heard him say: ‘Stay with us, Marianne. We’ll get you through this.’

  The last cell in the row was the one that contained their long-term Weevil guest. As Toshiko’s gaze scanned across it her heart missed a beat. For a moment the cell looked empty, and she panicked, thinking the Weevil had escaped. Then she looked closer, and relaxed. The Weevil was still there, slumped against the wall.

  The momentary relaxation was replaced by a deeper concern.

  The Weevil was right up against the wall furthest from Marianne’s cell, and its head was turned away. It seemed to be pressing itself into the brickwork. Toshiko had never seen it react like that before. It was scared. It was terrified.

  What exactly had they brought into the Hub?

  TEN

  Morning arrived slowly, a tide of amber light washing up a beach. Rhys awoke in gradual stages, moving from deep sleep to wakefulness over nearly an hour, slipping backwards into dreams every now and then, but eventually managing to claw his way to consciousness, open his eyes and turn over to face the ceiling.

  Morning and wakefulness were bleaching his dreams away. He tried to hold on to them, but all he got was shreds of emotion and tattered images. There was something about him being pregnant, he recalled: stumbling around the flat, huge and graceless, knocking things off shelves. That was a weird one. Even in his half-awake state he realised that he’d better not tell Gwen; the subject of kids had been avoided so far, and he wanted to keep it that way. And there were fragments of a story about a beanstalk or a vine that was growing faster than he could climb it, although he had a feeling that there was something disturbing at the top of the beanstalk that he didn’t want to see. Maybe it was a giant. God alone knew what that dream was about. Gwen would probably tell him that it meant he felt he was committed to a path that he wasn’t sure about. As far as he was concerned it meant he’d eaten
too much cheese the night before.

  The thought of cheese and the night before suddenly triggered a string of memories that he’d half-hidden from his conscious mind while he’d been asleep. Rhys winced, remembering that after Gwen had gone out he and Lucy had eaten dinner, then dessert, then had cheese on toast as a snack while they were watching Newsnight. And they’d put away two bottles of wine. God, and he was meant to be losing weight as well! The trouble was that he just felt so hungry all the time. Lucy wasn’t helping; she could shovel the food away as fast as he could. And the tragic thing was that she stayed as thin as a giraffe.

  Cautiously, Rhys let his hands slide down his chest to his stomach, expecting to find it distended with food. To his great relief, and surprise, it was flatter than he remembered it being since he’d left college. There was even a trace of muscle development beneath the fat. He let his hands rest there while a smile crept across his face. Whatever that pill from the Scotus Clinic had been, it looked like it might be working. Three cheers for Amazonian orchids!

  Someone stirred in the bed beside him. Rhys turned his head, hands still resting possessively on his stomach. All he could see was a hump of duvet. No head on the pillow. No hair spilling out from the bedclothes. Panic suddenly swept over him. Gwen had left on police business before he had gone to bed, and he didn’t remember her coming back. Please God, don’t let it be Lucy in bed with him! Lovely though she was, and much as a primitive and unrepentant part of him wanted to shag her senseless, this was neither the time nor the place. Not in his and Gwen’s bed, for Christ’s sake! Not as things were sorting themselves out between them! Surely he couldn’t have got that drunk?

  Tentatively, he reached out beneath the duvet and found a hip. Judging by the way his fingers fitted into its curves, its owner was facing away from him. Gently he stroked it.

  The warmth felt like Gwen, and the shape felt like Gwen, but it had been long enough since he’d been in bed with someone else that he couldn’t quite remember whether girls all felt different in bed or if they all felt the same. He wanted to pull whoever it was towards him, turning them over so he could see their face, but if it was Lucy then he really didn’t want to know. It would lead to all kinds of trouble.

  He stroked the hip again. From nowhere, a smaller hand closed over his fingers.

  ‘Tired,’ said a sleepy voice. ‘Got in late. Got to sleep.’

  Relief sluiced through him like a waterfall. It was Gwen! Thank Christ, it was Gwen. That meant Lucy must be on the couch. And it was a Saturday as well, and he didn’t have to get up and go to work. God was in his heaven and all was well with the world.

  He slipped out from between the duvet and the sheet, trying not to disturb Gwen, and pulled his ratty old dressing gown on. It wasn’t the kind of thing he wanted Lucy to see him in, but he wasn’t going to pull his usual trick and wander around the flat naked while she was staying. That would have been disastrous. Cautiously, he pulled the door open a crack and peered out.

  The living room was dark, but a thin sliver of light slicing through the gap between the curtains illuminated the sofa. Their spare duvet had been placed on the sofa so that one half of it covered the cushions and the other half curled up and over Lucy’s recumbent body. A tousled mass of black hair and a fragment of pale forehead were all he could see of her. She had still been suffering from shock, the previous night; still reliving the bizarre attempt to abduct her. That primitive and unrepentant part of him wondered what she looked like under there; was she wearing panties and a T-shirt, or was she naked? Now that she’d lost so much weight, what did her body look like with no clothes on? What were the chances that she might turn over and snuggle into the duvet, revealing her naked back and her arse? Were her breasts really that phenomenal, close up?

  He quickly changed mental channels. Creeping past the sofa he made it into the kitchen area of the flat, sorted out two mugs, then rinsed the metal percolator jug out, retrieved the ground coffee from the freezer, where Gwen insisted they stored it, and put three spoonfuls into the hopper on the machine. Genuine Cinchona Coffee, it said on the packet. Rhys hadn’t got a clue whether that was meant to indicate quality or not, but it certainly tasted strong and rich. The coffee gradually dripped its way into the jug, releasing a gorgeous smell, dark and complex, pungent and spiky. He felt himself becoming more awake just breathing it in.

  He poured a cup for himself and another for Lucy, adding milk from a carton in the fridge and being careful that the bottles of wine in the fridge door — depleted after last night — didn’t clink when he shut it. Gwen sounded as if she needed to sleep; he could always warm a cup up in the microwave for her later on. She must have arrived back some time around sunrise, although that was becoming more and more the case these days. Whatever Torchwood was, it was consuming her. Obsessing her. She’d never worked this hard before, not in any of her police jobs.

  Or perhaps it wasn’t the job. Perhaps it was this mysterious boss of hers. Jack. That was the name she’d mentioned from time to time. Perhaps he had some kind of hold over her.

  Rhys carried Lucy’s cup of coffee into the living area. Bending down, he placed it on the coffee table close enough that she could reach out and get it but far enough away that she couldn’t accidentally knock it over. From where he was, he could see her clothes folded in a neat pile on the floor. Jeans. Blouse. Black lace bra, catch at the front, underwired. Rhys was no judge of size, but the sight made him feel breathless and warm. And there were a pair of trainers, sat demurely beside the clothes. Rhys had always thought of trainers as being big, clumsy things, but these were small, with pink and silver flashing. There was something so innocent, so girlish about them that he felt his breath catch in his throat. He’d never noticed Lucy wearing them before. He’d not noticed a lot about Lucy.

  ‘Morning,’ said a voice. He glanced up, startled, embarrassed. Lucy’s face was about two feet away from him. She’d lifted herself up from the sofa slightly, shifting the duvet so that it fell away from her body from shoulder to thigh. The deep shadows made her body more erotic, more mysterious. He felt his heart skip a beat.

  ‘Coffee’s here,’ he said, his voice cracking. ‘I’ll do breakfast.’

  ‘I’m starving,’ she said.

  ‘What do you want to eat?’

  She smiled, sleepily and suggestively. ‘You?’

  ‘Or bacon,’ Rhys said quickly. ‘Bacon and eggs do you?’

  Lucy pouted, gazing up at Rhys from beneath heavy lashes. ‘If that’s all there is on the menu.’ She tugged the duvet around her, sitting upright with that sudden switch from sensuality to practicality that, Rhys had noticed, only women could manage. ‘And can I have lots of it? With toast?’

  Rhys was about to straighten up when he noticed a dish on the side table that hadn’t been there the night before. Sticky traces around the edge indicated ice cream. A sudden pain ran through his stomach, as if someone had grabbed hold and twisted. Ice cream. Sweet and cool, melting in his mouth and trickling down his throat.

  Lucy noticed his fixed gaze, and misinterpreted what he was thinking. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I woke up during the night and felt like I needed a snack. I hope you don’t mind…’

  ‘That’s OK,’ he said. ‘I was just wondering whether ice cream counted as breakfast.’

  ‘Actually…’ Lucy played with the edge of the duvet. ‘I think I might have finished it.’

  ‘No problem — I can always pop down the supermarket and get some more.’

  ‘It’s a good thing you didn’t need to go to the loo or something while I was getting the ice cream,’ she said, smiling at Rhys. ‘I completely forgot where I was, so I ended up stark naked by the freezer, scooping ice cream out of the tub.’

  The mental picture of Lucy, her beautiful body illuminated by the light from the freezer door, licking ice cream from her lips hit Rhys’s mind. ‘I’ll… just get that toast on,’ he breathed.

  ‘What’s the plan for today?’ he called from the kitch
en area as he slotted toast into the toaster.

  ‘I guess I could try calling the police again, see if there’s any news.’

  ‘OK. Gwen said she’d make a couple of calls herself, see if any of her friends know anything.’

  ‘Good for Gwen.’ Lucy shook her head, black hair spilling across her bare shoulders. ‘Sorry, that sounded bitchy. You’ve both been so good to me. I can’t stay here forever, I know that, but I don’t want to go back to my place just in case someone’s there waiting for me. I guess I could look for another flat. I’ll have to do it some time, anyway, just to get away from Ricky’

  ‘If you want a hand, I’ll come with you,’ Rhys offered.

  ‘I’d appreciate that.’

  The toaster chunked as the wire basket shot up. The smell of hot toast filled the kitchen.

  Lucy’s head snapped round. ‘Actually,’ she said with fake casualness, ‘rather than let the toast get cold, I could just eat it now, while you’re doing the bacon and eggs…’

  *

  Jack had called a council of war in the Hub.

  ‘Exciting night, last night,’ he said. ‘Apparently Everton won against Liverpool — a giant-killing performance which puts them solidly on course for the Premiership. And, in the small print on page eight, I see we caught ourselves a little puzzle. Well done, by the way. I hope everyone is feeling refreshed and recovered after a good night’s sleep.’

  ‘What was left of it,’ Gwen muttered. She was feeling woozy after having driven home through empty streets — which was fortunate, as she twice found herself driving along the white line in the centre of the road — and then having stumbled into bed past a recumbent and snoring Lucy, snuggled up on the sofa. And thank God she was on the sofa, and not in Gwen’s bed.

  ‘Toshiko,’ Jack continued as if nobody had spoken, ‘how’s the head?’

  ‘It’s feeling fine, thank you,’ Toshiko said. ‘Owen stitched me up last night.’

  ‘Stitched the wound up, I hope. Although I wouldn’t put anything past him.’ Jack turned to where Owen was glowering, off to one side. ‘Owen: what did we learn from the lady’s blood sample?’