by Guy Adams
'You'll think your heart is broken,' he said, rubbing the armrests of the chair he had sat in and the surface of the pine table. 'That the death of someone who was once part of you can never be weathered, that you will just sit and rot…' He bit his lower lip. Who was it he was trying to convince here, her or himself? 'But life goes on.' He stared right at her. 'You can, you will, know happiness again.'
His mobile began ringing, and there was a flicker in her eyes as it broke through the haze of the drug.
'Who are you?' she whispered, half-noticing him.
'I'm the last person you should ask that question,' he replied, pulling her eyelids gently closed with his fingers and answering the mobile. 'Hold on,' he said into the phone. 'You never saw me,' he whispered in Mrs Wilkinson's ear as she sank into sleep, moving quickly out of the house, wiping the door handles as he went.
Outside, he put the phone back to his ear. 'Hey, Gwen, sorry… Just readjusting the facts in the case of Danny Wilkinson.'
'No problem. Police reports altered and the usual news blankets in place at my end. Traffic accident, as you said.'
'Great. Thanks.'
'You may have another one on your hands, though. Huge chronon surge not a stone's throw from where we found the body, I've sent the coordinates to your PDA.'
'Great…' Jack was already climbing into the driver's seat and accessing the GPS software. 'Got it,' he said as the bookmark popped up onscreen. He dropped his mobile into his pocket and drove back towards Jackson Leaves. By now the rain was really thundering down, bouncing off the road surface and chasing leaves and litter along the gutter. He had to lean forward in his seat to see through the windscreen, even with the wipers on full speed. The police tent had been retrieved in his absence, and the excavated trench was overflowing with rainwater. God always cleans up his crime scenes.
He parked up and checked his PDA again. The surge appeared to be coming from the house almost directly opposite where Danny Wilkinson's body had been found. It hid its Edwardian heritage under layers of middle-class chic; faux-Japanese stone garden in front, Laura Ashley curtains visible through the lead-lined double-glazing. Come Christmas, Jack was in no doubt that ghastly fibre-optic threads would dangle from the guttering. Maybe a hollow-plastic Santa hiding within the shadows of the conifers, a brittle dwarf devoid of happiness or soul.
Jack pulled up the collar of his coat and clambered out of the SUV, dashing through the rain to the cover of the house's front porch. He rang the doorbell. No answer. Dropping to his haunches, he poked the letterbox open and peered through. There was little to see but a cream hallway leading through to the kitchen, where the owner was at work if the smell was anything to go by, Jack's mouth watered at the thick scent of roast meat. Pork, if he was any judge.
He rang the bell again and moved towards the lounge window, peering through the rain-splashed glass at the dark shape he could see sat in the far corner. Oh… Not pork.
He moved back to the front door but didn't bother with the bell, trying the handle just in case. The door was unlocked, so he pushed it open.
The smell of cooked meat washed over him. Now that he knew what it actually was, it made his belly groan. He pulled out his handkerchief, held it in the rain for a moment and then wrapped it around the lower part of his face so he looked like a Wild West outlaw. It didn't completely remove the smell, but it lessened it enough to walk inside without fear of throwing up. He took a few deep breaths of cool, wet air before moving into the lounge.
The body was black and pink, streaked with slicks of pearlescent body fat that caught what little light there was from the late-afternoon sun outside the window. Jack hunted through the inside pockets of his coat and pulled out a pair of latex gloves. With gritted teeth, he took hold of the woman's body and tilted it slightly in the chair. The scorch marks on the leather made it impossible to believe that the fire had started anywhere but the victim herself. Somehow she had burned while the rest of the room had remained untouched. Her skin crumbled and flaked under his fingers as he let her rock back to where she had been sitting. Looking around, he could see no other sign of damage; the ceiling bore a black mark where the smoke from her burning candle of a body had stained the paint, but that was all.
Suddenly the corpse flared again, knocking him on his back as he threw himself away from the blaze. The flames roared around the woman's body, small embers glowing inside her like the pulsing light of a firefly.
Then, as instantly as it had reignited, it vanished, the flames disappearing to leave just the smouldering cadaver.
Jack's mobile rang again. He snatched it out of his pocket and answered. 'Let me guess,' he said straight away. 'Another surge?'
'Yes,' said Ianto. 'Same location as before but very brief. How did you know?'
'I was looking at it.' He got to his feet, keeping his distance from the body. 'I have a cremated corpse sat in front of me. Nothing's damaged but the chair it was sitting in.'
'Freaky.'
'Oh yeah… I'll bring the body in, but I want you to paper over the cracks for me.'
'No problem, bringing up the details now… The house belongs to Trevor Banks, he was a banker…'
'Deceased is a woman.'
'Most likely his wife then, Gloria. We'll confirm that when we have the body. I'll see if I can trace Mr Banks before he gets in your way.'
Through the window, Jack watched a BMW pull into the drive.
'Too late, he's here. Back soon.' Jack cut off the call and reached into his pocket for the Retcon. What an afternoon this was turning out to be…
SIX
'It's warm,' Rob said, tugging off his paint-stained hoodie and tossing it into a corner of the room.
Julia wasn't listening. She was staring out of the bedroom window, watching the man she'd talked to earlier — the American in the big black car — run down next door's drive.
'What's he want now?' she wondered aloud. She hadn't expected an answer but Rob gave her one anyway.
'Who?' he asked, moving over to the window. Jack had vanished from sight.
'Nobody,' Julia answered, slightly embarrassed for speaking her thoughts aloud. 'Just some bloke that's been hanging around.'
'Hanging around?' Rob peered through the window, but there was nothing to see. 'He'll be hung from a lamp post if the Neighbourhood Watch catch him.' Turning to his wife he noticed her flinch slightly. 'What's up?'
She shook her head. 'Nothing.'
He wasn't so easily dissuaded. 'Yes there is. You've been funny all day. What is it?'
'Honestly, it's nothing. I didn't sleep well, that's all.'
Rob scratched at his stubble. She watched his dirty nails brush at the iron filings of his beard, wondering how many times she had seen him do it. It was an unconscious habit, like sticking the tip of his tongue out when he was concentrating or drumming his fingers on the arm of the sofa while they watched telly. She loved him, she really did, but she wished he'd shut up.
'Is it this place?' he asked.
'Who likes moving?' she replied, only too aware that she hadn't answered the question.
'Certainly not me,' said Steve from the doorway, 'and it's not even my bloody house.' He gave Rob a pointed look. 'Wardrobe ain't going to carry itself, is it?'
'Sorry, mate, right with you.' Rob gave Julia a pleading look, making sure she knew he wasn't satisfied with her lack of answer, and followed his friend downstairs.
Julia listened to their feet stomp along the creaking stairs, heard Steve make some dismissive comment and Rob bluster defensively. She would never understand what Rob saw in Steve. They had known each other since school and sometimes gave the impression they were still there, the bully and his flunky. It angered her. Rob wasn't weak, but Steve tried to make him so. He was that type of person, a man who grew tall by knocking down others. A hateful man.
The anger felt good, solid and constructive, directed at a physical object. Rather than an indefinable mood, it was a relief to feel something so honest. R
ather than swallow it — and scold herself for being so hostile — she relished it.
She left the room as she heard them begin to climb back up the stairs with the flat-pack wardrobe. She had the sudden feeling that they would be able to tell what she had been thinking if they saw her. Her belly churned as her aggression became panic. She struggled to control her breathing. The sound of them walking upstairs was terrifying as she convinced herself that she would be in awful danger if they saw her.
She ran quietly into the spare bedroom, pulled open the chipped-formica doors of the built-in wardrobe and climbed inside. She sat down in the corner, breathing in the old, stale scent of a dead woman's clothes, mothballs and dust, and listening to the sound of her frantic heart pumping in her ears.
What was wrong with her? She felt as if every emotion she had was out of control. Scared, angry, confused… Was she having some kind of breakdown? The last time she'd felt like this was… well, there was no need to go there, that was months ago… and Rob had promised it would never happen again, that it had been a one-off mistake… Yes, thinking about that was only going to make things worse…
She tried to hear what Rob and Steve were doing. She could hear their voices but not their words. Were they talking about her? No, of course not. Why would they?
She could hear a dripping noise, a leaking tap making steel-drum percussion against the surface of an old bathtub. It sounded like it was coming from just outside the wardrobe. It must have been a trick of the acoustics, the noise bouncing off the old walls.
She became aware of the partly open door and felt another almost uncontrollable surge of panic, as if the slim crack of light alone were worthy of a scream. She forced herself to reach out and pull it closed — carefully — if her fingers poked out too far, who knew what might spot them and snap them off out of spite? When the door swung closed and she was wrapped in complete darkness, she brought her knees up to her chest and began inhaling slowly and deeply, trying to get her panic under control but not alert anything to her location by the noise of her breathing. She exhaled, and this was the hard part, opening her mouth wide and letting the air out as quietly as she could. She did this several times, picturing her pounding heart in the darkness and willing it to slow down. The sickness in her belly began to simmer and her jaw loosen. She pressed her back against the wall and imagined being able to turn to liquid, to just run into the cracks and the gaps between the floorboards, to escape… to be nothing.
The sound of dripping water persisted.
SEVEN
'So, how did you get out?' Jack asked, pushing Alexander across Roald Dahl Plass. He caught a whiff of the burned woman from the lapels of his coat and was tempted to step out of the cover of the large umbrella and let the rain soak it off him. The SUV had needed fumigating by the time he'd got back to the Hub, the smell of Gloria Banks clinging to the upholstery like a takeaway. Today was not working out so well, and he wasn't sure that spending time with Alexander was likely to improve matters.
'I've been working on a homemade batch of perception-adjustment drugs for the last few weeks,' the old man replied, looking up at Jack with something approaching embarrassment. 'The nights are long and boring. After a while, you'll do anything to fill them.'
Jack steered the wheelchair towards the water tower.
'Should I be worried?'
'It's nothing major, just a basic distortion agent.' Alexander shifted in his seat. 'I dosed Pip Jarret's cocoa. He's currently waging war against the TV room furniture in the mistaken belief that it's a giant species of ant hell-bent on colonising South Wales. He provided quite the distraction.'
Jack centred the chair on the paving slab that marked the entrance to the Hub. 'Where did you get the chemicals to knock something like that up?'
'I brought some supplies with me.' Alexander held his hand up before Jack could interrupt. 'Nothing you need worry about. Besides, you can find most things naturally if you know what you're doing.'
'If I hear of colostomy bag explosives being sold on the open market, I'll know whose door to knock on.'
Jack tapped a button on his wrist-strap, and there was a jolt from beneath them. 'Wheelchair access,' he smiled as they vanished from Roald Dahl Plass and descended into the Hub.
Alexander was determined not to appear impressed as he tried to get his head around the layout of the place. He noted the presence of a hydroponics room and a large office, and several other rooms that he couldn't place at that distance. There was an ear-splitting screech from his left.
'Oh,' he sighed. 'You have a pterodactyl. How quaint.'
Jack laughed and the lift came to a jerky halt at the base of the tower. He shifted the wheelchair onto the metal gantry and pushed Alexander towards the Autopsy Room.
Ianto got up from his desk and headed towards them. 'Pteranodon, actually,' he said, frowning. 'Ianto Jones. You must be Alexander.'
'Yes, I must, mustn't I?' Alexander shook Ianto's hand and rolled his eyes as he spotted the look that passed between the young man and Jack. 'Tell him if he's going to roger you, the least he could do is get you an office of your own.' He waved at Ianto's workstation. 'Look at him, sat there in the middle of the entrance hall.' He looked up at Jack. 'Bet you've got your own office.'
'Well…'
'Thought as much. Bet you don't use it for much more than looking at porn and listening to Glenn Miller, either.'
Jack gave Ianto a look that begged for help and wheeled Alexander towards the Autopsy Room. They came to a halt at the top of the curved flight of metal steps, and Alexander sighed, looking at the route down.
'Didn't think that through, did you?'
Gwen stepped through the main Hub gate with a stack of pizzas in her hands. She watched as Ianto and Jack carried the old, swearing man and his wheelchair into the Autopsy Room.
'Hello,' she said once they had reached the bottom of the steps. 'Would this be the temporary medical help, by any chance?'
'Very temporary!' Alexander shouted. 'I've resigned twice since these Neanderthals started manhandling me. A man of my qualifications gets used to being treated with a certain amount of respect!'
'Oh, shut up, you miserable old git,' Jack said with a chuckle. 'If I'd known I was employing Old Man Steptoe, I'd have thought twice.'
Ianto wheeled Alexander over to the examination table which Jack was lowering to a more practical working height.
'Thank you, young man.' Alexander gave Ianto a smile and a half-wave towards Gwen. 'Nice to meet you, probably.'
'Gwen Cooper,' she replied, 'and I'm afraid there's nothing nice about what you're going to see under there.' She pointed at the table.
'I've seen things you wouldn't believe, my dear,' Alexander replied. 'Walked knee-deep in the meat of alien battlefields. Worked the front line of a war fought by species advanced enough to liquidise an enemy at the flick of a switch.' He looked up at Gwen. 'Have you any idea how disconcerting it is when your patients arrive in the form of broth?' He tugged the sheet free, leaving it to fall to the ground, where Ianto was quick to tidy it away. 'Though I must admit,' Alexander continued, looking at Danny Wilkinson's body, 'this is certainly bizarre.'
He began to wheel himself around the table. 'All external signs of violence — the shattered mouth, the chafing where the skin has torn against the tarmac in his efforts to free himself — would seem to make it clear that death was due to either shock or suffocation.'
'Suffocation?' Ianto asked.
'You try breathing a pavement and see how far your lungs get.' He checked the boy's mouth. 'Given the angle of his neck and throat and the fact that he obviously took some time to die, I'm assuming the pavement somehow infiltrated his mouth but not the rest of him.' He looked at Jack. 'If the pavement had appeared inside the rest of his body, he would have died instantly. This leads us to the conclusion that it must have been the pavement that lost physical cohesion and not the boy.'
'Oh yeah,' muttered Ianto, placing the carefully folded sheet away in a
drawer. 'It'll be that old liquid pavement problem again. The council were looking into it, I believe…'
Alexander chuckled and nodded his head towards Ianto. 'I like him. He definitely deserves his own office.'
'Is there a list?' Gwen said. 'Somewhere I can put my name down? I'd like a pot plant, too, if the budget will stretch.'
'Ooh…' Ianto smiled. 'There's a Venus Flytrap in the containment chamber you can have. Saves me having to feed it.'
Jack looked at Gwen. 'Careful, it eats thirty kilos of fresh meat a day. We found it in the Brecons after following up reports on missing hikers.'
'It just loves Kendall Mint Cake.' said Ianto.
'God save me from your world,' Alexander muttered, running his fingers along the surface of the tarmac. 'I'm going to need access to your chemical stores and maybe that greenhouse upstairs.'
'Sure,' Jack replied. 'What are you after?'
'I want to mix something up that will dissolve all this tarmac and leave the body intact. You might want to take a sample first. Run some broad-range scans.'
Ianto held up a finger, walked to a drawer, pulled a lump hammer out and struck the edge of the tarmac with enough force to chip a piece off.
Gwen stared at the mallet. 'Don't you ever ask to tap my knee with that.'
Ianto smiled. 'Good for tenderising plant food.'
'And in box number two…' Jack said, yanking open one of the large drawers to reveal the body of Gloria Banks.
'Burn victim?' Alexander shrugged. 'What's the connection?'
'The location. They were found only metres and hours apart,' Jack replied. 'Also a large chronon surge at the time and location of death in both cases.'
'I'm a physician and chemist, not a physicist,' Alexander noted, 'so it's not really my field. However,' he smiled, 'I'm also excruciatingly clever and in love with the sound of my own voice, so I'll comment anyway. Chronon particles aren't proactive enough to do damage themselves, even in extraordinarily high doses. They are a symptom not a cause.'