I lay back, closed my eyes again, and tried to relax, but my heart was thumping. When I started grinding my teeth, I gave up, washed up, and got out.
The window frames in the living room were as warped as the one in the bathroom, so even though the heating was up to maximum, I put my pyjamas on, covered them with a dressing gown, and then dragged my duvet to the living room, where I sat cross-legged in front of the TV with the duvet over my head with just my nose and eyes peeping out.
They’d drummed up some talking head on one of the twenty-four hour news channels, a professor from somewhere or other, whose necroambulist knowledge tended to the panic-ridden, which was probably the reason he was on. The interview was interrupted every few minutes by a public information broadcast advising Londoners that the city was in a state of emergency and everyone was required to stay home until further notice. I pressed the mute button, pulled my mobile from the dressing-gown pocket, and pulled up Obe’s number. He would be home and, I hoped, freshly laundered. I ran through scenarios in my head.
Hey, Obe, just sent your oldest friend to the pit.
Hey, Obe, got good news and bad news. Didn’t find Ben, but I did find...
Hey, Obe...
I put the phone back in my pocket like the coward I was. I stared at the TV for hours, but the headlines didn’t change. I fell asleep with bright yellow letters imprinted on my eyeballs: Lockdown.
Slimy bodies shuffled through my dreams, bumping and snuffling in the dark.
17
I was woken by someone banging on the door. Stanley swore from somewhere upstairs. I shuffled, muffle-headed, to the door, my brain still streaming dreams of the dead.
The banging didn’t stop until I drew back the lock and opened the door a crack to see Little’s puffy face. He wore the same suit he’d had on earlier, but it had become a little rumpled. ‘Constable Taxi Cab at your service. Don’t you ever answer your phone?’
My mobile was a weight in my dressing gown pocket. I pulled it out to see it was ten past three. I had eight missed calls, and I remembered I’d put it onto silent.
If they’d found Malcolm, they didn’t need me. Unless they’d also found Ben, and he was also dead. The wrong kind of dead.
‘Have you found them?’
‘Just Brannick. The boy’s still missing. Slender can’t make his mind up whether to lift the lockdown, and he’s too damn cheap to stump for a mini cab for you.’
‘What do you want me for?’
The cat shook his head. ‘Zombie wants to talk to you.’
‘Malcolm? Why?’
‘You’d have to ask him. He won’t say a word to us. And he’s not got long left before he goes bonkers. Dunne wants a confession out of him before he loses it.’
‘Give me a minute. Wait here.’
‘It better be a quick minute.’
When I turned, he followed me in uninvited. He wrinkled his nose. ‘Something really pongs in here.’
‘That would be my mother. You know, death hag. You’re welcome to wait outside.’
‘You still live with your mum? Nice.’ He glanced around at the mess on the floor, ‘Guess neither of you is the tidy type.’
‘Wait here. I won’t be long.’
I headed to my bedroom, dressed quickly in jeans and a black jumper, then checked the contents of my backpack and added spare clothing.
I went downstairs to find Little standing in the hall looking into my sister’s bedroom. I’d left the door closed. Sigrid lay on her back, her hands reaching down towards an area by her waist and up to her mouth in repetitive movements. There’s nothing quite like having to watch someone desperately eat an imaginary sandwich to make you want to give them a real one. I’d have to feed her before I left.
‘What’s wrong with her?’
‘Brain damage.’ I squeezed past him into the room.
‘Liar. Brain damage doesn’t smell like anything, but she’s got a definite whiff of something weird. Dunno what though. Also smells like she’s had an accident.’
I pulled back the bed clothes and checked. He was right. The problem with adult nappies is that firstly they are really expensive, and secondly, they aren’t as effective as they could be. It had leaked.
I began to strip the bedding, including the washable underpad, and dumped it in a plastic tub I kept there for the purpose.
‘Can’t you get your mum to do it? Or’—he sniffed the air—‘the old guy upstairs? You said you’d be a minute.’
Explaining why my mother and Stanley couldn’t help would take longer than just doing it. ‘If you’re not going to wait where I asked you to, you can help. There’s a wheelchair in the kitchen. Bring it through will you?’
Little disappeared out the door, not so much willing to help as not wanting to get involved in the clean-up process.
He wheeled it in through the door the moment I finished pulling a fresh shirt over Sigrid’s head, and at my request helped me wrangle her into the chair. I’d done it alone a thousand times, but she was heavy, and the extra pair of hands made it that much easier.
I wheeled her into the kitchen and asked Little to feed her cereal while I sent Lorraine next door a text message asking her to check in on Stan and Sigrid in the morning.
Finally I locked the door behind me while Little unlocked the car. It had sat cooling while we’d been inside, but the heat was still stifling.
Little buckled his seat belt. ‘Seriously? That’s your life? Dying and cleaning up someone else’s shit?’
‘Pretty much,’ I said, even though it wasn’t. Maybe a big part, but not all. It was also none of his business.
‘And you’re single? No husband or boyfriend?’
‘Hah! I have enough people to look after.’
Little gave me a look I didn’t know how to interpret. ‘I don’t think that’s the way it works. No wonder you’re so ratty.’
‘So, how come you joined the police?’
Little grinned but let the clumsy attempt to change the subject pass. ‘Mostly to annoy my father. As you do. You know.’
I thought of the decomposing woman in the attic. ‘That I do.’
‘It was a decent package. Pension and all. And a car, although I didn’t expect so many rules on when I can use it. You should think about it. You can’t earn much at the Lipscombe. And they’re trying to attract minorities. They like us. We tick boxes.’
‘Hmm.’ Dunne had said as much to me, but I wasn’t interested. I didn’t earn much, but I loved my job and I owed the Lipscombe. I wouldn’t have any job at all if it weren’t for them. Even the thought of extra cash for the escape fund wasn’t tempting enough for me to leave them.
Little had learnt his lesson regarding the blue light, and the wet tarmac flashed azure at intervals as the light revolved. The army trucks had disappeared, but there was still hardly any traffic.
Little glanced at me. ‘You know where we found him?’
So Dunne hadn’t passed on the source of his information. I shook my head.
‘Putney Vale Cemetery. Right in the crematorium.’
My heart skipped a beat. ‘What?’ I whispered.
‘The crematorium. Poor sap. Looks like he was trying to do the honourable thing. Slender pulled him from the coffin himself.’
‘Was he...’
‘Still conscious. Not burned though. Must have just gone in.’
‘Oh my God.’
Little grinned. ‘I know. I do feel sorry for the bloke in charge of the furnace though. We’ve got him down the station. He keeps making excuses, but he’s got no chance. You’re not allowed to burn people who are still capable of screaming, no matter how nicely they ask.’ He glanced over at me. ‘Hey, are you all right? Your heart is racing.’
It was. It felt like it was going to burst out of a chest suddenly too tight.
‘I knew him,’ I muttered. ‘The thought of him burning alive is just a bit much.’
Someone less self-absorbed than the cat might have picked up on
the lie, but Little just made what he probably thought was a sympathetic noise and mercifully fell silent.
I laid my head against the headrest and took a deep breath. It had never occurred to me Malcolm might try to do the right thing.
18
Not long after I started working for the Lipscombe, a client told me a story about a job he did laying new water pipes in St Bartholomew’s Square, just outside the hospital. About four feet down, he encountered something odd—a layer of solid ash about eight inches thick.
‘It stunk so bad, I couldn’t keep working, but it didn’t bother none of the humans. You know what it was?’
I shook my head. He was an ogre and I thought he looked pleased at my ignorance, but I was enough of a newbie that I couldn’t tell.
‘Zombie ash. It’s where they used to burn the rotters. Thousands of ‘em. Sometimes all bound up together all snappin’ and bitin’ at each other. Or sometimes just pleadin’ to be let go.’
I’d looked into it afterwards, not quite sure he wasn’t just ragging the new girl. He wasn’t. For hundreds of years, zombies were burnt there in their thousands: gagged and bound to the stake, sometimes up to thirty or forty together. They were burnt until their bones were ash, every last shred of flesh devoured by the flames.
And that was just the ones caught by the authorities. Britain has a long tradition of barricading the dead in their homes and setting fire to them—a neat method that avoids actually having to touch the dead, and an efficient one, assuming you stop the fire spreading. And, of course, assuming you are quite sure that the person you are burning is actually dead.
The Metanatural Rights Act that legally recognised non-humans as people was finally implemented in 1964, and the Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act of 1965 abolished the death penalty.
It was only noticed afterwards that the two combined meant Britain wasn’t allowed to burn zombies anymore.
There were a few court challenges, mostly funded by the families of the walking dead, but none stood up on appeal. The only thing that would have legally allowed zombie burning again was another Act of Parliament, and since being nice to zombies was never going to be a vote winner, I wasn’t expecting common sense to prevail any time soon.
So somehow in the enlightened twenty-first century, we had reached the point in zombie management where going back to burning people at the stake seemed like a more civilised option. I’d heard rumours that crematoriums accepted the occasional altruistic zombie as customers, but I’d thought it was just that: rumours. Whether it was or not, it looked like that’s what Malcolm had tried to opt for. And I’d put paid to it.
Whether a murderer or not, naughty or nice, any zombie nabbed by the NRT ends up in the same place: the Necroambulist Detention Centre, known to just about everyone else as the ZDC.
The living dead used to be housed in the depths of the Tower, but London’s population is sky rocketing. Maybe one person zombified every six months at the turn of the twentieth century. Now it’s at least one a week. Most die in hospitals or hospices who have their own procedures for dealing with the newly dead—not that many people die at home anymore—so the NRTs, and me by association, don’t get involved, but there isn’t enough space to keep them in the Tower anymore. And that’s without it being a huge turnoff to tourists.
Battersea Power Station was converted in the early nineties. I didn’t see it then, but I’d seen photographs. The pit, or Group Area as it was then known, was a nice idea powered by good intentions. It consisted of a huge open-plan space with a sleeping area—bunk beds cordoned off by lacquered Japanese privacy dividers—an entertainment area complete with comfy sofas with quilted throws, armchairs, some games consoles, a few big TVs, and a library so they wouldn’t get bored. A further dining area with dining-hall-style tables and stools was placed at the far end of the hall. Raw meat was lowered twice a day via a pulley system—all very humanitarian and not very well thought out.
For one thing, zombies rot, so all the lovely quilts, armchairs, and bunk beds got icky very, very quickly. Also, the shambling corpses had little interest in playing Mario Cart. At dinner time they descended on the dining area and ripped and licked until there was nothing left, then they wandered off in search of other food. All other objects—the TVs, the sofas, the beds—were torn apart in case some tasty morsel was hiding inside.
The last time I’d looked into the pit, there’d been a single small light left overhead so that all you could see was a hint of shambling bodies in the dark.
There’d been some plan to install fluorescent lights high above the pit, dangling the electricians too high for the zombies to get them. Nothing came of it. The danger pay didn’t make it past the accountants and no one really wanted to look in there anyway. The pit featured in a lot of my nightmares.
At first thought, it might have seemed insane to keep so many dangerous creatures within one of the most populous cities in the world. If they managed to get loose, London would be another Auckland in a matter of days, but it made sense if you thought about it. If there ever were a great outbreak, any government would want their zombie-stashing staff to be able to grab and dump as quickly as possible without worrying about them spending hours driving back and forth between an out-of-the-way dump site and outbreak central.
Little turned the car into the parking lot and drove as close as he could, then stopped the car but left the engine running. Bollards and reinforced steel walls hid the reception from the road. He indicated the building with his head.
‘Aren’t you coming in?’
‘Oh, no. Not going in there again unless I have to. I’m just the driver. It’s straight home for me. Shower and a crap, then straight to bed.’
‘God, TMI. You could have just said no.’
Again, I couldn’t help but wonder if Little got on with his neighbours. The cat smirked as he drove off.
Reception consisted of a single square room with two rows of cheap metal chairs set into the concrete floor. It had no visible reception window, just a big buzzer next to a sign that read ‘By appointment only. No Exceptions.’
I pressed the buzzer. An automated voice told me to state my full name, address, date of birth, and National Insurance Number. I complied and dutifully turned my face to one of the caged security cameras.
A minute later my name was announced over the intercom. I paced over to the single steel door and waited, again, while the camera verified I was the same person who’d requested entry. After a minute, the door slid upwards, and I scooted in. It slammed shut almost immediately after.
The stink of the still-moving dead hit me immediately. The stench of a thousand decomposing corpses will challenge even the most sophisticated air conditioning and filtering system. I suppressed the urge to turn around and bang on the door and scream until they let me out.
19
All dead men look pathetic, but Malcolm took the cake. His lips, which usually had a rubbery look to them, appeared dry and cracked, and I was glad the glass barrier prevented me from smelling him.
The cell was about seven feet by five. A single bed was bolted to one wall. When the time came and Malcolm lost the last vestiges of willpower and the ability to talk, the steel floor would begin to sink down into the depths of the pit. The stink and the moan from under the floor was unmistakable.
A toilet and wash basin, another well-meaning but pointless touch, sat next to the head of the bed. If Malcolm had been so inclined, he could have touched the toilet seat with his nose without raising his head from his pillow. His skin was mottled, and he wore the same blue striped boxers he’d had on when he’d jumped. Closer than I’d been at the house, I looked for signs of what had killed him, but there was nothing to be seen under the thick hair. He looked like a sick bear in pyjama bottoms.
A handwritten index card stuck to the glass gave his name, date of birth, an estimated date of death as 26 December, and the cause of death: ‘Natural causes assumed. Visual inspection only. Autopsy refused.’
I didn’t know how bad his eyesight had become. ‘Hi, Malcolm, it’s Viv. You wanted to see me?’
At the sound he shot up and lurched towards the glass. Then, just as suddenly, he remembered himself and forced himself to sit down again.
I took a step back despite myself. ‘Are you okay?’
Despite possible rigor mortis, he managed to give me the sort of look the question deserved. ‘Jillie?’ The word was thick and slurred as if he were drunk and came out in a low rasp I had to strain to hear.
‘She’s still in quarantine.’
‘Finn?’
‘Same.’
His cloudy eyes stared directly into mine. The eyes really are the window to the soul, and the bit of me that recognised the dead could see his was still in there and was scared. I looked away.
Malcolm had told Dunne he wanted to speak to me alone, and the policeman was at least keeping to the letter of it. I had no doubt he was on the other side of the steel door listening to every word. If he could make out Malcolm’s rasp.
‘Malcolm, now’s the time to tell me what happened. Tell me where Ben is. I’ll make sure he’s looked after.’
The dead man raised his eyebrows. The rest of his face didn’t follow. ‘He killed me.’ Even through the rasp, his tone was incredulous.
‘What?’ Whatever I had expected Malcolm to tell me, that wasn’t it.
He echoed me. ‘What?’
My eyes slid to the index card that said Malcolm had died of natural causes, even if I knew how little it meant. On an autopsy refusal, it simply meant there were no visible bite marks and no other obvious signs of death.
The longer you’re dead, the more confused you get, but Malcolm seemed particularly slow. Of course he was never the brightest spark to begin with.
‘You said he killed you. Who killed you? Ben?’
The Secret Dead (London Bones Book 1) Page 9
