Slow Decay t-3

by Andy Lane

  Owen’s mouth twisted in that little grimace that, Gwen had noticed, he made when he was stumped but didn’t want to admit it. ‘High levels of blood sugar and lipids, which you’d expect from someone who had eaten recently, and her cortisol levels were elevated, which indicates stress, like she’d been running or been in a fight. Apart from that, the blood work indicates she’s in good health. If she was suffering from some kind of disease I’d be looking for a shitload of leucocytes, that kind of thing, but she’s clear.’

  ‘And she’s human?’

  ‘Sorry — didn’t I say? Yes, she’s as human as I am.’

  Jack glanced over at Gwen. ‘Do you want to take this one, or shall I?’

  ‘Let’s give him a free ride,’ Gwen replied. ‘I’m feeling generous.’

  ‘OK.’ Jack looked over at Toshiko. ‘Tosh, I know you haven’t had much time, but what’s the odds of getting some kind of scan going of Marianne’s insides. I want to see if there’s anything there that shouldn’t be.’

  ‘Most non-invasive imaging techniques require the cooperation of the patient,’ Toshiko replied, ‘either willingly, because they want to help, or unwittingly because they are unconscious. I’m assuming that conducting a scan of this young woman is like X-raying a conscious tiger: you couldn’t expect her to stay still, and you might lose your life if you tried. Ideally I would prefer her to be heavily sedated, but we saw last night how much sedative it took to even render her sleepy, let alone put her to sleep for any length of time. And I understand from Ianto that she recovered very quickly once she was left alone. So I’m still working on options for remote scanning. I may have to disassemble one of the scanners we have and reassemble it on either side of the cell. That counts as heavy engineering, and it won’t happen quickly.’

  ‘Any way of speeding it up?’

  Toshiko shrugged. ‘I could try something that doesn’t require transmission techniques — single-sided X-ray, perhaps. The quality of the image would be reduced, but it might be quicker.’

  ‘Go for whatever has the best chance of a quick win. Thanks Tosh. Ianto — what kind of mood is our guest in?’

  Ianto stepped forward from the shadows at the back of the Hub. Gwen hadn’t even known he was standing there. As usual, his bland face was set in a slight smile. ‘Hungry. She has put away several pizzas so far, and still wants more. The more she eats, the less edgy she gets. Apart from that she is chatty, but confused. She doesn’t know where she is or what’s happening. I’ve given her the impression that she is being held in custody after an incident last night. I’ve also given her the impression that a drink she had may have been drugged with Rohypnol, which is why she can’t remember anything and why she may have hallucinated some strange things.’

  ‘Good work. That should hold it for a while. Gwen?’

  ‘Marianne Till was reported missing this morning. Her mother said she’d gone out for a meal last night with some friends; the friends said she wandered off from the group early in the evening. She said she was feeling ill, and wanted to go home.’

  ‘Not much chance of that at the moment,’ Owen said. ‘Mummy and Daddy would be on the menu within half an hour, followed by Granny, the dog and the next-door neighbours.’

  ‘The police won’t investigate,’ Gwen continued. ‘I’ve been in this situation too often before. Over two hundred thousand people are reported missing in the UK each year. Most of them return safe and sound within seventy-two hours, but there’s still a couple of thousand who don’t. Trouble is, the police won’t actively look for these people unless they’re exceptionally vulnerable or obviously the victims of a crime.’

  ‘Looks like she’s going to be staying for a while,’ Jack said. ‘Hotel Torchwood.’

  ‘But her family are worried about her,’ Gwen pressed on. She could hear the plea in her voice, but she couldn’t help herself. ‘Her mother will be crying her heart out, and she won’t be able to stop. Her father will be punching the walls and the kitchen counter in sheer frustration. I’ve been there. I’ve seen it happen. They’ll be printing off flyers with her photo on, and organising searches of the places she was last seen, more to keep busy than with any real hope that it will help. We can stop all that. We can ease their pain. All we have to do is-’

  ‘Is what?’ Jack asked. ‘Tell them we have her, but we can’t give her back? That’ll sound like a ransom demand. Anything we do will attract attention to us. And, by the way, this is still meant to be a secret organisation.’

  Gwen refused to be cowed by the patronising tone in Jack’s voice. ‘We could send them an anonymous message,’ she said, voice dangerously quiet. ‘Toshiko can fake anything. We can send them a message from her saying she’s, I don’t know, met an Italian waiter and gone off to get married in St Lucia.’

  Jack stared at Gwen for a moment. She met his gaze without blinking. There was some kind of struggle going on between them in that long, level stare, a fight between compassion and action, perhaps. Gwen wasn’t sure, and she didn’t want Jack to think that she was challenging his authority over Torchwood, merely the way he sacrificed short-term battles in order to win the long-term war. But this time she intended to win.

  ‘Tosh,’ Jack said. ‘Send an email message to Marianne’s parents. Make it look like it’s come from some Internet café on, oh, I don’t know, Ibiza or somewhere. And make sure Marianne’s booked retrospectively on a flight to Ibiza early this morning. Fake the emigration records, and see if you can’t get her image on a security camera recording.’ He looked back at Gwen. ‘Happy?’

  She considered a sarcastic reply, but Jack had compromised his plan for her, and he deserved to claim some kind of victory. ‘Thanks,’ she said simply. ‘Her family will appreciate it.’

  ‘And they won’t be causing trouble by searching the streets for her,’ Jack said. ‘I get the distinct feeling it’s not safe out there at the moment.’

  Gwen frowned. ‘What do you mean?’ she said. ‘We’ve got Marianne.’

  ‘What makes you think she’s the only one with a huge appetite out there?’ Jack said. ‘Which reminds me: Ianto, did you save those pizza crusts from her cell like I asked you to?’

  ‘I did,’ Ianto said. ‘It wasn’t easy. She was quite prepared to eat the entire pizza, crust and all, but I managed to get a few bits back using a long pair of tongs. She tried to eat the tongs as well, by the way.’

  ‘Give the crusts to Owen.’

  ‘Actually,’ Owen said, ‘I brought sandwiches in today.’

  ‘And before you get round to eating them, I want you to match the shape of Marianne’s tooth-marks in the crusts with the photographs of the dead Weevil you took. See if you can tell whether it was Marianne who ate its face off, or whether it was someone else.’ Jack shook his head. ‘This city seems to be full of women always wanting to bite people’s faces off lately.’

  ‘You can’t eat that here!’ Rhys exclaimed. He glanced up and down the aisle, hoping that none of the Asda staff were watching.

  ‘It’s food,’ said Lucy. She was holding a half-eaten bagel up to her mouth. There were crumbs around her lips.

  ‘It’s not your food. Not until we’ve paid for it.’

  ‘But I’m hungry. I’ll tell the girl at the till that I couldn’t help myself. As long as she scans the barcode in, it’ll be fine.’

  ‘But what if someone sees that you’ve eaten it before we get to the checkout?’

  ‘Rhys, people do it all the time! Kids take grapes off the stalk, mothers feed biscuits to their babies! I once saw a bloke in a suit downing a can of Special Brew in the pharmacy section. At least I’m going to own up!’

  Rhys shook his head. This shopping trip was turning into a nightmare. He and Gwen rarely shopped together — their schedules so rarely coincided, and when they did the last thing they wanted to do was spend quality time together in the tinned goods section of a supermarket — so when Lucy mentioned that she was feeling guilty about eating all their food and suggested poppin
g down to Asda, Rhys was all for it. Either he or Gwen usually ended up shopping alone, more often than not at some ungodly time in the evening when normal people were at home and the only other people in the supermarket were late-shift workers and singles hoping to meet their soul-mates over a marinated salmon fillet at the fish counter. He kind of missed the cosy domesticity of arguing over whether to buy Cheshire or Wensleydale cheese, the comfort of debating the merits of virgin versus extra virgin olive oil. That’s what he was hoping for with Lucy, but when she wasn’t flirting with him she was throwing food into the trolley with gay abandon. All the major food groups were represented, as far as Rhys could tell. She’d chucked in a whole load of tropical fruit — mangoes, pineapples and some little spiky yellow things he didn’t recognise — as well as a kilo bag of potatoes, three packets of risotto rice, several large bars of chocolate, an economy-sized tub of raspberry ripple ice cream, three bags of frozen lamb chunks and two loaves of wholemeal bread. And now she’d just ripped open a packet of bagels and started chewing away. It was like shopping with a five-year-old.

  And the trouble was, looking at the pile of random items in the trolley was making him massively hungry, despite the pile of bacon, eggs, mushrooms and fried bread that he and Lucy had ended up sharing that morning. Gwen had joined them after a while, but all she had time for was some dry toast before she rushed out to work again. His stomach was suddenly all twisted up.

  ‘Have we got any plan for all this stuff,’ he asked, trying to distract himself, ‘or are we just going to throw food at the frying pan and see what sticks?’

  Lucy looked hurt. ‘I was going to do a — a stew,’ she finished lamely. ‘Irish stew.’ She gazed at the trolley as if she’d never seen its contents before. ‘With mangoes. And stuff.’ She gazed forlornly at the bagel in her hand. ‘Rhys,’ she said in a small voice, ‘what’s happening to me?’

  ‘It’s probably shock. You’ve been through a traumatic experience. I guess you’d expect there to be some after-effects. Maybe your mind is celebrating the fact that you survived a kidnap attempt unscathed by having a feast, or something. I don’t know — I’m no psychologist. All I know is, it’ll take a while before things get back to normal.’ He reached out and took the bagel from her hand. ‘We should make an appointment at the medical centre. Get you checked over.’

  She shook her head violently. ‘No. I’m fine. Really, I am.’

  ‘OK, then let’s get you home. Get some lunch inside you.’

  ‘That sounds — Rhys!’

  ‘What?’

  For a moment he couldn’t work out why he was having difficulty talking, and then he realised that he’d just taken a bite out of the bagel. ‘Sorry. Come on — let’s get out of here.’

  Still masticating the chewy dough, he wheeled the trolley toward the checkout fast enough that Lucy only managed to throw one or two extra items in it. Getting it scanned and paid for was relatively painless, despite the look that the bloke on the checkout gave him when he came to the opened pack of bagels. Fortunately, Gwen had left him with the car, so they were back at the flat within ten minutes.

  ‘Coffee?’ he asked as the door closed behind them, ‘or shall we unpack the stuff and get some food on?’

  ‘Actually,’ Lucy said, ‘I want something else.’

  He glanced back at her. There was a confident, dangerous look in her eyes. ‘Look, Lucy, we need to-’

  ‘No talking,’ she said, and strode toward him, hips swinging.

  His gaze kept flickering between her face, her incredible breasts as they swung from side to side and her crotch, a smooth Y-shape outlined in tight denim. How could something so close to a wet dream be just a step away from a nightmare? He put his hands up, unsure whether he wanted to push her away or pull her closer, crushing her to his chest. She kept walking, breasts pressing against the palms of his hands, nipples hard beneath the fabric of her blouse and that black, lacy bra that he remembered seeing beside the sofa that morning.

  ‘I need you,’ she moaned. ‘I need you inside me, Rhys.’

  And, turning her face up toward him, she leaned forward and sunk her teeth into his cheek, worrying the flesh before tearing a chunk away.

  The last thing Rhys remembered was seeing his own blood, splattering across her cheeks like scarlet freckles.

  ELEVEN

  Owen could hear sobbing even before he reached the cells.

  He stopped before he rounded the corner, and she saw him. It wasn’t that he liked listening to women cry — although he’d experienced more than his fair share since he lost his virginity in a stationery cupboard at school when he was fifteen — it was more that he didn’t want to see what any girl looked like when she was crying that hard. The sobs were racking, heaving things, and sobs like that in his experience were accompanied by snot and dishevelled hair and a general loss of self-respect. He liked women who were neat and tidy; at least, outside the bedroom.

  When she showed no sign of stopping crying, Owen scuffed his foot against the floor. She didn’t hear or, if she did hear, she didn’t respond, so he did it another couple of times.

  Eventually the crying stopped and, after a few moments when Owen imagined her hurriedly wiping her face, a small, scared voice said, ‘Is there someone there? Hello?’

  He walked nonchalantly around the corner as if nothing had happened. She was in the third cell along: a girl with blonde hair, matted now, and a face blotchy from crying and streaked with mascara. Still, at least she’d made an effort to clean herself up. She was still holding a tissue. Cardboard fragments lay scattered around her feet. Owen had a feeling that they were all that was left of the pizza boxes that had been stacked up in her cell earlier.

  ‘Hallo, Marianne,’ he said.

  ‘Everyone seems to know my name,’ she replied, ‘but I don’t know who anyone else is.’

  ‘I’m Owen. I’m a doctor.’

  She moved closer to the transparent barrier that separated the cell from the corridor. ‘Am I ill? Is that why I’m here? I can’t remember.’

  ‘This is an isolation ward. We think you might have caught an infectious disease.’

  She wasn’t convinced. ‘It looks more like a cell. A really old cell.’

  ‘Ah. This part of the hospital had been closed down. We reopened it because of the epidemic.’

  ‘But I thought I’d been drugged. The man who was here earlier told me someone had drugged my drink.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s right,’ Owen said, thinking quickly. ‘But we think whoever drugged your drink was infected with a tropical disease.’ He racked his brain for the name of some remote illness, the kind of thing that GQ published ghastly colour photographs of under the heading ‘10 Diseases You Really Don’t Want To Catch’. ‘It’s called Tapanuli Fever. Never been seen in the UK before. We’re isolating anyone this guy came into contact with until we can get them checked over.’

  ‘Is that why I’m so hungry all the time? Is that one of the symptoms?’

  ‘Look,’ he said reassuringly, ‘the chances are you’re clean, but we need to be sure. If we’re wrong, it’ll make avian flu look like a joke.’

  ‘Avian flu was a joke. It never happened.’

  ‘Yeah, but if it had, it would have been really serious.’

  He took a deep breath. She wasn’t your normal Cardiff city centre good-time girl, this one. Sparky. If he’d met her in a bar, he’d have been tempted to chat her up and take her back home. Well, back to her home. ‘Look, do you know how many people died of flu in the great pandemic of the fourteenth century?’

  ‘Sorry, I was crap at history,’ she said. ‘But I was really good at biology.’

  ‘I bet. It was twenty-five million. About a third of Europe’s population at the time. These things can spread faster than Crazy Frog ringtones if they’re not checked.’

  ‘And that’s what you do?’ She looked him up and down. ‘Aren’t you a bit young to be a doctor?’

  ‘Aren’t you a bit young to be ha
nging around in bars accepting drinks from strangers?’

  ‘Point taken.’ She sniffed. ‘So what can I do to help? Apart from just hanging around in the cold and the damp?’

  ‘I need to conduct an examination, but I can’t come in the… unit… with you.’

  ‘OK.’ She started unbuttoning her blouse. ‘You want me to take everything off?’

  ‘Yes. No!’ Owen took a deep breath. Tempted though he was, if Jack caught him getting a girl to strip off in the cells, he’d be out on his ear. It had been bad enough last time it happened; he’d never talk his way out of it again. ‘No, I’ve got a kind of scanner thing. If I pass it through the food slot, you can wave it all over your body. It’ll take readings which I can analyse later.’

  ‘And it’ll work through clothing? I don’t mind taking everything off. You’re a doctor, after all.’

  God help him. ‘Yes, it’ll work through clothing. You don’t have to take anything off.’ Although, he almost said, if it’ll make you feel more comfortable…

  Owen reached into his pocket and took out his Bekaran deep-tissue scanner: slim and rectangular, with a lens arrangement set along one edge. It was essentially an ultrasound generator and detector, but Toshiko had modified it, reconfiguring the device to send its readings via wireless LAN directly to Owen’s terminal. But he didn’t really care how it actually worked. As far as he, or any doctor, was concerned, it fell under the general banner heading of ‘shuftiscope’ — a device that allowed him to take a shufti into someone else’s body. Whatever a ‘shufti’ was. Something his dad used to say, as in: ‘I’ll just take a shufti at that washing machine.’ Maybe Jack would know where ‘shufti’ came from. He was good with old words.

  Owen knelt, and slid the device through the slot at the bottom of the door where pizzas had obviously been passed through to her. ‘Here. It’s switched on already. Just move it carefully along the outside of your clothes, as close to the skin as you can get. Try and make sure you cover everything.’