Slow Decay

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 kitchen 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?’

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 popping 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.