Slow Decay

EIGHT

Gwen held the mobile in a hand that was suddenly nerveless and trembling.

New Message read the tiny LCD screen. Read now?

She looked around the Hub: at the desks and the LCD terminals; at the brick walls and the pillars; at the water sculpture and the big glass windows into other areas; at Toshiko, head down and working on a whole pile of alien devices that looked like the one they had recovered from the nightclub, and the preserved hand that floated in a specimen jar. How the hell could she get a signal this deep underground when all she had to do in some parts of Cardiff was turn around and she lost her signal?

She was prevaricating. The entire shape of her future life depended on this message.

At least, she thought it did. She and Rhys: she had assumed they would just keep on going, but it had been just that — an assumption. They hadn’t really talked about it. She hadn’t really considered it in any detail. Did she want them to get old together? Did she want Rhys to be the father of her children? Did she actually want children? Big, big questions that she’d never really made the time to consider. In the way that young professionals do, she had just shoved the Big Life Questions to one side and lived her life one day at a time. Big Life Questions, like mortgages and life insurance, were something for adults to think about. And, despite the number of times she’d told Rhys to stop acting like a child, she still didn’t think of herself as an adult. Not really.

She was still prevaricating. Convulsively, her thumb closed on the Y button before her thoughts had a chance to catch up and cancel the action.

Sorry. Really really sorry. If yr still tlkng 2 me, pls call. I stll wnt us 2 b 2gther. R.

Bloody typical. Even at a time like this he couldn’t avoid using text-speak.

But the annoyance was another form of prevarication. Gwen let it wash away from her, waiting to see what she felt when it left. And what she felt was relief. Sheer relief. They were still a couple. Thank Christ, they were still a couple.

Owen walked into the Hub, coming from the direction of the armoured glass cells where they kept living alien specimens whilst they decided what to do with them. Jesus, she was hardly one to hold the moral high ground, was she? And it was her unauthorised and unwise use of the alien device that had excavated these undercurrents within the relationship. Best to just cover them up and keep going. Big questions could wait until she and Rhys had both grown up a bit.

She selected Options and then Call back on the phone’s menu, then watched the LCD screen, almost hypnotised, as it dialled Rhys’s mobile back. She had to force her hand to raise the mobile to her face.

‘Gwen?’ He sounded scared and far away.

‘Rhys, look, I’m so sorry.’

‘Me too. Can you forgive me?’

‘Can you forgive me?’

‘Can we just exchange forgiveness?’ he asked; ‘cancel everything out and get back to where we were?’

‘Let’s do that.’

‘Well…’ Rhys was thinking: she knew the sound of that silence. ‘When I say “back where we were”, I mean before the argument but after the hot sex. Is that OK?’

Gwen smiled, and turned away from Toshiko and Owen, shielding the mobile with her hand. ‘That’s exactly where I’d want to leave it too. But leave it in a “pick it up later at that point” sense. But hey — where are you?’

A pause. ‘I’m just outside that Italian restaurant near work.’ There was another pause: not so much a thinking pause, but a working out how to say something pause. ‘Look, Gwen, you are the only girl for me. I love you totally and completely, right?’

‘There’s a “but” coming. I can feel it.’

‘But someone tried to abduct Lucy.’

Gwen suppressed the desire to say ‘You were having lunch with Lucy?’ That wouldn’t have helped. And besides, she could tell from Rhys’s voice that he was contrite. And that he still loved her. Instead, she said: ‘Has she reported it to the police?’

‘Yeah, but as we didn’t get the licence plate of the van and we couldn’t describe the guy it all got a bit inconclusive. We ended up reporting it to your old partner, Andy, by the way. I don’t think he likes me at the best of times. He wasn’t helpful.’

‘I’ll have a word. Hang on — what van? What guy?’

‘A van pulled up by the side of the road and some guy tried to shove Lucy into it. I hit the guy and pulled her back. The van just drove off.’

‘Wow. Are you OK?’

‘Bruised knuckles and swollen ego. The former will heal; the latter may take some time.’

‘Is this connected to Lucy’s boyfriend? The drug addict?’

‘Lucy says no, but I’m thinking yes. He wasn’t the guy who tried to shove her in the van, but I’m wondering if it’s some kind of thing where he owes someone some money and they try to kidnap Lucy to make him pay up.’

‘Sounds like it.’ As words started forming in her brain, Gwen felt her face twisting into a grimace. There was an obvious conclusion to this, and she just didn’t like it. ‘Rhys — has Lucy got anywhere else to stay?’

Rhys’s voice indicated that he’d already got to where Gwen was going, but he wasn’t going to say it first. ‘She can’t go home, and I don’t think a hotel is a good idea. She’s in a bit of a state.’

‘Other friends?’

‘Nobody else she knows well enough to impose on.’

‘Family?’

‘South Shields.’

‘Rhys — setting aside any arguments that we may or may not have had recently… I think Lucy should come and stay with us for a while. Until this whole kidnap thing is sorted out.’

‘I think that’s a terrible idea,’ he said. ‘The trouble is, all the other ideas are worse. Gwen — are you OK with this?’

She drew a breath. ‘If we’re OK, then I’m OK with this. Are we OK?’

‘We’re OK,’ he said, and his voice held both warmth and reassurance and love.

‘Then she can move in. But she does her own laundry: I don’t want to see her panties in the wash, OK?’

He laughed. ‘OK. Love you.’

‘Love you too.’

There was silence, as they both waited for the other one to disconnect. That hadn’t happened to Gwen for so long she’d almost forgotten the tremulous feeling it produced. ‘Are you still there?’

‘Yeah. I really do love you.’

‘And you. Let’s hang up together. On a count of three, OK? One… two… three.’

They hung up.

Arriving back at the flat she shared with Rhys, Gwen was uncharacteristically nervous. Standing outside the door, keys in her hand, she found herself reluctant to actually open the door. Someone else was in their flat. Someone was trespassing on their privacy. And if Gwen went in, she was worried that she would suddenly feel like the intruder.

She could hear voices from inside, and part of her wanted to flatten herself against the door and listen to what they were saying. Another part told her how stupid she was being, but it didn’t matter. Were they talking about her? Were they laughing? And would there be a sudden awkward silence when she entered?

Idiot. Gwen had quite cheerfully kicked open doors to drug dens and marched in, smiling and shouting instructions, and yet here she was, frightened to walk into her own flat. Get a grip on yourself!

Quickly, before she could stop herself, Gwen shoved the key into the lock, twisted it and pushed the door open.

Down the short hall she could see Lucy curled up in one of their armchairs. She looked, if anything, even thinner than the last time Gwen had seen her: thin to the point of anorexia. Her hair hung lankly around her face, and it looked like she’d been crying. Rhys was across the other side of the room, stretched out on the sofa. He looked tired, but as soon as he saw Gwen he beamed and bounced out of the sofa.

‘Hi, kid,’ he said. ‘Come and sit down. Cup of tea? Glass of wine?’

‘That sounds great.’

‘What does?’

‘A cup of tea and a glass of wine.’ She reached up and kissed him as he slipped an arm around her waist, letting her bag slide to the floor. The kiss was meant to be a peck, but it turned into something longer, something that might have graduated to full-on sex if they hadn’t had a guest in the flat.

‘Hi, Lucy,’ Gwen said, disengaging herself from Rhys. She was perversely pleased to see how their new housemate was overtly studying her fingernails.

‘Hi,’ Lucy responded. Her voice was pallid, toneless. She seemed to lack energy; hardly surprising, Gwen thought, given what had happened to her.

The side table by the armchair had an empty bowl beside it. Noticing the direction of Gwen’s gaze, Rhys said: ‘Lucy was hungry, after what happened. I cooked her some risotto. And bacon. And cheese.’

Gwen glanced over to the empty bowl on the floor beside the armchair.

‘It would have been churlish not to have joined in,’ Rhys added. His hand was fondling her buttocks through her jeans. She tightened the muscles to give him a little more encouragement.

Gwen was about to make a comment about Rhys and food, but bit the words off before she could say them. Partly it was because she desperately didn’t want to start another row, even in the absence of the alien technology, but also it was because she realised with some surprise that Rhys’s T-shirt wasn’t being stretched by his incipient beer gut any more. It was almost flat. Almost strokable, in fact.

‘You’re looking good,’ she said. ‘I can see why muggers would be scared of you.’

Rhys beamed. ‘I’ll make that a large glass of wine and a mug of tea,’ he said, and swaggered off into the kitchen.

‘How are you feeling?’ Gwen said as she slid onto the sofa opposite Lucy.

‘Shaky. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before.’ She winced. ‘You must hear that all the time, in your job.’

‘And I take it seriously every time. Don’t worry — you’re not a statistic. You’re a friend.’ Of Rhys’s, she almost added, but decided it wouldn’t be tactful.

‘Your colleague didn’t seem particularly interested.’

‘Don’t let Andy fool you. He’s a really good police officer. Did you give him a description of the man who attacked you?’

Lucy nodded. ‘As far as I was able. I didn’t really get a good look. It all happened so fast.’ Her face clenched suddenly, convulsively. ‘Listen to me — I’m just talking in clichés!’ Her face relaxed into a forlorn expression. ‘I’m hungry,’ she said plaintively.

‘It’s shock,’ Gwen reassured her. ‘It’ll pass away. A good night’s sleep will do you the world of good.’ And I’m talking in clichés too, she thought.

‘He was taller than me. Tea’s brewing, by the way.’ Rhys entered from the kitchen carrying two tumblers of wine. He passed one to Gwen and was about to hand the other one to Lucy when he noticed Gwen shaking her head. ‘Shock?’ he mouthed. Gwen nodded, and he smoothly took a drink from the tumbler as if it was what he had intended all along.

‘You know these are whisky tumblers?’

‘Don’t get pernickety just because we have a guest.’

Gwen turned her attention back to Lucy. ‘So, this man: taller than you?’

‘And thinner, the bastard,’ Rhys continued. ‘And close-shaven around the scalp area.’

‘How was he dressed?’

‘You realise this isn’t your case? You don’t need to start an interrogation.’ He smiled, taking the sting out of the words as he slipped onto the sofa beside Gwen. ‘He was wearing those things that men wear that aren’t culottes.’

‘Cargo pants?’

‘Yeah, I think that’s it.’

‘How do you know about culottes but not cargo pants?’

‘Because you’ve got three pairs of culottes in your wardrobe that you haven’t worn for years.’

‘You go through the stuff in my wardrobe?’

‘I don’t go through it — I just know what’s there.’

‘You don’t by any chance wear any of it, do you?’

Rhys shook his head. ‘It wouldn’t fit. Yet.’ He stroked his stomach lovingly. ‘Give it time.’

Lucy was looking back and forth between the two of them.

‘Sorry,’ Gwen said. ‘Look, I know this is awkward for you, but Rhys has mentioned some of your history. Do you think this could be linked to your boyfriend?’

Lucy shrugged forlornly. ‘I can’t see Ricky getting it together for long enough to make a phone call, let alone arrange a kidnapping. And he’s called in all his favours already to get more smack. I just don’t see how he could be involved.’

‘What about his friends?’

‘He hasn’t got any friends. Just people he knows. People he shoots up with. People he buys from.’

‘Might they want to hurt you? Maybe use you to get Ricky to pay some of the money he owes them?’

Her expression crumbled. ‘He wouldn’t notice. He wouldn’t care.’

Gwen was about to ask something else when her mobile bleeped. She reached for it with heavy foreboding.

‘Torchwood?’ Rhys asked, face and tone neutral.

‘What’s Torchwood?’ Lucy asked.

‘I’m guessing it’s some kind of elite police group working in counter-terrorism,’ Rhys went on. ‘Something like that. Am I right?’

‘Close enough,’ Gwen said, picking up the mobile. The display just had the word Torchwood, followed by a postcode. Somehow, despite the fact that the LCD screen only had one font, Torchwood looked heavier, more menacing. ‘Rhys — I…’

‘I know.’ He reached out and touched her hand. ‘Go. Go and come back safely.’

‘Thanks. I love you.’

‘I love you too.’

She got up and walked out, not even bothering to change her blouse, because that’s what happened when Jack called. It was never convenient and never negotiable, but it was always, always important.

As the door of the flat swung shut behind her, she could hear voices talking. Voices talking about her.

Driving through Cardiff, she checked the street map with one hand by the crimson glow of the setting sun. The reference took her down near the docks, to an area she remembered from her time in the police. A place where old newspapers went to die, where rusty cranes towered black and insectile against the sky, where it always seemed to be dark and it always seemed to be raining.

She parked and went in search of the team. She found Owen and Toshiko standing on the concrete jetty overlooking the turbulent black water of the river. The SUV was parked a few feet away, next to a warehouse made out of some kind of angular corrugated iron. Toshiko was holding a portable scanner of some kind. It looked like she had detached it from the car. Her face was underlit by ghostly red light.

‘Well met by moonlight, proud Titania,’ Owen said.

‘I’m guessing there’s a porn version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream that you’ve seen,’ Gwen riposted. ‘It’s the only way you’d get to know any Shakespeare.’

‘I studied the play at school, if you have to know.’ He sounded hurt.

‘And?’

‘OK, and there’s A Midsummer Night’s Wet-Dream, but I swear I haven’t seen it. Not for years.’

Gwen just looked at him.

‘You can’t even get it on DVD,’ he trailed on. ‘I think they only ever released it on Betamax.’

‘Where’s Jack?’ Gwen asked Toshiko.

Toshiko glanced up. Gwen followed her gaze.

Jack was standing on the roof of the warehouse, coat billowing out behind him. His gaze was beaming out across the water like a psychic lighthouse.

‘How does he get up to those places?’ Gwen muttered. ‘If I try to follow him I just get out of breath, but he’s as fresh as a daisy.’

‘I think he teleports,’ Owen replied.

‘Floats.’ Toshiko was looking at the screen of the scanner again. ‘Anti-gravity devices in his boots.’ She looked up to meet Gwen’s eyes. ‘I am joking, of course. He was there when we arrived.’

‘Which leads to the very important question: what are we doing here?’

‘There’s some kind of activity in the Weevil population,’ Owen said. ‘Suddenly they all appear to be moving — lots of sightings across the city. We thought for a while they were tracking something, but Toshiko’s analysed their movements, and she thinks they’re being tracked. Something’s got them spooked.’

‘Something’s got the Weevils spooked?’ Gwen frowned. ‘That’s not a something I’d like to meet on a dark night.’ She looked around in sudden realisation. ‘On a jetty. By a river. Oh God, we’re looking for whatever it is that’s hunting the Weevils aren’t we?’

‘Whatever killed that Weevil we found the other day,’ Owen said, ‘is nasty. Very nasty. It’s kind of the chief predator, and that’s not something we want in Cardiff. So we’re going to have to track it down, subdue it and take it back to the Hub. Without, needless to say, anyone noticing. And without getting attacked by the Weevils whilst we’re at it.’

‘And tomorrow,’ Toshiko muttered unexpectedly, ‘world peace and a solution to the Riemann Hypothesis.’

Jack was standing over by the edge of the wharf, although Gwen hadn’t seen him move from the warehouse roof. Somewhere behind him, across the water, a spotlight was pointed towards them, outlining Jack in white fire, casting his dark shadow across the concrete and the tarmac and the weeds.

Gwen nodded towards the device that Toshiko was holding. ‘What’s that thing do, then?’

‘It tracks Weevils,’ Jack replied.

‘I didn’t know we could track Weevils.’

‘I think-’ Toshiko began to say.

‘Owen tells me their body temperature is lower than humans,’ Jack went on. ‘They’re not quite cold-blooded, but they’re not far short. Toshiko figured out a way to use overhead infra-red imagery from military satellites to track anything of a certain size that’s moving at a walking or running pace and has a lower than normal body temperature.’

‘Assuming there aren’t many penguins on the loose in Cardiff,’ Owen added, ‘and, let’s face it, stranger things have happened — we should be able to sort out the Weevils from the chavs.’

‘Excuse me-’ Toshiko interrupted.

‘If we can do that,’ Gwen said, picking her way carefully through the words, because she knew that she was missing something, ‘then surely we can clear the Weevils out. Save some lives.’

Jack shook his head; the light behind him magnifying the gesture into a dramatic shadow-play. ‘They spend time indoors, and Toshiko can’t track them there. And besides, I need to know how they move, how they live, how they breed, in order to determine their social structure.’

‘And what good is that going to do?’

Toshiko looked from Gwen to Jack. ‘Excuse me, but-’

‘That way,’ Jack continued, ‘I can work out a way of getting rid of all of them for good. It’s like snails. You can step on individuals from now until doomsday, but if you know they don’t like moving across sharp objects then you can scatter crushed eggshells around the edges of your garden and they’ll never come in again. I need to find the Weevil equivalent of crushed eggshells.’

‘Will you all please stop talking?’ Toshiko snapped. ‘I have something to say!’

‘Go ahead, Tosh,’ Jack said. ‘We’re listening.’

‘I’m detecting twelve signals which I believe are Weevils. They are all moving in the same direction, at roughly the same speed. Eight of them are either moving through the warehouses near us or moving across the roofs. The other four are moving beneath us. I think they must be in sewer pipes.’ She paused, examining the scanner. ‘There is a time-lag between the thermal signatures being detected by the satellites and this scanner receiving the processed signal, but I think all of the Weevils are now either here or they have passed us.’

‘But if they’ve passed us…’ Owen started.

‘Then we are caught between them and whatever is chasing them,’ Jack finished.

Something snarled at them from the end of the wharf.