that isn’t enough to be fatal? Presumably the symptoms are still there. Slow breathing. Weakness. Disorientation?”
“Correct. There’s not enough air coming into the lungs to permit the necessary gas exchange. Taken too far, it’ll prove fatal. But even if it doesn’t go that far, you’ve still got a person who’s badly disoriented. Maybe conscious, maybe not. Weak and uncoordinated. Quite possibly not able to stand. Perhaps temporary problems with vision.”
“A near overdose, in other words,” says Jackson. “If she’s left alone, she’ll live. Lucky to be alive, maybe, but she’ll recover.”
Price nods again. “And if she’s not left alone …”
“Whoever it is has got themselves the perfect victim. If anyone wanted to kill her, they could just put their fingers over her nose, close her mouth, and wait.”
“A minute or two,” says Price. “Easy.”
5
Job done.
We’re standing in a little reception area that boasts an empty desk, a row of empty chairs, and one of those office plants that look as though they’re made of plastic and never seem to grow, flower, form seed, die, or do any of the other things that ordinary plants do.
Jackson and Price are outside the men’s changing area, talking about when the autopsy report will be finalized, how long DNA identification will take, and the like. Man talk. I’m not included. I’m standing next to them in my long white gown and ridiculous boots, feeling like an extra from some low-budget horror movie, when I notice that my heart is fluttering. Not a bad flutter, like when I had my moment at Cefn Mawr, but something definite all the same. I pay attention to these signals, because I often need physiology to show me the way to my emotions. A jumpy heart means something, but I don’t know what. I let my awareness expand and go where it wants.
Almost instantly it finds the answer.
I haven’t finished in the autopsy suite. I need to go back there.
The answer, when I find it, clicks into place. It makes sense. Why it makes sense, I have no idea, but I don’t always bother with the whys. I just do what I have to do.
“Oh, just a minute, I think I left my spare pen in there,” I mumble.
The two men don’t break their talk. Jackson just looks down at me and nods. He’s about six foot two, I guess, which makes him about a foot taller than me, and Price isn’t much less. It’s worse than I’d thought. I’m not just in a horror movie, I’m a dwarf in a horror movie. I taffeta-rustle back through to the autopsy suite, letting the door swing shut behind me.
The peace of the room welcomes me. I relax almost instantly. I can feel my heart rate slow and lose its jitteriness.
I reach for the light switch, but realize that I like the violet twilight that’s starting to possess the room, so I leave the switch alone.
I take my only pen and shove it under the cloth shrouding Janet Mancini, so that I have something to “find” if need be.
Apart from that, I don’t do anything. I have one hand on Janet’s enviably slim calf, the other on the gurney. The peace of the room sinks into my bones. It’s the most peaceful place in the world. I bend my face down, so it’s touching the blue hospital cloth over Janet’s feet. There’s a faint medical smell, but the human smells are long gone.
I’d like to stay there for ages, quite still, just breathing the empty, medical air. But I don’t have long, so I force myself to move. I uncover the two bodies, just so I can see their faces again. Janet’s expressionless one and April’s smiling half of one. April’s head bandage has fallen in again, so I smooth it out for her.
Here, without anyone to bother them, they look like mother and daughter. I can’t tell anything about the eyes, of course—April doesn’t have any—but her mouth is a miniature version of her mam’s. Her little, dimpled chin too. I stroke April’s cheek, then Janet’s as well. Each is as dead as the other. No reason to