Belinda Bauer - Rubbernecker

Spicer .

His time was up.

Patrick dropped the saw, seized the head and pulled. The gurney slid towards him and he put a foot on it and pulled again, as hard as he could – his fingernails digging into the raw flesh under the stripped chin. He tugged and yanked. Then he staggered a little as the frayed tendons snapped with a twang.

And the head was his.

Footsteps approached down the echoing corridor. Patrick tugged the body bag back over what was left of the cadaver. No time to zip it up. No time to run. The lights were on and he was exposed, his only way out blocked.

He pulled open the white sliding door of the nearest refrigerator – the one filled with large yellow plastic receptacles that Scott called the ‘skin bins’.

Patrick slid the refrigerator door almost closed behind him, clambered awkwardly into the nearest bin and let the lid drop over his head.

The stench was unbelievable – even for someone who had spent almost six months in the close company of death. The bins had been emptied of the bulk of their contents, but had not yet been washed out, and the sides were slick and gobby with fatty deposits, while the bottom held a half-inch of stinking bodily juices that seeped through Patrick’s trainers and thick socks, and rose coldly between his toes. He retched and then swallowed the vomit, desperate not to add to the contents of the bin.

He lifted the lid a little so he could breathe. The head in his lap squinted upwards, its mouth open as if even it were trying to suck cleaner air into its absent lungs.

Patrick could hear Spicer moving about, going down the line of bodies, he presumed.

He heard the moment when Spicer found the headless corpse of Number 19. It was marked by a word he’d never heard before, but which he assumed was an expletive just by the venom with which it was said.

The narrow strip of light that marked the edge of the fridge door darkened suddenly, and Patrick let the lid settle quietly again.

The heavy door slid open.

‘Patrick?’

The light went on, making the yellow plastic seem a poor defence. Patrick felt like an embryo in a jar.

He held his breath and looked fearfully up at the lid. He waited for Spicer to lift it, and thought of how he would find both of them – him and Number 19 – staring back at him, mouths agape.

But Spicer didn’t lift the lid. He didn’t lift any lids.

The light went out and the door closed, and Patrick heard the door of the second fridge open instead.

‘Patrick?’

‘ Sssh ,’ Patrick whispered at the head. Or himself. One of them, anyway.

The head was quiet and Patrick was grateful, and felt an unexpected surge of protectiveness. The head was his responsibility now. No longer attached to its body, or cocooned in its waxy white bag, Number 19 was relying on him.

RELYING on me .

Relying ON me .

Relying on ME .

Instead of feeling that pressure, Patrick felt proud and fierce, and curled his arms more tightly around the head.

The sound of the second fridge door closing.

The sound of brisk footsteps receding across the lino.

The sound of the dissecting-room doors swinging together with a creak and a bump.

Patrick strained to hear the beeps of the keypad, but couldn’t. Instead he waited until he realized he’d just woken up, freezing cold, still jammed tightly into the fetid yellow bin.

‘OK,’ he said, ‘let’s go,’ and he struggled out of the bin and made his quiet way to the anatomy-wing door, where Meg’s code turned out to be 5544. Typically balanced and memorable.

The outer door was also an emergency exit, which he opened easily from inside by pushing a metal bar. An unexpected break.

Patrick tucked the head under his arm and walked home as fast as his knee would allow. All the way there his chest fizzed with adrenaline.

The dead can’t speak to us , Professor Madoc had said.

But that was a lie.

Samuel Galen was dead – but he was still telling Patrick all the truth he needed to know.

PATRICK HEARD THE scream of a rabbit being taken in the night. Without truly waking, he listened for another but nothing came, and so he drifted back into sleep.

‘Wake up,’ said his father. It was dawn and they were going to go hiking on the Beacons. Maybe up Penyfan if it wasn’t too busy. At the weekends it was one long string of over-equipped hikers, but midweek it was almost deserted – especially if the weather was lousy. Patrick hoped it was hot and too busy because, for some reason, every part of him ached.

‘Wake up.’

‘My head hurts, Daddy.’

‘I said wake up !’

Patrick opened his eyes slowly and looked into the hole in the middle of a gun. Not the middle; the end of a gun. Where the bullets come from. The deep black holey thing. The—

‘Barrel,’ he said, relieved that he’d remembered.

‘Shut up,’ said the policeman at the other end of the gun. ‘Shut up and turn over. Hands behind your back.’

He was short and shaven and not alone; there was another, older man in the doorway, and Patrick’s landlord – the waspish middle-aged Mr Boardman – hovered in the background.

From somewhere downstairs he could hear Lexi crying.

‘What’s going on?’ asked Patrick.

The shorter policeman made a snorting noise and said, ‘ You tell us , sunshine. There’s a head in the fridge .’

‘Yes,’ said Patrick. ‘It’s mine.’ Then he laughed because it wasn’t his head, of course – it was Number 19’s.

‘Jesus Christ,’ said Shorter. ‘He’s completely crazy.’

‘And look what he’s done to my carpet !’ wailed Mr Boardman.

‘It was dirty,’ shrugged Patrick.

‘It was brown !’ yelled Mr Boardman.

‘I told you to get this man out of here!’ said the older policeman sharply.

There was a noisy pause while several sets of feet pounded up the stairs and Mr Boardman was led down them, muttering.

Older cleared his throat. ‘Patrick Fort,’ he said, ‘I am arresting you on suspicion of murder.’

Patrick frowned. ‘That doesn’t make sense.’

The policeman held up a hand, closed his eyes and spoke over him. ‘You do not have to say anything—’

Patrick interrupted him, finishing more quickly. ‘But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something that you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’

‘Done this before?’ said Older.

‘No,’ said Patrick, ‘I watch TV. Aren’t you supposed to ask me if I understand it?’

‘ Do you understand it?’

‘Of course. I’m not an idiot.’

‘Smart-arse,’ said Shorter. ‘Turn over and put your hands behind your back.’

‘Why?’ said Patrick.

‘Because you’re under arrest.’

‘But I didn’t do anything. The head in the fridge is just proof.’

‘Of what?’ said Older.

Patrick frowned. ‘I don’t know. There’s a lot of bits to it. Number 19 had a peanut in his throat, although he was allergic to them. Dr Spicer has bite marks on his finger. But he lied about them and then tried to kill me. So I took the head because of the gouges and because of the teeth. Maybe Number 19 bit Dr Spicer, but I’m not sure.

‘It’s your job to find out the rest,’ he added. ‘I’ve done my bit.’

‘What the fuck are you talking about?’ said Shorter.

‘ Patrick! ’ yelled Jackson up the stairs. ‘Don’t say anything without a lawyer !’

‘I don’t need a lawyer,’ Patrick told Older. ‘I haven’t done anything wrong.’