Mo Hayder - Pig Island

It was an old-fashioned screen, with green fabric strung over the frame, like something from a Carry On film. There was a slit in both sides and Lexie tilted her chair back as far as it would go, craning her neck to look through the gap and see what was happening back there. After a moment or two she put down the magazine silently and crept, very carefully, towards the screen. She stood, side on, her chin drawn into her neck so she could just peep through the slit.

'Hey,' I said, kind of disgusted by her. She shook her head, put a finger to her lips and was about to step closer when, from the other side, Picot tugged the screen closed with an impatient noise. She froze for a second, not looking at me, colour gathering in her face. I thought she was going to say something, be pissed off with Picot, but instead she made a little huffing sound — like 'These doctors're all the same' — snatched up the magazine from her chair and went to the window at the far end, standing with her back to the room, staring out at the car park.

I watched her for a bit, then went back to my magazine. I wasn't reading it: I was thinking about Dove, about that bridge. Spectacular. 'My death will be spectacular.' I glanced up and saw that when Picot had moved the screen he had accidentally opened one of the slits nearest to me. I could see part of what was happening in there.

I didn't move. I sat totally still, hardly breathing. I could see obliquely along one side of the table, could see the little toe on Angeline's right foot poking out from a heavy white sheet, her hand holding the side of the table, and Picot standing next to her, his gloves pulled over his shirt cuffs.

'Now, I'm not going to hurt you,' he said, his head on one side, looking down to where her face must be. 'I'm just going to look. Is that OK?'

I shot a glance at Lexie. She was still staring out of the window, tapping her nail on her teeth, not interested in me. Behind the screen, just out of my eyeline, Angeline must've nodded because Picot was folding down the sheet. 'I'm going to feel your spine and…' He stopped and I sat up a bit, watching his expression. He was staring down at Angeline's lower half, just out of view, and you could tell he didn't know what to say. There was a moment's more hesitation, then he must have sussed Angeline was looking at him, because he put his shirt-sleeve briefly to his head and said, 'Yes, good. Just — uh — let me see now. Turn a little — this way. That's it. On to your side.'

There was a long, long silence, when no one spoke and no one moved, and the only sound was the distant clatter of trolleys in the hospital corridors. Then he cleared his throat. 'Right,' he said. 'Angeline, I'm looking at your spine. OK? I'm just going to run my fingers down it…' He swallowed and took a step towards the head of the table, bending sideways and moving both hands just out of sight, drawing them downwards, his tongue between his teeth. 'OK. Now, can you shuffle towards me a bit? That's it — no, stay on your side. I want to see how strong your ankles are.'

Angeline moved, and suddenly, into the small space between the screen and Picot's shirt front came the yellow underside of a foot, and then, when she'd shuffled a bit more, the section of her back that extended from her shoulder-blades to her knees. I was looking up the length of her body. The growth had arranged itself away from her legs so it lay straight down the table towards him, and I could see the exact point where it converged with her spine. I could see the eye-shaped crevice neatly creased between her thighs, just like any other woman, and I could see further up to the point of the eye, to the junction where the growth began, widening away from her coccyx. I blinked. This was weird. I put my hand to my chest. My heart was thumping hard under my shirt.

'I'll just cover you here,' said Picot, reaching under the chair for a blanket, which he placed over her buttocks, so that it hung down into the gap behind the growth, shutting off my view. 'Then I want you to tell me what you can feel and what you can't.'

I shot Lexie another look. She had opened the magazine and was leafing through it — still with her back to me, like she was making a point. I shifted very, very silently in my chair, taking care not to make it creak, so I could watch what Picot was doing. I'd seen the growth before — just for a bit, in the house on the island, but I hadn't seen its base: it was wider than I'd expected — as wide as a wrist — and very pale, with almost the quality of marble to it. I'd had this image of what she'd look like down there — I wouldn't have admitted it to anyone but I'd spent a long time in the last few days wondering about it — and it hadn't been like this. I hadn't expected anything so — I fumbled for the word — so beautiful. Yes, I thought, feeling like a bit of a tart for the choice of words: beautiful. That bit of flesh had something I couldn't put a name to — like a sculpture, or a piece of architecture.

'OK,' Picot said, after a while, and there was something different about his voice — a nervousness. He lifted the sheet to cover her. 'I'm — I'm… let me see.' He fiddled uncomfortably with his tie and stared at the telephone on the wall, like he wanted to call someone and ask for help. After a while he scratched his neck and, like someone invisible had just asked him what he was going to do, said, 'An X-ray, then an MRI. Yes — right, right.' He pulled off his gloves. 'OK. If I can arrange it, I want to do an MRI. Do you know what an MRI is?'

Angeline shifted on to her back and began to sit up so that everything I had been looking at was replaced by her left hand. 'I think so. It's a-' She broke off. She had moved upright so quickly that I hadn't had time to look away, and she'd caught me staring at her from the other side of the office: pale, bug-eyed, my magazine clutched tightly in my hands. I was frozen, couldn't drag my eyes away, and for a moment we were stuck there, holding each other's eyes, both too surprised and embarrassed to know what to do.

'Angeline?' Picot said. 'Are you…?'

'Yes,' she said hurriedly, grabbing the sheet and pulling it round her protectively. She hadn't taken her eyes off me. 'I'm ready. Where do we go?'

One of Danso's PCs drove us back to the rape suite. I didn't say a word. I sat in the passenger seat, elbows on my knees, smiling rigidly at the windscreen, my head pounding. I was fighting the sinking feeling that this had been waiting somewhere inside me for a lifetime, that it had always been destined to be dragged to the surface one day.

He was a shrewd one, Picot, keeping his cards close to his chest. Even after the MRI he wasn't giving away what he thought was wrong with her. Instead of answers, we came away with nothing except more questions and a limp, flesh-coloured surgical support. It was just a piece of bandage, boiled soft and covered with hospital laundry marks, and we all knew, when he held it out to Angeline, that it wasn't designed for her and probably wouldn't fit or make any difference anyhow. Back at the house she sat on the sofa under a duvet, one hand hidden beneath it. I couldn't see for sure, but I think she was feeling herself, walking her fingers down her body, re-examining it. I walked round the place, not knowing where to put myself, avoiding meeting her eyes. In the end I went to bed early and lay there, wondering why the fuck I couldn't get what I'd seen out of my head. That night I had an erotic dream about her.

She was sitting on the edge of a swimming-pool, her feet dangling in the water. She was wearing some kind of pink bikini thing, shorts up to her waist, the growth peeping out of one of the leg openings. It lay next to her left leg, glistening with pool water, the tip of it in the pool like it was a creature sucking up water. I was a few feet away in the pool, staring at it, mesmerized. I said something to her, something indistinct and meaningless, and she raised her eyes, smiled, and let the tip of the growth move up her left calf, pausing at the knee. I opened my mouth to speak again, but this time the water rose in a wave behind me and carried me towards her. She opened her arms and her legs and snaked the tail out, like an arm, to pull me hard against her. I woke in the sticky sheets, my heart thudding, buzzing with excitement and sadness.