Andy Lane - Slow Decay

‘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.