Andy Lane - Slow Decay

Together they searched through the office, Gwen starting to the left of the door, Jack to the right, meeting at the far side where Doctor Scotus’s desk took pride of place, both of them circling around the oddly shaped chairs that sat either side of it. Apart from framed certificates on the walls and a bookcase full of medical textbooks on nutrition, digestion and, strangely, parasitology, Gwen didn’t come up with anything. Judging by the speed at which he was moving, Jack wasn’t having much more luck. When they got to the desk, Gwen took a moment to admire its solidity, and the slab of marble that formed its surface. Four marks in a rectangle on the surface indicated that something had been removed recently — probably a laptop, judging by the shape.

The drawers were all empty of anything apart from basic supplies; staples, bits of paper, rubber bands. Gwen was probably being over-optimistic thinking that there might be something incriminating there, but life could sometimes be surprising like that.

Jack, meanwhile, was looking though the waste-paper basket that sat by the side of the desk. ‘Surprising how often people forget about the rubbish,’ he said, pulling a crumpled piece of paper from its depths. He unfolded it, and the sound made Gwen’s skin crawl. It sounded too much like the creature that was outside in the lobby, stapled to the desk. She raised a hand to her neck, which still ached.

Jack saw her shiver. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘But I think this is important. It looks like a recent list of clients at the clinic. Lucy Sobel, Marianne Till…’ His gaze locked with hers. ‘Rhys Williams.’

She nodded. ‘And how many others.’

‘They had twenty-eight clients in all. Quite a profit, this Doctor Scotus was making.’

‘A profit on twenty-eight clients? How much were they paying?’ Gwen grabbed the sheet of paper from Jack’s hands and glanced down the list. ‘Rhys, you arsehole ! That’s our holiday fund gone for a burton!’

‘Recriminations later. Investigation now.’

‘OK, sorry. But still…’

‘Gwen, he’s likely to be punished enough over the next week or so. Cut him some slack. He only did it because he wanted to look good for you. And, frankly, who wouldn’t?’

She sighed. ‘OK. Thanks.’

‘I don’t think there’s anything more we can find here. There were two other rooms leading off the lobby. Let’s give them a quick going over.’

They headed out of the office, bypassing Ringo, which was still thumping the centre of its body frantically against the surface of the receptionist’s desk. Jack chose the middle door, Gwen the one on the left.

Gwen’s choice was a well-appointed examination room. The walls and ceiling were a clinical white. A desk was pressed up against one wall, with one of the backless chairs in front of it. A curtained area off to one side could be used for undressing. A trolley with a black PVC surface pushed against another wall was presumably for examinations. Apart from some abstract paintings on the wall, there was nothing in the room.

Gwen went through the desk drawers one by one, just on the off-chance, but they had been hurriedly emptied of everything apart from the normal detritus of office life: a handful of paper clips, the caps from three ball point pens, a whole load of loose staples, some bits of grey lint, three sealed pads of Post-it notes…

And a small foil blister pack containing two pills that had been pushed to the back of the middle drawer. Gwen picked it out tentatively. It was exactly the same as the one she had found in the bathroom cabinet back in the flat, with the exception that this one contained both the ‘Start’ and the ‘Stop’ pills.

‘Look what I’ve found,’ she said, walking out of her room and into Jack’s.

‘Look what I’ve found,’ Jack retorted.

His room was exactly the same as hers, except that there was a body on the examination trolley. It was a woman. She was spread-eagled, head lolling off one edge, legs and arms hanging off the others. There was nothing peaceful about it: she looked like an abandoned doll.

‘Client?’ Gwen asked.

‘Receptionist,’ Jack corrected. ‘She’s wearing a name tag.’

‘I guess she was killed by Ringo out there.’

Jack shook his head. ‘No marks on her neck, and look at her mouth.’

Gwen leaned closer. The receptionist’s mouth was wide open, locked in an endless scream, and there was blood around her lips. Some of it had trickled down her cheeks, leaving crimson stripes behind.

‘Oh good God. Don’t tell me-’

‘That Ringo climbed out through her throat, probably rupturing something along the way? Owen can confirm it in an autopsy, but that’s my reading of the situation.’

‘What the hell are we dealing with?’ Gwen asked.

Jack turned towards the door leading out into the lobby.

From out of the shadows, something black launched itself at his face, its skin torn where it had wrenched itself free of the staples that had been holding it to the desk.

Jack’s hand came round holding his Webley revolver. His finger moved a fraction of an inch, and the creature blew apart as the gun made a sound barely louder than the power stapler. Shreds of flesh and droplets of liquid splattered against the walls.

‘Something that just doesn’t know when to quit,’ said Jack.

The device Toshiko was looking at now — the third of the similar alien devices she had found the time to examine — was the one found in the wreckage of an alien escape pod near Mynach Hengoed in the 1950s. That was before she was even born, she reflected. It was flatter than the rest, lenticular, with sharp projections all the way around the edge, some of which had been knocked off over the years as it was moved from crate to crate. It was an orange colour, and had a hole right through the centre. Holding it in her hand, Toshiko thought it was slightly heavier on one side than the other, but she had no more idea about its function than about the rest of the devices in the series.

The series. That was how she was thinking of them. They were all different shapes, sizes and colours, but they were obviously related to one another. Made by the same hands, she was sure. Well, perhaps not hands. Made by the same claws, or tentacles, or mandibles. It didn’t matter. She was convinced there was a consistent style running through them.

And perhaps more than just a consistent style.

Voices were echoing through the Hub from the Autopsy Room — Owen’s personal domain — distracting Toshiko’s attention from the device she held. It sounded like Jack, Owen and Gwen were arguing. Jack and Gwen had come rushing back from the Scotus Clinic looking like something had happened, but they’d headed straight into the medical section without saying anything to her. She’d tried to tell them about the image of the creature inside the girl, but Jack had snapped something about it being ‘old news’ and kept on walking.

Ianto had followed on a few minutes afterwards, wheeling a body in on a gurney. He too went past Toshiko without acknowledging her existence. Part of her had wanted to follow on to see what all the fuss was about, but she felt awkward. They would tell her when they needed to. When she could help.

Toshiko wondered if there was something technical she could be doing now, but she couldn’t think of anything and neither Jack nor any of the others had made any suggestions. Having processed Marianne’s medical scans, Toshiko had found herself at something of a loose end, which is why she had returned to looking at the alien devices matching the one that had been found in the nightclub where the young men had died.

Toshiko sometimes wondered whether the others truly felt she was part of the team. They valued her technical knowledge — she knew that — but there were times she felt as if she wasn’t part of the decision-making process. Excluded from the action. Marginalised.