Another Life

Gwen tried to put the information together in her head, and could see a flaw. ‘If it’s localised, then where is all this rain coming from?’

‘Think of it like a localised typhoon. It’s sucking water from the Bay. Dropping it back over the local area in this huge thunderstorm.’

‘So why’s the Bay not emptying?’

Toshiko looked at her, surprised. Gwen was started to feel like a slow pupil in the GCSE Geography class. ‘Where do you suppose the water there came from in the first place? Out in the Bristol Channel. And beyond that, the Celtic Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. Imagine that lot dumped all over the vale of Glamorgan.’

Gwen’s head was starting to spin. ‘But a typhoon? A tropical storm, in Cardiff?’

‘And I estimate that it’s only Category 2 at the moment. The only good thing I can see is that the eye isn’t moving. It’s still out in the Bay. Or at least…’ Toshiko checked some more figures. ‘It’s encroaching very slowly. But whatever is coming through, it’s still coming.’

‘And there’s nothing to say that it won’t suddenly get a shift on,’ said Gwen. She thought about what Toshiko had explained to them the previous evening. The slow tsunami. Suddenly, it didn’t seem so slow after all.

Jack slapped his hands on the table, an unexpected sound that startled Gwen. He was no longer pensive, he’d reached his decision.

‘So, no Owen. We’ll have to work without him. Ianto, keep trying his number and locator. Gwen and Tosh, you’re gonna have to get out there into the Bay, find out what this thing is. Take the mini-sub, that needs two. And I’m going back to Wildman’s apartment. I’m gonna find those missing power packs if I have to tear the place apart. Hey, I may tear it apart anyway, it already needs a makeover. Apart from that, who can tell? There are too many variables at the moment.’ He thought about this briefly. ‘D’you see what you’ve done to me, Tosh? You’ve got me using the word “variables”. Now I know I’ve been sitting here too long.’ He picked up his greatcoat from a nearby chair where he’d draped it earlier, and prepared to leave.

Gwen watched Toshiko for a reaction. She was shutting down the various programs on her computer, getting ready to follow her latest instructions from Jack. But Gwen hesitated. Despite her police training. Despite that instinct to obey orders without questioning every detail. Despite the copper’s belief that the guv’nor assigns the jobs, picks the people, and doesn’t have to say why. Somehow, in Torchwood, that was different now. After handling the stuff that she had — that they all had — in the past couple of months, she’d begun to believe that asking the obvious questions was what kept you alive.

‘What about Sandra Applegate?’

Jack was shrugging his greatcoat over his shoulders. ‘What about her?’

‘D’you think she’s human?’

Jack gave them a wave as he left. ‘Enjoy your dive, ladies.’

Gwen wasn’t any more reassured as the door closed behind him.

* * *

Owen knew it wasn’t like brushing aside the local pointy-heads when he and the Torchwood team cruised into a scene of crime. When they knew that their reputation, their previous contacts, the whole look of them as they swept through the existing security cordon, was all the authority that they needed to operate unchallenged. The staff here would know nothing of Torchwood. There would be no scare stories, whispered among the staff as cautionary tales, of petty bureaucrats peremptorily brushed aside, or their careers stalled because they stepped in Torchwood’s way and got trampled.

‘I don’t understand, Dr Harper,’ said Majunath. ‘I thought you said you were the relief SHO for this evening’s shift?’ Was Majunath going to question his police credentials, now? Owen knew from his own former career in A amp;E that doctors relished the opportunity to put the police in their place when it came to clinical priorities. Majunath had his personal authority at stake from the moment that ID card appeared under his nose. And Owen needed Megan to see him in control, to show her how Torchwood was an organisation that could get things done, take control. An organisation that she would want to join.

It was the storm that saved him from Majunath’s suspicion. A fresh gurney stretcher crashed through the doors at the far end of the ED, with paramedics clinging to it as though they were launching a bobsled. It finally careered to a slippery stop beside Majunath. Both paramedics were drenched, water still cascading off their fluorescent jackets. The taller one exhaled upwards to blow the rain off his face and out of his floppy ginger hair. ‘Four more on the way,’ he explained to Majunath breathlessly. More water flicked onto the floor as he nodded at the unfortunate victim on the gurney. Owen noted quickly that the boy was probably early teens, unconscious, intubated, very cyanosed.

‘Water taxi capsized in the Bay,’ the paramedic was saying. He twisted the gurney through ninety degrees, and pushed it on through the doors of resus, all the while rattling off his diagnosis and the treatment he’d already given.

‘I thought we were trying to divert patients to Royal Gwent?’ Majunath snapped at the new arrivals.

‘Storm’s heading that way, too’ explained Megan.

Majunath groaned. ‘Swansea, then? St David’s?’

‘Well, this little lad is here now,’ muttered the red-haired paramedic.

Majunath reacted immediately, professional once more. ‘I’ll take this one,’ he told Megan. ‘You and Doctor Harper take the next as they arrive.’ He snapped a swift glanced at his wristwatch. ‘You may need to extend your shift, I’m afraid.’ He bellowed into the air: ‘Auxiliary? There’s more water to mop up here.’ And then he was gone, the doors into resus flapping behind him.

Owen seized Megan’s hand. ‘Come on. We need to check out Sergeant Applegate first.’

‘Sergeant Applegate? You mean you know this woman?’ Megan allowed him to lead her further down from the curtained cubicles, to the first of several small examination rooms. Just before they stepped in, Owen felt Megan hold back. She didn’t let go of his hand, but she stared at him warily. ‘She has a gunshot wound, Owen. And you had a gun…’

He squeezed her hand in reassurance. ‘I don’t know how she got shot. I do know that it wasn’t me.’ He pulled her into the cubicle and closed the door.

Sandra Applegate lay on the trolley, pale and still, her breath shallow but regular. Owen could see from the monitors that she was stable. He briefly examined the saline drip that was attached to Applegate by a long, clear tube, and then checked the other attachment, a bag of group O blood.

Megan was considering the patient notes, and looking surprised. ‘She’s not bad for someone who’s lost a lot of blood. She has a gunshot wound to the lateral portion of her upper arm. Proximal humerus fracture, with the bullet retained beneath the scapula. They anticipated removing the bullet arthroscopically.’

Owen came around the bed and read the notes over her shoulder. ‘That’ll avoid a traditional exposure. Good thing too, it means not complicating her fracture care.’ He was close behind Megan, so near that he could breathe in deeply and smell her short, dark hair. The antiseptic tang of the Emergency Room faded away around him. He closed his eyes, inhaled again, and the scents of her room came back to him. The sweet, chocolate fragrance of Angel Innocent, an indulgence almost as surprising as finding himself in bed with Megan. The lingering notes of the Chateau La Fleur on her hot breath. The musky warmth of post-coital cotton sheets. The fusty familiarity of an old- fashioned woollen blanket, pulled up over his face.

‘They anticipated the arthroscopy?’ he asked, suddenly back in the room. ‘Why did they change their minds?’

Megan indicated the small table beside the patient’s bed. In a kidney-shaped metal bowl they could both see a bloodied bullet. ‘The bullet was subsequently found on the bed-sheet. The examining doctor suggests it must have worked its way out.’

Owen was about to comment on how unlikely that was when the cubicle door opened behind them. He stepped back from Megan, his movement betraying his guilt, and almost collided with a rangy, long-haired man in a scruffy white coat. From his stooped posture, his five-o’clock shadow and the rings below his eyes, this was a junior doctor coming to the end both of his shift and of his patience. The new arrival surveyed Owen with barely concealed hostility. ‘This isn’t your patient.’ A statement made as an accusation.

‘She is now.’ Owen bridled. He fumbled in his jacket for the ID, and waggled it dismissively under the guy’s