‘Neither can I,’ said Owen, jerking his head in the direction of Sandra, who he was still comforting as best he could. ‘Bedside manner?’ he hissed.
‘We have to go back to that ship,’ Sandra blurted out. There was a fresh urgency in her voice.
‘Steady,’ Megan warned her, and rose to check the monitors. ‘I’m amazed by your resilience, Sandra. You’ve had a gunshot wound, you’ve been in a pedestrian RTA that would normally result in major trauma. I know you’re a very fit soldier, but for anyone else I’d have been arranging a bed in ITU at best, and maybe a visit from the chaplain at worst.’ She was considering the evidence of the monitors in wonder. ‘Owen, could this thing in her spine be helping her, do you think?’
‘That’s why I have to go back,’ Sandra interrupted. ‘I want to get this tracer thing out of my back. And I can’t do that with conventional surgery here in the hospital, I could be paralysed. But you’re doctors. If you return with me to that ship, you could use the machine that inserted this thing to remove it again.’
Owen studied her thoughtfully. ‘That’s a thought.’
Megan was infuriated. ‘She’s still in no condition to travel. You heard how traumatic she said it was the last time.’
‘I have nothing to fear from capture now. I’m a trained soldier, I’ve recced the area already. And besides the aliens are all dead.’
‘And in this weather…?’ protested Megan.
‘It’s the alien vessel that’s causing these freakish weather conditions.’ Sandra grasped at Owen’s hand, the one that he had laid on her arm to reassure her. ‘Surely you could stop the ship? Save the Bay? I can take Torchwood there! Dr Harper, I’m at your mercy in so many ways here. But I want to help. You should contact your Torchwood colleagues.’
‘I think we can handle this.’ Owen patted her hand and released it. He looked at Megan and grinned. That familiar adrenalin buzz was kicking in, it was like his head was fizzing with an exhilaration that he thought had been gone for too long. ‘Megan, this is it. Your chance to see what Torchwood is all about. First-hand!’
‘It’s insane — crazy!’ squealed Megan. But he saw she was laughing too.
‘Crazy is what makes me feel
‘Look at the weather,’ she protested feebly.
‘That’s my whole point. You’ve got to put up with the rain to get the rainbow.’
‘Oh, that’s lovely, Owen,’ said Megan sarcastically. ‘Now you’re quoting poetry at me?’
‘I’m quoting something I heard on
Sandra made a decision first. ‘If you won’t help me, then I’ll have to do it for myself.’ She started to pluck the sensors from her body. As each sharp tug removed another one, the ECG machine flatlined and began to ping a warning. ‘I won’t stay here,’ insisted Sandra. ‘And you can’t make me. I’ll take my chances on my own.’
‘All right, all right.’ Megan hurried to Sandra’s side, trying to calm her at the same time as helping her with the sensors and wiping away the remaining conductive gel beneath them.
The examination-room door burst open as a nurse barged her way in. It was the short, thin girl, Roberta Nottingham. She was looking less eager now and more panicked. When she saw two doctors in the room, she slumped back against the wall in relief. ‘Sorry, Dr Tegg,’ she said to Megan. ‘I heard the ECG alarm went off.’
‘That’s OK, Bobbie.’ Megan switched off the ECG monitor and the alarm stopped at once. ‘Here, sort out her drips.’
‘So,’ said Sandra brightly, ‘how long will it take to get discharged from here?’
‘How long is a piece of red tape?’ smiled the young nurse.
Now that Sandra had stood up, she was pressing her forehead gently with one hand. Megan moved to the door. ‘I’ll sort out some portable analgesia.’
Sandra flexed her arm where the nurse had removed the saline drip and attached a plaster in the crook of her elbow. ‘It may just be that I need a drink, and I haven’t eaten for a while. Owen, can you get my discharge papers sorted out while I get dressed here? I’ll come and meet you out at reception.’
A soldier who protected her modesty, thought Owen. But he just said: ‘Sure.’
‘And I am absolutely famished,’ Sandra told him as he was leaving the room. ‘But don’t worry. While you’re gone, I’m sure Nurse Nottingham here can help me get a bite to eat.’
TWENTY-FOUR
There was no sign of the dead policeman outside Wildman’s apartment building in Splott. The battering rain had scoured the pavement clean. Even the shrubs where the body had sprawled were flattened by the torrent from the broken gutter.
A half-hearted effort had been made by one of the residents to prop the front doors shut. It wasn’t as if they’d be able to get a carpenter out to effect an urgent repair; there were quite enough other emergencies to attend to as the typhoon blew through the city. Only the two hallway tables and a couple of plastic brooms were holding the doors in place, and Jack was able to force them aside with no difficulty. The crash and clatter of falling furniture was masked by the howl of the wind.
Jack had brought a laser cutter and an axe. Up in Wildman’s apartment, he pulled all of the furniture towards the centre of the room, and tossed pictures and wall hangings on top of them, so that he could methodically test the cavity walls. Where he found that the plasterboard sounded hollow, he applied the laser cutter to slice a hole through it.
Within half an hour, there were scorched gaps in every wall and in the backs of all the fitted cupboards. There was no sign of any lead boxes. A similar search of the small gap under the floorboards yielded nothing either.
By the time he had ransacked the small attic space, he was covered in cobwebs and plaster dust. He’d found boxes of musty novels in damp cardboard boxes, battered wicker baskets and Christmas decorations in supermarket shopping bags. But there was nothing that could contain the missing nuclear materials.
The last thing he did was examine the bathroom. The starfish creature had broken up into decomposed chunks of lumpy grey flesh, so that the bath was like a huge bowl of putrid mushroom soup. By poking at the plughole with the toilet brush he was able to drain most of the malodorous liquid, and satisfy himself that there was nothing concealed below the water line. The pungent stink of dead fish made him retch, even when he tried to breathe only through his mouth. He felt like the stench was overwhelming him, drowning him, and he was hugely relieved to finally abandon the search and close the bathroom door on the whole nauseating spectacle.
Jack sat amid the piled furniture in the middle of the living area. No nuclear materials here. Could Applegate have smuggled them out already, when they were last here? The Geiger counters hadn’t recorded anything, but she’d been wearing a long coat and perhaps that had concealed a smaller lead-lined carrier. So, where could Applegate be now? Alone and wounded. Alone and wounded. He pondered this like a mantra, before deciding to call Toshiko at the Hub.
The call connected on the second attempt. Toshiko told him that she and Gwen were already mobile, and were en route for the Bay in Gwen’s car.
‘Any news from Owen?’ Jack asked her. The signal was poor, and the line intermittent, so they both found they were shouting to make themselves understood. ‘Has he called in?’
‘He may have tried,’ crackled Toshiko’s voice from the mobile. ‘But in these conditions, who can tell?’ There was buzzing interruption and Jack had to get her to repeat what she’d said. ‘I had an idea about checking his mobile phone records. Obviously we’re piggybacking our own system securely on the service providers, and none of them log our calls. But I was able to…’
‘Yeah, OK Tosh,’ said Jack. ‘Half of that’s getting lost in the background noise, and the other half is leaking out of my brain. What have you found?’
There was a pause. Jack wondered whether the line had dropped or Toshiko was in a huff. Eventually she said, ‘Owen received a call last night from a Megan Tegg. She’s a Senior House Officer at the Cardiff Royal
