‘Thanks, Ianto. You are a treasure, you know that?’
He smiled. ‘As a matter of fact, I do.’
‘Tosh stepped off the path and got stuck in the mud.’ Gwen sipped the chocolate carefully. ‘At least I thought it was mud, but it turned out to be a bog or something and before we knew it she was sinking.’
Owen sniggered, shaking his head. ‘Oh, I’d have paid money to have seen that.’
Gwen glared at him. ‘She’s lucky to be alive. If it hadn’t been for Professor Len, she’d be dead.’
‘Wouldn’t we all?’ said Jack. He stood up and clapped his hands. ‘So — where’s the body?’
EIGHT
Len Morgan trudged across Greendown Moss, hands deep in the pockets of his parka. It was bitingly cold out here, even at this time of year, and the wind was making his nose run continuously. Every time he put a boot down in the mud, he could feel icy fingers grabbing at his feet. For most people, a walk across the Moss would be a risky undertaking in good weather. In these conditions it was positively dangerous. Many people had met their deaths out here, and it was apparently nothing to do with Sally Blackteeth. They just sank in the mud, slipped beneath the Moss and drowned.
But not Professor Len. He knew the bog too well, and he knew Sally Blackteeth.
There was a thick mist hanging around the trees of Grey Copse. He could see the branches of the silver birch stretching up towards the white sky, but that was all. The mist closed around him as he stepped into the trees, welcoming him to another, colder, more mysterious world.
‘That was a bloody stupid thing to do,’ he said.
A dark figure emerged from the mist close by. ‘You can talk.’
Len shivered. He knew better than to look at the figure directly. It was enough that he could hear the moist sucking noise it made as it moved slowly behind him. He never heard a footstep, only the faint, wet sound of its breath.
‘I couldn’t help it,’ he said. ‘They insisted.’
‘You brought them here.’
‘I had to. I owed someone a favour.’
‘A favour? You don’t owe anybody anything — except me.’
‘This one goes back a long way. Before I met you.’
‘Huh. So who is this person? The one you owe a favour to that’s more important than the one you owe me. Come on — who is it?’
‘You don’t need to know that.’ Professor Len licked his lips, sensing trouble. ‘I only came to apologise. I know I shouldn’t have brought them here — but you shouldn’t have given them that corpse.’
‘Consider it a gift.’
‘They took the body back with them.’
‘I expected them to.’
‘It’s a mistake,’ Professor Len insisted bravely. ‘They’ll examine it, check into it.’
‘Good luck to them.’
‘They won’t let it go. They were here for a reason. These people don’t do anything without a reason.’
‘Good. Neither do I.’
Len bit his lip, raised a hand to rub at his beard. He was torn with indecision, and he could sense that his next words were being waited for.
‘You don’t understand,’ he said. ‘These people — they’re special. They’re unique. They call themselves Torchwood.’
There was a noise like a stake being driven into moist earth. It wasn’t a gasp of surprise or shock. It was a snort of derision. ‘Torchwood. I don’t fear them. Never have done.’
‘But they won’t let it lie. Something’s brought them here to the Moss. It’s not you — it’s some kind of disturbance in time, they said …’
Another hiss of disdain. ‘They have no idea what they’re dealing with.’
‘I just thought you ought to know.’
‘Why?’
‘Because … because I want to protect you.’
‘Rubbish. It’s because you think I’ll spare your life.’
Professor Len was trembling now, and it wasn’t due to the cold. He couldn’t even feel his body any more. Snot ran down his lip but he didn’t even think of wiping it away. ‘I don’t want to die! It wasn’t my idea to give them the body. You did that, not me.’
‘You can’t protect me. I know all about Torchwood. And I know all about Jack Harkness. He’s the man you think you owe your life to, isn’t he? The favour! How sweet. But it doesn’t matter. It’s done now.’
Professor Len swallowed, his mouth dry. ‘You mean I can go?’
‘Look at me.’
‘No.’
‘Look at me.’
Professor Len glanced up, aware that someone had moved in front of him. At first he could see nothing except the mist and the ghosts of the trees around him. There was a smell like rotting cabbage and peat mixed with the faintest trace of a butcher’s yard, and then he saw his companion.
‘There,’ she said. ‘That wasn’t so bad, was it?’
He shook his head miserably. ‘No,’ he whispered.
‘Good,’ she said, smiling. And then, with one swift stroke, she sliced his neck open, deep enough to expose the vertebrae at the back, just before the blood surged up and out in a huge red fountain.
NINE
The corpse was laid out on the table in the Autopsy Room underneath a ring of brilliant exam lights. It was old and in an advanced state of decay. The skin had withered into a dark, leathery carapace stretched over wasted muscle and tendon. Some of the joints were exposed, yellowed bone just visible beneath the skein of mud that still covered the entire body.
It was still wearing the remnants of trousers and a sweater, but these were little more than scraps of material stiffened by the preserving effects of the soil. Closer examination revealed small invertebrates still making a home in the damp crevices.
The head was little more than a hairless skull with eyes crusted over behind blackened lids. The lips were partly eaten away to reveal the remains of yellow teeth.
‘Definitely human,’ announced Owen, now wearing his white lab coat, ‘judging by the orthodontic work. Five fillings and a cap.’
He stood in the well of the Autopsy Room while the others watched from the walkway above. There was a deck of monitoring equipment at the end of the table, and a camera filming the autopsy. Owen circled the corpse, making a number of routine observations before attempting any invasive exploration.
‘The body is male, adult, although it’s not possible at this stage to make a guess at its age.’
‘Guess anyway,’ advised Jack. He stood in his shirtsleeves, arms folded. ‘You never know, you may be right.’
Owen looked up at him. ‘Who, me?’ he said sarcastically. He straightened up and shrugged, fiddling with the badges which speckled the lapels of his white coat. ‘All right: at a very rough guess, I’d say he was aged between twenty and a hundred.’
‘You’re uncanny, Owen. Narrow it down.’
‘Your age,’ Owen said, without missing a beat.
