‘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
‘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.
‘Coffee?’ he asked as the door closed behind them, ‘or shall we unpack the stuff and get some food on?’
‘Actually,’ Lucy said, ‘I want something else.’
He glanced back at her. There was a confident, dangerous look in her eyes. ‘Look, Lucy, we need to-’
‘No talking,’ she said, and strode toward him, hips swinging.
His gaze kept flickering between her face, her incredible breasts as they swung from side to side and her crotch, a smooth Y-shape outlined in tight denim. How could something so close to a wet dream be just a step away from a nightmare? He put his hands up, unsure whether he wanted to push her away or pull her closer, crushing her to his chest. She kept walking, breasts pressing against the palms of his hands, nipples hard beneath the fabric of her blouse and that black, lacy bra that he remembered seeing beside the sofa that morning.
‘I need you,’ she moaned. ‘I need you inside me, Rhys.’
And, turning her face up toward him, she leaned forward and sunk her teeth into his cheek, worrying the flesh before tearing a chunk away.
The last thing Rhys remembered was seeing his own blood, splattering across her cheeks like scarlet freckles.
ELEVEN
Owen could hear sobbing even before he reached the cells.
He stopped before he rounded the corner, and she saw him. It wasn’t that he liked listening to women cry — although he’d experienced more than his fair share since he lost his virginity in a stationery cupboard at school when he was fifteen — it was more that he didn’t want to see what any girl looked like when she was crying that hard. The sobs were racking, heaving things, and sobs like that in his experience were accompanied by snot and dishevelled hair and a general loss of self-respect. He liked women who were neat and tidy; at least, outside the bedroom.
When she showed no sign of stopping crying, Owen scuffed his foot against the floor. She didn’t hear or, if she did hear, she didn’t respond, so he did it another couple of times.
Eventually the crying stopped and, after a few moments when Owen imagined her hurriedly wiping her face, a small, scared voice said, ‘Is there someone there? Hello?’
He walked nonchalantly around the corner as if nothing had happened. She was in the third cell along: a girl with blonde hair, matted now, and a face blotchy from crying and streaked with mascara. Still, at least she’d made an effort to clean herself up. She was still holding a tissue. Cardboard fragments lay scattered around her feet. Owen had a feeling that they were all that was left of the pizza boxes that had been stacked up in her cell earlier.
‘Hallo, Marianne,’ he said.
‘Everyone seems to know my name,’ she replied, ‘but I don’t know who anyone else is.’
‘I’m Owen. I’m a doctor.’
She moved closer to the transparent barrier that separated the cell from the corridor. ‘Am I ill? Is that why I’m here? I can’t remember.’
‘This is an isolation ward. We think you might have caught an infectious disease.’
She wasn’t convinced. ‘It looks more like a cell. A really old cell.’
‘Ah. This part of the hospital had been closed down. We reopened it because of the epidemic.’
‘But I thought I’d been drugged. The man who was here earlier told me someone had drugged my drink.’
‘Yeah, that’s right,’ Owen said, thinking quickly. ‘But we think whoever drugged your drink was infected with
