Into the Silence

'I don't remember, I don't remember, I don't remember, I don't remember…'

'Make it go away! Please!'

'So alone. Such silence…'

Needing to get out, to find some sanity, Gwen abandoned any hope of trying to calm them herself. They needed sedatives. They needed bloody Retcon. What the hell were they dealing with here?

Pushing out through the door, she collided with Jack and the nurse coming in.

The nurse's face fell. 'What have you done, you stupid woman?' She didn't wait for an answer before scurrying into the recreation room, pressing the bell for assistance as she did so.

'I'm really sorry, Jack. I just asked them some questions and…'

Jack grabbed her arm, tugging her down the corridor. 'You can tell me on the way.'

'On the way to where?'

'Cutler rang. He says another body's been found.'

Happy to leave that terrible anguish behind, Gwen broke into a slight jog to keep up with Jack. She'd be back though, she promised herself. As soon as she could. And she'd bring some Retcon with her.

FIVE

On the other side of town, Adrienne Scott pulled her BMW into the small car park at the back of the Havannah Court Autism Centre and sat for a second after turning the engine off. She stared at the familiar bricks of the wall in front of her. It seemed she knew every uneven edge of them, but then she'd used this space a lot over the past four years. This was her space. On a Monday, Wednesday and Friday at any rate. Maybe using the same slot on each visit was her homage to autism, her own little need for regularity.

Her dark bob sank back into the headrest. She just needed a minute or two of peace before going inside. Ryan was her son and she loved him. She was sure she must love him on some level, but it was all just so damned hard when there was nothing but anxiety given in return. She was his mother; she'd grown him inside her and kept him safe, and he couldn't stand her touch. How could that be, she wondered for the millionth time since Ryan's diagnosis, even though she knew the question was pointless.

Not just her touch, she reminded herself. Any touch. But she was his mother. It should be different with her. The clock in the dashboard clicked on to ten o'clock, and she reluctantly got out of the car and headed inside, feeling so much older than her thirty-five years.

Signing in, she flashed a tight smile at Sylvia the receptionist, hoping to avoid conversation. No matter what the woman said it always made Adrienne feel guilty. She could hear the innocuous words coming out — 'How's work? Any exciting cases? Isn't it a lovely day? Have you got any plans for the summer? What a smart suit…' — but it was as if underneath each sentence was the whisper of 'Bad mother. You should have your child at home. Bad mother.'

Sylvia was still speaking when Adrienne turned her back on her. Adrienne didn't care. Most of the staff at the centre didn't like her, she was pretty sure of that. They thought she was cold; you didn't have to be a mind reader to see that. And maybe she was. Maybe the past six years had made her that way. Some people just weren't cut out to deal with children that were different. They had no right to judge her. After all, it was bad mothers like her that kept them in their jobs.

A dull ache of tension already creeping into her shoulders, she made her way along the familiar route to Ryan's room, trying not to look through any of the open doors as she went, but invariably unable to stop herself. This was her penance: one hour, three times a week. She may as well punish herself properly.

She passed 11-year-old Eleanor, whose long hair was always matted no matter how often it was brushed and who would for ever be known as the dribbling girl inside Adrienne's head. Turning the corner, she glanced into Michael's room, and sure enough he was still intent on trying to fit a square plastic shape into a round hole simply because the shape and the hole were the same bright red colour. Ryan's nurse, Ceri, had told her that Michael could sit for hours with that block in his hand, trying to squeeze it into the hole. Adrienne wondered if the child would ever see the irony. All these children were square pegs in round holes. How the nurses that worked here didn't end up shaking them out of sheer frustration she would never understand. But then, she was a bad mother. She hadn't been able to cope with Ryan for more than eighteen months.

Three doors down from her son's room, a little girl she didn't recognise stared at the wall and screamed as a nurse tried to wipe the snot that streamed down her face. Adrienne turned away in disgust, and the first edge of a headache throbbed loudly at the back of her skull. At least Ryan wasn't a screamer. Staring at the door she had to go through, she ran her manicured fingers through her sleek hair and wished she could raise more enthusiasm for seeing her beautiful son. No, Ryan didn't scream. Ryan was too busy singing. Constantly. All day. From waking to sleeping, barely pausing for breath between songs. Maybe if he'd just been quiet she could have coped. Maybe.

Through the doorway drifted a perfect imitation of Aled Jones's 'Walking In The Air'. Disc 1, track 4. Even she knew their order by heart now. Damn that ex-husband and his Classical Tracks CD that he'd played over and over in the car when Ryan was a baby. She hadn't even liked the music then. The too-familiar song slid past her eardrums and wormed its way towards the hammer of pain beating at the back of her skull, adding melody to its rhythm. And damn her baby's autistic memory storing every note and word in its banks until his body was developed enough to endlessly reproduce them.

As Adrienne stepped inside and grimaced a smile at Ceri, Ryan's tune didn't even waver.

SIX

The Bay View Beverley Bed and Breakfast wasn't quite close enough to the bright lights of the Cardiff Bay area to charge premium rates, but being within walking distance it could be guaranteed a steady trade throughout any busy months. Still, Gwen wasn't entirely sure that the owners would be able to fight a false advertising claim if it ever went to court. She reckoned that to consider yourself Bay side, you'd have to at least be able to see the Bay from some part of the building, even if it was only the attic.

The owners in question, Mr and Mrs Beverley, both in their early fifties, were sat sipping tea in their small, overly dressed dining room along with the five or six other guests who had been unfortunate enough to be in the building during that morning's incident. Passing them to head up the stairs, it was clear they were all badly shaken. Even from a distance, Gwen could see an old-fashioned teacup trembling in one man's hand as a policewoman took a seat opposite him. She could understand that tremble. She still felt a little unsettled after her encounter at the hospital.

'Make sure we get copies of all their notes.' Jack headed up the narrow, steep stairs. 'I doubt they'll have anything solid to give us, but it'll all help.'

Nodding, Gwen looked down at the royal blue carpet. It was threadbare in patches, and, although the skirting boards were clean, they were chipped and tatty and could do with replacing. Maybe the Bay View Beverley Bed and Breakfast wasn't doing so well after all. How was a murder going to affect their business? No wonder the middle- aged couple looked so worried.

The police photographer gave her a brief nod as he squeezed past, heading downstairs, and Gwen thought he looked as pale as his plastic suit. Whatever had happened up there wasn't going to be pretty. But then she wasn't expecting it to be after what they'd seen in the church. At least she, Jack and the police had some idea of what they would find. Whichever of the Beverleys had discovered the body hadn't had that privilege. How long would it be before the B amp; B would be on the market?

More uniformed officers trotted past them on the narrow stairwell, disgruntled expressions clouding their faces, clearly not happy to be relinquishing another crime scene to the mysterious Torchwood team.

Reaching the top of the building, Gwen followed Jack round the tight corner and through a door with a tacky ceramic sign with roses and lilac growing around a black number 7. She idly wondered whether someone should