the rest of the world. Footsteps, a cough from Moker, the dribble as he squeezed out the sponge—all sounded hollow, echoey, and louder than they should have been. I knew it was the acoustics created by the tiled walls and metal cabinets, but nevertheless, it was kind of ghostly. I suppose the hidden rows of dead bodies and the sight of the corpse that Moker worked on added to the creepiness, but I had to remind myself that I was the one doing the haunting. No one disturbed Moker in his work, nobody at all entered the mortuary that night; the telephone didn’t ring, there were no extraneous noises from beyond the four walls. The silence was relieved only by his grunts and occasional harsh breathing. It was both depressing and nerve-wracking.
At last he finished his labours and threw the sodden sponge and cloth into a plastic water bucket at the foot of the metal table. He gazed at his handiwork for a few moments, then traced with his thick fingers the stitched scar that ran from chest to groin. It was a sickening thing to do and I could only wonder at the man’s mentality and motive. Finally, he shuffled away, left shoulder higher than the right and went over to a tall freestanding cupboard, from which he took a large folded white sheet. This he spread over the body, covering it from head to ankles, allowing only the feet to show. After this, he wheeled over a gurney and effortlessly, it seemed to me, transferred the corpse onto it. He pushed it to the end of the row of closed cabinets, read the card on one, before pulling the cabinet all the way out. Naturally, it was empty and he came back to the body on the gurney and pushed it towards the exposed shelf of the cabinet. Again, effortlessly, it seemed, he lifted the corpse and laid it out on the shelf, tidily tucking the sheet around its outline so that he could close the cabinet once more. This he did, and when the shrouded body was out of sight, he tapped the cabinet front twice with the flat of his hand as if bidding the dead man goodnight.
This was cavalier at best, but what followed was far worse. My God, it was far, far worse; disgustingly so. First, he went to the plastic double door, pushing it open a fraction and peering out as if to see if the coast was clear. Then he came back to the closed cabinets and walked along them, tapping each door that was at chest level. He stopped, took another swift look at the plastic doors, then pulled open one cabinet. It slid out easily, only the low rumble of its runners breaking the silence, and I could see that the figure it held was smallish. Although the head was fully covered, I could tell by the dainty, colourless feet and the two slight chest bumps that a woman or girl lay beneath the shroud.
Moker pulled back the white sheet, slowly, as if relishing every stage of exposure, pausing as the breasts were uncovered. The surgical mask he wore puffed in and out with increased labour and I saw a dark saliva stain spread across it. The unveiling continued and I wanted to turn away from the obvious necrophilia. Instead, as if mesmerized again, I continued to stare in horror.
When, at last, the folds of sheet lay around the girl’s feet—I saw she could only be in her early twenties— Moker raised his thick, and now trembling hands and ran them over her chalky-white figure. Apart from her deathly whiteness and the blueness of her lips, she looked unharmed, as though whatever had ended her young life remained hidden within the vessel that was her body; her hair was golden blonde and it lay in matted ringlets around her head and neck.
I yelled a high-pitched protest when I saw what Moker was doing and tried to grab his arms, wanting to pull him away, wanting to prevent his desecrating this beautiful but lifeless girl. Nothing I could do would stop him though and, although I was aware of my inadequacy, I could not still my arms and I beat at him, tore at him, desperately tried to force him away. His big hand delved between her thighs, which were now spread in a revealing pose, and I screamed again and again.
Eventually, I gave up and went into the small office next door. I sank into the desk chair and lay my head in my hands, covering my ears.
I could still hear the brute noises coming from next door, the animal moans of Moker as he abused the body that had been left in his charge.
But shocked and repulsed though I was by the depravity, nothing could have prepared me for the horror that was to follow later that night.
28
It was a long wretched night and more than once I had to force myself to remain in the presence of this monster. I kept to the little office, desperately trying to close my mind to the activity next door. Other cabinets had been opened, but I refused to think of what might be happening to other cadavers. Perhaps having finished with the girl, Moker was merely carrying out his normal duties; I could only hope. Twice he came into view through the doorway, pushing a floor mop, a metal bucket by his feet, and I supposed that not only was it his job to clean the corpses, but also the mortuary itself. Once he came into the office and I had to back away into a tight corner to avoid his touch—I shuddered at the idea of sharing any of his sick thoughts—and I remained there as he shuffled through paperwork on the desk. I got the feeling that he was just snooping rather than working, because he added nothing to the various forms he browsed through, nor did he instigate new paperwork himself. He looked into the desk drawers and I had the impression he was still prying and not actually searching for something. And strangely, all the while he wore the surgical mask over the gaping hole in his face, as if visitors might drop in any moment and he did not want anyone to see the disfigurement. I had no idea how long he’d worked in this hospital mortuary, but I thought it pretty certain that other staff in the hospital knew of his deformity. In some strange way, perhaps he was hiding it from himself: I had noticed there were no mirrors in his grubby flat, but there were bound to be in other places he visited; in fact, there was a small one in this very room, stuck on a wall at about head level, obviously for morticians to groom themselves before they went about their business. Moker, deliberately it seemed to me, had refrained from glancing into the mirror all the while he was in the office.
It was a relief when he went outside again and carried on with whatever duties he was paid to do—cleaning and sweeping mostly, I’d have said, and not just tending bodies. I stayed where I was, sitting in the chair and closing my eyes, ready to jump up should he return. Occasionally I checked the time on the round clock fixed to the wall above the desk and only when the hands approached 10 p.m. and I heard Moker pouring water away into one of the mortuary’s stainless-steel sinks, and then the clatter of the bucket and mop as they were stored away, inside a cupboard, did I guess his shift was nearly up and he was getting ready to leave.
I went back into the long white-tiled morgue and trailed him to the locker room. He shed the green overalls and put the surgical mask into his raincoat pocket. Then he wound the long woollen scarf around his neck and face, and donned the coat and wide-brimmed hat. He was ready to leave and some inner instinct told me he was not immediately returning home.
I was right: he didn’t go back to his basement flat. Instead he drove to a twenty-four-hour underground car park in Bayswater.
We’d been sitting there quite some time, Moker slumped in the driver’s seat, me in the back, an impalpable passenger. I hated being so close to him—I was sure that if I had the sense of smell, his stench would have been unbearable—but there was no other option. I sensed he was up to no good (finely attuned instinct again?)—why else would he sit in the darkness of the car park’s lowest level, studying every person (and there weren’t that many at that time of night) who returned to collect their vehicle.
This basement area was almost as poorly lit as his flat (I was getting used to dark, dispiriting places by now: the seance parlour, Moker’s dingy home, Mother’s front room, and now this gloomy place, the car park itself), with no CCTV cameras, the parked cars few on this level. Footsteps, when they came, sounded lonely in this deep underground space. The old Hillman was parked between two smart cars, a Mondeo and a BMW, which only accentuated the battered wreck that it was. I thought Moker’s raspy breathing might carry beyond the confines of his vehicle, so quiet was this level he’d chosen, but it could be because of my own overwrought imagination. I heard a door shut and an engine start up, then the muffled sound of wheels travelling over concrete. The noise faded away. More footsteps, these belonging to more than one person.
Two people came into view, walking down the curving ramp in our direction, and Moker sank lower into his seat. It was a man and a woman, and they were arm in arm, gazing into each other’s eyes, seemingly oblivious to all else. They reached the BMW, failing to notice the dark hunched figure in the old car next to it, and the man fumbled in his pocket for his car key. Before he inserted it into the lock, the couple paused to engage in a passionate kiss, the man running his free hand down the length of the woman’s back. They clung together for a little while and I heard Moker’s breathing become heavier, more ragged.
The driver climbed into the BMW and the woman walked round to the passenger side; her lover stretched across and pushed the door open for her. As she passed my window I saw that she was attractive, probably mid- thirties, smart in long skirt and navy jacket. The man, I’d noticed, wore a slightly crumpled business suit and had
