Heathen/Nemesis

eyes, eyes which flickered back and forth, regarding him now with a combination of bewilderment and concern. He wondered for a moment if she was going to let him in but she pushed the door to and he heard the chain being slipped. The door opened to allow him entry, then was closed behind him.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said quickly. ‘I was going to ask you in.’ There was a pleasant smile on her face, but it never touched her eyes.

Do your job.

Cobb stood rigidly in the hallway.

‘Mrs Ward,’ he began. Go on, you can do it. ‘I’m afraid to tell you there’s been an accident. It’s ...’

She cut him short.

‘Chris,’ she murmured, her eyes riveted to the uniformed man.

‘Your husband has been involved in a car crash. At least, we think it’s your husband ...’

She closed her eyes tightly for a second.

‘Is he hurt?’ she demanded, her voice cracking.

‘We need you to identify him,’ Cobb said.

There were tears forming in her eyes.

‘How do you know it’s him?’ she said frantically.

‘We’re not sure; that’s why we need you to come with us and look at him. We have this.’ He reached into his pocket and pulled out the small, plastic-wrapped package. With a trembling hand he held it out towards Donna, who snatched it from him.

‘Those are your husband’s initials, aren’t they?’ Cobb said, indicating the CW on one corner of the bloodied handkerchief.

‘Oh God,’ Donna said, her eyes brimming with tears. She put one hand to her mouth. ‘Is he dead?’

Cobb had been expecting the question but he still didn’t know how to deal with it. No amount of training could prepare you.

‘If you come with me, there’s a car outside,’ he said, trying to sound efficiently detached. ‘We’ll take you to ...’

‘Is he dead?’ she snarled through clenched teeth.

‘Yes.’

‘Oh God, no, please.’ She tried to swallow but couldn’t. The tears began to flow.

Cobb felt helpless. So fucking, pathetically, screamingly helpless. Jesus Christ, he wanted to help this woman, but what did he do? What could he do, except drive her to the hospital to inspect the body of the man they were convinced was her husband?

There was a coat stand close by. Donna reached for a leather jacket and pulled it on, pushing past Cobb and out of the front door towards the waiting police car. He slammed the front door behind her and followed her to the car, helping her into the back, scurrying around the other side and strapping himself in.

Donna wiped tears from her face.

‘We don’t know for sure that it is your husband, Mrs Ward,’ he said, as if that were some kind of comfort.

‘Just take me to him, please,’ she said.

The car sped away.

The sun slipped away, leaving the last of its colour to fade from the sky. Night closed in.

Now there was only darkness.

Three

She might as well have been blindfolded for the journey. Donna saw little or nothing of the houses and countryside that flashed by. Stigwood guided the police car along the streets with sometimes bewildering speed. She could see her own face reflected in the glass of the windows when other vehicles passed: her eyes looked blank. There was no expression behind them other than that of fearful expectation. Or desperate hope.

They’d said they weren’t sure if it was her husband or not.

You’re holding his handkerchief, for Christ’s sake. Look at it.

It could be someone else.

Someone who looked like him?

It was possible.

Someone who had the same initials?

Please God let them be wrong.

There was so much blood on the handkerchief she could have wrung it out. As she sat in the back of the car she ran her fingers over the plastic. Occasionally she would clasp her hands together.

The silence inside the car was as uncomfortable as it was impenetrable, but what were the uniformed men supposed to say? Stigwood was too busy concentrating on the road to strike up a conversation and Cobb couldn’t even bring himself to look round at the distraught woman. The only indication of her presence was the occasional sniffle.

If it wasn’t Chris, then how did they know where to find her? From his driver’s licence? She gripped the handkerchief more tightly, one part of her mind filled with the unshakeable conviction that the man she was being taken to identify was indeed her husband. The other part of her being fought to believe, prayed that there had been some terrible mistake. She tried to make herself think that there could be another Christopher Ward.

The police car slowed down as it approached a set of traffic lights, the glowing red in the gloom. The single scarlet circlet was like an unblinking eye. As red as the blood on the handkerchief.

Donna shifted position, pulling her jacket more tightly around herself, aware of the same bone-numbing chill that had enveloped her from the time Cobb had stepped into her house. But now that chill was deepening, freezing her blood, turning her bones to glacial props encased by bloodless skin. She had never felt cold like it.

Was death as cold as this?

Did Chris already know?

She closed her eyes for a moment but images of him appeared there, images she wanted to see but also ones she feared she might never see again. Images which would become only memories. Never again to be witnessed. She was to be left with nothing but memories, now.

In the night air the sound of sirens echoed stridently and amidst a blurr of flashing blue lights an ambulance hurtled from the main gates of the hospital.

Stigwood watched it go, checked that the way in was clear, then guided the car through the main gates.

As the car came to a halt and Cobb opened the door for her, Donna felt as if the very life were being sucked from her.

She brushed a tear from her cheek and followed Cobb inside the hospital.

Four

There were three of them waiting.

Donna had been guided through the labyrinthine corridors of the hospital by Cobb, hardly aware that her feet were touching the ground, seeing the activity around her but not registering it.

The nurse hurrying to casualty with packets of blood for a transfusion.

Two interns running along with a gurney.

Somewhere close she heard crying; always, there was that smell, simultaneously reassuring and nauseating. The disinfectant smell. It mingled with the stench of excrement as a nurse hurried to empty a bed-pan, walking past Donna without even glancing at her. Everything was happening in slow motion; the journey through the hospital took an eternity.