Another Life. Part 13

Almost at once, the starfish released its grip on Gwen's hand. Jack leapt up, the creature still attached to the letter opener, and he plunged the blade into the wall above the sideboard. The point pierced the plasterboard wall, and when Jack let go of the handle the letter opener had skewered the starfish to the striped wallpaper. The creature spasmed for a moment and then went still.

Gwen ran into the kitchen area of the apartment, and ran water over her wounded hand. The tap slowly ran cold, and the smarting pain seemed to ease a little. Jack joined her at the sink, and stuck his burned fingers under the tap.

'Thanks,' Gwen told him. Their hands met briefly in the cold water, so she stroked the back of his hand with a light touch.

Tos.h.i.+ko gave a little groan from where she had been dumped on the horrid s.h.a.g pile carpet. Jack pulled his hand away, took a towel and went over to check on Tos.h.i.+ko.

Gwen had to dry her hands on a stained tea towel. The back of her right hand was blotched with circles and small scratches, but the skin appeared to be unbroken.

Tos.h.i.+ko was dazed, but not injured. Jack helped her back to her feet. 'What happened to Applegate?' she asked him. 'Did you...? Eww!' Tos.h.i.+ko had spotted the starfish spiked into the wall, level with her head. It had shrivelled still further, and was dripping yellow-green gunk down the wallpaper and onto the sideboard. 'G.o.d, I thought the decor in this place was dismal, but that's just disgusting!'

Jack beckoned to Tos.h.i.+ko and Gwen to follow him out of the apartment. Out on the landing, rain was was.h.i.+ng in through a fresh hole in the half-landing window. 'I shot her. Upper arm, I think. Maybe the shoulder. She was running down the stairs, so the momentum carried her on and through that window.'

He trotted down the half-flight of steps. He considered the rain and wind gusting in through the hole before twisting the latch and opening the shattered remains of the window. He took a swift look through the gap, pulled his head back in. He obviously couldn't believe what he'd seen, because he bravely took another look in the face of the storm.

'I can't see the body,' he said. 'C'mon, two floors down, who's gonna survive that?' He studied Tos.h.i.+ko and Gwen's reactions. 'OK, we should check on the way out.'

They returned to the apartment, and went into the bathroom. As soon as the door opened, an overpowering stench of rotting fish a.s.sailed them. It was enough to make Gwen's eyes water.

The remains of the larger starfish had dissolved into a slimy gloop in the bath. Gwen didn't argue when Jack said he would conduct the search. Hidden behind the side panel of the bath he found a heavy grey box. He pulled it out onto the bathroom rug, and slid it across the room. Gwen switched on her Geiger counter, which ticked quietly. Jack lifted the lid of the box, and the ticking abruptly became a machine-gun rattle of alarm.

Jack snapped the lid shut. 'OK,' he said calmly. 'We appear to have the missing fuel rods.'

They had to make two journeys down the stairwell. On the first they carried the lead-lined box, and pushed it into the boot of the SUV. Second time, they wrapped up the policeman's corpse in a blanket from Wildman's apartment, and hefted the body down the stairs. By the time they'd put the other copper's body in the boot, all three of them were drenched in what felt to Gwen like equal measures of sweat and rainwater.

Jack slammed the boot closed. 'You two go back to the Hub and get changed. Take the Saab. I'll deliver the fuel rods to Blaidd Drwg and join you later. Tosh, you can start working on the cover story for these two in the back.' He checked his watch. 'Difficult to tell when I'll get back in this weather.'

'I hope that's waterproof,' Tos.h.i.+ko said.

'It's the best,' Jack told her. 'American military watch, 1940s. Twenty-four-hour display, a nice piece.'

Tos.h.i.+ko peered at it in the rain. 'Where did you get it from?'

'That was a long time ago,' smiled Jack. He shot his cuffs so that the watch was out of the rain again. 'That was a whole other life.'

Jack closed the door and steered the SUV upstream and out of the street. Gwen got into the Saab and watched the wake that the SUV left behind. She sat for a while gripping the steering wheel, studying the marks on the back of her hand and thinking about the two young policemen. What creative thinking would Tos.h.i.+ko employ to explain away their absences? Their deaths. She hardly dared ask her, even though she was now sitting next to her.

It was while contemplating these things that Gwen was startled by the sound of her mobile going off. A quick glance at the display revealed that it was Rhys. Was she coming home for dinner tonight? Gwen smiled sheepishly at Tos.h.i.+ko. Not sure, she told her boyfriend. Rain's really terrible, so she'd need to take it steady. No, she was fine, being over-cautious probably. She'd call him when she knew.

He loved her, he said. She missed him, she replied.

When the call ended, Gwen sat silently for a few more moments in the car. Thinking again about the inventive excuse that Tos.h.i.+ko was going come up with to cover the policemen's absence. Pondering the excuse she herself was going to offer Rhys tonight when she'd missed dinner again.

Ianto found it surprisingly difficult to close the front door. There was a gale blowing straight across the Bay, and that meant straight at the entrance to the Hub from Mermaid Quay. He put his shoulder to the edge nearest the frame and, after a bit more effort, he was able to get the door to click into place. He shot the bolts securely across the top and bottom, and leaned back against the door, exhausted.

Jack had breezed in, but so had several gallons of water, and the reception floor was awash. 'We're gonna need some sandbags out there, Ianto, if this rain keeps up.'

'Yes, the neighbourhood's gone to pot,' said Ianto. 'Maybe we should move.'

'I don't think so,' said Jack. 'Imagine how many tea-chests we'd need to pack. That, plus we'd need to get the stationery reprinted.' He shook himself like a wet dog, and rainwater spattered across the room. His trousers were soaked up to the knee, and he decided it would be a good idea to grasp the material and squeeze water out of the legs right there and then.

Ianto resisted the strong temptation to tut loudly. Instead, he plucked a handful of tissues from a box and mopped the worst of the splashes off the paperwork at the desk. He was able to rescue the flyers for the Redflight Barcud event at the Millennium Centre, but a pile of Tredegar House information leaflets was as good as ruined.

They had disguised the Bayside entrance to the Torchwood Hub as a Tourist Information Centre. And not a particularly salubrious one at that because, obviously, they didn't want to encourage a steady stream of eager visitors asking for directions to the Pierhead Building or opening times for the Norwegian Church. Not that Ianto couldn't answer those questions, of course. He prided himself on his arcane local knowledge, whether Cardiff indie bands or the history of Tiger Bay. Mostly, though, they only wanted to know the reason why the word 'Brains' was stencilled on a city centre chimney stack. This had all proved useful cover on an awkward occasion when a film crew from a BBC Wales travel programme wouldn't take no for an answer when looking for an interview.

Ianto helped Jack out of his wet coat. 'You've got a big hole in your sleeve,' he said.

'Nothing escapes your eagle eye.'

'I see you've got a new watch, too.'

'I'm trying it out. Though it's an old watch. Antique.'

Ianto looked at it admiringly. 'Very nice. Perhaps you should have one for casual and one for best.'

'I don't think so.' Jack shucked off his sopping wet shoes and kicked them into the corner. 'A guy with a watch knows what time it is. A guy with two watches is never sure.' To Ianto's dismay, he proceeded to peel off his socks and wring them out into the waste bin. 'Are Tosh and Gwen back?'

'Waiting for you downstairs,' said Ianto.

'You're not wearing any socks,' Gwen told him.

'Nothing escapes your eagle eye,' replied Jack. 'Have you admired my watch yet?'

He plonked down into a Boardroom chair, and waited for Tos.h.i.+ko to complete her presentation materials. 'That flooding is getting critical. We're gonna have to seal the side entrance. Or put Ianto on a steroid regime, so he can get the door closed.'

Gwen pointed through the Boardroom's gla.s.s wall and into the main Hub area. She could see the water at the foot of the stainless steel tower was rippling. 'The basin is tidal, isn't it?'

Jack followed her directions. 'Yeah. And look how much higher that's got. Tosh, have we got a valve control on that thing to prevent it flooding the Hub?'

'Yes,' she told him, 'but I can't promise that the rest of the place is waterproof. There's a pool of water building up against the exterior window of the Autopsy Room. It would only take one careless accident for that to break.'

'Owen had better be careful then. He around?'

'I think Ianto knows where he is,' said Gwen.

Tos.h.i.+ko tapped the display screen to get their attention again. 'As for the rest of Cardiff, they're a lot worse off. Three hundred thousand people are staying at home to avoid getting their feet wet. We're supposed to have thirty-six inches of rain a year, and we've had twenty-four inches in as many hours.'

'The Oval Basin is starting to fill up with water,' agreed Gwen. 'It was like a river raging through there when we walked back from the car. If it carries on like this, by tomorrow morning only the people on the top floors of St David's Hotel will still be dry. And they probably won't notice until the caviar runs out.'

Tos.h.i.+ko showed a few more graphics on the display. 'They did a lot of groundwater modelling studies when they were proposing the barrage for the Bay. I'm going to tap into their instrumentation...'

Gwen laughed. 'Very good.' Tos.h.i.+ko didn't look pleased by this interruption. 'Sorry, I thought you were joking. You know, water... tap...'

'Tosh doesn't joke about her work.' Jack wagged a finger at Gwen in mock admonishment.

'They've got over two hundred boreholes recording groundwater levels every thirty minutes,' persisted Tos.h.i.+ko. 'And they measure other environmental parameters like rainfall, obviously, and atmospheric pressure. Tide and river levels. That lot should give us some idea what's going on.'

Jack leaned back in his chair, put his bare feet up on the table, and waggled his toes. 'There are some people round here who still talk about the Bristol Channel floods of 1607.'

'I imagine there may be some who are old enough to remember it,' muttered Gwen.

Tos.h.i.+ko was more impressed with the information, however. 'Thousands died. Houses and villages were swept away. Livestock got destroyed when farmland was inundated. The surrounding region was set back for more than a century. And there's a recent theory that it was a tsunami. If today's water levels continue to rise like this, it could do the same kind of damage.'

'But not as fast,' observed Gwen.

Tos.h.i.+ko switched off the display screen. 'A slow tsunami? Well, that would still cause devastation. Wreck the local economy. And kill tens of thousands this time.' She closed the lid of her laptop. 'If I'm right.'

Ianto came into the room to offer them coffee. He looked disapprovingly at Jack's bare feet, so Jack removed them from the table. 'OK, let's have your program run overnight Tosh, and see what it tells us tomorrow. Go home now, it's late. Have a lie-in tomorrow. You too, Gwen. Better take the scenic route, because I think Ianto here has welded the side door shut.'

Gwen knew better than to protest. She heaved herself out of her chair, and made her way to the exit platform with Tos.h.i.+ko.

'Doesn't your boyfriend mind you working this late?' asked Tos.h.i.+ko.

'He said he was going out to an all-night Star Wars Star Wars marathon,' lied Gwen. marathon,' lied Gwen.

Tos.h.i.+ko looked unconvinced. 'In this weather?'

'They're Star Wars Star Wars fans,' explained Gwen. 'They'd crawl over boiling lava to avoid missing their fifteenth viewing.' fans,' explained Gwen. 'They'd crawl over boiling lava to avoid missing their fifteenth viewing.'

'Ah,' said Tos.h.i.+ko, 'I understand. Otaku Otaku.' She smiled when Gwen frowned. 'Geek.'

'Otaku,' repeated Gwen.

The platform began to lift them upward.

'And gemu otaku gemu otaku is a video games geek,' Tos.h.i.+ko said. is a video games geek,' Tos.h.i.+ko said.

'I think that's p.r.o.nounced "Owen Harper".' Gwen looked up above them and sighed. 'You realise that we've forgotten the umbrellas again.'

The pavement slab opened up overhead, and the cold rain showered in on them.

Jack watched Ianto polish the table where his feet had been propped. Ianto could tell that his boss didn't really approve, but he thought that Jack would dislike it even more if the place got to be a mess. At the moment, he had other things to worry about though.

'Gwen tells me you know where Owen is, Ianto.'

Ianto stopped polis.h.i.+ng. 'No. His radiation readings reached normal, and so he decided to go out. On a date, he said.'

'A date? What about the work I asked him to do?'

Ianto produced a buff folder of printouts. Balanced on the top of it was the radiation sponge. 'He asked me to give you these. He said that there's a lot of information about what a brave and resourceful soldier Sergeant Applegate is, fine service record. And she has 450 Nectar points, in case that's important.'

'I could kiss you, Ianto.'

'No you couldn't, sir.'

Jack flipped open the folder and stood up. 'I'm gonna take this down to my office.' They both walked out of the Boardroom and made their way down the spiral staircase to the main Hub.

Ianto noticed how the water in the centre had risen higher, and seemed to be slapping higher against the edge of the basin. The view through the portholes in the wall above them also seemed to be more turbulent, with fragments of weed whirling past in the dark water and fewer fish visible than usual.

Jack walked away towards his office. 'You can go home now.'

'Thank you. I have a bit more filing to do. In the bas.e.m.e.nt. I'd like to finish it.'

Jack laughed. 'You may as well live here, Ianto,' he shouted before he closed his office door.

I could say the same thing about you, Ianto thought as he set off to the bas.e.m.e.nt to continue his own work.

NINETEEN.

The sodium glare from the streetlights cast a jaundiced pall across the sodden T-junction. Owen sat listening to the howl of the wind and the battering percussion of rain above the Boxter, and wondering if the roof latch would hold. No wonder he'd got a deal on the car. Too good to be true at 18K, even with 40,000 miles and schlepping all the way out to Colchester for it. He should have bought the Honda S2000, like he'd first thought. But he'd gone for style and speed, so now he found that the windstop on this 1997 model Boxter didn't hook properly and ended up rattling.

And windstop was what he needed right now. The storm outside buffeted the car, and rain lashed the windscreen until it was awash. Owen flicked on the wipers. They swiped the water aside so that he could peer through the gla.s.s at Megan's place across the road. Her maisonette was the top floor, up an L-shaped flight of steps at the gable-end of the house. Two windows were visible. One was unlit, with opaque gla.s.s. The other was much wider, bold red curtains illuminated. He thought he saw a shadow at one point, but through the downpour it was hard to be sure. The window was partly obscured by a large plane tree, that must have been planted by a pessimistic urban planner who'd not expected the houses to still be there once the tree had reached its final size.

He'd sat here for ten minutes already, kidding himself that he was just waiting for the rainstorm to ease off, just rehearsing what he was going to say, devising the best and most logical explanation for Megan. In reality he felt like he was a student again, the first time he'd arranged to meet her. Then, he'd stood outside the Angus halls of residence, uncertain, nervous.

She'd made all the running in the refectory earlier that day, and he'd hardly believed his luck in persuading her to go out that evening. Actually, she'd persuaded him to persuade her, he'd work out afterwards. And thus, his fresher insecurities fuelled, he'd worried about everything from then on was he wearing the right T-s.h.i.+rt, was he heading for the right room in the hall, would he p.r.o.nounce her name right, should he rehea.r.s.e his line or would that sound too too rehea.r.s.ed, had he chosen the right film, was she allergic to Chinese food... rehea.r.s.ed, had he chosen the right film, was she allergic to Chinese food...

Another wild gust rocked the Porsche. The sallow glow of the streetlight revealed where he'd been tapping his fingertips. He noticed with a mixture of embarra.s.sment and annoyance that it looked like he'd been doodling in the dust on the dashboard. Did that shape look like a heart? Not what he'd intended, at any rate. And what would Megan think if he ended up giving her a lift somewhere later and she saw it? He scuffed over the doodle with his palm. The result was a great smeared patch in the dust that somehow made the dashboard look even grubbier. Owen tugged a cuff up over the heel of his hand, and swiped over it. That looked better, at least. But now he'd got a tidemark of greyish dust over his left sleeve.

He blew an exasperated sigh, leaned back against the head restraint, and looked around the rest of the Porsche. Under his coat, the pa.s.senger seat had three old crisp packets on it, one only half-finished. Beside them was a bent plastic teaspoon with an uneaten raspberry yoghurt that he'd grabbed off his desk at the Hub thinking he might finish it on the way out. He slipped off his seat belt to look in the footwell, where he found bits of gravel, three Post-it notes containing grid references, plus a couple of forgotten AA batteries. Probably dead, but he stuffed them in his jacket pocket just in case.

He was experimenting with doing the same with the crisp packets when he thought: that's just stupid. He's arranged to see her for the first time in over five years, and he's bringing her a pocketful of empty crisp packets and a raspberry yoghurt. He should have stopped off to get her flowers. Roses, she liked roses, didn't she? Or was that too cheesy? A bottle of wine, at least. But he'd never been very good on vintages, always went for the third least expensive bottle in Threshers. Megan used to tease him about it, because she'd been to a wine appreciation group at Uni and could tell her Merlot from her Camembert. He recalled little about it now, except stuff about macerating the must, and how cross Megan got when he joked about 'length'.

Owen unlocked the glove compartment. The light flicked on, and he could see the dull sheen of the Bekaran tool. That was a better idea. Never mind the wine and roses. The alien device felt cool in his palm as he slipped it into his jacket pocket. He shoved the crisp packets and the plastic spoon into the compartment, and shut it.

He hadn't changed before leaving the Hub, and was still in his Torchwood standard: black jacket, dark trousers and s.h.i.+rt. Probably ideal for getting knocked down in the dark by a careless driver racing through Whitchurch on his way home to Cyncoed. Owen hadn't driven home for different clothes either, because that would have delayed him getting to Megan. So it seemed daft to sit here, just peering up at her room. He wasn't that uncertain undergraduate now, no way. He certainly hadn't been that awkward kid any more when he and Megan had split up. When he'd left her.

He struggled into his coat, determined not to get out of the car before putting it on because he knew he'd be drenched within seconds. The maisonette was thirty metres away. Owen popped the car door, levered himself out, double locked the Boxter with a flick of his wrist. The wind and rain formed an almost physical barrier as he ran for the cover of the tree. He huddled against the trunk, his feet straddling where the tree's roots had cracked the pavement. Then he scurried over to the L-shaped steps.

The house end offered protection from the worst of the storm, and so despite the rain he took the steps slowly, one by one. At the top, he pressed the doorbell, a b.u.t.ton indicated by a small backlit circle. There was a 'ding', and then a prolonged hum as the b.u.t.ton refused to pop back out. Owen pressed it again, to no effect. He slapped at it with his palm. He was whacking it with the heel of his clenched fist when the door opened, light spilled out all around him, and Megan stood in the doorway studying him. Appraising him.

'No dong,' he said to her apologetically. He pointed to the doorbell, which was still buzzing furiously.

She broke into her familiar chuckle. 'I hope you don't say that to all the girls.' She flicked at the doorbell with her fingernail, and the b.u.t.ton popped back out again.

Owen looked at her for a few seconds that lasted forever. 'Are you going to invite me in?' he asked.

Megan stepped aside and held the door open. 'What are you, some kind of vampire?'

'Don't even joke about it,' said Owen as she beckoned him in. 'I mean it.'

Megan told him to remove his wet shoes and, when she saw his socks, those too. She peeled off his sopping coat to drape on a wall-hanging peg, before making him stand barefoot on the cold linoleum while she went to fetch him something to dry his hair.