The Silent Sleep of the Dying (Eisenmenger-Flemming Forensic Mysteries) (45 page)

MacCallum's erupted head was facing them as they entered the living room. "We'll take him by the legs. Drag him out."

They each grabbed a foot, wheeled him around and pulled the body along, trying not to look at the train of blood, hair and bone splinters that marked their passage. There was a sickening thump as they dragged MacCallum over the doorstep and onto the path. When they reached the grass, they were able to get up a little speed, for the rain eased the corpse over the ground.

They reached Stein and Eisenmenger, both ready to drop. Beverley, scarcely able to talk, said, "Forget the others."

Then she vomited, bent double, retching and wrenching in the cold, icy, every-pouring rain.

*

Helena sank to her knees in the grass. She felt the world coming and going, swinging like a huge building about to topple into rubble. She kept wanting to vomit but was unable to do so. She was so wet that her clothes enveloped her, clinging and abrading her skin; her chest and throat hurt more than she thought possible, with every breath slicing like razor blades into her chest. She felt sick, as if every Christmas dinner she had ever eaten was sitting there and begging to come back and visit, and for once she was desperate to see vomit, feel the acid in her mouth.

The wind was rising and becoming even more polar. They might be safe from the explosion but if they didn't get out from under the weather soon, they would all die of exposure; certainly Stein wouldn't last more than a few hours out here.

She tried to ignore the fact that her body was no longer hers, was now in the possession of the more malevolent devils in hell, and rose to find Beverley.

*

Eisenmenger opened his eyes to see sunlight and feel warmth. No pain, no fear, just quiet. He felt as if he had returned to the past, sunny days and beautiful, strange places where adventure was harmless and responsibility banished. He lay there and listened to his breathing.

He turned his head, feeling the grass rustle against his hair. Tamsin lay to his right.

She was unburned, her pretty face smiling at the sky, her profile showing the pale skin of youth.

Turning to his left, he saw Marie. Her eyes were closed, her complexion unspoiled. She, too, looked at peace.

Never before had Tamsin and Marie been together; he wondered what it meant.

Happiness? Contentment? A completion?

Maybe that's what it signified — maybe at last his daemons were to be angels, his nightmares to be daydreams.

He turned his head once more to Tamsin and even before he saw her he smelled the familiar stench of burnt grease, felt the cracking of charred flesh, saw the stark contrast of blood-red lines separating islands of black charcoal. Tamsin's eyes were now seared with torment.

He knew what he would see when he turned his head to Marie, but did so anyway. Marie's face and body were wreathed in flame, fire that clung and caressed, licking her bubbling flesh, entering her silently screaming mouth, raping her with its intimacy.

He squeezed dry tears back, jerked back to the sky So it wasn't over, there was still more pain to come.

Suddenly the sky darkened, cold rain began to fall and he felt a freeze seep into him. His face and chest were a network of stinging sores of agony, but he was back in the real world and he knew why contentment was not to be his.

The Proteus project had yet to be ended.

*

Beverley saw Helena's stumbling form coming towards her only as a silhouette against the lights of the house. She knew why she was coming, had had the same thoughts herself. She started to get painfully to her feet.

*

Helena could only faintly see the various bodies alive and dead that were littered around. She made out Beverley rising to meet her, but then another movement caught her eye — Eisenmenger.

What was he doing? That he was trying to get to his feet was obvious, but the reason was less so. She went to him, ignoring Beverley.

"John? what are you doing."

In the near dark she could just make out that the rain had washed away much of the blood, leaving dilute streaks and black pockmarks over his face and neck. His lips seemed almost shredded.

He mumbled something but she couldn't decipher it. He was on his knees, trying to rise to his feet.

"What did you say?" She tried to force him gently back down but he resisted. Beverley joined them. "Is he all right?"

"He's saying something, but I can't tell what it is." To Eisenmenger she asked, "What's wrong?"

She put her ear close to his bowed head so that she could hear his rasped breath sounds.

"Proteus."

She heard him say it, at once assuming that he wasn't making sense. "It's over. We're safe, John."

But he shook his head, still resisting her arm that was resting across his back. He lifted his head and whispered through a grimace, "Stein said he was working on a cure."

"I know, but … "

"He must have a samples in his laboratory. The explosion will spread it … perhaps over the whole island."

It was quite clear and quite coherent. Appalled she looked up at Beverley, feeling suddenly the ground no longer solid.

Beverley hadn't heard. "What did he say?"

Eisenmenger felt unconsciousness pulling him down. As he sagged, Beverley knelt down to help Helena with his dead weight. "What did he say?" she repeated.

But there wasn't time to explain. Helena was already running for the house.

*

How
long
have
I
got
?
Three
minutes
?
Two
?
Maybe
only
thirty
seconds
,
and
therefore
not
enough
.
Not
nearly
enough
.

If she thought her throat and chest had been hurting before, within twenty metres of running through the sodden grass she knew that she had yet to understand the half of what pain was all about. She vaguely heard Beverley's voice calling after her.
Probably
thinks
I've
gone
mad
.
Maybe
I
have
.
Must
be
a
kind
of
lunacy
to
go
back
in
,
to
run
towards
a
bomb
that
spits
out
burning
phosphorus
.

She tried to think about what she would have to do, rather than about the pain in her body, the terrors in her head. It would presumably be in a laboratory, but what would it look like? A solid or a liquid? On the bench, in the refrigerator or in the freezer? And supposing he had deliberately hidden it, to fool any snoopers, or anyone charged with saving the lives of everyone on Rouna?

It might not even exist. John might be wrong — an unintended practical joke, the last that she would never laugh at.

She reached the hallway and enough light to see her watch. Perhaps three minutes — upper end of expectations.

It
must
be
upstairs
.
Rosenthal
went
upstairs
when
he
found
the
laboratory
.

She pounded up the steps, the added exertion nearly causing her to faint away.

For
God's
sake
!
Keep
conscious
,
you
silly
bitch
!

There was a long, right-angled landing at the top, seeming to stretch away into dark infinity. The light switch was on her left and she pulled it down as she passed. She began opening doors, glancing in at each room then running on. Bedrooms, a bathroom, an airing cupboard, more bedrooms. In one there was a door on the far side of the room that was locked. She didn't have the time to investigate further, but she didn't see how it could be the laboratory because from the window she could see that she was at the corner of house and that the room behind the door was no more than a metre or two wide. Probably an en suite.

How
much
time
left
? Only about two minutes. Could be more, could be less.

At the end of the landing there was another flight of stairs, this one narrower, a light switch at its foot. She flipped it but no light came on.

Bloody
great
. She was already running up the stairs, trying to concentrate on anything other than the slowing agony she now felt in every muscle, every tendon, every bone. She was almost at the top when she slipped, missed her footing and her left shin cracked into the wooden step. She slipped down five steps, grabbing frantically at everything and anything she could reach, and then the true meaning of torment was blessed upon her as a pain so sharp, so large, so remorseless in its desire to smother her came into her head that she felt true blackness, true eternity start to descend.

No
.
No
,
please
.
Please
don't
do
this
.
Please
.
Please
.
Please
.
Please
…

She fought it off, picked herself up and tried to run up to the top of the flight, but again she stumbled, this time because weight on her left leg brought more explosions of pain.

God
,
it's
broken
.
What
now
?

The question came and then was gone because she wouldn't contemplate giving up. She had to hop up the stairs using only her right leg, but she made it.

It was a small landing, the light from below revealing only four doors. By limping she found the pain reduced a little, but every step made her gasp and made her want to cry.

Come
on
,
you
bitch
.
Come
on
!

The first was filled with junk. The second was a shower room, dank and clearly unused for years.

It's
going
to
be
the
last
one
.
Of
course
it
is
.

She opened the third door, her left leg starting to feel as if were molten. Every time she put pressure on it, she had a sense of something grinding. She was gritting her teeth all the time, merely clenching them even harder when she leant on that leg.

She opened the third door, expecting nothing, finding gold.

Hardly able to believe her luck she limped in, leaning on the bench to her right, knocking off a large conical beaker that was near the edge. It smashed to the floor and her next few grating limps crushed glass as she went. She was aware that she was starting to yelp uncontrollably as she went

Well
,
here
you
are
.
Time
probably
run
out
,
but
you've
arrived
.

She looked around the room. She saw a laboratory, like a hundred television pictures, a hundred films. Benches, glassware, shelves, items of unknowable equipment.

How
am
I
supposed
to
know
what
to
look
for
and
where
to
look
for
it
?

She had no information to work on. Through the pain she tried to ignore the nihilism of the thought, finding it seditionist. She paused, ignoring the urge to do something, anything, and tried to concentrate.

Where
do
you
put
a
virus
?

There was something that looked like a chest freezer over on the wall between two windows. She stumbled over towards it, opened it and looked and found herself lost in rack upon rack of tubes, all filled with dark pink fluid.

Is
this
Proteus
?

Maybe it was, in which case they were all dead. There was far too much for her to take to safety. There must have been five hundred test tubes. She picked one out.
Plasmid
324
Anti
-
enhancer
. She knew more about the inside of a Turkish wrestler's underpants than she did about virology, but she guessed none of this was what she wanted.