Not Dead Enough

61

Cleo continued listening. She had very definitely heard a click.

Halting midway in her process of rolling the slender, fragile, grey cadaver over, she gently lowered her back down on to the stainless-steel table. ‘Hello?’ she called out, her voice muffled by her mask.

Then she stood still, listening, staring uneasily through the door at the silent grey tiles of the corridor. ‘Hello? Who’s that?’ she called out, louder, feeling a tightening in her throat. She lowered her mask, letting it hang by the tapes. ‘Hello?’

Silence. Just the faint hum of the fridges.

A slick of fear shot through her. Had she left the outside door open? Surely not, she never left it open. She tried to think clearly. The smell when she had opened the door – could she have left it open to let some fresh air in?

No way, she would not have been so stupid. She always closed the door; it self-locked. Of course she had closed it!

So why wasn’t the person out there replying?

And in her over-revving heart she already knew the answer to that. There were some weirdos around for whom mortuaries held a fascination. They’d had a number of break-ins in the past, but now the latest security systems had so far, for a good eighteen months, acted as an effective deterrent.

Suddenly she remembered the CCTV monitor on the wall and looked up at it. It was showing a static black and white image of the tarmac outside the door, and the flower bed and brick wall beyond. The tail lights and rear bumper of her car were just in frame.

Then she heard the distinct rustle of clothes out in the corridor.

Goosebumps broke out over her entire body. For an instant she froze, her brain spinning, trying to get traction. There was a phone on the shelf next to the cabinet, but she didn’t have time to get to it. She looked around frantically for a weapon that was in reach. For an instant she considered, absurdly, the severed arm of the cadaver. Fear tightened her skin; her scalp felt as if she were wearing a skullcap.

The rustling came closer. She saw a shadow moving along the tiles.

Then, suddenly, her fear turned to anger. Whoever the hell it was out there had no damn right to be here. She decided she was not going to be scared or intimidated by some sicko who got kicks out of breaking into the mortuary. Her mortuary.

In a few fast, determined strides, she reached the cabinet, slid the door open, noisily, and pulled out the largest of the Sabatier carving knives. Then, gripping it tightly by the handle, she ran at the opened doorway. And collided, with a scream of terror, with a tall figure in an orange T-shirt and lime-green shorts, who gripped her arms, pinning them to her sides. The knife clattered to the tiled floor.