Heathen/Nemesis

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.

Until they reached the morgue.

That was where the trio waited to greet her, two men - one in a suit - and a WPC who smiled efficiently and took a step towards her, eyeing the bloodstained handkerchief that Donna still clutched.

The man in the suit also stepped forward, introducing himself as Detective Constable Mackenzie. Donna looked at him blankly and followed him through into the morgue.

Please God, don’t let it be him.

The WPC took her arm as she moved into the small room beyond. It was grey and white, bare except for a single slab in the centre of the room. On that slab lay a shapeless form covered by a green plastic sheet. The room was barely twelve feet square, but it might as well have been the size of a football pitch. The slab seemed to grow in Donna’s mind until it was the only thing she could see. The antiseptic smell was even stronger now.

She felt sick. Felt faint.

Please God.

The other man, dressed in a sweatshirt and trousers, said that he was the coroner, his name was Daniel Jordan. Something like that.

Donna felt a sudden feeling of light-headedness, thought she was going to faint. The WPC shot out an arm to steady her, sliding another arm around her waist, but Donna shrugged it off, pushing the offered support away from her with her cold hands.

Look at him.

No, don’t look. Turn and run.

A tear forced its way from her eye and trickled slowly down her cheek.

‘It won’t take a second, Mrs Ward,’ said Jordan, holding out a hand to beckon her closer.

And now every part of her mind centred on that shape in front of her. Moving like an automaton she stood beside Jordan, looking down at the sheet.

She clutched the handkerchief more tightly.

‘All right,’ she whispered.

He pulled back the sheet.

‘Oh, no,’ she gasped. ‘No.’

Jordan looked at her, then at Mackenzie, who merely shook his head slightly.

‘Chris,’ murmured Donna, her eyes transfixed on the face of the corpse.

The corpse of her husband.

‘No,’ she said again, tears pouring down her cheeks. She studied his features, the awful gashes in his forehead and cheeks. She saw how the blood had soaked his jacket and shirt.

So much blood.

‘Is it your husband, Mrs Ward?’ Mackenzie asked.

Donna nodded and reached for her husband, touching one of his lacerated cheeks.

Jesus, he was so cold.

His skin was white, those areas that weren’t discoloured by bruises or hideous cuts, as if all the blood had been drained from him. She smoothed one of his eyebrows, then touched his lips with her index finger.

So cold.

She touched her fingertips to her own lips and kissed them, then pressed those fingers to his cold lips once more.

She shook her head again, allowing herself to be eased back by the WPC, allowing herself to be guided towards the door.

She saw Jordan replace the sheet.

It was then that she collapsed.