Free Something in the Water by Trevor Baxendale Page A

its breath.
    ‘I couldn’t help it,’ he said. ‘They insisted.’
    ‘You brought them here.’
    ‘I had to. I owed someone a favour.’
    ‘A favour? You don’t owe anybody anything – except me.’
    ‘This one goes back a long way. Before I met you.’
    ‘Huh. So who is this person? The one you owe a favour to that’s more important than the one you owe me. Come on – who is it?’
    ‘You don’t need to know that.’ Professor Len licked his lips, sensing trouble. ‘I only came to apologise. I know I shouldn’t have brought them here – but you shouldn’t have given them that corpse.’
    ‘Consider it a gift.’
    ‘They took the body back with them.’
    ‘I expected them to.’
    ‘It’s a mistake,’ Professor Len insisted bravely. ‘They’ll examine it, check into it.’
    ‘Good luck to them.’
    ‘They won’t let it go. They were here for a reason. These people don’t do anything without a reason.’
    ‘Good. Neither do I.’
    Len bit his lip, raised a hand to rub at his beard. He was torn with indecision, and he could sense that his next words were being waited for.
    ‘You don’t understand,’ he said. ‘These people – they’re special. They’re unique. They call themselves Torchwood.’
    There was a noise like a stake being driven into moist earth. It wasn’t a gasp of surprise or shock. It was a snort of derision. ‘Torchwood. I don’t fear them. Never have done.’
    ‘But they won’t let it lie. Something’s brought them here to the Moss. It’s not you – it’s some kind of disturbance in time, they said …’
    Another hiss of disdain. ‘They have no idea what they’re dealing with.’
    ‘I just thought you ought to know.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Because … because I want to protect you.’
    ‘Rubbish. It’s because you think I’ll spare your life.’
    Professor Len was trembling now, and it wasn’t due to the cold. He couldn’t even feel his body any more. Snot ran down his lip but he didn’t even think of wiping it away. ‘I don’t want to die! It wasn’t my idea to give them the body. You did that, not me.’
    ‘You can’t protect me. I know all about Torchwood. And I know all about Jack Harkness. He’s the man you think you owe your life to, isn’t he? The favour! How sweet. But it doesn’t matter. It’s done now.’
    Professor Len swallowed, his mouth dry. ‘You mean I can go?’
    ‘Look at me.’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Look at me.’
    Professor Len glanced up, aware that someone had moved in front of him. At first he could see nothing except the mist and the ghosts of the trees around him. There was a smell like rotting cabbage and peat mixed with the faintest trace of a butcher’s yard, and then he saw his companion.
    ‘There,’ she said. ‘That wasn’t so bad, was it?’
    He shook his head miserably. ‘No,’ he whispered.
    ‘Good,’ she said, smiling. And then, with one swift stroke, she sliced his neck open, deep enough to expose the vertebrae at the back, just before the blood surged up and out in a huge red fountain.

NINE
    The corpse was laid out on the table in the Autopsy Room underneath a ring of brilliant exam lights. It was old and in an advanced state of decay. The skin had withered into a dark, leathery carapace stretched over wasted muscle and tendon. Some of the joints were exposed, yellowed bone just visible beneath the skein of mud that still covered the entire body.
    It was still wearing the remnants of trousers and a sweater, but these were little more than scraps of material stiffened by the preserving effects of the soil. Closer examination revealed small invertebrates still making a home in the damp crevices.
    The head was little more than a hairless skull with eyes crusted over behind blackened lids. The lips were partly eaten away to reveal the remains of yellow teeth.
    ‘Definitely human,’ announced Owen, now wearing his white lab coat, ‘judging by the orthodontic work. Five fillings and a cap.’
    He stood in the well