Pestilence, Page 5

that definitely wasn’t what he wanted to hear.

  Emma took his silence as an opportunity; she breathed deeply; now it was her turn. “Of course there could be another reason.”

  “Go ahead?”

  “Suicide?” she said calmly.

  “I can’t buy that, if your going to end it all you want to make sure it’s not going to go wrong; and it’s not going to be painful. Slipping in between two pieces of machinery isn’t what your going to do, your going to get something to end it all in a peaceful way, like get some sedatives from the medical bay?”

  “We don’t have them out on a counter with a sign saying help yourself?”

  “No but you know what I mean, a nice way out: that, or the others weren’t.”

  “When I say suicide I was thinking of involuntary suicide?”

  Mathew looked at her. “There’s such a thing?”

  “When you don’t know what you are doing, but whatever you’re doing is going to kill you.”

  Mathew was mesmerized with her idea. “Go on?”

  “I’ve not really given this as much thought as I probably should have, but Andrew was so dismissive I need to just talk it over with someone; if nothing more than for them to prove me wrong.”

  “I’m your man, spit it out?”

  She screwed up her face. “I’d rather just tell you.”

  “You can do that instead.”

  “Take Josh: a highly experienced professional, but he gets himself in a place where every bit of his training and experience should warn him he shouldn’t be.”

  “Maybe he was distracted?”

  “That’s what Andrew said: but honestly, for a trained space walker to do something so basically stupid?”

  Mathew nodded. “And Drew; grabbing hold of a live circuit?”

  “Yes, anyway I did some extra tests on Josh; he had an infection that I believe got into his brain and wiped his memory?”

  “Wow?” Mathew looked around the room but nobody was looking in their direction. “Can something like that happen?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never heard of a bacteria or virus that specifically targets memory, but neurons are created in cells in an area called the Dentate Gyrus. Cells are the prime target of virus’s and there’s no reason why there couldn’t be a specific virus that just picks on those types of cells?”

  “Your saying this is something entirely new?”

  Emma looked at him with a worried look. “It’s like nothing on Earth…”

  Matt nodded. “But were not on Earth…”

  A few hours later they were back in the restaurant and Mathews heart was pumping. He saw Emma and sat across the table from her. “I’ve just heard there’s been another accident?” he gasped.

  “A guest,” she said, barely pausing eating her meal.

  “Dead?”

  “No.”

  Matt’s heart rate eased. “What happened?”

  “Apparently she fell against a table?”

  “She?” Matt’s heart pumped faster.”

  “Yes, well that’s how her husband said it happened?”

  Mathew found himself more concerned that he should be and tried not to show it. “Is she okay?”

  “Depends what you mean by okay, she’s in no danger as such but her injuries are pretty bad.”

  Mathew entered the small room. There were three beds separated by curtains. Jennifer was the only person there and in the last bed. She saw him and went to move into a sitting position, but her face creased in pain and she layback. Mathew felt anger rise in him as he saw her bruises. The most obvious was around her left eye, her lip was swollen and there was a stitch just above, holding together what had been a cut. Her slender right arm was bruised from the elbow up to where it disappeared into the surgical gown.

  “Hi?” he said, making a deliberate attempt to avoid asking how she felt.

  She smiled, as much as she could.

  “They tell me you fell over?”

  “I slipped… in the bathroom. It was a stupid thing to do.”

  Mathew nodded, but he knew from what he could see she was lying. “Floors can be slippy when they’re wet.” He knew they weren’t, it was part of the design brief to make sure such a thing could never happen.

  “I was rushing; I shouldn’t have been… more careful. I’ll know next time.”

  “Emma said you fell against the toilet?” he could almost see her thinking.

  “Yes… between it… and the shower.”

  “It must have hurt?”

  “It did.”

  “And you screamed.”

  Mathew saw her expression change; she knew, he knew she was lying. “Did I?”

  “I was told you were calling out?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Yes actually” Matt stared into her eyes. “As it was told to me it sounded more like pleading?”

  “I was hurting.”

  “No…stop…please, they are the kinds of things somebody says when they are… being hurt.”

  She said nothing and turned away her eyes.

  “Are you going to tell me what really happened?”

  She looked at him again but her face was blank. “I fell against the toilet.”

  “Toilet… was it the toilet? Your husband said you fell against a table?”

  Again she said nothing and turned away

  “You see Jennifer I have a problem, when a guest has an… accident we have to jump through hoops and over hurdles to keep the insurance company happy. They need to know the exact details because they don’t want to pay out; insurance companies don’t like to pay out, now we have to assure them that we, and they won’t get sued. So if you fell over accidentally, and your willing to sign a declaration they will be happy?” Matt pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket. He knew it was just a requisition form. He held it towards her.

  She looked at it for a few moments before she reluctantly reached with her good arm to take it from him. She looked at it, and then at him.

  He made no explanation “You refused to be fully examined: why would you do that?” he waited a few seconds for a reply but none came. “Emma needs to fill forms in as well and when you didn’t give her the opportunity to have a proper examination, she made a deduction based on what she has experienced. She used to work in accident and emergency, but you probably wouldn’t know that, apparently they had a lot of gang related stuff come in, anyway she said she believes your face has been hit with something pliable; I say pliable only to mean it wasn’t the toilet or a table corner, it was probably a fist, and the cut… maybe a ring?” he knew her husband had two large gold signet rings. “Her comment was… ‘Like a knuckle duster’?” He carried on without waiting for her to reply. “She’s seen bruising like you have on your arm when someone has been violently shaken, and the marks on your body...”

  Now she looked at him.

  “Are the kind of marks left when somebody has had a good kicking in the kidneys. Her summary is that you were beaten; and quite professionally?”

  At last she answered. “Mathew for my sake… for both our sakes; I fell over.”

  Matt felt angry and his voice hardened. “Jennifer we both know that didn’t happen?”

  “Mathew thank you for your concern but I fell over, and I have nothing more to say… Please… leave.”

  Josh Brown was not a small man: and together with his spacesuit he was almost twice Mathews weight, so transferring him to the newly appropriated morgue presented a difficult task that normally would take several people, but considering that Matt and Emma wanted what they were about to do, to go unnoticed, they couldn’t ask for any help.

  There was an emergency gurney it was light, moved easily and would be easy enough to lift when they encountered doorsills, but immediately they began to transfer the body there was a problem. Alisha confronted them; she looked at the mound under the sheet with tears in her eyes.

  “I wanted to say… goodbye,” she said with a wavering voic
e. Emma put her arm around the woman’s shoulder, to comfort her and Alisha offered her a sheet of paper.

  There was a drawing of several flower’s, and a few words of farewell. “It should have been real flowers,” she said in regret. “But there are no flowers… we’re running a hotel and we haven’t got any flowers?” Alisha looked at the drawing “All the paint we have is white, so I had to… the yellow is curry powder, and the red is lip gloss… and the stem is… It’s all I could find.”

  “It’s beautiful.” Emma said, and in its own way it was.

  They were still in the living area when Andrew approached. “Josh?”

  Emma answered, “Yes.”

  “There’s just the two of you?” Andrew looked puzzled.

  “You said you wanted to play down the death?” said Mathew.

  “I think what I said was that we didn’t want morale to be affected.”

  “We could have asked for help,” Mathew replied. “But then everyone would have expected some for of service, and you said you preferred not.”

  “I know many think I should have had a service, and maybe I should but we’re not going to get to the end of our journey if we keep looking back and fail to look forward.”

  Matt and Emma stayed silent.

  “Are they disposable overalls?” Andrew pointed to the folded clothes on the trolley.

  “Health regulations, we are going into a compartment where there could be decomposition?” She hoped Andrew didn’t think too much about where they were going.

  Andrew nodded, “Lets hope this is the last time we will have to go through this?” He paused for a moment. “How’s the woman?”

  “She’ll hurt for a while.”

  Andrew nodded. “Her husband keeps asking when she can go back to their room. He seems concerned.”

  Emma