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465 lines
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HTML
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<div class="section" id="xhtmldocuments">
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<h2>2</h2>
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<p>The woman spun around in the centre of the mall. Her arms were
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spread wide and she looked like an elderly ballet dancer trying a
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final slow pirouette. Two girls passing close by turned to look at
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her, sniggered and moved on. Over by the Italian delicatessen, a
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couple watched the sluggish graceless spin. The woman’s
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handbag spun away to the left, hit the tiles and slid along the
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floor to the wall. Up above it the lights caught the Christmas
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tinsel and a choir of plastic angels swung their heads idiotically
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from side to side as they sang doleful carols.</p>
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<p>The woman, tall and angular with grey frizzy hair opened her
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mouth in a silent yell. Her eyes rolled upwards until only the
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whites were visible and then she fell with a resounding thump to
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the floor. She jerked as if a savage current of electricity was
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discharging through her body, back arching right up from the
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surface. A gout of spittle coughed from the back of her throat. A
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dry, desperate croak rasped from her yawning mouth. A pair of boys
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almost fell over the skinny, splayed legs and swerved to avoid the
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obstruction without stopping</p>
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<p>Two assistants came rushing out of Body Shop and reached the
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stricken woman. One of them, red-haired and freckled, hung back
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nervously. The other, short, plump and dark haired crouched over
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the fallen shape.</p>
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<p>“Are you all right?” she asked, the question
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everybody asks when it is clear that nothing is all right.</p>
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<p>The old woman gagged again, mouth now twisted into a grimace of
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pain. Her hands were clamped in against herself, one on her thin
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chest, the other on her belly. Her legs were spread wide, bare and
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bloodless, shivering and thrumming uncontrollably. The
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woman’s head rattled hard against the floor.</p>
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<p>“Get a doctor,” the girl said, turning over her
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shoulder to her friend. “Phone an ambulance.
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Quick.”</p>
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<p>The red-head hesitated, wringing her hands together, somehow
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dismayed and revolted at the same time.</p>
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<p>“Come on Jeanette, <em>run</em>. She’s really
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sick.”</p>
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<p>From another shop doorway, another woman came hurrying across
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from the Rolling Stock car accessory shop front.</p>
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<p>“What’s the matter?”</p>
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<p>“She just fell down.”</p>
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<p>The sprawled woman’s eyes rolled downwards and for an
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instant they locked on the kneeling girl. Her mouth opened and
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closed several times. Three small moles, equally spaced in a line,
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marked her face like ink blots.</p>
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<p>“She’s had a heart attack,” the second woman
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said. Her name was Jenny McGill. “That or a stroke. Try to
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get her on to her side.”</p>
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<p>“<em>Baby,</em>” the word came hissing out, almost a
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snarl. A spray of spittle came out along with it, making the word
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incomprehensible.</p>
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<p>Jenny McGill from Rolling Stock pushed at the prostrate form.
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“Christ, she’s stinking,” she said, not unkindly.
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It was true, the woman smelled pretty awful. She looked as if she
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hadn’t eaten in days, or washed in longer than that. Despite
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the smell, old sweat and damp clothes and something else besides,
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Jenny pushed and hauled until she got the victim on her side. She
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tilted her chin back to clear the airway and recoiled again. The
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breath came panting from between teeth that were grey and rotten.
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It stank of decay.</p>
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<p>Ignoring this reek, she pulled open the thin cardigan and
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thinner blouse, careless of the few buttons. A surprisingly swollen
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breast pushed out of a grey brassiere and she pushed it to the
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side.</p>
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<p>“Is she going to die?” the plump girl asked. A crowd
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was gathering around them. People’s voices held the hushed
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tones of the curious, ready to be shocked at the nearness of
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tragedy, the proximity of death. Up on the higher level, beyond the
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busy escalator, a gallery of folk, boys, girls and adults were
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hanging over, spectating greedily.</p>
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<p>“Don’t know dear, let me have a listen. I’ve
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done first aid.”</p>
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<p>Jenny bent right down, turning her head to the side, got an ear
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to the heaving chest. The skin was clammy and hot, too hot. She
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clamped the heel of her hand against her exposed ear, cutting off
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the tumult of sound, though the plastic angels still managed to get
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through with <em>We Three Kings.</em> She pressed harder until the
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festive music faded out and closed her eyes to concentrate.</p>
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<p>The woman’s heartbeat was faint but fast, tripping like a
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woodpecker burr against the ribs.</p>
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<p>“Fibrillation,” Jenny said. “She’s
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going.”</p>
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<p>“What?” the plump assistant asked.</p>
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<p>“It’s her heart. Is your friend phoning for
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help?”</p>
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<p>The other girl twisted her head, found a space in the gathering
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crowd. In the Body Shop, the red-head was putting the phone down.
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“Yeah. I said to call an ambulance.”</p>
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<p>Jenny McGill nodded. Down there against the flesh, the smell was
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worse. It sent a shiver through her and for an instant her own
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vision wavered. It was powerful and rancid, and Jenny almost turned
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away. The sweat stood out in strings of beads on the pallid skin.
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The breasts pressed upwards against the fabric, rounded and
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bloated, laced with dark veins. They did not look natural on the
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oddly wizened frame.</p>
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<p>She leaned down again, listening to the dreadful rippling sound
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of a heart beating out of control. There were other sounds in
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there, an odd <em>whoosh</em> of turbulence, the sound of water
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leaking from a pipe, and a louder gurgle from further down, in the
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abdomen somewhere, as if the woman had been eating cucumbers or
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beans and was getting ready to blow.</p>
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<p>Jenny knew it was more than that. Fibrillation meant that the
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heart, despite its frantic beat, couldn’t get the blood
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pumped up hard enough. It was pooling down there in the arteries
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and veins in the belly, a mass of liquid pressing against the
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bowels and bladder. Unless the woman was stabilised, she would blow
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all right. She’d blow herself right out of this world.</p>
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<p>“Stand back,” Jenny said. “Give her some
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room.”</p>
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<p>“Flipping hell, what’s that smell?” a boy
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asked. “Has she shit herself?”</p>
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<p>The crowd pushed back a little. Jenny pushed herself up to her
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knees. The woman’s eyes rolled wildly in their sockets. She
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mouthed silent words, only managing a hoarse gurgle.</p>
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<p>“What’s that?”</p>
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<p>“Baby,” finally the word blurted out in a coughing
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his. “Got to get my baby...”</p>
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<p>Must be hallucinating, Jenny thought. The woman had to be in her
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sixties. She put her hands together, one on top of the other, the
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heel of the left one pressing just under the ridged sternum. She
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pushed down hard. The woman’s head came off the ground an
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inch, maybe two and slammed down again with a sickening crack. It
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sounded like a coconut falling onto stone. Jenny pushed again.</p>
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<p>“What’s she doing?” the boy asked.</p>
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<p>“Giving her heart massage,” his pal told him.
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“I saw it in casualty. It never works. You need that electric
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thing. The jump leads.”</p>
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<p>Another push. Hard and definite. The dying woman coughed once
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and her eyes bulged. Her mouth was working all the time.</p>
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<p>“Why doesn’t she give her the kiss of
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life?”</p>
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<p>“You try it. Have you smelt her? It’s worse than dog
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farts.”</p>
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<p>Jenny McGill didn’t stop her efforts. Her eyes were fixed
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on the woman. She pressed down again hard, stopped, bent to listen,
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heard the fluttering purr under the surface and went back to
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heeling her hands down on the breastbone.</p>
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<p>“Haven’t you boys got better things to do?”
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she snapped. “Go out and tell the ambulance men where to
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come.”</p>
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<p>The expert on smells gave her a blank look.</p>
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<p>“Get moving,” Jenny rasped at him. He saw something
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in the look in her eye and pushed out of the crowd towards the
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door.</p>
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<p>“Can you help her?” the plump girl asked. Her name
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was Carol Padden. She was normally rosy cheeked and cheerful, but
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the woman’s plight had drained the blood from her face. Carol
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was fifteen and worked only part time. She had never seen anyone
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take a fit or a heart attack before. All she could hear was the
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savage, stuttered breathing and the rolling madness in the sprawled
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woman’s eyes and it scared her.</p>
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<p>“Doing my best honey,” Jenny said. “Doing my
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bloody best.”</p>
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<p>Her breath was coming almost as fast as the old woman’s, a
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panting sound of effort. It wasn’t working, she knew. The
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woman still writhed and twitched under her hands. There was no
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change in the fibrillation. Finally Jenny pushed herself up and
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leaned back, a trickle of sweat running down her own forehead. The
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woman’s breath was a dry rattle and the smell, sickly sweet
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and powerful as rotten meat, came rising up with it. Jenny slicked
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a hand across her bow and as she did so, the woman’s eyes
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swung round and fixed upon her.</p>
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<p>For an instant they were pale and unfocussed and then, in the
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next they suddenly cleared. In that moment they were bright with
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life.</p>
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<p>“Baby,” she repeated and this time there was no
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mistaking it. “Where’s my baby? I need to
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get...”</p>
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<p>“What baby?” Jenny asked.</p>
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<p>The woman’s hand came up and snatched at Jenny’s
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wrist. The fingers closed over her forearm and gripped with
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desperate force. It was so tight that Jenny winced as her bones
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ground together.</p>
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<p>“Wha....?”</p>
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<p>“Get it,” the woman grated. “Get the baby.
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Bring him.”</p>
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<p>“What baby?” Jenny asked, twisting her arm, trying
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to free herself from the grip, but the woman’s fingers felt
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as if they were made of iron. The knuckles stuck out white as bone.
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Despite the pain in at the junction of the radius and ulna, Jenny
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thought it was impossible for the woman to be so strong. She was
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dying. Her heart was giving out right there on the floor. Nothing
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but a massive electrical shock would stabilise that fluttering
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uncontrollable beat.</p>
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<p>“Find it,” the woman said again, though this time,
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it was less clear. It was as if the very act of grabbing
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Jenny’s wrist and speaking at all had drained the last of her
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strength. She raised her head up, eyes still bulging, lips drawn
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back over dirty, stained teeth. The smell came wafting up, thick
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enough to choke on, an unnatural scent that smelled of death and
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decay. She fixed Jenny with desperate eyes.</p>
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<p>Jenny McGill nodded, prepared to agree to anything. She pulled
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back and the woman’s grip slackened. Her head went slowly
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back down to the floor. For another second, maybe two, the pale
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eyes hooked on to hers, sharp as needles.</p>
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<p>Then the life went out of them.</p>
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<p>It was just as if somebody had pulled a switch. The life went
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out and Jenny knew the woman was dead. Her whole body slumped, a
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puppet with its strings cut. The mouth gaped and a trickle of thick
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saliva slid out. It was pink.</p>
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<p>Absently rubbing her wrist, where the bruise would later show
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the four blue finger marks and a deeper smudge where the thumb had
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pressed, the woman’s final imprint, her last mark on the
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world, Jenny leaned away from the slack face and the eyes which had
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unfocussed and were now fixed on something a million miles away, or
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something beyond the white light that people spoke of. It
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hadn’t, Jenny knew, been a slow death. At the end of the day,
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sometimes that was all that mattered, that death was not slow.</p>
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<p>Slowly she got to her feet, dimly aware of the ululating sirens
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coming closer down Meadow Street towards the mall.</p>
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<p>“Make way, come on, give us room,” a man’s
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voice bawled. The clatter of trolley wheels thrummed over the metal
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strip where the security door was closed at night. The crowd,
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already thinning, moved back further. The drama was almost over. A
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woman had fallen and died, unusual, but not the end of the
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world.</p>
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<p>“Ambulance,” the man’s voice barked.
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“Coming through.”</p>
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<p>Jenny saw the green medic’s overalls and was glad. They
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would take over now, relieving her of any responsibility. She
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raised a hand to flick away a stray slick of hair that had fallen
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over her eyes and she got a scent of the woman’s smell.
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Suddenly she felt unclean.</p>
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<p>“Right, where’s the problem,” the paramedic
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said. The crowd parted wide and they came striding forward, expert
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eyes taking in the scene.</p>
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<p>“Anybody know what’s happened?”</p>
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<p>“She collapsed. I saw it,” Carol Padden told him.
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The colour was coming back into her pretty face. “She just
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put a hand to her chest and spun round and fell down. This lady
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said she was filigreed.”</p>
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<p>“Fibrillating,” Jenny corrected. “At least I
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think so. Her heart was too fast. I tried heart massage, but it
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made no difference.”</p>
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<p>“Done the course, eh?”</p>
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<p>Jenny nodded as the man did exactly what she had done, bending
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down as if in penitent prayer, and put an ear against the
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woman’s chest.</p>
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<p>“Not any more,” he said, wrinkling his nose.
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“What the hell has she been rolling in?” He turned to
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his partner. “She’s stopped Phil. Let’s get her
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to the paddles. We might make re-suss.” The first man turned
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to Jenny. “How long has she stopped?”</p>
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<p>“A minute or so. Not long.”</p>
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<p>“You don’t get long,” the man said, but he
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grinned, showing a friendly mouthful of good teeth. He was a
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technician, unfazed and unshocked. He and Phil quickly lifted the
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body onto the trolley. The crowd melted away. The first man winked
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at Jenny.</p>
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<p>“You did your best, love, That’s all anybody can
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ask.” He smiled again and then they were off, heading for the
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doors. Jenny turned away and began to walk back to Rolling Stock
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where the cashier at the door had turned in her swivel seat to gawp
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while two small boys took advantage of her inattention to stuff
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their pockets with flashlight batteries. She had only walked ten
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paces when a dreadful scream tore the air and instantly the
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shopping mall hubbub was silenced. Jenny spun. A few yards away
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Carol Padden turned almost as quickly.</p>
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<p>The paramedics had almost reached the big glass doors at the
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west end of the mall, where the smart leather shop showed
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mannequins that could have auditioned for a bondage movie. The lead
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man had his arm held out at shoulder height to straight-arm the
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door wide open, though that wouldn’t have been necessary
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because they were automatic anyway. A few yards away, tethered to a
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litter bin, a small yappy Yorkshire terrier went into a frenzy of
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high pitched barking.</p>
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<p>The scream sliced warm air, loud and high enough to shiver the
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glass on the leather shop window. Phil, pushing the trolley, head
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bent, stopped. Beside him a child, held in its mothers arms, went
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into hysterics.</p>
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<p>The woman on the trolley sat upright and screamed so loud it was
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hard to imagine a human being could make such a huge noise.</p>
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<p>“What on earth....,” Jenny muttered. Her heart
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suddenly jumped so high it was hard to swallow the sudden saliva at
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the back of her mouth.</p>
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<p>The dead woman sat upright. The lead man was in the act of
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turning. The woman’s mouth was open in an impossible gape,
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ferally wide, just like an animal.</p>
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<p>“...she was dead.” Jenny finished her sentence.</p>
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<p>The scream went on, high and glassy and completely
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unnerving.</p>
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<p>The paramedic stopped. Phil’s head was coming up. The door
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had started its slide open and the woman rolled off the trolley.
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She tumbled to the hard floor and hit it with a thump loud enough
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to be heard thirty yards away. Her coat flew open and a bloated
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breast spilled out, grotesque and rubbery, filigreed with veins.
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The grizzled hair sprung out in all directions. There was a
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cracking sound as if a bone had broken, but the woman turned,
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almost in slow motion. Her hand reached out, fingers hooked into
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claws. Her scream abruptly cut off.</p>
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<p>“Christ on a bike,” Phil said. “What’s
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going on James?” He turned towards the woman who was rolling
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away from him, raising herself on to her knees. She crawled away
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from the trolley.</p>
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<p>“I thought you said she was stopped.”</p>
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<p>“She was. Honest to God. There was nothing there.
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Absolutely nothing.”</p>
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<p>The woman ignored them. The second hallway of the mall angled
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away from the front door. Up on a ledge, the plastic choirboys
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still swung their heads in pathetic unison while the Christmas
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dirges implacably continued, oblivious of the drama. From here, it
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was clear that the sound and motion did not coincide.</p>
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<p>The woman almost scurried across the neatly patterned tiling. A
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well-dressed girl came walking out of a shop, arms laden with
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parcels. She was oblivious to the commotion until she almost
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stumbled over the woman. Whatever she thought it was, it was clear
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that it was entirely unexpected. She screeched. All the parcels
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went up in the air. They came down and hit the ground with a series
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of thumps. The old woman scuttled past, a ragged, spidery shape
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with that ballooning breast dangling like a growth.</p>
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<p>She made it half way along the walkway. Phil and his partner
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went chasing after her, but they needn’t have rushed.
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Whatever burst of strength the woman had managed to summon left her
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just then, when she was half way to the far wall where baby buggies
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and walkers and prams were parked in a line.</p>
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<p>One moment she was scuttling on hands and knees, a grotesque,
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fluttering shape on the floor. The next her hands slid from in
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front of her and she tumbled headlong, her forehead hit the floor
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with a sickening crack. She rolled over, twitched twice, and was
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still.</p>
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<p>The medics reached her, one of them dragging the trolley behind
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him. Without any hesitation they heaved the woman back on
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again.</p>
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<p>“Make sure she’s strapped in this time,” James
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said.</p>
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<p>“Make sure she’s dead next time,” Phil snapped
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back. Over by the bookshop, an old and elegant woman’s mouth
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fell open into a shocked oval.</p>
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<p>“Sorry ma’am,” James said. He tried to smile
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but couldn’t. He had never seen anything quite like this
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before. The dead did not get up and walk, or crawl. Not in any of
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the manuals. And she had been dead all right. He’d heard
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nothing inside her except for the gurgle of settling fluids.
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She’d been dead and gone.</p>
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<p>But she had screamed loud enough to wake the dead and
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she’d gone crawling like a ragged spider.</p>
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<p>He shook his head. His partner strapped the form onto the flat
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and they ran for the doors. They opened in time and the medics got
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to the ambulance.</p>
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<p>Inside the mall, Jenny McGill watched in stunned silence. Her
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heart was beating fast and she felt suddenly faint. The sight of
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the woman crawling, a hunched and grotesque shape scuttering across
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the floor, had scared her so badly her hands were shaking.</p>
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<p>She put them up to her face and again she smelt the
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woman’s scent. It smelled of death.</p>
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<hr />
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<p>“Step on it James,” Phil urged. “Get this
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thing moving.” The siren was screaming as loud as the woman
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had done and the ambulance rocked from side to side as the driver
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hauled it round a tight bend.</p>
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<p>Phil had slit the faded blouse down the centre and got the black
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pads of the portable resuscitator onto the ribs under the rubbery
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breasts. He thumbed the node and despite the insulation, he felt
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the hairs on his arms stand up when the current discharged. The
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woman’s muscles contracted violently, back arching off the
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trolley despite the restraining straps. Her arm, which had rolled
|
|
off the surface and had hung limply, fingers pointing at the floor,
|
|
spasmed in a sudden snap. It came up, fingers now clenched into a
|
|
fist and punched Phil’s left testicle with enough force to
|
|
make him cry out in pain.</p>
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|
<p>“You okay?” James called back.</p>
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|
<p>“Bitch hit me,” Phil managed to reply.</p>
|
|
<p>“What?”</p>
|
|
<p>The fingers unclenched and the hand fell back down again. Phil
|
|
bent, trying to ignore the pulsing ache, secured the arm under a
|
|
strap and tried again. The body flailed once more, but the monitor
|
|
line stayed horizontal.</p>
|
|
<p>“Trying adrenaline now,” Phil said. “Fifty.
|
|
Straight in.”</p>
|
|
<p>He aimed the thick needle at an angle under the breastbone,
|
|
pointing it upwards and slightly to the right. Without hesitation
|
|
he started to depress the plunger and the hormone went straight
|
|
into the heart muscle.</p>
|
|
<p>“Nearly there,” James said. “Got
|
|
anything?”</p>
|
|
<p>“Nothing yet.”</p>
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|
<p>The ambulance sped through the gateway, siren still yelling
|
|
urgently, and ran straight for the covered bay in front of the
|
|
accident unit. While Phil had been delivering the cardiac shock,
|
|
James had been on the radio calling in. A crash team were waiting
|
|
to take over. The brakes squealed and the Phil was thrown forward.
|
|
Just at that moment the woman’s body gave an enormous
|
|
shudder. Her eyes flicked open, pale and blue and faded. They
|
|
looked around. Phil turned. Her hand jerked against the
|
|
restraint.</p>
|
|
<p>“Baby,” she whispered. “Got to get my baby. He
|
|
needs me.”</p>
|
|
<p>Phil stared at her, stunned into silence. The adrenaline
|
|
hadn’t worked. The shocks hadn’t had any effect. Yet
|
|
now she was alive again.</p>
|
|
<p>“There’s something funny going on here,” Phil
|
|
said. The hairs on the back of his neck were crawling. The
|
|
woman’s eyes swivelled towards him.</p>
|
|
<p>“My baby,” she whispered again. “Bring
|
|
him.”</p>
|
|
<p>Phil opened his mouth to speak when another enormous convulsion
|
|
arched the woman off the trolley. It happened so quickly that he
|
|
had no time to react, and with such force that one of the
|
|
restraining straps broke and sent the fastener flying to smack
|
|
against the roof.</p>
|
|
<p>The door opened. Hands reached in. The woman flopped back down
|
|
and the life went out of her eyes again.</p>
|
|
<p>Somebody unsnapped the brake and the trolley was hauled outside.
|
|
Phil followed behind.</p>
|
|
<p>“I gave her fifty of adrenaline,” he told Brendan
|
|
Quayle, the young emergency resident who was already pressing his
|
|
stethoscope down against the woman’s ribs. “She came
|
|
round. But it didn’t look right.”</p>
|
|
<p>The team trundled their package inside. James came round and the
|
|
two medics followed them into the unit.</p>
|
|
<p>“Can’t feel a thing,” the doctor said.
|
|
“Did you shock her?”</p>
|
|
<p>“Twice. Up to four hundred. Not a thing. The line was
|
|
flat.”</p>
|
|
<p>“But she came round after adrenaline?”</p>
|
|
<p>“Not right away. It was maybe a minute, a bit
|
|
longer.”</p>
|
|
<p>“Can’t have been. Wouldn’t take that
|
|
long,” the doctor said, though not unkindly.</p>
|
|
<p>Phil shook his head. The sudden lurch inside the ambulance and
|
|
the croaking whisper from the woman had badly unnerved him. He had
|
|
seen many things on the road. Dying children, mutilated crash
|
|
victims, frozen bodies in the snow. They were all part of the job.
|
|
You bit down on the shock and went on and eventually you treated
|
|
them like numbers because it was easier that way.</p>
|
|
<p>But this had been different. She had been dead twice and she had
|
|
come alive and there had been a mad look in those rheumy eyes.
|
|
Whatever had happened to the woman, it had not been natural. Phil
|
|
didn’t quite articulate that thought, but something inside
|
|
him knew. He shivered again.</p>
|
|
<p>It took the crash team less than five minutes to pronounce the
|
|
woman well and truly dead. Phil looked through the portholes of the
|
|
doors, half expecting her to come lunging up from the table. A
|
|
nurse drew the sheet over her head. Nothing happened. The
|
|
woman’s nose and her oddly full breasts poked at the surface
|
|
of the fabric, but she remained still.</p>
|
|
<p>“You’ve gone all white,” James said.</p>
|
|
<p>“Nearly shit myself,” Phil said. “And she
|
|
nearly neutered me.”</p>
|
|
<p>“You can’t win them all. Come on, I’ll get you
|
|
a cup of tea and we’ll write the report up later.”</p>
|
|
<p>A tall nurse came and wheeled the gurney away down to the
|
|
mortuary. Phil followed its progress until it went through the
|
|
swing doors and disappeared from sight.</p>
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