life.
The door had been left ajar by the time Alice reached her neighbour’s flat, but Miss Spinnell had returned to her bed and was sitting crouched on it, head down, knees against her chest, whimpering to herself. Alice came and sat on the edge of the bed. Seeing a wizened hand nearby she clasped it in her own, intending to comfort the distressed woman. Instantly the frail fingers were whipped away as if they had, inadvertently, touched lizard skin. The moaning, however, continued unabated.
‘What is it, Miss Spinnell?’
In response the crouched figure slowly straightened itself, and Alice was surprised to see that her neighbour was wearing dark glasses.
‘Blindness has come upon me! The lights have dipped… er, dimmed.’
Alice edged up the bed, watching Miss Spinnell recoil as she came closer, until she was able to lift the glasses off the ancient nose.
‘I think you have accidentally put on the wrong spectacles . You’ve been wearing dark ones,’ Alice said.
Miss Spinnell screwed up her eyes several times, as if accustoming herself once more to light and sight. She looked, briefly, sheepish before an expression of disdain transformed her face.
‘Accidentally! Accidentally! Ha! How simper… simplistic can it be. Can’t you grasp how they operate? Whilst I’ve been blind, blind I say, yet more of my artifice… arti… arti… things, will have been purloined. Kindly check the silver, Alice.’
‘But, Miss Spinnell, how could they have got in?’
‘Through the open door,’ the old lady said. ‘The door I opened…’ she looked hard at her visitor before continuing , ‘especially for you.’
To put her neighbour’s mind at rest, the tired policewoman opened drawers and dust-laden cupboards, all the while learning more about Miss Spinnell and the havoc the disease had left in its wake. On a high shelf, in among well-thumbed volumes of verse, were little reminders of the person she had once been. A medal dated 1995 from The Poetry Society, a barn owl’s wing wrapped carefully in tissue paper, and, most poignant of all, a faded photograph showing a young girl laughing uproariously with a boy in uniform, and an inscription on the back: ‘To Morag, the most beautiful of the Spinnell sisters, with all my love, Charlie.’ And over the writing in Miss Spinnell’s ancient trembling hand had been scrawled ‘PLEASE DO NOT TAKE’, a pitiful entreaty to a pitiless enemy.
4
As soon as the polythene bag had been removed the corpse resumed its human shape again. A boyish photographer began to prowl around the body, snapping it from every angle, issuing instructions as if at a fashion shoot and smiling ghoulishly at his own joke, until told off by the pathologist. Meanwhile, Alice eased the woman’s arms off her breast and down to her sides, lifting one of them up to remove the sleeve before rolling her over to release the material at the back. The final cuff peeled off without difficulty.
‘At least she’s cold,’ Doctor Zenabi said conversationally , while raising the body slightly to allow Alice to pull the coat from under it.
‘Does it make a difference?’ she replied, all her concentration on the task in hand.
‘Certainly does. Give me cold flesh, cold blood, anytime . I don’t like it when it’s still warm,’ he continued, ‘– the transitional phase. It’s horrid cutting them then. Far too close to life. I like my bodies to be… well, thoroughly chilled.’
Conversely, we want the body still warm, Alice thought. No time to have passed and the trail still hot. She felt in one of the woman’s coat pockets and pulled out its contents . A mobile phone, a purse and a packet of chewing gum. Putting her hand into the other pocket, she felt a sharp, stabbing pain and withdrew it instantly as if bittenby a cobra. She inspected her palm, and saw a single, tiny puncture mark, immediately below the crease of the little finger. Fighting to contain the panic she could feel rising within
The door had been left ajar by the time Alice reached her neighbour’s flat, but Miss Spinnell had returned to her bed and was sitting crouched on it, head down, knees against her chest, whimpering to herself. Alice came and sat on the edge of the bed. Seeing a wizened hand nearby she clasped it in her own, intending to comfort the distressed woman. Instantly the frail fingers were whipped away as if they had, inadvertently, touched lizard skin. The moaning, however, continued unabated.
‘What is it, Miss Spinnell?’
In response the crouched figure slowly straightened itself, and Alice was surprised to see that her neighbour was wearing dark glasses.
‘Blindness has come upon me! The lights have dipped… er, dimmed.’
Alice edged up the bed, watching Miss Spinnell recoil as she came closer, until she was able to lift the glasses off the ancient nose.
‘I think you have accidentally put on the wrong spectacles . You’ve been wearing dark ones,’ Alice said.
Miss Spinnell screwed up her eyes several times, as if accustoming herself once more to light and sight. She looked, briefly, sheepish before an expression of disdain transformed her face.
‘Accidentally! Accidentally! Ha! How simper… simplistic can it be. Can’t you grasp how they operate? Whilst I’ve been blind, blind I say, yet more of my artifice… arti… arti… things, will have been purloined. Kindly check the silver, Alice.’
‘But, Miss Spinnell, how could they have got in?’
‘Through the open door,’ the old lady said. ‘The door I opened…’ she looked hard at her visitor before continuing , ‘especially for you.’
To put her neighbour’s mind at rest, the tired policewoman opened drawers and dust-laden cupboards, all the while learning more about Miss Spinnell and the havoc the disease had left in its wake. On a high shelf, in among well-thumbed volumes of verse, were little reminders of the person she had once been. A medal dated 1995 from The Poetry Society, a barn owl’s wing wrapped carefully in tissue paper, and, most poignant of all, a faded photograph showing a young girl laughing uproariously with a boy in uniform, and an inscription on the back: ‘To Morag, the most beautiful of the Spinnell sisters, with all my love, Charlie.’ And over the writing in Miss Spinnell’s ancient trembling hand had been scrawled ‘PLEASE DO NOT TAKE’, a pitiful entreaty to a pitiless enemy.
4
As soon as the polythene bag had been removed the corpse resumed its human shape again. A boyish photographer began to prowl around the body, snapping it from every angle, issuing instructions as if at a fashion shoot and smiling ghoulishly at his own joke, until told off by the pathologist. Meanwhile, Alice eased the woman’s arms off her breast and down to her sides, lifting one of them up to remove the sleeve before rolling her over to release the material at the back. The final cuff peeled off without difficulty.
‘At least she’s cold,’ Doctor Zenabi said conversationally , while raising the body slightly to allow Alice to pull the coat from under it.
‘Does it make a difference?’ she replied, all her concentration on the task in hand.
‘Certainly does. Give me cold flesh, cold blood, anytime . I don’t like it when it’s still warm,’ he continued, ‘– the transitional phase. It’s horrid cutting them then. Far too close to life. I like my bodies to be… well, thoroughly chilled.’
Conversely, we want the body still warm, Alice thought. No time to have passed and the trail still hot. She felt in one of the woman’s coat pockets and pulled out its contents . A mobile phone, a purse and a packet of chewing gum. Putting her hand into the other pocket, she felt a sharp, stabbing pain and withdrew it instantly as if bittenby a cobra. She inspected her palm, and saw a single, tiny puncture mark, immediately below the crease of the little finger. Fighting to contain the panic she could feel rising within
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