drank a few sips obediently but messily, water spilling out of the corner of her mouth and down the front of her dress. Then she turned her face away. She’s had enough, I thought. She must be close to the transition. I took the cup gently out of her hands, putting it out of her line of sight on the floor.
‘Now,’ I said, touching her arm. ‘Look at the paper. Can you read it?’
‘“I have something important to say…”’ she recited.
‘That’s good,’ I said. ‘Stop now. I will phone the number, and then, when someone answers, I want you to read out what it says on the paper. Do you understand?’
She didn’t answer at first. I touched her arm again and she flinched, then she said, uncertainly, ‘Yes.’
‘That’s good,’ I said. ‘Do it now.’
I dialled the number for her, and held the phone up close to her face. I’d wanted it to be on loudspeaker, so I could hear their reaction, but the house was so quiet I could hear the noise of the ringing tone at the other end. Whatever they said, I would hear it.
‘Hello, Newsdesk.’
I touched her arm as a prompt, but I don’t think she even needed it.
‘Hello,’ she said, her voice beautifully measured and even. ‘I want to speak to Sam Everett.’
‘Speaking. How can I help?’
‘I have something important to say. There are more bodies,’ she said, as though she were announcing the arrival of a train on platform seven. ‘There is one at – ’
‘Hold on,’ said Sam Everett, on the other end of the phone. ‘Wait. Just wait a sec. Let me write this down.’
She paused for a few seconds, and then said, in a voice unexcited by the subject matter, ‘There are more bodies. There is one at 36 Hawthorn Crescent, Carnhurst. There are others.’
I could hear nothing from the other end of the phone, and leaned closer to her. He was writing, scribbling it all down. I pointed to the next line on the script and she read it out dutifully. ‘Do you need me to repeat that.’ It was technically a question but her voice was flat.
‘Where are the others? And who is this, please? What’s your name?’
‘Do you need me to repeat that.’
‘No, no – I just want to know who I’m talking to. What’s your name?’
I pressed the button on the phone to disconnect the call. Sam Everett would be the last person, other than me, whom she would speak to. She had no concept of this at all. No problem with it. If I had told her, if I had explained it to her, she would have been no more concerned than she was right now.
‘Well done,’ I said, replacing the phone handset on its charging unit. ‘You did well.’
She looked at me. In another time and place she might even have smiled, but now she was tired, exhausted beyond belief at the exertion of concentrating and following those few instructions. She fell back on to the bed.
‘I’m tired,’ she said. ‘My head hurts.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘You can sleep, if you want to.’
‘Yes,’ she said.
She was beautiful on the verge of death, rooted in it, alive with it. She knew no pain, no anger, no fear. She was approaching it as everyone should, accepting, graceful, perfectly at peace. The water she’d sipped did not seem to have slowed the process as I had thought it might. She was too far down the path.
‘Now,’ I said, touching her arm. ‘You’re ready. You know what you have to do.’
‘Go to sleep,’ she said.
‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘You go to sleep now. It’s time.’
Before I left the house I wiped any of the surfaces I might have touched, even though I’d worn latex gloves all the way through. She hadn’t noticed them, hadn’t even looked upon them with curiosity. I don’t really know why I bothered wearing them, since technically she’d invited me in and would not have objected to me being there. Even at a time such as this.
At the back door I paused and looked back at the house. The next person through the door would be the one to find her. They would trace the call, without doubt, and, when they did, they would come here looking for her. They would find her fresh, this one, if they had any sense. It did cross my mind that they could find her too quickly, before she died. It was a risk. But it was likely they would