‘In future, could you try not to get yourself half-killed by giant robots at all? It’s not good for my nerves.’
‘OK,’ he smiled. ‘Come here.’
He hugged her, and she curled up beside him on the edge of the narrow bed.
They lay there for a while. At last, once he’d thought about it long enough, he said, ‘Gwen?’
But she’d fallen asleep.
Shiznay padded downstairs in the dark, her dressing gown pulled around her. She was half-asleep, but the noise was keeping her awake. Someone had left the kitchen vents on again.
The others were asleep in the flat over the restaurant, and the restaurant itself was dark: a forest of chair legs upturned on tables, lit by the amber streetlamp outside the front windows.
It was cold too. There was a draught.
Shiznay plodded into the kitchen. The cool air contained a mix of cooked spices, onions and cleaning fluid. In the twilight, the stainless-steel counters were bare and gleaming. Silhouette pans hung from ceiling rails.
The extractor vents were purring, a low-level chatter occasionally embellished by a clacking whirr.
She walked across the kitchen, found the cut-out switch by touch alone, and flipped it down. The vents went quiet with a dying murmur. She slid the mesh hatches shut.
That draught again, against her face.
Shiznay looked around. She saw that the backdoor was slightly open.
Tutting, she went over and bolted it. Her father would be furious with whoever had closed up. Leaving the fans on was one thing, but not locking up properly? Anyone could get in and-Shiznay froze. Her spine crawled. Standing in that darkened kitchen, all alone, and imagining the consequences of an unlocked door, she’d just managed to completely creep herself out. She smiled to herself ruefully and turned to go.
Something made a tiny noise.
She froze again, and her spine crawled for real.
It had been just a tiny noise, a mouse noise. She listened for it, willing it to come again, hearing nothing but the bump of her own pulse in her ears.
Nothing. No, not nothing. A noise again. There.
As silently as she could, she took down the heaviest pan she could find and held it like a tennis racket. She thought about the rack of catering knives on the far wall, but it was too far away, and besides, scared or not, she didn’t fancy stabbing anyone. Not even burglar-rapist-escaped looney.
Smacking him over the head, on the other hand, was something she thought she might adequately manage.
She listened for the noise to come again. When it did, she realised it was coming from behind her, from the walk-in pantry. The door to the pantry was open a little way too.
Shiznay wondered if she should call out. She was pretty sure that, by the time anyone woke up and got down stairs, she’d have had to deal with things alone anyway.
Hefting up the pan for a good first service, she crept towards the pantry door. She placed her hand on the handle. One, two…
She swung the door open. At first, she could see nothing. It was impenetrably dark, a shadowy cave filled with sacks of vegetables and stacks of cans in catering packs.
Then she saw the figure, gasped, and swung her improvised weapon up.
She hesitated.
‘Oh my goodness…’ she whispered.
Mr Dine was sitting on the floor, his back against the wall. What remained of his clothes were ragged and shredded. His head leaned forward limply, his hands draped at his sides.
‘What are you doing here? What are you doing in here?’ she hissed, stepping forward.
He stirred, and slowly turned his head up to regard her.
‘How did you get in? You shouldn’t be here! You really shouldn’t be here!’
‘You… said…’ he whispered.
‘What?’
It was hard to hear him, his voice was so distant. Was he drunk? Out of his head? Had he been mugged, or something? Shiznay lowered the pan.
‘You… said…’ he repeated.
‘What do you mean?’
‘You said, “Come back when you want,”’ Mr Dine whispered.
‘Well, I…’ Shiznay paused. She thought hard. ‘Look, I didn’t mean this. I didn’t mean… My father would go off on one if he knew you’d broken in and…’ She crouched down next to him. ‘Mr Dine?’
He didn’t reply.
‘Are you all right?’
He opened his eyes and nodded at the pan she was holding. ‘What is that for?’
‘Cracking you over the head. You don’t just go around breaking into places.’ Shiznay stopped and laughed suddenly. Given his prior form, that was exactly the kind of peculiar thing Mr Dine would do.
‘Are you all right?’ she asked again. ‘What happened to you?’
‘I crashed,’ he said, soporifically.
‘You said that before. Is that… is that like a drug thing?’
‘No, no.’
‘What happened to your clothes? Were you roughed up?’
‘I suppose you could say that.’
‘I should call the police,’ she said.
‘No.’
‘Did you see who did it?’
‘Shiznay-’
‘The police will help you. You can’t stay here.’ Her mind whirled. If she rang the police, her father would know. He’d see how Mr Dine had broken in. There would be all sorts of trouble.
But she couldn’t just turf the man out into the street, not the state he was in, even if she did ring in an anonymous 999.
‘I’ll have to call the police,’ she insisted.
‘No. They can’t help me. Please do not call them. I just need to rest. To recover.’
She peered at him closer. ‘Oh goodness!’ she blurted, realising what she was seeing. ‘Oh good lord, they stabbed you! They stabbed you, didn’t they?’
Despite the half-light, she could distinctly see the dark fluid oozing out of a gash in his ribs. There was a pool of it on the floor.
‘It’s not from a knife,’ he said. ‘I received a contact injury. It’s healing. Let me take time to heal.’
‘You need to go to Casualty. You need stitches at least. That’s not just going to heal on its own.’
He suddenly looked at her quite fiercely. His eyes blazed intently. ‘Yes, it is,’ he said. ‘I promise you, it is. I just need somewhere safe to lie and rest. Somewhere safe. I thought you could…’
‘You can’t stay here,’ she said.
He sighed and nodded. He began to move himself, as though intending to get up. ‘I understand. I will go.’
‘Where?’
‘I’ll find somewhere.’
She put a hand out and restrained him gently. ‘I meant… you can’t stay here. In here. My father will be up at six, and there’ll be food prep. People will come in here and find you. You can’t stay in here.’
‘Where, then?’
‘Can you move? If I help you, can you move really quietly? Really, really quietly?’
‘I think so.’
It took a moment to hoist him up. He was heavy and his skin was hot, almost feverish. Bracing him, she shuffled them out of the pantry and propped him against a counter.
‘Stand there, just a second.’
Mr Dine swayed, but remained upright, holding onto the edge of the counter.
Shiznay went back into the pantry, dropped a sheet of old newspaper over the puddle of blood, and heaved two sacks of onions and sack of potatoes over to cover the paper. She picked up the pan, stepped out of the larder and closed the door. Then she hung the pan back up where she’d found it.
‘All right,’ she whispered, coming back to him. ‘Here we go. Really quietly, OK?’
TWENTY-FOUR
He smelled coffee. Not just any coffee. Ianto’s coffee.
He woke up.
He felt stiff and sore. His head throbbed. He looked around, but he was alone. At some point in the night, Gwen had gone.