It must have been Thomas, he decided. Thomas knew that he’d been in the hospital and had known exactly where he was going to be. He’d probably also figured out what he was about to do. He must have followed him down to the mortuary and waited his chance. If Thomas had gone this far, he concluded with a hollow stab of fear, he couldn’t afford to stop now. He would have to go all the way and kill him.
Gordon had put the fact that he was sweating profusely down to the effects of fear but he suddenly realised that it was unbearably hot. There was something else bothering him too, something about the quality of the air... it was bad. He was in a confined space and the air was thin. It was the sort of air you’d expect to find in submarines trapped on the seabed, coal mines after a roof collapse... escape tunnels dug without ventilation shafts. Such thoughts added claustrophobia to the equation and put even more pressure on the panic button inside his aching head. On top of everything else there was an unpleasant smell too, a sickly sweet smell that seemed to swirl in counterpoint to the pain. It made a hellish cocktail, one that threatened ever-increasing waves of nausea. God, no! He mustn’t be sick! If he did that he would surely die. Being securely gagged, his lungs would fill and he would drown in his own vomit like some hapless drunk in a dark alley.
He fought against the urge to panic as best he could, disciplining himself to stay calm against all the odds and think rationally. He needed to know as much as he could about his situation and surroundings. Knowledge was power and right now he was without any; he knew absolutely nothing. He started by moving his hands behind his back, feeling the surface he was lying on. It was metallic, he concluded. That was worth knowing; it meant that it was unlikely to be a floor. He tried stretching out his legs and found something soft, maybe a cushion or a pillow, and beyond that, an obstruction only a matter of inches from his feet. He pushed against it and discovered that it wasn’t solid. The amount of give in it suggested that it was almost certainly metal too. A metal base and a metal wall?
He tried moving the other way, wriggling his hips slowly and pushing himself up with his shoulder. His head came into contact with something solid and the pain soared again to nausea-inducing levels. He lay very still, scarcely daring to breathe until it had subsided a little and he could think again. Now he was sure his surroundings were metal because of the noise it made when his head had hit it.
The pain swirled in waves of red mist but it was lessening. A box? Was he in some kind of metal box? He moved cautiously from side to side and made much the same discovery, metal walls on all four sides of him. The word ‘coffin’ made a bid to replace ‘box’ in his mind and conjured up images of iron mort-safes in old churchyards where relatives had protected the bodies of their loved ones from the grave robbers of long ago. The image thankfully faded when he tried to move into a more comfortable position and felt the whole structure move. He shimmied his hips once more and got the same sensation. The box was mobile! He was lying on a trolley! The metal base must be the shelf of a hospital trolley, possibly the one he’d used to support Anne-Marie’s body? But what about the metal ends and the fact that the air was bad? This trolley was enclosed; it had some kind of cover over it. There were no covers on the mortuary body transporters. The only trolley he knew to have a cover...
Gordon’s eyes opened wide inside his black prison as the truth came to him on wings of terror. He was lying on the biological waste transporter; that’s why it smelled so bad. God Almighty! The soft object near his feet must be the source of the smell. He tried a hesitant examination with his bound feet before suddenly realising what the bundle must be. It was Anne Marie Palmer’s body. His attacker had taken the chance to kill two birds with one stone, do away with him and destroy the only remaining evidence at the same time. And the heat? Christ! He was already in the incinerator room. He was waiting to be cremated along with Anne-Marie!
The circumstances of his situation were pushing him to the very edge of insanity. He had never been so afraid in all his life. His lungs wanted to explode in screams of terror but the gag kept him agonisingly mute. He lay, wide eyed in the darkness, wondering if suffocation might not be a better option than being burned alive. Maybe he should actually encourage the gag inside his mouth to move back and block his airway. Wouldn’t it be better to be already dead when the transporter tipped his body into the flames?
Whatever the answer to that particular question was, Gordon decided it was academic and put out of his head. Suicide was not for him. Even on the verge of blind panic and undreamed-of terror, he refused to give in completely. He wanted to fight, if only he knew how but he was bound hand and foot and in complete darkness, only one wrong turn away from choking to death and about to be consigned to the flames of the incinerator.
He remembered from an earlier inspection visit to the incinerator room at the outset of the Megan Griffiths inquiry that the disposal process was entirely automatic. Once the transporter was locked in position and the timer set, no human hand was required. His killer could be sitting at home having a quiet drink when the electric motor whirred into action, the fire door opened, the trolley was lifted and angled and its load slid down the entry chute into the flames.
No one really knows how he or she will behave in a life-threatening crisis until it actually happens. In times of peace, most people can live their entire life without ever having to face such a challenge. Until that moment, Gordon might have decided that he had failed the test of courage because he felt so afraid, but now, to his amazement he actually found anger taking over from fear. It seemed to flow through his veins like extra adrenaline, making him strain at his bindings like a man possessed.
It didn’t take long for him to conclude that he was not going to be able to snap the surgical tape that held his hands and feet. It would have to be cut and the chances of him finding something sharp in his current predicament seemed remote, not that it stopped him from examining the edge of the trolley. As he feared, it was smooth and rounded but he still tried rubbing the tape against the lip, hoping to generate enough friction to cut it, but in his heart he suspected it was going to take much longer than he had left. How long that actually was, was anyone’s guess except the bastard who had set the timer. It was however, a reasonable assumption that his murderer wouldn’t want him lying around any longer than necessary.
There was one outside chance — or at least, Gordon convinced himself there was, Maybe it was entirely imaginary, but he saw it as a straw to cling to and at that particular moment, straws seemed pretty substantial elements. He seemed to recall that the fire door was quite wide but not actually very deep. If he had been unconscious, his body would simply slide through it without a problem but if he were to lie on his back and raise his knees, there was a chance that his body might jam in the open doorway. As to what he could do then... he couldn’t think that far ahead and he couldn’t remember if there was enough room for him to roll off to the side. In the meantime... and in the absence of any other idea... he would take the risk of moving on to his back and raising his knees in preparation.
He moved slowly, trying to keep his head facing the side so that the gag wouldn’t move backwards but he still felt the rough cloth in his mouth dangerously near the area that would induce a gag response. But at least he was doing something. It might all be to no avail and he still might sail through the entry hatch to the fire but at least he was not giving up without a fight and for some strange unfathomable reason this was important to him. His test had come and he had passed it, whatever were to happen now.