Patrick went upstairs and Lexi followed him.
‘Any luck?’ she said.
‘With what?’
‘Finding out who killed my dad.’
‘No. But Meg’s taking some photos of the throat, where there are wounds that could be ante-mortem.’
‘What’s ante-mortem?’
‘Before death.’
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Like post-mortem.’
‘Yes. But not.’
She nodded and followed him to the bathroom while he filled his bucket with water, then back to his bedroom. He shifted the bed away from the wall and started to scrub the carpet where it had been.
Lexi sat cross-legged on his bed for a while – then wriggled down inside his sleeping bag and stared at the ceiling, which was a-swirl with Artex.
‘What did you find in my dad? Apart from the peanut, I mean.’
‘Nothing.’
‘There can’t have been nothing.’
‘Nothing you wouldn’t expect to find.’
The carpet that had been under the bed was dusty as well as dark brown, and the water in the bucket was soon black and hairy.
‘It’s weird to think about you poking around inside his head when he’s dead. I wish I could have done that when he was alive.’
Patrick sat back on his heels. ‘Dissected his brain?’
‘Just to find out why he did some of the shit he did after my mum died. I mean, God knows what he was thinking half the time.’
‘I understand what you mean,’ he said, with an unexpected chink of empathy.
‘Was your dad an arse too?’ she said.
‘No,’ he said. ‘He wasn’t.’
‘Oh,’ said Lexi. ‘That’s nice for you.’ She played absently with the zip of the bag. It was a heavy-duty YKK that Patrick kept running smooth with WD40. He wondered if she might say something about it, but she didn’t.
‘Mine wasn’t always an arse,’ she said instead. ‘This one Christmas Eve when I was, like, three or four, I was asleep and he and my mum were downstairs with friends.’
‘How do you know?’ said Patrick.
‘How do I know what?’
‘How do you know they were downstairs with friends if you were asleep?’
Lexi frowned at him and said, ‘They just were, OK? You’re so fucking weird.’
She looked at the ceiling and Patrick pursed his lips. He didn’t like stories where he didn’t understand all the reasons why things in them happened.
‘So I’m asleep in bed and all of a sudden he grabs me out of bed, so fast I didn’t know what was going on, and he runs downstairs with me in his arms, and he’s so excited he’s kind of shaking, you know?’
Patrick nodded, even though Lexi wasn’t looking at him. Something about this story made him put his brush in the bucket and give her his full attention.
‘And he takes me through to the front room and all the lights are off, apart from the fairy lights on the Christmas tree, and all the presents are under the tree and my mum and their friends are by the window and the curtains are open—’
‘That’s how you knew,’ said Patrick. ‘Because the friends were there when you went downstairs.’
Lexi stared at him blankly, then smiled. ‘Yes, that’s how I knew.’
‘Go on,’ said Patrick.
She looked at the ceiling again and went on. ‘So, my dad ran to the window with me.’
She was quiet for a long moment, and Patrick watched her swallow, even though she wasn’t eating.
She went on, ‘I remember everyone was looking at me, sort of excited, and I didn’t know whether to be scared or excited or what was going on. And he holds me in his arms and points outside and whispers, ‘Look! Look!’
‘What was outside?’ said Patrick. He couldn’t help himself.
‘Outside was dark, but sort of light, too, because it had been snowing all day and it was still snowing, and the streetlights made everything orange.’
‘And what was outside?’ said Patrick impatiently.
‘And Father Christmas was going past.’
Patrick frowned. ‘But Father Christmas doesn’t exist.’
‘Yes, he does,’ said Lexi dreamily to the ceiling, ‘’cos I saw him. And it was wonderful. He was in a sleigh being pulled by a little white pony you couldn’t even hear because of the snow, so it was totally silent. And he wasn’t stopping or handing out presents; he wasn’t waving and showing off or ho-ho-ho-ing; he wasn’t somebody’s dad or uncle dressed up. It was too real and too quiet and too beautiful.’
Patrick sat on his heels and watched while a little silver river swelled out of the corner of her eye and trickled across the plain of her cheek.
She turned and looked at him and he didn’t look away.
‘It was like magic,’ she half whispered. ‘And he woke me up so I could see it.’ Then she looked back at the ceiling and wiped her eyes.
Patrick didn’t believe in Father Christmas. It didn’t make sense. And he thought that the Father Christmas that Lexi had seen had probably been somebody’s neighbour on his way to hand out presents and to ho-ho-ho at a house further along the street.
But, for some strange reason, he didn’t say any of that. For some strange reason that didn’t make sense either, Patrick said nothing and did nothing, and the silence filled the cramped, chemical-smelling little bedroom with something warm and quite wonderful.
Lexi sighed. ‘I like your room,’ she told the Artex. ‘It’s very calm.’
Patrick was not surprised; the ceiling was definitely the best part of his room.
He went to empty the bucket. A cushion of hair and fibres clogged the plughole and he plucked it out like a small, drowned animal and dropped it into the pedal bin. Then he peeled off his bleach-spattered clothes and showered until the hot water ran out.
When he returned to his room, Lexi was asleep. He carefully slid the bed back into place against the wall.
She did not wake up.
42
MEG STOPPED DEAD just inside the door of the dissection room, so that Scott almost knocked her over. She had to grasp the edge of Table 4 to keep from falling.
The bodies were gone.
Table 4, which had once been home to Rufus, with his curly red chest hair, was now just a clean and shiny stainless-steel surface under her hand, and Rufus’s limbs and entrails had disappeared from the shelf below it.
The room looked completely different. It had changed from white with fleshy orange outcrops, to white – with yet more white reflected in the steel table-tops. Without the cadavers, Meg wasn’t even sure at first which was Table 19. She walked over and touched it, as if she could only then be certain of the absence of a corpse.
The other students seemed to feel the same, and they milled about, apparently disorientated.
‘Where is he?’ Meg asked Dr Spicer.
‘Who?’
‘Bill.’
Dr Spicer turned and waved a vague arm and, for the first time, Meg realized that there was a row of trolleys lined up against the far wall of the room. On each was a white body bag.
‘The final week will just be a recap using prosections, if anyone needs a reminder.’
‘When will they be taken away?’
‘What?’
‘The cadavers.’
‘As and when funerals are arranged.’
Meg did a quick count. Already there were only twenty-seven.
‘You OK?’ said Rob.
She nodded slowly. ‘One day he’s here, the next he’s gone. It just feels weird.’