The Touch of Innocents. Michael Dobbs

Benjamin down, smoothed his hair, hugged him again, and gave herself time to recover. Patiently, with difficulty, she tried to explain to her son that he was mistaken. That he must have imagined things.

      The boy would have none of it, sticking firmly to his claim. He had some concept of death, it was one of the first lessons that children picked up when seeing the scenes of suffering on which Izzy reported. Death was a child who went to sleep. Never to wake up.

      ‘Lady dake baby Bella. An Bella cry.’

      ‘Which lady? A lady like this, Benjamin?’ she asked, indicating Katti, the black social worker who had begun to take an interest in the plight of mother and child.

      ‘No, no. Different.’

      ‘A lady like me, then?’

      Benjamin studied his mother as if for the first time, concentrating. ‘No.’

      In an instant the image had returned to Izzy and, with it, dread. Fear burned a pathway up her spine, searing along the back of her neck and beneath the skin of her scalp until it had set her mind ablaze. In the flickering light cast by the flames she saw the same lurid mask as in her nightmare.

      The girl. Eyes now full of terror. Melting away.

      And taking Bella with her.

      She grabbed a crayon and piece of paper on which Benjy had been scribbling. She drew a face, thin. Long straggles of hair.

      ‘Like that, Benjy? Hair like that?’ she enquired, haltingly.

      He nodded.

      ‘An old lady, Benjamin? Was she an old lady?’

      ‘No, Mummy,’ he answered impatiently, shaking his head in disagreement.

      ‘And eyes?’

      She drew two circles, but he looked blankly at her work. Then she began drawing around the circles, roughly, unevenly, until the eyes had grown small and the surrounding shadows distended and dark.

      ‘Yes. Dat her!’

      And now Izzy fell silent, appalled, frozen in torment. It couldn’t be true. Could it?

      ‘Can I help?’

      It was Katti. Izzy turned slowly, waking from a dream, part nightmare, part fantasy, but which nevertheless she felt certain was a dream.

      ‘My baby died. Here in this hospital. A few weeks ago.’

      Katti’s eyes widened in sympathy.

      ‘I know very little, really, haven’t wanted to. Until now. Few details, no death certificate. But it’s time to sort everything out. How do I do that, Katti? Do you know?’

      ‘Your baby dies here in this hospital? Sad. But no problem. I tell you, I can sort all this out for you. Here, my card.’ She thrust a flimsy card with her details into Izzy’s hand. ‘You don’t worry. I find out everything, you call in a couple of days. OK?’

      Weakly Izzy smiled her thanks and the torment began to recede. But, as hard as she tried, it would not disappear, for glowing in the embers of her torment was also hope. Pathetic, pointless, desperate new hope.

      An idea struck her. A foolish one, she knew, but one which could do no harm, might banish the illusions and end the agony. Help make her certain. She left Benjamin on the ward, explaining she still had one more person to thank.

      It was not difficult to find, though badly signposted. Those who needed it knew where it was. As she had regained her strength and begun to move about the hospital she had noticed the steady trickle of vans with no rear windows or apparent identification disappearing in the direction of the far corner of the car park.

      It consisted of scarcely more than a prefabricated cabin. Above a set of large double doors was hung a small, unembellished sign, the only relief to its otherwise total anonymity.

      ‘MORTUARY.’

      She stepped inside.

      She was in a room which acted as a corridor. Down the centre of the corridor ran a grille covering a drainage gully. In one corner stood a mop and bucket, in another a tubular metal trolley and behind that a large wall chart on which, in numbers from one to sixteen, were charted names and measurements. The wall opposite was dominated by grey metal doors some three feet high, stacked in double rows, with corresponding numbers. One set of doors had a hand-written placard taped to it.

      ‘LONG TERM. DO NOT LEAVE UNLOCKED.’

      The room was cool. From somewhere further within she heard a clattering sound, a metal tray being dropped, perhaps, and she followed the noise. She passed an open door through which could be seen a small wood-panelled chapel of rest, outside of which was arranged a row of cheap stacking chairs on which someone had left a pair of freshly washed wellington boots. As she turned the corner, the floor colour changed from grey to green; before she knew it she was through another set of double doors.

      The room was considerably larger than the previous one, set out like a hotel kitchen with sinks and counters and plastic dustbins and scales and scrubbing brushes and spotlessly clean utensils of all sorts. Hanging from a hook on the far wall was a circular saw.

      In the centre of the room stood two stainless-steel benches, each with a surface consisting of a shiny metal grille. On one lay a clutter of scalpels, hammers, saws, chisels, scissors, shears and other tools which would have made her late father, an enthusiastic woodworker, envious. On the other, under a spotlight which made the damp table gleam, was a small mound of material which was being attended and sorted by a small man in green overalls, apron, latex gloves and rubber boots. The floor around where he stood was damp. The strains of a Mozart symphony were being broadcast from a radio on a nearby counter and, as he leaned over the table, back towards Izzy, he clenched his buttocks in time with the music.

      Pom. Pom-Pom. Pom-Pom-Pom-Pom-Pom-Pom.

      While his lower body rose and fell with the rhythm, the rest of him remained utterly still, fixed upon his work. It was some time before he realized he was not alone.