“Crowman, did you see her?” she remembered asking.

  “See who?”

  “Crowman,” she'd continued, shocking by the sight of Edna Vincent's ghost, “she's right behind -”

  Everything after that had been a blur, a horrible blur that had left the knife's large blade embedded in her belly. She felt tears swelling in her closed eyes now as she recalled the certainty with which Crowman had pushed the knife deeper and deeper into her, and she knew now that there could be no mistake: he'd absolutely stabbed her on purpose, even if she could think of no reason why he would ever have done such a thing.

  Unless...

  “I'm sorry,” she remembered him saying, and now his words were echoing over and over in her mind. “Truly I am, Jenny, but I always knew that I needed a back-up plan. You trusted me. You had faith in me. You put your life on hold to follow me around. You devoted yourself to my work. Admit it, didn't you see this coming just a little?”

  Suddenly her eyes opened and she let out a gasp. A huge spasm rocked her entire body and helped her to roll onto her side, and a rush of blood poured from her mouth. As the last of the blood dribbled onto the floor, she was just about able to make out the blurry wheels at the bottom of a bed – Edna's bed, she assumed – as well as a thick, dark trail of smeared blood leading out of the room and back into the corridor.

  Her own blood.

  She had no idea why Crowman had dragged her into the room, but as she blinked again she told herself that somehow she had to still trust him. He'd always come through for her before, he was a good man who'd never done a thing to hurt her, and she felt sure that he was still going to save her life.

  Somehow.

  As footsteps made their way around the bed again, Jenny's eyes continued to stare out across the blood-soaked floor. She managed one last groan, although this was caused more by a small amount of trapped air rising up from the back of her throat. Her eyes remained open and unblinking and unfocused, and in her brain the last neurons were firing randomly before finally they too died away. Her heart had stopped beating and her lips were dry, and her eyes – still looking toward the door, toward escape – were already glassy as they began to break down.

  And somewhere deep inside her brain, the last spark of life died.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Very slowly reaching down, Crowman put two fingers on the side of Jenny's neck, just below her jaw. He felt around for a moment with the precision of a surgeon or a butcher, pressing her fingers against her cooling and slightly clammy skin, and then – once he was satisfied that there was no pulse – he stood up straight again while still staring down at her dead open eyes.

  “Okay, then,” he said finally, and he was surprised to find that his own lips were rather dry. He licked them briefly for respite. “Alright. It's done.”

  Taking care to avoid stepping into the worst of the bloody puddle, he made his way around her. He'd avoided paying too much attention during her final moments; even as he'd dragged her through into Edna's room, he'd tried not to look at her face or to listen to the few grunts and groans and clicks that had emerged from the back of her throat. After all, the last thing he needed was to get emotional. Now, however, he stopped and forced himself to look at her, at her dead eyes and at the blood that was already beginning the long process of drying all over her chin.

  “Okay,” he muttered again, trying to settle his nerves. “Yeah, it's done. There's nothing... nothing more to be said, really. Certainly no need to get maudlin.”

  Making his way across the room, he turned one of the taps on and began to wash the blood. He watched as the last traces of Jenny's blood swirled in the cold water and disappeared down the plughole, and then he placed the knife carefully on the sink as he turned the tap off again. He glanced briefly at his own face in the dirty mirror and he saw a hint of fear in his eyes, but he quickly put all those concerns out of his mind as he instead turned and headed to the door.

  At the last second, as if he'd forgotten something, he changed course and stepped over Jenny's corpse, making his way around the bed before stopping at the night stand. Reaching down, he picked up the penguin timer and twisted the top again, resetting it to fifteen before putting it back in place as the ticking resumed.

  “It should work this time,” he told himself, barely getting any words out at all. “No more excuses.”

  He glanced at Edna's body in the bed; Jenny's body, meanwhile, was unfocused and just out of his field of vision on the floor beyond.

  “Remember the theory?” he asked. “We worried that you might not have the motivation to come back. Well, Jenny will certainly be motivated, won't she?” He paused. “I told you I could do this, Edna. I promised you that I wouldn't back down, that I was willing to do anything it took to get the results we're after. I hope that, if you are watching over me, you're at least a little proud.”

  Another pause.

  “You should be,” he whispered, stepping over to the window again and looking out, parting the blinds before glancing at the street far below. “I know you doubted me, deep down. I don't even blame you. I know there was part of you that thought I'd fall at the last hurdle.”

  As those words left his lips, the penguin timer continued to tick loudly and Jenny's cooling body lay in a puddle of her own blood; her eyes were staring unblinkingly toward the door still, and dust had already begun to settle on her corneas.

  ***

  Several months earlier...

  “Can you do it, Keith?” Edna asked, sitting in the chair by the window of her hospice room – the exact same room in which she would later die – and staring out at the grey London skyline. “When push comes to shove and it all becomes so utterly real, not just an academic idea, do you really think you have the capacity?”

  She waited, worried about the answer she might be about to receive.

  “Yes,” he said firmly, with no trace of doubt at all. “Of course.”

  She turned to him and saw a sense of resolute determination in his eyes, yet at the same time she still feared that he was merely pretending, that he was puffing up his chest and saying all the right things – but that when the moment arrived, he would be unable to commit.

  “I mean it,” he went on, having clearly sensed her doubts. “I'll... I'll do whatever it takes.”

  “What's her name, again?”

  “I -”

  “You told me, but I don't remember,” she continued, flinching slightly. “It's no joke, this dying business. My memory has turned to sludge.”

  “Jennifer,” he replied. “Jenny, as she prefers to be called.”

  “Is she clever?”

  “She's more than capable of working as my assistant.”

  “Is she a pretty little thing?”

  “I hardly see how that's relevant.”

  “Is she easy on the eye, Keith?” she asked with a hint of a smile. “Does she wear short skirts and low tops? Does she bend over a lot or -”

  “That is completely irrelevant,” he replied, interrupting her, “and to be honest with you, I haven't noticed such things. And why are you suddenly calling me by that other name? You know I don't like it.”

  “It's the one you were born with, isn't it?”

  “You know the name that I prefer,” he said archly.

  “Ah yes, Crowman Mancrow,” she chuckled. “From a comic book, isn't it? I think you told me about that once. Tell me, is that how you see yourself? As some kind of fictional hero bounding into situations and fixing everything? With your plucky, quick-witted assistant – dare I say companion – alongside you? You named yourself after a hero, didn't you? How are you going to feel when you have to start doing things that aren't heroic at all?”

  “I'll feel just fine,” he countered. “It's all in the name of science.”

  “It's a kind of sacrifice, if you think about it.”

  “How so?”

  “You'll be sacrificing young Jennifer on the altar of scientific investigation,” she suggested. “You'll be offering her life in the hope of receiving something in return, something you can't be sure of but... but something you believe without any doubt at all. If you think about it like that, we're really not that different to the ancient primitives who used to sacrifice their virgins to the gods. We have our own faith. It's just different, that's all.”

  “We're nothing like that,” he replied, making his way over and looking out at the drab London view. “Besides, Jenny's no virgin. When she's had a few drinks, she likes to brag about...”

  His voice trailed off.

  “Things,” he added.

  “Perhaps that's for the best,” Edna replied, before taking a moment to clear her throat. “People feel sorry for virgins, but no-one cares if a slut dies.” She began to nibble on the side of a fingernail, using her teeth to crunch away a hanging piece of dry skin. “If it all goes to plan, you'll have two of us. Two corpses. One of us has to show up, I would hope, but what will you do about the police?”

  “The police?”

  “There'll be blood, Keith,” she continued, looking up at him with a sense of wonder. “Lots of it, probably. And corpses. And other evidence against you. Don't claim that you'll be able to miraculously wipe it all away and exonerate yourself, because we both know that's not true. Eventually the po-po will show up to burst your little bubble. What will you do when that happens?”

  “I -”

  “What will you do,” she went on, “when the real world collides with your academic theories? Because that might be rather a shock to your system.”

  “I'll have gathered my evidence by that point,” he told her, refusing to meet her gaze as he continued to watch the city. “Jenny herself will have returned, and she'll tell them that she doesn't want me charged with her murder.”

  “You seriously think the police will listen to a ghost?”

  “No, but she won't be a ghost,” he said. “Not really. I mean, she'll be dead, but I think 'ghost' is a word that will have to be retired once we've made the next great step. As soon as she's over her initial shock, Jenny will understand why everything happened and she'll be on my side. I'm sure of it.”

  Aware that she was still watching him, he defiantly refused to look at her as he watched the dull, uninteresting buildings outside.

  “Leave all of that to me. I can navigate it perfectly well. And even if I end up in a police cell for a little while, so long as I have some work to be getting on with, I won't mind. My situation will become a symbol of the changing times, of the need for human minds and human society to come up with new rules about such things. Eventually my evidence will be published and I'll be released as a hero.”

  “There's that word again,” she chuckled. “I hope, you're right.”

  He finally turned and glared down at her.

  “Oh, I'm sorry,” she went on as her smile grew. “Forgive me. I hope you're right, Crowman.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  As rain continued to crash down through the London night, Yazmin 'Yaz' Shah sat in her parked car and stared at the clock on the dashboard. Her night shift was dragging on and on, and she still had plenty more hours before she could sign off, but now her mind was racing and she couldn't quite dismiss a niggling sense of worry at the back of her mind.

  “Enjoy your late-night snack,” she'd said to Kim a short while earlier after finding that the doors to the ward were somehow jammed, “and just... just keep doing what you're doing, alright? I know it sucks, but hopefully when we get new funding things'll be better. Ciao!”

  She'd heard Kim murmuring something from behind those doors, and then she'd turned and hurried back down to her car. Now that she was ready to drive away, however, she couldn't help but think that something had been wrong, that the “Mmm” and “Hmm” she'd heard hadn't actually sounded very much like Kim Watson at all. And if that was the case, did it mean that someone else was on the ward?

  Someone who shouldn't be?

  Before she had a chance to contemplate much more, she heard her phone buzzing. Grabbing it from the passenger seat, she saw Beth's name on the screen. She briefly contemplated not answering – after all, Beth's voice always grated slightly – but finally she told herself that she needed to check that everything was okay.

  “Hey,” she said as she accepted the call. “Any progress?”

  “This must be the slowest bus in the history of buses,” Beth's voice replied over the speaker. “Why does everything go so much slower in the rain?”

  “Thank you for agreeing to come in tonight,” Yaz replied. “I just hate leaving Kim alone up there.”

  She leaned forward and looked up, and she could just about see the lights of the ward high up on the side of the building. After a moment she spotted a figure standing at one of those windows; the figure stepped back and let the blinds fall into place, as if sensing that it was being watched, and she felt another shiver run through her bones as she understood that this particular figure hadn't looked anything like Kim at all.

  “She'll be fine,” Beth replied nonchalantly. “You know what Kim's like. She's not exactly a laugh riot, but she gets the job done.”

  “I know,” Yaz said, lost in thought as she continued to stare up at the now-empty window. “Listen, how far away do you think you are?”

  “Half an hour?” Beth suggested. “Maybe less. I dunno, it should be less, but at the rate this bus is going I guess anything's possible. I'll let you know when I'm closer, okay?”

  “Thanks,” Yaz replied. “I might just stick around for a while. I might be here when you arrive.”

  “Why?”

  “It's nothing,” Yaz continued, keen to avoid sounding too worried. “I might have gone by then. I don't know, but again, thank you so much for coming in when you didn't have to. I really appreciate it.”

  “You know me,” Beth muttered. “It's not like I had anything else to be doing. Plus, I'm probably the only person you could call who you knew would be sober, right?”

  “Have a fun bus ride,” Yaz said with a faint smile. “Ciao.”

  Once she'd cut the call, she sat in the darkness of the car for a moment, listening to the sound of rain battering the roof of the car. She knew she should get going, that she had plenty of other calls to make and that there was still a risk of a late-night traffic warden showing up, but she couldn't quite shift a sense that something was very wrong. That voice on the other side of the door really hadn't sounded like Kim, and the figure at the window a moment earlier hadn't looked like her either. And as much as she hated the idea that she might be getting paranoid, after a few seconds Yaz tapped to bring up another number on her phone.

  “Hey Dougie,” she said as soon as she heard someone answering on the other end of the line, “sorry to call so late, but I've got kind of a weird request. You can still tap in remotely to the security cameras on all the wards, right? Even the ones that are in the process of being shut down?”

  ***

  The penguin timer on the night stand shuddered slightly as it continued to count down once more from fifteen minutes, although a close observer might have noted certain inconsistencies as it occasionally juddered and jerked back or forward by a minute or so. It was down to eleven now as rain battered the window on the other side of the nearby blinds. Over on the other side of the room, meanwhile, Crowman was pacing back and forth with increasing agitation.

  “Okay, so you should be free of your meat by now,” he muttered, taking care to avoid stepping into the puddle of blood on the floor. “You should be starting to become aware of your surroundings, too. Come on, Jenny, what's keeping you? You're a smart girl, smarter than the average. You should be here by now.”

  Stopping mid-pace, he turned and looked down at her corpse. He waited, giving her ample opportunity to in some way show that she'd heard his words, but instead he felt a sense of frustration growing and growing in his chest.

  “What's wrong with you?” he barked, no longer able to hide the sense of anger in his chest.

  He waited again.

  Her dead, bloodied body stubbornly refused to do anything at all.

  “What's wrong with both of you?” he asked, storming across the room and reaching down, then starting to lift Jenny's lifeless corpse up while trying to avoid getting covered in her blood. “I'm giving you the chance of a lifetime here. Why aren't you taking it?”

  As the penguin timer ticked down to ten, he dragged Jenny across the room and threw her down onto the floor next to Edna's bed. A little breathless now, he stepped back and looked at the way she'd landed slumped in a new position.

  “I always had my concerns about Edna,” he went on. “That her death was going to be too ordered. Too sedate. That's why I was only too glad to come up with this back-up plan. Your death wasn't ordered or sedate at all, Jenny. You should be furious. Seething. You should feel betrayed. You had your whole life ahead of you, a life you were clearly intending to fill with hedonistic fun, and I snatched it all away from you in the most painful way possible.”

  He waited for her to respond.

  “You should hate me,” he continued. “You should be furious. There should be nothing that can stop you coming back for your vengeance. And when you do, I'll have all the proof I need and more.”

  He checked the body-mounted camera on his chest, and then he looked at the various other devices he'd already placed around the room.

  “I set this up perfectly,” he whispered. “If ever anyone would come back from the dead, it'd be you right now, Jenny.”

  The timer was down to nine already.

  “So come at me,” he said softly. “I'm not afraid. I'm intensely, immensely curious. Give it your best shot. Come at me like some kind of screaming banshee, if that's what you want to do. I'd be surprised, because I believe you'll retain your scientific curiosity even into death, but right now I'll take whatever I can get. The important thing is that you do something.”

  He gave her another chance, and then – hearing rain hitting the window again – he made his way back across the room. He had to move the broken blinds aside, but when he glanced down at the road he saw that there was still a car parked near the building. As much as he tried to tell himself that he was imagining things, he'd noticed that car earlier and something about it sent a shiver through his bones, as if on some deeper level he was picking up on signs that some tiny element wasn't quite right. The ward was sealed for now, but he knew full well that eventually the real world would break through again, and that was when things were going to become awkward. If he had no proof by then, he might simply end up looking like a madman who'd just knifed his young assistant to death.