Dead Like You

in the tent jumped.
    Something that was the shape and size of a human body, shrouded in black plastic wrapping and duct tape, plunged through the bottom of the coffin and disappeared into the grave.

107
    Sunday 18 January
    Jessie was fighting for breath again. Panicking, she thrashed about, frantically trying to turn her head sideways to clear her nose a little. Benedict, Ben, Ben, please come. Please help me. Please don’t let me die here. Please don’t.
    It hurt like hell, every muscle in her neck feeling as if it was being torn free from her shoulders. But at least now she could get some air. Still not enough, but her panic momentarily subsided. She was desperate for water. Her eyes were raw from crying. The tears trickled down her cheeks, tantalizing her, but she couldn’t taste them with her mouth clamped tightly shut.
    She prayed again. Please God, I’ve just found such incredible happiness. Ben is such a lovely man. Please don’t take me away from him, not now. Please help me.
    Through her living hell, she tried to focus her mind, to think clearly. Some time, she did not know when, but some time, probably soon, her captor was going to return.
    If he was going to bring her the water he had talked about, unless he was just taunting her, he would have to untie her – at least enough so she could sit up and drink. If she was going to have a chance, it would be then.
    Just one chance.
    Even though every muscle in her body hurt, even though she felt exhausted, she still had her strength. She tried to think of different scenarios. How clever was he? What game could she play to fool him? Play dead? Pretend to have a fit? There must be something, something she had not thought of.
    That he had not thought of.
    What time was it? In this long, dark void in which she was suspended, she suddenly felt a burning need to measure time. To figure out what time it was, how long she had been here.
    Sunday. That was all she knew for sure. The lunch he had talked about must be Sunday lunch. Was it an hour since he had gone? Thirty minutes? Two hours? Four? There had been faint grey light but that had gone now. She was in pitch darkness.
    Maybe there was a clue in the sounds she could hear. The endless, mostly faint clangings, clatterings, squeakings and bangings of loose windows, doors, panels of corrugated iron, sheet metal or whatever it was outside the building. There was just one that seemed to have a rhythm to it, she noticed. One of the banging sounds that reverberated. She heard it again now and counted.
    One thousand and one, one thousand and two, one thousand and three, one thousand and four. Bang. One thousand and one, one thousand and two, one thousand and three, one thousand and four. Bang.
    Her father was a keen photographer. She remembered as a small child, before digital photography had taken over, her father had a darkroom where he developed films himself. She liked to stand in the darkness with him, either the total darkness, or in the glow of the weak red light bulb. When he opened a film roll, they would stand in total darkness and her father would get her to count the seconds, the way he had taught her. If you said, One thousand and one slowly, that equalled, quite accurately, one second. It worked the same for all numbers.
    So now she was able to calculate that the banging occurred every four seconds. Fifteen times a minute.
    She counted out one minute. Then five. Ten. Twenty minutes. Half an hour. Then a surge of anger ripped through her at the futility of what she was doing. Why me, God, if you bloody exist? Why do you want to destroy the love between Benedict and me? Because he’s not Jewish, is that what this is about? Boy, are you one sick God! Benedict’s a good man. He’s dedicated his life to helping people less well off than himself. That’s what I try to do also, in case you hadn’t sodding noticed.
    Then she began sobbing again.
    And counting automatically, like the banging was a metronome. Four seconds. Bang. Four seconds. Bang. Four seconds. Bang.
    Then a loud, sliding clang.
    The vehicle rocked.
    Footsteps.

108
    Sunday 18 January
    The Brighton and Hove mortuary had recently undergone substantial building works. The reason for this was that more people were eating themselves to death and then were too fat to fit into the fridges. So now new super-sized fridges had been installed to accommodate them.
    Not that it required an extra-wide fridge to accommodate the desiccated remains of the