Dead Simple

Walker.’ He pointed across the ward. ‘He was over there – ah – yesterday. I’m just wondering which ward he’s been moved to?’
    Her face froze as if she’d suffered a massive infusion of Botox. Her voice changed, also, suddenly becoming tartly defensive. ‘Are you a relative?’
    ‘No, I’m his business partner.’ Instantly Mark kicked himself for not saying he was his brother. She would never have known.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, as if regretting she had terminated her call for him. ‘We can only give information to relatives.’
    ‘You can’t just tell me where he has been transferred to?’
    A buzzer sounded. She looked up at the screens and a red light was flashing beside one of them. ‘I have to go,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry.’
    She rushed from her station across the ward.
    Mark took out his mobile. Then he saw a large sign: ‘THE USE OF MOBILE PHONES IS STRICTLY FORBIDDEN IN THIS HOSPITAL’.
    He backed away, hurriedly retracing his steps to the lift, then took it to the ground floor. Totally gripped with fear he raced through a labyrinth of corridors until he reached the main entrance.
    Just as he walked up to the reception desk he heard a loud, near-hysterical voice, and saw Zoe, eyes raw, tears streaming down her cheeks, blonde ringlets totally unkempt.
    ‘You and your friend Michael and all your stupid bloody jokes,’ she shouted. ‘You stupid, bloody immature jerks.’
    He stared at her in silence for some moments. Then she collapsed in his arms, sobbing uncontrollably. ‘He’s dead, Mark, he just died. He’s dead. Josh is dead. Oh God, he’s dead. Please help me, what am I going to do?’
    Mark put his arms around her. ‘I – I thought he was OK, that he was going to pull through,’ he said, lamely.
    ‘They said there was nothing they could do for him. They said if he had lived he would have been a vegetable. Oh God. Oh God, please help me, Mark. What am I going to say? How do I tell the children their daddy’s never coming home? What do I say to them?’
    ‘Do you – do you want a – a cup of tea or something?’
    Through deep gulping sobs she said, ‘No I don’t want a fucking cup of tea. I want my Josh back. Oh God, they’ve taken him down to the mortuary. Oh Christ. Oh God, what am I going to do?’
    Mark stood in silence, holding her tightly, stroking her back, hoping to hell his relief did not show.

20
    Michael woke with a start from a confused dream, tried to sit up, and his head instantly crashed against the coffin lid. Crying out in pain he tried to move his arms, and his shoulders met the unyielding satin first on the left and then the right. He tossed and thrashed in a sudden claustrophobic panic.
    ‘Get me out of here!’ he screamed, turning, thrashing, gulping air, sweating and shivering at the same time.
    ‘Oh, please, get me out of here!’
    His voice was deadened. Flat. It wasn’t going anywhere, it was trapped in here just the same as he was.
    His hands fumbled for the torch, unable to locate it for several seconds in his panic. Then he found it, switched it on, stared up and then sideways at the walls of his prison. He looked at his watch: 11.15.
    Night?
    Tomorrow?
    Night, it must still be night, Thursday night .
    Rivulets of sweat were running down his body. Making a puddle underneath him. He craned his neck to look over his shoulder, shone his torch down and a reflection shone back. Water.
    A whole fucking inch.
    He looked down in shock. There was no way. No, absolutely no way that he had sweated this much.
    Two fucking inches.
    He put his hand down again. Shone the torch. Held his pinkie upright, like a dipstick. The water came up to just below the second joint. There was no way he had sweated that much. Cupping his hands he scooped some up and drank it greedily, oblivious to its salty, muddy taste. He drank more and more; for several minutes it seemed to him that the more he drank, the thirstier he was.
    Then when he had finally finished, a new aspect of the rising water came into the equation. He grabbed the belt buckle and began frantically grinding away at the lid, but within minutes, the buckle became so hot it was burning his fingers.
    Shit.
    He picked up the whisky bottle. Still a third of its contents left. He struck the top of the bottle hard against the wood above him. Nothing happened. He tried again, heard the dull thud. A tiny sliver of glass sheared off. Tragic to waste it. He put the neck into his mouth, tilted it,