Rubbernecker (35 page)

His mother gave him an advance on his wages and he bought a new bicycle – a mountain bike this time, although still blue, obviously. He no longer had to catch the bus to work, and spent his weekends cycling across the Beacons, where he was happiest. Sometimes he found a dead sheep or a fallen crow, and often slowed to stare at it, but never picked it up.

He always took Meg’s phone with him, just in case, and sometimes he called her, because she seemed to like that, and he didn’t mind it either – even though the sheep scattered when he started to shout.

58

THREE MONTHS AFTER
the events that marked the end of Patrick’s brief spell at university, he came home from a lunchtime shift at the pub to find Professor Madoc and Mick Jarvis having tea with his mother.

They all said hello, and his mother kept smiling, so he knew there was something afoot.

‘What’s going on?’ he said.

‘Nothing bad,’ said Sarah.

‘No,’ said Professor Madoc, ‘it’s very, very good! We’re expanding the department, Patrick, and we’d like to offer you a job.’

‘What job?’ he said suspiciously.

‘Trainee lab technician,’ said Professor Madoc. ‘You’d be Mr Jarvis’s assistant. He would train you to do all aspects of his work – embalming, dissecting-room preparation, hygiene, all the paperwork for the acceptance and dispersal of donated bodies, the whole shebang.’

‘What’s a shebang?’

‘Nothing,’ said Sarah. ‘It just means everything. It’s just a figure of speech.’

‘Oh,’ said Patrick. ‘I’ve never heard it. Shebang.’ He rolled it round his mouth quietly. ‘Shuuuuur
bang
.’

‘It’s not important right now, Patrick,’ said his mother.

‘I’d be very happy to have you, Patrick,’ said Mick. ‘I know you’d do a very thorough and professional job.’

‘Yes, I would,’ agreed Patrick.

‘Apart from all the shoe-throwing, of course.’

Mick winked, but Patrick only said, ‘It didn’t hit you.’

‘Mr Jarvis is only joking,’ said the professor hurriedly. ‘That’s all in the past now. We’re talking about your future here. So, what do you think, Patrick?’

What
did
he think?

They were all looking at him, and Patrick had to stop himself wriggling under their combined gaze.

He thought he was much better at that these days. He thought he was much better at a lot of things. Like being touched; he didn’t
enjoy
it, but he could stand still while it happened. He answered his mother sometimes, even when her statements were pointless, and that made her happy.

He thought
he
was happier, too. He understood more, and worried less. He had friends at the pub and a friend on the phone, and a new bicycle.

Best of all, he knew what had happened to his father, and that comforted him like an alphabet plate.

He thought that knowledge was the sweeter for having been lost along the way.

Patrick realized that they were still watching him, and waiting for him to tell them what he thought about the job in the dissecting room. He understood that they were offering him a gift, and that he needed to be grateful.

‘No, thank you,’ he said carefully. ‘I’m sick of dead things.’

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Rubbernecker
was written with the generous help of Lisa Mead and Swaran Yarnell in the Cardiff School of Biosciences dissecting room. Any liberties taken with cadavers in this book are a fiction, and in no way reflect the professionalism and respect they show to their temporary charges. Thank you to Dr Jamie Lewis of the MRC Centre for Neuropsychiatric Genetics and Genomics, Cardiff University, for pointing me in the right direction, to Dr Royce Abrahams and Mr Richard Rushman, FRCS for crucial help at an early stage, and to Professor Jenny Kitzinger, for kindly sharing her knowledge of family experiences of coma and vegetative states.

Many thanks also to the entire team at Transworld, who work so hard and with such enthusiasm. A special mention to Claire Ward and the art department for pushing the envelope!

About the Author

Belinda Bauer
grew up in England and South Africa. She has worked as a journalist and screenwriter and her script
The Locker Room
earned her the Carl Foreman/Bafta Award for Young British Screenwriters.

With her first novel,
Blacklands
, Belinda won the CWA Gold Dagger for Crime Novel of the Year. Her second and third novels,
Darkside
and
Finders Keepers
, were highly acclaimed, and she was shortlisted for the CWA Dagger in the Library Award 2012 for her entire body of work.

For more information about the author and her books visit
www.belindabauer.co.uk

Or join her on Facebook at
www.facebook.com/BelindaBauerBooks

Also by Belinda Bauer

Blacklands

Darkside

Finders Keepers

For more information on Belinda Bauer and her books, see her website at
www.belindabauer.co.uk

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RUBBERNECKER
A BANTAM BOOK: 9780593066928 (hb) 9780593066935 (tpb)
Version 1.0 Epub ISBN: 9781446465929

First published in Great Britain
in 2013 by Bantam Press
an imprint of Transworld Publishers

Copyright © Belinda Bauer 2013

Belinda Bauer has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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