A giant spider web of it was stuck to the walls with severed threads hanging uselessly from the door frames. But there were no signs of struggle and definitely no music, unless you counted the steady drip of water from the ceiling or the sudden roar down the metal pipes. The electric strip lights flickered in the gloom. It seemed darker than I remembered. I pushed open the double doors and peered inside. The bins were strung together like railway carriages on the far side. I don’t know what made me do it but I called out her name. ‘Are you there, darling?’ There was no reply. I made my way over and knocked on one of the carriage sides. What if she was inside and they’d missed her? What if her decaying body was being devoured by rats, her hands resting against the metal where she’d tried to claw her way out? What if her eyes were still open the way I’ve read they can be when you die? How would I cope with that? ‘Are you in there, darling?’ All I heard were the drips from the ceiling.
