237 Ks Zero Fs Chapter 18
The cast-iron grate was narrow. The ring disappeared into the dark channel below. Not even the sound of it landing.
Then I went upstairs, locked the door, and went to sleep.
The next morning when I left, Conor was kneeling at the drainage grate.
He’d found a crowbar somewhere and pried the cast-iron grid open. His entire arm was plunged shoulder-deep into the freezing, filthy water, feeling around the iced-over channel.
It was four below zero in London that day.
When I came back in the evening, he was still kneeling there. His right hand, from cuff to fingertip, was wrapped in a filthy, torn rag caked with ice and dark red bloodstains.
The ring was between his teeth. Mud-smeared and bloody.
He saw me. His eyes flickered with a brief flash of light. He opened his mouth to spit the ring out. Dark blood came up instead.
His fingers—the ring and middle fingers of his right hand—had turned a bluish purple from the cold. Swollen and deformed. The skin was a mess of blisters and necrosis.
“Call an ambulance.” That was all I said. I swiped my card and walked inside.
This time, he didn’t follow.
The next day, the police knocked on my door. Conor had been admitted to the ICU with severe frostbite and sepsis. The ring finger of his right hand had been amputated due to irreversible gangrene.
The sergeant asked if I wanted to press charges for destruction of public property.
I said no.
He was already enduring exactly what he deserved.