Doctor Who_ Loving The Alien Part 7

'Excellent!' The Doctor beamed at him. 'Always nice to have company on these sorts of occasion' Pulling the curtains closed with a flourish, the Doctor seated himself behind the large mahogany desk and started opening drawers.

McBride tried to regain some focus. 'Look, Doc, really good to see you and all, but do you mind telling me what's going on? You're not telling me that the broad has hired you as well, are you?'

The Doctor frowned. 'Broad?'

'Dame with the great legs and the hat. Mrs Dumont-Smith!'

'Ah!' The Doctor started flicking through papers. 'And she's hired you to investigate her husband, has she?'

3 See Doctor Who: Illegal Alien Doctor Who: Illegal Alien 41.'Right. She thinks he may be two-timing her, asked me to check him out.'

'Hmm.' The Doctor slipped the papers back into the drawer, crossed so the tall filing cabinet in the corner, and fiddled with the lock. 'No, I'm here on another matter entirely.'

'Well, ain't that great. Simple love-rat case I thought. Open and shut, and now you turn up.' He suddenly looked worried. 'Hey, there ain't big alien nasties lurking around again are there?'

'No Cody, you're quite safe.'

'And Ace?'

' is the reason I'm here.'

The filing cabinet opened with a click and the Doctor slid open the top drawer.

'Tell me, Cody, is Mr Dumont-Smith's illicit relations.h.i.+p meant to be with someone local?'

McBride looked puzzled. 'Girl from Hampstead. Why?'

'Because this equipment looks as though it might reach further than Hampstead, that's why.'

McBride crossed the room and peered over the Doctor's shoulder.

Inside the filing cabinet was the most sophisticated radio transmitter McBride had ever seen.

Rita huddled awkwardly under the ma.s.s of wet bushes, clumsy with the camera. She adjusted the lens, bringing the two figures silhouetted in the bright doorway into focus.

'Gotcha.'

She started taking shot after shot. The rain had eased, but the light was limited. She just needed a couple of good shots of the woman.

With a polite nod, the woman closed the door. Rita cursed. She pushed back into the shrubbery as a man darted back up the path and into the road. As she watched, he crossed to a bus shelter. Rita frowned. There was someone else with him. A girl.

Quickly winding on the film in her camera, Rita brought the girl into focus, wis.h.i.+ng she was a bit closer to the street light. It was no one she recognised. No one that she had seen before. The man, on the other hand... She took several more shots, then ducked down as a bus pulled into the stop.

The two got on and the bus roared off into the night. Rita struggled out of the undergrowth and shook the rain from her hair.

'You know how to spend your Friday nights, girl, you really do.'

Tucking the camera under her raincoat, Rita trudged back to her car.

42.McBride examined the radio carefully 'This is one fancy jukebox.'

'Yes,' said the Doctor absently. 'What do you make of this?'

The Doctor handed him a manila folder. McBride scanned the papers. 'Looks like Russian.'

'It is Russian.'

'Oh, great. So this is... what? A spy case now? Does trouble always come hand in hand with you, Doc?'

The Doctor smiled thinly. 'I'm afraid so.'

'So what are we going to do? Tell the police?'

The Doctor pursed his lips. 'No, I don't think we'll inform the authorities just yet. I want to do a little more digging first.'

'Oh, come on, Doc! This isn't something we can clam up about. The guy's a Russkie spy. We've gotta tell someone!'

Before the Doctor could argue, there was a sharp warble from inside his jacket. McBride jumped.

'Jeez, Doc, will you keep it down! We're gonna get caught!' He scurried over to the door and peered through the blinds.

The Doctor reached inside his jacket and pulled out his pocket watch. It was seven o' clock. Blast.

He snapped the folder shut, slipped it back into the filing cabinet and closed the drawer.

'I'm afraid I'm going to have to leave you, Cody. I have a prior engagement.'

'Oh, no you don't.' McBride shook his head. 'I'm going to stick to you like glue until this is sorted, Doctor. Who've you gotta meet?'

'Ace.'

'Great. I'll tag along.'

'Oh, very well, very well.' The Doctor waggled his hands impatiently 'Come along.'

The Doctor eased the door open and the two of them peered out into the corridor. It was deserted. Quickly and quietly the two of them slipped into the hallway and down the stairs.

They stepped out into the street, the Doctor struggling back into his duffel coat. McBride slipped on a battered fedora.

'Where are you meeting her?'

'Trafalgar Square, a.s.suming she's on time of course.' The Doctor rummaged in his pocket and brought out a small device. McBride grunted.

'More whacky gadgets, Doc?'

The Doctor peered worriedly at the screen. 'That can't be right...' He swung the device around, punching at tiny controls on its surface. 'Oh, no.'

43.McBride pulled up the collar of his trenchcoat. 'Come on, Doc, it's getting wet out here.'

The Doctor turned to McBride, the anguish in his eyes unexpected and disturbing. McBride felt a s.h.i.+ver run down his spine.

'Hey, something's up, isn't it?'

'Cody, do you own a car?' asked the Doctor quietly.

McBride sat at the wheel of his Ford Anglia peering through the rain streaming down the windscreen and lit another cigarette.

On the journey across London the Doctor had said nothing, silent and stern in the pa.s.senger seat beside him, the only sounds the steady drum of rain on the roof, the squeak of the wipers and the insistent beep from the Doctor's device.

He had explained nothing, refused to answer questions and had snapped at McBride when he tried to press him. All McBride knew was that Ace wasn't where she should be, and that the Doctor was worried about her. No, more than worried: frantic.

That had been the most disconcerting thing. In the short time that McBride had known the mysterious little man he had always appeared to be in control, always supremely confident, waltzing through the people around him as if he knew everything. Now he looked, well...

vulnerable, hunched in the seat, chewing on his nails, staring at the read-out on his electronic toy.

When the gates of London Zoo had loomed into the headlights the Doctor had finally asked McBride to stop and wait. That had been fifteen minutes ago.

McBride blew another lungful of smoke into the car. Why couldn't it have been perfume-soaked letters or orders for bunches of flowers?

And if Dumont-Smith was a Russian spy, then what did that make Mrs Dumont-Smith? And if she wasn't on the level, would he even get paid? It was beginning to make McBride's head ache.

'And what the h.e.l.l are we doing at the zoo?' he murmured to himself.

The door opened abruptly and the Doctor slumped into the pa.s.senger seat, his face grave.

'Did you find her?' asked McBride cautiously.

The Doctor shook his head. 'No. And without this, I'm unlikely to.'

He placed a small metal disk on the dashboard of the car. McBride wrinkled his nose. It smelt of s.h.i.+t.

The Doctor gave a deep sigh and looked at McBride, his brilliant grey eyes sombre.

'I owe you an apology, Cody, and I owe you an explanation. Ace is 44 in a great deal of trouble and I'm going to have to ask for your help. Is there somewhere private we can talk?'

McBride placed the newspaper down on his desk, his head reeling.

'Jeez...'

The Doctor stood at the window of McBride's third floor office looking out over the lights of the city.

'So you see my problem. In less than twenty-four hours Ace is going to be dead, washed up in the river Thames, shot through the head by an unknown a.s.sailant, and I've delivered her right into his hands.

'But, why?' McBride was still trying to get his head around the implications of it all. 'Why kill her?'

The Doctor turned. 'Oh, it's a trap for me, a trap in time, and one where there is no chance that I would ignore the bait.'

'So the person who set it...'

'Is very clever, very cunning, and very dangerous,' said the Doctor grimly.

'Someone talking about me?'

The Doctor and McBride turned. In the doorway stood a tall, elegant woman in a knee-length dress and pillbox hat. A cigarette in a slim holder hung from the fingers of one hand, smoke curling in thin wisps around her. Eyeing the Doctor curiously, she sashayed into the room.

McBride scrambled up from his chair.

'Mrs Dumont-Smith, I wasn't expecting you to...'

'Oh, I was just pa.s.sing, so I thought I'd drop in and see how you were getting on with my little problem.' She threw another look at the Doctor. 'Are you going to introduce me?'

'Ah, yes,' McBride fl.u.s.tered. 'This is the Doctor. An old friend.'

The Doctor raised his hat politely. 'Delighted.'

McBride caught his client by the arm and tried to steer her backwards the door. 'Look, this isn't a great time at the moment.

We're kinda busy.'

'Oh, don't mind me.' The Doctor was perched on McBride's desk, oiling in his pocket. He pulled out a crumpled ball of paper, which he furled with a flourish. A page torn from a newspaper. 'If Miss Hawks has just "popped in", then I'm sure it's for a very good reason.'

The woman turned slowly, a nervous smile on her lips. 'I'm sorry?'

McBride scratched his head. 'Doc, this is...'

'Miss Rita Hawks, investigative journalist.' The Doctor pa.s.sed McBride the newspaper. 'You know, Miss Hawks, undercover reporters don't usually have glamorous pictures of themselves printed alongside their articles. Particularly when it's a rather insensitive 45 expose of government cover-ups.'

McBride stared in disbelief at the photo on the page. 'Sonof.a.gun.'

Rita laughed nervously. 'I really think you are mistaken.'

'I don't think so, doll.' McBride thrust the page in front of her. 'I think that you've got some explaining to do.'

Rita took it open-mouthed. 'But I'm still writing this piece...'

McBride lit a Lucky Strike, slumped back in his chair and swung his feet up on to the desk. He grinned at Rita 'It's the day after tomorrow's newspaper, dummy.'

McBride's office was blue with cigarette smoke. Rita had dropped the pretence with the cigarette-holder and had been chain smoking for nearly an hour now. She was angry. Angry at being found out, angry at being made to look stupid in front of McBride, angry and confused about the newspaper. And especially angry with the Doctor.

The little man sat behind McBride's desk peering at her through the haze, his eyes steely grey and menacing. He'd been quizzing her about every part of her story. About her visit to the British Rocket Group, about the anonymous tip-offs, everything.

'So this... voice on the phone told you to check out Dumont-Smith,'

McBride had interrupted, busting from the little darkroom that took up a corner of his office.

'Yes.'