Doctor Who: Nightshade Part 6

monastery over on the moor. Good places to think, 'There's a phone box down the road, you know, love,'

monasteries.'

said Mrs Crithin, 'but you're welcome to use mine.'

'OK, Doctor.'

'I tried that one but it's out of order as well.'

'I'll see you in The Shepherd's Cross this evening. Shall Mrs Crithin frowned and led Vijay into the back of the we say eight o'clock? Sorry to leave you in the lurch like cafe. Ace looked at the Doctor but he seemed disinterested this.'

and deep in thought. She crept up to the counter and leaned 'Eight o'clock, in the pub. Got you. Are you buying?'

across. Vijay was just visible in a little alcove under the The Doctor grinned, gripped her arm affectionately and stairs, fiddling with the receiver of Mrs Crithin's phone. He stepped out into the rain. Ace watched his little figure, frowned and tapped the instrument against his cupped blurred by the downpour, as he walked out of the village.

hand. Something was wrong. He talked to Mrs Crithin for a She sighed heavily.

few minutes and then ran back into the cafe.

Now what was she going to do? She had enough trouble 'Thanks anyway,' he called behind him. 'All the lines keeping herself occupied in the middle of London, never must be down. Probably the weather!'

mind in this hole. And this might be 1968 but she doubted He almost ran into Ace as he barged towards the door.

whether Crook Marsham ever did much swinging. Still, 'Oh sorry,' he said, his eyes already looking beyond Ace there were compensations. That lad on the bike for one. She to the door. He paused on the threshold and the rain smiled.

buffeted him. Then, wrapping his overcoat around him, he There was a long-drawn-out grumbling noise and Ace dashed from the cafe towards The Shepherd's Cross.

looked down at her stomach. Breakfast was a good place to 'Did you hear that, Doctor?' said Ace excitedly.

start. She went up to the counter and beamed at Mrs Crithin.

'Mmm?'

'Three egg sandwiches and another cup of tea, please.'

'All the phone lines are down. We're cut off!' Ace tried to sound bubbly in the hope of cheering the Doctor up.

'Betty?'

'Er... Ace,' he said in a quiet voice, 'I was wondering 'Mm?'

whether I could ask you a favour.'

'Customer, love.'

'Yeah, of course. Anything.'

58.59.Lawrence Yeadon put down his tea towel and took his Betty slipped off her shoes and walked across the thickly wife's hand.

carpeted hallway to the bathroom. She turned on the tap 'Are you sure you're all right?'

and gorgeously hot water thudded into the pink porcelain.

Betty smiled thinly at him. Her eyes were misting over. It A few drops of syrupy bath oil completed the process and was obvious she hadn't yet recovered from the night's tears.

Betty felt a thrill of happy antic.i.p.ation at the prospect of a 'I'm all right. Honestly, Lol.'

restful soak. She stayed to watch the bubble bath froth from Lawrence shook his head and moved to serve the old man under the taps and then returned to the bedroom.

who was impatiently tapping his ring finger against his empty beer gla.s.s.

A mile away, at the tracking station, Dr Hawthorne stood 'I'll serve Mr Medcalfe. You go and lie down.'

up sharply as a fresh burst of data stormed through the Betty protested but Lawrence held up his hand. 'Quite room, sending computers and tracers haywire. He dashed to apart from the fact that I'm worried about you, you're not the internal phone in order to alert Dr Cooper. The line was exactly presenting the image of barmaid of the month dead. He cursed and ran from the room.

looking like that, are you?'

Betty shook her head, defeated.

Betty took off her clothes with careful deliberation, as if 'Now go on. Have a nap. You'll feel better for it.'

she were engaged in some sort of ritual. The towelling In truth, Betty was glad to leave the smoky bar and be bathrobe which she put on had been a present from alone with her thoughts. Robin wouldn't be back from work Lawrence's sister Margie. It was a little too big but the for a couple of hours and the upstairs of the pub was freshly laundered, fluffy material made her feel warm and pleasantly quiet and warm. Betty glanced around the corner secure.

of Robin's bedroom and smiled at the devastated jumble of She still couldn't keep her mind off Alf. His image seemed clothes and bedsheets. Not a stickler for neatness like his to hover before her eyes like a projected film. She walked to dad or his Uncle Alf.

the bathroom and stopped dead.

Alf. Betty thought of her brother again and tears p.r.i.c.ked Under the frothy foam, seemingly deep, deep down in the her eyes. She fondled the silver photo frame which she kept water, something was moving.

on her dressing table. Auntie Jean and her mum, grinning Panic and a scream began to rise in her throat. A hand falsely at a camera on some faraway summer holiday. Black was fumbling its way out of the water: a vile, filthy hand, its and white seagulls circled in a black and white sky.

flesh sunburnt and blistered, black sc.u.m and mould under Why couldn't she stop thinking about Alf? He'd been its fingernails. And as it grasped the side of the bath, and an dead for over twenty years. Guilt hung about her neck like equally appalling body hauled itself out, Betty let go of her an albatross.

senses and slipped gratefully into a dead faint.

60.

61.

[image]

Chapter Three.

The Doctor held his umbrella like a s.h.i.+eld before him as a fresh squall of rain tore across the moor. His feet squelched into the deep tracks which already pocked the moor path, The thing in the bath hauled itself to its feet, sending their muddy outlines pooling with glutinous brown water.

water cascading on to the floor. It was a man, or the remains He paused briefly and fumbled in his pockets as the wind of a man, wearing a dark blue uniform and a filthy white flapped his coat against him. Pus.h.i.+ng the umbrella under sweater. The hair was lank and hung in a great wet slap one arm he pulled on a pair of thick woollen gloves and over the mottled, fish-flesh white forehead. The lips were wrapped his paisley scarf tightly around his neck.

pulled back in a ghastly grin of decay beneath two empty, It was terribly, bitingly cold and the Doctor could feel an empty sockets, speckled and rimmed with black blood. In aching numbness spreading across his exposed cheeks. He her shock, Betty could have been forgiven for not screwed up his eyes and peered at the gaunt tower of the recognising the creature. But, in point of fact, over twenty monastery, now less than half a mile away, silhouetted years late, her brother Alf had come home to stay...

against the gun-metal sky. Sniffing as a drew-drop formed on the end of his nose, the Doctor clapped a hand on his hat to prevent the wind from whipping it away.

His mind buzzed with a million conflicting thoughts but, in a coc.o.o.n of coats, the Doctor resolved to think only of his pressing need for warmth, comfort and a strong cup of tea.

He marched on, unwittingly ghosting the large, Wellington-indented tracks of Jack Prudhoe.

62.

63.

Ace looked into her empty cup and then at her watch. It 'Who?'

was past eleven and she was still Mrs Crithin's only 'That Sharon Tate,' trilled Mrs Crithin. 'I think she's ever customer of the day. The woman herself was engaged in a so good. And it's nice to see them still as much in love.'

seemingly endless rota of table-mopping and was.h.i.+ng up.

Sharon Tate? Ace's memory pulled up sharp at the She'd exchanged a few words with Ace, mostly about the naggingly familiar name. It was tied up somewhere in a 'shocking weather'.And wasn'tawfulabout kaleidoscope of images and half-recalled conversations.

Czechoslovakia? Ace had nodded with some gravity even Then she had it. Sharon Tate: the beautiful wife of Roman though she hadn't a clue what Mrs Crithin was talking Polanski, gruesomely murdered at the behest of Charles about.

Manson and his 'family' of West Coast fanatics. Ace had Finally, the ever-smiling cafe owner had plonked her read about it in one of her mum's grisly True Crime books.

newspaper on to the table and Ace seized upon it, ravenous The t.i.tle was something like The Day the Dream Died.

for distraction.

Ace looked into Mrs Crithin's eyes and felt suddenly It was strangely fascinating to see what was to her old uncomfortable with her knowledge of the future, like some news presented on brand-new, creamy paper. Odd, she ancient seer cursed with the gift of prophecy. She changed thought, that the reality of time travel with the Doctor really the subject with what she hoped was some nonchalance.

struck her only when she had a personal handle on it. Only 'What's your flying saucer thing up the road, then?'

a few hundred miles from where she now sat, her mum Mrs Crithin stopped mopping and put her hand on her would be doing some of those things about which she was ample hip as if settling into a familiar routine. 'That's our always reminiscing. Maybe planning which outfit she telescope, love. Famous in the right circles. We have all sorts would wear and which of her fancy-men she would favour.

trooping up there. It picks up radio messages from outer Perhaps, on the dance floor of some sweaty, swinging s.p.a.ce so I keep a table reserved in case we ever get any little nightclub, meeting the man with whom she would soon green men.'

conceive little Dorothy. Little Dorothy felt herself shudder.

Ace grinned. 'And who was that bloke who came in a bit 'You all right, love?' asked Mrs Crithin, leaning on her ago?'

mop.

'The darkie?'

Ace nodded and smiled rea.s.suringly. 'Someone just Ace winced but sensed that Mrs Crithin's inst.i.tutionalised walked over my grave.' She turned a few more pages of the racism wasn't intended to offend. She nodded.

paper and paused at a picture which showed a small dark 'That's Mr Degun. Nice enough young man. Always got a man and a leggy woman dancing at some delirious word for you. He works up there at the telescope. Often Californian festival.

comes in for his breakfast.'

'Lovely girl, isn't she?' said Mrs Crithin, looking over Ace let her get back to her ch.o.r.es, folded the paper, Ace's shoulder.

thanked her for breakfast and paid with some uncertainty 64 65.out of the heavy, predecimal coins the Doctor had left on the This one was showing You Only Live Twice and there, table. She stepped outside and was soaked in moments, her under a chipped plate of gla.s.s, was a poster of Sean fringe hanging unpleasantly in her eyes as little drops of Connery, surrounded by Oriental women, and clutching a rain dribbled down her face.

s.p.a.ce helmet in one hand and a gun in the other.

Most of the shops had crawled into life and Ace hurried When she'd mentioned going to the pictures she hadn't over to shelter under their dirty brown awnings.

meant it literally. She'd seen the film half a dozen times on A florid-faced man in a bloodstained white coat emerged TV anyway. But it might while away the afternoon into the dreary daylight, looked at the sky, grimaced and pleasantly while she waited for the Doctor. And at least went back inside. There was a slightly sinister wooden sign there would be no adverts to interrupt it.

in the shape of a smiling pig hanging on chains above the She was about to check the programme times when she shop and it swung back and forth as the man slammed the noticed Vijay's Land Rover parked opposite the cafe.

door.

Stealthily she looked around and then, hunching her Ace dug her hands into her pockets, feeling her fingers shoulders against the blasting rain, she crossed the street numbing in spite of her gloves.

and looked into the exposed rear of the vehicle.

Rain bounced off the motley collection of boxlike cars, Inside, there were a couple of tartan blankets, some huddled against both kerbs like frightened sheep. Ace walking boots and a lot of fairly antiquated-looking wondered how people could ever have fitted into such machinery. Ace decided to have a better look and, again things, never mind think them cla.s.sy. Most of them looked looking about her furtively, clambered into the back.

like old school radiators with pram wheels on each corner.

There was a distant clatter and she snapped up her head She ran a finger across the s.h.i.+ny metallic paintwork of a to look out of the tarpaulin-covered tail section. Vijay was Morris Oxford and gazed in at its snug interior. There was a leaving The Shepherd's Cross, warmed, no doubt, by a gla.s.s pair of driving gloves on the dashboard and one of those or two of brandy.

wretched traffic-light air fresheners hanging from the mirror.

Without thinking, Ace flung one of the blankets over her Better than furry dice anyway, she thought.

head and crouched low amongst the machinery. One of the Across the street stood Crook Marsham's little cinema, a walking boots was jammed against her face and smelt none tall, thin building sandwiched between a travel agent's and too pleasant but she ignored it and kept very still. Vijay something which claimed to be a 'boutique'. A red-lettered clambered on board and slammed the door. Ace heard him ABC sign, fairly new, partially obscured the grimy shadows cough, sigh and then start the engine. In a moment, the of the old name: The Plaza.

Land Rover pulled away and they were on their way to the Ace laughed to herself. Old picture houses always had station. Ace suppressed a smile. This way she got to see the such exotic names in spite of their locations.

only vaguely interesting thing in the whole place and could easily be back for her appointment with the Doctor.

66.67.'Sorry, Mr Bond,' she whispered as the vehicle sailed past large, black-robed man was bent studiously over a bed of the cinema.

soil.

Abbot Winstanley was enjoying the warmth of his The Doctor scurried under the impressive granite greenhouse and had cheerfully abandoned his Gannex archway of the monastery entrance, furling his umbrella mackintosh and sou'wester hat in favour of the ap.r.o.n and with some relief. In the shadows, he pressed himself against battered panama he normally reserved for summer. Despite a wall and watched the rain coming down in diagonal slants.

the ramshackle insulation, the greenhouse was as warm as The monastery was solid, imposing and stained with age, any July day and, if he blocked out the hiss of the rain, great mossy outcrops uglifying its splendid tower and Winstanley could almost hear the drone of pollen-laden porticos. The Doctor's gaze ranged about the place and he bees as they flopped from one colourful bloom to the next.

rapidly determined the period, picturing the positions of the A light tapping at the pane broke his reverie and he open-air cloisters and dormitories in his mind's eye.

turned to see a blurred, duffel-coated figure grinning Perhaps there was even a library. The thought of a peaceful hopefully at him from outside.

afternoon out of the rain amongst old books gave him a 'Just a tick!' Winstanley called chirpily, putting down his little thrill of pleasure.

trowel. In an instant, he had flung back the door and He walked through a covered colonnade towards the rear revealed the Doctor.

of the building. A huge, blank stone wall dominated this 'Good morning. I'm the Doctor. I wonder if I might...'