Doctor Who: Nightshade Part 7

eastern side and above it all loomed the spindly tower, 'Come in, come in!' urged the Abbot, giggling jutting like a tobacco-stained tooth into the eternally grey unnecessarily. 'We can't let this horrid weather inside, now clouds.

can we?'

The Doctor strolled on, careful to stay within the shelter of The Doctor mumbled an apology and found himself the walls, and soon came upon a rather forlorn-looking steered across the greenhouse threshold. Winstanley vegetable garden, dotted with cracked flower pots and plot slammed the door and sat the Doctor down in a striped markers which projected in some unfathomable pattern deckchair which was as old and disreputable as the building from the drenched soil. Like a graveyard for tongue-itself.

depressors, thought the Doctor idly.

Winstanley was a round-faced pudding of a man who At the top of the garden, jammed against a stone wall, cheerfully adhered to Friar Tuck cliches. His large shaved stood a decrepit greenhouse. Its elaborate roof and once-head was freckled and sunburnt and his grin split his face elegant doorway suggested more prosperous days. Now like a slice of overripe melon. The Doctor was struck, several panes were blacked out and the woodwork, soaked, however, by the Abbot's watery blue eyes. Their stained and peeling, buckled away from the gla.s.s. Inside, a melancholy aspect seemed at odds with his ma.s.sive personality.

68.69.'Now then, my dear sir. Where were we? A doctor, are flat concrete hundreds of feet below. Saw himself falling, the you? Well, well, we're all in good health here as far as I can world and his life rus.h.i.+ng away from him.

recall.' He let out another peal of unnecessary giggles. The He had come through that crisis, despite everything. Yet Doctor shrank back from the surfeit of good humour.

something of that fear and sense of doom seemed to hang 'I'm not here on medical matters,' he said soothingly, about him now as he stared across the grey moor.

glancing about at the ripening tomato plants. 'I was Rubbing his hand against the nape of his neck, the Doctor wondering if you'd be willing to let me spend some time followed Abbot Winstanley through the alcove and was here. Away from it all. Time to think...'

soon lost in the shadows.

'Sanctuary, eh?' cried the Abbot, rubbing his hands together. 'Capital idea. We often get people popping in.

Something cold pressed itself against Betty's cheek and More often to get out of the rain, though, I must admit!' His her eyelids flickered. In the confusion of light and colour capacious frame shook with laughter.

she picked out a dark shape bobbing about her face. Her With surprising deftness, the Abbot slipped into his eyes snapped open and she took in the terrible shape mackintosh and floppy hat, ushering the Doctor outside into towering above her. A snow-cold, wasted hand held her what looked like, at last, diminis.h.i.+ng rain.

chin so tightly that she could feel the skeletal fingers 'I'm Mervyn Winstanley, by the way.' He grasped the pressing into her flesh. She cried out and felt a wave of Doctor's hand with his own sunburnt flipper and pumped it revulsion rising as her eyes flicked from detail to detail of until the Doctor's knuckles ached.

the apparition before her.

As they negotiated the Somme-like garden, Winstanley Alfred Beadle's empty sockets gazed into Betty's red-related in a high, enthusiastic voice something of the rimmed eyes, his forced grin of decay seeming to grow even monastery's history. At one time, it seemed, there had been wider. He wagged a bony finger as if to admonish her and almost four hundred brothers there.

then let out a chuckle from between his teeth which blasted 'No call for it now, of course. There's just me and, oh, his sister full in the face. The vile head seemed to shudder forty others. We have to make honey and novelty mugs just its way towards her, black moisture and weed trickling to keep the wolf from the door.' He disappeared through a from its hair.

low archway. The Doctor hopped over one last muddy There was a voice inside Betty's head and she shook trench and then paused as he reached the archway, gazing herself to try to ignore it, to escape the awful pressure of his back at the dish of the telescope which dominated the claws on her face, the proximity of his fleshless lips to her horizon. Something s.h.i.+vered up his back and the hairs on own mouth.

his neck rose in response. For a moment, he saw himself 'What kind of a welcome's this?' the voice seemed to coo.

balanced on the slippery walkway of another telescope, the 'Give your old brother a kiss...'

70.71.The face jutted forward. Closer. Rank, salty breath Lawrence looked down at her anxiously as she twisted streamed across Betty's face. Closer...

and knotted the sheets between shaking hands. He stroked She screamed so hard that she cracked her head against her forehead gently and made rea.s.suring hus.h.i.+ng sounds the side of the bath. For one long minute she lay panting until she turned over on her side, eyes glaring fixedly at the and retching where she had fainted, glaring about the room wall.

as if the walls themselves were about to attack her. Then she After staying a few minutes, Lawrence decided it was felt the cold bath panel against her cheek and, in a rush of time to call for help. Betty had coped with these nightmares logic, connected it to the imagined icy grip of her late long enough. He stood up and crossed the landing to the brother.

telephone.

A deep, relieved sigh hissed from between her clenched 'Dad?'

teeth and she managed to haul herself into a sitting position Robin's voice sailed up from the bar below. Lawrence against the bath. Blood roared in her ears. She glanced paused with his finger on the dial and pressed the receiver stiffly over her shoulder and realised the bathwater was to his chest.

about to overflow. Shakily, she got to her feet and turned off 'Up here, Robin!' he called over the bannister.

the juddering taps with some effort.

Robin was already on his way up, pulling off his coat and The rim of the bath was wet and warm. Betty sat down on scarf in agitation. 'They said in the bar they heard...'

it heavily, letting the edge of her dressing gown trail in the 'It's all right, it's all right. It's Betty. Another of her bad steaming water. Brus.h.i.+ng a lock of damp hair from her eye dreams.'

she began to take long, grateful breaths. Then she glanced Lawrence dialled a number, listened, frowned and then down at the carpet and started screaming.

dialled again. A dull crackling sound came from the receiver.

She didn't stop, her throat and lungs aching with the 'No answer. Funny.'

strain, even when Lawrence came belting up the stairs, Robin was making his way towards the bedroom.

looking crazily about him as if trying to locate the problem.

Lawrence put a hand on his son's arm.

'Betty! What is it? What's the matter?'

'She'll be all right with me, son. Could you go across and She flung herself, weeping, into his arms, her breath see if Dr Shearsmith's in? The phone seems to be playing coming in huge, hysterical gulps.

up.'

'What is it? What is it?' Lawrence insisted, s.h.i.+elding his Robin hesitated, glancing across the landing at the closed wife with burly arms.

bedroom door. 'Well...'

But she was unable or unwilling to speak. Instead she 'She'll be OK with me.'

allowed him to lead her from the bathroom and lay her 'Yeah. Yeah, of course. Whatever you think's best.'

down on the bed.

Robin clattered away down the stairs and out through the bar. Lawrence sighed heavily and padded across the 72 73.landing towards the bedroom. Pa.s.sing the open bathroom face. She sniffed back shaky tears and looked at the bare door he failed to notice the large, wet boot marks rapidly brown poplars which lined the driveway. A fierce wind evaporating from the carpet.

s.h.i.+vered through them.

'You know, I've always hated this time of year,' she said, MRS CARSON: He's changed. Different somehow!

without turning round. Trevithick merely grunted and NIGHTSHADE: All right, Barbara, don't get hysterical.

toyed with his old script.

(Nightshade sits her down next to her unconscious husband and There was a car in the drive and Jill saw George Lowc.o.c.k beckons Dr Barclay.) bending to retrieve something from the boot. He and the NIGHTSHADE: Any word on those meteorites, Barclay?

other policemen had been at the Home for several hours BARCLAY: Not yet, sir. But we've found traces of now. Hours, thought Jill, since she'd seen Edmund's Enstat.i.te.

shattered window and had, much to her own disgust, given NIGHTSHADE: Hmm. Normal enough. And the rocket in to her compulsion to vomit. The old man had been crew?

surprisingly tactful, considering the mess she'd made of his BARCLAY: There's no trace of them. Anywhere.

eiderdown, gently leading her to his chair next to the (The seated astronaut begins to moan, eyes staring ahead.) wardrobe with the broken door.

CARSON: Help me! Help me!

There was a short knock and Jill turned, smoothing the MRS CARSON: What is it? Robert? Don't you know me?

hair off her face in an effort to appear stoically calm.

Can't you say just one word?

George Lowc.o.c.k, all overcoat, bulbous nose and whiskers, (Nightshade takes her to one side.) bustled into the room, flas.h.i.+ng her one of his sweetest NIGHTSHADE: Leave him, Barbara. He'll come round. In smiles.

time.

'Well, love, nothing more we can do here.' He turned to (The telephone rings. Barclay answers.) Trevithick. 'You're sure there was nothing taken, sir?'

BARCLAY: Yes? Yes, of course. Right away.

'Absolutely,' muttered the old man.

NIGHTSHADE: What is it?

'Well, we know the gla.s.s was broken with some force.

BARCLAY: They've found something, sir. Down at the Apart from that, though...'

crash site.

'Just kids, then?' offered Jill without much confidence.

NIGHTSHADE: Come on!

'Probably. Yes.'

(They run from the room. Fade to black.) Trevithick, however, knew his Sherlock Holmes and was not to be put off. 'No clues? The soil outside the window Trevithick looked up from his perusal of the yellowing must be saturated. There have to be footprints of some script on his knee. Jill stood by the window a few feet from kind.' His bushy eyebrows lifted expectantly.

him, letting the steam from her tea flood pleasantly into her 74 75.Lowc.o.c.k sighed. 'No sir. No footprints. No traces.

'I'm sorry. But have you? Is there anything else I should Nothing.'

know?'

Trevithick grunted again and jammed his pipe into his Trevithick avoided her glance and contemplated his shoes.

lopsided mouth. Jill began to usher the policeman out.

'I woke up and the window was smashed. I rang for you.

Lowc.o.c.k put on his hat. 'Naturally, we'll investigate as far That's all.'

as possible, miss. If you like, I'll leave one of the lads on Jill stood up. 'Right then. In that case I'd better get on.

watch for the next few nights. Might make the old folks feel There's some workmen coming to fix your window. I've got a bit more secure.'

to get everyone ready who is going home for Christmas.'

'I haven't told them yet,' said Jill.

Trevithick eyed her cynically. 'Catching one last Yuletide 'Oh well.' Lowc.o.c.k beamed again. 'Probably very wise.'

frolic before the cemetery, eh?'

He touched his hat and then, as he turned to the door, 'That's not very nice, Edmund.'

fixed Trevithick with a quizzical grin. 'Excuse me, sir. Have 'Who's going where, then?' he asked brightly.

we met before?'

Jill looked up at the ceiling as if to conjure up a list of Trevithick rolled his eyes and adjusted himself in his seat.

figures. 'Erm... the Rayner sisters are going to their family in 'I don't believe so.'

Birmingham. Mr Dutton, Mr Bollard and Mr Messingham...'

Jill decided to mediate. 'This is Edmund Trevithick, 'The Unholy Three?'

George, he used to be...'

Jill laughed. 'Yes. They're going to Blackpool...'

'No! Don't tell me... Hang on... Nightshade! That's it!

'G.o.d help Blackpool.'

Professor Nightshade! Eeh, we used to love that. Shepherd's 'And Mrs Holland is going over to Leeds.'

Cross used to empty when you were on. Especially that one Trevithick pulled a face. 'You don't mean they're having where you found those things in the ground.'

her back after last year?'

Trevithick smiled as if humouring a child. Lowc.o.c.k 'That was an unfortunate mistake.'

fumbled in his raincoat and produced a battered address 'Unfortunate mistake?' Trevithick mocked. 'I don't call book. 'Would you mind? It's not for me, you understand...'