Doctor Who: Bad Therapy (15 page)

Throughout the exercise the Doctor had looked nervous, anxious even. He’d been careful to keep the lad, Jack, within sight all the while. This in itself had been no easy task; the smog was spread thickly and unevenly over the city.

Frequently, they’d turn a corner only to find that the blankets of white cloud had all but swallowed him up.

It was becoming obvious to Harris that the dead boy and this lad had been more than just friends. The Doctor had made a telephone call from the station and they’d met up with the boy outside one of the queer pubs on Charlotte Street. Harris had felt uncomfortable just standing outside it. He hoped none of the regulars had seen him. He’d been part of the team that had raided it the month before. They’d arrested three of them in the toilets that night. Three.

In one cubicle. Filthy business. The Doctor appeared completely unaware of any of this. Made you wonder.

‘You’re worried about the boy, aren’t you?’ Harris began, not exactly sure where he was taking the conversation.

‘I don’t want anyone to get hurt,’ the Doctor replied. ‘Anyone else.’

‘He’s being very brave for. . . well, for one of them.’

‘Pardon?’

‘You know. Well, they’re not really men at all, are they? Unfortunate devils.’

‘Chief Inspector, what are you talking about?’

‘Doctor, you are aware that your young friend is almost certainly a homo-sexual.’ It was not a term Harris was comfortable using. In fact, it was the first time he’d ever said the word out loud.

‘I’d rather gathered as much.’

‘I see.’

80

The Doctor appeared to forget Jack for a moment, turning in exasperation to look at Harris. ‘What? What is it that you see, Chief Inspector?’

Harris didn’t get a chance to reply. A black cab turned the corner on to the road ahead. He immediately knew that this was their quarry. Something about the way it moved.

‘I think I see your black cab, Doctor.’

‘What?’ On catching sight of the vehicle, the little man immediately left Harris’s side and hurried down the road to catch up with Jack. The cab was a little further ahead, wreathed in smog. Harris could see the railings of Soho Square beyond the taxi. The light on the cab roof blazed emerald, its headlights icy white. The rest of the vehicle was just thick, unreflective blackness.

The Doctor stepped protectively in front of Jack, and ushered the boy back to where Harris was standing. They exchanged wary glances, before both turning to watch what the Doctor was up to.

The little man was standing in front of the machine, silhouetted between its blazing headlights. He looked small and vulnerable in front of the fender of the large car. If the driver chose to put his foot down now. . .

‘Hello,’ Harris heard the Doctor say. Absurdly, the little man doffed his hat at the machine. ‘I’m the Doctor, and these are my friends. I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.’

The black cab came to a stop a few yards ahead of him. It moved so smoothly that Harris thought it could have been skating on ice.

‘Now what manner of creature are you, hmm?’ The Doctor’s voice was an awestruck whisper. He sounded as if he was actually expecting a reply.

The cab didn’t reply, of course. Harris became aware that it was moving almost imperceptibly from side to side. He was struck by the impression that it was making its own evaluation of the Doctor. As if it were sizing up the pathologist.

‘How can we communicate?’ the Doctor said, frowning. ‘You don’t seem to be able to talk, and I can’t be sure if you can hear me. Which is a shame, because I think you and I need to share a few words about road safety, if you catch my drift?’

The vehicle slid forward a few inches at this remark. Harris hurried forward to join the Doctor in case the driver should try anything. He noticed that Jack reacted identically to the threat to the Doctor, keeping pace with him.

Close up, Harris could see that the cab’s surface wasn’t metallic at all, but was matt and looked as if it might be tacky to the touch. Even the windows were dull and opaque. It was almost as if it were only a plastercast of a real car. Just a moulded shell. He began to reach out to the cab, before thinking better of it and pulling his hand back. He glanced up at the Doctor. ‘Do you think there could be someone inside?’

81

It was Jack who answered his question. ‘Don’t be stupid. How could anyone get in there? It’s completely solid, like a jelly.’

Bloody insolence. ‘When I want your opinion, young. . .

man,’ Harris

started, unable to hide the disdain in his voice, ‘I’ll ask for it.’

‘I hate to interrupt you both,’ the Doctor began quietly, ‘but could you give me a hand? I’m afraid our friend here has taken a shine to one of mine.’

Harris felt a chill sweep through him as he caught sight of the Doctor’s arm.

He was vaguely aware of Jack gasping in horror next to him.

The Doctor’s left hand had disappeared beneath the surface of the cab’s bonnet. All around his wrist a moist black
something
was pulsing, slowly and rhythmically.

And then it began to suck the Doctor inside itself.

82

Interlude

Gilliam’s Story

Gilliam had dreamt of the song. In her dream there had been words. Words full of answers, but too faint to grasp their meaning. She woke with the taste of the desert in her mouth. It reminded her of eating sandwiches on a beach with her family when she was a little girl, the grit crunching loudly in her skull.

It took her a few moments to orientate herself to her surroundings. For the last twenty-five years she’d woken up in a bed the size of a small swimming pool, surrounded by attendants waiting patiently to prepare her for the business of the day. Waking up alone on a thin roll of bedding in a thermo-tent was going to take some getting used to. Gilliam got up and stretched her aching joints in the cool of Petruska’s bedchamber. The privacy was priceless though.

Before continuing her work she walked around the ruins. Guards had been positioned around the ancient palace at discrete intervals. The king’s orders, no doubt. She had to admit that she was surprised that he hadn’t had her physically dragged back to his side.

There was a small commotion further down the slopes; two guards were trying to stop an angry group from climbing further. Gilliam pulled her hair out of her eyes, it was a multi-media crew. She thought she recognized the reporter. An odious woman who’d written a lurid and
very
unofficial biography of her the previous year. She hurried back under the protective canopy of the ruined palace.

The easy successes of yesterday were not repeated. The computer didn’t manage to repeat its miraculous performance. The screen of Gilliam’s terminal was littered with possibilities and the software’s ‘best guesses’. By lunchtime, Gilliam was beginning to think that she was constructing a piece of fiction rather than recovering a true account.

She started to doubt her own abilities. She’d spoken to Ala’dan of this when he visited her at lunchtime, bringing food – which she’d accepted – and a servant – whom she’d refused. Ala’dan hadn’t commented on her behaviour directly – to presume to judge the queen would be an act of treason. But Ala’dan had reported that he’d never seen the king more angry and upset; 83

that the king thought that she was deliberately choosing to humiliate him.

Gilliam chewed morosely on some of the food that the old chancellor had brought for her. Why was she doing this? Who did she think she was to single-handedly undertake an archeological project? She had a college kid’s knowledge of archeological theory; her only claim to practical experience were the two college digs she’d attended all those years ago.

She turned back to the screen. At the top, the translation from the previous day still sat. She’d cleaned it up a bit, or rewritten it, depending on your point of view.

My name is Petruska, First Queen of Kr’on Tep, Ruler of the Seven Systems,
and I am a prisoner in this place.

I know how you feel, Gilliam thought, and then set to work. After a few fruitless hours of word-play she abandoned the translation software, dug out a notepad and struck out on her own. By the time the sun was sinking below the horizon, she had filled a quarter of her pad, and the next section of the hieroglyphs on the wall were – well, translated no longer accurately described her work. Interpreted was probably closer to the truth.

She was reading through the paragraphs of text, when she heard someone politely cough behind her. She knew it was her husband before she turned and saw him.

He was standing by the entrance to the chamber, looking healthy and strong and as huge as ever in the deep orange light of the evening. He was wearing the simple robes of business; he’d probably come straight from a state meeting. His face was carefully neutral. Expressionless.

Any minute now he was going to start bellowing at her.

But he didn’t. Instead, he made a show of considering the ancient chamber.

‘This is my home,’ he said. ‘I can trace my family back through the generations to this room. I am descended from Moriah and Petruska’s first born. I am king, because of them.’ He sounded as if he were reciting by rote, but it wasn’t any speech Gilliam knew. He looked at her directly for the first time. ‘Just as you are queen.’

‘That’s –’ she started, but had to clear her throat. Would she always feel so intimidated by him? ‘That’s why I’m here.’

‘Oh?’ He raised an eyebrow. A bitter smile flickered uncertainly across his face. ‘And I thought you were running away from me. No?’

Gilliam didn’t know what to say. Not once since she had fled the
Jewelled
Sword
had she considered that the king might take her leaving personally.

She’d assumed he would be angry at her disobedience. Angry, but not hurt.

She sighed, sat down heavily and put her head in her hands. ‘I’ve been such a selfish bas–’

84

‘Ssh.’ He gently silenced her apologies, and sat down beside her. He picked up her notepad and scanned a couple of pages. ‘Tell me what you’ve been up to here,’ he asked in a husky whisper.

‘You’re not going to like it.’

‘Funny, Ala’ dan said the same thing.’

Gilliam took her notepad from her husband and told her story. When she explained about her discovery of Petruska’s secret diary hidden in her love song, he looked genuinely interested. Interested and impressed.

She read the last section of her reconstruction: ‘“These hidden words that I paint on the walls of my room are my only voice,”’ Gilliam quoted. She paused after scanning the sentence that followed: ‘“I live in terror of Moriah.”

’ Out of the corner of her eye she saw the king flinch as if the words were describing him and not his ancient ancestor. She continued: “He allows me to do nothing, to go nowhere, to meet no one, to talk to no one. Before he chose me as his bride I was a scientist, but now I am not permitted to work.

His jealous love is suffocating me.”

‘I haven’t finished working on the next section yet. But I’m fairly sure that Petruska plotted to. . . escape from Moriah. I think she enlisted her bodyguard’s help in her plan, but I’m not sure.’

‘How sure are you of any of this? Since I was a boy I have been taught about Moriah, the man-god. An honourable and powerful warrior who killed his queen for her infidelity and fled Kr’on Tep in his grief. Are you certain that all those historians have it wrong?’

Pretty damn uncertain, Gilliam told herself, but she said, ‘I’m working on my own, and I’ve only been working on this for a day, but. . . yeah, I’m pretty sure.’

The king clambered noisily to his feet. Gilliam took a deep breath. If there was going to be a row it was going to happen now.

However, the king merely turned to her and nodded. ‘What you’re doing is important. We need to know where we come from. How else can we know the direction of our lives?’

He pulled her to her feet, and stroked her cheek with the back of his thick fingers. She noticed for the first time that there were flecks of grey in his beard.

‘When your work is over,’ he said, ‘you will come back to me, won’t you, my queen?’

She smiled and pulled him into her arms, burying her face in his beard.

She’d forgotten that he was still in love with her.

‘Of course, I’ll come back,’ she reassured him. Although, in her own mind, she really wasn’t sure.

85

6

You’ve Never Had It So Bad

Harris couldn’t take his eyes off the Doctor’s. . . off what remained of the Doctor’s arm. The surface of the cab around the Doctor’s forearm glistened, like wet tar. Harris felt sick. At the moment it appeared to be content just to pin him down, but, like a cat toying with a bird, at any moment it might swallow the little man whole.

‘Now is not the time to keep quiet about any bright ideas you may have.’

The Doctor stole another glance at his arm, and then looked away, grimacing.

Harris was reminded of a patient unable to watch as a nurse took a blood sample.

The cab slurped once, and gulped down another few inches of the Doctor’s arm.

The colour drained from the Doctor’s face. ‘Ooh, that tickles,’ he murmured.

Harris steeled himself. ‘What should I do?’

The Doctor grimaced. ‘Nothing hasty. I can’t move my arm at all. It feels as if it’s stuck in concrete. It’s going numb. Try pulling my other arm.’ He spoke out of the side of his mouth, as if he were a family doctor and the cab a patient with whom he didn’t want to share a bad diagnosis.

Harris moved slowly around to the other side of the Doctor. He took hold of the Doctor’s arm. It felt wiry and muscular through the fabric of his jacket.

Tougher than he looks, Harris thought.

Without any leverage, it was hard to put all his weight into pulling the Doctor out. He heaved, leaning away from the Doctor.

‘No good.’ The Doctor shook his head.

Harris jumped slightly when he felt Jack slip his arms around his waist and tighten his grip. If Bridie could see him now. . .