Doctor Who: The Way Through the Woods (4 page)

BOOK: Doctor Who: The Way Through the Woods
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Jess bent down to pick up her bag. When she stood up straight again, she found herself staring directly at a stripy scarf. The wearer of the scarf was a young woman clutching a supermarket plastic bag in front of her so tightly that her knuckles had gone white.

‘It’s Jess, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘You’re Jess Ashcroft.’

‘I am she, there is no other.’

‘Oh, at
last
!’ The young woman practically stamped her foot. ‘Where have you been hiding? I’ve been looking for you everywhere! It’s not
that
big a town!’

Unobtrusively, Jess manoeuvred her bag between herself and the other woman. ‘Wherever I’ve been, I’m here now.’ She glanced around. The crowd was thinning out, but there were still plenty of people around she could call on for help. If all else failed, her bag was heavy, full of junk, and could probably pack a significant punch if swung. ‘Is there something I can do to help you, Ms…?’

‘My name’s Amy. Amy Pond. No, you can’t help me – it’s you that needs my help.’

‘I do?’

‘Yes, you really do. You’re next, Jess. You’re going to disappear next. But don’t worry! This time it should all work out OK. This time, I’m coming with you.’

Chapter
4
England, autumn 1917, earlier that afternoon

The TARDIS landed with a groan, like an ancient relative settling down into an armchair after a lengthy lunch. A robin perched on the signpost that pointed down Long Lane towards the mill, tipped its head and studied the blue box with bright inquisitive eyes. The door creaked open. The robin, put out rather than startled, flew away.

Rory Williams – known universally these days as Mr Amy Pond – stepped out of the TARDIS, blinking like an owl in the bright chilly daylight. Nobody else followed him out. Should anyone have been watching – bird, beast, human, other – they would have seen him turn round, as if suddenly in doubt, only to find the way back into the TARDIS entirely and quite mercilessly barred by his new wife and her pet time traveller.

‘Look,’ Rory said, in the slightly desperate tone someone might use when he knows that a critical moment has arrived but holds out no particular hope that his very real and pressing concerns are going to be heard. ‘It’s all very well dumping me here in the middle of nowhere, but the last time that happened I ended up waiting thousands of years. Not an exaggeration! Actually thousands! And I was plastic. Plastic! Do you have any idea what it’s like, being plastic? Actually plastic!’

‘Actually,’ said the Doctor, ‘that wasn’t you.’

‘It could have been me! It might still could have been me! Frankly, it’s not hard to imagine it being me!’

Amy ruffled his hair. ‘Poor Rory,’ she said, with perhaps more glee than sympathy. ‘You’re your very own action figure.’

The Doctor at least had the courtesy to try a more conciliatory line. ‘I promise you’ll hardly know we’re gone. An afternoon’s work, that’s all. Well, an afternoon and a bit. An afternoon and an evening. Possibly some of tonight as well… What I mean is, it’ll all be over by this time tomorrow.’ The Doctor thought about that. ‘Your time.’ He thought some more. ‘Ish.’

‘Thanks,’ said Rory. ‘I feel much more confident now.’

‘Think of it this way,’ Amy said. ‘I get to go and visit our own time. Wow. Thrilling. Can’t wait. Meanwhile,
you
get to spend a nice afternoon in a country pub. A real historic country pub, while it’s actually being historic. So enjoy the moment! Live it up! Feel the vibe! Drink the beer!’

‘Eat the pie,’ suggested the Doctor. ‘It’ll be good honest country pie.’

‘And there’ll be yokels. You can watch them doing… yokel things.’

‘Ooh, and you get to chat up a pretty girl,’ said the Doctor; seeing Amy’s expression, he hastily corrected himself. ‘Or not. In fact, I strongly suggest you do absolutely the opposite of that.’

‘Yes, yes,’ Rory said, ‘beer, pie, pub, yokels – it all sounds very nice, and it probably would be, if it wasn’t slap bang in the middle of
the war to end all wars
—’

‘Oh, that’s
miles
away,’ the Doctor said breezily.

‘That’s all very well for you to say!’

‘Different country! There’s the whole Channel between you.’ The Doctor licked the tip of his forefinger and held it aloft, testing the air. ‘Nope, no Zeppelins. Not today. Zip. Nada. No show. Absolutely nothing to worry about! Besides, you’ll barely know you were here. These short trips are like bread and butter to the TARDIS. Quick turn of a dial, quick pull of a lever; we’re in, we’re out, we… um, shake it all about… Yes, well, as I say, nothing to worry about.’ He waggled his finger and adopted a lecturing voice. ‘What you need to be concentrating on is staying close to Emily Bostock. Don’t let her out of your sight.’ He dropped the playfulness and went on in a much quieter, much more serious tone. ‘What you’re doing is critical, Rory. You have to stay close to her. If we lose Emily, we’re right back where we started. More importantly, she’ll be gone –
really
gone. I might not be able to get her back.’

‘I understand,’ Rory said. ‘Stay close to Emily Bostock.’

The Doctor gave him a kindly smile. ‘You’ll be fine. Honestly. Afternoon’s work. In the pub. With pie.’

‘Don’t get
too
close to Emily Bostock, mind,’ Amy said. ‘You’re a married man now. And I’ll
know
.’ She blew Rory an extravagant kiss, gave him a cheery wave, and closed the TARDIS door.

Rory stepped back to watch the dematerialisation.

The TARDIS, however, robustly carried on being there. After a moment, the door opened again and the Doctor stepped out. He had something cupped between his hands and a somewhat sheepish expression on his face. He sidled up to Rory.

‘One last thing.’ He opened his hands to reveal a small triangular device made from some bronze substance that definitely wasn’t bronze. He pressed it into Rory’s palm. ‘You might want to take this.’

The object pulsed and hummed quietly, as if chatting to itself. Gold specks of light sparkled up and down one flat side like tiny Christmas tree lights. The other side was smooth and blank.

Rory said, ‘This is the thing that lets you find me again, isn’t it?’

‘Um.’

‘By “um”, you mean “Yes, Rory”, don’t you, Doctor?’

‘Ah.’

‘And by “ah”, you mean “I’m sorrier than I can possibly say, Rory”.
Don’t
you, Doctor?’

‘Rory, everything’s fine. Go to the pub. Chat to Emily,’ the Doctor glanced quickly back over his shoulder, ‘in an entirely platonic fashion. Keep her close, and keep
that
,’ he tapped the bronze triangle, ‘with you at all times. When you get where you’re going, press that button on the edge there – no, the other edge – and we’ll be with you in the blink of an eye.’ He closed Rory’s hand over the device. ‘And when you do go into the woods –
concentrate
. There’s nothing there that can hurt you, but you might get disorientated. Don’t worry about that. The most important thing is that you don’t let Emily out of your sight.’ Again, the Doctor gave his kindly, ancient smile, the one that you could only feel proud to get, because it meant someone very wise and very special trusted you beyond measure. Rory couldn’t help but be pleased to receive that smile.

‘We’ll be back before you know we’re gone,’ the Doctor said, which turned out to be completely true, in a manner of speaking. With one last vast grin, the Doctor loped back inside the TARDIS. Soon the old time machine was grumbling and groaning again, and then it was gone.

From his pocket, Rory pulled out a scruffy scrap of paper onto which a map had been scribbled. Emily Bostock worked as a barmaid at a pub called the Fox. The pub stood at a crossroads opposite an old mill. Slowly, Rory’s gaze drifted up from the map to the signpost at the corner of the lane.
Brown’s Mill
, it told him helpfully.
3½ miles
. Rory burst out laughing.

‘Bang on as ever! Thanks, Doctor!’

He shoved the map back into his pocket and set off down the lane. Soon he was whistling, because the day was perfect for walking, the trees green and gold, and the sun not too hot, and there was the promise of a pint at the end. Altogether, this struck Rory as not a bad deal, and almost certainly better than being plastic. Some pleasures stay much the same, whatever the time and place. Trouble, however, comes in many different shapes and sizes.

Chapter
5
England, now, after the press conference

Detective Inspector Gordon Galloway had never intended to live amongst the barbarians. Then, on a walking holiday in the Lake District, he fell in love, his eyes meeting the intriguingly green ones of his wife-to-be over a full English breakfast in a pleasant B&B near Lake Coniston. Nearly the first thing Mary said to him was, ‘I’m something of a home bird…’ And so – after eleven months, a charming courtship, and a delightful wedding – Gordon Galloway applied for, and received, a transfer to his wife’s home town.

A town which, after eighteen months of everyday living and slightly over a week into his first major case there, Galloway was concluding was a very strange town indeed.

It wasn’t simply that Laura Brown’s disappearance had gone unreported for several days. Parents know their children, after all, and technically Laura Brown was an adult. If she had decided to pack up and take an early gap year, that was her decision, and if her parents had assumed that was what she had done, that was theirs. And as soon as it was clear that something else was happening (when Vicky Caine’s frantic and Scouse father turned up at the station to report the non-appearance of his daughter), the Brown family had become as accommodating (and as frightened) as Galloway might have expected.

No, he didn’t suspect the Browns, not least because of the strength of their alibis. But there was still something strange. Take that moment earlier today, when he had gone to inform both sets of parents that he had made an arrest, and Laura’s mother and father – Vicky’s mother too – had stared at him as if he had said he was planning to search the dark side of the moon. It was as if the three of them couldn’t quite believe what he was saying.

Vicky’s father – who wasn’t local, after all – had reacted more as Galloway had expected:
Who is it? Do we know him? How did you catch up with him?
Then the other three had joined in – but it still hung there, that split second, when they had all stared at each other, clearly all thinking the same thing:
How can that be possible?
Yes, much as it pained him even to think it (for Gordon Galloway was very much in love with his wife) there was something very strange about this town.

Then there was the not so inconsiderable matter of the searches. Vicky Caine’s last known location was a bus stop on Long Lane. Laura Brown had last been seen leaving the Fancy Fox pub. Between these two points lay a large piece of woodland. Galloway had several times ordered a search, but somehow it didn’t seem to happen. People found themselves elsewhere, or something pressing turned up, or the searchlights were broken and had to be replaced. Each delay was perfectly reasonable. But the upshot was that the search of Swallow Woods had not yet got started.

And then there was the chief suspect…

Galloway glanced across his desk to where his junior colleague, DC Ruby Porter, was talking on the phone. Porter was a pensive young woman that even Galloway thought was slightly too sensible for her age. He went and made them both a cup of coffee. By the time he got back, she had finished her call, and they sat sipping hot instant stuff from nearly clean mugs.

‘Tell me,’ said Galloway, ‘do you think we have the right man?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘Why do you think that?’

‘Um. Intuition?’

‘Go on, you can do better than that!’

Porter peered at him over the rim of her mug. ‘I don’t want to sound strange, sir.’

Strange. There was that word again. ‘Hm. Don’t worry about that. Fire ahead. Then I’ll tell you what I think.’

‘OK… Well, it’s not the hair, and it’s not the clothes… I don’t know, but when we’re in there talking to him, sometimes he looks at me, and it’s like…’

‘Go on,’ Galloway prompted.

‘It’s like he’s the oldest person I’ve ever met. There’s the word games, and the chatter, and the nonsense, but sometimes I catch him looking straight at me, and when I look into his eyes, deep into his eyes, it’s like I’m staring all the way back to the beginning of time.’

There was a pause. If Galloway had had an audience to his earlier thoughts, he would now have turned round to them and said:
See! See what I mean? This town is strange!
As it was, he simply swirled some coffee around his mouth and then swallowed.

‘That’s… very poetic, Porter. See, I was only going to say that it was extremely odd that there’s no evidence of him being in town until right before Laura Brown went missing.’

Porter turned an interesting shade of red. ‘Sorry, sir. But it’s the only way I can think of putting it. He seems harmless, but if I think about it at all, he might well be the strangest person I’ve ever met.’

And coming from someone brought up in this town,
that
, Galloway thought, was practically a testimonial.

They finished their lousy coffee and went back down to the interview room. Opening the door, Galloway saw that his chief suspect was standing by the wall, staring at the clock. When he heard the door open, the young man pointed up at it.

‘Is that accurate?’ he said. ‘Are you quite sure it’s accurate?’

‘Of course it is. Why don’t you sit down, son?’

The young man sat down, slowly. Then, with a quick movement, he reached out and grabbed Galloway’s wrist. Porter’s hand flashed out to stop him, but the young man said, ‘Stop.
Wait
.’

And for some reason she did. The three of them sat there, motionless as a tableau, all staring down at Galloway’s watch. The second hand ticked on, on, on, and each second seemed to have slowed, to be taking an age. And then at last it reached the hour. The young man, looking up, stared straight at Galloway – who, all of a sudden, could see what Porter meant. It nearly scared the life out of him.

BOOK: Doctor Who: The Way Through the Woods
12.44Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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