And it is always here that the final choices are made.
The Doctor watched awhile as a crane unloaded crates from a ship. A cold wind flicked scraps of paper along the street. He could see stars through a rent in the clouds.
‘Don’t you think you could get along without me,’ he said softly into the night, ‘just for a little while.’
Only the wind answered.
The Doctor smelt the tea on the breeze. He sighed once and walked upwind.
‘Can I help you?’ asked John.
The tea-stall stood in a pool of light next to a warehouse. Hammering sounds came intermittently from the nearby docks, and occasionally the sound of a barge’s horn would float up from the river.
The small white man with the umbrella and hat paused to look at the tariff.
‘A mug of tea, please,’ he said.
John poured a mug of black tea from the urn. ‘Cold night tonight,’ he said, adding milk.
‘Yes, it is,’ said the man, cupping the mug in his hands. ‘Bitter, very bitter.’
‘Sugar?’
‘Ah,’ said the man, ‘a decision.’ He sighed and sipped his tea. ‘Would it make any difference?’
John looked at the man to see if he was joking or something. ‘It would make your tea sweet,’ he said after a pause.
The man gave a wan smile. ‘But beyond the confines of my taste-buds, would it make any difference.’
‘Not really.’
‘But…’ The man leaned forward conspiratorially, eyes glittering. They were compelling eyes.
‘But what?’ asked John, suddenly anxious to know.
‘But what if I could control everybody’s taste-buds?’ He made a broad, sweeping gesture. ‘What if I decided that no one would take sugar? That would make a difference, wouldn’t it, to the people who sell sugar and those that cut cane…’
John remembered his father, hands bleeding as he hacked at the bright green stalks under a cobalt sky. ‘My father,’ said John, ‘he was a cane-cutter.’
‘Exactly. If no one used sugar then your father wouldn’t have been a cane-cutter.’
‘If this sugar thing had never started,’ said John, ‘my great grandfather wouldn’t have been kidnapped, chained up and sold in the first place. I’d be an African.’ The idea was strangely comforting to John.
‘See,’ said the man, ‘every large decision creates ripples, like a truck dropped in a river. The ripples can merge, rebound off the banks in unforeseeable ways.’ He looked suddenly tired. ‘The heavier the decision, the greater the waves and the more uncertain the consequence.’
John shrugged. ‘Life’s like that,’ he said. ‘Best thing is just to get on with it.’
Professor Rachel Jensen lay asleep in her bed at the boarding house run by Mike’s mother on Ashton Road. After the Doctor and Gilmore had left them, they had returned here for supper before retiring. Now Rachel dreamed of her childhood in Golders Green.
She was sitting beside her mother in the synagogue. Bright sunlight streamed in through high windows, but the spaces behind the benches were in deep shadow. Rachel was sure something was moving in those dark spaces. She forced herself to look back at Rabbi Goldsmith who was reading from the Talmud.
Only he wasn’t there. Instead an intense little man in a pale jacket was speaking, punctuating his phrases by stabbing at the air with a red-handled umbrella. Rachel knew he was saying something of great importance, only strain as hard as she might she could not make out his words.
All the time, squat evil shapes materialized in the shadows – shapes with smooth domes and gritty voices.
Across the landing from Rachel, Ace twisted in the strange bed, tangling herself in the crisp cotton sheets. In her sleep, fragmentary images flashed across her eyes like a badly edited rock video. She dreamed of the time when her name was Dorothy.
Dorothy was fourteen, facing the burnt-out shell of Manisha’s house. The blaring sound of fire sirens wound about her head counterpointed by a dry BBC voice: ‘Petrol was poured through the letter box and set on fire: the house was gutted in minutes. Two members of the family managed to escape, but the rest, including the mother, father and three young children, were killed. The police say they are considering the possibility of a racial motive. This is the fourth such incident in Perivale in the last six months. Community leaders…’
Then Dorothy stood at the end of a hospital bed: she could smell vomit overlaid by disinfectant. Nearby, old wrinkled women groaned and muttered complaints. A bunch of grapes hung pathetically in her hand. She stared at Manisha’s face, noticing the way the skin had bubbled on her cheeks and the raw meat under dressings on her scalp.
Months later Dorothy watched as her friend’s eyes turned lacklustre and dead. She waved goodbye as Manisha left Perivale – left Dorothy – to stay with relatives in Birmingham. Manisha had gone for good.
It was Dorothy who stared at the burnt house, the burnt face, the burnt life, the racist graffiti. And it was Dorothy who stared at the words ‘Pakis out’ on the wall of the playground.
It was Ace who blew away the wall with two and a half kilograms of nitro-nine.
Fireball in the darkness.
Fire fighting fire.
5
SATURDAY, 06:26
MARTIN GAVE THE screwdriver a final twist and straightened up. He tugged the handle to make sure the brass fitted snugly against the fine oak of the coffin: his back gave a twinge and he rubbed it idly while checking his handiwork. Martin was in the middle of rubbing down the surface finish when he heard a click behind him.
The sound echoed in the silent room.
Martin’s palms suddenly became damp.
Another click, like a rifle bolt being slammed closed.
Martin slowly turned to face the noise.
The casket was almost seven feet long, constructed of metal which was pitted and dirty with age. It seemed to Martin to be, well, somehow expectant.
Unnerved, Martin moved closer. He saw that two of the lid’s catches were open. He reached out cautiously to close the nearest – cold burned his fingertips and he snatched back his hand. The top layer of skin had been torn from the pads of his fingers.
Another catch sprang open, this time in front of his eyes. Sweating, Martin backed away from the casket. He had the horrible idea that whatever was in the casket was alive and wanted to get out. He backed into something and whirled, a scream choking off in his throat.
A man in a pale jacket stood there, an umbrella in one hand and a bottle of milk in the other. ‘Good morning,’ the man said pleasantly. ‘I believe this belongs to you.’ He held up the bottle.
Not trusting his voice, Martin nodded and took the bottle, still conscious of the tangible presence of the casket behind him.
‘The door was open,’ explained the man, ‘so I thought I’d just pop in and collect my casket.’
‘Ah well,’ said Martin, ‘I’m afraid the governor has yet to arrive and I really can’t let you…’ His voice trailed off; the man smiled pleasantly at him. ‘Which, ah, casket would this be?’
The man nodded towards the metal casket behind Martin.
‘I see,’ said Martin. ‘Well, if you could just wait until the governor arrives, I’m sure…’
‘That would be perfectly all right,’ said the man.
Martin suddenly felt immensely relieved. ‘Good, splendid, Mister…?’
‘Doctor.’
‘Doctor…?’ Martin asked hopefully.
‘If I might have just a few moments alone?’
‘Of course, of course. I’ll just leave you with your…’
‘Thank you.’
‘I’ll be just next door if you require anything,’ said Martin as he made a hasty exit.
It was there: the presence, the aura as distinctive as a genetic pattern, sharp as a blade. Perception was difficult in this strange cold environment with its slabs of molecules that moved so slowly, its alien auras that flickered so weakly around it. The environme
nt was so unlike the vast hot spaces it loved or the powerful minds of its creators.
Deep in its most fundamental programming, where rapidly shifting fields of energy interacted, it quivered in anticipation of the data it would receive. Instructions would come: instructions meant purpose; purpose meant function; function meant life!
The Doctor faced the casket. ‘Open,’ he said.
The remaining buckles snapped open with the sound of gunshots. The seals cracked apart and light spilled through the rapidly widening gap as the lid pulled itself up and back. A deep thrumming filled the room.
The Doctor pulled the baseball bat from concealment. ‘Now,’ he said, holding it carefully over the yawning casket, ‘let’s see what you can make of this.’ He let go of the bat and watched as it slowly descended into the blazing white heart of the radiance.
Somebody was knocking on her door.
Ace sat up, struggling to untangle her legs from the sheets.
‘Come in.’
Mike stuck his head round the door.
‘Good morning,’ he said.
Ace could smell bacon sandwich.
‘Good morning,’ said Ace. Carefully holding the blanket above chest level, she fumbled in her rucksack for a clean T-shirt.
Mike pushed open the door and stepped into the room. His eyes never left her as he took a bite from the bacon sandwich in his right hand. Ace wondered what he was staring at.
You know what he is staring at, said a voice in her head.
Ace hiked up the blanket a bit more.
‘Did you make a sandwich for me?’
Mike moved closer.
‘What do you want?’ he said. ‘Breakfast in bed?’
‘Why not? Isn’t this a bed and breakfast?’
He was standing by the bed now, looking down at her. There was a sudden intensity in his eyes. Ace sensed that he wanted to say something.
Mike offered her the bacon sandwich instead.
‘Thanks,’ she said.
Her hand touched his as she took the sandwich; his skin was warm and rough. Ace took a bite of the sandwich and offered it back to him. Mike shook his head.
‘Keep it,’ he said. ‘I have to be off.’
‘Where are you going?’
Mike turned at the doorway. ‘I have to check some things at the Association.’
‘Oh,’ said Ace, not really interested.
Mike smiled again and said goodbye. Ace watched him go, thoughtfully munching on the sandwich. She couldn’t understand just why she was interested in him; he wasn’t that good looking, except maybe for his face.
She suddenly realized that fat had dripped onto one of the blankets; she wondered whether Mrs Smith would notice.
The device played with the toy. Insinuating parts of itself into the aluminium core, it played with the lattice of atoms, arranging them into convoluted patterns. As careful as a watchmaker, as gleeful as a three-year-old, the device stripped away the polymer chains of the covering and then relaid them in interesting new ways. Within moments the baseball bat became a room-temperature superconductor. Then, drawing on the latent heat in the surrounding atmosphere, the device poured energy into the bat. The ambient temperature in the room fell by one degree centigrade; a wafer-thin layer of ice formed on the casket’s skin.
‘Come on,’ said the Doctor, ‘give it up.’
The casket spat out the baseball bat. The Doctor snatched it out of the air and twirled it a bit before examining it.
‘Good boy,’ he commended. ‘Now close.’
The lid closed with a whumph! of seals. The Doctor walked to the door and pulled it open. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘follow me.’
Without any fuss or sound the casket levitated and floated after him.
In the corridor Martin was on the telephone.
‘Gov’nor, somebody’s come to collect that big casket. Yes… the Doctor. One thing, I thought you said he was an old geezer with white hair.’
The Doctor walked past him and doffed his hat.
‘Goodbye, Doctor,’ said Martin. ‘What about your…’
The casket floated past him with nothing at all holding it up. Martin took one long look and fainted.
6
SATURDAY, 07:31
THE REVEREND PARKINSON could feel the crunch of gravel under his feet, and smell the mown grass of the graveyard and the sharp tang of newly turned earth and wet leaves. Over the distant rumble of traffic he could hear the morning birds singing. All these were familiar gifts from God, compensations for having his sight taken away in the mud at Verdun.
He had been a captain, one of the many Oxford graduates who enlisted in 1914. They were the cream of a generation: winning battles on the playing fields of Eton; dying amid mud, spilled guts and mustard gas.
In some nameless dressing station, as he twisted and cried in a rough cot, he had been called to God. The vast compassion of the Creator pressed him down into peace and stillness.
Parkinson could feel that stillness now as he walked with an arm through one of the Doctor’s. The Doctor always conjured a sense of quiet when he was near, like the calm at the eye of a storm.
‘It’s very good of you,’ said the Doctor, ‘to do this at such short notice.’
‘Nonsense, my dear Doctor,’ Parkinson answered. ‘The grave has been ready for a month. Mr Stevens, the gravedigger, was most upset.’
‘I had to leave suddenly,’ explained the Doctor.
‘Forgive me for saying this, but it seems to me that your voice has changed somewhat since we last met.’ And it was true. Parkinson had hardlly recognized the voice that morning – a trace of Scottish, perhaps? Parkinson heard the Doctor chuckle softly.
‘Oh, I have changed,’ he said, ‘several times.’
Parkinson felt rather then heard the coffin being laid over the grave.
‘I must say,’ he commented, ‘your pall-bearers are very quiet, silent as ghosts really.’
Ratcliffe started when the telephone rang. With one eye on the figure in the shadows he picked up the receiver. ‘Good, stay with the Doctor and call me back… yours is not to reason why, just to follow orders… Good… Get on with it.’ He slapped down the telephone and turned to the figure.
‘My man has found it,’ he said with some satisfaction.
‘Yes,’ said the figure, ‘but my enemies have found your man.’
In a telephone box by the gates of the cemetery, Mike Smith put down the telephone and stepped out into the weak sunshine. Then, checking that no one was looking, he slipped through the gates and into the graveyard. He had seen the Doctor and the vicar heading behind the church that stood at the centre of the cemetery, so he increased his pace to catch up. He wanted to see if the coffin was still floating in that disturbing way. Miraculous things were happening around this strange Doctor, things that the Association should know about. Besides, he owed Ratcliffe favours.
Suddenly he was choking, an arm tight around his throat, fabric rough on his cheek. A voice whispered in his ear: ‘What is the location of the renegade Dalek base?’
Mike grabbed at the arm, trying to prise it loose, but the pressure only got worse. ‘Get off me,’ he gasped. ‘I’ll break your legs.’
The man repeated the question, the choking grip emphasizing his advantage.
Mike didn’t know what the man was talking about. He tried to tell the man this, but spots of light were blurring his eyes.
‘You are an agent of the renegade Daleks,’ said the man.
What? thought Mike. He went limp. ‘I work for Mr Ratcliffe, the Association.’ With a sudden burst of energy he twisted in the man’s grip, breaking the hold on his throat, and pulled his adversary’s arm back and up. The man grunted as Mike applied an arm lock, then seized a handful of white hair and savagely pulled back his head. Mike was shocked to discover that his attacker was old, maybe in his fifties.
‘Who do you work for?’
But the man gazed stupidly past Mike’s face; his old body tensed
and jerked like a puppet. A low moan escaped his lips. With a shock Mike recognized him as the headmaster of Coal Hill School. The body went limp and slid out of Mike’s hands, slumping boneless and dead to the ground.
Mike recoiled, breathing hard. He looked wildly about. No one was in sight; no one had seen. He ran, leaving the headmaster among the maze of gravestones.
But he ran after the Doctor.
‘Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,’ intoned Parkinson and snapped his braille bible shut. He heard the Doctor reach over and then the rattle of dirt on the coffin lid. ‘It’s over,’ he said after a respectful pause.
‘No,’ replied the Doctor, ‘it’s just starting.’
It was only as the Doctor led him away that Parkinson realized he didn’t know whom he had just buried.
Mike watched the Doctor walk away, arm and arm with the vicar. He fixed the position of the grave in his mind, the better to report to Ratcliffe later.
Ratcliffe had told him he would see many strange things and he was right, as usual. He had always known things, secrets. When Mike was small, running wild on the bombsites, Ratcliffe had given him a bar of chocolate – a small bar with foreign words on the wrapper. ‘It’s from Germany,’ Ratcliffe had explained.
‘You been there?’ Many returning soldiers had brought back things from overseas.
‘No, Mike me lad,’ said Ratcliffe, ‘but I’ve got friends there.’
The chocolate had been rich and dark; Mike made it last a long time. As Mike grew up, Ratcliffe would talk to him. He told Mike about the world: how the bankers and communists were all in league together; how the government planned to ship in negroes from abroad to keep wages down and force decent white people out of their jobs.
Mike had absorbed it all.
Ratcliffe’s pronouncements had of late become less general and more accurate. Last Saturday, Ratcliffe had caught him in Harry’s Cafe. He had asked what Mike was doing in civvies. Mike had winked and told him it was a secret. Ratcliffe seemed to find that enormously funny, then he had leaned over the table and whispered in Mike’s ear: ‘There’ll be a new American President by this evening.’
With that, he winked hugely and left.