Doctor Who_ Atom Bomb Blues - Andrew Cartmel [1]
‘I don’t think so,’ said Butcher. He sounded impatient, annoyed. ‘I don’t think there’s anything like that between the two of them.’
Henbest snorted. ‘What would you know about it? Stick to your own line of work, the oxymoronic military intelligence. I’m the expert on the human psyche here.’ At this, Butcher fell menacingly silent for a moment. Finally he said, ‘This afternoon somebody took a shot at me.’
‘I know, and I’m trying to help you find out why.’
‘Then stop wasting time. The girl could wake up any minute.’
1
‘Nonsense. With the injection I gave her she’ll be semiconscious and, ah, pliable to suggestion for at least another hour or so.’ He turned to the girl on the sofa. ‘Tell me, Acacia. . . ’
‘Call me Ace,’ said the girl, her eyes shut, her voice matter-of-fact.
‘Very well, Ace.’
‘Ask her how long she’s known Ray Morita.’
Henbest frowned at Butcher’s interruption but he repeated the question to Ace. ‘Cosmic Ray?’ she said. ‘I never heard of him before I got here.’ Butcher cursed under his breath. He turned away and stared out the window, towards the pond and the trees that fringed it. His face was taut with anger.
‘Well then, tell us about the Doctor,’ said Henbest. ‘Tell us precisely who he is.’
‘You’d never believe me,’ said the girl in the trance.
Butcher came back from the window and sat down beside Henbest. ‘I thought you said she’d answer our questions?’
‘To the best of her ability,’ said the psychiatrist.
‘She’s being evasive.’
‘Not deliberately and not by her own lights. She is really trying to answer our questions as best she can. She means it when she says we wouldn’t believe her.’
‘I need to find out about this Doctor bird,’ said Butcher impatiently. ‘I need to know about his background. Where he comes from.’
Henbest leaned over towards the girl on the sofa. ‘Where does the Doctor come from?’
‘Now, that’s a question,’ said the girl. ‘There’s some people who think they know, but I think they haven’t got the first clue.’
‘How about you?’ Henbest grinned slyly. ‘Surely you have the first clue.
Surely you know him better than they do. You must know where he comes from.’ The pronoun was almost obscene in his mouth.
‘No, but at least I know enough to know I haven’t got the first clue.’ A smile played around the girl’s lips. ‘Which puts me one up on you.’
‘She’s right.’ Butcher lit a cigarette. ‘We’re getting nowhere,’ he exhaled smoke. The girl’s nose wrinkled.
‘She doesn’t like the tobacco. You’d better put that out, old man,’ said Henbest cheerfully. Butcher flashed him a poisonous look and reluctantly stubbed out the cigarette in a heavy, green glass ashtray in the shape of a toad that squatted, gleaming and polished, on the professor’s desk.
Henbest turned back to the girl. ‘If you won’t tell us where the Doctor comes from, perhaps you can tell us where he’s been.’
The girl chuckled, a pleasant throaty sound. ‘It would be easier to tell you where he hasn’t been.
2
‘You mean he’s been everywhere.’
‘Pretty much.’
‘And you travel with him.’
‘Like I said,’ said the girl, ‘for the last few years.’
‘So where have you been lately, with the Doctor?’
Butcher butted in. ‘What was the last place they visited before the came here? Before they came to America.’ Henbest frowned at him, but he repeated the question to the girl.
‘The last place we visited?’ she said promptly. The fishing station at Two Moons.’
Butcher glanced at Henbest. ‘Where the hell is that?’ he said. ‘Alaska?
British Columbia? Sounds like an Indian name.’ Henbest ignored him. He leaned closer to the girl.
‘Tell us about the Two Moons fishing station.’
‘Well, it stank of fish,’ said the girl.
‘Now,’ said Butcher ironically, ‘we’re really making progress.’
‘Smelled like fish?’ murmured Henbest. He eagerly plucked the mechanical pencil from a pocket of his mustard-coloured jacket and resumed scribbling on the yellow pad, his thin, hairy hand scurrying busily. ‘Go on,’ he said.
‘Describe the place.’
‘It was set in some beautiful countryside,’ said Ace. ‘Mountains and forest.’
‘Tell me more.’
‘All