Doctor Who_ Atom Bomb Blues - Andrew Cartmel [38]
The Doctor took the envelope from her. ‘Not really,’ he said. ‘In the words of Major Butcher, I know what’s inside.’
‘A record by Lady Silk,’ said Ace.
‘Yes.’
‘So Rosalita was smuggling in the records to Ray. She was the source of supply.’
‘Yes.’
Ace made a sudden connection. ‘So that day when I was in Ray’s apartment, she was the one who delivered the record to him. Which means she was also the one who took a shot at us from the balcony.’
‘Yes.’
Ace paused and looked at the Doctor accusingly. ‘You knew it was her.’
The Doctor shook his head. ‘No. I merely suspected, and only since last night.’
‘Why did you suspect her?’
But the Doctor had fallen silent. A man was hastening towards them up the dusty road, waving to them. Although he was moving quickly, even at this remove the man appeared relaxed and smug and full of himself. He was dressed 66
in a mustard-coloured three-piece suit and highly polished black brogues that were already succumbing to the dusty Los Alamos road surface. He didn’t have the demeanour of a man hurrying to them because of the shooting. And, judging from the fact that he was approaching from the opposite direction, Ace concluded that he wasn’t yet even aware of the incident up at the pond.
As the man drew closer Ace recognised him as Professor Henbest, the Hill’s psychiatrist; the man who had cornered her at the party and seemed so un-wholesomely interested in making her a subject for hypnosis.
‘I’ve been looking everywhere for you two,’ said Henbest cheerily.
‘Really?’ said the Doctor. ‘Why is that?’
‘Your psych profiles.’
‘Our what?’
‘Psych profiles. Interviews. Everyone who joins the project above a certain level has to have one. An evaluation. A psychological evaluation. You can’t work here without one. And you’re both overdue. So let me show you immediately to my rather pleasant office.’
Henbest’s office was in one of the prefabricated huts that looked like a section of giant corrugated pipe split in half lengthways then set on the ground. But, inside, the place was indeed quite pleasant. There was a window that afforded a view of the water glinting peacefully on the pond and the trees waving gently in the breeze. At this distance the scene looked peaceful, a rural idyll.
The office walls were bare metal but were hung with French impressionist masterpieces. These were reproductions, of course, but the oddments of pre-Colombian pottery that littered the office were real enough. Some of these unique small masterpieces were in active use as ashtrays.
The floors of the office were carpeted and there was a bulky wooden desk placed diagonally across it, isolating an alcove of bookshelves, a sort of miniature library area. There were two floor lamps glowing in the alcove, another one beside the desk and one each beside the modernist yellow leather sofa with brown trim and the two matching brown armchairs with yellow trim.
The armchairs looked very comfortable to Ace, who was fed up, had sore feet and generally felt like crying. She had been shot at, seen a dead rat and received a mash note from a detestable boffin all in the course of the same day.
Now she was facing a psychiatric evaluation.
But at least she was facing it in a comfortable armchair. The Doctor was sitting in the matching chair beside her. However, instead of slouching back luxuriously like Ace, he was leaning forward, tense and ready, like a grey-hound bristling to start a race. John Henbest sat behind his desk in front of 67
them and shifted restlessly back and forth on a swivel chair. He kept swivelling in the chair for a few moments before settling in comfortably and saying,
‘Prefatory to giving you your individual interviews I’d like to talk to you briefly together.’
Ace wondered if they were in for a lecture about the rapacity of venereal disease, but her speculations were interrupted by the ringing of the telephone on Henbest’s desk. He leaned forward and answered it. ‘Yes. In fact I’m –
What? What? What? My God. Really? My God. I’ll be there