Doctor Who_ Atom Bomb Blues - Andrew Cartmel [42]
‘It’s the last place anyone will think of looking for us.’
‘Except for me, man, except for me,’ said Ray. He came in from the bathroom, followed by the liquid echoing roar of a flushing toilet. He went to the record player and embarked on the endless ritual of changing the cactus needle in the tone arm. Ace was beginning to see why he was so paranoid about running out of the damned things. ‘Now that the kitten’s awake, us cats can listen to some music.’
‘Tell me, Ray,’ said the Doctor. ‘Did you know that Rosalita was going to be there by the pond today?’
‘Yeah, sure I did. We made an arrangement. So I could pick up my Lady Silk record.’
‘But you didn’t know it was her who was shooting us?’
‘Not until you told me, man. I just knew someone was shooting in my general direction and I got the hell out of it. I’m no war hero, daddy-o. Not on the battlefield, with bullets flying past me and stuff. I’m doing my bit here.
With my physics.’
The Doctor smiled at Ace. ‘Yes, while you were asleep Ray and I have been having quite an interesting discussion about physics.’
74
‘Yeah man, your Doctor friend here is pretty fast about grasping concepts.
Man, he’s switched on. Hip. All I had to do was sketch an equation and he’d get what I was getting at, like right way.’
‘Yes, well I’m glad I was unconscious during all that,’ said Ace.
‘So what you’re saying,’ said the Doctor, turning to Ray and adopting a gently persistent tone of voice, ‘is that you were going to the pond to deliberately rendezvous with Rosalita.’
‘Yeah man. I needed to get that disc. The record, Daddy-o. The song that old Butcher had impounded. Luckily Rosie brought in a few spare copies.’
‘Were you the only recipient of these discs here on the Hill, or was she also distributing them to a number of other people?’
‘No idea, man. No idea.’ Ray put on a record and turned it up loud. The Doctor went over and turned it down again. Ray gave him a reproachful look but said nothing. Over the years he must have grown accustomed to people wanting to turn his music down.
‘And the presence of your friend Private Dobbs –’
‘Old Dobbsy man.’
‘His presence there at the pond with your latest shipment of cactus needles, that was all purely fortuitous.’
‘Eh?’
‘It was coincidental.’
‘No, no, no man. I knew I had to meet Rosie with the platter at the pond so I arranged to also meet Dobbsy there with the cactus needles. Two birds with one stone, baby. Two birds with one stone.’
‘And you had no idea that Rosalita was going to pull a gun and start shooting at us?’ said Ace.
‘No man, I told you before. This is like listening to a stuck record.’
‘Speaking of records,’ said Ace.
‘I’ll turn this one up, baby.’
‘That’s not what I was going to say. I was going to say, what happened to the Lady Silk record? The Doctor found it before Barker did and he gave it to me to look after.’ She looked at the Doctor. ‘What did you do with it?’
‘I gave it to Ray.’
‘You did what?’ said Ace.
‘Now if you’ll excuse me,’ said the Doctor, ‘there is something I must do.’
‘You’re not leaving me here with him,’ said Ace. ‘He’s a spy.’
‘I’m no spy, man,’ said Ray, suddenly downcast.
The Doctor paused on his way out of the room, looking back at Ace sitting there. ‘I suppose you could come with me.’
‘Yes please.’
‘But only if you feel well enough.’
75
Ace lurched up from the chair. She felt a trifle woozy, but otherwise all right. ‘Anything is better than staying around here with him.’
‘Sticks and stones, man, sticks and stones,’ said Ray, resuming the Sisyphean task of changing needles on his record player.
The night air was warm and balmy but it helped clear Ace’s head. She said,
‘How could you, Doctor?’
‘How could I what?’
‘Give him that record. It’s something the enemy was trying to smuggle to him, and you let it get through.’
‘Well,’ said the Doctor. ‘In a sense you could say that Rosalita died trying to get that record to him. You could say that I was merely honouring her last wish.’
‘Trust me, those are two things that I’m not going to be saying any time