Doctor Who_ Atom Bomb Blues - Andrew Cartmel [74]
‘What is it?’ said Ace as the Doctor unzipped it.
129
‘Correspondence,’ said Albert. As the Doctor opened the folder, envelopes began to spill out onto the love seat. ‘Letters from the poor fools who used to come here. Who knows, there might be something from that Lady Silk jezebel.
It might be just what you’re looking for.’
‘It might indeed,’ said the Doctor, sifting through the growing pile of envelopes. They had all been neatly slit open and were all shapes and sizes and colours. The handwriting on the envelopes, addressed to the Storrows at the Chapel, was of an equally extraordinary variety and, to Ace’s mind, looked uniformly eccentric, as if only weirdos were involved. Then suddenly she spotted a pale lilac envelope addressed with blue ink in a distinctive script.
The Doctor saw it at the same time. ‘Ah!’ he said.
‘Here’s another one,’ said Ace, rifling through the pile and plucking out another lilac envelope in Lady Silk’s distinctive handwriting.
‘Have you found something?’ enquired Elina. She sat down on a spindly chair near the love seat and Ace took note of the fact. If that enormous woman could sit on these things then Ace might as well stop worrying about damaging the furniture.
‘You bet they have,’ said Albert. ‘They’re going to apprehend a fugitive from justice and we’re going to help them.’
The Doctor had extracted Silk’s letter from inside the envelope and was thoughtfully perusing it while Ace searched for more envelopes addressed in her hand. ‘You know what else might be helpful?’ said Elina.
‘What’s that dear?’
‘Those ledgers. Those great big ledgers the Storrows keep.’
The Doctor looked up from the letter. ‘Ledgers?’
‘That’s right,’ said Albert excitedly. ‘Big huge volumes. The Storrows record details about business transactions, but also about their so-called clients. They have names, addresses, personal facts. . . ’
‘Some very personal facts,’ added Elina, her fat cherubic face turning hot and red.
‘They’re like personal histories. I suspect the Storrows have some pretty unsavoury reasons for keeping them. In fact, I bet they use them to apply leverage.’
‘Leverage?’ said the Doctor. ‘You mean blackmail?’
‘I’m afraid so,’ said Albert. He went and stood beside Elina. The woman took his tiny hand in her huge one. ‘The Missus and I didn’t know what kind of people they were when we started working here. Then by the time we found out. . . ’
‘Don’t castigate yourselves,’ said the Doctor. ‘You’re making amends now.
And I would certainly like to see those ledgers.’
‘They’re upstairs in the office. I’ll go and get them,’ said Albert.
130
‘Oh but they’re heavy,’ said Elina. ‘And they’re up on that high shelf.’
‘I’m not a child, woman.’
‘They’re much too heavy for you to reach down.’ Elina rose ponderously from her chair. ‘I’ll come up and help you.’
‘Not with your veins you won’t,’ said Albert fiercely. ‘You know what those stairs do to your legs.’
‘I’ll help,’ said Ace. She rose from the love seat, leaving the Doctor to look through the envelopes as Albert led her from the room. The carpeted staircase rose upwards from the entrance hall into the cool, shadowy, quiet space of the second floor. There was a sweet, dusty smell of dying flowers in the air.
‘This is very good of you,’ said Albert. ‘I could probably wrestle those darn ledgers down by myself, but Elina’s right. They’re awfully big.’ He reached the top step and stood aside politely to let Ace go past. They were in a narrow corridor with framed photographs on the wall on either side. The photographs were similar to the ones in the album downstairs. Glamour shots of celebrities, carefully staged studio shots with immaculate lighting. It was amusing to Ace to note how many of the sleek men and women were posed with cigarettes, as though tobacco was an essential part of their mystique.
Some of the photographs were more candid shots, taken informally indoors and outside.