Doctor Who_ Bad Therapy - Matthew Jones [14]
Jack wanted to ask the Doctor how he knew his address, but the little man was caught up in an argument with the cab driver. From where Jack stood 22
it looked as if he was attempting to pay the fare with tiny faintly luminous cubes.
‘What do you mean “You can’t accept them”?’ Jack heard the Doctor exclaim. ‘I was assured they were legal tender on all the civilized planets in this Galaxy.’
The taxi driver must have tired of the argument because eventually he swore angrily at the Doctor and accelerated away, making a rude gesture out of the window as he went. The Doctor only raised his hat politely in response.
Jack couldn’t help smiling. The little man was as mad as Lady Docker.
Jack couldn’t quite remember leaving the Magpie or the journey back in the cab. He put his lapse of memory down to the beer. He wouldn’t normally have accepted the lift, except the Doctor had said he wanted to talk to him about a mutual friend. From his tone, Jack had wondered whether the Doctor meant Eddy. Jack shivered, remembering the expression on the Doctor’s face when he’d told him. He had looked awkward and embarrassed, like a policeman bringing bad news.
Having dealt with the taxi driver, the Doctor was walking over to Jack, preoccupied with putting his strange currency back into his pocket. For a moment Jack thought he saw a mischievous, self-congratulatory grin on the Doctor’s face, as if the business with the cab fare had been a scam, like the magic trick in the pub. But then car lights in the smog behind the Doctor threw him into silhouette and Jack could only see the distinctive outline made by his hat and umbrella.
Jack tensed as the light behind the Doctor grew brighter. He heard the sound of a car engine, shrill and high. The driver would have to be a maniac to drive so fast in this weather. The Doctor appeared to be oblivious to the noise and Jack started towards him just as a car hurtled out of the smog. A black cab. Heading straight for them.
Jack threw himself at the Doctor and together they crashed over the low wall that bordered Mrs Carroway’s tiny front garden, collapsing amongst the unkempt shrubs.
Jack heard rather than saw the taxi hit the kerb, bounce crazily off it and hurtle away into the night.
The Doctor was on his feet in an instant. ‘Road hog!’ he exclaimed, clearing the wall in a single leap. He shook his fist at the now empty road, before turning excitedly back to Jack.
‘Tell me,’ he spluttered, waving his hands excitedly in front of him, ‘did you notice anything strange about that vehicle?’
‘What?’ Jack rubbed a bruised knee. ‘Beside the fact that it was trying to run us down – on the pavement?’ Jack paused and thought for a moment –
there was something nagging at him. Something that wasn’t quite right. That 23
was it.
‘Do you mean that the light on top was the wrong colour?’ he asked.
The Doctor shook his head impatiently, tapping a rhythm on his lips with his fingers. ‘I was more concerned that there didn’t appear to be anyone in the driving seat. The interior was entirely opaque. And I had the distinct impression that there wasn’t anyone in that taxi at all.’
24
3
Half-A-Person
As the curtain fell for the final time that evening, the stage manager watched with mounting sadness as the star of the cabaret staggered from the stage to her dressing room.
How much longer can this go on? Jeffrey thought. The woman was visibly falling apart. Patsy Monette was a shadow of her former self. Her considerable stage presence was fading, and her full and sensuous voice had become weak and stretched since her husband’s accident earlier in the week. It was as if she were only half-a-person without him.
Jeffrey had always liked Patsy Monette and felt protective towards her. She, in turn, treated him with more respect than assistant stage managers could usually expect from the stars they serviced. She wasn’t too bright of course, but with a face as pretty as hers that