Doctor Who_ Bad Therapy - Matthew Jones [18]
The blackmailer narrowed his eyes. ‘That’s none of your business.’
‘Oh, everything is my business,’ the Doctor scoffed. ‘You’re letting him off because you know something. You know something about the other boy in the photograph. I’m right, aren’t I?’
The Doctor took a step forward and the old man nervously scuttled to the door. ‘You knew before you came here that something had happened or was going to happen to the boy in the picture.’
The old man slipped a hand around the door handle, preparing to leave.
‘Who are you?’ Beads of sweat appeared on his wrinkled brow. ‘How can you know all this?’
‘I’m the Doctor,’ he thundered. ‘And the answers to my questions are written in the fear on your face. You can give your employers a message. You can tell them that they are in trouble. You can tell them that they should expect a visit from me.’
With no answer to give to this, the old man just snarled a threat at the Doctor and left.
Closing the door after him, the Doctor’s mood changed dramatically. The darkness left his eyes and, suddenly filled with energy, he ran over to the bed and started to refill his pockets. ‘Right, that will have put the wind up him.
We’d better follow him to their lair while the trail’s still hot.’
When Jack didn’t answer him, the Doctor turned to find the boy staring at him.
‘He’s dead, isn’t he?’ Jack said quietly. ‘Eddy’s dead.’
For a moment there was silence.
‘Eddy. I didn’t know his name.’ The Doctor looked away for a moment, and then met Jack’s gaze and nodded. ‘Yes, I’m afraid he is dead. He was murdered earlier this evening. He was dying when I found him. I tried to save him but I. . . couldn’t.’
Jack sat down heavily on his bed and buried his face in his hands.
The Doctor could only stare down as the teenager was gripped by the first spasm of grief.
‘Bugger off! It’s members only!’
The indignant voice from the first floor of the building was quickly followed by three football supporters who hurried down the iron staircase, forcing Christopher Cwej to stand to one side to let them pass by on the narrow stairwell.
‘Bitch!’ One of the men spat venomously, but not loudly enough for the woman upstairs to hear. Chris watched them go, before gripping the rail and 30
continuing on his way up. He hoped that the proprietor remembered making her invitation.
The Tropics was on the first floor of a shabby town house on Dean Street –
one of the short roads which connected Soho to the main streets of London’s West End. It had taken Chris a little while to find the place; the Tropics didn’t advertise its presence and few of the houses on the street displayed their numbers. It was only by a process of elimination that Chris had finally located the club. The name had suggested something rather grand and colonial, but this was belied by the filthy, fire escape, surrounded by dustbins which had disgorged their sodden contents over the ground.
‘Christopher, deah,’ Tilda announced, as she caught sight of him. ‘Drag that fabulous body of yours in here this instant. I have an undeniable urge to grab hold of a piece of it.’
Chris couldn’t help grinning boyishly. He pulled off the trilby that the Doctor had selected for him from the TARDIS stores and entered the Tropics. Tilda was perched on a corner stool next to the door, smoking a filterless cigarette.
She reached up and pulled him towards her, kissing him lightly on either side of his face.
‘Welcome to the Tropics. Welcome to my domain. You are in for a treat, I’m really most particular about who I let through that door.’
‘I met three who didn’t make it on the stairs.’
Tilda took a long drag on her cigarette and blew out a steady stream of blue smoke. ‘Ergh, barbarians!’ She leant closely to him and whispered conspira-torially, ‘I have a suspicion that they thought this was a brothel. I mean, do I look like a working girl?’
Chris didn’t understand the reference, and worried that he might make a faux pas, decided to say nothing.
Tilda narrowed her eyes. ‘The correct answer, little Miss Cwej, is, “No”.
Now go and get yourself a drink from