Doctor Who_ Bad Therapy - Matthew Jones [30]
‘Do you know the password?’
Patsy raised her eyebrows. ‘Don’t be silly, of course I don’t know the password. I’ve got a message from Mother. Now let me in.’
The door opened and a young, nervous-looking man ushered them inside.
‘Why didn’t you say that Mother sent you? The Major’s upstairs. Come on up.’
Chris followed them up to a room on the first floor, negotiating several young men in white military uniforms who lay passed out on the stairs. Show tunes played softly from a gramophone which perched perilously on a lone dining chair. Chris guessed that there were at least thirty men crowded into the small room. Patsy was the only female guest. A few of the customers danced slowly in each other’s arms, silhouetted in the pale amber light which leaked through the thin curtains from a street lamp outside the single window.
Other men stood in small groups chatting quietly, laughing and drinking ale from small bottles.
Patsy introduced Chris to the Major. He was sitting by a small kitchen hatch, through which the nervous man who had admitted them was now serving drinks. The Major was in his early sixties, with watery blue eyes and grey, wispy hair. He took a sip from his bottle of ale and raised it in warm welcome.
The Major murmured ‘Bad show, bad show’ as Chris relayed Tilda’s message. ‘We’d better batten down the hatches, tuck ourselves in for the night.’
He rubbed at a small scar on his forehead. ‘I don’t want any more trouble from the Scraton brothers. Funny, I thought we were free of them since old Albert died. I’ll pass the word around. Make sure that no one leaves on their own.’
He left Patsy and Chris together as he wandered through the dancers, stopping briefly at each of the little groupings to warn them of the threat. Chris watched the old man as he moved gently through the crowd – he looked like the host of a diplomatic function. Chris was surprised and a little amused that such a respectable man should be running an illegal drinking den. He turned and realized that Patsy had been watching him with those large almond-shaped eyes of hers.
‘He’s a sweet old thing, the Major,’ she purred. ‘If he wasn’t they wouldn’t dare come. It’s his respectability which makes his punters feel less insecure about drinking here.’
‘Is it really so dangerous?’
Patsy didn’t get to answer the question. She was interrupted by the sound of breaking glass. Chris glimpsed a small object as it hurtled across the room to strike the far wall with a heavy thud. There were a few yells of panic, and chairs were overturned as the men hurried away from the broken window.
The curtain billowed out in the cold night breeze, like a sail. Someone turned 50
off the gramophone, dragging the needle across the record as they did so, bringing the party to an end with an unpleasant and loud scratch. The room fell into an uneasy silence.
‘It’s only a brick,’ the Major called, trying to sound reassuring and failing.
Chris was already sidling up to the window, his back to the wall, peering through the gap in the moving curtains. His hand automatically reached for his shoulder holster before he remembered that he wasn’t armed, that he didn’t carry a gun any more. Grimacing, he wondered if he was always going to behave like a police officer.
Peering out into the night, Chris was aware of movement in the shadows at the base of the building. There were two, perhaps three figures – although without nightglasses he couldn’t be sure. He wondered what they would try next. That they hadn’t fled immediately after the attack was not a good sign.
A light flared in the darkness of the street. Chris glimpsed the milk bottle a second before it was thrown.
‘Get down!’
he shouted, diving on to the floor as the Molotov cocktail smashed against the windowsill. Broken glass and burning petrol were sprayed across the men in the tiny club. The clothes of those nearest the window were doused in the hot liquid. Panic spread through the crowd faster than the fire. Men screamed as they frantically tried to pat out the flames which