Doctor Who_ Bad Therapy - Matthew Jones [51]
His jealous love is suffocating me.”
‘I haven’t finished working on the next section yet. But I’m fairly sure that Petruska plotted to. . . escape from Moriah. I think she enlisted her bodyguard’s help in her plan, but I’m not sure.’
‘How sure are you of any of this? Since I was a boy I have been taught about Moriah, the man-god. An honourable and powerful warrior who killed his queen for her infidelity and fled Kr’on Tep in his grief. Are you certain that all those historians have it wrong?’
Pretty damn uncertain, Gilliam told herself, but she said, ‘I’m working on my own, and I’ve only been working on this for a day, but. . . yeah, I’m pretty sure.’
The king clambered noisily to his feet. Gilliam took a deep breath. If there was going to be a row it was going to happen now.
However, the king merely turned to her and nodded. ‘What you’re doing is important. We need to know where we come from. How else can we know the direction of our lives?’
He pulled her to her feet, and stroked her cheek with the back of his thick fingers. She noticed for the first time that there were flecks of grey in his beard.
‘When your work is over,’ he said, ‘you will come back to me, won’t you, my queen?’
She smiled and pulled him into her arms, burying her face in his beard.
She’d forgotten that he was still in love with her.
‘Of course, I’ll come back,’ she reassured him. Although, in her own mind, she really wasn’t sure.
85
6
You’ve Never Had It So Bad
Harris couldn’t take his eyes off the Doctor’s. . . off what remained of the Doctor’s arm. The surface of the cab around the Doctor’s forearm glistened, like wet tar. Harris felt sick. At the moment it appeared to be content just to pin him down, but, like a cat toying with a bird, at any moment it might swallow the little man whole.
‘Now is not the time to keep quiet about any bright ideas you may have.’
The Doctor stole another glance at his arm, and then looked away, grimacing.
Harris was reminded of a patient unable to watch as a nurse took a blood sample.
The cab slurped once, and gulped down another few inches of the Doctor’s arm.
The colour drained from the Doctor’s face. ‘Ooh, that tickles,’ he murmured.
Harris steeled himself. ‘What should I do?’
The Doctor grimaced. ‘Nothing hasty. I can’t move my arm at all. It feels as if it’s stuck in concrete. It’s going numb. Try pulling my other arm.’ He spoke out of the side of his mouth, as if he were a family doctor and the cab a patient with whom he didn’t want to share a bad diagnosis.
Harris moved slowly around to the other side of the Doctor. He took hold of the Doctor’s arm. It felt wiry and muscular through the fabric of his jacket.
Tougher than he looks, Harris thought.
Without any leverage, it was hard to put all his weight into pulling the Doctor out. He heaved, leaning away from the Doctor.
‘No good.’ The Doctor shook his head.
Harris jumped slightly when he felt Jack slip his arms around his waist and tighten his grip. If Bridie could see him now. . .
Together they pulled again. Harris felt something give. At first he thought that the cab had released the Doctor’s arm. Instead the strange vehicle had released whatever it used for brakes, and was simply allowing them to drag it along the road behind them. It was impossibly light, not like a real car at all. They must have cut an absurd picture: the three of them pulling the large vehicle effortlessly along the road.
‘I suspect a rethink may be in order,’ the Doctor commented. ‘This isn’t 87
getting us very far at all.’
Harris grunted and let go of the Doctor’s arm. He was relieved when Jack removed his arms from around his middle.
The Doctor yelped and hurried past them. It took Harris a second to work out what was happening. Despite them all having stopped when they realized that they weren’t going to be able to free the Doctor’s arm simply by pulling, the cab hadn’t stopped with them. Instead it had continued to crawl forward, eagerly swallowing the Doctor’s arm