Doctor Who_ Bad Therapy - Matthew Jones [7]
The Doctor made his way through the side streets of Soho, using his extensive knowledge of the city to take a quiet short-cut back to where the TARDIS
stood, waiting patiently for him. He didn’t want to walk amongst the crowds tonight, didn’t want to be surrounded by the human creatures who populated this tiny world. Despite his fascination with them, tonight they seemed too fragile and he too clumsy to be in their company. For once, he wasn’t on the lookout for adventure, didn’t want to get caught up in someone else’s problems, or help the vulnerable fight back against tyranny and cruelty. Tonight this little blue-green planet would just have to look out for itself.
He stopped outside the TARDIS and rummaged in the pockets of his tweed jacket for the key and fiddled with the odd-looking instrument between his fingers. Well, tonight he would let himself rest. He’d tinker with the TARDIS
systems or perhaps just sit by the fire in the library and read. He was relieved that Chris seemed to have made a new friend. He smiled to himself – even if he 10
had taken a little persuading. That young man could use a few distractions.
He could benefit from being reminded that although Roslyn Forrester was dead, he, himself, was still alive.
As the Doctor slipped the key into the lock of the police box door, he heard a low moan from somewhere near his feet. He froze – the key half in the lock.
In the long shadow of the alley wall lay the body of a young man. His clothes were drenched from the rain and his blond hair was plastered to his head in short rat-tails. A dark puddle spilt out from beneath his blue-white face. Air bubbled up through the blood which frothed in the corners of his mouth.
The Doctor stared at the boy for a long moment before looking up at the sliver of night visible above the alley. ‘Couldn’t you try and get along without me, just once?’ he whispered. ‘Just for tonight? Just for a little time?’
And then putting such indulgent thoughts away in a battered box somewhere deep in his mind, the Doctor tucked the TARDIS key back into one of his many pockets and began to tend to the boy’s wounds.
11
2
Used To Be A Sweet Boy
‘Let me get this straight in my head, sir. Are you saying that you don’t know at what time the young man was admitted to the hospital?’
‘He wasn’t actually admitted at all. We found the patient in one of the cubicles in casualty being tended by. . . well, by someone unknown to the hospital.’
Chief Inspector Harris frowned. ‘I see. And what did this man look like?’
‘I don’t know,’ the young doctor replied. ‘I wasn’t down there then. Sister ought to know, I think she was the one who discovered him.’
Chief Inspector Harris turned to his sergeant. ‘Track down the sister and bring her up here, would you, Bridie?’
His young Irish sergeant nodded eagerly and, clutching his notebook in his hand, left the staffroom which Harris had commandeered for the investigation. Harris felt little cheered by this display of enthusiasm. He turned back to the junior doctor whose name he’d forgotten.
‘So, a person unknown enters your hospital this evening in the company of a severely injured young man, uses the hospital’s facilities without any nurse or doctor knowing anything about it, and then disappears into thin air immediately after being discovered. I’d say that you’ve got a bit of a security problem here, wouldn’t you?’
Harris didn’t wait for an answer from the harassed-looking young man in front of him. Poor bugger probably hadn’t slept in a week. Harris dismissed him after asking him to call the station if he remembered anything else.
Alone in the staffroom, Harris exhaled and wandered over to the window which looked out upon Cleveland Street. The investigation was undoubtedly the most important of the year, certainly the most important that he had ever worked upon, and the evidence was fast disappearing into the air.
Sergeant Bridie returned accompanied by a distressed-looking nurse. Sister Martin clutched a