Doctor Who_ Bad Therapy - Matthew Jones [88]
‘Ye–es.’
‘Are you employed by the Middlesex Hospital?’
149
‘Not exactly.’
‘Not exactly?’
‘Not at all, actually.’
‘You see, “Doctor”, that doesn’t surprise me, particularly as you appear to hold no medical qualifications whatsoever.’
‘Not on this planet anyway.’
Bridie narrowed his eyes. ‘I really can’t decide whether you say these things just to annoy me or because you’re actually completely unhinged.’
‘Sergeant, I’ve already had to prove my sanity once this weekend,’ the Doctor said, wearily. ‘Please don’t make me have to do it all over again.’
‘Then tell me, what you are up to, Doctor? Tell me why you’ve got yourself involved in all of this?’
The Doctor fanned the sergeant’s smoke away with his hand. ‘It really is very simple. I’m just trying to help. I realize that you humans can find it hard to accept that others might act out a sense of altruism, but it’s true. I have no personal agenda in any of this.’
‘I find that very difficult to believe.’
‘Which is precisely the point I’ve just made. Well, you’re not the first, but for once it’s true. I arrived on this. . . I arrived in Soho on Friday night. I came across an injured boy lying in an alley. I took him to hospital, I tried to save him –’
‘That was you! I should have known.’
The conversation wasn’t going quite the way the Doctor had planned it.
The more he tried to explain himself the deeper he seemed to dig himself into trouble. Still, there was nothing for it now –
‘Yes, that was me. I suspected that Eddy Stone wasn’t. . . well, wasn’t. . . ’
‘Normal?’ Bridie supplied. ‘Well, it’s bloody obvious that he was a queer.’
‘No,’ the Doctor frowned, ‘that’s not it. Actually I suspected that he wasn’t human.’
Bridie burst out laughing. ‘You think he came from another planet?’
‘No, I did think that for a little while, but I was wrong. He is a native of this planet. But he’s not human that’s all. Humans are born, generally speaking, and Eddy Stone wasn’t so much as born as, well, grown.’
Bridie stubbed out his half-smoked cigarette. ‘I see,’ he said. His voice sounded calm, but something about his tone was ringing warning bells in the Doctor’s head. ‘Grown? Like a fruit perhaps?’ Bridie sneered.
The Doctor sighed at the bitter joke. This wasn’t going to be easy. ‘No, not like a fruit. Eddy Stone was an artificial person. Grown from human cells collected by the black cab. But I’m beginning to think that Moriah had underestimated his Toys.’
150
Bridie’s anger surged out of nowhere. ‘Who do you think you’re dealing with? A complete fool?’ Bridie raged. The Doctor suddenly realized that he had misjudged the sergeant’s mood entirely. The sergeant was furious with him, furious and scared. It was as if the Doctor’s presence threatened him somehow.
Bridie reached over the table and pulled the Doctor towards him by the collar of his shirt. ‘Don’t you see how much trouble you’re in?’ he shouted.
‘The way you behaved at the hospital we could probably do you for murder.
And all you can do is tell more of your stupid lies.’
‘That’s ridiculous. Why would I have taken the boy to the hospital if I was the one who attacked him?’
Bridie appeared lost for words for a moment and then started, somewhat desperately, on a new tack. ‘I saw you coming out of the Scraton brothers’ nightclub. They’re prime suspects in this investigation. You’re working for Gordy Scraton, aren’t you? You probably killed Stone at the hospital on Gordy’s orders.’
Bridie was pulling back his fist, preparing to strike the Doctor, when the interview-room door swung open and Inspector Harris ran in accompanied by two constables. He took one look at his sergeant, cursed, and then pulled him off the Doctor.
‘What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing, Bridie? They can hear you all over the station.’ Harris turned to the constables. ‘Get him out of here.’
The Doctor rubbed at his throat. ‘No. Wait,’ he rasped, hurrying around the table. Something the sergeant had said was troubling him, something about the Scratons. ‘How do you know that Gordy Scraton is involved?