Doctor Who_ Beyond the Sun - Matthew Jones [11]
‘Although it must be said that on the whole they’re an odd bunch,’ Bernice murmured when they were out of earshot.
‘You’re telling me.’ Tameka turned her attention to her muddied clothes. Most of the mud was gone now, leaving a wet greasy stain behind. She sighed. The slimy grey mud had already ruined half of her wardrobe since she’d arrived on the planet.
‘Well, if you’d listened to me and worn your cagoule . . .’ Bernice raised an eyebrow and indicated the little Day-Glo yellow parcel which sat discarded and still in its wrapper.
‘Oh don’t start!’ Bernice was going to make a prize-winning mother one day.
Bernice glanced at her own waterproof, which was a vibrant shade of lilac. ‘I think they’re rather fetching. I did ask, but they don’t do them in black.’
‘You’re such a comedian.’
Bernice sighed and adopted a singsong voice. ‘And anyway kids, it’s what’s on the inside that
. . .’ she started, and then her voice trailed away. She was looking past Tameka, her eyes widening in horror. She cursed, using one of her ancient expletives that Tameka always found rather endearing, and then began to struggle out of her cagoule. ‘I don’t bloody believe it,’ she hissed.
Tameka was shocked by the sudden transformation in her professor. Bernice’s casual confidence had vanished and she looked worried and nervous. Edgy. Tameka thought all of this in the tiny moment before she spun around, eager to see what or who could have such an effect on her tutor.
The enormous ancient Chelonian site had been divided up into rectangular digs, each marked off with coloured line and flags. A figure was approaching along one of the muddy trenches between two digs. He was tall and loped a little as he walked. He wore a heavy dark overcoat with the collar turned against the rain. The bottom of the coat was splashed with mud. Tameka failed to find anything remarkable or threatening about him at all. Nothing that might have created such a reaction in Bernice. His hair was an unremarkable dirty blond and he was unshaven. He was attractive in a traditional sort of way. Laddish. Not her sort of bloke at all. Well, she thought, grinning to herself, he wasn’t purple to start with.
This man was frowning against the weather, and was clearly looking for someone. He stopped and asked a couple of cagouled diggers who were dragging a wheelbarrow of soil towards a spoil heap. In their baggy pink and orange outfits the diggers looked like giant jelly babies. One of them pointed over towards the St Oscar’s site and then they continued to drag the wheelbarrow along the narrow path.
‘Bugger!’ Bernice exclaimed again, as the man headed towards them.
Tameka stared in astonishment at her tutor. Bernice had climbed out of her cagoule and was tucking her denim shirt into her combat trousers. ‘Trouble?’ Tameka asked.
‘Big trouble,’ Bernice growled.
Tameka had never seen Bernice so rattled. ‘Who is he?’ The man had seen them now and was hurrying over, waving a little selfconsciously. Tameka looked around for something to hit him with. The best she could come up with was a muddy trowel.
‘Should I run and get someone?’ Emile piped up, fearfully.
‘Like who?’ Tameka snapped. There weren’t any security guards or police at the site. Tameka knew that the tutors and professors kept an eye on the more raucous students, taking it in turns to drink in the bars where the trouble occasionally erupted. She turned to Bernice. ‘Is he dangerous?’
‘Dangerous?’ Bernice asked herself rhetorically as the man approached.
He came to an awkward stop at the lip of the dig. She looked up at him, squinting against the greasy rain. ‘Is he dangerous?’ she repeated, this time for the man’s benefit. She made a show of considering this. ‘You could say that, Tameka.’
‘Hello, Benny,’ the man ventured. There was a cautious tone in his voice.
Benny? Tameka had never heard Bernice called this before.
Bernice ignored the man and turned to Tameka. ‘This is Jason Kane. As in Kane-Summerfield.
He’s my husband. That is my ex-husband.’
This was the last thing Tameka had been expecting to