Doctor Who_ Beyond the Sun - Matthew Jones [14]
He looked up and immediately had to attend to a stray strand of hair. ‘Well, what?’ he asked, all innocence, but there was hope in his eyes.
She was going to regret this. ‘I presume that you didn’t come all this way just to see how I am.
What’s this trouble that you’ve got yourself into?’
‘I thought you said – ’
‘Never mind what I said – just tell me.’
He set his knife and fork down and ran his fingers through his hair. Again. Bernice felt her stomach tense. If he did it once more she was going to be forced to throttle him.
‘I need you to look after something for me. Something precious.’
Something stolen, Bernice thought. ‘What kind of something?’
He twisted around to rummage through the pockets of his overcoat, which he’d slung over the back of his chair. ‘It’s right up your street, actually.’ He pulled out a smallish uneven package: brown paper tied up with string. He pushed it across the table towards her. Bernice lifted it cautiously, glancing at him as she turned it over in her hands. It was heavy, but not uncomfortably so, she guessed stone or maybe crystal. She cut through the string with her dinner knife, too intrigued to bother about hygiene or table manners.
The artefact was wrapped in a thick cloth. The cloth itself was covered with tiny etched symbols. If it was a written language, it wasn’t one with which Bernice was familiar. The artefact itself was a humanoid figurine, vaguely female in form, crudely sculpted from a dull, opaque crystal.
Bernice found herself feeling a little disappointed.
‘Have you seen anything like this before?’ Jason asked.
Bernice held the figurine out in front of her. ‘Yes and no. I’ve never seen this particular type of crystal before, although it doesn’t look exceptional. I suppose the figurine could be old, but equally, it might be something knocked up for tourists last week. Who knows?’
It was Jason’s turn to look deflated. ‘Oh . . . I see.’
‘You sound as if you were expecting a different answer.’
‘I’d been led to believe that it was important, that’s all.’
‘Oh dear,’ Bernice managed, trying to suppress a smile. ‘ Ching! I think Phineas T. Barnum just rang up another sale.’
He shook his head, a little impatiently. ‘No, no, I didn’t buy it. I was trying to stop it from falling into the wrong hands.’
‘The wrong hands? Do you mean the rightful owners?’ Bernice bit her lip when she saw that he had been genuinely hurt by her remark.
‘Thanks,’ he snapped, retrieving the figurine and carefully wrapping it in the paper. ‘You’re right. I did come here for your help. And, yeah, it’s trouble. And yeah, I’m in over my head. But I had thought that maybe . . . No, never mind.’ He stood up and prepared to leave. ‘I’m sorry. I made a mistake coming here. I’m just upsetting you.’
Bernice stared at him open-mouthed. ‘Who’s upset?’
He stuffed the package in one of the pockets of his heavy coat. ‘You are. You’re all tensed up and you can’t stop insulting me.’
Bernice blinked. Twice. ‘That’s not upset. That’s just . . . Any reasonable person would respond to you like that.’
‘See, you’re doing it again.’ He was infuriatingly calm.
She was about to launch into a tirade of abuse, when she realized that he might just have a point. ‘All right, I’m upset. It’s just that you disappear, I don’t hear from you in months and then when you do show up, it’s only because I’m the one person in the universe who might just possibly harbour enough good will to do you a favour. Frankly, it makes me feel a little used.’
He looked away for a moment, frowning. ‘Ouch.’
She shrugged. ‘Well, it’s the truth.’
The waiter had seen them get up, and now hurried over waving the bill in one of its three-fingered claws. ‘You’re leaving so soon. Is there a problem with the meal?’ the little grey creature began, trying to guide them back to their seats. Bernice