Doctor Who_ Blue Box - Kate Orman [33]
Individually, the messages give away very little; she wasn’t careless. But when you have the complete set, there’s information which I believe can lead us to the final component.’
We finished up breakfast. (The Doctor paid in cash; no sense leaving a credit card trail behind us.) Outside the womb of the cafe it was a crisp, quiet Boxing Day. Growing up in Canberra, I’d seen snow fall just once – wet flakes that disintegrated as they touched the front lawn. If we wanted to go tobogganing, we had to drive up into the mountains. I still love what snow does to the air, making it dry and cold, smelling of clean water. Besides, Washington was built on a swamp, and winter there beats the hell out of summer.
‘Ah, Peri,’ said the Doctor, putting a hand on her shoulder.
‘I have a mission for you.’ She brightened up a little. ‘Would you take Bob’s car to the, airport and leave it there? Rent another, and drive it back to the motel.’
‘I think I can handle that.’
‘Hmmm.’ He didn’t seem to notice her sour expression.
‘Take Mr Peters with you.’
Peri glanced at me as I flicked my Bic. I couldn’t read her face, but she didn’t look too happy about her passenger. Bob didn’t look exactly ecstatic either at the prospect of losing his wheels. ‘Don’t worry,’ Peri tried to reassure him. ‘We can leave it in the long-term parking lot – it should be safe. I guess it’ll throw off anyone trying to find us, too.’
‘Lemme get some of my stuff out of the trunk first.’
Moments later, Bob was babbling excitedly to the Doctor as they jumped into a taxi, already plotting their next move.
Peri and I looked at one another over the roof of Bob’s car.
‘Can you drive?’
‘Of course I can drive. Even if you Yanks insist on using the wrong side of the road.’
‘No,’ she said, ‘I meant, could you drive to the airport?
I’m kind of out of practice.’
‘Oh. Sure.’
We wove over slushy roads through morning traffic. ‘Seems like the boys are leaving you out,’ I commented, watching Peri out of the corner of my eye. She had put the passenger seat back a little and stretched her legs out. ‘Forgetting about you while they play with their computers.’
‘Oh, this is pretty standard,’ said Peri, bitterly ‘The Doctor always knows more than I do about everything. He’s a lot older than I am. He’s travelled a lot more. He’s even finished college. You should hear him lecture me on how there’s so much I could learn from him! Could learn, if he ever bothered to tell me anything!’
‘Seems like being the Doctor’s sidekick is hard work,’ I said.
‘It sure is, sometimes. Sometimes it’s great. You get to see things nobody else has ever seen.’
Peri seemed happy to have someone to talk to – though from time to time I noticed her catching herself before giving too much away. She didn’t let it turn into a one-way interview: she wanted to know all about my American dad, why I’d decided to come back to the States when I grew up. ‘I’ve had some bad fights with my stepdad,’ she admitted. ‘But we still talk. We’re still friends. I guess I’m lucky’
At the airport we tried to call the motel, just to check on the Doctor and Bob, but the phone line was busy. ‘Figures,’
said Peri.
‘Guess I should call my dad anyway’ I said. ‘Wish him merry Christmas and that.’
Peri looked stricken. ‘It must be tough being away from your folks like this.’
‘No... no, actually, it’s OK. They won’t be worrying about me. You go ahead and make that call.’
‘See you at the newsagent in a few minutes.’
As soon as Peri was out of earshot, I called Mondy’s beeper. It never failed: a few minutes later, he called the other end of the looparound pair we always used.
No sense in wasting time. ‘Did you talk to Swan?’
‘Ah, shoot,’ said Mondy. ‘like I had a big fat choice.’
‘You little bugger,’ I hissed.
‘You know what she did?’
‘I shudder to think.’
‘She put everything back the way it was, Chick. My credit rating. My record. My phones, mazel tov. I have my life back.
Wasn’t that worth a teensy weensy bit of data?’
‘Yeah, well, you chucked me in the deep end, mate.’
‘Look, Swan doesn’t have enough