Doctor Who_ Camera Obscura - Lloyd Rose [28]
‘Well,’ said Scale at her elbow, making her jump. ‘Not very exciting today, I’m afraid.’
‘Is it ever?’ said Fitz.
‘Oh, yes. You get people walking about. Hunters sometimes.’
‘So you never know what you’ll be showing?’ said Anji.
‘Of course I know,’ he said angrily. ‘I’m a professional, I am. It’s just that it’s changeable. Like life!’
‘Right,’ said Fitz soothingly.
‘Look!’ Scale’s tone was defensive. ‘There in the background, see that silver glint. That’s the river, that is.’
‘Very impressive,’ said Anji politely. This only seemed to irritate him further.
‘I was robbed,’ he whined. ‘A regular hall of mirrors, I had, till they was stolen from me, a poor man. The most magnificent hall of mirrors ever seen – oh, you wouldn’t be looking down your nose at them. They’d have shown you something!’ He leaned into Fitz’s face, eyes teary. ‘It’s not fair!’
‘No,’ Fitz agreed diplomatically. Anji twitched his sleeve.
‘But I know who took it.’ Scale wheezed closer. ‘I know where he is. And some day I’ll have back what’s mine!’
‘I’m sure you will.’ Fitz groped for the door.
‘Don’t go.’ Scale suddenly sounded desperate. ‘Wait a bit. You’ll soon see something better. Sometimes there’s cows.’
‘Great, lovely, thanks, but have to run.’ Fitz pulled open the door and he and Anji hurried into the light. She looked back, expecting Scale to come after them, but the entrance remained dark and empty.
‘Well,’ said Fitz. ‘That was fun.’
‘Creepy.’
‘Yeah, wasn’t he?’
‘The projection too,’ she said. ‘I mean, how did he do that? It wasn’t a film. But it was the moving image of a real landscape.’
‘Well, how’d they do that ghost thingy? They’re a lot more technical than I’d given them credit for, these Victorians. They’re such bloody bores in history class.’
‘I dare say the Doctor knows all about it. We can ask him when he comes back.’
‘Let’s go and find some supper. I’d kind’ve like to see that George fellow’s lecture.’
‘You?’ she said askance. ‘Something you can’t drink, inhale, play, dance to or –’
‘Right, nip my first fragile step towards self-improvement in the bud.’
‘Heaven forfend,’ she murmured. She supposed that she ought to go along if only to observe the first stages of bloom of this new Fitz, but she was feeling in need of a twentieth-century fix. She returned to the TARDIS. A few hours later, as the Doctor was leaving the theatre in Liverpool, she was curled up in jeans with a bowl of popcorn, halfway through some archival reruns of Absolutely Fabulous.
* * *
Chapter Six
Octave sat in his dressing room and waited for the knock at the door. The man had found him again. Of course. Had he really thought he wouldn’t? He must have come in at the last moment, because when Octave had surreptitiously surveyed the audience half an hour before curtain, there had been no sign of him. But then, later, up on the stage, when Octave had dropped one of the hoops he was supposed to be linking and unlinking, and, hot with embarrassment, stooped to retrieve it, his eyes fell on the front row, and there was the green coat, the grave, handsome face, the strange eyes...
Octave clasped his hands together hard and shut his eyes. For just an instant, he entertained the familiar, vain fantasy that when he opened them he would no longer be in another shabby, poorly lit dressing room in some seedy provincial theatre. He would be in the past.
Before.
At the knock, he jumped and stared whitely at the door. He didn’t move to answer, just watched the doorknob, dumbly. The knock came again.
‘Mr. Octave?’ said the dreaded voice.
Octave rose, and went to meet his destiny.
* * *
‘Is the manager gone?’
The Doctor thought this was an odd way to begin the conversation. Was Octave perhaps afraid he’d need protection? He did look pitifully nervous.
‘Yes he is,’ said the Doctor. ‘I’m afraid I avoided him. I badly wanted to speak to you.’
‘And