Doctor Who_ Cat's Cradle_ Warhead - Andrew Cartmel [71]
It took Ace a while to get used to the transmission and the brakes felt a little spongy. When the rain started she had a struggle to operate the wipers. But she soon got the hang of the car and she was even beginning to enjoy herself by the time they were nearing the house.
They passed the street sign that said ALLEN ROAD and Ace saw that someone had dabbed white paint on to the second L so that it read ALIEN ROAD. She sighed.
‘Do you think somebody knows something?’
The Doctor didn’t say anything.
They turned left into the gate and up the long gravel driveway. At the first big curve in the drive Ace had to slam the A35 over hard to the left as a white Transit van came storming past, travelling in the opposite direction, water spraying up from its tyres as it coasted through puddles. Ace was still swearing as they came out of the final curve of driveway and she braked outside the house.
* * *
Justine heard both the vehicles, first the van and then the car. By the time the van stopped she was turning and running across the cold basement floor, squirming out of the window, cutting herself on the broken glass. By the time the van was gone and the car had arrived she was past the tall Victorian greenhouse, running across the wet grass of the garden and into the fringe of woodland a hundred yards away from the old house. She stood under the dripping branches and watched.
* * *
Ace parked the Austin in the big garage between the Volvo estate and the Saab 96. There was just enough room to get the door open and ease herself out past the Volvo and then the Kharman Ghia. The old stables had been a large building but the cars crowded it. Ace moved through the darkness, between the Kharman Ghia and the workbench. Warm wood creaked around her in the shadows. The scent of petrol made her think of summer and lawnmowers. The Doctor was already out of the car and going into the house. Ace followed him.
There were milk bottles on the steps and a dozen newspapers. ‘You forgot to cancel the Mirror,’ said Ace, but the Doctor wasn’t listening. She followed him into the living room and stopped dead.
There, standing in the centre of the Persian carpet, was the grey plastic barrel.
‘How the hell did that get here?’
‘That white van you saw –’
‘Yeah, I worked that out,’ said Ace. She went up to the barrel and stood beside the Doctor. He was smiling. That wasn’t always necessarily a good sign.
The surface of the barrel was speckled with moisture. Ace wiped a portion of the surface clean. ‘But how did you get it through customs so quickly?’
‘Diplomatic seals are handy things,’ said the Doctor. He circled the barrel, moving quickly on his neat little dancer’s feet, unclipping a panel on the smooth plastic side of the barrel. It was like a small door with a compartment inside but fitted so neatly, flush with the barrel’s surface, that Ace hadn’t known it was there. Inside was a small packet of metal and plastic tools. The Doctor plucked the pack out. He emptied it on to a cushion of the big sofa and discarded all the tools except one, a thin bar of metal curved at one end and sharpened at the other. He used the curved end to prise up the lid of the barrel.
The thick plastic lid came free with a fat wet popping sound.
Ace looked away, looking at the peeling wallpaper of the living room, the mottled ceiling plaster, down at the floor. She studied the carpet. It was just like one of Miss David’s. Ace rubbed the toe of her shoe against it. Part of her mind registered one of the designs on the nap, rubbed thin by a century of wear. The shape had seemed just an abstract pattern to her before. She had sat in this room on long summer afternoons, watching the dust float sleepily in the air as the sunlight crossed the floor, patiently fading the carpet. Now she could make out the rotor blades and distinctive balance fins of an Odin gunship. Ace sighed and looked into the mouth of the barrel. There was nothing to see. A taut membrane of black film sealed it shut.
The Doctor reversed the small tool and used the sharp end to rip