Doctor Who_ Cats Cradle_ Witch Mark - Andrew Hunt [32]
'As far away from this as possible,' Jack wanted to say, but David had already broken in with, 'I think we might be sticking around for a couple of days. Maybe in the pub in Llanfer, maybe I'll pitch our tents in a field.'
'Right, fine. Well, I'll be getting along now. Remember, not a word to anyone.' He picked up his bike and walked off up the stream. When he was out of sight, Jack turned to David and asked him what the hell he thought he was doing.
'Look, Jack, there's something going on here. I don't believe this stuff about government research and neither did that policeman.'
'How could he just walk away from this like that,' Jack asked, 'I mean, how could he?'
'I think we should too. There's nothing we can do for him now. I think we should get down to the village, cash a couple of traveller's cheques and stay the night in the pub. Tomorrow morning we can raise hell about this.'
'But shouldn't we do something about the ... the body?' Jack protested.
'Like I said, there's nothing we can do for him. I've got photos so we've got some evidence. I tell you, somebody's going to pay for this. '
Hugh and Janet were both shaken by their experience and sat in silence at the table, clutching their mugs tightly. Ace and the Doctor stood in a corner of the kitchen and talked quietly to each other. After the animal had loped off into the distance, carrying the dead sheep easily between its jaws, they had huddled into the house and the Doctor had made a pot of tea.
'Professor?' Ace asked. He didn't say anything, so she carried on. 'It wasn't a dog on the loose, was it?'
'No, Ace.'
'It wasn't just an Alsatian, was it?'
'Quite right, Ace.'
'It was a wolf, wasn't it?'
'Canis lupus, commonly known as the grey or timber wolf? No, not that either. A much older relative I should say. Definitely wolfish, though.'
Hugh looked up from the table, 'But that's ridiculous, Doctor, there aren't any wolves in Wales.'
'Then there are some very solid hallucinations around. I'll go out and bring in the rest of the sheep for you, Hugh. And then, Ace, I think bed might be in order. We may have a lot to do tomorrow. '
3:
Missing Persons
Stevens shifted uncomfortably, moving his mass from one side of the seat to the other. He blearily opened his eyes and gazed for a moment at the cream-coloured roof of his car before making another determined effort to sleep. Unfortunately he had a natural aversion to sleeping anywhere but in a bed.
He still wasn't quite sure why he'd decided to spend the night in a lay by in Wales. If he'd set off a few hours later, he could have arrived fresh and alert.
His arm was rapidly deadening where it was pressed against the door and Stevens at last gave up his charade. He switched on the light and reached across to the glove compartment where a thick book had been wedged with no regard to the effect this would have on its pages. He leafed through it idly, wondering what point he had stopped at when he had last been forced to resort to reading it. He had picked it up in a motorway service station after discovering that it had been penned by an MP under pseudonym. It contained little of interest; even the so-called ‘erotic scenes' billed on the cover took up only a single page very early on. The tabloids had made a big thing of the whole affair, printing extracts in italics with the occasional word highlighted in capitals, but Stevens had been disappointed to discover that they all heralded from page 63 and the rest of the book was occupied with a rather tame and predictable love story . He propped open the book on the steering wheel, tore off a page corner to chew, and made another effort to read it. He fell asleep.
The rising sun finally woke him and, after retrieving the book from where it had fallen, he started the car and set off down into Gwydyr. One hand on the wheel, he searched the radio for something to listen to, but the only signal that came