Doctor Who_ Deep Blue - Mark Morris [11]
„Come on,‟ Charlotte said with mock cheerfulness, hefting her suitcase, „let‟s see what our rooms are like.‟ She climbed to the top of the steps and stretched out her hand to the doorbell. Before she could press it, the door was yanked open.
The tall, thin-faced man in his late twenties looked almost as surprised as she must have done. He was hurrying out of the house and had to stop dead to avoid barging straight into her. They both apologised in unison, then laughed. „Are you staying here too?‟ Charlotte asked, immediately blushing and hoping she hadn‟t made it sound as if she wished that he was.
„Just for a night or two. Here on holiday?‟
She nodded. „What‟s it like?‟
The man grinned. He had a pleasant smile, easy and unselfconscious. Glancing behind him, then leaning a little closer, he murmured, „Oh, it‟s fine, just as long as you watch out for the dragon.‟
The sun had climbed to its zenith, and even though sweat rolled down Mike‟s back as he hurried along, he couldn‟t afford to take off his suede jacket because of the gun he wore strapped to his torso. The distance to the mouth of the fishing harbour was further than it had appeared. By the time he arrived at the edge of the police cordon, the crowd had grown. The majority were rubber-necking tourists, but there were also a number of locals, frustrated because they couldn‟t get to their boats.
He excused his way quietly and politely through the throng, offering a conciliatory smile and an apology when people scowled at him, not wishing to draw attention to himself. It was ironic really; the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce was a top-secret organisation, and yet the Doctor, who usually undertook such investigations for them, did nothing
but draw attention to himself. Mike imagined how different the scene would be if the Doctor and Jo Grant had been here.
The Doctor would no doubt have been elbowing his way through the crowd, Jo in tow (and she alone was enough to draw the attention of most men), proclaiming, „Do excuse me, old chap,‟ in that loud, theatrical manner of his. Then, flouting authority, he would no doubt have ducked under the police barrier without explanation, leaving Jo to root out their UNIT passes to avoid arrest.
Mike smiled to himself. The Doctor‟s showmanship and his blatant disregard for protocol used to drive the Brigadier to distraction, and sometimes still did. Still, at the end of the day, the Brig was first to admit that if the Doctor came up with the right result then a little unwanted attention was a small price to pay. In some ways, Mike thought the Doctor‟s flamboyance worked to UNIT‟s advantage. It caught people off-guard, made them take the Doctor less than seriously, which often proved to be their undoing.
He reached the barrier and leaned towards the uniformed constable standing a few feet away. „Excuse me.‟
The constable ignored him, just as he was ignoring all the other comments and questions being hurled in his direction.
Mike sighed, reached into his back pocket and produced his UNIT pass. He held it out for the policeman‟s inspection and said with a little more urgency, „Excuse me, but would you mind having a look at this, please?‟
The policeman‟s eyes flickered in his direction, focusing on the pass. Mike gave him time to read it, then asked, „Would it be possible to come through, do you think?‟
The constable reached for the pass. „May I take this, sir? I shall have to make an enquiry.‟
„Of course.‟
A couple of minutes later, the policeman was back. He returned the pass to him, and lifted the tape barrier for him to duck beneath. „If you‟d care to follow me, sir?‟
Mike heard a few comments behind him as he followed the policeman along the jetty. Someone muttered something about MI5 and several people laughed. A plain-clothes detective was waiting for Mike on the jetty beside the trawler.
He had a square, pockmarked face and a C-shaped scar on his chin. His green suit sagged on him as if he had been wearing it for a long time without a break, and the top button of his shirt was undone beneath the fat knot