Doctor Who_ Deep Blue - Mark Morris [5]
- had apparently been recovered later from a skip behind one of Tayborough Sands‟s plusher hotels.
Jack adjusted his spectacles and looked out over the clay-coloured expanse of beach. Although it was already muggy, the day was still struggling to open its eyes. Dark clouds smeared the sky like old mascara. On the horizon, the rising sun was a blur of lipstick-red. As they trudged down the uneven stone steps on to the beach, a sea-breeze ruffled over them, which, while bringing welcome relief from the humidity, carried with it a stench of rotting seaweed and dead fish.
Vaguely Jack waved his troops off to cover different sections of the beach, noting that their grunts of acknowledgement were becoming surlier by the day. He ought to do something about it, he supposed, assert his authority, but he felt both too intimidated and too lethargic.
As he moved down the beach armed with his shovel and his roll of refuse sacks he noticed that one of his workers, Simon, a thin seventeen-year-old with straight blond hair cut in a pageboy style, was scratching feverishly at the crook of his elbow through his overalls, his teeth clenched in a grimace.
If it had been anyone else, Jack might not have said anything, but Simon was quiet, softly-spoken, generally polite.
„You all right?‟ Jack asked.
Simon looked momentarily dazed, as though Jack had sprung up from nowhere, then he blinked and nodded.
„I‟ve got this rash. On my arms and across my chest. Itches like mad.‟
„Me too,‟ said Jack, and felt compelled to rub at his own arms. „Must be the heat. These overalls. Make you sweat a bit, don‟t they?‟
He offered an uncertain smile, which wavered when Simon shook his head. „I don‟t think it‟s the overalls.‟
„Don‟t you?‟
„No. I think it‟s this stuff.‟
Simon jabbed at the sand with the toe of one booted foot.
Jack looked down and saw a few stringy clots of the strange deposit that the tide had been leaving behind for the past week or two. It was like half-set jelly, though colourless and transparent. It had been everywhere recently, each rolling wave bringing more of it up on to the sand. Jack and his team did their best to clear it from the beach, but they were fighting a losing battle. Jack held up his gloved hands and announced, „It can‟t be that. If we‟re careful it shouldn‟t get on our skin, whatever it is.‟
„I know that,‟ continued Simon, his brows crinkling in a frown, „but what if it‟s giving out fumes or something and we‟re breathing it in? I mean, what is this stuff? It might be some killer chemical; it could be nuclear waste for all we know. I mean, there was that thing in the paper a couple of weeks ago, wasn‟t there, about that lighthouse keeper who saw some weird light come down in the sea? Why hasn‟t anyone come out to investigate that? Why isn‟t the government doing anything? I mean, it might have been some Russian secret weapon, mightn‟t it? Maybe they‟re planning to poison us all by contaminating our water. I‟ve read all about that sort of stuff, chemical warfare and that.‟ He came to a sudden breathless stop, his cheeks red, eyes wildly searching Jack‟s face. Then, as though embarrassed, his gaze flickered away, he turned his head and re-focused on the sea.
They stood in silence for a moment, then Jack murmured,
„Maybe I ought to report it. Just to be on the safe side. I could even save some in a jar and take it to a laboratory or something.‟
For a moment Simon didn‟t respond, then he nodded.
Dreamily he said, „The sea‟s such a big place, isn‟t it? I bet there‟s stuff out there that no one‟s ever seen.‟
Jack followed his gaze. His arms were itching. He shivered.
The sun was tearing itself from the water now, leaving blood on the ocean.
As he walked up the steps to the front door of Ambrosia Villa, Captain Mike Yates couldn‟t help feeling guilty. Although his little trip to Tayborough Sands wasn‟t exactly a holiday, it felt as though it was, as though he was having a jolly at the taxpayer‟s expense.
„Light duties,‟ the Brigadier had called it, and then later,