Doctor Who_ Deep Blue - Mark Morris [8]
This particular arrangement worked out well for all concerned, not least because the Doctor had an uncanny knack of distinguishing between the genuine and the bogus, a sixth sense when it came to detecting alien involvement or even a serious home-grown threat to planetary stability.
Mike, however, suspected he would speak to Mr Elkins and come away with nothing further to add to what he had just read. Although his mother had always described him as „the sensitive one‟ of her four boys, he was not adept at picking up on the subtle, hidden clues that the Doctor seemed to pluck from the air with ease. Indeed, watching the Doctor at work, Mike often felt like a dull and plodding beat constable confronted with the dazzling and enigmatic presence of Sherlock Holmes.
It was raised voices from outside that plucked Mike from his reverie. Putting the folder aside, he stood up and crossed to the window. There seemed to be some commotion down by the harbour, several uniformed policemen holding back a crowd of curious onlookers. From his vantage point, Mike could see that the object of their attention was a small, battered-looking fishing trawler. Already other policemen were in the process of erecting an exclusion barrier of sawhorses and yellow tape around the trawler, effectively closing off the jetty. From here Mike could see what he suspected the crowd couldn‟t. Scattered on the deck were a number of red blankets, clearly covering some irregularly shaped objects.
That could mean only one thing. Hastily he picked up his holstered gun and strapped it to his body. Then, patting the back pocket of his cords to ensure that he had his UNIT
pass, he hurried from the room.
„You mean we‟ve actually arrived where you said we were going to?‟ Tegan muttered scathingly.
The Doctor looked pained. „Well, of course.‟ Then his voice dropped as he hunched over a panel on the TARDIS‟s hexagonal control console. „Give or take a year or two.‟
Tegan shut her eyes briefly. „Don‟t tell me. We‟ve landed in the Bronze Age.‟
Turlough, standing beside the Doctor like an attentive pupil, the fingertips of his hands pressed together as if he was about to lead them in prayer, tilted his head and gave her a look of condescending disapproval. „Come on, Tegan, be fair,‟ he said mildly. „The Doctor‟s doing his best.‟
Tegan grunted, meeting his pale blue gaze for only a moment before looking away. Despite being thrown into a series of life-threatening situations with the sallow-faced, red-haired public schoolboy, the bond between them was not particularly strong. Tegan was all too aware of her own failings - her brashness, her quick temper - but at least she was honest, at least people always knew where they stood with her. Turlough, on the other hand, was devious, underhand, duplicitous, and not only that but he was smarmy with it. And a coward, too. Tegan suspected he‟d sell his grandmother if it meant saving his own skin (if he had a grandmother, that was; he had always been as evasive about his origins as he was about virtually everything else).
When he had first wriggled like a maggot into the core of the TARDIS crew, he had been working for an entity called the Black Guardian who wanted the Doctor destroyed.
Turlough had apparently seen the error of his ways at the last minute but Tegan still didn‟t trust him. The boy always seemed to be working to his own, hidden agenda; always seemed to be striving to divide and conquer, playing her and the Doctor off against each other. And the thing was, he did it so slyly, so subtly, that all too often Tegan didn‟t see the trap until she had fallen right into it.
It was maddening, even more so because the Doctor seemed oblivious to his male companion