Doctor Who_ Father Time - Lance Parkin [16]
The Doctor looked astounded. He moved his pawn to the eighth row, made it a queen. Checkmate.
There was a round of applause. The Doctor had won.
Miranda smiled.
‘Why didn’t you tell me that Arnold had seen a monster?’ the Doctor asked Mrs Castle.
‘I didn’t think it was important,’ she told him. ‘Look, I’ve got a couple of things to do, then we can go down to the Dragon and I’ll tell you everything he said.’
‘Yes. I can’t believe you didn’t say anything before,’ the Doctor repeated.
Mrs Castle smiled, pleased with herself. ‘I thought you’d be less likely to help. After all, there are no such thing as monsters, are there?’
* * *
Chapter Four
Close Encounters
There was a couple on the swings where Daz Lewis was due to meet Julie.
She’d agreed to come here after she’d finished her shift at the Co-op, without changing. Daz had never told her, but he liked seeing her in her checked uniform and with her hair up. He unwrapped some gum and began chewing it. It was like Clark Kent and Superman, Daz thought. Julie could take off her glasses and suddenly she’d go from being plain to being dead beautiful. The uniform was dowdy, but when she took her hair down, suddenly she was the most beautiful woman in the world. He knew she had a good figure, but only he knew – the rest of the world saw only the buttoned-up old uniform.
Daz checked his watch – she was due in five minutes and the couple were still on the swings. He knew she’d see him, really, wherever he was in the small park. He knew they’d go and find somewhere else that was quiet. It was just that he’d planned this moment since Sunday, when they’d last seen each other. He wanted everything to be perfect. He’d even brought his Polaroid so he could take Julie’s picture. There were a few more kids than Daz was expecting, and it was colder, but this was just how he’d pictured it. Apart from the couple on his swings.
Daz decided to ask the couple if they could move. He walked over. They were sitting with their backs to him, and didn’t see him. He could see they were talking, and didn’t want to interrupt.
They were about the same age as each other, and they looked like they were related. They were wearing plastic macs and odd-looking tracksuits.
‘It was him,’ the man insisted. He had a girlie voice, and Daz sniggered when he heard it. ‘It’s him, and that means this whole operation just got a hundred times more complicated.’
‘Oh, it didn’t look like him at all,’ the woman said. Her voice sounded gruff, as if she smoked a lot of cigarettes. ‘What are the odds of his just turning up here, of all the places he could turn up?’
The man sighed. ‘Remember who we’re talking about here. It’s definitely him. Oh, come on, you must remember the last time...’
The woman rolled her eyes. ‘It had to be the Doctor. Mr Gibson and he have history, too.’
‘Mr Gibson?’
‘That’s what he’s calling himself here – he says he wants to blend in.’
‘Blend in?’ he mimicked. ‘I can’t think of anywhere that he’d “blend in”.’
‘I’m just repeating what he told me. He’s a psycho, you know that. I told you he would be trouble. I’m surprised he’s managed to get this far without killing anyone.’
‘Not for want of trying.’
Daz stopped in his tracks. These two were criminals, and they had an accomplice. They hadn’t seen him yet, and he knew he should have got away, but instead he tried to keep very still and hear what they were saying, so he could tell the police, or at least his friends.
‘I didn’t want him along,’ the woman said. ‘The Prefect felt he was needed in case we ran into opposition.’
‘To keep an eye on us, you mean.’
‘I’ve asked him to keep a low profile from now on.’
‘Well, hopefully he won’t destroy this planet like he did his own.’
‘Eh? But the reason he –’
‘Oh, I know what he says, but that’s not the whole story.’
Daz hesitated. Did the man just say their colleague had destroyed a planet? He couldn’t have done. He must have said ‘plant’ or ‘part’, or something.
‘But he said that it was destroyed by –’
‘I’ve heard it enough