Doctor Who_ Ghost Light - Marc Platt [28]
He touched her arm and asked her to come back to dinner. Ace didn’t say a word. The Doctor sighed. Ace heard him moving away. It was no good, she had to tell him.
‘When I lived here in Perivale, me and my best mate, we dossed around together. We’d out-dare each other on things — skiving off, stupid things. Then they burnt out Manisha’s flat: white kids firebombed it and I didn’t care any more.’
The piano had stopped and it was so quiet Ace thought that the Doctor had gone.
‘I think that you really cared a lot, Ace,’ said his voice right beside her again.
‘That’s when I got into the house — this house. I was so mad and I needed to get away. The place was empty, all overgrown and falling down. No one came here.’
She stopped and looked round at the walls, where the heads of the dead wild creatures stared blank-eyed down at her.
‘But when I got inside, it was even worse.’
She could feel it again now, the whole thing pressing in around her.
‘I didn’t know then... It was horrible.’
There was so much she wanted to say, things that should have come out years ago. At last she could exorcise it once and for all.
‘What did you do, Ace?’ he insisted.
‘Doctor? I must speak with you,’ said Josiah.
Ace saw him standing in the doorway and stopped talking.
‘Tell me, Ace!’ demanded the Doctor, trying to motion the intruder away.
Ace panicked and ran. She barged past the sepulchral figure, who quickly closed the door behind her and stepped into the frustrated Doctor’s path.
‘I need your help, Doctor,’ he said.
Then get in the queue, thought the Doctor. But he knew that Ace would have to wait. He hoped she would not get into any more trouble.
The Doctor stepped back from the door and walked around the workbench with its monkey skeleton. Because Josiah and he were plainly going to talk business, he decided not to pull any punches.
‘It can’t be easy being so far away from home,’ said the Doctor, ‘struggling to adapt to an alien environment.’
Josiah somehow managed to look totally surprised; the Doctor was impressed.
‘My roots are in this house,’ he declared. ‘I’m as human as you are.’
‘Yes,’ said the Doctor.
A look of hatred came over Josiah’s wizened face. ‘How you fancy people despise me,’ he said, ‘with your doctorates and your professorships.’
The Doctor rested one elbow on the workbench, cupped his chin in his hand and watched Josiah go through his territorial displays.
‘Honours aren’t everything,’ he observed.
‘I am afflicted with an enemy,’ said Josiah. ‘A vile and base creature pitted against me, that I am forced to serve.
All of us in this house are in its power.’
He produced a large white bank-note from his pocket.
Unfolding the note he insinuated in the Doctor’s direction.
‘I believe you can assist me in defeating it.’
‘I’m not interested in money,’ said the Doctor. ‘How much?’ he added, just out of curiosity.
‘Five thousand pounds to rid me of the evil brute.’
The Doctor whistled. ‘Now that’s what I call Victorian value,’ he teased. ‘But I’m still not interested in money.’
Five thousand pounds! he thought. A gentleman only ever pays in guineas!
Josiah was used to having his own way. He screwed up the bank-note in his gloved fist; he crushed anything that opposed him.
The Doctor sauntered out of the room, busily turning over the new information in his mind. Perhaps Josiah really did believe himself to be human and there must be a few grains of truth in the rest of what he had said. The Doctor decided to humour Josiah to see how desperate he got. But he had to keep Ace out of trouble.
Ace had come back down the stairs without knowing where she was going. From the hall, she could hear sounds from the drawing room and the staff moving deeper in the house. What did she come down here for? She didn’t want to see anyone. There was no point going outside into the night. She should have gone up to the top of the house, out of the way, where the TARDIS was.
She turned to go back up the staircase but she could hear more movement from above. There seemed to be nowhere to hide, until