Doctor Who_ Illegal Alien - Mike Tucker [53]
She slumped back in the chair. He was like something out of an old, blackandwhite British Bmovie.
'I'm afraid my telephone line here still isn't restored after the bomb. They won't do it just for me. But there is a public call box out on the main road. I shall go and telephone Mr McBride's office. If the Doctor isn't there I shall try Chief Inspector Mullen's police station. I shall be about twenty minutes. You try to sleep.'
And so she tried. She listened to George Limb clambering arthritically into an overcoat and scarf and shuffling out of the front door. It closed with a reassuring thud. She closed her eyes and tried to sleep.
She couldn't. Her ears were ringing, her senses were jumping. Behind her eyes she could see squirming pools of tiny Cybermats.
And the house was starting to give her the creeps. Ace had never been good in strange old houses. Somehow when George Limb was present the house had seemed aglow with warmth and faded gentility. In his absence it was beginning to seem merely old and creepy. The fire cast long, dancing, witchfinger shadows on to the walls and ceiling. She was starting to imagine she could hear noises. Footsteps, on other floors. How long had he been gone? What was that Cody had said about looters on the streets?
She reached into her rucksack and extracted her Walkman. Some music should soothe her troubled breast.
Napalm Death pirated off Darth not ideal, but it would have to do. She had nothing else. Anything to drown out the whispers of this damned house.
Three frantic songs later the tape ended. Ace flipped it over in the little device. She stopped, finger paused on the play button. She hadn't imagined it. She could definitely hear muffled movement in the house.
Slinging her miniature headphones around her neck she cautiously opened the door and went out into the narrow, dimly lit passageway beyond. She edged out into the broad, spacious, shadowy hallway. The huge staircase beckoned to her. Gently she tested the front door. It wouldn't open it was locked.
There it was again. A muffled thumping, followed by a heavy dragging sound.
Upstairs. She thought of the back door. There must be one, she supposed, somewhere. Suppose that was locked, too. She thought of upstairs. She couldn't help herself. Slowly she started to climb the ornate, elegant Regency staircase.
The sound, clearer now, was still overhead. Another storey.
The stairs were narrower here. At the top the landing split in two directions. There was a door to the left. That was where the noises were coming from. She pressed her ear against the door. The heavy thuds, the dragging, had both stopped.
What she could hear now was a slow, falteringly rhythmic wheeze. It sounded like somebody trying to breathe.
Somebody old or dying. She tried the door. Locked. There was a key protruding from the lock in the door. It turned easily. Slowly she peered into the pitchblack room. In the darkness she couldn't guess how far away the source of the sounds might be. Hello...' said Ace, timidly. 'Don't be frightened.'
Silently, she stepped into the room. It stank. It stank of rancid meat.
Behind her the door clicked shut. Panicking suddenly, she scrabbled at the wall for the light switch. The rasping, harder now. The dragging, thumping sound again. Coming closer. Her fingers connected with the switch. The light came on, dazzling Ace for a moment. And, with a gurgling, choking snarl, the Limehouse Lurker lunged.
PART THREE
CHAPTER 14
A cell. For the second time in two days I was in a cell. Locked up again, only this time it was the military asking all the awkward questions, not the police, and they hadn't been so understanding about the Browning. I'd tried to impress upon them that I was a private detective involved in a heavy case, but was told that my licence was worth zilch, and that as far as the military were concerned I was up to my fedora in trouble. Breaking and entering, wilful destruction of property, probable espionage. I was in trouble, big time. And my hand still hurt like hell. Wherever they