Doctor Who_ Last of the Gaderene - Mark Gatiss [38]
Nothing happened.
He tried again, clicking the switch up and down rapidly, and sighed. Bulb must have gone, he thought to himself.
Max marched towards the desk, sure that Trickett would slide back the panel at his approach, but he reached the screen and there was no movement from behind it.
He shook his head and cleared his throat. This was getting ridiculous. After all, young Noah was hurt. Something out of the ordinary had happened to him and it was Trickett’s job to be there for the villagers when help was needed.
A little angry now, Max slammed his hand down on to the desk bell three times. The silhouette behind the glass didn’t stir. The sound of the bell dissipated in the hot, still air. Max let out a long, exasperated sigh.
‘Mr Trickett?’
His voice sounded thin and a little hysterical. He cleared his throat and called Trickett’s name again, this time using the authoritative tones he had perfected for his role as Buffalo Bill the previous Christmas.
When this failed to work, Max banged his fist on the desk and pressed his face close to the frosted-glass screen. He could see the constable on the other side.
‘Constable Trickett? Could you come round, please. It’s an emergency.’
Despite the fact that the policeman’s face was only inches from his, Trickett seemed not to notice Max’s plea.
Baffled, Max made his way sharply to the end of the desk where a door led into the back room. This too was open. He pushed his way inside, his gaunt face flushed with rage.
Despite the darkness, there was enough street light spilling in through the windows for Max to see that Trickett was sitting in a swivel chair, his back towards him. To Max’s astonishment, he still didn’t turn round.
Max’s hand fluttered to his throat. ‘Mr Trickett! I am not used to being ignored like this! Particularly when the matter is an urgent one.’ He tried the light switch in this room, but, again, it didn’t respond.
Max paused, breathing heavily, and a chill ran through him. He’d seen things like this in the films all the time.
Trickett was dead. He was sure of it. If he moved forward now and spun the chair around, the policeman would slump to the floor, face upwards, a small, neat bullet hole in the centre of his forehead.
He swallowed nervously and shuffled one foot after the other, his shaking hand stretched out.
‘Mr Trickett? John?’
He fixed his eyes on the heavy, dark blue cloth of the constable’s uniform and placed his hand on Trickett’s shoulder. With a deep, gulping breath, he swung him round. A small scream was rising in him at the expected horror.
Constable Trickett, however, was very much alive. In fact, he seemed rather pleased with himself. He was grinning all over his face.
Chapter Fifteen
The Wind Tunnel
Whistler recoiled as the back of Bliss’s hand connected with his cheek.
He felt her sharp nails cut into his flesh and raised his own hand in instinctive defence. Bliss grabbed his wrist and twisted it painfully. The old man cried out, his eyes narrowing in agony.
There were already countless cuts and swellings disfiguring his weathered face and one tooth had been completely knocked out by his interrogator’s fist.
‘By God,’ hissed Whistler between gritted teeth. ‘If you were a chap I’d swing for you.’
Bliss stepped back, an almost noiseless exhalation bubbling from her lips, the nearest she came to a laugh. ‘I’ve no doubt that, were you not tied to the chair, you’d have
“swung for me” before now.’
Whistler looked up and peered through his puffy eyes at the darkness. He could taste little rivulets of blood running into his mouth from the cuts on his cheek. His mind was reeling with fragments of thought. The lorries barrelling through Culverton. Legion International’s showy display in the church hall. The sleek black coffins he and Noah had found up at the aerodrome. And Bliss, the tall, flabby woman in well-cut black clothes, her pale, grinning face like that of a Victorian doll. Her eyes, huge and black as tar-pits. Whistler shifted in his chair, weak with fear and pain.
‘Have you finished?’ he croaked.
‘Hardly.