Doctor Who_ Last of the Gaderene - Mark Gatiss [7]
Whistler heard the engines first. Throbbing low and with an almost menacing growl.
Buzz bomb!
She was there again and he was trying to warn her, grabbing her hand and dragging her from the crowded mess bar. He opened his mouth to speak but everything seemed to have slowed down. His voice came out like a wound-down gramophone record.
Any second now and the noise of the bomb would cut out.
Then it would fall. Fall as it had that night and take her away again...
The noise of the engine continued. Whistler opened his eyes and, with a start, realised he was in the living room of his cottage.
He stayed in his armchair for a moment and then moved to the window, drew the curtain to one side and peered out into the purplish glow of the dusk.
A convoy of lorries was trundling past, the beams of their headlights bouncing off the old stonework of Culverton’s houses. On and on they went, perhaps twenty of them, shattering the warm stillness of the summer night. He stayed by the window, watching the ominous black shapes, until he realised Mrs Toovey had come into the room.
Whistler turned back inside and clicked on a lamp, throwing a warm orange light around the parlour of his cottage. It was a beamed room, its thick plaster walls hung with horse brasses and large watercolours of old aeroplanes.
Mrs Toovey had taken a seat and was listening, her head cocked to one side, to the rumbling wheels and the occasional hiss of brakes. The small bay windows rattled as the convoy passed by.
‘Well,’ said the old woman at last. ‘What’s all this about then?’
Whistler shrugged. ‘They seem to be heading for the aerodrome.’
Mrs Toovey frowned. ‘These new people Mr Bishop was on about?’
Whistler turned his fob watch over and over in a ruddy hand. ‘Seems likely.’
He cast another glance towards the window. ‘Damned inconsiderate if you ask me.’
They listened to the convoy in silence. Finally, Whistler glanced down at his watch. ‘I think I’ll go for a pint,’ he muttered, slipping the watch into a waistcoat pocket.
Mrs Toovey rose too. ‘All right, Wing Commander,’ she murmured. ‘But...’
Whistler turned round, eyebrows raised.
‘But what?’
Mrs Toovey was wringing her hands. She unlocked her fingers and let them fall to her sides. ‘Be careful, sir.’
Whistler gave her a cheerful smile. ‘My dear woman, what do you mean? This is Culverton, you know. And...’
‘And nothing ever happens here,’ she said, completing his familiar maxim. ‘I know, but I mean... the lorries and everything. Mind yourself when you’re crossing the road.’
She raised her hands and gently tightened the knot of Whistler’s tie. He gave her hand a little pat. ‘Of course I will, dear lady.’
Whistler walked into the hallway and selected a tweed hat from the coat rack, then turned back to Mrs Toovey. ‘No need to worry, anyway,’ he smiled and reached over to where a small, battered box lay on the telephone table. He flipped it open and picked something out. ‘I’ve got my lucky charm.’
He held up a small, crystalline object about the size and shape of a rabbit’s foot. It looked like jade and glinted dully in the light from the fire. Whistler dropped it into his waistcoat pocket and a moment later was standing outside the door of the cottage.
A chalk-white face jerked forward into the light from the screens. Its eyes were large and dark and glinted wetly as it peered at the green map. A small dwelling-place rose up from the digital read-out, the red light washing over it. Quite suddenly, a sharp, bright light began to wink steadily above it.
The figure began to smile...
Pausing for a moment outside the cottage, Whistler let the sweet fragrances of the summer night wash over him. The sk-y was a hazy navy-blue with a few stars visible and a miasma of insects swirled around the yellow light of the porch. The desiccated remains of their fallen colleagues lined the bottom of the lamp forming a carpet of wing cases and compound eyes.
Whistler looked back at the house. Mrs Toovey was just settling herself back into a chair. It was