Doctor Who_ Left-Handed Hummingbird - Kate Orman [54]
When his scowl failed to vaporize her, Macbeth inclined his body until the chewed cigarette met the tiny flame. Almost immediately it blew out as winter whipped a handful of garbage and snow along Abbey Road.
The hippie blinked at the charred splinter she was grasping. ‘I need to talk to you,’ she said.
* * *
Molly was delighted with her free coffee. So delighted that Macbeth shrugged and ordered her an entire English breakfast: bacon and eggs and sausage and squashy tomatoes and beans and… he chain‐smoked queasily, watching her eat.
When she started to slow down, he stubbed out his cigarette in the cold remains of her coffee and asked, ‘All right. What is it you want to talk about, eh?’
She squinted at him in belated suspicion. ‘How do I know you’re really an investigator, then?’
Macbeth sighed and passed across his UNIT ID card. Molly took it in buttery fingers and held it up to her nose, squinting in the flickering café light.
‘I like your first name,’ she said firmly.
Macbeth raised both eyebrows.
‘It’s better than Molly, anyway.’ The hippie held onto the card, as though for security.
‘I’m not properly in the army, you know,’ said MacB, scrounging around in his head for what he knew about hippies, which wasn’t much. ‘I don’t know how to use a gun or anything.’
‘They’re doing weird stuff in my flat, Lieutenant,’ said Molly. ‘Was that what you came to investigate?’
‘I came because your neighbours complained.’
Molly’s shoulders slumped in disappointment. ‘The neighbours are always complaining. This is my third place in two months. We’re trying to be really quiet this time. Nobody wants to be on the street in winter.’
MacB nodded in his best sympathetic manner ‘What weird things are happening in your flat, Molly?’
‘Two of us,’ she said, chewing her bottom lip as though to keep the names from spilling out, ‘are – well, a lot of us are into alternative religion, right? Lizzie’s reading Zen and the Art of Archery, and John’s sort of into Stonehenge and that.’
‘What about you, Molly?’
‘I’m a Christian.’ She waved her pearls at him, and he saw the little plastic crucifix in amongst the colourless beads. ‘No denomination or anything, no church. Just Christ.’
Macbeth couldn’t help the laugh. ‘You’re a Jesus freak.’
‘Yeah,’ said Molly. ‘Jesus was the original hippie. All his followers going around in the desert and getting hassled by the Establishment.’
‘Why no church?’ asked MacB, genuinely curious.
‘I used to be really keen on it.’ Molly drew faces in the condensation on the window. ‘I used to go two, three times a week. C of E. But after a while it really started to get my back up. All those sermons about sex and getting married. I thought, I don’t need some old man telling me this. Real religion comes from here.’ She thumped herself on the chest. ‘I’ve got Jesus to tell me what’s right and what’s wrong. So I struck out on my own.’
Macbeth blew out a long sigh. ‘Sounds like me. I got ripped off by so many people. I thought they could really read minds, or tell the future. I chased around from one uni project to another.’
‘That’s bad,’ said Molly. ‘The occult’s really bad for you.’
‘Yeah, well, it was bad for my wallet, anyway. I remember the day I caught one guy cheating on his Zener cards. Before that I’d been able to fool myself that there was really something in it. Then it all came tumbling down.’
‘What did you do about the cheating cat?’
MacB grinned. ‘He claimed he couldn’t help cheating, because his powers weren’t working that day and he didn’t want to disappoint me. I told him I couldn’t help punching him in the nose.’
Molly didn’t laugh. ‘Some of the people at the flat are into occult stuff, astrology and things. Lizzie reads about human sacrifice.’
‘You sure it’s not just morbid curiosity?’
‘Did you see that little fellow when, er, when you were splitting?