Doctor Who_ Left-Handed Hummingbird - Kate Orman [60]
‘It’s all right,’ he whispered. ‘I understand.’
‘No. I mean now. Now you’ll have to. Now you’ll have to do it yourself.’
* * *
Chapter 10
The Cat in the Hat Comes Back
‘I shot her,’ said Macbeth.
The Doctor just stayed next to the body, sitting crosslegged on the floor, his forehead resting in his hands.
Macbeth stumbled over to the wooden chair and sat down in it gracelessly, almost falling off. He clutched the gun, warm metal pressing against his palm in painful detail. ‘Well, don’t say thanks or anything.’
The Doctor looked up, ready to deliver a withering word and an even more withering look. But all he saw was a young man who desperately needed to be told he’d done the right thing.
‘You did the right thing,’ he said shortly, got up and pushed the door closed.
Macbeth waved his gun hand. ‘Why?’ he said.
‘She wanted to save me from a fate worse than death,’ shrugged the Doctor.
‘No,’ said the young man. ‘Why did I shoot her?’
The Time Lord came over to the unexpected visitor. They were the same height, now that Macbeth was sitting down. With difficulty, the Doctor prised the weapon out of the man’s paralyzed fingers, engaged the safety and put it down on the desk.
He reached into Macbeth’s coat pocket and extracted his wallet, flipping it open. He read the UNIT card with surprise. Lieutenant Hamlet Macbeth, Paranormal Division. A soldier who had never fired a gun before.
Macbeth saw the Doctor reading the card and said weakly, ‘My parents hated me.’
The Doctor pressed his wallet back into his hand. ‘Lieutenant,’ he said, ‘tell me about the Paranormal Division.’
‘Especially my mother,’ said Macbeth.
‘Attention!’ snapped the Doctor. ‘Answer the question!’
‘There are four of us,’ Macbeth gulped. ‘The UNIT personnel. Plus the students. And the wildly talented. Shit, I shouldn’t be telling you this.’
‘Tell me,’ said the Doctor, ‘about the wildly talented.’
‘Three GESPers, a PK chap who can shuffle cards without using his hands, and – I was going to take Molly in for some tests.’ He looked at the body on the floor. ‘She must have been crazier than I thought.’
The Brigadier had never mentioned a Paranormal Division. Had he kept it a secret? Perhaps poor Clegg’s death had put him off the idea… but the man’s powers had been convincing, even to the bamboozled Brig. No, the Division must have been short‐lived. The Doctor wondered why.
‘For goodness’ sake, Ace,’ he said aloud, ‘come into the room.’
The door opened. ‘Everything cool?’
‘Perfectly. Don’t trip over the corpse.’
Ace stepped over Molly’s mortal remains and tucked her gun into the back of her jeans. ‘Busy night,’ she observed.
‘Yes. Don’t tell Bernice. Will you help me hide the body?’
* * *
They could sleep anywhere, these two: Ace had slept on a burning spaceship and on a stinking battlefield, shells bursting in the distance. Benny had slept on grass and leaves and rocks. After a while she no longer woke up when the tiny insects skittered over her hands.
So they’d slept, dreaming restless dreams, and now they were eating croissants in the hotel’s wood‐panelled restaurant, and the Doctor was late for breakfast.
Despite the do not disturb sign, Benny had knocked on his door. No answer. He was off somewhere in the London morning.
She tore apart a croissant and dipped it despondently in her cocoa. Not one little bit did she like this game of keep‐it‐from‐Ace. Unless… the Doctor believed that Ace was also somehow affected? How would they tell? For that matter, what about herself?
She put down the soggy chunk of pastry. Whom gods destroy, she thought, they first make paranoid. All she could do was to trust the Doctor until she knew more about what was going on. And try to trust Ace.
Ace was watching Benny over the rim of her mug. She’d followed the Doctor’s instructions: the archaeologist didn’t know about the uninvited guest in his bathtub. She didn’t think it was fair to leave Bernice out of the full picture.
When he was this reticent,