Doctor Who_ Nightshade - Mark Gatiss [28]
not there. Can you help? You are a nurse?’ Jill pulled a face.
After he’d disappeared inside she’d waited and then hauled herself out.
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DOCTOR WHO: NIGHTSHADE
DOCTOR WHO: NIGHTSHADE
The radio telescope was certainly impressive, she father hunched over a pools coupon as Peter Dimmock read conceded: an enormous dish which towered over the E-out the football results on Sportsview.
shaped concrete buildings beneath. But once she’d walked Vijay would be outside, relishing the thrill which the around the thing twice she found herself at a bit of a loose wintry darkness gave to his games to hide and seek. He’d end. It was also getting dark and was still freezing cold.
press himself into dark corners or against midnight-black She thought briefly of barging through the big double trees, watching the wind stir skeletal branches above his doors and announcing herself but didn’t think this very head.
wise. Finally, she decided to walk back to the village and set Then air would burn his lungs as he pelted out of the off for the perimeter fence, shivering as another blast of icy wood, his friends in excited pursuit. After another wind rippled over the moor. Little tufts of purple heather adrenaline-powered race they would collapse on top of each shuddered like dry-land anemones.
other, giggling and hooting with joy.
The fence still sparkled with recent rain. Ace jumped a A sudden flare of yellow light in the porch would signal little as three arc lamps burst into life with a staccato clatter.
the appearance of his father, coupon dangling from his hand, Obviously part of the security set-up, she thought. Mind as he peered out into the darkness.
you, there hadn’t been much evidence of restriction or
‘Vijay? Vijay? Time to come in, now.’
surveillance so far. No knuckle-heads in peaked caps at any And Vijay would bid a sulky goodnight to his friends, rate and years of petty confrontations with school caretakers dragging his heels in anticipation of the Saturday-night bath.
and bouncers made her grateful for that.
He’d hug his knees to his chin, shrinking from the overly It was only when she had traipsed forlornly to the exit hot water which steamed around him and gaze at the black gate that she realised getting out would be rather more rectangle of night behind the flowery curtains.
difficult than getting in. There were two rows of barbed-He would hear his father pacing about downstairs, the wire ranged across the top of the fence and the gate itself television’s sound an insulated mumble two floors below.
was solid steel mesh. The square grey box into which Mr Occasionally, just occasionally, in those formative years, Degun had inserted his key winked its red light at her his father would pause after draping the big, rough towel tauntingly.
around Vijay, look his son in the eye and say ‘Bit of a treat
‘Oh brilliant,’ she muttered.
tonight.’ To Vijay that could mean only one tiling. A new Nightshade serial.
Vijay, looking out of the window, failed to see Ace. Dusk was creeping into the periphery of his vision like spots So they would sit together before the tiny, flickering mottling the edges of a mirror. The rich navy-blue colour of screen, Vijay’s eyes wide with terror, his father pretending the sky took him back to Saturdays at home as a child. His indifference whilst clutching the chair till his knuckles whitened.
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DOCTOR WHO: NIGHTSHADE
Later, despite the excitement, Vijay would quietly wish he head on her breast as she soothed his fatigue away.
hadn’t stayed up; his imagination transformed bedroom Enjoying the sweet smoothness of her body against his. He furniture or crumpled clothes into the bulky, crablike blinked and realised Cooper was talking to him. ‘Sorry, creatures which the Professor had so recently encountered.
what?’
One night they had seemed so real. So real. He could have
‘I said it’s past