Doctor Who_ Nightshade - Mark Gatiss [60]
where.
Ace signed. This wasn’t her idea of a fun morning. Sorting through historical junk was too like a school lesson. She’d seen history, real history, past and future; and academic substitutes were bound to pale beside that.
She glanced at her watch. 11:30. Still a good hour and a half before Robin would get there.
Ace let his image swim into her mind as she carelessly leafed through the documents on her knee. She saw him on his bike, just as he had been when she’d first seen him. That smile had said everything...
‘If you’re not going to concentrate then you’re no use to me.’
Ace looked up, stung. The Doctor was regarding her with inky eyes.
‘Sorry.’ She looked down at the papers and books, dense with old print. One book, far more modern than the rest, caught her eye at once.
‘Doctor?’
He raised his eyes from the book in his hands.
‘Is this any good?’ she said.
The Doctor moved around the side of the desk and peered over her shoulder.
‘What is it?’ called Winstanley, still perched up his ladder.
The Doctor took the slim volume from Ace’s hands and scanned a few pages. ‘It’s an archaeological work. It seems there was an expedition here in 1919. A dig. They found remnants of Palaeolithic quarrying.’ He cast his eyes over the dust jacket. ‘Seems it was abandoned. Under mysterious circumstances.’
‘Where was this, then?’ said Ace.
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Funny how such a big thing could go unnoticed. In fact, the whole village was terribly quiet. More like a wet Sunday in March than Christmas Eve. Already missing York’s wonderful festive air, he made a mental note to spend some Chapter Seven
more time in York before returning to London.
Medway pushed his hands into his pockets, overcoat tails bunching behind him, and mounted the steps to the police station.
‘Have you seen this man?’ announced a poster by the entrance. Medway hadn’t. He pushed open the door and was taken aback by the scene which met his eyes.
In contrast to the quiet of the village, the police station Medway left the car in a side road adjoining the main was in turmoil. The front desk was piled with papers.
street and walked towards the police station. He didn’t Uniformed men scurried to and fro. One man, at the back, a notice the disturbed bushes growing by the pavement, nor look of hopeless resignation on his face, was constantly the other faint traces of Trevithick’s encounter the previous dialling and redialling a heavy black telephone.
night. But he felt distinctly uneasy.
‘Excuse me...’ announced Medway.
There was a chilling wind blowing off the moor, stirring The bustle continued. Medway rang the desk bell.
bare branches and discarded newspapers. Telephone wires George Lowcock appeared from his office, jamming his swung like slack skipping ropes against the white sky, hat on to his head. A smaller, rosy-cheeked man scurried sighing as the wind blew over them.
behind him.
Jangling his keys in his pocket, Medway began to whistle
‘Just try, Albert, that’s all I ask. We’ve got to find a way
‘We Three Kings’ without much enthusiasm, glancing about out somehow.’
nervously at the clusters of nineteenth-century cottages
‘Excuse me,’ said Medway again. Lowcock looked at him which dotted the road.
briefly and then made for the door.
The local pub seemed a more enticing prospect and he
‘Yes, sir?’ sighed Albert wearily.
could have done with a little something after his
‘I’ve come to report an accident. A coach... on the road out experiences that morning. Ferrying hysterical geriatrics was of the village.’
not his thing at all and his supply of small talk had run very Lowcock turned in the doorway. ‘Coach?’
low indeed. Still, the monks had been kindness itself, saying
‘Yes. A party of old folks and a Miss Mason.’
all the right soothing things in that pleasant, bland Lowcock approached him. ‘Any hurt?’
monotone beloved of men of the cloth.
‘The driver. Dead, I’m afraid.’
Now he had to do his bit and report the accident.
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