Doctor Who_ Prime Time - Mike Tucker [57]
Somehow, God knew how, they seemed to know everything about her. Where she was born, where she went to school, her probation records, everything. Saarl had dragged out every sordid fact about her life, manipulating the audience with practised ease. On the huge screen behind her was a picture of a great Victorian House – Gabriel Chase, after the fire. The audience were booing, and Saarl was revelling in it.
‘Think, ladies and gentlemen, think about this fabulous piece of our heritage. Think of what it could mean to the people of Earth to have a fabulous building like this standing today. But no. This girl, this vandal, had to ruin it for generations.’
The audience began to shout.
Saarl knelt by Ace’s side. ‘What were you thinking?
Burning a priceless architectural masterpiece.’
Ace covered her ears. ‘Piss off.’
‘What must your friends have thought?’
‘I said piss off.’
‘What must your mother have thought?’
Ace caught Saarl by the collar, her face white, her voice strained. ‘You leave her out of this.’
Saarl shook himself free.
‘Pangs of guilt, Dorothy? Concern for your mother?’
Ace lunged at him again. Saarl tripped her and sent her sprawling on the studio floor.
The picture on the screen changed again. A white-haired old lady, her face lined, her expression haunted.
‘Do you recognise her Ace?’
Ace stared at the picture. ‘Oh no, please no.’
‘Do you recognise your mother?’
This was her worst nightmare. This was what she had always asked the Doctor to protect her from. Seeing someone that she knew, someone that she cared about, old and crippled.
The last time she had seen her mother she had been a middle-aged woman, not old, not like this.
She dropped to her knees.
‘Yes, you do don’t you?’ Saarl circled her, like some predatory animal. ‘Do you know how old she was when this picture was taken? Eighty-five.’
He turned to the audience again. ‘Eighty-five years old, ladies and gentlemen. A frail old lady, who was haunted for most of her life by the loss of her daughter.’
Saarl turned on Ace again. ‘Did you ever think what your leaving might have done to her? Did you ever bother to find out how she was doing?’
Tears were starting to roll down Ace’s cheeks. The jeers of the audience rang in her ears. She couldn’t take her eyes from the picture in front of her. An old woman with the face of a stranger nothing left of the mother she knew, of the mother she had always despised.
Saarl hissed in her ears. ‘Did you know how sad she was when she died?’
Ace looked up at him pleading. ‘Please.’
‘Yes. She died poor and lonely, not knowing if you were dead not knowing if you cared. Her final wish that her daughter would get in touch with her.’
Ace was unable to control the tears now. ‘I didn’t know! I didn’t know,’ she whispered. The audience had gone quiet.
The lights dimmed and Saarl was picked out in a single spotlight. The consummate showman, working his audience expertly.
He spread his arms wide. ‘But, ladies and gentlemen, we are not here to judge, we are not here to condemn this poor delinquent girl. Time itself has been her judge.’
He grasped Ace by the arms, hauling her to her feet, a clammy hand brushing the tears from her cheeks. ‘You travel backwards and forwards through time, but somewhere in your future and our past it all ended, my dear.’
He spun Ace around, pointing her face at the screen. The picture of her mother had been replaced by a camera roaming through a churchyard.
Channel 400 researchers have been working through the night to find this site, and now we have a camera team live from your home planet.’
The camera settled on a gravestone and began to zoom in.
‘No.’ Ace could hear the terror in her voice.
‘The miracle of time travel, ladies and gentlemen, the paradox of time. Here in the studio is a girl in the prime of her life, learning to cope with the crimes of her past, but here, live on channel 400, we can also present you with her future.’
I’ll, camera zoomed to a tombstone.
‘You’re dead, my dear.