Doctor Who_ Rags - Mick Lewis [11]
Pemo Grimes pushed Officer Jellard before him as he moved to stand between the band and the stone wall. Tom Ellis and Sparky Peters clung on to Officer Samuels, who was still attempting to appeal to their common sense, his pleas lost under the music.
Eddie Price lowered his wheelbarrow.
The band finished another song. Silence. The crowd shifted 29
uneasily. A few uncertain cries went up. Some people began to break away. Most simply froze, waiting.
They didn’t have to wait long. Constable Jervis had nearly made it out of the crowd when the band began their final number.
Something made him twist his head to stare backwards. He saw the cons force the two screws down on their knees in the grass.
He saw the singer chuckle lewdly into the mike. The guitarist slammed chords like pike thrusts through the audience. The bass player let loose low notes kicked out of hell. The drums exploded into a crescendo.
‘We... will never... forgive.’ The singer chanted the words, shaking his head slowly, grinning.
Pemo Grimes pushed Officer Jenard face down in the grass and took a shovel from Eddie’s wheelbarrow. He turned the blade on its side and swung it down brutally. Once.
‘We...’
Twice.
‘Will never...’
Three times.
‘Forgive.’
Officer Jellard’s head leaked blood into the grass. Officer Samuels stopped his pleading. He gaped up into the faces of the cons, into the faces of the band.
‘We will NEVER forgive.’
A pair of garden shears opened. Closed.More blood.
The four musicians killed their music and flung their instruments into the grass beside the two corpses. They turned as one and strolled slowly towards the back of the cattle truck.
The cons watched them go; the roadies began to gather up the gear. The crowd began to scream.
The prison riot stopped as abruptly as it started. The cons returned to their cells like sheep, vacant and subdued, and waited for the screws.
Constable Jervis had not made it to his car. He lay three yards from it, his helmet smashed, his head smashed. Nick had seen him
30
go under as the crowd began to panic, and now he dragged Sin away from the stampede, pulled her towards the haven of the Devil’s Elbow.
The pub was deserted. Even the Beast had gone. Nick and Sin stood inside the doorway and watched the turmoil on the streets of Princetown.
After a while the Beast turned up, looking guilty and confused.
Nick ordered two pints, the coins shaking in his hand, and waited tor Rod and Jimmy.
And after a while, they came.
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Chapter Four
Jo watched the police take the cons away. The prisoners looked dazed and confused, like they’d just woken up from the wildest party of their lives and knew they’d done something bad, but couldn’t remember quite what it was. Jo was shaking. Their bewilderment scared her almost as much as their former violence.
The Doctor watched them too, his eyes narrowed. Jo saw him glance at the cattle truck still waiting beside the wall. The roadies were sitting in the dark cab, smoking. The police had questioned them briefly, perfunctorily - or so it seemed to Jo. They hadn’t even gone to the back of the truck to speak to the musicians.
And what were the musicians doing in the back of the truck anyway? Why didn’t THEY sit in the cab?
The thought was gone almost as soon as it entered Jo’s head.
She frowned, but couldn’t remember what she had been thinking about. The police were going; the cons were back in safe hands.
The crowd was dissipating. Most of the townsfolk were silent, stunned, returning to their homes as though they too weren’t sure about what had just happened. Jo could hear the jukebox playing in the Devil’s Elbow. ‘Black Sabbath’. It was filling up quite nicely in there, she thought, and the idea of a drink was suddenly very appealing. She shook herself slightly. She was acting like nothing had happened. Was she shocked too? Just like everyone else around her? Everyone except...