Doctor Who_ Rags - Mick Lewis [41]
Another thought struck the Brigadier, a natural successor to the first one, and he gazed long and hard at the cattle truck and the detectives interviewing the roadies outside it.
If the band were the family, just who the hell was playing Charlie?
100
The police were walking away from the truck now, and the Brigadier could see the open sneers on the faces of the roadies.
The largest one chucked a cigarette stub contemptuously in their direction. The Brigadier noticed something rather unusual as the detective and his sergeant stalked past the rear of the truck and made for the cemetery gates. They had interviewed the roadies about any possible connection between the band and the alcoholics’ murderous deeds - but they hadn’t interviewed the band themselves.
For the second time in the space of mere minutes, the Brigadier felt as if he’d just realised something he should have caught on to a long time ago. And then, unusually for someone with his precise, disciplined mind, he completely forgot it again.
She had been able to slip past the UNIT guards on the gate as they were liaising with their officer over whether to let the police in or not. When she saw the extent of the encampment, just how much it had grown since the Oblong Box, and realised just how vulnerable and incongruous she felt on her own amongst the travellers, she began to wonder if coming to the cemetery had been such a great little idea after all.
But then, did she really have a choice?
Charmagne paused next to a purple camper van as she pondered that. Of course she did. She could walk out again right now.
Of course she could...
The cattle truck caught her eye, parked beneath some overhanging yew trees, a felled stone obelisk beside it. The police were conversing with some military bigwig who had insisted on following them inside the cemetery with some blank-faced soldiers for company, and, judging from the expressions of the respective parties, it wasn’t exactly an empathic meeting of minds. Then the police, obviously having been granted access, headed off towards the truck. Charmagne decided to explore other avenues instead.
101
She deliberately chose the most hostile-looking group she could find. That way she was sure of a reaction; she didn’t want noncommittal material. The four punks were squatting round the remains of last night’s fire, empty tins of beer strewn around the nearby headstones like New Wave grave decorations. They eyed her with a mixture of wariness and derision as she approached.
She almost walked on by, but her journalistic instincts forced her to make contact.
‘All right, folks?’ They ignored her greeting, staring at her blankly. One of them clutched a bag and his eyes were very red, and very empty. Pretty bloody vacant, all right. However, she’d come this far; she wasn’t going to stop now.
‘My name’s Charmagne, I’m from...’ She hesitated. The Plymouth Chronicle would sound so absurd in this context she would have laughed herself:I’m from the Daily Mail.’
On second thoughts, she reconsidered, as two of the punks snorted with contemptuous mirth.
‘D’yawanna story, love?’ one of them asked. His hair was dyed black and spiked, his leather jacket proclaimed DO IT DOG
STYLE down one sleeve.
‘Have you got one for me?’ She smiled her most encouraging smile, not too winsome, not too cocky.
‘Depends what ya want.’
‘Can you tell me about the Money Tree?’
‘Been lookin’ for it all me life,’ he shot back immediately.
She gave him a little laugh, just to make him feel good. ‘The wine bar?’ she prompted after a while. She was very conscious of the fact that the other punks weren’t saying anything, just staring at her; two with derision in their eyes, one with nothing. She wasn’t sure which was worse, until the one with blank eyes offered the bag to her and she smelt the glue. She smiled carefully at him and declined his kind offer. He continued to hold the bag out for a while, as if he couldn’t understand her refusal. She turned