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By Root 199 0

He thought of the figure that had been in the road and then vanished, and he forgot his ruefulness, even his tiredness; he remembered that Jo was with the truck, and that perhaps he had procrastinated long enough if that was truly what he had been doing. Could checking up on all possible data instead of acting on the information he already had be called procrastination? Or was it simply following the natural curious instincts of a scientific mind? He knew what the Brigadier would have said, but then the Brigadier had always relied on instant action without weighing up all the possibilities first - looking for cause and effect rather than blowing things up had never been first on his list of natural responses. Bless him.

Damn him.

Maybe this time he would have been wise to let the Brigadier have his way. Maybe this time he had let things go on too long before making a direct move, and maybe he had endangered Jo in the process.

He swept over the brow of a hill and the Avon valley lay spread before him in the exuberance of dawn. Bristol waited for him near the horizon, gateway city to the Southwest, and beyond was the lazy twist of the River Severn, all but lost in morning haze. The Doctor rammed the roadster into top gear and sped down the hill towards whatever might await him.

He hadn’t contacted the Brigadier with the information he had regarding the origin of the second pulse, or indeed to find out the latest news on the convoy. But of course he had the daily papers to tell him everything he needed to know on that score; and of course they were still picking over the bones of the tour and anything insidious they could connect to it. And then there were the politicians, both incumbent and hopeful, growling at each other and biting each other’s flanks in their desire to come out on top and smelling of roses.

145

The Ragman.

The Doctor slammed on the brakes and Bessie jerked to a stop beside a black-and-white timbered tavern. He had been looking at the pub sign, and his shock at seeing it depict a gaunt figure dressed in tatters with slowworms rearing from its scalp had caused him to stamp his heel down automatically.

The name of the pub was the Ragged Fellow, and it crested the top of a hill on one of the last stretches of countryside before the cancerous suburbs of the city began eating into the greenery.

The Doctor climbed out of the car, black cloak swirling behind him. The figure on the pub sign was without a doubt the same as the one he had seen in the lane, and also the same as the one he’d seen on the cover of the book Kane had been reading in the library at Cirbury. The name Ragman had spun into his mind on the instant of seeing the pub, a prompt from nowhere.

It was probably too early in the morning for the pub to be open, but he tried the door anyway.

It was unlocked. The Doctor stepped inside and found himself in a bar with flagstones on the floor, barrels against the wall and wooden tables. Pictures of country scenes on the walls, red-jacketed riders hunting foxes on the hand pulls (oddly, it appeared to him that the hunters’ faces looked drawn and terrified while the foxes were smiling), fruit machine in the corner.

Absolutely nothing out of the ordinary (except those hand pulls...) Had he expected anything otherwise, really?

He leant against the bar counter and shouted.

‘Hello, landlord!’

He repeated the call before someone eventually appeared: a stout woman with red hair, and enormous breasts barely covered by the red dress she was wearing. It was an evening dress and absolutely unsuited to the time of day, but that didn’t deter the Doctor in the slightest. What did was the fact that she was glowering at him with obvious irritation at having been summoned from whatever early morning duties she had been performing.

146

‘I think you mean landlady,’ she corrected him acidly, her overly rouged cheeks burning still brighter with resentment.

‘Er, quite,’ conceded the Doctor rather sheepishly. ‘I was, ahh...

actually wondering if -’

‘Of course we’re not serving,’ interrupted the fierce