Doctor Who_ Rags - Mick Lewis [73]
Jimmy was at the wheel, his dash player hissing on a dead tape.
‘Why are we going this way?’
Jimmy didn’t answer Nick’s question. He was staring through the windscreen at the cattle truck directly in front of them, driving on autopilot.
‘Jimmy! Half the convoy went after that roadie. So what made you decide to go this way?’
‘Huh?’
Nick could see Jimmy’s face in the rear-view mirror. It was blank. His eyes were dead.
‘Jimmy!’ Nick got out of his seat and made his way up to the driver’s seat. ‘What’s happened to you, mate?’
‘What?’ Jimmy turned to face him, and suddenly the cheeky grin was back on his face, his eyes were lit with their old mischief. He cocked his Confederate cap back on his brow and scratched his spiky hair. ‘It’s only rock ‘n’ roll...’ he said in a bad Jagger impersonation as he fumbled for a new tape. It was one of his favourite catch phrases.
‘Shit, Jimmy, get a grip. You must have some idea where we’re going and why?’
Jimmy blew Nick a mock kiss and slammed the tape in. ‘...But I like it, like it, yes I do’
Nick gave up, and took his seat again. Confusion and not a little fear seized him. But he was damned if he could do anything about it. Quailing again. He glanced at Jo and sin. They were staring at him like two evil but hardly identical sisters. He pulled a cigarette as UK Decay blared out from the tinny speaker.
The Six O’Clock News was just starting. Derek Pole’s face was splashed across the television screen.
174
‘Will the monarchy recover?’ the studio newsreader was asking a royal correspondent on an OB screen live from outside Buckingham Palace.
Jeremy Willis wasn’t listening. He didn’t care about the correspondent’s answer. In one hand he held a newspaper. Pole’s face was on it, next to a black-and-white shot of Willis himself.
The link between them had been revealed by police once Pole’s identity had been ascertained. The offices of Class Hate held papers and other things Pole should have destroyed which tied the two irrevocably together. Cheques paid into Pole’s bank account, issued by a certain member of the shadow cabinet, were also offered up for public scrutiny in a police statement to the press that bordered almost on the smug. Money to finance Class Hate.It was a glorious revelation for the Government.
Glorious.
Ashes. Willis’s career had been poured into a cremation urn.
The telephone had been ringing all day, since the very early hours. Now it was silent. But that was only because Willis had yanked the lead from the wall. He had drawn the curtains too, but he could still hear the impatient rapping on the glass. His doorbell trilled intermittently.
It was enough to drive a sane man mad.
The newspaper with the glorious revelation on the front page was in his left hand. In his right hand, a gun. Willis couldn’t remember the make or model. It didn’t matter.
What the hell did, any more?
He lifted the gun to his head.
He saw his own face fill the TV screen just as he pressed the trigger.
175
Side Two
‘ ... Now we’re gonna dance to a different song...’
177
Chapter Sixteen
"Rat!" he found breath to whisper; shaking. Are you afraid?"Jo was sitting next to Sin by the camp fire and staring coldly at Nick as she spoke the words long-remembered from childhood. Her mouth curved into a cruel but sexy smile as she continued:
“Afraid?” murmured the Rat, his eyes shining with unutterable love. Afraid! Of HIM. 0, Never; never! And yet - and yet - 0, Mole, I AM afraid!”
Nick pulled a cigarette from his pack, keeping his gaze level as he returned the blonde girl’s stare.
The Doctor was sitting in the stern of a rowing boat travelling slowly upstream. He held an oar in each hand, but he was not using them; they trailed little wakes through the dimpled water as the craft slipped along. Ahead of the boat a great stone bridge with three arches loomed out of the purple twilight - or was it the darkness before the dawn, he wondered idly. The banks on either side