Doctor Who_ Relative Dementias - Mark Michalowski [18]
The Doctor threw her a look.
Mary seemed slightly surprised that they had no luggage, but the Doctor told her that all their stuff was ‘in their transport’
down in the village. Soon, the two of them were tucking into a full English breakfast (well, full Scottish breakfast – the Doctor insisted on haggis with his, only to change his mind when he discovered they didn’t have vegetarian haggis); and between mouthfuls, the Doctor told Ace about his days at UNIT, his friendship with Joyce and his first meeting with Countess – then Miss – Gallowglass. Their paths had crossed when one of Miss Gallowglass’s customers, annoyed that a parcel from some distant planet had got lost en route, had decided to declare war on the Earth out of spite; and, as a totally unfathomable first step, had stolen one of the Crown Jewels. A clever bit of improvisation had led to the Doctor replacing it with a fake.
‘I never found out whether they discovered it,’ he said, wiping the egg from his plate with the last of his bread. ‘But these days I tend to give the Tower of London a rather wide berth.’
Ace realised that she was laughing along with him as he downed his fourth cup of tea, and wondered if the whole tale had been a load of rubbish to take her mind off the fact that he still hadn’t told her what had been happening on board the TARDIS. Comfortably stuffed, they thanked Mary profusely, and the Doctor decided that the village pub should be their next port of call in their search for Joyce.
Far from being the country tourist pub that Ace had expected, The Two Foxes was more like something from a Hammer film – a low ceiling, a miserable-looking fire trying to burn in an admittedly quaint fireplace, and a few shifty-looking locals in dark pullovers and hats who fell silent as they walked in.
‘You don’t want to be around these parts after dark, miss,’
Ace whispered over the Doctor’s shoulder in her best rural accent.
Obviously she hadn’t whispered it quietly enough. As the Doctor strode up to the bar, someone behind her, in exactly the same voice, muttered ‘There’s things in them woods that no man were meant to see.’
Ace whirled around to be faced with the broadest and daftestlooking grin she’d ever seen. A man – probably not much older than herself, maybe twenty-five tops – was smirking at her, leaning against the doorframe with a pint of lager in his hand.
His hair was cropped in an almost military style, and his eyes were wide-set and pale blue. Instinctively she smiled back, felt herself flush with embarrassment, and hurriedly joined the Doctor at the bar. She peered back to see the man, still smiling.
Looking around the bar, she saw that everyone else had resumed their conversations or dominoes or plans to burn down the Count’s castle – or whatever it was they were doing. It seemed that the idiot at the door had been the only one to have heard her. With a puzzled look in the direction of Ace’s stare, the Doctor whispered: ‘Friend of yours?’
Ace gave him a dirty look, taking the proffered glass of Irn-Bru. ‘Inside or out?’ he asked.
‘Out,’ she replied, trying not to smile back at the man who was watching her.
‘The weather is lovely,’ he agreed, and followed her, glass of water in hand. They plonked themselves down on the bench that ran along the front of the pub, and the Doctor took a sip of his water. ‘Welsh,’ he said thoughtfully, after a few moments.
‘You’d have thought they’d only have gone for homegrown around here.’
The Doctor ummed.
‘How can you tell, anyway?’ Ace asked.
‘Accent.’
‘Eh?’
‘The barman’s accent. Welsh. Probably north – Anglesey, maybe.’
‘Oh. I thought you meant the water.’
The Doctor took another sip. ‘No, definitely Scottish.
Straight out of the tap under the bar. Looked at me as if I was mad when I asked for a mineral water. And unfortunately didn’t know anything about Joyce.’
‘It is 1982, Professor. Mineral water might be what you’d get in your fancy London wine bars, but we’re hardly at civilisation’s hub here, are we? Anyway, it’s probably laced with toxins from