Doctor Who_ The Adventures of Henrietta Street - Lawrence Miles [51]
By this time Fitz no longer had to make written reports to the Doctor, so accounts are maddeningly short on detail. What’s certain is that as Fitz and Juliette left the dockyards to report back to the Doctor, they were waylaid and surrounded in the darkened streets near the banks of the canal.
This time their attackers weren’t babewyns, Polynesians, or agents of Sabbath. They were all women. Juliette must have immediately identified them as the working women of Manchester, and realised that they’d waited in ambush outside the covered yard, recognising her and Fitz as ‘bloody bees’. It’s not known what Fitz’s reaction was, when surrounded by a mob of prostitutes.
Meanwhile the Doctor was with Scarlette, and, as on most nights, they were at the White Hart. By now Scarlette and her family had established themselves as regulars at the tavern. The Doctor was uneasy with this state of affairs – he seems to have been particularly disturbed to see Rebecca attaching herself to the drunken riverworkers who frequented the place – but Scarlette insisted that if you took a coterie of demi-reps on this kind of adventure, you had to expect them to employ themselves. The Doctor and company would sit in the downstairs rooms of the tavern most evenings, while Anji and Lisa-Beth often sat together glumly at the back of the room. Partners in aloof cynicism, Anji had taken to covering up her uniform in order to avoid approaches from the men of Manchester, and even Lisa-Beth was starting to give her potential clients short shrift: Whatever she and Scarlette had discussed in Windsor, it was still playing on her mind.
It was just before nine when Juliette entered the tavern, out of breath and with the black velvet ripped to shreds across the front of her dress. She aroused much attention amongst the crowd, but made her way straight to the Doctor, who – says Scarlette – ‘jumped straight to his face with a look of the gravest concern on his feet’ (either an error or an obscure joke).
Juliette hurriedly explained what had happened at the docks. Although Juliette had been ‘manhandled’ by the attackers, it was, strangely, Fitz on whom the local women had focused. They’d descended on him like a pack of animals, said Juliette, for some reason calling him a ‘killer’. Juliette had thought it was odd that they should have attacked with such precision and determination. They’d eventually dispersed, leaving Fitz a bruised and bloodied wreck.
What Juliette didn’t explain, and what only became clear after Fitz made his own report to the Doctor, was the reason the prostitutes had dispersed. Exact events are unclear, as Fitz was half-unconscious at the time, but it seems that the women backed off only after Juliette said something to them. Yet if Juliette had succeeded in facing off an entire mob of attackers, despite her age and size, then why didn’t she mention it herself? Modesty? It should be noted that the encounter wasn’t unlike the occasion when Scarlette had intimidated a crowd of London women outside the theatre… and of course, at this time Juliette still wore Scarlette’s glass totem around her neck.
The Doctor instructed Juliette (somewhat unnecessarily) to sit down and recover herself, while he headed off to find the semiconscious Fitz. It’s interesting to note that both Scarlette and his fellow elemental Anji stayed at the tavern: although the Doctor did take a companion with him to the docks, it was Rebecca he chose for the job. As Juliette had already told him about the covered shipyard, it’s possible that the Doctor felt Rebecca’s talents might have been useful there. Whatever