Doctor Who_ The Algebra of Ice - Lloyd Rose [9]
He stared at her. ‘Why on earth do you say that?’
‘Well. . . ’ she shrugged. ‘I just wouldn’t be surprised, that’s all. He knows an awful lot of things.’
‘Who is he, anyway? Who are you, for that matter? How did you get into my flat?’
‘That’s one of the things he knows.’
22
The Algebra of Ice
‘He’s a burglar?’
‘No. . . ! Well, sometimes. But only when it’s necessary.’ The look on Ethan’s face implied that he’d found someone madder than he was. ‘He helps people,’
she said defensively.
‘To do what?’
‘Helps them when they’re in trouble.’
‘So he’s brought me some new meds?’
‘He’s not that kind of doctor.’
‘Then I don’t see how he can help me.’
‘You’ll see,’ she said, wishing the Doctor would tell her what was going on.
He was too mysterious by half. Of course, things always came out right in the end, but did he have to keep her in the dark so much? And sometimes – she knew he didn’t realise he was doing it – he was almost hateful. Like that time he’d pretended to Fenric he thought she was stupid and useless. . . She decided not to think about that.
‘Listen,’ she said. ‘You ran out in the middle of a conversation. When we get back to the flat, he’ll finish it, and you’ll see he has a plan. He always has a plan.’
But when they got back to the flat, the Doctor wasn’t there. A note on the table in his small, neat handwriting read, ‘Gone out’. Beside it sat a chocolate pot and two mugs. Ace lifted the lid. ‘Hot chocolate.’
‘I didn’t have any chocolate,’ Ethan said. ‘I didn’t have a chocolate pot, either.’
‘I guess he had one.’
‘Where was it? In his pocket?’
She started to say something but didn’t.
‘Where’s he gone?’
‘Don’t know.’
‘When will he be back?’
‘Didn’t say, did he?’ Ace poured herself some chocolate.
‘But, this is insane.’
‘Look who’s talking.’
‘Oh shut up!’ He ran his hands frantically through his hair. ‘Just shut up.’ He went into the kitchen and took two more pills before he remembered that she wasn’t a hallucination and the pills wouldn’t help. ‘Look.’ He came back into the sitting room. ‘You can’t stay here.’
‘Well, I’m not going to sit out on the doorstep, mate.’
‘I have work to do!’
Chapter Two
23
‘You think I’m happy about this? Stuck in this grotty flat with a maths nerd?
But here we are. Have some hot chocolate.’
‘No.’
‘Oh, stop being so childish. Here.’ She filled the other mug and handed it to him. He stared at it as if he didn’t know what it was. ‘You look sort of nervy.
Samosa go down wrong?’
‘No.’
He sat down heavily in the armchair.
‘I’m just stuffed with anti-psychotics.’
Ace wasn’t sure where to go with that. ‘I was never into drugs, saw them mess up too many of my friends.’ He leaned back in the armchair, eyes fixed on nothing. ‘You’ve stopped blinking. Maybe you ought to blink.’
He shut his eyes. Maybe he ought to sleep, she thought. She looked into the bedroom. Like everything else the bed was buried under books and papers, as well as some clothes. Maybe he slept in the armchair. Which, she looked over her shoulder, he was doing now.
Ace plopped down in the computer chair and looked at him glumly. This was the bloody limit. She was stuck with this weirdo till the Doctor returned, whenever that might be. What was more, she couldn’t sneak out because as soon as she was gone, the Doctor, with his uncanny sense of timing, would return and catch her letting him down. Not that she wanted to let him down anyway, of course, but this really was a right –
She suddenly focused on a background noise that had been humming since they’d returned to the flat. She turned to the computer – it was on! At least she could listen to music. She found headphones in a drawer, and happily fetched some CDs from her backpack. As she inserted one, it struck her that leaving his computer running was an odd thing for someone like Ethan to have done.
It must have been the Doctor – he’d found something that made him dart out immediately, forgetting everything else. She wondered what it had been.
CHAPTER THREE
Earlier that day, Lethbridge-Stewart had stood