Doctor Who_ The City of the Dead - Lloyd Rose [53]
'He's up to something,' said Anji darkly. 'He's acting far too cheerful.'
Fitz shrugged. 'Nothing we can do about it, is there? Come on. Let's find out if there's any place in all this scenery where you can go and hear music'
Mrs Flood sat on the edge of the tilted front porch, swinging her legs, her heels knocking lightly against the squat brick supporting column. She wore a sleeveless pink pullover and jeans cut off to the top of her narrow thighs.
Her eyes were shut.
Behind her, the screen door banged and her husband emerged with a bottle of orange pop and a pair of rhinestone-rimmed, slant-eye sunglasses. 'Hey, honey, I got you a soda.'
'I don't want it.'
'It's a new kind: "Citrus Circus - like sunlight in a bottle, only fizzy",'
He crossed and fitted her hand around the bottle. She threw it into the yard.
'I don't drink that stuff!'
'Well here.' He held out the sunglasses. 'Put on your glasses.' She didn't respond. He took her by the back of her neck and gave her a shake. 'I said, put them on!'
She felt for the glasses. He settled them on her face himself.
'You can't see, but I can, and I like to see you in pretty things. I got these especially for you. They're pointy and have jewels in them.'
'You probably stole them out of some old lady's vanity table.'
He jerked her to her feet. 'You know, soon there ain't going to be any more of this ingratitude. You keep forgetting how I helped you when you were all lost and alone. I took you in, and it's gotten me nothing but grief.'
'You don't know grief,' she said flatly. 'You have no idea.'
He was about to say something but instead cocked his head, listening.
"That a car?' He let go of her and ran into the house. Rubbing the arm he'd held, she turned indifferently toward the sound of the engine.
The Doctor drove into the yard and got out of the car. He knew at once that the woman on the porch must be Flood's wife. Slouched sullenly on one hip, her high, delicate breasts frankly outlined by the thin pullover, she had an immediate, almost coarse, sexual presence that told him she was much older than thirteen. But there was also something naive and tomboyish about her, emphasized by the short, careless cut of her dirty-blond hair. He understood why she'd been described as very young. Her shielded eyes were focused slightly to his right, her face expressionless.
Flood charged back on to the porch with his shotgun.
'I really don't think you're going to need that,' said the Doctor.
Flood pushed his wife towards the door. 'Go in the house, sweetie pie.'
What for?'
'Just go in the damn house!'
'Why don't you let her stay?' said the Doctor mildly.
'Why?' Flood spat. 'I'll tell you why. Because she's my wife!' He turned and slapped her twice, hard.
Stop that!' The Doctor started forward. Flood, a little startled by his vehemence, shoved the woman through the screen door and wheeled to face the Doctor, gun raised. 'Now get back in that fancy-ass car of yours and get off my property!'
The Doctor contemplated the shotgun. He looked past Flood to the screen door. Mrs Flood wasn't visible. He turned and got into his car and drove off.
Flood spit after him: 'Queer!'
The Doctor drove about a half-mile, just enough for the noise of his engine to fade. He pulled over next to some hackberry, locked the car and started back up the road.
He had miscalculated. When he had gone by the police station to check with Rust and been told the detective was on the premises but busy, the Doctor had assumed this meant he'd got the records he needed and was even then interrogating Flood. Bad guess. He would have preferred to return to town and wait till Rust did pull Flood in, but Mrs Flood's situation bothered him.
Just before a bend that would have brought him in sight of the house, he cut off the road into the swamp. He picked his way through the roots and undergrowth,