Doctor Who_ The City of the Dead - Lloyd Rose [76]
He looked exhausted, she thought. If he wanted to go dancing tonight, she'd suggest he'd be better off getting some sleep. Of course, that would be patronising him because of his age and instigating another disagreement with him, two in one night. What was wrong with her -
Savagely, she tore her piece of French bread into pieces too tiny to butter.
He watched her curiously.
'Everything all right?'
And now she had him thinking she was all moody and inexplicable and female.
'I'm not used to dating,' she blurted and then, to make matters worse, blushed.
He laughed ruefully. 'Me neither.'
She wondered, not for the first time, about his romantic history. A young widower? More likely divorced, like half the Americans she'd met. Were there children? Did the ex-wife have custody? What had separated them -
his time-consuming job, the things he saw while doing that job that he couldn't share?
It occurred to Anji that each of them was out with the other in part because she was only passing through. They could test the waters, enjoy each other's company, knowing nothing serious was going to come of this.
Though she wasn't at all sure, if she had been planning to stay around, that something wouldn't have. Fifty or not, he was a very attractive man. There was something powerful about him, tempered with melancholy. Something driven, too. Reminded her a bit of the Doctor. Natural enough, since half the time the Doctor's job included being a homicide detective. Witnessing the horrible things living beings did to one another. All the wonders the Doctor had seen, all the wonders he'd shown her, trailed that shadow of suffering - as if the more you rejoiced in the one, the more you were destined to encounter the other.
She had been quite annoyed - all right, angry - with the Doctor earlier. She and Fitz had been with him in his room at Owl, where he was lying on the bed with his shoes off looking absolutely wrung out. In spite of the fact that this Acree person, who appeared to be totally mental, was running around loose, the Doctor wouldn't let them enlist Rust's aid by telling him about their discovery in Vermont.
'He's a homicide detective,' Anji had persisted. Fitz was slouched in the wicker armchair, but she paced, too irritable to sit still. 'You ought to tell him.'
'Tell him what exactly?' said the Doctor tiredly.
'That there's a likely homicidal maniac loose in town.'
'If your theory is correct, he's been loose in town for years without killing anybody else.'
'He could go off again,' Fitz put in.
"The contingency is a remote one.'
'But what if it is Acree? And what if he's targeted you?'
'Why would he?'
'Well, somebody has,' Anji snapped. 'And he's as good a candidate as any.
Unless you have some others you're not telling us about. To add to all the stuff you're not telling us.'
The Doctor was stung. 'I've told you whatever I thought was useful. I haven't left you in the dark.'
'Really? What exactly happened to you last night?'
'Something unpleasant that's irrelevant to the central problem.'.
'So you say. Can you try to look at it from our point of view? Human and limited as that is!'
The Doctor glared at her. Then he shut his eyes. They waited. After a few minutes, Fitz got up and bent over him. 'I think he's asleep.'
'If that isn't typical! Well, he's not going to get out of things that easily!'
Anji stamped into the bathroom. Fitz looked at the Doctor's still, pale features. With his hair falling back from his face, a fading bruise was visible on his temple. 'You ought to trust us,