Doctor Who_ The Dying Days - Lance Parkin [21]
Now they were here, her husband's attention had been caught by a blue box sitting at the foot of Nelson's Column.
He was running his fingers along it.
'It's humming,' he concluded.
The door opened and a young man bounded out, almost crashing into them. His clothes suggested he was a tour guide, or a street entertainer. The woman who trailed after him reinforced this impression: although it was not yet nine-thirty in the morning, she wore a strapless peach sequin dress, elbow-length lace gloves and pil -box hat. The two couples stared at each other for a second before her husband plucked up his courage and asked the strange man what the box was.
The reply came in perfect Japanese, 'This is a police box. They were more common before the advent of the walkie-talkie, but they're beginning to reappear now. You can call a policeman from here if you need help.'
'It is very striking. Would you mind taking a photograph of us in front of it?'
'I'll do it.' The Englishwoman took the camera, examined it for a moment and then pointed it towards the trio, who had posed themselves in front of the door. 'Say "cheese",' she ordered them, again in perfect Japanese.
There was a flash and the woman stepped back over.
'Thank you,' Mr Fukuyama said, checking his list, 'Now, how do my wife and myself get to the Tower of London?'
The strange man thought about the question. 'You could try committing treason,' he suggested gently.
The other three laughed, leaving him a little bewildered.
'Circle and District Line, the nearest stop is Tower Hil ,' the woman supplied.
The two tourists thanked them and set off to the nearest tube station.
***
'It is a very good job that my daughter is too young to know who you are.'
He kept his distance, standing at the other end of the churchyard. Despite the familiar voice, underneath that overcoat he'd grown fat. His hair had thinned, and that moustache of his was grey. Despite that, he'd managed to arrive without Christian seeing him. Crows were cawing in the next field.
'It's a very good job that she's old enough by now to have her own phone. Good morning, Alistair.'
Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart moved a little closer, became a little warier. 'Good morning, Lex,' he replied finally, when they were ten feet apart.
'You didn't call the police?'
The Brigadier straightened. 'When you telephoned I gave you my word that I wouldn't. Not until I came to hear what you have to say. You used to be one of my men. I owe a fel ow Guardsman that much.' His hands were deep in his coat pockets.
'Are you carrying a gun?'
'Wouldn't you be?'
Christian laughed, holding his hands away from his body. 'I'm not,' he answered.
Lethbridge-Stewart couldn't see the humour of the situation. 'Why did you call me?'
22
Alexander Christian bit his lip. 'Because you are the only person in the world that I can trust. Something's going to happen, Alistair. On Mars and here in Britain. Something you have to help me stop.'
***
At the main entrance of the National Space Museum, the doors were being opened. The VIPs invited to attend at Mission Control itself were going through an adjacent door, where their invitations were being careful y checked.
They'd pass through a couple of other security points before going below ground level to their social gathering.
Without invitations, the Doctor and Benny weren't going to be able to get in. At least not through the front door. So, they joined a coach party and were herded through the public entrance, past the lobby and into the first of the public galleries. The hal was filled with display cases full of bulky space suits. The tour guide hadn't noticed them join the edge of the group, she was too busy fielding questions about how astronauts went to the toilet and whether the boy astronauts ever had sex with the girl astronauts. Benny found it reassuring that amidst state-of-the-art technology and on the brink of interplanetary conquest, the human race still had its priorities right.
The Doctor and Benny mingled with the group, careful