Doctor Who_ The Dying Days - Lance Parkin [75]
There isn't a window that doesn't pulse, or a pavement that doesn't hum with the vibration. Even on the platform of a Tube station, deep underground, it's there. No-one ever notices unless they are by themselves, sitting in a park or waiting for a train that never comes.
But when it's not there, it's as though the city is holding its breath, or its heart has stopped beating.
There were sounds - burglar alarms that were still ringing, car alarms that hadn't yet run down. Every so often a police siren would wail past. Loudest of al was the birdsong.
A helicopter passed overhead.
***
Alexander Christian ducked behind the police box, scanning the sky as it receded into the distance.
When he had finally broken cover, and walked down Whitehall, he realised that something was missing. It took a couple of seconds for him to register that it was the Martian spaceship. If only it had al been a dream, he thought, before wondering where the ship was now.
The burnt-out shell of the police mobile HQ was the only remaining police or army vehicle in Trafalgar Square. The corpses had all been removed, but the ground was littered with patches of blood and spent cartridges. A copy of the Evening Standard blew past.
He wondered when Bambera had noticed that he'd gone. Her plan was that he would head to Windsor with a group of the UNIT boys. Christian preferred to stay in London. He'd never been one to run away from a fight.
He'd expected more troops on the ground, but he soon realised why the area was so deserted - the whole of Whitehall, the Square and the Strand had been sealed off, along with a few of the back streets. The manpower was concentrated on keeping people away from the area. Even so, it was short work to find a gap in the defences and make a way out. Within ten minutes, he was in Covent Garden.
There couldn't have been many, Alexander mused, who had stolen the petty cash box of the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce. It had about seventy pounds in it - a fortune twenty years ago, barely enough to live on now. He didn't have any jewellery or even a watch to barter with. He'd be able to buy food and travel around the Tube if it was operating, but not buy any new clothes or items of kit.
Apart from a couple of sugar cubes, he hadn't eaten since yesterday afternoon at the Lethbridge-Stewart place, so the first order of business was breakfast. Covent Garden had gone upmarket since his day, but he still managed to find a greasy spoon cafe without too much difficulty. Radio One was playing the latest music - Christian hadn't been 'with it' twenty years ago, so it came as no surprise that the music now was louder and more unpleasant now than ever before. Two burly young men were discussing the form guide in their newspaper at one table, a young girl was sitting by herself at another. The proprietor was a lanky Greek chap, who took Christian's money and disappeared into the back to make his fry-up without saying a single word.
'You got a light?' the girl asked. She had an East End accent, long dyed-blonde hair that she kept loose.
He took out a match, and sat next to her. He lit her cigarette, then his own pipe. She wore a tiny cropped T-shirt that might have been sprayed on. It wasn't too difficult to work out what she did for a living. She was fourteen, fifteen at most.
'What were you doing last night?' he asked.
'Same as everyone else,' she said non-committally, 'watching the tel y and hoping Jeff Goldblum was around, know what I mean?'
He smiled, as if he did. 'The spaceship's gone now.'
'It's over the Tower.'
'The Tower of London?'
'Yeah.' She dragged on her cigarette. 'D'ya want to buy me breakfast?'
'That's all I'll be buying,' he said.
'Fine.'
Christian went over to the counter and shouted through that he wanted another meal. The Greek emerged ten seconds later with both plates and took some more money from him.
The news was coming up, Christian listened out for it.
The girl sat there, taking her time