Doctor Who_ The Gallifrey Chronicles - Lance Parkin [34]
Footnote from an undergraduate essay, 1981
Chapter Five
Deadly Reunion
The Doctor’s eyes snapped open.
His back was burning. His nervous system felt like a bell that had just been struck.
He was in a bare, windowless room, one that felt like a cellar. He was tied to a metal chair with what felt like three-ply plastic twine. This sort of thing always gave him a terrible sense of déjà vu.
The man in the blue blazer was standing over him.
‘Hello, Doctor. I am Marnal,’ he announced, bowing his head a little.
‘Delighted to hear it,’ the Doctor replied.
‘Don’t you recognise me?’
The Doctor shrugged, as much as he could in his circumstances. ‘I take it you’re the person who stole my TARDIS, but beyond that, no.’
‘The TARDIS is quite safe.’
‘And you killed Samantha Jones.’
Marnal looked taken aback. ‘No, Doctor, I had nothing to do with that.
Don’t you know what happened to Ms Jones?’
‘You’d be surprised at the things I don’t remember.’
Marnal shook his head. ‘I’ve been watching you for a while. I know all about your amnesia.’
‘You know, I’d forgotten I even had that.’
Marnal wasn’t smiling, not even one of those thin, cruel smiles. ‘You were responsible for her death. If you hadn’t met, she’d be twenty-five now. A graduate, working for an inner-city charity. Engaged to be married. She would live to be a hundred, a political activist until the day she died, dedicated to making her world a better place. Not just a guess, Doctor. I’ve seen the time lines overwritten as you met her, peeled them back to see the way things should have been.’
He paced around the chair. ‘But that is a minor offence. It is the grand scheme of things that concerns me today. Would you like to save us both some time and confess?’
The Doctor frowned. There had been something odd about this from the beginning. Here was a man – a being, let’s not assume anything for the mo-75
ment – who knew what a TARDIS was, and casually talked about time lines and wasn’t of this world, but whose level of technology stretched no further than hiring a lorry and buying some rope. There was no sign of the young woman.
‘You’ve done something terrible,’ Marnal continued, ‘and deep down you know you have. You might not want to face up to it, but you no longer have a choice.’
‘I don’t know what you’re –’
‘You’re a coward for not facing up to this sooner. Do I have to say the word, Doctor?’
The Doctor felt a shot of anxiety.
‘Marnal. . .
all I know is that you
shouldn’t –’
‘You’ll pay for what you did, Doctor. What you did to Gallifrey.’
Marnal was bent over the Doctor, watching very carefully for his reaction.
He clearly wasn’t happy with what he saw.
The Doctor sighed. ‘Look, sorry. If you really have been spying on me, then you’ll appreciate that I’m tied up by some git with a grudge every single week.
So, if you’ll excuse me. . . ’
The Doctor stood up and handed Marnal the rope.
Marnal drew a nasty-looking pistol and shot him.
‘He’ll be able to track us down,’ Trix assured him.
He shrugged. ‘Aren’t you enjoying yourself?’
‘It feels like we’re bunking off.’
‘We quit, remember? By now he’s probably found some new dolly bird and given her my room.’
‘I hope for her sake he opened a window and changed the sheets first.’
They were in a large music store. Fitz had spent a good hour now just clacking his way through row after row of CDs. He was clearly irritated to be reminded about the Doctor, but quickly cheered up once he returned to his task.
‘There’s nowhere better than the future if you’re shopping for music,’ he said. ‘Well, except for parallel universes. You think you’ve got all the Beatles albums until you’ve been to a few of those.’ He hummed a few bars of ‘Little Girl’.
‘You could pick all this stuff up online.’
‘You’re joking, aren’t you? I’m still wondering how they get all the music on one little disc like this.