Doctor Who_ The Hollow Men - Keith Topping [29]
Ace found the back door open and saw a harsh-looking man in his early fifties sitting at the kitchen table. His brow was creased in concentration as he wrote in a scuffed leather-bound journal with a fountain pen. Presumably this was Rebecca‟s father, the vicar. Ace thought she could smell fire and brimstone from where she stood.
Most churchmen in Ace‟s experience - even the doddery old simpletons - had an agenda more sinister than the Cybermen. Despite this, she decided to be pleasant, and see how far it got her. After all, the man‟s daughter did seem to be a fully fledged member of the human race.
Ace coughed and tapped lightly on the door, smiling as the man‟s head slowly raised from his book.
Instantly, Ace knew what sort of person the Reverend Baber was, and that her initial suspicions had been correct.
It was in the eyes. She really was in a Hammer film, and this was the local Peter Cushing.
„Yes?‟ he asked in a haughty tone that put Ace‟s back up straight away.
„Morning,‟ she said. „I‟m here to see Rebecca.‟
„Are you indeed?‟ The vicar stood, and moved his glasses to the edge of his nose, peering at Ace the way she would have scrutinised a slug. She thought him tall, for a vicar, with a thin, pinched face. „May I ask why a young girl like yourself isn‟t on her way to church?‟ His tone was brusque, but with a hidden menace. Ace was really annoyed now.
„First off, right...‟ she began, about to give him her considered opinion that she wasn‟t a „girl‟, and how she spent her time was her own business, and why didn‟t he go off and perform an exorcism or something? Fortunately, she was interrupted by Rebecca bursting into the kitchen behind her father.
„I thought I heard voices,‟ she said in a bubbly voice. She wore a pretty floral summer dress that made her look much more countrified and less sophisticated than the previous day. Rebecca gave Ace a wink and said, „Hi, come in.‟ She turned to her father. „I trust you‟ve been making our guest at home?‟
Baber said nothing, but Ace could see the aggression draining from his features, replaced with something akin to embarrassment.
„Thanks very much for your help,‟ said Ace as she walked past the man, following Rebecca up the stairs and into her bedroom. It was a large, pleasant room that faced south, and a huge bay window allowed the sunlight to flood in. It afforded a magnificent view of the village and the scattered fields beyond. The rest of the room was spacious and uncluttered, nothing like her own bedroom either in the TARDIS or back in Perivale. There was a desk with a touchscreen computer on it, and hundreds of books dotted across every possible surface and shelf.
Rebecca flopped on to the bed, and giggled as if at some private joke.
„What‟s so funny?‟
„Oh.‟ Rebecca sat up. „Daddy. He‟s always like that with new people. Very stuck in his ways.‟
„Why isn‟t he at church, then?‟
„He‟s finishing his sermon, I think. He‟ll be gone soon.‟
„Good.‟ Ace glanced out of the window again. „Great view you‟ve got here.‟
„Awesome, isn‟t it?‟ asked Rebecca. „In the summer, when I was a kid, I used to sit out on the ledge, and dangle my legs over. It was so thrilling. It‟s only twenty feet to the ground but when you‟re ten, that‟s like being on top of the world. All the boys used to come by on their way to play football and I‟d flirt with them. It was great.‟
Ace was surprised. The old man didn‟t look the sort to allow his daughter to get away with flashing her pants at the first, second and third eleven. „Didn‟t your dad have something to say about that?‟ she asked.
„Oh yes, but Daddy‟s always been tolerant of my excesses.
He says we are what we are.‟
This didn‟t sound at all like the Reverend Baber that Ace had just met. She sat down on the swivel chair next to the computer, picking up one of a stack of orangy-red school exercise books in a pile on the table.
„Just marking my year-eleven general studies class,‟
Rebecca explained.