Doctor Who_ The Hollow Men - Keith Topping [35]
Ace had noted that a lane ran from a point just shy of the Chinese restaurant towards the back of the old school. Good.
She didn‟t really want to go marching up to the front entrance, demanding the release of all prisoners.
A Taste of the Orient glimmered in the distance, the stone lions looking even more powerful than usual. It was as if they sensed the atmosphere, and had puffed up their chests in confident expectation. The car park was empty, but the restaurant seemed full, dark shapes visible through the windows.
As she came closer she noticed a figure moving towards the restaurant. While Ace was walking confidently, so that if challenged she could play the innocent with ease, this person stuck to the shadows like a child playing at war. He moved with the artless clumsiness of a large man, and seemed to be looking away from Ace and towards the restaurant. Ace took her chance, and ducked behind a tree. When the man looked back towards the village, he saw nothing and, emboldened, he stepped through a small lit area and towards the side door.
It was Bob Matson, looking as guilty as sin. He carried a plastic bag with him.
A Taste of the Orient‟s side door was simple and wooden, brightly painted and lacking all the mock opulence of the restaurant‟s main entrance. There was a door buzzer to one side, and a brass letter box in the centre. Gingerly, Matson opened up the letter box - even from where Ace was watching she could tell it was one of those finger-crushing ones that postmen hate - and he began forcing the contents of the bag into the house. Matson had his nose buried into one expansive shoulder.
Ace could hardly believe it. The man was posting excrement through the letter box.
When she was growing up, she had thought that racism was maybe something that affected just her street or her school. As her consciousness expanded, the limits were continually pushed back. Birmingham, Martin Luther King, South Africa, the Second World War. Her travels with the Doctor had expanded her viewpoint still further, the dizzying scope of their explorations almost trivialising the problems of Earth.
But this was a shocking reminder of the mundane hatred that goes hand in hand with everyday life. If she‟d resented Matson before, she loathed him now. She had half a mind to cross the road and confront the man, sod the consequences and Hexen Bridge‟s inability to deal with the appalling behaviour of its own people.
But the Doctor‟s voice came clearly through her mind. „The bigger picture, Ace. Always remember the bigger picture.
Sometimes, you‟ll find that if you concentrate on that, the smaller details will fell into place, too.‟
Hell, she hoped so. And, if not, she‟d deal with Bob Matson before they left. She didn‟t know how, yet, but she‟d happily devote the next couple of days to considering her options.
But, as Matson moved away quickly, she remembered the Doctor, and the school, and she waited for her emotions to calm. They did, moments after Bob Matson disappeared from view.
Ace emerged from the shelter of the tree, and turned into the lane that led to the school. It sat some distance away, a large building darker than the hedgerows it seemed to sprout from, studded with one or two resolute lights.
The wind picked up just as the rain started to fell, and Ace swore under her breath. The leisurely stroll became a dash for shelter as she ran towards the school, past what seemed to be a staff car park and a bedraggled, tacked-on row of workshops and science labs. She crashed into the back door, thankful for the overhanging roof, and pressed the doorbell, no longer interested in subtlety.
At length the door opened, and a ratlike man stood in the doorway. „Yes?‟ he asked, suspiciously.
Ace tried peering around him, as if the Doctor would be somewhere within sight, but saw only a wall of lockers and the doors to some toilets. „I got caught