Doctor Who_ The Last Dodo - Jacqueline Rayner [21]
‘Hello!’ the Doctor called.
‘Go away!’ the man said again, his voice slightly muffled by the table.
‘We’re doing a follow‐up on a recent… purchase of yours.’
The man’s voice, already high, rose up to a screeching panic. ‘I haven’t bought anything!’
‘What, nothing?’
‘Nothing!’
‘Ever?’
‘Ever!’
‘Goodness,’ said the Doctor to Martha. ‘That’s taking anti‐consumerism quite far. It’s also probably not true.’ He stretched a hand through the window, leaned awkwardly towards the door, and clicked open the lock from the inside. Glad to get her nose away from the musty curtains, Martha withdrew her head and followed him as he hopped up a tiny portable step and went through the door.
She would have felt guilty for invading this man’s privacy if he hadn’t been one of the unknown thief’s customers; as it was her heart had hardened. But the man, when he emerged in a backwards crawl from under his fold‐down table, seemed about as far from the ‘unique’ lady as could be. He was short, much shorter than Martha, probably not a lot over five feet tall, and had a fringe of white hair and, when he was finally clear of the table, a face full of white hair too. For a second Martha thought this was some sort of extinct albino weasel attached to his upper lip, but it turned out on closer viewing to be an enormous moustache and extremely bushy mutton‐chop whiskers.
‘Hello!’ said the Doctor, taking a seat on a padded bench out of which springs were sticking. ‘I’m the Doctor and this is Martha, and we’ve come to –’ He broke off. ‘Hey! Don’t I know you?’
The little man shook his head so forcefully that the moustache ends whipped his cheeks. ‘I am completely unknown!’ he said.
‘No, no… yes, that’s it, your name’s Dunnock!’
‘I am not Professor Dougal Dunnock!’ protested Professor Dougal Dunnock.
‘Professor Dougal Dunnock! Yes, I’ve seen your picture on a dust jacket. Fishy Fingers: Evolution from Sea to Land.’
‘I did not write that bestselling and revolutionary scientific treatise!’ Professor Dunnock insisted.
Martha blinked in surprise. ‘Bestselling? Then how come you’re living in a falling‐down caravan?’ She stopped. ‘Sorry, that was a bit rude.’
The old man flung up his hands. ‘Well, obviously I had to sell everything I owned in order to buy… nothing,’ he finished hastily.
‘Nothing. Because you’ve never bought anything in your life,’ clarified the Doctor. Dunnock nodded eagerly. ‘No… extinct animals of any kind.’
The professor caught his breath. ‘No indeed, sir! Do you mean to imply that I might be hiding some sort of missing link in my bathroom?’ He stepped over to an internal door and stood in front of it, making a human barrier. As it was the only internal door, Martha strongly suspected it led to the bathroom – not that there was anywhere like enough room for an actual bath (and, as far as she could judge, Professor Dunnock certainly didn’t seem to have been acquainted with an actual bath recently).
The Doctor stood up and, with a foot’s height advantage, reached over the little man to push open the door. Dunnock turned and grabbed the door handle with both hands, pulling it shut, but not before Martha had caught a glimpse of a small grey creature a bit like a hairy mudskipper sitting in the tiny sink.
She turned to the Doctor. ‘That’s the missing link between sea animals and land animals?’
‘A missing link, not the missing link,’ he said. ‘It didn’t go cod, cod, missing link, badger, badger, or anything like that, the process was rather more gradual. Something Professor Dunnock should know all about, being a world expert on the subject as I seem to recall.’
Dunnock waved a hand deprecatingly, then seemed to remember he wasn’t supposed to be Professor Dunnock at all and frowned instead.
‘You’re not going to dissect it or anything, are you?’ asked Martha, a bit worried.
The professor looked startled. ‘Dissect Mervin? Of course not.’
‘Mervin… the Missing Link.’
‘No!’
‘Mervin… the not‐Missing Link who isn