Doctor Who_ The Last Dodo - Jacqueline Rayner [24]
The Doctor went over to the girl, and plonked himself down beside her. After some hesitation, Martha followed. She felt a twinge of guilt – surely they were exploiting this girl’s grief? But an investigator couldn’t afford such scruples.
‘Did he suffer much?’ the Doctor asked, sympathy dripping from his voice.
A shiver ran through the girl before she nodded. ‘Yes,’ she whispered, eventually. ‘It was… It was not an easy thing to watch.’
‘But I’m sure you did everything you could to help him.’
She smiled then, a smile with not the faintest trace of warmth or happiness. ‘I would have dealt with the Devil to save him,’ she said.
Martha drew in a deep breath. She believed her. Well, she knew at least one thing that the girl must have done. One of the reasons they became extinct in the first place – idiots getting it into their heads that rhino horn could cure all ills.
Then the cold, inhuman smile vanished, and she was a sobbing child again, tearful and snotty, a ridiculous figure amid the beauty and calm of her surroundings. She thrust a hand into a pocket and rooted blindly for a moment before pulling out a square of cloth to wipe her face, a strangely inelegant gesture.
And then Martha jumped. Without quite realising what was coming out of her mouth, certainly without thinking, she cried, ‘Where did you get that hankie?’
The girl swivelled to look at her, regarding her as though she were a mad thing. After all, these were the first words Martha had spoken to her and it was hardly a conventional address to the recently bereaved. Then she glanced down at the handkerchief. So did the Doctor, and he had clearly realised exactly what Martha was thinking.
This was no delicate square of Chinese silk. This was a great flapping piece of cotton, about a foot square. It was covered with small print dinosaurs.
The girl looked slightly puzzled herself. ‘Oh,’ she said after a second. ‘I… found it. Someone must have dropped it.’
‘What “someone”?’ said Martha, harshly, because she knew the answer and didn’t want to hear it.
The girl bridled at her tone. ‘Just… someone.’ She drew herself up. ‘I picked it up. Not that it’s any business of yours.’
‘Oh, but it is,’ Martha told her, despite the Doctor’s warning hand on her arm. ‘If you trade with people like that you’ve got to expect a few awkward questions. You know, about handkerchiefs,’ she added awkwardly. ‘And stuff.’
‘The “stuff” being slightly more important,’ the Doctor said, rather more gently. ‘So perhaps you would tell us who you got the rhino horn from.’
The girl looked terrified. ‘He said no one would ever find out!’
‘And you trusted him? Oh dear. Oh dear‐dear‐dear‐deary me.’ Now the Doctor was a policeman, shaking his head and tutting. ‘I think you’d better tell us everything you know about this man.’
‘But I never saw him! Truly, I never saw him, never spoke to him face to face, I know nothing about him at all! I just found the handkerchief after the… delivery.’
And, reluctantly, Martha believed her. Not that it mattered. The evidence clearly pointed the way. She reached out and took the sodden square from the girl, holding it up so there could be no mistake in what they were looking at. Both she and the Doctor knew exactly where they’d seen an identical hankie, barely hours before. ‘Tommy,’ she said sadly.
He nodded. ‘I think it’s time we got back to the warehouse.’
They shimmered back into existence in the exit‐free office. The Doctor had moved through to the main warehouse before Martha had got her head together, but after a few dizzy moments she set off after him. The only person in there was Rix, sitting on an upturned box. There was no sign of his partner.
‘Where’s Tommy?’ the