Doctor Who_ The Paradise of Death - Barry Letts [25]
‘Ah yes. You’re in charge of the investigation into the Heath case. You’ll forgive me if I don’t shake hands.’
‘You’re Doctor Willow?’
‘It’s Professor Willow,’ one of his companions said in a worried manner.
‘Oh, I’m sorry.’
‘For my sins,’ said the Professor. ‘The chair of Forensic Pathology. But you can call me Doctor if you like. I’d answer to Rover if you offered me a bone.’
Looking down at the Doctor, he added, ‘Speaking of bones, we have a most interesting case here. Every bone intact, yet he is reputed to have fallen from the top of a high tower.’
‘Indeed he did. I saw him fall.’
‘Really? He’s still as dead as last Sunday’s joint, though.
We’re just about to take a look at his innards.’
He raised the knife again.
‘No!’ said the Brigadier.
‘Not squeamish, are you?’
‘No, no, of course not. It’s just that I happen to know the Doctor and, well, it’s just possible that...’ Good grief, how could he possibly explain?
‘You see, there was at least one other occasion when he’d been given up for dead.’
The Professor looked at him sceptically. ‘If you’re suggesting that there’s the remotest chance of reviving this man, I can assure you that you’re mistaken. Spontaneous remission of death is somewhat rare in my experience.’
Saying which, he placed the point of his knife on the skin of the Doctor’s throat and –
‘Ouch!’ said the Doctor.
‘Oh my God!’ said Brian Prebble.
‘You see!’ said the Brigadier.
Tom said nothing. His mouth hung open slackly and his eyes were very wide.
Professor Willow had not moved. Staring unbelievingly at the unruly corpse, he tentatively made another small jab with his knife.
The Doctor squinted down at it. ‘Would you be so kind as to take that a little further away?’ he said. ‘You’ll do me a mischief. Thank you.’
‘But you were dead,’ said Willow. ‘No question of it.
You were as dead as – ’
‘As last Sunday’s joint? Yes, I heard you say that. Well, clearly I’m not now.’ The Doctor sat up. ‘Ah, Lethbridge-Stewart. Do you think you could find my clothes? It’s a trifle parky in here.’
Like many before her, Sarah had found some relief from having to face the unfaceable by plunging into her work.
But Clorinda was proving hard to convince that the experiences of the morning could provide the material for a piece in Metropolitan.
‘No, Sarah dear, it’s all rubbish,’ she said, pushing aside a stray tendril of her fashionably untidy Titian hair (nee mouse).
‘I mean to say, Atlantis!’ she went on. ‘Alien monsters roaming around Hampstead Heath! I’m not the editor of a Sunday tabloid, you know.’
‘Of course you’re not,’ replied Sarah, wheedling. ‘You’re the dearest sweetest cleverest loveliest editor of the best glossy on the market.’
‘You noticed,’ said Clorinda, unmoved.
‘It would be a sort of – oh, I don’t know. A sort of tribute to the unknown genius in our midst. “Who was this man?” All that stuff.’
‘If he’s unknown, why should anybody be interested in him?’ said Clorinda, unanswerably.
But Sarah tried to find an answer. It wasn’t the first time she’d had to persuade her hard-headed boss to change her mind.
‘Well,’ she said, getting out of her stark (more modern even than post-modern) chair which was really rather tough on the bottom bones, and walking over to the window to seek inspiration, ‘you could –’
Jeremy came in. ‘I say!’
She flapped a shut-up at him and continued desperately,
‘You could...’ She looked across at the hideous construction going up on the other side of the road, the latest glitzy tourist trap to disfigure the West End. ‘You could link it with environmental pollution, the destruction of our heritage and all, the disgrace of building a theme park on London’s historic Hampstead Heath – ’
‘I say –’ said Jeremy.
‘In a minute,’ said Sarah, taking in Clorinda’s impassive face.
‘And you could use the shots of the Crab-Clawed Kamelius to sauce it up a bit,’ she concluded lamely.
‘But that’s just it,’ said Jeremy. ‘There aren’t any.’
‘What?’
‘There aren’t any shots of the