Doctor Who_ The Paradise of Death - Barry Letts [30]
What? He was admitting the whole thing, just like that?
‘You mean that you accept responsibility for the death?’
‘No, no, no! I have no idea how that poor young man died.’ Freeth glanced longingly at his drink, which stood half-finished on his desk. ‘I was merely agreeing that I and my friends are, so to speak, an ethnic minority on your planet.’
Bit hard to swallow, that there was no connection at all, the Brigadier thought. ‘Something of a coincidence, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘I mean to say, fellow killed by some sort of alien beast – and you admitting that you’re aliens too.’
‘Brigadier,’ said Freeth, ‘if you found a body that had been savaged by a tiger, would you arrest Mr Patel from the corner shop?’
He’d got a point certainly.
‘No,’ said the Doctor drily. ‘But we’d certainly have a few questions for the proprietor of the travelling circus which had just arrived in town.’
Freeth giggled. ‘Touché!’ he said. ‘Let me bare my breast and tell all, as I promised. Then you’ll be in a better position to make a judgement.’
The Brigadier glanced at the Doctor. His face was as cool and distant as it had been from the start of the interview. He gave no answer.
‘We’re not in the business of making judgements, Mr Freeth,’ said the Brigadier. ‘It’s our job to get at the facts.’
‘And facts are what you shall have. But first, allow me to offer you a sherry – or perhaps you would prefer a “wee dram”?’
For an alien from the other side of the Galaxy, he managed a very plausible Scots accent.
Jeremy was most impressed by Sarah’s skill as a burglar. Luckily, all the back doors had Yale locks, so the well-known credit card technique (which she’d first tried when she had locked herself out of her flat, with packing to do, a train to catch, and a story fast escaping) had already given them entry via the tradesman’s entrance to the residences of the Thousand-Legged Zebroid (who in fact had a mere one hundred and twenty-eight if you bothered to count them on the poster, which Jeremy did while Sarah did the necessary) and the Philosophical Phwat. Neither was at home.
On the other hand, it was all a bit scary. Apart from the fact that they were nearly caught by a roving watchman (when Jeremy had just reached the one hundred and twenty-sixth leg), you never knew what might be lurking in the dark corners where the security floodlights didn’t reach. He was beginning to regret volunteering.
‘Why are we having to check them all?’ he whispered. If one monster’s a fake, they all will be.’
‘Second rule of investigative journalism,’ she answered in low tones, as they peered round the corner to make sure that the coast was clear, ‘never take anything for granted.
That body on the heath wasn’t torn up by the vicar’s pussy cat. There’s something nasty in the woodshed. There must be.’
This wasn’t at all reassuring. ‘And what if we open the woodshed door and it jumps out at us?’
‘Scared?’
‘Yes. No. Yes. Of course I am!’
Sarah grinned and took off across the brightly lit avenue. He scuttled after her.
‘What’s the first?’ he said as he caught her up at the back door of the Flesh-Eating Gryphon’s house.
‘Eh?’
The first rule of investigative journalism?’
‘Oh that,’ she said, starting on the lock. ‘Get your expenses sorted out.’
The Gryphon was as inhospitable as his co-stars: the Blue-Finned Belly-Flopper and the Vampire Teddy-Bear having proved no better. Jeremy found his fear rapidly turning into boredom. When Sarah, deciding that to check all twenty-one monsters was perhaps being over scrupulous, changed the immediate aim of her quest and started looking inside the rides in Yuri Gagarin Avenue, his insides were churning so much that he couldn’t stop himself complaining again.
‘I don’t understand why we’re looking inside all these spaceship thingies. I mean, they never pretended that they were anything but simulations all the time.’
‘That’s right,’ answered Sarah, as she came out of the
‘Flight to the Edge of Chaos’, closing the door with a gentle click. ‘But we didn’t see inside all of them, did we?
Perhaps they