Doctor Who_ The Taint - Michael Collier [42]
'What's cooking?' he pondered, angling the Bunsen flame.
***
Roley switched on the noise machine, enjoying the little tremors of excitement the unearthly sounds sent through him. Perhaps it was also the risk of being caught that thrilled him, although what real business it was of the Doctor's he didn't know. The lights swirled around the darkened room, catching and distorting still further on the folds of the heavy drapes. He rubbed his hands together with glee, fascinated by the way Watson's twitching arm gradually became still.
***
'Oh, Nurse Bulwell -' began Sam in a glorious rush of relief, as Maria opened the door and spared both her and Waller a cursory glance.
'I'm busy,' the nurse called back, shutting the door behind her.
Are you now? wondered Sam.
***
Roley motioned Bulwell to be silent as she gingerly entered his study, miming that Watson was asleep. 'Well under,' he added in an excited whisper.
'Where is he?' asked Maria, smiling salaciously. It felt deliciously naughty to be doing this, sharing this man's innermost thoughts between the two of them.
'Well, I seem to have succeeded in rolling back time beyond the life span of the patient,' said Roley, enthralled.
'Why?' asked Bulwell, her smile faltering slightly.
'Well... I really didn't try. It was as if it was being thrown up by his subconscious, offered up, straight away!'
'Where is he?'
'The 1820s, I think,' said Roley, scratching his nose. 'Seems he thinks he was in an asylum then, too, a vagrant lunatic. Anyway, shh!' He pointed to the tape machine, which was recording now rather than playing.
'We'd like some particulars, now, please,' said Roley to Watson, placid on the couch. 'Tell us your name.'
'William Watson of Aberdare, if it pleases your honour,' he mumbled.
Roley spun round and stared at Maria. 'That's his great - no, his great-great
-grandfather!'
Maria folded her arms, as if suddenly cold. 'How can that be?'
***
Sam started to rise from her chair to keep an eye on Bulwell, but Russell started waving his hands.
'No... Oh, please,' he stammered. 'Don't go yet.'
Sam sighed. 'Cause we're having so much fun, she thought. She couldn't think of much else to talk about. Russell couldn't have been much older than she was, but there the similarity ended. Not only had the guy been in and out of loony bins for most of his life, the life he had had was one alien to her own. No Blackadder quotes to laugh over... No remembering the Moomins, Pacers, the House Sound of Chicago or Mel and Kim. No common cultural touchstones at all.
But he was looking so pleadingly at her, poor little sap. Snooping on Butwell could wait a couple more minutes, she decided.
'What do you put in your hair?' she tried in desperation.
Immediately Russell froze, as if he'd switched from the yes-and-no game to musical statues.
'Brylcreem or something?' she prompted.
'Yes.'
'Right.'
'I do this with it.' He gripped his hair and pulled down on it with both hands again and again.
'All right, I think I get the idea,' said Sam.'Why do you do that?'
'I... I...'
Sam frowned. He seemed to be listening to something far in the distance.
***
The Doctor studied the diagnostic printout from his machine, and turned to look at the growth, lying like a fat slug in a Petri dish.
'Well, well,' he said. 'Who's a clever boy, then?'
***
'I found myself at Greenock in Dumbartonshire, early entered into the East India Company's service, where I was second mate of the William Pitt , East Indiaman of fourteen hundred tons...'
'I've no way of verifying any of this, of course,' muttered Roley, scattering pages of notes for personal details in Watson's file, frowning at what looked to be a marmalade stain on one of them. 'We'll have to check historical records, but...'
Maria still had her cardigan