Doctor Who_ Warchild - Andrew Cartmel [118]
A window scraped open above them.
‘That isn’t a young man. It’s the Young Master.’
Cynthia McIlveen and Lysette McCracken were leaning out of the window of Cynthia’s bedroom. Mrs McCracken scowled up at the girls.
‘He teaches us Comparative Anthropology,’ they said.
‘And he seems to be doing some fieldwork,’ said Mrs McCracken. ‘Like peering in your back windows.’
‘I need to see Justine,’ said the monk.
‘You certainly do. I think you’d better come in and explain yourself to the lady of the house immediately, baldy.’
Mrs McCracken led the young man inside the house, doing everything short of dragging him by his ear. They walked through sunny pale rooms into the kitchen where Justine was stirring pancake batter in a large green porcelain bowl.
‘Good Lord, isn’t there an appliance that can do that for you? Justine, I found this young man skulking in your shrubbery.’
‘I wasn’t skulking, I was trying to ascertain who was in the house before I announced my presence.’
Mrs McCracken removed her insectoid sunglasses, exposing her eyes for the first time. They were unexpectedly pleasant.
‘Actually you announced your presence with your bony knees,’ she smiled. ‘If one stands at Justine’s front door and stares through a certain window at a certain angle, one can see right through the house.’
‘And Lesley always makes sure that she’s standing at just the right angle,’ said Justine
‘Damned right. I could see right through the house to another window out the back. And I saw our visitor’s bony knees waving in the air as he clambered up one of your back windows.’
‘I needed to speak to you urgently, Justine.’
‘Is there some Buddhist thing about not using the phone?’ asked Mrs McCracken.
‘Well, you might as well sit down,’ said Justine, setting aside her bowl of pancake batter and fetching a jug of orange juice from the refrigerator.
‘Here, let me do that, dear. It had better be freshly squeezed.’ Mrs McCracken poured tall glasses for all of them. ‘I don’t suppose anybody would join me if I cracked open a bottle of vodka? No, not a very good idea I suppose, considering I still have to drive both of our little angels to school.’
The monk had been standing tensely and now he accepted a glass of orange juice but immediately set it aside.
‘That’s what I’ve come about. Your children. It’s a matter of their safety.’
Both of the women were staring at him now, their eyes suddenly cold with suspicion.
‘I’m not explaining this very well. The Doctor sent me, Justine. He said do you remember the time you left your house early one morning? You lived in a house by the river in London and you got up early, to run away from him?’
The suspicion faded from Justine’s eyes. She turned away and sat down at the kitchen table. ‘Yes, I remember,’
she said. And she remembered what had happened in Canterbury afterwards. The thing Vincent had done. Justine didn’t want to think of what had happened in Canterbury. The enormity of it would overwhelm her. So now she fought off the rush of memories and focused on the bald young man standing in her kitchen. Mrs McCracken still eyed him suspiciously, protective of her friend.
‘The Doctor sent you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Who are you then?’
‘My name is Christopher Cwej. I’m not really a Buddhist monk.’
‘No kidding,’ said Lesley McCracken.
‘The Doctor has sent me to help you.’
‘Help me in what way?’
The shaven-headed young man called Chris sighed, as if he didn’t know where to start. His confusion made him look even younger, giving him a boyish appeal that called out to the women in the kitchen, both of them mothers.
‘Sit down and drink your juice,’ ordered Mrs McCracken, and Chris sat down opposite Justine.
‘It’s all very complex,’ he said. ‘And I’m afraid you’ll find it somewhat disorientating.’
‘You said something about my kids. That sounds pretty basic.’
‘Yes, right. Well let me explain. There are, in the world, people with strange talents. People who attract the wrong kind of attention. People who have abilities they try to hide from the world.’
‘What are you blathering