Doctor Who_ Warlock - Andrew Cartmel [133]
‘Something like that.’
‘Well, if I’m not here with you, where am I?’
Jack glanced away from her so she couldn’t look into his eyes.
‘You don’t want to tell me?’
‘I don’t have to remind you about that. Not yet.’ Jack’s face was creased with pain and she reached out to caress it back to peace. He caught her hand and gently lifted it away. He sighed. ‘Come on. Let’s go in that pub over there.’
Shell had the oddest feeling that they should be going straight to her bedroom instead of into a pub, but she followed him into the building.
There was nothing special about it. It was located near the city wall, wedged between a pub and the municipal car park. She must have walked past it a hundred times, but she’d never gone inside. It was just one of those places.
She couldn’t even have told you the pub’s name until now. As they went in she glanced up at the sign swinging in the wind.
The Moonchild. How odd. She’d heard of the infamous Moonchild pub in London, of course, but she’d never realized that there was one by that name in Canterbury.
Warm beery air hit them as they hurried in from the chill grey winter’s afternoon. Jack found a corner booth close beside a roaring open fire. She slid into the cosy darkness with him.
Shell had walked out of her job so quickly that she was still wearing her uniform pinafore. Now she used the semidarkness of the booth to strip it off. She opened her bag and began pulling out her street clothes. Jack gazed in fascination at the tattoos which swept up her nude torso.
He was hungrily inspecting her bare breasts when a nun came over and sat in the booth beside them. Jack didn’t seem surprised to see her. In fact he seemed to know who she was.
‘Jack,’ said Shell. ‘Who is this?’
‘Excuse me,’ he said. ‘I’ll get us all some drinks.’ He slipped out of the booth, leaving the half naked Shell alone with the nun.
‘The name is Mrs Woodcott, dear,’ said the nun.
‘Why are you staring at my breasts?’
‘I’m not. I’m staring at your tattoos.’
‘They’re beautiful, aren’t they?’
‘It’s more the information content I’m concerned with.’
‘Information?’
‘Yes.’ Mrs Woodcott took a pen out of her robes and began sketching on the back of a beer‐mat. She kept glancing up and down at the tattoo between Shell’s breasts. Shell felt like a model sitting for an artist.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Copying the map.’
‘What map?’
The nun frowned as she adjusted a few pen strokes on the beer mat. ‘Well, that’s how I see this information. As a map tattooed over your heart. It shows the location of a small research lab near Canterbury. The same information could be expressed any number of ways, but a map was a good choice.’
‘But I don’t have a map on me. All my tattoos are of animals.’
‘Don’t sweat it. This is just a hallucination you’re having; said the nun. ‘A dream.’
‘Jack kept saying that,’ Shell frowned. ‘But if I’m dreaming then I’m not really here. So where am I?’
Mrs Woodcott looked sad. ‘We don’t have to talk about that just yet, dear.’
Shell suddenly shivered. She buttoned up her shirt and pulled a sweater on. ‘That’s what Jack said.’
‘Sit nearer the fire, you poor girl.’
‘Suddenly I’m scared,’ said Shell in a small voice. ‘I feel like something terrible is going to happen.’
‘Don’t be silly, dear, I’m sorry. It’s all my fault, mystifying you and frightening you.’ Mrs Woodcott patted her arm. ‘And it doesn’t help being dressed as a bloody nun. I always thought there was something faintly sinister about nuns’ apparel. Help me get this clobber off.’
Shell helped Mrs Woodcott pull off her veil and habit. Without these items of costume she began to look like an ordinary middle‐aged woman. ‘Ah, much better. I was melting in that lot,’ she said. She ran her fingers through her hair, scratching her scalp.
‘Sorry I frightened you. I suppose it’s because I’m used to being in situations like this. That is, I’m used to communicating with people in their drug trances. I once appeared as a figure in the paranoid hallucination of a girl who was having an overdose. She was a kid who used to score