Doctor Who_ Warlock - Andrew Cartmel [94]
It was odd how disorienting the darkness was. The lamp didn’t seem to be in its proper place. Tommy began to sweat. He vowed that the first thing he’d do once he found the desk lamp was to get that damned ceiling bulb replaced. Well, maybe the second thing. The first thing would be to deal with the cat. Tommy felt he was involved in a vendetta now. But he had no doubt about who was going to win. As soon as he had the cat secured he could put it to good use.
There was still some data missing from a pesticide test that the lab was conducting for a Polish firm. The company needed some toxicity results and Tommy had designed just the experiment for them. It involved forcing a tube down an animal’s throat directly into the stomach and then pouring a dose of pesticide down it. It was a slightly tricky procedure. You had to be very careful about pacing the administration of the pesticide – you didn’t want the animal to die by choking. That would invalidate the experiment. The animal had to die as a result of receiving a lethal dose of the designated test substance.
Tommy had tried a similar procedure using a rabbit but it hadn’t proved very satisfactory. He’d subsequently decided that a cat would be ideal.
And now he’d found just the cat.
‘Just you wait, puss,’ he murmured. ‘Just you wait, you little bastard. I’m going to teach you to bite my hand. I’m going to give pussykins a little drink she won’t enjoy at all.’
Groping clumsily in the dark with one hand, Tommy finally found the photocopier and, working from its position on the table, he located the desk lamp. He pressed the button on the lamp.
Nothing happened. He pressed it again. Still nothing. Had the bulb in this one gone as well? Tommy swore under his breath. The spare light‐bulbs were in the storage cupboard in the annexe. There weren’t any lights in the cupboard. How was he supposed to find them on the shelves in the dark?
But was it the bulb? The desk lamp had been working perfectly only a little while ago. Maybe it was something else. A memory surfaced in Tommy’s mind, a memory from school‐days. He’d been working in the biology lab with a group of other students and they’d decided to play a trick on the exchange student, an American. They’d switched off the boy’s microscope at the wall socket. Being from the States the boy wasn’t accustomed to having on–off switches on sockets. He’d spent half an hour trying to get the microscope to work before they’d let him in on the joke.
Tommy traced the power cable from the desk lamp. It looped from the table to a socket at floor level.
An odd thought occurred to Tommy. If the cat wanted to lure him into a vulnerable position for attack, this would be an ideal way of achieving it. While he fumbled for the socket he would be crouching under the table. It would be difficult to move, and his neck would be exposed. The cat could climb silently onto the table and wait for him. When he rose from the floor his face would be exactly on a level with the table and the cat could –
‘Stop it,’ said Tommy, speaking out loud in the darkened annexe. ‘It’s only a cat. It can’t think. It can’t plan. It’s just a stupid cat.’
He held the lamp’s cable in one hand as he quickly ducked under the table. He ran his other hand along the taut cable, found the wall socket just above the floor, found the rocker switch on it and clicked it.
Nothing.
Kneeling there in the darkness Tommy began to panic. Then he remembered that he’d switched the desk lamp on and off repeatedly. He stood up and quickly scrabbled around on the table. He grabbed the lamp and clicked its switch one final time.
The light came on. Tommy had to shut his eyes at the painful glare. Suddenly the whole annexe was flooded with light.
He forced himself to open his eyes and he saw something small and black on the floor,