Doctor Who_ Wolfsbane - Jac Rayner [6]
„Oh - I‟m Harry, by the way,‟ Harry suddenly said, realising there had been no introductions. „Harry Sullivan. Lieutenant Harry Sullivan,‟ he added, thinking - rightly as it turned out -
that a rank was probably not a bad thing to have in whatever bit of the past this turned out to be.
„Pleased to meet you, Harry,‟ said the man. „Nice scarf.‟
„Oh, I am really a doctor, though,‟ Harry hastily added.
„Royal Navy.‟
„Ah, that‟s better than me,‟ said the man. „I‟m not really a doctor.‟ There was a tiny pause. „I‟m actually the Doctor.‟
Harry nearly choked.
* * *
Sarah stood and shivered, watching the Doctor as he strode round the churchyard from one grave to the next. Her grandmother would have prescribed hot sweet tea and a lie down for the shock, but the Doctor never thought of things like that. Of course, he was in many ways paying her a compliment. After all, in the last couple of years she‟d seen -
actually seen, not just known about - lots of people die. She‟d also been betrayed by friends, kidnapped, nearly eaten, and tortured. So the Doctor probably thought she was pretty tough, not the sort of girl to collapse just because she‟d had a bit of a shock. She hadn‟t even actually seen Harry die.
I believe the evidence of my own eyes.
„Doctor,‟ she called, „Harry might not be dead.‟
He stopped his examination of the earth and turned to her.
„We don‟t know he‟s dead. We didn‟t see it. This could be a trick - a trap! Let‟s go back in time, find out for sure.‟
He beckoned imperiously to her, and she went to join him, still hugging herself to prevent the shivers from without and within her.
He pointed at Harry‟s grave marker. „Twenty-eighth of November 1936.‟ Then he strode over to another new grave Lady Hester Stanton, also died 28th November 1936.‟
Sarah examined a third grave, journalistic instincts almost crowding out Sarah-feelings. „And another one,‟ she called.
„But it just says “Godric”. No surname.‟ The journalist in her was leaping about now, eager to find out more, to probe the connections. „Twenty-eighth of November. If we assume that this is 1936, which it almost certainly is, and with the sixth of December being a Sunday, that would make it a Saturday.
Does that tell us anything? Well, not by itself.‟ She carried on hunting through the gravestones. „There‟s another Stanton here – died 1917 - probably not actually buried here, though, if he died in the war. Brother, perhaps? Father? Husband?
He doesn‟t have a title, though, which is odd.‟ She struggled to remember the ridiculous mores of the aristocracy, tried to picture the pages of her office DeBrett‟s. „Arthur Stanton, born 1888. That makes him 29 when he died. What about her?‟
The Doctor at least knew what she was talking about.
„1883. Five years older.‟
„So not father, could be untitled younger brother, could be untitled husband.‟
„Or they might just have left off the title. Humans aren‟t known for their accuracy...‟
„Don‟t you lecture me on reliability of sources,‟ she told him, acting extra cross because she was annoyed that he‟d caught her out. And also because she knew that what she was doing right now was pointless and worthless, just a distraction from the pain. As if deducing the relationship between a newly dead corpse and a long-dead corpse would help bring Harry back from the dead (but was he? Was he really?). As if it wasn‟t information they could find out quite easily by going along to the nearest inn (which wasn‟t a bad idea in itself), and asking: „So, Arthur Stanton and Lady Hester Stanton, what‟s the deal there, then?‟
The Doctor was now waving a hand, pointing out other grave markers. She hurried over to him. With a chill, she realised he‟d found more recent graves. That was what it was like after they‟d left, she thought. Wherever they went, a host of new graves would spring up in the churchyard. It was just that they never stayed around long enough to see them.
„Lucinda Ryan,