The Ghosts of N-Space - Barry Letts [36]
126
Why am I so knackered? she said to herself, as she nestled into the feather bed. After all, in the last forty-eight hours, I’ve only been turned into a sort of ghost, attacked by assorted fiends, nearly captured by an evil necromancer, travelled back to the Regency period (is it?), rescued from drowning (sort of) and clonked by a flipping great lump of rock. So why should I be tired? I’m losing my stamina; I’m not a teenager any more.
She was still giggling as the waves of sleep swept over her.
If Jeremy hadn’t decided to go to the top of the gate-tower after breakfast the next morning, he might not have ended up tied to a chair in a cabin of the Princess M. under the threat of torture.
At least the Brigadier hadn’t set him to watch for the return of the TARDIS, he thought, as he reached the top of the spiral staircase, puffing slightly. Though he seemed to take the news of the Doctor’s hit-man a bit more seriously than Sarah, he hadn’t been any more forthcoming about his plans to deal with Max Vilmio.
Well, that just suited Jeremy. If he was going to prove to the others that he wasn’t some sort of Hooray Henry but a proper investigative journalist like Sarah, he’d got to have 127
some time to himself while he made up his mind what to do about it.
He settled himself into the corner of an embrasure on the south side and trained Mario’s little brass telescope on the harbour. Yes, in spite of a line of those tall thin poplar sort of trees – Cyprus trees, he’d heard Sarah call them; they must come from there – he could see most of the big yacht, still tied up to the harbour wall. Maybe, if he kept watching, he might see something which would give him a clue. Clues were the sort of thing people always went on about, weren’t they?
The ferry had just arrived and there were a few trippers wandering aimlessly around. It was fun looking through a telescope, even one as small as this; like watching a silent film. You could see the people were saying things but…
wait a minute! That was the big chap wasn’t it? The Yankee fellow who’d set the dogs on the Doc. It was, too; and he was talking to one of the tourists; a girl, a bit of a smasheroo by the look of it, as far as he could see under the big straw hat she was wearing. Still, judging by the mini-skirted legs and the barely concealed boobs (and Jeremy felt rather racy
– a favourite expression of his father’s – just thinking the word), she was a bit of… Oh, fish-hooks! She’d left the quay and was lost to sight behind the trees.
128
When she eventually reappeared round the corner by the orange grove at the top of the hill Jeremy, under the dual influence of large quantities of bread and honey – the next best thing to marmalade – and the heat of the morning sun, was almost asleep. But the sight of her jiggling figure, each part of which seemed to have a life of its own, was better than an alarm clock. Disappointingly though, by the time she was really close, passing directly underneath him as she went through the gatehouse and the telescope could really have come into its own, she was completely concealed by the brim of her hat.
To his utter surprise, shortly after she rang the bell and the door was opened, she disappeared inside.
She might be a clue! It was plainly his duty to find out.
And so it was that hurt pride, the essential truffle-pig propensities of the budding journalist, simple curiosity and common-or‐garden lust all conspired together to propel Jeremy, with awful inevitability, towards his date with destiny.
It was the Brigadier who answered the door. Umberto had quite enough to do, he thought as he passed the snoring Mario (who had added a hefty slug of grappa to his colazione). In any case, after what he’d heard from Jeremy 129
– why the Doctor? – there was no point in taking any chances.
‘I have to refuse, I’m afraid, madam,’ he said on being asked if she could have a look round the