Nicola Denman swore under her breath. 'If Daddy gets to hear about this...'
'Oh dear,' said the Doctor, standing at the bottom of the stairs. Four policeman blocked his way.
'Stay where you are, shorty,' said one, putting a hand on the Doctor's chest.
'No, you don't understand,' said the Doctor, pulling his jacket open. 'I have a bomb about my person. You must clear the area immediately.'
The policemen were looking at the packages and wires strapped to the Doctor's torso with a mixture of incredulity and terror. The Doctor supposed that none of them had seen a bomb before.
'Are you mental or something?' asked one angrily.
'I really am most desperately sorry about this,' said the Doctor, tugging at the wires attached to the plastic explosive.
'But I do suggest you clear the area. Now.' Now.' The Doctor concentrated on pulling the wires from the detonator, trying to remember what Ace had shown him. He expected at any moment to feel the searing heat of an explosion, but nothing happened. As he removed the final wire and breathed out slowly, he heard a faint chuckle in his head. The Doctor concentrated on pulling the wires from the detonator, trying to remember what Ace had shown him. He expected at any moment to feel the searing heat of an explosion, but nothing happened. As he removed the final wire and breathed out slowly, he heard a faint chuckle in his head.
The Doctor scooped the tiny transmitter from his ear, and looked at it closely. It was immediately knocked from his hands as he was grabbed by two of the police officers and bundled to the ground.
'You do not have to say anything,' stated someone standing over the Doctor as handcuffs locked around his wrists, 'but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something that you later rely on in court.
Anything you do say may be given in evidence.'
'You're making a terrible mistake,' he spluttered as he was dragged to his feet. Around him he could see other policemen questioning the young people in the club. He noticed the young woman he had spoken to earlier. An officer was pulling something from the girl's handbag, and a look of horror was spreading across her face.
'That shouldn't be there!' the Doctor shouted across the club just as someone pulled the plugs on the music. 'That woman is innocent.' The Doctor tried to reach into his jacket pocket, despite the cuffs that bit into his wrists. 'Look, I was given a -'
One of the constables punched the Doctor in the stomach.
'I am not resisting arrest,' the Doctor said through gritted teeth. 'Yes you are,' said the senior officer. 'Bring the girl.
And anyone else in possession.' The policeman's grip on the Doctor's arm tightened as he was propelled towards the club stairs.
CHAPTER 7.
DOWN IN THE POLICE STATION AT MIDNIGHT.
Phil Burridge left the vicarage as easily as he had entered, climbing down the tree and then heading for home. He stopped off at the Green Man on the way.
When finally he pushed open his front door he found the house in darkness. A lingering smell indicated that Cheryl had tried to keep a meal warm for him and then surrendered it to the flames. It was probably another lasagne. Phil Burridge hated foreign food. When would that stupid cow realise that you can't beat pork chop and chips?
A clock chiming the darkness of the sitting room reminded him of the time, and Burridge switched on his mobile phone, hoping to leave a message at Hatch's office.
'Damn and blast it,' he muttered. The signal was too weak, so he pushed his way towards the back of the house, wandering out on to the patio. The garden beyond was a tip, a rambling sprawl of rusted furniture and enthusiastic weeds. The clouds parted, allowing moonlight to splash down on to the path.
Burridge held the small phone to his ear, kicking aside an old wheelbarrow which hit the ground with a rending clatter.
The recorded announcement of an answering machine interrupted the ringing tone, and Burridge paused, waiting to leave his message.
'All right, Matt,' he said, opening the garden gate and walking through. 'I did what you asked me to, and, yes, she she is linked to is linked to you know what.' you know what.' A grin stretched across his broad features. 'I've got what you need - I'll fax it to you tomorrow. Just give me a bell.' A grin stretched across his broad features. 'I've got what you need - I'll fax it to you tomorrow. Just give me a bell.'
Burridge terminated the call, and folded the mobile into his pocket. He'd wandered a little way down the hill, close to where some straggling trees hid in a chalky hollow. The air was clean and fresh here, and Burridge breathed deeply, waiting for his head to clear. When he was younger he could have handled ten or more pints in an evening, no problem.
Now, it seemed, the merest sniff of alcohol made him muggy-headed.
For the first time Burridge noticed movement at the bottom of the hill. A bush was twitching frantically, as if an animal had become trapped. Burridge was not the sort of man to cringe at the thought of an animal suffering, but he was pragmatic: if a lamb was stuck there, well, he was just the man to put the creature out of its misery. And there was always plenty of mint sauce in the larder. He cautiously approached the twitching knot of thick brambles, but in the darkness it was difficult to see what was going on. Burridge reached out with his hands, gingerly parting the branches.
Without warning, something moved at his feet. Burridge glanced down, expecting to see a fox or a rabbit darting for cover.
The ground was moving.
Burridge leapt away in horror. A long strip of land, with the bush at its centre, was writhing. It was as if an enormous snake was struggling just below the dark soil.
His eyes now accustomed to the gloom, Burridge could see the true extent of the moving thing. thing. It stretched from back towards his house, down to the bottom of the hill, right across a flattish piece of scrub land, and then out over the fields beyond. And suddenly Burridge saw that other patches of ground, far off to his left and right, were twitching and shuddering. It stretched from back towards his house, down to the bottom of the hill, right across a flattish piece of scrub land, and then out over the fields beyond. And suddenly Burridge saw that other patches of ground, far off to his left and right, were twitching and shuddering.
Obeying some wordless instinct, Burridge found himself trudging alongside the shifting earth, following the trail of the movement.
He walked for a mile or more, coming finally to a small meadow overlooking Hexen Bridge. The moonlight seemed to cut the field in two: a darker area, towards the village, and lighter ground beyond. There was frenzied movement at the intersection between the two.
A mass of tentacles and ill-formed limbs reared up from the dark soil.
Burridge stumbled closer. He glimpsed plantlike fronds and dripping, insect legs, mottled by what seemed to be... faces?
And hands?
His stomach churning, he turned to run, and blundered straight into a human shape that smelled of straw and damp cloth. Phil Burridge let out a cry of surprise, staggering backward. Then he laughed.
It was just a motionless scarecrow, gaunt and impassive in the darkness. He must have become disorientated, and stumbled towards the edge of the field and into the shadowy manikin.
Phil Burridge turned away, and hands of straw and flesh flew towards his throat.
The Doctor was thrown into a police van that smelled of alcohol, urine and dogs. Other people were being bundled in and, through the melee, the Doctor could just make out the face of the girl. She had sad eyes, big and brown. The Doctor felt something he had rarely experienced during his travels through the cosmos: shame.
'That woman has not -' he began to say, but again he was forced into silence by a well-placed blow to his body.
'You her pimp, or what?' asked one of the young constables with a snarl.
The Doctor remained silent. There would be no reasoning with these people in the mood that they were in. As far as they were concerned, he was a criminal, a deranged man who had endangered the lives of innocent people. He looked across at the girl as the van doors banged shut. She was staring out of the back window, her eyes brimming with tears.
Two burly constables sat on either side of the Doctor, digging their elbows into his sides.
'I'll tell you everything I know about Shanks,' said the Doctor, which certainly seemed to capture the attention of the police officers in the van. But let the girl go.'
'No deal, sunshine,' said a man in an expensive suit sitting opposite the Doctor. 'Possession is nine-tenths of the law...'
He guffawed loudly and his colleagues joined in with sycophantic sniggers. Right, Frank,' he shouted, banging the grille behind the driver's seat. 'Let's get these scumbags down to the shop and have some fun!'
Steven Chen pulled the thick curtain back across the stairwell. 'So, what's it all mean?' he asked, his voice echoing through the empty church like a bell.
Ace shrugged. 'Dunno. But it's well weird, and that's enough to interest the Professor.' She walked towards the side door, the torch illuminating the plaques and stone caskets that lined the wall.
'Maybe we should ask Reverend Baber about the photos,'
said Steven, hurrying after her.
Ace snorted. 'What, and admit that we broke into the church? No thanks.' She reached the side door, and pulled it open.
Something stood in the doorway, something that had once been human, but had changed beyond all recognition. It was a stickman, a puppet stuffed full of straw and corn and grass - but the dark eyes, just visible through what seemed to be a mask of roughly stitched leather, were alive with a sadness that was human, corrupted by an evil that was not.
Two hands shot upward, spraying ears of corn. Ace glimpsed twigs and bone, wrapped with ill-fitting skin.
She slammed the door shut. Next to the archway was an ornate chair, and she jammed it up against the thick planks of oak. 'Give me a hand!' she exclaimed.
Steven was as motionless as the scarecrow had seemed, his eyes wide and uncomprehending. Only his lips moved. 'It's...
It's...'
'Course it is,' snapped Ace as blows rained down on the door. 'Help me wedge this door shut!'
Steven shook himself from his reverie, and ran towards the baptismal font. The simple stone construction had an ornately carved top that resembled a fantasy castle's spired turret. With grunts of exertion, he heaved the cover into the air, rolling it towards Ace, who was trying to keep the chair in position. Steven wedged the font top between the door lock and a fluted stone column that ran up into the rafters.
'Can't you just blow that thing up?' shouted Steven.
'I didn't bring any more Nitro with me,' said Ace, just as a straw-covered fist punched through the wooden door.
'Turn out your pockets, sir,' said the duty sergeant. The Doctor was in the charge room, a red-bricked alcove next to the cells which held most of the people arrested at the club.
The people around him whooped and hollered as if a trip to the police station was part of the evening's entertainment.
Only the young woman was silent, her dark eyes blinking back the tears.
'I wish it to be noted,' said the Doctor, 'that Shanks tried to force me to plant some drugs on that young lady. She is wholly innocent. Somehow, Shanks must have taken the drugs off me and implicated the young woman.'
'So the drugs were yours?' queried the well-dressed CID officer. 'That'll send you down for a long time.'
'Handful of heartbeats to a Time Lord,' said the Doctor.
'What?' asked the man angrily. 'Turn out your pockets.'
'Of course,' said the Doctor with a smile. 'You'll have to bear with me, gentlemen, this may take some time.'
Nicola Denman was the first person to be taken to the interview room. She wondered if they were showing her preferential treatment - that an observant officer had already twigged who her father was - but the force with which she was propelled into the bare brick room belied any comforting thoughts of bias. In a way, she was pleased. Perhaps there was a way of getting out of this without Daddy even knowing.
It was the feeblest of hopes, but it was all that kept her going.
She watched as a couple of audio cassettes were unwrapped by a uniformed policewoman, the cellophane crackling like fire. Moments later the twin tape deck was running.
'DC Fielder questioning female suspect,' said the policeman for the benefit of the recording. 'WPC Murphy also in attendance.' He glanced at the big clock on the wall. 'It's ten past midnight, Tuesday the seventeenth of June.' He turned his tired eyes towards Nicola. 'Right, these are just some preliminary questions, but what happens over the next few hours depends on the quality of the answers I receive.
Understand?'
She nodded silently.
'Name?'
She shook her head.
'Name?' The officer paused. 'Look, you're not helping yourself, you know. We've got enough evidence to hang you out to dry. The drugs in your handbag were dealer-quantities. We want to know where you got them from.'