Doctor Who_ Father Time Part 19

That was when Anderson had been called in. The judicial process needed to a.s.sess Sallak's psychological state to know whether he'd spend the rest of his life in prison or in a secure hospital. Interviewing Sallak, running every test in the book, getting other specialists in to discuss his case none of it had helped. Sallak was disciplined, intense. He'd killed two people, but he'd done it like a soldier, not a psychopath. His motive was unclear, but all the psychological tests suggested that Sallak was goal-orientated, focused on the mission at hand. Unlike a lot of killers, he didn't have any cranky religious beliefs to justify what he did. He had a high IQ, but not one so high that it gave him a sense of superiority or invincibility. While on remand and subsequently in prison he'd fitted easily into the hierarchical system, seemed almost at home. That suggested he was used to inst.i.tutions children's homes, the army, prison. He respected the authority of his warders, but wasn't easily led or particularly suggestible. He interacted normally with the other inmates and the guards but he'd never given anything about himself away to them.

Anderson had recommended that Sallak was fit for criminal trial. Sallak had pleaded guilty, denying anyone the chance to cross-examine him in court. It was a move that also minimised publicity. Sallak had earned a few tabloid headlines, but there weren't any photos of him the whole story was that there wasn't a story. The newspapers drifted away, occasionally referring to him whenever they wanted to whip up some fervour for the return of the death penalty.

Anderson had stayed with the case, keen to find at least some answers. Sallak looked and acted like a soldier, but the police, army, MI5, MI6, Interpol, the United Nations, the CIA and G.o.d knew who else had no record of him. The best theory Anderson had heard was that this was an intelligence officer, abandoned by his government of course no one would admit that they'd sent a spy to kill a civilian couple. Which government? He just didn't look American, he didn't seem to know any French, German or Russian. The British? Anderson doubted he would ever know.

Then there was the Doctor... or at least that's what he called himself. For the first two years after Sallak's arrest, the Doctor had been a thorn in the side of the authorities. He had been one of the witnesses to the murders, and he demanded to be allowed to question Sallak. The Doctor had been persistent, until Sallak's lawyers put an injunction on him, one that prevented any contact between the Doctor and the people treating their client. Anderson hadn't heard from the Doctor in three years.

He remembered the Doctor's last words, as a security guard led him out of the building: 'Test his blood. The Deputy's not human. Just test him.'

After objections from the lawyers had been overruled, they had tested his blood, and it was perfectly normal. And Sallak... Sallak had looked shocked at the news, repulsed by the idea that he might be a human being.

None of this had solved any of the mystery surrounding the man.

And now John Sallak had walked out of a bolted cell, taking his cellmate with him.

'How long has he been gone?'

'No more than twenty minutes. We've alerted all ports and airports, set up roadblocks.'

'He'll get past them.' Anderson hesitated. 'I need to make a phone call.'

The Doctor handed over some money to the man who'd washed his windscreen while his car was stuck at traffic lights. Miranda had been a little worried that the vigorous sponging would be enough to push the Trabant's windscreen in, but it had held.

The Doctor wound up his window. 'Kind chap,' he concluded. He turned to her, not looking as he set off from the lights. 'So what do you make of Rex?'

'I think Dinah would call him Yuppie sc.u.m. Then sleep with him.'

'But you weren't tempted?'

Miranda looked over at her father. He'd never asked about her love life before. There was nothing to tell, of course, but she was surprised he was asking. 'No,' she said.

The Doctor smiled. It was clearly the right answer.

She decided to try her luck. 'Is it the thought of me having a s.e.x life, or the thought of Rex in particular?' she asked.

The telephone rang, and her father tapped the b.u.t.ton for a hands-free call, grinning that he'd been saved by the bell. She switched the radio off and kept quiet while her dad went about his business. Some oil company wanted his expertise, by the sound of it. She'd never worked out exactly what her father did the explanation from Rex had actually clarified a few things. He went into companies and, in the s.p.a.ce of a week of tinkering and rallying cries, he'd overthrown the old ideas, revolutionised their business practice, set them on course for the future. Or sometimes there would be a specific problem that he'd sort out, or he'd arbitrate between companies that had a dispute.

The traffic in central London was notorious, and Miranda guessed her father had insisted on driving in only to make some obscure point to his City clients about status. The Trabant had been parked in a row of Porsches and BMWs, like an old drunk uncle at a wedding.

When her dad finished his call, he put the radio back on for Miranda. The news on Radio Four. The first item was about an IRA bomb scare on the Tube that had closed the Central Line. So it was a good job they'd brought the car.

'Are we going abroad?' she asked. The oil company wanted some help with some African operation. Half-term was coming, and she'd often accompany her father abroad if it didn't interfere with her schoolwork.

'No, I wouldn't miss running the Marathon, not after last year,' he a.s.sured her. 'I have to defend my t.i.tle. And I've got dinner with Clive Sinclair on the fifteenth.' He smiled. 'You're a grown-up, Miranda, I trust you. If you want to keep some things private, then I respect that.'

'Well, don't worry I don't have any secrets.' Miranda giggled. 'Least of all a secret lover.'

Her father nodded, pleased with the answer.

The car phone rang again.

'Doctor? This is Phillip Anderson.'

Miranda looked over at her father, who had the oddest look on his face.

He picked up the handset and listened for a few moments.

'Are you going to make this public?' he asked, then visibly relaxed at the answer. 'I can't talk now,' the Doctor told Anderson. 'But thank you for the warning.'

He replaced the handset.

'Who was that?' Miranda asked.

'Nothing.' But her father looked distracted.

'Come on,' she prompted.

'Anderson works with the police,' the Doctor said. 'He was warning me that an old enemy is around.'

'An old enemy?' Miranda repeated. 'You have enemies?'

The Doctor gave a wry smile. 'A few. It's probably nothing.' He hesitated.

'Now who's got secrets?' she chuckled.

'No secrets,' he said quickly. 'Just be careful, keep an eye out for strangers hanging around the house, that sort of thing.'

Miranda was tempted to laugh it off, but her dad sounded worried.

'Are we going to get police protection?' she asked.

'I'm not sure that would help,' the Doctor admitted.

Miranda was confused. 'Wait: who is this?'

'A man called Sallak. Also known as John Sallak. A dangerous man who's escaped from prison. I've got a photograph of him at home, so you know who to look out for. Now, he's got no idea where we live, so I wouldn't worry too much. Just stay alert for a while.'

He smiled, and Miranda knew she was safe.

Chapter Eleven.

UFO Detected Miranda plunged into the pool, ready for the cold water.

She was three or four strokes along already, dimly aware that some of the others were only just hitting the water. She was at an advantage, not having to worry too much about her breathing. She wasn't racing them them, anyway: she was racing the clock. Dinah was close, but nowhere near close enough.

Miranda reached the other end, flipped over and launched herself back. As her head broke the surface, she saw Dinah almost at the end, and the others about three-quarters of the way there. She made the same even, measured strokes, but increased the pace a little. She already knew she wasn't going to beat her personal best. She increased her pace again, but lost her rhythm a little.

She reached the end, grabbed the rail, annoyed with herself.

Miss Andrews was leaning over with a stopwatch. 'Nearly,' she told her. 'That was very good going.'

Miranda didn't think so. She pulled herself out of the water, sat on the edge and wrapped a towel round herself as the others finished and bobbed around catching their breath.

She shook her head at Dinah, who was looking red-faced.

'You're just getting better better,' Dinah complained, half jokingly. 'I don't mind being second if it's a close second.'

'The record is under twenty-four seconds,' Miranda told her.

Dinah laughed, 'The Olympic Olympic record is, yeah. The county under-seventeens one isn't.' She pulled herself out of the water. record is, yeah. The county under-seventeens one isn't.' She pulled herself out of the water.

'Aren't you cold?' Miranda asked.

The others started to troop through into the changing rooms.

'I thought you were from oop North,' Dinah said lightly. 'Don't you lot think it's warm if it's not actually snowing?'

'I'm not cold, I just wondered if you were.'

The bell went. Miranda walked through the showers, just enough to get the chlorine out of her hair. Dinah stepped round them.

'Are you OK?' Dinah asked.

Miranda frowned as she retrieved her bag. 'Yeah.'

'Worried about getting old?'

'Sixteen,' Miranda said. 'It's ancient, isn't it?'

'Old enough to smoke, old enough to '

'Shush,' Miranda said, blushing all over. 'It's too old to be in the under-sixteens swimming team.'

'And so you've ended up in the under-seventeens... strange that. I can't wait to be sixteen.'

'So I heard,' someone called from across the changing room.

The changing room was little more than benches and hooks, and it was always far too cold. Even though spring was well under way outside, in here it was still winter. The girls had got the knack of dressing quickly and silently. Dinah's technique was typical she yanked off her swimming costume, dabbed herself with a towel, then seemed to be in a race to get dressed.

Miranda was a little less efficient, trying to protect her modesty with her towel, and also making more of an effort to get dry.

'Hurry up,' Dinah moaned, b.u.t.toning up a white shirt over a black bra. 'We'll miss half of lunchtime. It's nothing we haven't seen before.'

'You get my watch when you go to get yours,' Miranda suggested, self-consciously.

Dinah sighed. 'Yes, your majesty.' She stomped off to the valuables drawer on the other side of the room.

Human civilisation did not extend as far as this.

The roads were cracked, the windows of the crumbling high-rise accommodation blocks were broken, covered with metal grilles or, in the majority of cases, both. Every wall bore obscenities or tribal territorial claims disguised as support for the national ball game.

As the Deputy walked across the wasteland (that was the locals' own name for it), he pa.s.sed a burned-out car. He didn't recognise the marque, but could tell that it was an old vehicle. Locals stealing from locals, rather than crossing into the more prosperous suburbs, only a few miles away. Sensible criminals, then, ones who knew that a local crime wouldn't even be investigated, but an attack on the rich would lead to persecution and imprisonment.

The employers who had once flourished here had retreated, leaving behind burned-out and boarded-up shops. The people who eked out a living on this estate did so by exploiting 'the system', state-welfare payments. The Deputy couldn't help but think that the system was exploiting them removing all forms of income, police coverage and public transport, failing to maintain communal property and facilities. Closing every factory, car plant, shipyard, coal mine, steelworks and textile mill for a hundred miles around, and offering nothing in its place.

In the centre of the wasteland was the Tower. There had been three here once, full of young families, full of life and hope. But there was no hope here now, and the Tower's companions had been demolished late last year. The Tower had been spared, so the local legend went, because the local authority had run out of money. It was deserted now, officially at least.

A couple of youths were circling around him, at a distance, trying to work out whether the contents of his carrier bag were worth stealing. The young preyed on the old, lurking in broken lifts and stairwells, behind collapsed walls and demolition sites. The youths' calculations weren't based on the risk of capture, simply whether it would be any less boring than what they were doing already. They made no effort to hide their presence indeed, they had a music player nearby, hurling out repet.i.tive thumping sounds and screeching, incoherent vocals.

The Deputy was an oddity to them not a victim, like most of the people here. An old man, but not one who was wasting away on a tiny pension and an indifferent medical-care regime. They could see he was a strong man; their hunters' senses were probably attuned enough to tell them he'd spent time in prison and served with the military.

They edged towards him.

'Geezer!' one of them shouted.

The Deputy stopped and turned, and they laughed at him for doing that.

He said nothing as they came over. If they'd seen him as a threat, or they'd had an ounce of wit, then one of them would have got into a defensive position, tried to get behind him. They didn't, they just stood there.

'Give us some money,' one of them said, boldly.

'You have money,' the Deputy told him. The beer can in their hands, the other two by their radio, told him as much.

'We've got money. Loadsamoney,' the youth gargled. 'We want more.'

The other just swore, struggling to even p.r.o.nounce the monosyllable.

The Deputy took a step forward, broke the boy's leg in two places, and watched his face as he realised he was in terrible pain.

The other one, the one who could speak, hesitated. The Deputy turned, cupped his hands and clouted the youth's ears. Done properly, as here, it was a move that would burst an opponent's eardrums. The youth was reeling. The Deputy pushed him over and knelt down to reach into his leather jacket. He removed a wad of small-denomination notes. There was the equivalent of six months' pension here. Indeed, judging by their mode of operation, this probably was was pension money. pension money.

The Deputy could not be concerned with the inequalities on this planet in this time zone. He needed the money.

The Deputy left them to their agony, pulled down one of the boards that allowed access to the Tower, then began climbing the anonymous stairs, pa.s.sing rows upon rows of identical doors. This wasn't so different from prison, but it was a prison where people didn't know where the next meal was coming from, a prison without warders or hope of release.

There were worse places than this on Earth, the Deputy realised. Places where the crops failed year after year, and the people died in their millions. Places where the nuclear reactors exploded, where hurricanes, earthquakes and floods devastated whole cities.

Joel and Kirst lived on the top floor of the Tower.