Doctor Who_ Grave Matter Part 5

'Please,' Madsen encouraged him.

'The man who was here earlier, Sir Edward Baddesley did I gather his name is?'

Madsen nodded. 'What about him?'

'He was saying that the poor fisherman who died had a broken arm, is that right?'

Madsen blinked, frowned. 'No,' he said, looking down at the floor for a moment. When he looked back, his eyes held the Doctor's. 'No, that's not true. He did sprain his arm quite badly last week, caught it in a net as it was hauled in. I treated him for it, best I could. That sort of muscular problem is best left to mend itself.'

'I see.' The Doctor nodded, stealing a glance at the door by the bar to see if there was any sign of Peri yet. There was none. 'So he was quite fit for a spot of fishing.'

'I can a.s.sure you, Doctor,' Madsen said with restrained patience, 'the accident that befell that fishing boat was entirely due to the weather, to the sudden squall. It had nothing whatsoever to do with the poor lad's bruised arm.'

Madsen turned suddenly, and the Doctor realised that Liz Trefoil was standing beside them.

'h.e.l.lo there,' the Doctor said.

'Doctor,' she replied. 'Father says that you'll be wanting rooms for tonight. Maybe for a few days. Depending on the fog off the mainland.'

'Does he now? That's very kind of him.' The Doctor nodded. 'And it would certainly be useful, I must admit. Our, er, vessel is beached quite a way from here, and I'm not sure we want to go looking for it at this late hour.'

'You'd rather sleep here than on a boat anyway, wouldn't you, Doctor?' Madsen asked.

'More of a ship, actually,' the Doctor said without committing himself. 'Please tell your father he's most generous and we'll happily stay here until we can be on our way.'

'Might be a couple of days,' Liz told him. 'Fog's closing in again, they say.'

'Sometimes it lingers for weeks,' Madsen said. 'We're often cut off, sometimes for as long as a month.'

'Something to look forward to,' the Doctor said with a smile. He watched Liz make her way back towards the bar.

'Do you like it here?' he asked Madsen.

'Yes. Yes, I do.' Madsen was watching her too. 'And not just because...' He paused. 'You know.'

'I do indeed.' They both turned towards each other. 'Tell me about Baddesley,' the Doctor said. 'Why would he a.s.sume the fisherman had broken his arm if it was just sprained?'

Madsen shrugged. 'Beats me. Gossip and news travel fast round a community like this. And sometimes it gets embellished on the way. I a.s.sume he was misinformed.'

'He didn't seem to think so,' the Doctor said gently.

Before Madsen could react, he went on. 'Not a good place to keep secrets then, I suppose.'

Madsen regarded him carefully. 'I suppose not,' he said levelly. 'Baddesley's been here a couple of months,' he went on after a moment. 'Took a cottage on the edge of the village.

Cove Cottage, up behind the church. If anyone has secrets to keep, it's him.'

'Oh? Why do you say that?'

'No reason,' Madsen said. 'But why's he here? Hardly a place to retire to.'

'It takes all sorts. Does he say he's retired here?'

Madsen took a long drink of his beer. 'Doesn't give a reason for being here. That's partly why the locals are wary of him. That and the fact he's a government type. They don't hold with any sort of bureaucracy or authority here. There's not even a policeman - we're part of the beat for the mainland.'

'Government type?' the Doctor asked. 'What do you mean by that?'

'Oh, he was some sort of civil servant. In London. In the government. So I gather.' Madsen took another drink. 'As I say, they're wary of that sort of thing here. Some of the locals are even saying he's part of the company that put in the bid.'

'The bid?' the Doctor asked. But his question was drowned out by the approaching sound from outside.

The room was almost in darkness. There was an oil lamp casting a hint of light over a low table close to the door, but Peri did not dare to turn it up. If it was dark, she could at least claim she was lost and had not realised this was a private room. It did not look like a living room. There was the table by the door with the lamp on it, and another larger table in the middle of the room. Apart from several upright wooden chairs beside the large table there was practically no other furniture.

The small window in the wall opposite the door had no curtains. The floor was bare boards. A stone fireplace stood empty and cold on the wall to the left of the door. On the mantelpiece was a plain cardboard box.

Peri stood just inside the door, letting her eyes adjust to the gloom. After a few moments she went to the fireplace and carefully lifted the lid of the cardboard box. Inside was a flare pistol and several flare cartridges. Peri reached into the box, letting her fingertips stray over the rough metal of the flare gun as she turned to look round the rest of the room.

On the floor beneath the table Peri gradually made out a second box. It was the size of two large s...o...b..xes standing one on top of the other, and there was something on top of it.

She replaced the lid on the cardboard box on the mantelpiece and stooped to look closer at the object on the box under the table. A book. With a glance back at the door, Peri crawled under the table and lifted the book. She held it up to what pale light there was. It was a paperback, the pages well thumbed and ragged. She looked through it and realised almost at once that it was a set of tide tables. It gave dates, times and water levels for various points along the coast. Presumably it related to the islands, maybe to the mainland coast nearby as well.

The dates were month and day. There did not seem to be a year given.

The year had probably been on the cover, but that was torn and frayed. It had once been glossy, an abstract design of blue and black. Did they have glossy paperbacks in Victorian times? Peri wondered. Somehow she felt the book was out of place in this room with its bare boards, creaky door and oil lamp. She tapped the book against her hand as she considered.

Next she examined the box. It was made of metal, she saw as she looked at it. The top inch was hinged and folded back to reveal what was inside. Peri listened intently for a moment, trying to hear if there was any movement from outside the door, but she could hear nothing. Slowly she lifted the lid.

Then she sat there, under the table, staring at the inside of the box.

It housed equipment. Communications equipment. There was a handset, a keypad with numerical b.u.t.tons. And set into the fascia of the device was a readout screen. It was blank at the moment, but a tiny red light was glowing at the edge. Peri looked from the bright red of the light to the dull misty glow of the oil lamp by the door. She sat there for a while, looking from one light to the other, frowning, trying to make sense of it all.

Then she heard the noise approaching from outside the window. She snapped the box shut and replaced the ragged book on top of it. She struggled to her feet, almost banging her head on the underside of the table, and left the room at a run.

Outside in the street, the noise had reached an almost deafening roar. Peri caught up with the Doctor as he was standing looking up into the foggy blackness of the sky.

'What is it?' she asked, but he did not answer.

Behind them several of the villagers had emerged from the pub. They were looking bemused and surprised. They too were scanning the sky for any sign of what was making the sound. Madsen and Bob Trefoil joined the Doctor and Peri.

'Can you see anything?' Madsen asked.

'Over to the west,' Trefoil said. 'Towards Sheldon's Folly, by the sound of it.'

They looked where he was pointing. If anything, the sound seemed to be getting louder, cutting through the quietness of the night and chopping through the fog.

'Did you find anything?' the Doctor asked Peri as quietly as he could and still be heard.

She nodded. 'Yes, Doctor. But I didn't like it.'

He looked at her quizzically, and she explained quickly about the communications equipment.

The Doctor nodded grimly. 'Definitely something strange going on here,' he said. Then he took Peri's shoulder and turned her slightly, pointing up into the foggy night. Dimly at first, Peri could make out a faint light. A tiny speck of illumination high in the sky.

'If the weather were clearer,' the Doctor mused, 'I could tell if it was a hawk or a handsaw.'

'It's coming lower,' Madsen observed as the light approached. It was growing larger and brighter as it dropped slowly towards them.

'It's coming down somewhere over there,' the Doctor said.

'I think it's further away than it looks, a trick of the fog and the noise.'

'On Sheldon's Folly.' Trefoil said quietly.

The Doctor watched for a few seconds more, and then turned towards the people standing outside the pub. 'Don't panic,' he shouted loudly, above the sound now receding into the distance. 'I know it's incredible, but what we can see is merely some sort of flying machine.'

The people turned to look at each other, their faces betraying their surprise at his words. Several of them muttered to each other and nodded towards the Doctor and Peri.

'I'm not sure they can cope with the idea, Doctor.' Peri told him quietly.

'Incredible.' Madsen said. 'Absolutely incredible.'

The Doctor nodded. 'Just stay calm, everyone,' he announced. 'There is absolutely nothing to worry about.'

'I'm not so sure,' Trefoil said loudly above the noise.

There was the hint of a smile on his face. 'Were you a long time at sea, Doctor?'

The Doctor frowned. 'Why do you ask?'

Trefoil shrugged and grinned suddenly at the Doctor and Peri. 'Oh, nothing,' he said with a glance at Madsen, who was also grinning. 'It's just that anyone would think you'd never seen a helicopter before.'

Peri gaped. 'You just said it was incredible,' she accused Madsen. The sound of the helicopter was dying away now as it disappeared behind the stark silhouette of the church.

'It is,' he agreed. 'Don't you think it's incredible that anyone would take a helicopter up on a foggy night like this?'

Trefoil nodded as he ushered them back inside. 'That Sheldon's an idiot to use the thing at all,' he grumbled. 'Quite against the spirit of Dorsill. But I suppose we have to make allowances.'

Back inside the pub, the Doctor was doing his best to cover his embarra.s.sment, though it seemed only to add to the amus.e.m.e.nt of Bob Trefoil and the other islanders.

'You know about how we live on Dorsill then?' Trefoil asked at last, giving the Doctor the hint of a way out.

'Oh yes,' the Doctor said loudly and clearly. He coughed.

'Of course. Well,' he admitted, 'the general idea anyway.'

'And the helicopter surprised you,' Madsen said. It was a statement, not a question.

'Of course,' Peri said, wondering what they were getting round to. 'It surprised us.'

'So we thought it best,' the Doctor went on quickly, 'to, well...You know.'

Trefoil and Madsen both nodded at this as if it made perfect sense. 'Just because we don't use the trappings of the modern world,' Trefoil said slowly, 'you needn't a.s.sume we don't know about them.' He nodded at Madsen. 'We have contact with outsiders, people who tell us what's going on.

Even got a satellite phone in case of emergencies. It's kept in the front room, if you need to tell anyone you've got washed up here,' he offered.

The Doctor and Peri exchanged looks.

'Perhaps,' the Doctor said, his voice at its most reasonable, 'you could tell us everything from your point of view, from your perspective. Just to put us straight.' He smiled winningly.

Trefoil did most of the talking, warming to the topic immediately. Madsen added the occasional comment, giving the perspective of one who had only recently come to the islands. It was, Peri thought as she listened, all quite simple.

In fact, she had heard of a similar situation on a couple of the Channel Islands or among the Amish communities. On Dorsill there was no electricity, no mains gas, no petrol stations. Partly this was because they had never come, partly it was because the cost now of installing these things would be prohibitive, and partly it was because the island community had turned its back on such things. They made a virtue of living off the land, of using horses instead of cars or tractors.

They valued their isolation, the cleanliness of the air, the simplicity of their lives.

There were concessions of course. Madsen could, and did, prescribe modern drugs and medication. The street lights were powered by gas cylinders shipped out from the mainland together with the mail and tinned food and fresh fruit, vegetables and meat. There was the satellite phone for emergencies. At this point Madsen grinned.

'I brought a cellphone when I came. Couldn't get a signal.

Sir Edward has one too, and he claims it works pretty well.

But I never found it did. Wrong network maybe. And anyway, there was no way to recharge it. You soon settle into the ways of the island. It's...' he considered, picking his word with care.

'Refreshing,' he said.

Some of the people made more concessions than others.

Travel to the mainland was difficult given the distance and the fog that kept them isolated most of the year. But Trefoil confessed that his daughter ordered clothes from a catalogue and they were shipped out when conditions allowed. She wasn't the only one. A couple of the larger houses had diesel generators and used electricity for lighting and heating. Sir Edward, they were told with more than a hint of discontent, had surrept.i.tiously installed a generator at Cove Cottage.

They talked well into the evening. It was almost midnight by the time the Doctor said: 'So, tell me about Sheldon and his helicopter.'

'Young Mr Christopher it is now,' Trefoil said. The pub was empty save for the four of them and Trefoil's daughter.