The Romance Of Crime Part 28

The room beyond had been designed for a specific purpose.

It was dominated by an angled dais that had four metal clamps built into it. Above the dais, bulging from the ceiling, was a complex array of machinery. Sprouting from its centre was a slim metal probe. Above this device was a transparent panel built into the wall.

Pyerpoint arranged the body of Romana on the dais and secured her arms and legs in the clamps. When he was satisfied that she was safely tied up, he left the room.

Romana began to stir uneasily in her bonds. The jowls of the living mask twitched with hate-filled dreams.

Bnorg marched into the survey room. 'Mr Charles. Ready to leave, sir.'

A large pulse had started to throb in Charlie's thick neck, making his shirt collar dance in time to the vein pumping on his forehead. He finished off his soup and screwed the lid of the flask back on. 'Good.'

Bnorg saluted and gestured to the gathered Ogrons. They started to file noisily back out of the survey room. Charlie made to follow them.

The Doctor coughed politely from the chair where he had been bound. 'Aren't you going to say goodbye?'

'No.'

'If you were a real gentleman, you'd shoot me. Pressing b.u.t.tons and blowing people up, it's all a bit modern, isn't it?

Rather gauche, wouldn't you say?'

Charlie sauntered over. 'Well. One thing this experience has taught me, Doctor. The old days are finished.'

He knelt and whispered in the Doctor's ear. 'As a lawman, I'm sure you appreciate it, too. When the Nisbett firm was in its prime, the streets were safe. You can't deny it. Now there's hooligans and punks and G.o.d knows what running riot in the streets, and bent judges and coppers playing at rackets, and all the big companies busting each other up.' He wiped a small tear from his eye. 'My Mum and Dad would cry to see things today, they would. All the lies and tricks. It was always the golden rule. Never mess on your own patch.'

'Crime isn't what it was,' the Doctor agreed.

Charlie stood. 'You're right there. Well, goodbye. You're a decent bloke for a copper, you know.' He took a last look at the body of his brother and left the survey room.

Left alone at last, the Doctor decided it was time to deal with his bonds. He held in his breath and shrugged his shoulders, but the knots remained as tight as ever. Surely the Ogrons couldn't be that good at tying knots? Far cleverer people had tied him to things and he'd managed to escape.

He strained to free his wrists, but had no success. This was going to take time.

Xais's eyes opened, the fluid silver sockets of the mask framing the clear blue eyes of Romana. Her exultant sneer became a frown of alarm as she felt the clamps securing her to the platform in the small room, and saw the thin probe angled directly at her.

A voice that she recognized came from a speaker somewhere close by. 'So you have woken.'

'Pyerpoint!' she screamed and tried to sit up. 'You will release me immediately!' Above the machine facing her was a faintly illuminated gallery. Seated within was her supposed ally.

'I want the formula for the activation process, Xais,'

Pyerpoint said calmly. 'You will give me the formula now.'

Xais laughed. 'You are such a fool. I have the power to burn through these bonds and crush you where you stand.'

Already a glow was forming around her eyes.

She saw Pyerpoint lean forward and press a b.u.t.ton on the console before him. A blue light flooded the chamber accompanied by a strange, unwavering note. 'The room you are inside has now been charged with Stavender's radiation. If you release one rad of your own powers, the reaction will weaken the structure of your host body.'

Xais twisted and turned in frustration. 'No!'

Pyerpoint continued, his smooth tones as untroubled as they had ever been when p.r.o.nouncing judgement in the courtroom.

'And you need a host to activate the helicon, Xais. Without a living mind you cannot power the transfer of your consciousness. Am I right?'

Xais grunted and struggled in her bonds.

His voice became mocking. 'You thought you were in control, Xais. Bringing in the Nisbett brothers behind my back. The alliance was doomed from the start. As was our own arrangement. I realized how you intended to use me. I knew you would never work with a Normal.'

'Release me,' growled Xais. 'This new host has closed her mind to me, but I sense great powers there. We can share them.'

Pyerpoint shook his head. 'I want the formula, Xais. All these years I have been preparing for this moment.' He gestured around him. 'I have mined the helicon from this planet. You will activate it for me, or die.'

'I cannot die!' Xais wailed up at him.

'But without a host,' he taunted her. 'What then? You are powerless.'

Xais drummed her fists on the platform. 'When I am free, old Normal, I will strip the flesh from your bones and bathe myself in your blood!'

The Ogrons' s.p.a.ceship may have been old, but it was dependable enough. With a mighty roar that blew gathering dirt from its rocket ports, it lifted from the launchpad outside the McConnochie base, turned to steady itself, and soared up and away.

On the cluttered bridge of the ship, Charlie settled himself in his armchair and looked across to its empty counterpart. His eyes flicked up to the portrait of his mother.

'They're going to pay, all right,' he vowed.

'Preparing to depart atmosphere of Planet Eleven,' called Flarkk from the flight position.

'Good,' said Charlie. 'We'll give it ten minutes and then blow the charge.' He sat back in his chair, took hold of the arm rests, and closed his eyes, breathing deeply in an effort to calm himself.

Spiggot, Stokes and K9 had found shelter back in the repair room where the TARDIS had materialized. Stokes had shown particular interest in the police box, which had proved the claims made for it beyond doubt, but had been persuaded by the others to relate the complex story of Pyerpoint's plan as far as he understood it. As Spiggot listened, K9 had wandered off into a corner and was sniffing out what appeared to be some kind of long-range transmitter unit.

'I always reckoned he was a strange old guy,' said Spiggot.

'To devote himself totally to the law like he did. I mean to say, even I've found time for a personal life over the years.'

'I know,' said Stokes hastily. 'What puzzles me is how he managed to set this place up.'

Spiggot shrugged. 'Well, he's got the contacts and the money. Probably hired a pirate.'

'Wait a moment.' Stokes thought back to the last set of terminations. 'Now I come to think of it, Pyerpoint had some rogue miner chap sent to the reverser the other day. Veltt, or somebody. Who's to say he didn't construct this place on orders from Pyerpoint, who then had him framed to keep him quiet.'

'You're probably right,' said Spiggot. 'Funny thing, but I thought Pyerpoint had principles. He's an old-fashioned type.

The last of his breed, probably.'

'Repressed,' was Stokes's judgement. 'And probably quite insane. All those years dishing out death sentences convinced him that he was G.o.d and could do anything he liked. He appears to have been running our entire system for the last fifteen years, at any rate. From both sides of the law. And just look at that code name he uses. Sentinel, pah! The arrogance.'

Spiggot looked up abruptly. 'Sentinel?'

Stokes nodded. 'Yes. Unbelievable, isn't it? He sees himself as some sort of guardian for the rest of society, I imagine.'

Spiggot licked his lips. 'When the Nisbett firm were brought in,' he said, 'some of the smaller fry cracked under questioning. They came out with a story that they'd been betrayed by some contact in the establishment. n.o.body believed it.' He gripped Stokes's arm. 'And the code name they had for this guy was Sentinel!'

'I suppose it's likely,' Stokes said. 'The Nisbett firm were rather more successful criminals than their appearance would suggest. They could well have had help.' He coughed. 'Would you mind taking your hand away?'

Spiggot let go and clapped his hands together. 'Pyerpoint was behind the Nisbett firm. And he betrayed them when it suited him.' He smiled. 'I bet they wouldn't mind finding that out. They might even do our job for us, eh?'

Before Stokes could reply, K9 turned from his examination of the machine in the corner. 'This device is a long-range transmitter,' he said. 'I intend to use it to contact the Doctor Master at the McConnochie Mining survey base and request a.s.sistance.'

'Hold on a moment,' said Spiggot, his eyes gleaming with enthusiasm. 'I think I might have a better use for it.'

The Doctor tensed his arm muscles and tugged again at the knot around his left wrist. He felt it give way slightly, but realized there was no way he was going to get free before the bombs went off.

Perhaps there was another way. With difficulty he wrenched the chair he was tied to from its holding and hopped, still attached to the chair, over to the console under which the bomb had been placed. He knelt down as far as he was able, took a look at the device, and tutted. 'Even with the sonic screwdriver, I couldn't defuse it in time.'

At such moments, he was used to some miraculous means of deliverance to present itself. None seemed to be forthcoming on this occasion. 'My only hope,' he told himself, 'is to stop Nisbett sending the detonation signal.'

Spurred on by the desperate nature of the situation, he tugged once more at the knots around his wrists, and this time succeeded in freeing his left hand. He hurried over to the communications console, and tapped out a frantic all-frequencies alert. A red light started to flash, indicating that the call had been picked up.

The Doctor sighed with relief and waited for the channel to open. 'Come on, come on!'

At last a guttural voice came from the communicator, masked by heavy static. 'What do you want?'

'This is the Doctor, calling from the survey base. I need to speak to your master about something rather important.'

There was a prolonged pause.

Flarkk looked over his shoulder. Mr Charles was leaning back in his chair and sleeping. He could not be disturbed, whatever the problem. It was not done to wake the boss. And he needed his rest, after all.

'No you can't speak to him,' Flarkk told the Doctor. 'He is resting.'

'But this is urgent,' said the Doctor. 'I've just remembered something I must tell him. I'm speaking with his interests at heart.'

Flarkk's brow creased. 'You speak as friend?'

'I suppose so.'

'Mr Nisbett has no friends. Everyone hates him. You are lying and I shall not listen.' Flarkk clicked off the call.

The Doctor thumped his fist down on the communicator console. It seemed there was no way out.

Another red light started to flash on the console. Somebody else was transmitting a message from the planet's surface.

'Detective Inspector Frank Spiggot to Charles and Edward Nisbett,' a familiar voice said from the console.

'Who are you? Are you an enemy of Mr Nisbett?' came the voice of Flarkk.

'Well, you could say that,' said Spiggot.

Charlie Nisbett's dreams were taking him back to the old days.

He and Eddie were standing together under the canopy over the main doorway of the Imperial Club in West Coppertown.

Their shining black shoes sank deep into the plush red carpet.

The punters were queueing up along the street, all in line, the lads in their smartest suits and the girls in their prettiest frocks.

It was going to be a good night. One of the best bands from Capital were inside just striking up. There'd be drinks aplenty, and the finest nosh. And then later, the firm were going to take a van over to the Cog and Centrifuge and collect some money that was owing.

The town clock struck ten and the boys stepped forward to admit the first group of punters into the lobby.

A distant voice said, 'Mr Charles, sir. A message from the planet.'

Charlie looked around the crowd. Standing right at the front of the queue was a right ugly. Covered in hair, it looked like an upright ape. 'Mr Nisbett, sir,' it said. 'There is a message.

For you.'

He jolted upright in his chair and was immediately transported thirty years forwards in time. Flarkk was tugging nervously at his sleeve. For a moment, Charlie thought he was going to shout at the hapless Ogron for waking him up. Then he realized that the pilot was about the nearest he could now call to next of kin. There was something oddly familiar and comforting about that huge, brutish face.

He rubbed the sleep from his eyes. 'A message? From where?'

Flarkk pointed to the console. 'From planet, sir. Comes from man called Spiggot.'

Charlie raised a suspicious eyebrow. 'Never heard of him.

Patch it through.'

'I hear you've been casting about for a chap calling himself Sentinel,' the Doctor heard Spiggot say.

The Doctor tried to put his hands to his head in alarm, but of course he was still tied to the chair, and he succeeded only in pulling the muscles of his upper back. 'No,' he cried. 'The idiot!'

Charlie straightened in his chair. His eyes narrowed. 'What if I am?'

'What if I told you, Mr Nisbett,' Spiggot continued, 'that I know exactly where you can find this person. You'd be interested, eh?'

'I'd be very interested.'

The Doctor hammered frantically at the communicator controls in the survey room, desperately searching for a way to block the frequency connecting Spiggot with the Ogron ship.

The control panel before which Pyerpoint was seated bleeped urgently. He took his eyes from the writhing form of Xais below, and checked the reading. He frowned. 'A message being sent from this base?' he asked aloud. 'That is impossible.'