Doctor Who: Bad Therapy (2 page)

Jack shared the large, draughty room with Mikey, a Jamaican who worked as a brickie on the same site as Jack. Of course, Mikey knew that Eddy stayed over, and while he frequently made his disapproval of their relationship clear, he had never voiced his objections to the landlady. Mikey, who was almost twenty, had lived in London for a couple of years, ever since he had left Jamaica to look for work. Mikey didn’t get on very well with his family back home, corresponding only by short, terse messages scrawled on the back of postcards. Recently, life at Mrs Carroway’s had become a little cramped since Mikey’s younger brother, Dennis, had moved in with them. So now there were 4

two new ‘guests’ to be kept hidden from the prying eyes of Mrs Carroway.

Mikey’s brother Dennis was nine and two months; at least this is what he would proudly boast if anyone asked. Mother had arranged a job for him selling the
Evening News
from a stand on Wardour Street. As Eddy had half an hour to kill before meeting up with Jack, he decided to pay the boy a visit and keep him company in the rain.

The weather had worsened by the time Eddy arrived at Dennis’s pitch on Wardour Street. The stall was there, sheltered from the rain in the mouth of a narrow alley. A stack of soggy newspapers lay pinned down by a half-brick on the makeshift table, but little Dennis was nowhere to be seen. Eddy felt the first prickle of anxiety when he saw that Dennis had left the cash box beside the damp papers. Something was wrong.

From somewhere behind him came a high-pitched shriek. The sound of a child in pain. Eddy turned and saw a tight knot of figures a little way down the alley behind the paper stall. Despite the darkness in the alley, he recognized the small shape of Dennis lying on the ground in the middle of the group. The boy was on his hands and knees, struggling uncertainly to his feet. The tallest of the three men shoved the West Indian boy back on to the ground as he tried to stand. Eddy heard Dennis squeal as a well placed kick caught him in the stomach.

Eddy forgot about Jack and the day’s events at the salon. Without pausing to think, he ran into the alley and leapt on to the back of the man who had kicked Dennis, his momentum taking them both to the ground. The man fell awkwardly and Eddy was satisfied to hear him cry out in pain as his head connected sharply with the pavement.

‘Run Dennis,’ Eddy heard himself shout. ‘Run and tell Mother. Quickly.’

The little boy scampered away, disappearing quickly around a comer of the alley.

As Eddy clambered to his feet preparing to run himself, rough hands picked him up and pushed him against the alley wall. One of the men was about to deliver a punch to his face when he was interrupted by another.

‘Leave him.’ The voice came from Dennis’s attacker, the man whom Eddy had brought to the ground. ‘Leave him for me.’

A petrol lighter flared uncomfortably close to Eddy’s face. He flinched from the heat, but the grip of the men prevented him from moving away. A young ginger-haired man with a deep graze on his cheek swam into Eddy’s vision.

The red-haired man giggled. It was a soft, high noise. Something about it made Eddy shiver.

‘We’ve been looking for you, Eddy Stone.’ The ginger-haired man whispered, wincing a little as he spoke. A swollen tear of blood ran down his face from the cut on his cheek.

5

The ginger-haired man brought his hand up to the cut on his face and then looked at the blood on his fingers. Smiling without humour, he traced a red line across Eddy’s throat. Metal flashed in the orange flame of the lighter: the ginger-haired man was holding a cut-throat razor delicately between his finger and thumb, his eyes glittering in the fire.

‘We was coming for you next, but now you’ve saved us the bother.’

Eddy was transfixed by the approaching blade. This man was going to slit his throat. They were going to kill him. This wasn’t just a beating or the antics of bullies, they had meant to cut the boy. They had meant to kill little Dennis.

And him too.

Something cold touched his neck and at that moment Eddy Stone realized that the ginger-haired man must know who he was – must know
what
he and little Dennis were. That realization filled him with as much terror as the knife at his throat.

He had to get away. Get to Mother. Warn the others. Eddy brought his knee up into his attacker’s groin.

The ginger-haired man grunted loudly and fell heavily against Eddy, howling in pain as the petrol lighter slipped in his grip, burning his fingers before falling extinguished to the ground. Darkness.

Reaching for the ginger-haired man’s face, Eddy dug his fingernails into the fresh wound on the man’s cheek. The knife-man shrieked in agony and let him go.

Eddy sprinted further down the alley, trying desperately to remember which street it led out on to in the maze of Soho. He hurtled around a corner, hearing the men behind him start to give chase. And then he ran straight into something solid.

A police telephone box was blocking the alley. For a second Eddy just stared at it blankly. It was impossible. Why would the police put one of their boxes in an alley? There was a slim gap at one side, through which Dennis must have escaped, but it was far too small to allow Eddy passage.

He started to hammer on the door. Let there be an officer inside. A red-faced constable who’ll come out with a frown on his face to see what all the noise is about. Please let there be someone there. Anyone at all. Please.

The doors of the police box seemed to absorb the power of his blows. It was as if the box were a solid concrete block. Eddy barely managed to produce a sound on the sturdy frame.

6

Somebody please hear me. Please.

Footsteps heralded the arrival of the ginger-haired man and his thugs. Eddy turned to face them, pressing his back against the doors of the police box, unable to think of anything else to do.

The ginger-haired man walked straight up to him, smiled brightly, and then plunged his knife into Eddy’s throat.

‘That’s the trouble with the law,’ he giggled, as Eddy started to scream.

‘They’re never around when you need them.’

Christopher Cwej set his knife and fork down, and dabbed at his mouth with his napkin. When his companion enquired as to whether he had enjoyed his meal, Chris looked down at the traces of sauce on his plate and realized that he had no idea what he had just eaten at all.

He ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth searching for a clue to the meal, but only found a dull blur of flavours. It was as if his taste buds had all been deadened. But then all his senses felt numb. Everything had since Roslyn Forrester had died. He felt a few inches away from reality, unconnected to the world around him. Even speaking was an effort – he’d try to talk and then flounder, abandoning his sentences half made.

And then he’d remember that Roz often used to finish his sentences for him. They’d been a team, him and Roz. Roslyn Forrester and Chris Cwej against the Universe. Forrester and Cwej – he’d always liked the sound of their partnership. He’d been so proud just to be associated with her. He would always be proud of that.

Chris had been assigned to Roslyn Forrester soon after leaving college, playing wide-eyed rookie to her cynical street cop. He could see her now, one hand resting wearily on her hip, squinting at him, eyebrow raised as she made a wise crack – usually about his inexperience and naiveté, and always at his expense.

Their professional partnership hadn’t lasted long. Police officers who blow the whistle on corruption in their own organization do not have bright career prospects, nor healthy mortality rates. And then the Doctor, that oh-so-mysterious traveller in Time and Space, had whisked them off to adventures new in his TARDIS; with what remained of their careers abandoned. Forrester and Cwej had become Roz and Chris; their professional partnership transformed into the strongest friendship Chris had ever known. That friendship had been his anchor in the endless insecurity and change which were the inevitable product of time travel. And now there was only insecurity.

Insecurity and the Doctor.

Chris looked up at his companion sitting opposite him in the restaurant. The Doctor was still eating; stabbing each piece of food with his fork, examining 7

it with a myopic childlike intensity, before popping it into his mouth, his face contorting with pleasure as he relished the flavours. It was as if the man had never eaten anything before. Sometimes Chris thought that the Doctor woke up every morning and encountered the Universe afresh.

Roz used to say that the Doctor was a one-thousand-year-old toddler. Constantly surprised and enchanted by the Universe as he encountered it. Despite being envious of such an innocent view of the world, they both knew that this was only half the picture. The other half was only rarely glimpsed and, like a mountain seen through mist, could never be wholly comprehended. The Doctor had travelled more widely than anyone else that Chris had ever met, and it was clear that the Doctor always knew more than he would – or perhaps could – say. For the knowledge he had acquired on his long travels seemed to bind as much as it helped him. Chris was still only just beginning to appreciate how different from everyone else the Doctor really was.

Their relationship had changed in the weeks since Roz’s death. It was only since she had gone that Chris realized that he always encountered the Doctor as Roz’s partner. It was hard to adjust to travelling alone with the little man.

The Doctor himself had said very little since Roz had died, and nothing of how he felt about her death.

They had spent the last month or so making a series of brief visits in the TARDIS, only staying in one place for a matter of days, or even a few hours.

Chris could only remember a handful of their destinations: a junk market on a small low gravity moon where the Doctor had rummaged through endless skips full of battered electronic equipment, looking, he said, for spares; then on to a water-covered world where they had swam with the nomadic amphibi-ous inhabitants; and most recently a transport museum housed in an artificial satellite where Chris had selfconsciously flown an assortment of aircraft while the Doctor had looked on, like an estranged father weekending with his son.

Finally, the Doctor had brought them to Earth, his home from home. Somewhere, he had said, where they might rest for a while.

According to the Doctor, the city was London and the year was 1958. Chris looked around the small restaurant to which the Doctor had brought him. The restaurant appeared to attract a wide variety of people. A young woman sat at the bar smoking a filterless cigarette. She wore a tight black sweater, her hair was dyed brilliant orange and hung down to her shoulders where it curled under itself. She was either very ill, or had been over zealous when applying her make-up as she had a ghostly pallor and bloodless lips. The paleness of her face was contrasted by her eyes which were heavily outlined with black mascara. She seemed completely oblivious to everything going on around her, intent on smoking her cigarette which she did with great intensity and affectation.

8

An elderly woman sat on her own at a small table away from the bar drinking a pint of dark beer. She had finished her meal some time ago and was now murmuring softly to herself. Every few moments she would pour some of her beer on to the bench beside her where a small terrier would jump up and lick the puddle dry. For some inexplicable reason this caused the old woman to whoop with glee.

The restaurant, which was tucked away in a part of the city which the Doctor had called Soho, was cheap and tatty: although, despite its squalor, it appeared to enjoy a brisk trade. As Chris surveyed the room, a commotion broke out at a table near the door. A woman, who Chris guessed was in her late forties, had stood up and was now shouting at her male companion, a well-dressed older man who had flushed bright red.

‘You may drive a Rolls Royce for all I know,
deah
,’ the woman said loudly, projecting her aristocratic voice so the whole restaurant could hear, ‘but that still does not entitle you to put your hand up my dress. Not in public and certainly not when I’m dining at the French.’ And with that, the woman picked up her half-full glass of red wine and threw it in her companion’s face. ‘Now, perhaps you would be good enough to bugger off, but not before,’ she added quickly. ‘you’ve settled the bill with Gaston.’

Her companion complied meekly and then hurried out of the restaurant.

The woman turned and caught sight of Chris staring at her across the room.

‘Politicians,’ she exclaimed, before turning her attention to the landlord, Gaston, who had arrived at her table to refill her wineglass.

The woman was tall and painfully thin, with striking, hawk-like features.

She wore her jet black hair scraped back over her head, reminding Chris, simultaneously, of an aging prima donna ballerina and a Victorian governess.

Despite having caused the most enormous scene she seemed completely at her ease, sharing a joke with Gaston.

‘She seems like an interesting person; shall we invite her to join us for coffee?’ The Doctor asked and, not waiting for an answer to his question, waved her over.

The distraction over, Chris felt the familiar ache of grief return. The last thing he wanted to do was socialize. ‘Actually, Doctor,’ he began, ‘I’m not sure that I’m very good company at the moment.’

‘
Deah
, you can’t possibly be any worse company than that tiresome fat old man. Right Honourable. Right
Dis
honourable, more like it,’ the woman exclaimed as she marched towards them. Chris felt himself blush furiously. How on Earth had she managed to hear him from the other side of the restaurant?

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean. . . ’ But the dark-haired woman dismissed his apology with a wave of her hand. She sat down and refilled her wineglass from their bottle. ‘You’ll get used to me, I’m an acquired taste,’ she said, took a large 9