Jo looked up. ‘The lightning?’
Mrs Toovey nodded. ‘Last few days. Everyone’s seen it. Like the beginning of a thunderstorm, but it never comes.’
The Doctor frowned and then stood up decisively.
‘Where are you off to?’ asked Jo in surprise.
‘The aerodrome,’ said the Doctor matter-of-factly. ‘I want you to stay here in case the Wing Commander returns.’
‘Don’t we have to wait for our passes?’
The Doctor looked indignant. ‘Certainly not!’
Max stood in his accustomed place behind the post-office counter, fiddling with his rather flamboyant paisley bow tie. Hand on hip, he was tearing sheets of stamps free from a ledger, punctuating each rip with a bored sigh.
The place would be open again early the following morning, of course, despite his time being fully occupied making the final preparations for the summer fête. There was still no sign of old Jobey Packer – which Max put down to drink – nor of Mrs Garrick, which was less easy to explain.
Still, Miss Plowman had been a tower of strength and the parade of floats that would drive through the village would be the finest in living memory. Max had even had a message from the Bliss woman at the aerodrome, promising a spectacular display of some kind. That would put the icing very nicely on the cake.
The door was suddenly pushed open, setting the little brass bell clanging sharply.
Max swung round, mouth open, ready to start complaining. Ted was framed in the doorway, his son held in his outstretched arms.
‘Oh my God!’ cried Max, his hands flying to his mouth.
Ted’s face was a mask of pained concern. ‘Quick! Help me.’
He staggered inside the post office and gently let Noah down into his brother’s arms. Max shunted the boy to a chair and pushed back his blood-matted blond hair.
‘What happened? Has he been in a fight?’ Max peered at the ugly wound on Noah’s head. ‘I told you, Ted Bishop. How many times did I tell you? That boy’s a danger to himself.’
Ted came in from the back room, clutching a glass of water and bottle of brandy. ‘It’s nothing like that,’ he said, struggling to get his breath back. ‘At least I don’t think so.’
He splashed cold water on to Noah’s face and gently slapped at his cheeks. There was no response. The boy’s face was clammy and bloodless.
Max folded his arms. ‘It’s serious, Ted. I’ll call an ambulance.’
Ted nodded absently, taking the seat next to his son and cradling Noah’s head in his arms. He managed to raise a glass of brandy to the boy’s lips and, for the first time since he had found him, there was some response. Noah licked his lips and groaned gently.
Ted looked up at his brother who was tugging anxiously at the tips of his bow tie. ‘I found him in a ditch up by the aerodrome.’
Max tutted, reaching across the counter for the telephone. ‘Well, that’s it, then. Probably got himself clipped by one of those bloomin’ great lorries. I said something nasty would happen, didn’t I? Didn’t I say, Ted?’
Ted nodded, frowning. There were great beads of sweat standing out on Noah’s forehead. Max dialled a number and walked through into the back room, trailing the phone lead behind him.
Noah’s eyes flicked open and he stared wildly ahead, as though waking from a nightmare. He started to breathe stertorously in and out, his hands gripping his father’s arms as though for dear life.
Ted began to shush him gently, stroking the boy’s hair out of his eyes. ‘It’s OK. It’s OK, Noah. It’s just your dad. I’m here.’
Noah shook his head, his eyes still fixed ahead, as though on a distant horizon.
‘No,’ he gasped. ‘No!’
His eyelids fluttered and his head sank back on to Ted’s chest. In a moment, he was unconscious again.
Max returned from the back of the shop, biting his lip.
‘Well?’ said Ted.
Max shook his head slowly. ‘You won’t believe this. I dialled 999.’
‘And?’
Max frowned. ‘There was a voice at the other end.’
Ted nodded impatiently. ‘Switchboard?’
Max shook his head. ‘No. It was a funny kind of voice. They said… they said the number was unobtainable.’
The room was silent except for the occasional click and whirr of the computer banks standing by the far wall. Elaborate shades had been put up to cover most of the huge, panoramic window which dominated the office. Strips of black night were vaguely discernible through the heavy material.
Behind the wooden crescent of the desk sat the imposing figure of Bliss, still and alert, like a fat cat ready to pounce. She cradled the telephone in her hand, the receiver pressed close to her ear, listening to a faraway voice. She nodded and absently pushed the oily black fringe of hair out of her eyes. Her nose twitched from side to side in a constant tic.
‘Yes.’ Her voice was calm and confident. ‘Yes. I understand.’
The voice at the other end of the phone spoke rapidly and with authority.
Bliss’s fat fingers were splayed out in a fan on the desk, over a heavy sheet of blotting paper. Now they curled up into a tight, angry ball.
‘Yes,’ she said again, a hint of frustration creeping into her carefully modulated tones. ‘The operation is proceeding perfectly smoothly,’ she insisted. ‘To speed things up would only increase suspicion.’
The voice on the end of the phone seemed mollified by this. Bliss’s balled fist relaxed and she began to drum her fingers softly on the cool surface of the desk. She nodded again and smiled, making a tiny, ticking sound as her lips parted.
‘The swine are being gathered?’ she asked.
The answer from the other end of the telephone seemed to please her. At length she hung up.
Bliss sat in silence for a few moments longer, enjoying the canopy of darkness which surrounded her. Then she leant forward, as though to flick an intercom. Instead, she spoke to the still and dusty air.
‘Bring him in,’ she said softly.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
NIGHT TAKES BISHOP
Graham Allinson was an awkward boy.
He had been born prematurely and, for the first few years of his life, had worn callipers on his skinny legs. Even at night, he’d had to keep them on, those great metal encumbrances, cutting into his skin, preventing him from playing outside with the other children.
Now the braces were gone, but he had grown uncommonly tall for his age, like a nine-year-old’s image in a distorting mirror. Together with his thick, pebbly glasses and shy manner he was always going to have trouble fitting in. But, just now, with the school holidays only a few days old, Graham Allinson’s life was becoming unbearable.
The reason was the arrival of Culverton’s new boy: Anthony Ayre, a big, bluff lad with messy hair and mean, stupid eyes. As soon as he’d turned up for his first day at Culverton Junior Mixed and Infants, Graham knew he was in trouble.
It had taken Anthony little more than a day to challenge Dawson, the school’s reigning bully, to a fight, beat him and install himself as the new ruler. A clique of fawning hangers-on had risen around him with disgusting speed and, naturally, Graham had been instantly singled out for their attention.
For five miserable weeks, the bullying had got worse and worse until the blessed relief of the holidays. But if Graham thought he was to be spared, he was sadly mistaken.
He rode through the village that night on his old Raleigh bicycle, embarrassed by the clips his mother made him wear over the flares of his pale denim jeans. He’d spent the afternoon in the wood, splashing about in the little stream, looking for frogspawn and mayflies. Now he was heading home and hoping that his mother would have beans on toast ready for his tea. The last thing he expected to see under the yellow glare of a streetlamp was Anthony Ayre, but, as he pedalled furiously past the church and round the corner, he saw the bully sitting on the lichen-covered wall, chewing gum, a smug, arrogant look in his eyes.
> Graham tried not to slow down, tried to keep going past the wall but Anthony jumped up and stuck a branch into the spokes of the bicycle. With a sickening lurch, Graham felt himself thrown forward and over the handlebars. He crashed on to the road with a groan and heard the Raleigh scrape its gold paintwork over the road.
Anthony walked towards him, laughing. All Graham could see was the front wheel spinning, spinning, spinning.
‘Where’re you off to, Bongo?’ sneered the bully, using Graham’s hated nickname.
Graham didn’t reply. He tried to raise himself up on his spindly arms, wincing from the cuts on his palms and elbows. Anthony came closer and grabbed Graham’s T-shirt. He pulled the boy close to his flushed face. His breath smelled sweet and sickly, like baby’s vomit. ‘I said –’ he began.
Then both boys looked up as the night sky turned from midnight blue to flashing white.
The strange summer lightning had come again.
The street was dark save for the occasional bedroom light as Charles Cochrane let himself into the mews flat he kept for himself off the King’s Road.
He moved swiftly through the kitchen, dropping the briefcase and red ministerial box as though they were discarded sweet papers. They banged off the polished wooden floors but Cochrane didn’t seem to notice.
He opened the door into the front room and took his place at a long, highly decorative table. Eight high-backed chairs surrounded it. Two were already occupied but Cochrane registered no surprise. He merely pulled out the nearest chair and sat down, folding his hands on the table before him.
Next to Cochrane sat a well-built woman with grey hair and small, clever eyes. Two chairs along sat Jocelyn Strangeways in full dress uniform. All three stared straight ahead, their faces blank except for the wide grins plastered across their faces.
None of them reacted when the front door opened again and a stranger entered the room.
He took his place at the head of the table and glanced from one to the other of them. His smile of satisfaction did not quite match theirs, but then, he still had responsibilities, after all.
Insects chirruped in the long dry grass which encroached on the aerodrome’s perimeter.
The Doctor crouched down and turned towards the shadowy complex of the aerodrome. Lifting his face from the parched soil, he peered through the diamond-shaped mesh of the perimeter fence for any sign of activity. He frowned. There was nothing. No movement. No lights.
Reaching a sudden decision, he leapt to his feet, rammed the toe of his boot into the mesh and began to haul himself up. With two or three swift moves he was up, then swung himself over on to the other side where he landed gracefully, spreading his feet wide to distribute his weight. He looked swiftly around. Still no sign of life.
Ahead, visible against the night sky, was the aerodrome’s control tower. The Doctor thought he could discern movement of some kind through the panoramic window but, again, there were no lights on. Pressing himself against the lower wall of the building, his cloak-lining flat behind him like scarlet plumage, the Doctor paused and considered his next move.
There were a number of parked lorries close by which attracted his interest but the control tower seemed the logical place to start, despite the absence of any personnel.
Detaching himself from the wall, the Doctor walked swiftly and silently across the tarmac towards the tower. He put out both hands and grabbed the steel banisters of the staircase, hauling himself upwards until he was right outside the door.
He examined the lock quickly and then stopped as he heard voices.
A narrow, grilled catwalk extended around the circular tower just outside the thick glass window, and the Doctor jumped over a metal gate and on to it in one silent movement. Crouching down, he pressed his face close to the glass and tried to make out what was going on inside the darkened office.
Wing Commander Whistler sat upright in a chair, listening to the sound of his own breathing. He had come to in a grim-looking cell, his head pounding sickeningly, confidently expecting to be shot at any moment. But the hours had passed and none of the black-uniformed guards had appeared.
Fear had turned to anger and anger to boredom. Just when he had thought he’d prefer anything to simply sitting there staring at a blank concrete wall, the door had opened and two troopers had bundled him outside into the warm night.
They had made no allowances for his age or the darkness, and dragged him on whenever he stumbled. Now he was sitting in some kind of office, presumably about to meet whoever was behind all this.
He sighed, blinking slowly and expecting the door to open any moment. When a voice oozed through the dark, he almost jumped out of his skin.
‘Show me.’
Whistler collected himself and peered ahead. He could just make out a figure behind a desk. He cleared his throat and set his jaw aggressively.
‘I wouldn’t mind being told just what the hell you people think you’re playing at.’
There was no response. Whistler could just hear a soft, wet sound as though someone were smiling. ‘Show me,’ said the voice again.
Whistler scratched his chin. ‘I can see right through your elementary psychology, you know. Really, I thought we might have got past sticking prisoners in darkened rooms.’
There was a thoughtful pause then an anglepoise lamp was clicked on, throwing a harsh white disc of light directly into Whistler’s face. The old man laughed. ‘Now that’s even worse.’
Bliss swung the lamp round towards herself and the mechanism squealed in protest. The light shone on her pale, fat face and made her huge eyes glisten like raw meat. She winced slightly and swung the lamp away. Whistler noticed that there were dark smudges, like soot, below each of her eyes.
‘Oh,’ said Whistler with a small smile. ‘I thought as much.’
‘Your name is Alec Whistler,’ said Bliss evenly.
‘Bravo,’ grunted Whistler.
‘You were a soldier, I gather.’
Whistler bristled. ‘Royal Air Force, if you please. Do you want my rank and serial number? Your interrogation methods would seem to demand all the clichés.’
Bliss cocked her head to one side, plunging most of her face into shadow. ‘I’m not here to interrogate you, Wing Commander. You will provide me with the information I require, or I shall kill you. Right now.’
Despite himself, Whistler felt a cold pall of fear creep over him.
Max Bishop wasn’t used to running. He could feel a sticky patch of sweat spreading across the back of his shirt as he hurried across the village towards the police house and he regretted putting on his favourite lemon-coloured pullover.
Flustered, he ran his hand through his thinning hair and trotted across the road to the small, grey, nondescript building where Constable Trickett was always to be found.
A place the size of Culverton had no need for a fully fledged police station. Instead, the whole operation was run from Trickett’s house, a blue lamp – blazing now despite the collection of mummified moths within it – and a parish poster outside the only indicators of its true function. It was on nights such as this, thought Max, that the villagers could have done with a more impressive police presence.
The lawn in front of Trickett’s house was neatly manicured, but had browned somewhat in the summer heat. A winding, crazy-paved path led up to the door and Max was careful to follow it. It didn’t do to disobey ‘keep off the grass’ signs right under the nose of the constabulary, even in an emergency and under cover of darkness.
With two or three neat steps, he was outside the door and rang the buzzer urgently. There was no response. Usually, the constable’s wife would answer, or even Trickett himself who was most often to be found behind the frosted-glass screen at the front desk.
Max waited a moment longer and then buzzed again, shrinking from the loud noise and regretting the upset to the natural order of things which it represented. There was still no response. Not even the barking of Trickett’s Yorkshire terrier, a bad-
tempered, yappy little thing which Max had always loathed. He looked around, tugging anxiously at the tips of his bow tie, and wiped the sweat from his brow. He was on the point of pressing the buzzer once more when he noticed that the front door was open a crack.
Max frowned.
For reasons of basic security, the door was never left ajar. Trickett or his wife would respond to the buzzer. They couldn’t just pop out for a pint of milk and leave the door on the latch. Responsibility came with the job. Tentatively, and biting his lower lip, Max pushed open the door and went inside.
The darkness seemed absolute. Max put out a hand to steady himself, laying his palm flat against the cool green plaster of the wall. As the room began to take shape gradually, he peered ahead towards the desk, able to make out the chairs against the walls and the coat hook fastened to the door. There was a shadow behind the screen, a clear silhouette, its outline blurred by the frosted glass.
His hands slithering over the walls, Max tried to find the light switch. When his fingers finally fastened on the cold plastic he flicked the mechanism swiftly down.
Nothing happened.
He tried again, clicking the switch up and down rapidly, and sighed. Bulb must have gone, he thought to himself.
Max marched towards the desk, sure that Trickett would slide back the panel at his approach, but he reached the screen and there was no movement from behind it.
He shook his head and cleared his throat. This was getting ridiculous. After all, young Noah was hurt. Something out of the ordinary had happened to him and it was Trickett’s job to be there for the villagers when help was needed.
A little angry now, Max slammed his hand down on to the desk bell three times. The silhouette behind the glass didn’t stir. The sound of the bell dissipated in the hot, still air. Max let out a long, exasperated sigh.
‘Mr Trickett?’
His voice sounded thin and a little hysterical. He cleared his throat and called Trickett’s name again, this time using the authoritative tones he had perfected for his role as Buffalo Bill the previous Christmas.