But the way the Doctor saw himself was different from anyone else Affinity had encountered. He had no idea why, but the Doctor seemed to have multiple images of himself lodged in his mind. And, having deployed variations of those aspects of the Doctor’s personality, Affinity was finding that the Doctor did not seem to like himself very much.
The Doctor barely even seemed to notice the young fair-haired man in pale coat and light striped trousers. The next aspect that Affinity employed was harder to ignore. But the Doctor turned on the large man in the garish coat, looked him up and down with an air of vague disgust, and announced:
‘No. Whatever you’re selling, I’m not interested.’
‘Selling?’ Affinity echoed. ‘Selling?! I am not selling anything.’
‘Good,’ the Doctor told him, and walked on.
By the time Clara found him, the Doctor was rather fed up with other people. The latest person to accost him was a young man in a tweed jacket and mismatched bow tie, with a flop of hair that looked as if it was about to detach itself from his head and go solo. He finally got the message that the Doctor was just not interested in striking up any sort of conversation and stepped aside as Clara walked up.
‘What are you doing here?’ the Doctor demanded, still irritable.
‘Yeah, pleased to see you too,’ she told him. ‘This guy arrived at the mill and said he’d just seen Billie Matherson having a pint and pie at the Old Goose on Lanchester Street. Thought we should nip along and catch him there.’
‘Good thought,’ the Doctor agreed. ‘Any idea …?’
‘That way. I got directions.’
‘Come on then.’ The Doctor paused to glare at the young bow-tied man still hovering nearby, then set off briskly in the direction Clara had pointed. ‘How did you catch up with me?’ he wondered. ‘You must have fairly sprinted along.’
‘Don’t sound so surprised. I can run,’ she told him. ‘Though actually I took a cab. Dropped me off just over there.’
Behind them, the young man with the errant hair wiped his hand over his face, blanking it out. He needed to find Empath, and tell him where Billie Matherson was to be found.
‘You’ve just missed him,’ the landlord said. ‘Left in a hurry by the look of it.’ He pointed over to a nearby table where a half-eaten pie sat next to a half-drunk pint of beer.
‘Any idea where he went?’ Clara asked.
The landlord shrugged. ‘He went off with that undertaker. Leastways, I think he was an undertaker. Bad news, I expect.’
‘Bad news almost certainly,’ the Doctor told him.
Outside the pub, the Doctor grabbed hold of the nearest person. It happened to be a girl selling matches. She gave a yelp of surprise.
‘Bald man and an undertaker,’ he snapped. ‘Did you see them? Where did they go?’
‘Please,’ Clara added over the Doctor’s shoulder.
‘Buy some matches?’ the girl said nervously.
‘Love to,’ the Doctor told her. ‘I’m a big fan of matches. Even the sort that burn for a bit then go out.’
‘What other sort is there?’ Clara wondered, but the Doctor ignored her.
‘So tell us where they went, and I’ll buy some matches. Promise.’
The girl nodded towards an alleyway. ‘Down that way. Behind the pub. Dunno why, there’s only the back yard there.’ She handed the Doctor a box of matches. ‘Three farthings to you, guv.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘That sounds a bit steep.’
She rattled the matches.
‘But under the circumstances, let’s call it half a crown.’ He took the matches and handed her a large silver coin in return. ‘Keep the change.’
The Doctor and Clara headed down the alleyway. It was just wide enough for a drayman’s cart, leading to the back of the pub. The Doctor was ahead of Clara as they reached the double gates into the yard. One gate was standing slightly open, and he pushed through. A moment later, he was back out again.
‘What?’ Clara said. ‘Not there?’
The Doctor put his finger to his lips. ‘Not a good time,’ he whispered. ‘We’re too late.’
He gestured for Clara to join him peering cautiously through the gap between the two gates. She could see what must be Billie Matherson, staring back at them from the other side of the yard. But he was ancient. His body seemed to be wasting away as she watched, the skin on his face sagging, drying, withering …
Standing in front of Matherson, his hand stretched out and holding the man’s shoulder, was the undertaker the landlord had mentioned. If he was an undertaker. He was dressed entirely in black, dark silk hanging from the back of his top hat.
The Doctor pulled Clara aside as the undertaker turned. She caught just the briefest glimpse of his face – a sudden snarl of anger subsiding to a calmer, more neutral expression. Then the Doctor bundled her into the shadows at the side of the alleyway. Moments later, the dark figure stepped through the gap between the gates and set off down the alleyway.
‘Matherson,’ Clara gasped. ‘We have to help him.’ The Doctor turned her away from the yard. ‘Too late for that. We need to get after the man that killed him.’
‘Shouldn’t we stay here? Raise the alarm?’
‘And get stuck with an awful lot of explaining to do?’
‘But what happened?’ Clara demanded as they hurried back along the alley.
‘I’m not sure. But I have a few nasty suspicions.’
‘Is he really an undertaker?’
‘He deals in death, that’s for certain. I’ve met a few rather bizarre characters this afternoon, an undertaker giving free samples is just another one to add to the collection.’
With his distinctive clothing, the man wasn’t hard to follow. He seemed to be heading back towards the river.
‘Perhaps he’s going to the Frost Fair,’ Clara suggested.
But he turned away in another direction before they reached the Embankment. Finally he arrived at a large house set back from the road in its own grounds. The gravelled driveway was lined with trees, so there was plenty of cover as the Doctor and Clara followed up to the front of the house. The undertaker opened the front door and went inside.
‘Wait for him to come out again?’ Clara suggested.
‘Where’s the fun in that?’ The Doctor set off rapidly towards the front door. He had it open by the time Clara caught up with him.
‘That was quick work.’
‘It wasn’t locked.’
Stepping cautiously into the hallway, they could hear the steady tread of footsteps from further inside the house.
‘This way,’ the Doctor whispered, setting off in hurried pursuit.
They caught sight of the dark figure of the undertaker entering a room off the corridor that led past the stairs. Following warily behind, the Doctor and Clara found themselves in a large library. The undertaker was heading towards the far end of the room. Darting from the door to the cover of a large leather armchair, and finally to hide behind heavy curtains pulled across a bay window, they found they had a good view of the man as he reached his destination.
‘What is it?’ Clara hissed.
The Doctor shrugged and shook his head. The undertaker was standing in front of a large glass sphere. It was mounted on a bracket, not unlike an ornamental globe only rather larger. Inside, dark smoke curled lazily like drifting smog. As they watched, the undertaker opened a circular hatch, like a porthole, in the side of the sphere. He leaned forward, pushing his head inside.
They could see his face, distorted by the curve of the glass and hazy through the dark mist. Again, the man’s placid expression twisted into a sudden mask of fury. His mouth opened wide. A stream of black mist spewed out, the anger draining from his expression as the mist vented into the sphere.
After several moments, the stream faded. The undertaker closed his mouth and withdrew his head, quickly closing the hatch again. His face was once more serene and expressionless as he walked slowly from the room.
&nb
sp; The Doctor and Clara were still staring intently at the swirling dark cloud within the glass sphere when the curtains were abruptly drawn back.
‘How good of you both to join us,’ a voice said, close to Clara’s ear. ‘Mr Milton has been expecting you.’
Chapter
16
Silhouette was standing beside them, holding the curtain which she had pulled aside. She had discarded her cloak, to reveal a long, scarlet dress beneath. A large crimson crystal set in silver glowed at her throat as it caught the light from the window behind.
‘If you would like to come with me,’ she said.
‘What if we wouldn’t?’ Clara asked.
Silhouette smiled. ‘Then I am instructed to inform you that your friends, the lizard lady and her maid, will die.’
‘We’ll be right behind you,’ the Doctor said grimly.
Silhouette led the way out of the room and down the corridor towards the back of the house. Portraits on the walls above them stared down as they passed. A man with a white beard, darkened and stained by age seemed to follow their progress with interest.
‘Is it just me,’ Clara wondered, looking up at the pictures, ‘or are their eyes really following us?’
The Doctor glanced up, to see the old man’s eyes move slightly to watch his progress. ‘It’s not just you.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Silhouette said. ‘Force of habit, I’m afraid.’ They entered a more open area and she indicated a door. ‘After you.’
The room they entered was dark, except for the light from the focused beams that formed a cage round Vastra and Jenny.
‘Doctor!’ But Vastra’s relief turned to disappointment as Silhouette followed the Doctor and Clara into the room. ‘They have you too.’
‘They think they have,’ he assured her. ‘I’ll get you out of there, don’t worry.’
‘Milton’s selling weapons,’ Jenny said. ‘He’s an alien, and he’s turning people into weapons.’
‘Oh, hush now.’
The Doctor and Clara turned to see that Milton had entered the room behind them. ‘You’ll be telling him all my secrets, and then what will we talk about over tea and biscuits?’
‘Let them go,’ the Doctor demanded.
Milton laughed. ‘Certainly not. They are far more valuable to me where they are, where death can be administered at the touch of a button or the mention of a certain control word.’
‘You kill them and—’ the Doctor started angrily.
‘I won’t have to kill them,’ Milton interrupted him, ‘if you do as I tell you. Now please, you’ve seen that I’m not bluffing, so let us go to my study and Silhouette can bring us some tea. I must say I’m looking forward to a little chat.’
‘I’m not in the mood for small talk,’ the Doctor told him sharply.
‘Pity. You’ll just have to listen to me and the young lady.’
‘What if I’m not in the mood either?’ Clara said.
‘Then you can wait here in a cage. Or you can join us and be polite and have a biscuit.’ Milton smiled. ‘It’s up to you.’
Clara glanced back at Vastra and Jenny. They were sitting on the floor inside the ring of glowing bars. On balance, tea seemed like a better option, but could she just abandon them?
‘Go with him,’ Vastra said. ‘There is nothing you can do to help us here.’
‘We’ll be all right,’ Jenny assured them.
‘I’ll save you a biscuit,’ Clara promised. Then she followed the Doctor, Milton and Silhouette out of the room.
The atmosphere felt very strange and very wrong. Milton’s study, in the middle of the large Victorian town house, felt more like a twenty-first-century office or hotel business suite with its relaxed seating area and raised work space. Milton was charming and attentive. Silhouette offered tea and smiled at Clara as if they were old friends.
The façade of friendliness unsettled her. Clara could tell that the Doctor was feeling much the same. He seemed happy to talk to Milton, smiling at the man’s jokes. But then, every so often, his eyes became cold and hard as flint. Just for a second, as he assessed the man who in effect held them captive. Not for the first time, she felt there were several layers to the Doctor’s emotions. Hidden below the surface layer, revealed in the briefest flickers of expression, was how he felt about things. And hidden below that – deep below that, and never revealed – was how he really felt.
The Doctor took a sip of tea. ‘So, you’re a wanted man. Dead or alive. A price on your head. Doesn’t that give you any sort of clue that what you’re doing is wrong?’
‘Oh don’t be so naive, Doctor,’ Milton told him. ‘There will always be war, so there will always be weapons. Someone has to make a profit. Why not me?’
‘How long have you got?’ the Doctor asked.
‘Because it’s wrong,’ Clara told him. She couldn’t believe they were sipping tea and talking about turning people into killing machines.
‘I’m not defending the concept of war,’ Milton protested. ‘I’m merely ensuring that I benefit from it. As I’m sure you’d be among the first to point out, there’s more than enough suffering generated by war to go round.’
‘And you profit from that suffering,’ Clara told him.
‘Absolutely. I make money from it, and then I spend that money. Which keeps economies growing, creates jobs, ensure there is a profit in other market sectors. It’s a good thing, surely?’
Feeling out of her depth, Clara glanced at the Doctor for help.
‘You are exploiting people,’ he said. ‘Whatever the dubious morality of trading in other weapons, exploiting – enslaving – intelligent life forms cannot be justified.’
In answer, Milton turned towards Silhouette, who stood nearby ready to offer more tea. ‘Do you feel exploited, my dear?’ he asked. ‘Enslaved?’
She smiled. ‘Of course not.’ But Clara noticed a slighter flicker in her eyes. Her hand went to the red crystal hanging round her neck.
‘There’s an obvious discussion to be had about free will,’ the Doctor told Milton. ‘But I’ve a feeling that means as little to you as morality.’
‘For a weapon to be effective, it has to be reliable,’ Milton replied. ‘If you can’t be sure you can deploy it, then it’s no use at all. It has no value.’
‘People have value. Always.’
‘Good.’ Milton smiled. ‘So on that basis I can be sure you will do whatever I want to preserve the lives of the other people I have captive here.’
‘I never said that.’
‘No,’ Milton agreed. He set down his tea cup on its saucer. ‘And if you had, I’m afraid I wouldn’t believe you. Silhouette here you know, of course. And you have also met Affinity.’
‘We have?’ Clara said.
‘Oh yes. Now he is an interesting character. Or rather, many interesting characters. One of the things he can do is assess a personality, determine what makes someone tick. But I gather he had quite a hard time with you, Doctor.’
‘I can’t imagine why.’
‘Neither could I,’ Milton admitted. ‘Which is why Silhouette gave you that particular cup.’
The Doctor frowned, inspecting his tea cup. It looked just like the others, so far as Clara could see.
‘DNA and biometric sampling?’ the Doctor guessed.
‘Analysis of saliva, perspiration, skin cell content as well as monitoring of life signs,’ Milton agreed. ‘All beamed directly to my computer up there. Should have a result fairly soon, I think.’
‘Or you could just have asked me who I am,’ the Doctor told him.
‘And trust that you were willing to tell me. And that what you told me was the truth.’
‘Trust is a good thing,’ Clara told him. ‘You get nowhere if you don’t trust people.’
Milton seemed amused. ‘Is that so? Then tell me –truthfully – has the Doctor never misled you, has he always answered your questions? Has he never lied to you?’ His smile grew as he watched the blood drain from Clara’s
face. She felt suddenly cold inside. ‘And you’re his friend. Trust gets you nowhere, except possibly dead.’
‘Well you’d know all about people getting possibly dead,’ she shot back. ‘What about Billie Matherson?’
‘Who?’
‘I think that rather makes the point,’ the Doctor said quietly. ‘You have no moral sensibility at all. No feeling for the people you kill – no, let me rephrase that, the people your weapons kill.’ He leaned forward. ‘What happened to Matherson, anyway? And all the others your undertaker friend murdered?’
‘My undertaker friend?’
‘The one who sucks the life out of people then gobs it into a goldfish bowl,’ Clara said.
‘Ah, you must mean Empath. Yes, an interesting case, I’m glad you asked about him. He is key to my latest weapon. My latest and, though I say so myself, greatest weapon.’
‘I suspect we measure these things in very different ways,’ the Doctor told him.
Milton ignored this, leaning back in his chair and tapping the tips of his fingers together as he spoke. ‘He was a poor sad man when I found him. He worked at the Carnival too, though in a fairly menial capacity. It proved a very rich recruiting ground. But, you know, I don’t even recall his name.’
‘David Rutherford,’ Silhouette said quietly.
There was no sign that Milton heard her. ‘He was one of those people who desperately wants to fit in. It wasn’t deliberate, but his behaviour modified depending on the mood of the people he was with. If they were happy, then so was he. If they were sad, then he had the woes of the world on his shoulders. He felt what they felt, saw the world through their eyes. Emotionally he was very much in the moment, malleable, receptive.’
‘And that’s a bad thing?’ Clara said. ‘Sounds like he was sympathetic.’
‘Oh indeed. Empathetic, even. And of course I enhanced that ability.’
The Doctor leaned forward. ‘So he absorbs the most dominant emotion in the people he kills. Drains it out of them, and leaves them empty, dead husks.’
Milton jabbed his finger in the air triumphantly. ‘You have it exactly.’
Silhouette Page 11
