by Mark Speed
"What about a spacesuit?"
"What?"
"Neil Armstrong didn't wear a two-piece single-breasted suit to the moon. You get me?"
"Don't act the smart-ass with me, laddie. My point is that a suit will get you in anywhere."
"Yeah, like a funeral parlour."
"I think you'll find that more people are murdered in hoodies, Kevin."
"Yeah, but more people are seen dead in suits. So what do you want me to do, then?"
The Doctor sighed heavily. "I suppose on the plus side your outfit doesn't smell of fried food yet. Though I'm sure you'll work on it soon enough. Look, here's another couple of hundred to get yourself another outfit for when you need to dress up a bit smarter. And for when you don't want to be subject to random stop-and-searches by the police."
"Sorry. It's just, like, this is my uniform. You understand me? You might think I'm more likely to get stabbed wearing this, but it's less conspicuous where I live."
"Sure. I suppose times have changed. A hundred years ago the guy sweeping the street would wear a suit. Not a great one, but nevertheless a suit. Where I go it gets me instant respect."
"That's what I'm saying, Doc. You wear a suit like that in my manor and you're the enemy, innit? Like everyone thought you was with the Feds the other night. And that landed me right in it."
"Speaking of which, how are your friends?"
Kevin smiled. "Like you said, man. They just steer clear of me at the moment. They is like scalded cats but they don't know why. Cool."
"Even so, I want you to keep clear of them. Understood?"
"Yes, boss."
"Excellent. Now, come with me."
Kevin followed the Doctor to the cellar, but hesitated at the bottom step because Trinity was sitting in the chair he'd sat in the last time. She gave a loud meowl and sat bolt upright. He walked hesitantly over and reached out to stroke her head. She pressed up into his hand, and he stroked her. "Good girl. Mind if I sit here?"
Trinity stood up and looked at him with her glowing green eyes. He understood what he had to do, and picked her up.
"Jesus, she's heavy. I've got a three-year-old cousin who weighs less than this." He set her down on his lap. She put her front paws on his left thigh and he felt the prick of her claws through his jeans as she flexed them. He wondered how much blood they'd spilled. This was one cat that could handle herself on the streets. Spider, he reminded himself. Or something. She settled down and began purring.
"Oh, I forgot to mention your DNA tests the other night."
"You what? You mean the Feds have fitted me up for something?"
The Doctor looked at him for a second. "Oh, I see. You think I've checked your DNA against scenes-of-crime evidence held on the police national DNA database. No, no. That's not what I mean at all. I mean your DNA's history. And your future. Would you like to know?"
"Like, what's the downside?"
"Some people don't like to know their genetic susceptibility to cancer, Alzheimer's, heart disease and so forth."
"Can you give me a hint? Like, would I want to know how I'm going to die?"
"These are only for increased propensities, Kevin. I can only tell you what you have a greater chance of dying from if you make poor lifestyle choices. I can't tell you whether you're going to get run over by a bus next week. Though I suppose your intelligence and sensory perception might have a bearing on it."
"Like, can you just summarise?"
"As you wish. It would be a terrific idea if you were to give the fried food a rest. Your father died from heart disease, didn't he?" Kevin nodded. "Scottish," continued the Doctor. "Tie that to a loving wife who believes the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, combine it with a lethal Caledonian-Caribbean diet and... well, you know the result. Sorry. Eat more fresh fruit and veg, eh? Less KFC and more of the piri-piri. Go easy on the fries and the sodas."
"You mentioned my history?"
"So I did. Ever wondered how a Caledonian-Afro-Caribbean boy has blue eyes?"
"Yeah, I had. It's actually been remarked on. They used to bully me for being a 'coconut' at school."
"Coconut?"
"Black on the outside, white on the inside. To put it into language you can understand, Doctor, it's a common derogatory term when you don't like the behaviour or appearance of someone else of colour."
"I see. Interesting. There are none so judgemental as one's own race." The Doctor paused for thought. "True enough."
"Why is it?"
"I suppose part of it might be envy, but also a kind of racial pride. It would depend on the situation."
"No, I mean my blue eyes, man."
"Seven generations ago, one of your ancestors by the name of Ekua – from Ghana, incidentally – had the great fortune to be spared the worst. She was a comely lady, as they would have said back in those times, and caught the eye of a Mr Cruachan – a supervisor at the plantation. You are a direct descendant of the male born of their union. Your family's carried the recessive gene for blue eyes since then and your father had blue eyes. When you were conceived, those blue eyes popped out to say hello."
"Cheers, Doc. It was so worth the years of bullying. How the hell do you know all this?"
"We keep detailed records, and what we don't know we can derive or impute. Your Scottish ancestry has served you well, Kevin, and in ways you'll only come to understand in the future."
"Meaning?"
"In terms of genetics it might protect you against your mother's family's propensity for obesity and diabetes, as well as sickle cell anaemia. You retain just enough of that gene to afford you a touch of protection against malaria. And for the rest of it, I have a feeling we'll be delving into your family history in more detail in another one of our little adventures."
"I can't wait. Really. Sorry to be rude, but can I just ask where in the space-time continuum this particular adventure we has embarked upon is going to take us?"
"Essex."
"You have got to be joking. What about Jupiter or Mars? Or Alpha Centauri or something?"
"Why the hell would we go there?"
"Why the hell would you go to Essex if you have the rest of the bleedin' universe to choose from? In fact, why go to Essex if you have the rest of Britain to choose from. Or anywhere for that matter."
"You've completely lost me, Kevin."
"Look, when the Eleventh Doctor takes on Clara Oswald as his new assistant, he asks her where she wants to go. That was in The Rings of Akhaten."
"Oh, dear God," said the Doctor. "That is fiction, Kevin. We're dealing with cold, hard reality here."
"But –"
"It's unfortunate that this particular investigation doesn't meet with your somewhat ambitious travel expectations, Kevin." The youth's eyes nearly popped out at the Doctor's understatement, but he chose to remain silent. "However, expediency suggests that Essex is our first port of call. To put it in your parlance, Dagenham is where the action is, man."
"It depends what kind of action you is after, Doc. If you want white racist blokes with beer-bellies then it's right up your street, innit?"
"That's a racist comment in itself – don't be such a hypocrite."
"This sucks, Doc. I thought I was signing up for some kind of intergalactic adventure thing."
"It was so much easier in the past. Damn the BBC and their idiotic scriptwriters for creating these sorts of expectations. Damn them to hell." The Doctor took a deep breath. "Look, I don't know what there might be waiting for us in Essex."
"I can't wait to find out, Doc. Mind you, this is going to be my first trip in the TAR—" Kevin saw the Doctor stiffen. "In the Spectrel, innit? Man, that is just cool beyond imagining."
"What on earth makes you think we're going in the Spectrel?"
"But Time Lords always travel in the T – in their Spectrels, don't they?"
"Only if absolutely necessary."
"You what?"
"It's another myth put about by those scoundrels. Dramatic effe
ct and all that. It's all his fault."
"What do you mean?"
"Who's fault."
"No, I asked you first."
"No, you clot. It's Who's fault – Dr bloody Who. That's who!"
"Why?"
"No, not Why. I said it's Who's fault."
"Whose fault?"
"Yes. Who."
"What?"
"No! Listen, damn you. Don't bring Why or What into it. It's nothing to do with them. It's Who's fault."
"That's what I'm trying to establish, Doctor. Whose fault is it?"
"Yes. It's Who's fault; now, can we just bloody get on with it and stop arguing the toss and bringing the others into it?"
"Like, you really need talking therapy, Doc. We is uncovering some major anger-management issues here."
Trinity quaked in Kevin's lap, her head bobbing up and down.
"Sorry, this is my fault. I see that now. Let me explain a little bit more to you. There are six of us. The others are What, Why, When, Where, and Who."
"Six Time Lords? I thought there was, like, the whole planet of Gallifrey, and you've got the Master and Rana, and –" He caught a look from the Doctor. "Sorry, Gaelfrey."
"Please, Kevin. Will you just be quiet and listen to me? There are six of us. We are not Time Lords. That is a gross aggrandisement; a title which suited a certain someone. Powerful we may be, but lords we are not. We are Time Keepers. Referees, if you will."
"Referees?"
The Doctor sighed. "What was the one instruction I gave you?"
"Uh... Stick with you and do as you say?"
"Precisely, now I would like you to just shut up and listen. We are Time Keepers. We alone have free rein to make temporal journeys. Time travel is an undertaking not to be taken lightly. The consequences can be dire – cataclysmic. The sort of foul-ups that can end a universe. I'm sure you must be aware of that, even from your own culture's popular conception of it. That is not to say that we are the only ones who can travel in time, but we are the only ones allowed free rein to do so. Even then we are bound by an intergalactic treaty, which means we must adhere to a certain code.
"Your appointment as my assistant was a matter of some significance, not to say some controversy. I may say there were some grave reservations about your previous behaviour, but I gave a personal assurance that I understood you to be someone of the rarest good character. In some respects, rather like an ancestor of yours from the sixth century. Don't let me down. You have questions?"
"Where are the other guys? The other Time Keepers?"
"I know of their whereabouts, but not of their circumstances. We had a... disagreement. A bit of a falling-out. That was some fifty years ago. I alone chose to stay on the true path. The others have, shall we say, drifted a little. In fact, one of them first drifted about nine hundred years ago. But the serious rift was in 1963. I have a strong feeling I shall be reacquainting myself with them in the coming adventures. You will have the rare, if not privileged, opportunity to witness it."
"You said these guys are your cousins? Is that, like, for real? It's, like, not a turn of phrase?"
"What on earth do you mean?"
"Well, I refer to my bluds as cuz, sometimes. Is it like that, or is they real blood relatives?"
"Yes, four of them are cousins. One of them is my twin brother. I'm sure you can guess who."
"Who?"
"Yes."
"No, who?"
"Exactly." The Doctor's gaze was in some far-off place, his voice low and monotone. "He was always the troublesome one. He instigated the rift, cemented the separation. Blabbed to the Beeb. I can never forgive him for that. Never."
Kevin brightened. "My Mum actually knows someone who's a psychologist. Rather than wait six months on the NHS, she could see you privately. You know, for talking therapy."
The Doctor shot up from his seat. "We're going to Essex. Now."
"But I want to hear the rest of the stuff about your family. I'm actually a really big Dr Who fan, you know."
"Don't worry, I won't hold it against you. You – and millions of others – weren't to know. You're all innocent victims in all of this. You've been duped."
"But I want to hear –"
"All in good time, as we Gaelfreyans like to say. Some of us don't give up our secrets so easily. Or cheaply. Come."
One of the perks Kevin hadn't counted on was an Oyster card – the pre-paid electronic card used on London's transport network. However, the potential saving of hundreds of pounds of travel expenses was little compensation for the disappointment of not having his first trip in the Spectrel. The Doctor briefed him on the way, showing him some photographs from a website to which Kevin was a regular visitor. Run by a retired policeman, it allowed serving officers to submit material that was too far-fetched for routine reports.
They arrived in Dagenham by rail, and the Doctor consulted his smartphone. "It's just a mile or so over to the east," he said.
"So we'll get a cab, then?"
"Heavens, no – we'll walk."
"We're going to walk to a taxi depot? Is this for real?"
"Yes, it's all for real, Kevin. Come on."
They arrived twenty minutes later in a semi-industrial area of tatty red brick buildings which had avoided refurbishment since their heyday in the Fifties. The compound belonging to Grove Cab Services was around fifty feet wide and a hundred long. Grey metal fencing ten feet high separated it from the road at the front and sides, and the railway embankment at the rear. The fence posts were flattened galvanised steel with a triple point at the top. A profusion of weeds grew at the bottom, and the top had been secured with razor wire. On two sides the compound was bordered by buildings – those belonging to the business were at the front, and on the other side there was the external wall of a neighbouring unit. Three cabs – their roofs scratched and windows broken –– sat on the pot-holed tarmac, set at odd angles to each other as if they'd been casually put down by a giant. A white transit van that had seen better days was the only other vehicle in the yard. The crash of a piece of metal falling echoed from inside one of the buildings at the front. A passenger train rattled past on the embankment fifteen feet above as the Doctor and Kevin approached the entrance to the office.
"Let me do the talking, but follow my lead," said the Doctor. "You're my assistant. Your area of expertise is car mechanics."
"But I don't know the first thing about cars."
"Then you should be working at your local garage."
"What?"
"You'd fit in perfectly and earn a fortune on repeat business."
"I don't get you."
"That was humour, Kevin. I do it sometimes."
The Doctor pushed open the door and they found themselves in a small, basic reception area – the kind of reception area that never receives female visitors. A man looked up from a desk behind the counter. He was bald, white and in his fifties. "Can't do nothing for you, guv. Bit of an accident the other day, and the owner-drivers are all over in town. I hate to say it, but there's a private hire firm just down the road there. They usually have a couple of spare drivers."
"Mr Grove? We're from the insurance," said the Doctor.
"Eh? We had someone in yesterday doing the assessment."
"Loss adjustment," corrected the Doctor. "Who was it? Briggs'?"
"No, Swann."
"Well, that explains everything." The Doctor lifted up a flap in the counter and moved into Grove's personal space. "We don't just underwrite them, we have to check every adjustment they make. We just need to take a quick look at the damage. Take some pictures."
"Erm. Sure. Be my guest." Mr Grove stood up, revealing a pronounced beer belly. Kevin dug the Doctor in the ribs.
"My understanding is that your business maintains its own fleet of cabs, and maintains cabs for owner-drivers," said the Doctor.
"Yeah, s'right," said Grove, leading them through to the exit at the back. He held it open for them as they stepped into the yard. Close up, the
y could see that the three cabs had scratches and dents on their right-hand sides. "They was all turned over on their backs when we came in. Fuel tanks severed."
"You've done a good job of cleaning up the diesel – I see no trace of it on the surface of the puddles," said the Doctor.
"There weren't none. Someone's gone to a lot of trouble to half-inch a few gallons of fuel."
"And the police didn't find any prints?"
"They dusted the side of that one." Grove drew them round to show them the side of a cab that had been covered in fine aluminium powder. "But of course you've got hundreds of members of the public all over them doors every day. Waste of time."
"And I believe the intruder or intruders got in over there?" The Doctor pointed to an area of fencing bordering the railway embankment at the back. The cross-bars at the bottom had been severed and a section several feet wide had been bent upwards to the height of a man.
"Bleedin' amazing, innit?" said Grove as they walked over to examine it. "This is quality stuff. Cost us a fortune. You'd need an oxy-acetylene torch to get through that in a reasonable time. Then you'd want some big jacks to do the bending, wouldn't you?"
"And there's nothing to set the jacks against except the earth embankment, so the initial bending would be a problem."
"Exactly." Grove pointed towards the end of the fence. "And you'd have to haul all that kit through these brambles." He laughed. "And for what? Vandalise some black cabs? Use the jacks to turn 'em over on their backs and then cut the fuel tanks off to nick the diesel? If that makes sense to you, then you should be certified. Never 'eard of anything like it."
"Any CCTV footage?"
"Camera only covers the exit. You expect someone to try and half-inch vehicles, and – like I say – you don't expect someone to go to this bother to do this."
