She peered into the horizon beyond the sea. The bleached grey of the sunless sky was shadowed – was it a cloud drifting closer, or a ship or something else? She squinted, but couldn’t quite see. Yet, in the distance, something dark was approaching.
Kate shivered, and not entirely with cold. She stood watching for a while, attempting to discern what it was, or how fast it was travelling. She couldn’t tell – and yet, she did notice something else.
Kate heard the crying. It wasn’t an animal or a bird – it was the sound of someone down below feeling thoroughly sorry for themself. Well, she thought, there’s someone other than me in town and they need cheering up. That’s something.
She picked her way carefully down to the harbour. The sound was fainter on the ground, but she knew roughly which direction it came from. She clumped past the town’s sad-looking Chinese restaurant, and down an alley. She found a set of footsteps and followed them. The crying grew louder.
She found Armand by the bins, slumped against an old shopping basket. He was shaking with tears.
‘Oh hello,’ she said, trying to sound casual. ‘Fancy seeing you here.’
Armand looked miserable She’d originally thought him older than her, but not now. He was no longer angry, arrogant, or distant – just thoroughly wretched. He blinked at her, but did not stop crying.
‘Right then,’ said Kate, and slipped off her coat. ‘You’re coming with me.’
Chapter
4
Gino’s was the town’s grandest café. It disdained day-trippers seeking cooked breakfasts and sliced ham. It preferred to serve creaking pensioners cheese scones and gossip. On any given day it was full of customers happily complaining to waitresses about old scores and tired bones. But now it was empty.
The door swung ajar. A slice of snow had pushed its way in. Kate swept it out before shutting the door firmly. She sat Armand down at a table with an artificial daffodil. She handed him a creased magazine, then went out to the kitchen to do battle with the gas stove. A couple of minutes later she brought them out two mugs of soup and some not-too-stale bread.
For a few moments, the two sat, sipping and staring at each other.
‘Hmm,’ said Kate.
Armand blew on his soup. ‘Did you cause all this?’ he demanded.
Kate was startled. ‘Uh, no,’ she said. ‘I thought it was something to do with you. I mean, why else would you be here?’
‘That’s what I was thinking about you,’ Armand retorted. He found some pepper, cascading it over his soup.
‘How can you drink it like that?’ laughed Kate.
‘It’s nice,’ Armand replied. ‘So you didn’t do this?’
‘A cat has claimed responsibility,’ she said airily. ‘Which is ridiculous. But you know the cat that belongs to the museum curator? It’s here. And… it spoke to me… or, at least, I think it did and…’ She trailed off. ‘Pass the pepper, would you?’
Armand slid the pepper pot across the table.
They carried on drinking soup. Outside more snow fell.
‘I suppose we’re stuck here,’ said Armand. ‘I’ve tried calling the police, but the phones are dead.’
‘They would be.’ Kate finished the last piece of bread. ‘We could try walking to the main road. But I think we’re trapped here. Something’s wrong with the world.’
‘Did the cat tell you what’s going on?’ asked Armand.
‘A bit.’ Kate explained about the painting and the ring that the cat had found.
‘I’m wondering if we’re here because…’ she thought about it, ‘we both touched the painting.’
‘So that third object – somewhere out there is a woman with a key?’
‘I think so,’ said Kate. ‘We should start looking. Once you’ve finished your soup.’
Which is how they found Milo. He was a small, blond child wearing only a pair of swimming trunks. He was sobbing loudly.
‘What is it about the boys in this place?’ Kate allowed herself a sigh. ‘Do they spend all their time crying?’
‘If he didn’t blub so loudly, we wouldn’t have found him,’ pointed out Armand.
‘True,’ admitted Kate.
Milo was curled up on the veranda of the bowling club. Cradled in his arms was a small, unhappy-looking dog.
‘I don’t like dogs,’ announced Kate.
‘Cat person,’ explained Armand.
‘Ah,’ Milo sniffed. His tears dripped onto his dog’s fur. The dog licked at them, a puzzled expression on his face.
Kate had heard that dogs were like their owners. Milo’s dog looked loyal, but confused by the world.
‘We were bathing on the beach,’ Milo said. ‘With Mum and Auntie Jean. We came from the holiday camp for the day. I drifted off to sleep in the sunlight with Brewster in my arms… and when I woke up… I was all alone, and it was cold and my towel was frozen and Mum is going to be very, very cross when she finds me…’ He considered his options. ‘So I ran away. But I want to go home. I want my mummy.’
‘Well—’ began Kate, but Milo forestalled further conversation with a bout of crying that showed no signs of stopping.
‘Fine.’ Kate broke into the bowling clubhouse. She emerged a few minutes later with an old jumper that smelled of spilt beer. ‘Put this on,’ she said, ‘otherwise you’ll freeze.’
She handed round some odd gloves she’d found in lost property. ‘There,’ she said. ‘Now we’re ready to go investigating.’
‘We are?’ Milo stared at her with saucer-eyes. ‘But when are the grown-ups coming? Aren’t we going to find some adults?’
‘Was I this bad?’ Armand asked her. Kate ignored him.
‘No,’ she informed Milo firmly. ‘We are on our own. There are no grown-ups here. Our only chance is to sort this out ourselves. Now, give me the key.’
Milo stared at her in confusion and alarm. And then burst out crying again.
Armand looked at her and smirked.
‘Right then.’ Kate banged a mug of soup down on the café table. Milo seized it gratefully and his sobs subsided. ‘This café is our Headquarters. We have a puzzle to solve and a key to find. Are you quite sure you haven’t got it?’
Milo shook his head, his teeth chattering. At his feet, Brewster lapped gratefully at a bowl of water. The dog seemed to be handling events rather well. Kate crouched down and stared into the dog’s eyes. ‘What’s going on, Brewster?’ she asked him. ‘It’s all right. You can tell me.’
The dog stared back at her, growled, and went on with drinking water.
‘What are you doing?’ Milo asked slowly.
‘She thinks she can talk to animals,’ Armand sneered.
‘That’s not true!’ Kate stood up with as much dignity as she could. ‘It was just the one cat that could talk.’
‘Can we go and find your cat?’ suggested Milo. ‘Brewster’s good with cats. He’s had some topper scraps with them.’
‘I’m sure he has,’ said Kate, ‘But it may not be the best way to interrogate the cat. It seemed to have told me all it wanted to. It said that the painting was important.’
‘Can I see it?’ asked Milo. ‘I’d be only too happy to.’
‘I don’t have it on me,’ admitted Kate. How annoying. If only, she thought to herself, she had some kind of device that would fit in her pocket and take pictures and show them on a screen. Perhaps, she thought, she’d get around to inventing one. When she grew up. ‘I’m afraid it’s back at the house.’
‘Along with the ring?’ asked Armand. ‘Isn’t that a bit silly?’
‘I’d not really thought about that,’ agreed Kate. ‘I mean, we’re fine so long as we’re the only people here.’
‘I would like to see the painting,’ said Milo. ‘It sounds wizard.’
‘Fine,’ said Kate. ‘I’ll nip home and get it. Don’t go anywhere. And leave me a little soup.’
Kate hurried across the harbour, snow biting into her face. The sky hovered just overhead, pressing
down. She thought she could touch the clouds if she stood on tiptoe. Out across the sea, the darkness was spreading, the shadow getting closer. She could swear that there was less sea now – as though the world was closing in around them.
The wind whipped up, and Kate grasped the wall to steady herself. She’d hoped to be there and back in five minutes, but this was proving to be a struggle.
From nowhere, the cat leapt onto the wall, staring into her face, curious. Then it smiled.
‘Hello, Kate,’ it said. ‘Things aren’t going too well.’
‘Tell me about it. This is your fault.’
‘But I’m cold,’ the cat complained.
‘Well then, you shouldn’t have caused all this.’
‘I’m a cat,’ it sighed. ‘Je ne regrette rien. Now, feed me and warm me up.’
So Kate picked the cat up and got ready to carry it home. It vanished inside her duffle coat and purred loudly.
‘Oh.’ Its head poked out. ‘There’s something you should know. Look down at the jetty.’
Kate looked down at the snow-covered decking. There were footsteps on it. They were not alone.
The house felt strange, ticking and creaking, chuckling at Kate. A window banged in the kitchen, startling her.
‘Is someone in here?’ Kate called out.
No answer.
‘Mum?’
No answer.
Kate looked at the cat. ‘What’s going on? Is someone here?’
‘They were,’ the cat sniffed the air, ‘But they left a few minutes ago. I don’t think they found what they wanted.’
‘How can you tell?’
The cat trotted to the front door. ‘They came in this way. They smelled excited.’ It shook a paw at the kitchen. ‘They went out that way – and they smelled angry.’
‘Ah. Were they looking for the painting?’
‘Of course.’ The cat found a bit of carpet and cleaned itself. ‘But I hid it. You reek of dog, by the way. You should change your coat.’
‘You hid the painting?’ Kate exclaimed. ‘Where?’
The cat paused. ‘Stop asking me questions. When you interrupt, I have to start cleaning all over from the beginning.’
‘No you don’t, that’s silly.’
The cat looked at her pityingly. ‘Those are the rules of cleaning.’ It stuck its tongue out at her then went back to licking a paw.
‘So where’s the painting?’
Exasperated, the cat stood and trotted upstairs. ‘Fine, fine, I’ll show you. Then I’m going to clean myself thoroughly on this chair by the radiator.’
The cat led her to her bed and vanished under the covers.
Kate waited.
And waited.
Eventually she prodded the cat-shaped lump.
‘Ow,’ said the cat. ‘What?’
‘Where’s the painting?’
‘Ooops,’ admitted the cat. ‘Sorry. Totally forgot about that. Just having a little shuteye. It’s warm and dark in here. I’m sitting on your painting.’
Thinking how well the cat would get on with her mother, Kate drew back the covers. The cat was curled up on the painting and the ring. She picked them up.
‘Right then. I’ve got a world to save.’
She ran away.
‘Whatever,’ said the cat, watching her go until its eyelids became heavy and it went back to sleep.
The café was deserted. This was typical of boys. They never listened to girls and got bored easily. She could not understand it. There was, after all, plenty of soup left. Admittedly, it was minestrone, but still. Crossly, she realised the boys had not washed their mugs. Hiding the painting and the ring under a table, she washed up, and then set out.
It was getting colder. As she traipsed through the empty streets, the snow became heavier, pressing into her face. Every house front, every car was now buried. The only colour was the red of her gloves. Everything else was white. White apart from that dark stain spreading across the horizon, coming closer across the creaking mountains of the frozen sea.
Something fluttered in her stomach. Kate realised she was afraid.
Which was when she heard the phone ringing.
The trill echoed up and down the streets, drawing her closer and closer to a small building in the harbour. Kate stopped outside the door, rubbing her sleeve across the brass plate, clearing it of snow: ‘Watchcombe Museum.’ She pushed through, her boots thunderously loud on the boards after all that quiet snow.
She took three steps and gasped. The museum looked like someone had stuffed a bookshop into a junkshop into a boat into a church. Brass musical instruments hung from fishing nets looped through the rafters. Display cases shone with books and maps, stretching away into the furthest corners of the lobby and beyond. It was very impressive.
But what had made Kate stop were the wet boot prints ahead of her. They headed across the lobby, past a large waxwork of Queen Victoria and into a room full of stuffed bears and an Ormolu clock. Kate swallowed and entered the room.
‘Hello?’ she called.
There was no answer, but the glass eyes of the bears stared at her. The phone continued to ring. She looked around, trying to see if anyone was watching her. Above her, a whale skull bit the air in two. The bell rang on. She ran through to the next room, which appeared to be mostly jigsaws. Still no sign of the telephone.
‘Answer it!’ she yelled. She knew she wasn’t alone. They may as well do something useful.
The next room contained a painting of the Battle of Waterloo and a reproduction of Drake’s cabin on the Golden Hind. Incongruously sat on the desk among the scrolls was a brass telephone.
She reached out for it.
The telephone stopped ringing.
Kate looked around herself and then kicked the desk firmly.
‘Right then,’ she called out at the top of her voice, ‘I know you’re in here. I know I’m not alone. Instead of being creepy you could have picked up, you know. It wouldn’t have hurt you. That was the real world, trying to help us.’
Nothing.
She called out again, louder. ‘Can you hear me? My name is Kate Webster and I am going to find you. And when I do, I am not going to be scared. I am going to be very cross indeed.’
Something moved in the next room. It was a small ball, rolling across the floorboards. She picked it up. It was wet.
‘Right,’ Kate threw it, and, as she’d expected, Brewster came bounding out from behind a desk, and brought it to her.
‘Milo,’ she said. ‘I have your dog. Come out now. Otherwise… I dunno.’ She glanced at Brewster, who looked back at her with adoration. ‘I guess I’ll end up making dog soup. Is that a thing?’
Sheepishly, Milo emerged from hiding, bringing a scowling Armand with him.
‘We thought,’ admitted Armand, ‘that it was someone else. Someone bad. We didn’t realise it was you. Then you started shouting at us—’
‘And then we really hoped it was someone else,’ finished Milo.
Kate glared at them.
‘That phone call could have been important,’ she seethed. ‘Could you really not bring yourselves to answer it, whatever the risk?’
Each boy hoped the other would say something.
‘I guess we were scared,’ muttered Armand.
Milo, gratefully, nodded. ‘And not thinking straight.’
‘Right,’ said Kate, and allowed herself a sigh. She really had a very low opinion of boys. And then a suspicious thought tugged at her. ‘Did one of you stop the other from answering the phone?’ she asked before she could stop herself.
The two glanced at each other guiltily.
‘No.’ Armand was quick.
‘I see.’ Kate knew it – she knew she was right not to trust Armand. The boy was definitely up to something. ‘Why did you come here?’ she asked.
‘It was my idea.’ Milo was proud. ‘I thought that, if we were trying to find this key, we should look for it in the museum. Museums are very useful places,’
he finished.
Kate had always considered museums to be a little dull. She liked this one, although she would have enjoyed spending a week putting it in a really good order.
‘And did you find anything?’ she asked.
‘I think so,’ said Milo. ‘We found an exhibition on the painter. He’s really very clever.’
The boys led her to a little annex that smelt of damp. Hung in it were several works by local artists, including several by the same hand. All were various views of the town in winter, and all were signed ‘Mitchell’. There was a small leaflet and a donation box. Kate, lacking any money, popped an old badge in there as an IOU.
Armand picked up a copy of the leaflet without even glancing at the donation box, and read aloud. ‘The last in a long line of Mitchells to have lived in Watchcombe, Mitchell painted a considerable number of scenes of local beauty before going away to serve in the Great War. He did not return.’
‘How sad,’ said Kate.
‘They’re jolly good, aren’t they?’ enthused Milo.
‘They look just like your painting, don’t they?’ said Armand.
‘Disappointingly.’ Truth to tell, Kate was starting to think of the mysterious Mr Mitchell as a bit of a one-trick pony. He liked painting sea, sunsets and snow. Over and over again…
‘Well, I rather like them,’ Milo said, crossly.
‘I’m sure they’re very nice if you like that sort of thing, but they’re all so alike,’ Kate mused.
‘So what,’ asked Armand triumphantly, ‘Makes the painting you’ve got so special?’
‘Good point.’ Kate blinked.
This started a whole new train of thought which crashed to a halt when the telephone rang again.
Chapter
5
Kate rushed to the room, pursued by the boys, and grabbed the receiver.
‘Hello? Hello? Hello!’ she gabbled.
‘Goodness, you sound like you’re having fun!’ came the voice at the other end.
Doctor Who: Summer Falls Page 3
