Deep Blue Read online

  Indeed, the Doctor infuriated Tegan as much as Turlough did, albeit for different reasons. In his fifth incarnation he was a baffling mix of contrasting characteristics. He was brilliant and feckless, knowledgeable and naive, resourceful and disorganised, thoughtful and compulsive.

  ‘How many years out are we?’ she asked, addressing the Doctor and making an effort not to sound exasperated.

  He glanced up at her, narrowing his eyes as if to judge her mood. ‘Oh, only a few. Ten or so. Twelve at the most.’

  ‘Forwards or backwards?’

  ‘Backwards.’

  ‘Well, that’s OK then.’ She spread her arms to better display the bright print dress she was wearing. ‘I’ll be a trend setter.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said the Doctor non-committally and, straightening up from the console, took a rolled-up object from the pocket of his knee-length, cream-coloured coat. He gave a practised flick of the wrist and was suddenly holding a white panama hat in his hand which he placed on his head with a casually stylish movement. ‘Everyone ready?’ he asked, all at once full of childlike eagerness.

  Tegan couldn’t help but respond to his mood with a smile, but Turlough merely raised his eyebrows and said with the trace of an indulgent sigh, ‘Ready, Doctor.’

  The Doctor operated a lever and with a hum of power the TARDIS’s double doors smoothly opened. Tegan turned to face them, feeling a little quiver of excitement and apprehension. She wondered what the Doctor’s surprise would entail. He’d said they all needed cheering up after the terrible events they had witnessed on Sea Base Four in the Earth’s future. The Doctor had told his companions nothing else except that the surprise would take place on Tegan’s present-day Earth.

  ‘Shall we?’ the Doctor said cheerfully and swept out of the TARDIS, the tails of his coat flapping behind him. Tegan glanced at Turlough, saw the expression of complicity he was offering her, and strode determinedly after the Doctor.

  She emerged blinking into the sunlight that streamed into her eyes. Sounds filled her ears - gaudy music, excited chatter, delighted screams - and deliciously familiar smells kicked her taste buds into instant life: candyfloss, frying onions, fish and chips.

  ‘It’s a fun-fair,’ she exclaimed delightedly as the glare of the sun faded and was replaced by the bright, shifting primary colours of revolving carousel horses and lurching dodgem cars, stalls offering pink teddy bears as prizes, the House of Fun with its unseen perils and pitfalls.

  They had materialised between two quiet stalls, apparently unseen, as if the TARDIS had deliberately picked its moment.

  Even the grinding cacophony of the time machine’s ancient engines appeared to have gone unheard, drowned out by the sound of Slade blaring from a swooping, spinning ride in the shape of a gigantic spider some twenty yards away.

  The Doctor was standing with his hands stuffed into the pockets of his striped trousers, beaming round at the scene like a satisfied proprietor from beneath the brim of his panama hat.

  ‘It’s the seventies, all right,’ Tegan shouted, walking up to him and gesturing at the long-haired men with their wide-collared shirts and outrageously flared jeans, the girls with their denim caps and platform shoes.

  Unseen by Tegan, Turlough had sidled up behind her.

  ‘What is this place, Doctor?’ he shouted, making Tegan jump.

  ‘Tayborough Sands pleasure beach,’ the Doctor replied. ‘As I recall, there’s a particularly fine toffee-apple stall beside the Waltzer.’

  ‘Pleasure beach?’ echoed Turlough incredulously. ‘You mean people come here to have fun?’

  ‘Of course they do!’ exclaimed Tegan. ‘And that’s exactly what we’re going to do. Right, Doctor?’

  The Doctor grinned in reply.

  ‘But it’s so vulgar...’ complained Turlough.

  ‘Just go with it,’ replied Tegan and grabbed his arm. ‘Come on, I’ve got some money. I’ll stand you a ride on the roller coaster.’

  ‘Roller coaster?’ said Turlough doubtfully. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘You mean you don’t know?’ She glanced at the Doctor, a wicked glint in her eye, ‘Boy, are you in for a treat. Come on.’

  She dragged him, protesting, away. The Doctor turned back to lock the TARDIS door, then headed after them. However, he had taken no more than a couple of steps when his senses were overwhelmed by a slew of images. It was as though a black cloud had crossed the sun of his thoughts, nightmare shapes twisting within the dense formations. He had an impression of something alive yet in constant flux, of oozing, jelly-like flesh from which claws sprang and eyes blinked and mouths opened before dissolving back into the main mass just as quickly.

  Then the cloud passed and he was back in the fairground again. Released, he staggered slightly, then steadied himself with a hand on the TARDIS door. He looked around, half-expecting his senses to be snagged by something untoward, something not quite right. Sensing nothing, he took a deep breath, and hurried to catch up with his companions.

  ‘This looks nice,’ said Charlotte Maybury brightly, momentarily resting her suitcase on the pavement. Her father, Tony, glanced up at the yellow door and hanging baskets of Ambrosia Villa without enthusiasm.

  ‘It’d better be, the amount of money we’ve wasted on it.’

  Charlotte’s mother, Imogen, who had stoically maintained a brittle good humour throughout the hot and tedious train journey from Wolverhampton, suddenly snapped, ‘Wasted?

  Don’t you think we deserve this holiday? Don’t you think we need it?’

  ‘It’s not a case of needing it, ifs a case of bloody affording it,’ said Tony, aggressive with the alcohol he had consumed on the train. ‘We’d have been better off buying a car.’

  ‘One of those old boneshakers you always throw our money away on that fall to bits after three months, I suppose?’

  ‘If I had a car I could get a job,’ retorted Tony.

  ‘No, if you had some self-respect you could get a job. Look at the state of you. Ifs not even lunchtime yet and you’re plastered.’

  ‘I’m on holiday, woman. Or hadn’t you noticed?’

  Before the argument could escalate into a full-scale slanging match on the pavement, Charlotte said placatingly,

  ‘Come on, Dad, don’t let’s row. Not on the first day of our holiday.’

  ‘It’s not me who wants a row,’ Tony muttered, ‘I just want to have a good time.’

  ‘Yes, at everyone else’s expense,’ Imogen said sourly.

  ‘Mum,’ pleaded Charlotte.

  ‘Sorry, love, it’s just your father.’

  Charlotte sighed. Her parents’ arguments had been getting more frequent and increasingly vituperative recently. With each passing day she saw further cracks appearing in their relationship. As far as she could recall it had started two years ago when Dad had lost his job at the ironworks, though their problems may well have been more deep-rooted than that. Indeed, as she grew older Charlotte was not only beginning to realise that her parents had been growing apart for years but was also more willing to admit it to herself.

  In many ways she was viewing this holiday as a make-or-break period for all of them. Whatever happened between her parents, it would certainly be a watershed of sorts. This time next year she would be eighteen, and, if her suspicions were borne out, the mother of a child. She wasn’t certain that she was pregnant, but she intended to pluck up the courage to take a test some time within the next few days. Here, away from the stifling familiarity of everyday life, she had assured herself that it would be easier to bear somehow. And if the test proved positive, she would tell Mum and Dad and take it from there.

  She glanced at her brother, Chris, in the vain hope of a little moral support, but he was being his usual moody self.

  He had hardly strung two words together since they had started out early this morning, and not for the first time Charlotte found herself wondering whether it was their parents’ problems that were causing him to withdraw into himself or whether his behaviou
r was simply that of a typical acne-ridden, rebellious fourteen-year-old. Not so very long ago she and Chris had been quite close, but these days he was behaving as if she and their parents were the three people on the planet he’d least like to be with.

  ‘Come on,’ Charlotte said with mock cheerfulness, hefting her suitcase, ‘let’s see what our rooms are like.’ She climbed to the top of the steps and stretched out her hand to the doorbell. Before she could press it, the door was yanked open.

  The tall, thin-faced man in his late twenties looked almost as surprised as she must have done. He was hurrying out of the house and had to stop dead to avoid barging straight into her. They both apologised in unison, then laughed. ‘Are you staying here too?’ Charlotte asked, immediately blushing and hoping she hadn’t made it sound as if she wished that he was.

  ‘Just for a night or two. Here on holiday?’

  She nodded. ‘What’s it like?’

  The man grinned. He had a pleasant smile, easy and unselfconscious. Glancing behind him, then leaning a little closer, he murmured, ‘Oh, it’s fine, just as long as you watch out for the dragon.’

  The sun had climbed to its zenith, and even though sweat rolled down Mike’s back as he hurried along, he couldn’t afford to take off his suede jacket because of the gun he wore strapped to his torso. The distance to the mouth of the fishing harbour was further than it had appeared. By the time he arrived at the edge of the police cordon, the crowd had grown. The majority were rubber-necking tourists, but there were also a number of locals, frustrated because they couldn’t get to their boats.

  He excused his way quietly and politely through the throng, offering a conciliatory smile and an apology when people scowled at him, not wishing to draw attention to himself. It was ironic really; the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce was a top-secret organisation, and yet the Doctor, who usually undertook such investigations for them, did nothing

  but draw attention to himself. Mike imagined how different the scene would be if the Doctor and Jo Grant had been here.

  The Doctor would no doubt have been elbowing his way through the crowd, Jo in tow (and she alone was enough to draw the attention of most men), proclaiming, ‘Do excuse me, old chap,’ in that loud, theatrical manner of his. Then, flouting authority, he would no doubt have ducked under the police barrier without explanation, leaving Jo to root out their UNIT passes to avoid arrest.

  Mike smiled to himself. The Doctor’s showmanship and his blatant disregard for protocol used to drive the Brigadier to distraction, and sometimes still did. Still, at the end of the day, the Brig was first to admit that if the Doctor came up with the right result then a little unwanted attention was a small price to pay. In some ways, Mike thought the Doctor’s flamboyance worked to UNIT’s advantage. It caught people off-guard, made them take the Doctor less than seriously, which often proved to be their undoing.

  He reached the barrier and leaned towards the uniformed constable standing a few feet away. ‘Excuse me.’

  The constable ignored him, just as he was ignoring all the other comments and questions being hurled in his direction.

  Mike sighed, reached into his back pocket and produced his UNIT pass. He held it out for the policeman’s inspection and said with a little more urgency, ‘Excuse me, but would you mind having a look at this, please?’

  The policeman’s eyes flickered in his direction, focusing on the pass. Mike gave him time to read it, then asked, ‘Would it be possible to come through, do you think?’

  The constable reached for the pass. ‘May I take this, sir? I shall have to make an enquiry.’

  ‘Of course.’

  A couple of minutes later, the policeman was back. He returned the pass to him, and lifted the tape barrier for him to duck beneath. ‘If you’d care to follow me, sir?’

  Mike heard a few comments behind him as he followed the policeman along the jetty. Someone muttered something about MI5 and several people laughed. A plain-clothes detective was waiting for Mike on the jetty beside the trawler.

  He had a square, pockmarked face and a C-shaped scar on his chin. His green suit sagged on him as if he had been wearing it for a long time without a break, and the top button of his shirt was undone beneath the fat knot of his tie.

  ‘Mr Yates,’ he said, offering Mike a strong but sweaty handshake, ‘Detective Inspector Pickard.’

  ‘Inspector,’ said Mike. ‘Good of you to see me.’

  ‘Not at all. I’m a bit intrigued to be honest. I’d have thought something like this would be well outside UNIT’s area of interest.’

  Mike shrugged. ‘Perhaps it is. To tell you the truth, I’m only here on a hunch. I saw some of what was going on from the window of my boarding house.’

  ‘I see. So what really brings you to Tayborough Sands? Oh no, don’t tell me. The so-called UFO that came down in the sea?’

  Mike smiled, a little embarrassed. ‘I don’t expect anything to come of it, believe me, but UNIT is obliged to look into such matters.’

  ‘Of course it is,’ said Pickard, struggling to conceal his smirk. ‘But if you’re thinking what happened here is related to your flying saucer, then I’m afraid you’re going to be disappointed.’

  ‘And what did happen here?’ asked Mike, hiding his irritation behind a mask of breeziness.

  ‘Murder,’ said Pickard bluntly. ‘Multiple murder to be precise. Six-strong crew and not a single one left alive. Very nasty. Bloke who did it must be a madman.’

  ‘Do you mind if I take a look?’

  ‘Help yourself. Hope you’ve got a strong stomach, though, Mr Yates.’

  ‘Cast iron,’ said Mike evenly.

  Pickard raised his eyebrows and Mike followed him on to the trawler. The deck was wet, oily. The stench of rotting fish was almost overwhelming. Pickard said, ‘The stink was even worse when we found the boat this morning It was reported missing last night by the skipper’s wife and we spotted it at first light, drifting on the sea. The murders must have happened right after the catch was winched aboard. There were dead fish all over the deck. We reckon there must have been some sort of argument. It’s a bit early to say, but what we think is that the killer may have been mortally wounded by the last man left alive, who then died of his injuries.’

  ‘How did the men die?’ asked Mike.

  Pickard fixed him with a deadpan gaze. ‘Why don’t you take a look for yourself.’

  Mike held his gaze for a moment, then smiled and nodded.

  ‘Thanks.’ He moved to the nearest red blanket, noting the thick runnels of now-dried blood that meandered from beneath it and ran into the drainage gutters on both sides of the deck. He had seen death before in many forms and lifted the edge of the blanket without hesitation. He saw an arm that looked like it had been torn from its socket, lying in a pool of blood that had congealed to the consistency of black glue. The arm was mottled blue, purple and black in the places where the blood that was left inside had settled. On the bicep were four small circular bruises that could have been caused by the tight grip of a human hand.

  Mike replaced the blanket and straightened up.

  ‘What do you think?’ said Pickard, in a challenging tone.

  Mike had not been wholly unaffected by what he had seen -

  he was aware of the quick pumping of his heart - but he was calm enough for his response to sound clinical, considered.

  ‘The arm wasn’t severed by a blade. It was torn off. Which means that, unless I’m missing something, your killer had incredible strength.’

  Pickard nodded as if in satisfaction and moved to the second blanket. ‘What’s under here is even stranger,’ he said, and lifted a comer of the blanket up for Mike to peer beneath.

  It took Mike a few moments to work out what he was looking at. Finally he said, ‘My God, that’s part of a ribcage, isn’t it? And that... that must be a heart.’

  Pickard let the blanket fall back. ‘Ribcage, heart, lungs and some surrounding tissue. They’re quite badly crushed,
but it’s as though -’

  ‘- someone or something reached in and ripped them out of the body with their bare hands?’

  Pickard nodded. ‘Exactly.’

  ‘And you don’t think that’s at all unusual, Inspector?’

  Pickard shifted uncomfortably. ‘Well, of course it’s unusual.

  To tell the truth I’ve never seen anything like it. But crazy people are capable of performing incredible feats of strength you know, Mr Yates.’

  ‘Captain,’ said Mike quietly.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘I hold the rank of Captain.’ Then he smiled. ‘Not that it matters. I’m just a bit of a stickler for detail, that’s all.’

  Pickard looked a little baffled.

  ‘So is this all you have to show?’ Mike continued briskly.

  ‘Butcher’s leftovers? No complete bodies?’

  ‘There’s one,’ said Pickard. ‘We haven’t had a formal ID yet, but we think it’s the skipper’s son, Terry Robson.’

  ‘But the entire crew have been accounted for?’ said Mike. ‘I mean, among all these bits and pieces?’

  Pickard shook his head. ‘It’s still too early for that. We won’t know for sure what we’ve got here until later this afternoon. Unofficially we reckon we’ve got the bits of at least five bodies here.’

  ‘And the sixth crewmember?’

  ‘Dead too, I’d guess.’

  ‘What makes you so sure?’

  Pickard led the way across to a blanket beside the wheelhouse. The bulge beneath this blanket was more substantial than the others. Glancing back at the police line at the end of the jetty - Mike guessed to ensure that the public couldn’t see what he was about to reveal - Pickard pulled the blanket back.

  The man was lying on his back, eyes partially open and glazed with death, head lolled on to his left shoulder. The exposed side of his neck and throat was ripped and gouged as if he had been attacked by a wild animal. His clothes and the wooden deck of the boat beneath him were soaked with blood. By his side, inches from his hand, was a stubby handgun with a wide muzzle.