by Mark Speed
“Oh, she’d have picked something like that up down at Brixton Market. There are always loads of stalls and little shops selling junk like that.”
“Just sheer chance? Hmm. Come on, we have to get to Brixton Market.” He pocketed the plastic flower and pot, his hand going deeper into his pocket than physically possible.
“You still feeling her? Your Spectrel, I mean?”
“Of course. Just handing her this sample.” He held the front door open for Kevin, who exited and locked it behind him.
“Couldn’t you get When’s Spectrel to look at it?”
The Doctor snorted. “My dear cousin would spend the next decade wittering on about the handiwork and never get to the analysis. We simply don’t have the time.”
They walked quickly back down the pavement to When’s Spectrel. The Doctor tapped on the door, which swung open. They squeezed through the entrance and into the large control room within. The door shut automatically behind Kevin.
“We found a little device,” said the Doctor to the expectant-looking When. “Solar-powered, giving it a long life. It also explains your observation that night-times were quiet.”
“May I see it?”
“I put it in my Spectrel’s lab.”
“But you don’t even know where your Spectrel is, Peter! I could have analysed that for you.”
“I’ll get something back using my Ultraknife as intermediary. Besides, we’re going to see if we can get some fresh ones.”
“Fresh ones?”
“Yes, now steer us to Brixton Market.”
“Oh, you don’t want to go there,” said When. “Not after that terrible incident the other day.”
“Walter, that was in the sewers. Trinity was a witness to it. It was a polyp imported illegally by the late Rindan consul and her husband. Please do try to keep up with out-of-town news.”
“I like to concentrate, Peter. You know that.”
“Well just concentrate on getting us to Brixton Market. Please. Now.”
“If you would care to give me an address, then I will happily oblige. Brixton Market has grown somewhat in recent years. There’s the Brixton Village, for example, an indoor market made of small units selling everything from ethnic –”
“The corner of Electric Avenue and Atlantic Road.”
“Ah, but –”
“On the north side of Atlantic Road, underneath the overhead railway.”
“As you wish, Peter,” said When a little snootily. He fiddled with the controls.
“Well?” asked the Doctor.
“Same problem as you had trying to get to Kevin’s. I can’t get close to the place without quite a lot of error creeping in.”
“At least that confirms there’s a load of them there. How near can you drop us off?”
“Well, let me see…”
“Oh, just let me handle this, will you?” The Doctor nudged his cousin out of the way, took out his Ultraknife and thought hard. “Right, come along Kevin.”
The Doctor grabbed Kevin’s upper arm and made towards the door. He pushed his assistant through it and then followed him out.
“Doc, I can’t believe –”
“You’ve been in Brixton Underground station plenty of times before, lad.”
“Yeah, but I’ve always arrived by train. And don’t you think a Post Office box is going to look a little, erm, out of place down here?”
“I suppose you’re right. But even if the cloaking were to fail, the sheer disbelief of seeing one down here might work for us. Probably not worth the risk keeping it here given my cousin’s lack of practice and apparent lack of interest.” He opened the door to the box and stuck his head in. Kevin heard him giving instructions to his cousin. He closed the door and turned to Kevin. “I told him just to go home. Always a bit of a risk to these things – no sense in putting us both in jeopardy.” The Post Office box disappeared.
There was a stirring of air on the platform and a pair of bright headlights appeared out of the darkness up the track, with an accompanying thunder. Through the station on the other platform they heard a train head out to the north.
“Let’s get out before the crush,” said the Doctor. They went through one of the archways to the centre of the station between the platforms and headed up an escalator. “We’d have been a quarter of a mile away if I’d not taken her underground, you see. And if I’d asked Walter to drop us that far away he’d have suggested Brixton sorting office. You know, all his postal stuff.” He gave a weary expression.
They headed for the barriers and went through with their Oyster cards, up the steps into the bustling streets of Brixton. They headed left through the heaving crowds waiting for buses, then turned left into Electric Avenue – the curving street behind the Underground station that connected Brixton Road with Atlantic Road. It was pedestrianized; the surface underfoot covered in rubbish from the day’s activities.
“Right,” said the Doctor over his shoulder, “keep your eyes peeled, lad.” The Doctor had his Ultraknife in his right hand, keeping it partly covered. “We’re very close. Almost too close to get a directional feel. I suspect there are a few already scattered around in flats in the immediate vicinity.” He was clearly irritated by the crowds, excusing himself politely when he found someone in his way – which was with almost every step he took. Kevin tagged close behind, not minding the barging and shoving.
The first few stalls they passed were fruit and veg. The Doctor looked earnestly past them. “Butchers,” he said, nodding at the butchers’ shops.
“Yeah, right,” said Kevin.
“It’s what attracted the polyp,” hissed the Doctor. “All that blood and meat in the waste water.” He glanced over at one of the butchery windows. “Good grief. I’ve not seen cuts of meat like that in London since the fifteenth century. And not those particular parts of the animals either.”
“Like, it’s what ethnic people want to eat, Doc. It’s in their tradition.”
“I know, but it’s just so long since I’ve seen it. I suppose if the English were sticking to tradition there’d still be barbecued starlings on a stick and four-and-twenty blackbirds in a pie.”
“Gross, man.”
“That’s rather my point. Be thankful you haven’t had to eat them at a party.”
“You didn’t, did you?”
“What do you think?” The Doctor shot him a look.
They came to the end of Electric Avenue that met with Atlantic Road. A train thundered past on the elevated railway line above the shops on the other side. “Very strong indication of activity over the road,” said the Doctor. “That’s why we couldn’t get near.”
“That’s Brixton Village – like Walter mentioned. They were going to knock it down a few years back but they relaunched it with that new fancy name. It’s dozens of little retail spaces.”
“Come on, then.”
They jogged across the road and under the overhang of the platform of the railway station above.
“In here,” said Kevin, pointing to a railway arch that doubled as an entrance.
The light was all artificial, and the retail units were shops in miniature, divided up into avenues and streets. They were mostly no more than ten by fifteen feet, sometimes with a couple of tables and chairs or a display table outside. The air was redolent with the smell of spicy food and exotic fragrances, and the place was busy.
The Doctor looked around. “How charming,” he said in a tone which left Kevin wondering whether his comment was genuine or sarcastic. “At least it has a logical layout that we can follow for a systematic search. I don’t need my Ultraknife to detect the disturbance. Every fibre of my being feels it.”
“Like, what does it feel like?”
“Really unpleasant. Like being bathed in treacle, but without the promise of sweetness. It’s bitter.”
“Uh-huh,” said Kevin, giving the Doctor a sideways look. “Are you like one of these people who sees sounds as colours an’ stuff like that?”
> “The condition in humans is called synaesthesia. One sense stimulates another. An individual might see colours or smell certain smells when hearing musical notes. Or see numbers and equations as landscapes. For some beings these are entirely natural ways of experiencing their surroundings.”
“Coolio. How’s the treacle?”
“Getting thicker and more bitter. Horrible. To put it in your parlance, someone is like really messing with time.”
They headed up one complete street, jostling through the crowds, passing cafés, nail booths, hairdressers, a photographer’s studio, and a miscellany of shops selling what the Doctor described as ‘tat’. It was these last shops that interested him most, and they scoured the shelves looking for the plastic flowers. They went up an avenue and started down the next street. The Doctor stopped Kevin with an outstretched arm.
“There,” he said, and pointed to a shop with a display of cheap plastic bric-a-brac outside it. There were a dozen of the plastic flowers bobbing weakly in the artificial light. He picked one up and examined it, paying particular attention to the underside.
A large black woman in her forties gave them a toothy smile from the inside of the shop and came out. “Can I help you?” she said in a West African accent.
“How much for these?” asked the Doctor.
The lady looked at his suit and said, “The dancing daisies are eight pounds each.”
The Doctor spluttered. “They’ve got a price tag of five on the bottom! And they’re not daisies. They’re anemones.”
She took the plastic flower from him, peeled off the price tag and handed it back to the Doctor. “Previous owner,” she lied. “I bought them to sell on. I have to make a mark-up, darling. And they’re dancing daisies. Alliteration, innit?”
“They’re anemones. The flowers of the daisy are actually a pseudanthium – a head consisting of many flowers, which is why they have so many small petals. This, madam, has five large petals and is an anemone. Specifically, it looks like a snowdrop anemone.”
The lady sucked her teeth. “You might have a suit and an education, but I know how to sell. People think anemones are jellyfish. And it’s too difficult to spell. Dancing daisies sells, man.”
“Alright, alright,” said the Doctor, irritated. “Here’s ninety pounds for the lot.”
“A hundred-and-twenty.”
“A hundred-and-twenty? But there are twelve. That should be ninety-six pounds! I’m only asking for a six pound discount.”
“I don’t give no discounts. Besides, I use these to get the punters in, and then I upsell them to other things. So they’re worth more to me than face value, darlin’.”
“Do you have any more in stock besides these?” The Doctor was fumbling in his inside breast pocket.
“Yeah, man. I got a couple of big boxes back there. Two hundred, maybe more. I can’t give you no volume discounts.”
The Doctor’s laugh contained a note of hysteria. Then his face changed. “Trading Standards officer,” he said, whipping out a card from his pocket and showing it to the woman, who cast a wary eye over it. “If you’re displaying them at one price you can’t sell them at another. I’m going to have to impound these.”
“You can’t impound them over an issue of price, man.”
“They’re also defective. I’ve had complaints.” The Doctor started fumbling in his unnaturally deep outside waist pocket, his arm disappearing up to the elbow.
“Complaints? From who?”
“This young man.” The Doctor pointed at Kevin. “His mother bought one and it doesn’t work.” He brought out the plastic flower from his pocket with a flourish. “See?” He put it down next to the others and the three of them stood in silence for two seconds as they waited for the light to activate it. It remained motionless.
“I’ll replace it for the boy.”
“I’m twenty years old,” protested Kevin.
“Well, apparently you need a white man to look after you, boy,” said the woman, sucking her teeth in contempt. “There. There’s your flower. Now go on, both of you. Disappear.”
“I don’t think you understand,” insisted the Doctor. “These are a fire hazard.” One of the flowers began to smoulder. The stem melted near the bottom of the stalk and the flower toppled over. The leaves wilted, but continued to pump up and down slightly near the centre. There was a puff of smoke and a small yellow flame licked over the top of the flower pot.
“Oh! Goodness!” said the woman, leaping back.
The Doctor blew out the flame, but the acrid smell of burnt plastic remained strong.
“If you expose these to light for too long, they go off. Now, if you tell me where you got them from I can compensate you for the cost of the stock. But I need all of your stock, and I need it now.”
“Okay, okay. Wait there.” The woman bustled off through the crowd and came back a couple of minutes later with two large cardboard boxes.
“A receipt?” asked the Doctor.
The woman looked panicked.
“For the address of the supplier. And the price.”
She went back into her shop and leafed through a lever-arch file, tore out a page and handed it to the Doctor, who examined it.
“Thank you. If you would care to help me with these boxes, young man,” he said to Kevin. “I shall compensate the lady here.” He took out a wad of notes, counted some out and handed them to her. “And have this for your trouble,” he said, giving her another twenty pound note. He took a plastic bag from behind the counter and scooped the flowers into it, leaving behind the one that had burnt out.
He handed the bag to Kevin and fixed the woman with a long stare. “Now, if you see any of these in the future you’re to tell everyone that they’re defective. You saw one of them cause a small fire. Got that?”
“Defective,” said the woman, her eyes glazed. “Fire hazard. Very dangerous.”
“Excellent. Good day to you.” He snapped his fingers. The woman looked briefly puzzled at the fact that she was holding a large sum of cash and her invoice book. She saw the melted flower in its burnt-out pot, shook her head and went back inside her shop.
The Doctor cleared his throat as they crossed Atlantic Road. “Do you normally get that kind of comment?”
“Like what?” asked Kevin.
“Well, you know – being called ‘boy’. And that remark about getting help from a white man.”
“My Mum used to get called a ‘coconut’ back in the day. With being married to a Scottish guy, yeah?”
“A ‘coconut’?”
“Black on the outside, white on the inside.”
“But that’s… That’s appalling.”
Kevin gave as much of a shrug as the two boxes would allow. “I’ve had worse.”
“Well that sort of thing just isn’t tolerated in the Pleasant universe,” said the Doctor.
“Right. So how come you had to find Tim a home then?”
“Tim are… well. They’re rather toxic, but I suppose even so… Point taken. Let’s go home and examine our haul.”
“Give us a hand, will you? These are getting a bit heavy.”
The Doctor took one of the boxes from Kevin and they headed for the bus queues.
“Is that taxi going to be moving soon?” asked Mrs Roseby as soon as they were on the short gravel driveway in front of How’s house. She was pretending to water her roses.
“My cousin is travelling,” said the Doctor.
“When’s he back? That thing’s an eyesore. And it’s not roadworthy with the bumper off like that.”
“I’m hoping he’ll be back very soon, Mrs Roseby.”
“I can get it towed, you know.”
“Not if it’s on private property, Mrs Roseby. Good day to you.”
Kevin and the Doctor went into the porch, set down their boxes and took their ultraviolet bath silently. The Doctor insisted that Kevin wash his hands in anti-bacterial soap for having been on public transport. Trinity tagged along behind them in
her feline form as they went into the basement.
Kevin set down his box next to the Doctor’s on the table and began to tear at it.
“No!” said the Doctor.
“Why not?”
“Think, laddie! Light. There are dozens of them in there. You know how bad it felt for me with just a dozen of them. Imagine if the whole box of them was activated. And,” he gesticulated at Where’s quarter-sized Spectrel, “we know they interfere with Spectrel navigation. We can’t take any chances.”
“Sorry.”
“Let’s take one out of the bag.” The lights in the room dimmed and went red without the Doctor doing anything that Kevin could see.
Kevin offered the plastic bag to the Doctor, who reached in and slowly took out one of the flowers. He had its solar panels covered with his fingers as he set it down on the table. With his other hand he took out his Ultraknife and pointed it at the flower. Slowly he uncovered the panels and observed.
“The light’s below the threshold for generating a current. I assume you either weren’t told the physics behind these things, or you were asleep in class when they were being taught.”
“Fair assumption.”
“I won’t press you on which one. Now, in certain materials – namely the ones used to create solar cells – given a high enough frequency, electrons will receive enough energy from the photons in the light shining at them to be displaced, and to form an electrical current. The phenomenon is called Thomson scattering.” He met Kevin’s questioning eyes. “No relation of yours, sadly.”
“Huh.”
“But you need a certain frequency – a threshold frequency – for the little packets of energy in the light, the photons, to contain enough energy.”
“I think I got you.”
“So we’re starting with a dim red light. A bit like a safety light in a photographer’s darkroom.”
“You lost me.”
“They used to have to develop photographic film from negatives in things called darkrooms. Never mind. It’s a dying art, sadly. The upshot is that I can examine this in low-frequency light without the danger of setting it off. Clear?”