The House That Jack Built: The House That Jack Built t-12

by Guy Adams

  The House That Jack Built: The House That Jack Built

  ( Torchwood - 12 )

  Guy Adams

  Guy Adams. The House That Jack Built: The House That Jack Built

  (Torchwood — 12)

  To my wonderful Debra,

  who always reassures me I can write

  when I'm quite convinced I can't.

  Nothing seemed more important to Danny Wilkinson that afternoon than the spikiness of his fringe. He wanted it to loom. Doused in Hugo Boss aftershave (stolen from his older brother), he hoped the two bent — but smokable — fags in his back pocket would be the clincher, the carrot at the end of a stick that might lure Amy Woodyatt's lips onto his. Play his cards right and he might even get the top of her jeans loose enough for a little investigation.

  Penylan didn't look as if it shared his enthusiasm, cold and austere, the architectural embodiment of 'don't do this' and 'don't do that'. The Edwardian terraces looked disapprovingly down their gables at him as he crossed towards Roath Park. Perhaps they knew who he was meeting; certainly his parents didn't or they would never have let him out of the house. Josh Biggs was on every Penylan parent's 'forbidden list' after being caught selling weed in the playground of St Teilo's a couple of weeks back.

  A chill breeze pulled its way through the remaining leaves on the trees. Danny kicked a pebble along the surface of the road, scuffing his soles in the grit and dancing with the pretend football. He flicked it up and belted it hard, dreaming of roaring stadium terraces. The pebble flew, clipping a few stray privet leaves from a garden hedge before knocking its way through the streaked glass of the window behind it.

  'Bollocks…' Danny whispered, about to run until he realised the house was empty. Nobody had lived at Jackson Leaves for months. He and Josh had watched an ambulance crew carry an old woman out of its front door ages ago. They had noted every detail: the blue-veined milk of her loose skin, the faint condensation on the inside of the oxygen mask. Death about to happen. He doubted she was in a position to care about her window any more.

  This street held only big, detached houses, all set back from the road with the sort of private parking area rich mothers left luxurious four-by-fours on. Jackson Leaves was letting the side down though, being long past its presentable best. The hedge was overgrown, the gravel forecourt peppered with weeds, jagged dandelion leaves and creeping thistles. Cobwebs fluttered like curtains from the wooden eaves. The windows were dirty, as blind as the old woman had seemed when lifted into the back of the ambulance.

  Danny stared at it from across the street, taking a small amount of pride in the black bullet hole the pebble had left in the front, downstairs window. Not a bad shot… not a bad shot at all. Somewhere a radio was playing loud, jolly rhythms, trying to convince the streets towards cheerfulness and failing.

  Heading towards the park, he fell as his foot was suddenly yanked out from underneath him. He got his hands up in time to stop his chin colliding with the tarmac but gave a shout of pain as he felt loose grit cut into his palms.

  Carefully pushing himself up, he gave another cry as his right hand burst through the surface of the pavement, vanishing up to the elbow.

  The ground beneath him bubbled, the surface of the pavement gripping the toes of his trainers as if the tarmac were freshly poured. He pulled at his trapped hand, but the pavement clung to him like syrup. Stuck on all fours, he began to sink.

  His mum had told him the story of Br'er Rabbit and the Tar-Baby when he was little. He had been terrified, picturing the glistening man made of tar that Br'er Rabbit had fought, the animal becoming more and more glued to his opponent with every blow. It had given him nightmares for weeks, dreams of a hot, black embrace and steaming mouths lowering down onto his…

  He shouted for help, tipping his head back and bellowing even as the tarmac gave up all pretence of solidity and sucked him straight down. The shout was cut off in his throat as the ground suddenly hardened again, his teeth slamming onto solid pavement in splinters of enamel. He couldn't cry out at the pain, the earth and rubble in his throat choked all hope of that. Nothing could get past it, most certainly not air.

  It took him longer than he might have liked to die.

  ONE

  'What do you think? Green or pink?'

  Rhys realised Gwen was talking and, more than that, she had asked an important question that he had no idea how to answer. 'The first one,' he gambled, 'it's much more…' And there he ran out of steam. '… Nice,' he tried.

  'Fat lot of use you are.'

  Gwen smiled. H amp;M was like Kryptonite to Rhys; he'd slip into a coma if forced to stand outside its changing rooms for more than five minutes. 'Why don't you go and look at DVDs next door?' she suggested. 'If you hang around here any longer you'll probably die of boredom.'

  'I don't mind,' Rhys replied, trying not to stare at the posters of the underwear models.

  Gwen pushed him gently towards the exit.

  'I'll survive on my own. Go on.'

  'Aye, right.' He gave her a peck on the cheek and headed towards the exit, throwing the occasional worried glance at clothing as he passed, as if concerned it might bite him. He passed a pregnant woman laden down with clothes and found himself imagining Gwen with a similar bulge. He smiled. Most of his mates had predictable fantasies about their partners in kinky underwear or lesbian trysts; he pictured Gwen the size of a house and cursing his name as she went in to labour. He was a soppy sod sometimes.

  Gwen walked back into the changing room, tugging the green top to get it to sit right. Spotting the pregnant lady's reflection shuffle its way into one of the changing cubicles behind her, her response was a world away from Rhys's, remembering the arguments she'd had with him on the subject. Torchwood and breeding just weren't the best of bedfellows. Not that she would be so opposed to it otherwise — she could easily see herself bringing up a child with Rhys, he'd make an excellent father. Still, balancing a life of babies and alien invasions? No… no thanks.

  The pregnant woman grunted and an elbow ballooned the cubicle curtain as she struggled to move in the confined space. A blouse fell to the floor by the woman's feet. Nice, Gwen thought, very fitted… Sexy.

  Fitted.

  The woman bent over, grabbed the blouse and stood back up. There was the sound of more struggling before she suddenly yanked back the curtain and stormed out, looking for all the world as if she'd lost her temper and given up on the idea of clothes shopping. Gwen didn't believe it for a moment. She was still wondering why a pregnant woman would take a blouse into the changing room that she could never possibly wear.

  She ran out of the changing room and onto the shop floor, chasing after the woman's retreating head and shoulders. She was making straight for the exit.

  'Oi!' One of the girls behind the till shouted as Gwen left the shop and ran into the arcade. The woman she was chasing turned around on hearing the shout, and the look on her face was more than enough to convince Gwen that her instinct had been right. She launched herself at her, the pair of them hitting the floor with shoppers panicking around them.

  'Bloody hell!' she heard someone shout. 'Get the mad bitch off her!'

  Oh yeah, jumping on pregnant women… not a crowd pleaser that. She made a grab for the woman's bloated belly as hands gripped her by the shoulders. There was the tearing of fabric, and a bundle of carefully wrapped clothes spilled onto the floor. The woman's pregnant belly was a tightly stuffed pouch of stolen clothes.

  'Now if I'd done that the papers would have been giving my knackers away as a Sunday supplement.' Gwen smiled when she saw who had grabbed her: her old pol
ice partner Andy Davidson.

  'Fancy seeing you here,' said Gwen.

  'Someone reported a mad cow on the rampage in Boots, spraying people with baby oil. Not you by any chance?'

  'I have an alibi.'

  'Oh yes, where is Rhys? Scoffing a few pasties?'

  'Don't be mean.'

  'Just my way. You know I love him really.'

  He lifted his handcuffs off his belt and put them on the shoplifter's wrists.

  'I was going to give you a bell, actually,' he continued, his attention back on Gwen. 'Just had a call through about something spooky in Penylan. Sounded right up your street.'

  'Oh yeah?' Gwen wasn't sure she liked the sound of that.

  'Aye, some kid found embedded in a pavement, you know, like literally embedded …'

  'Come on, Andy.' Gwen gave a pointed look at the shoplifter. 'Time and a place, eh?'

  'Oh… yeah… well, y'know… if you're not interested?'

  Gwen sighed and reached for her mobile.

  'But do I really need the poker chips and playing cards?' Rhys wondered aloud. 'I mean, special features are good, yeah, but games compendiums? Seems a waste of money. They'll be putting Cluedo in with Poirot next.'

  The shop assistant was new and still had some enthusiasm for the job and an urge to make sales. 'The poker stuff's just a bonus,' he said. 'It's the first twenty-one Bond movies in two-disc, digitally remastered editions…'

  '"Digitally remastered", is it?' Rhys scoffed. 'It's a wonder we ever managed to watch the crappy old things really.' His mobile rang and, seeing Gwen's name on the screen, he looked around as if he'd been caught in a drug transaction. 'All right, love, won't be long, will I? I'll have a cappu-oh… You what? … Bloody hell, Gwen! I only turn my back for five minutes and there's a national emergency is there? … No… No… I know you can't… No… Right.'

  He ended the call, shoving the phone back in his jeans with a sigh.

  'Twenty-one films, is it?' he said to the shop assistant. 'That's a lot of hours filled. I'll take it.'

  There's nothing quite like the luxury of a cup of coffee prepared by someone else. The sort of coffee that you watch someone labour over. You watch them grind the beans, fill the scoop, steam the milk, pump the espresso. Then, if you're Ianto Jones, you watch them pick you out a juicy Pain au Raisin and drop that fruity bad boy into a takeaway bag. Nice.

  Having found a barista whose coffee-making skill he actually trusted, Ianto was becoming quite the fan of having someone else do all the work. The fact that this Queen of the Beans, this Empress of the Roast, was a grumpy little Chinese girl whose service was lousy and attitude abominable didn't take the edge off it in the least. She could spit in his eye if she so wished. As long as she didn't do it in his coffee, he would pay her with a smile.

  He didn't sip at his cappuccino as he walked along the jetty to the Tourist Information entrance, preferring to wait and drink it with his pastry, his own perfect little moment. Having had the first good run of sleep in about a week — the fact that it had taken place during the day being neither here nor there; when part of Torchwood, you grabbed it when you found it — he was determined to continue his good fortune over a nice relaxing breakfast. Or afternoon tea, he thought, checking his watch with a sigh.

  He unlocked the Tourist Information door, stepped inside and locked it again behind him. The grockles were not well served on the Marina of late. He'd opened for maybe two days over the last fortnight, things having been just too busy for maintaining the cover. Reaching over the counter, he tapped in the four-digit code sequence that opened the concealed door in the wall. Saluting a rather tatty poster of Max Boyce with his coffee cup, Ianto stepped into the tunnels beyond, cutting through their damp gloominess with a whistle. Even the distant scuttle of rats couldn't intrude on his good mood.

  At the main gate, the entry code was long enough to feel like a piano piece as he beat it out on the lock-pad. The heavy door rolled out of the way and finally he was in.

  'Hello?' he shouted. No reply. Perfect. He was on his own.

  He settled at his desk and booted up the RSS reader. Popping the white cap off his coffee, he grabbed the pastry bag and settled back in his chair with a sigh. The rest of the day could not go wrong, not from such sturdy foundations, it was unthinkable.

  While scrolling through BBC News with one hand, he brought up the sensor reports for the hours he'd been away. Torchwood had Cardiff wired up like a politician in a hooker's boudoir: there wasn't a mouse fart that was not catalogued and calibrated by one sensor or another. You had to be attentive when you had a space-time event outside your window, it moved things around while you slept.

  He took a bite of his pastry, a stray raisin tumbling over his bottom lip and skydiving into his lap. He tutted and flicked it away. Reaching for the serviette that came in the bag, he tucked it above his perfectly knotted tie — full Windsor, naturally — like a bib. He didn't altogether care what the pastry did to his waistline, but it could keep its damned paws off his suit.

  His attention was drawn by a chronon spike in the Penylan area. It didn't have the temporal decay signature of the Rift, but he couldn't think what else it might be. He entered Penylan as a search filter for police radio traffic. The two seconds it took to offer the fate of Danny Wilkinson to his screen was more than enough time for a mouthful of pastry, but after reading the transcript he didn't fancy another.

  ***

  The oak tree sagged pitifully in the centre of the recreational lawn. When it shuffled its leaves in the wind it was with the bored resignation of an underpaid conjuror, struggling his way through a card trick at a particularly awful children's party. The attitude was contagious: nobody carried themselves with enthusiasm at the Mercy Hill Care Home. The residents could be excused — enthusiasm, like a solid bowel movement, was ancient history to most of them — but even the staff sighed their way through the day, gazing listlessly into the middle distance as if waiting for death. It was not a cheerful place, and that reason alone was sufficient cause for Alexander — a congenitally miserable bastard — to make it his home.

  He sat beneath the dejected oak and watched as various residents pottered their way around the garden. He tutted at Trudy Topham, standing in the middle of a rhododendron bush, spilling fragile memories into the breeze from her slack mouth. Someone would fetch her back inside just as soon as they could be bothered. In the distance, Leon Harris could be seen making one of his twice-weekly bids for freedom. Staff usually caught up with him before he made it past the fence, but every once in a while he managed a little further. He had once been found crawling along the central reservation of the M4, but that was a few years ago now and his legs were no longer as strong as they were. Alexander stretched back in his wheelchair, yawning and playing on the bony xylophone of his ribs with his fingers.

  'Careful now, Mr Martin,' Nurse Sellers said in his ear. 'We don't want you falling out, do we?'

  Alexander was half-tempted to try, if only so he could cop a feel of her weighty breasts on his chin while she manhandled him back into his chair. Reduced to pratfalls in order to arouse oneself… there were times when he absolutely despaired. He sank back into his chair with a sigh.

  'No, nurse, we don't. Any sign of this doctor of yours yet?'

  'He's no doctor of ours, Mr Martin,' Nurse Sellers stressed, as if to a particularly slow child. 'I did explain that. He's sent by the Council to judge our standards.'

  'Worried?'

  'Don't be silly… I'll thank you not to suggest you've received anything but the very best of care here at Mercy Hill.'

  'Wouldn't dream of it.' He gave a brief smile. 'Cross my heart and hope for a cardiac team on standby. So who do you think ratted you out?'

  'It is not a question of being "ratted out", as you put it, Mr Martin. All care homes receive independent visits from time to time. You're just lucky that it was your name he picked out of his hat.'

  'Aren't I just? The thrill is almost sexual.'


  'No need for that sort of talk, Mr Martin.'

  'No,' said Alexander, trying to see the line of her underwear through her uniform. 'Quite right.'

  'Here he comes now.'

  'Good morning, Alexander!' said the man walking across the lawn towards them. Alexander felt a momentary panic as he recognised the face (if not the white coat and casually dangled stethoscope). It took a second for a name to drop alongside that horribly perfect smile. Harkness… yes, that was it. Captain Jack Harkness. 'Morning to you too, of course, nurse,' Jack added, offering a small bow towards her. 'A beauty powerful enough to cure any ill.'

  Nurse Sellers chuckled like a schoolgirl. Alexander rolled his eyes.

  'You're too kind, doctor,' she replied. 'If only you were a regular visitor to our humble home.'

  Jack stepped in close and smiled. 'Maybe you'll get to see a bit more of me down the line,' he winked.

  Alexander sighed. 'If you don't mind?' he said. 'I believe he's here to see me.'

  Nurse Sellers gave him a scathing look, not taking kindly to having her fun spoiled. 'Well, his time's precious, I'm sure,' she said. 'I know I wouldn't want to waste any of it.'

  The inference that he was wasn't lost on Alexander, but Jack rescued the situation before it could descend into further argument. 'You're quite right, I have got a lot on today. Better give the old goat his onceover, eh?'

  She smiled and strode towards the main house, her hips swinging so much it was a wonder she didn't snap her pelvis.

  'Old goat?' Alexander sighed. 'Cheeky bugger.'

  'You're just jealous,' Jack said, leaning against the tree. 'You'd love to whisk her away on your wheelchair and do unforgivable things to her in the bushes.'

  Alexander refused to rise to this, not least because there was a degree of truth in it. Safest plan by far was just to change the subject. 'I thought I'd end up bumping into you sooner or later. When was it we last…?'