by Doctor Who
‘Oh. That’s a bit of a shame.’ He pulled a face. ‘Looks like Crayshaw doesn’t want to take me alive.’
Rose kept glancing worriedly at the traffic. She’d asked the cabbie to drive round as close to the river as possible, but he was spending more time flicking between CDs for the stereo than he was looking at the road.
‘Can you stop here a minute?’ she asked as she noticed a small modern police station, perched on the end of St Mary’s Pier as if it had grown up through the blackened brickwork. The idea of asking the police for help struck her as a weird one at first. But there was no reason why she and the Doctor had to act like lone rangers the whole time. Maybe Anne had been picked up before she could jump –in which case maybe the police could tell her where the woman was and if she was OK. ‘Er, keep the meter running,’ she told the cabbie. ‘I won’t be long.’
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He was short and bulky, had to sit on a cushion to reach the pedals of his cab. ‘You’re not thinking of doing a runner are you, girlie?’
‘Don’t worry.’ Rose gave him her warmest smile and pointed to the cop shop. ‘If I am, I’m sure they’ll soon stop me.’
The police station, though, seemed shut. She banged on the door as loud as she could, even kicked it a couple of times.
‘You all right?’ a voice called up to her from over the edge of the pier. She looked down below and saw a police patrol boat moored there. A middle-aged, slightly mournful-looking man was staring back up at her. ‘We’ve had to shut the station, the river’s gone mad tonight.
There’ll be someone at Waterloo Pier you can talk to.’
Rose was already nipping down the crumbling concrete steps. ‘Can’t I talk to you?’
‘I’m getting the boat ready.’ She could see he was stood between a tool box and an open inspection panel in the deck, grease on his face and uniform. ‘She’s been out of commission, awaiting repairs. But God knows we need her tonight. Sorry, miss, but I can’t stop.’
‘I won’t get in your way,’ Rose promised, tripping lightly across the jetty. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Fraser. PC Fraser.’
‘Well, PC Fraser, just thought maybe you could check something out for me on your radio or something.’
He ignored that, bent over the hatch and got on with his repairs.
‘Worried about someone who’s gone missing, are you? Think they’ve disappeared, like the papers say?’
‘A woman in her fifties, called Anne. I don’t know her surname, but I can describe her.’ He didn’t seem to be listening so she raised her voice. ‘She was trying to throw herself into the river near Southwark, and I think she might try again.’
‘We were down to about fifty deaths a year on the Thames,’ Fraser announced. ‘Faster boats, see. They let us save more people. When you think there’s more than fifty-four miles of river, well, fifty deaths isn’t bad.’
‘S’pose you can never save everyone,’ said Rose quietly.
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‘That’s right.’ He looked up, and she saw how grey and sad his eyes were. ‘If they go in near bridge buttresses there are swirling currents that drag them down before you can reach them. And the bridges are high, so if your friend fell in at Southwark she’d most likely be unconscious when she hit and –’
‘You’re a real bundle of laughs, aren’t you? Look, please, if you could just quickly check for me if she’s been spotted anywhere. . . ’ For an awkward moment she thought he was about to cry. ‘Hey, what’s wrong?’
‘They’re not disappearing like the papers say. Not in that way.’ He returned to the job in hand, suddenly determined. ‘They’ve all gone into the water. Us and the soldiers, we’ve been doing our best trying to stop them, but we’ve had eyewitnesses spotting loads of people going under these last few days.’
Rose felt her stomach turn. ‘Loads?’
‘All sorts. Not just the flash Harrys, out to prove how tough they are.
Others. Swimming, some of them, like their lives depended on it, but then. . . ’ He shook his head helplessly. ‘Anyway, I told the boys at the Wapping mortuary – you’ll be short-staffed, I said. You’ll have a rush on.’ He grunted as something gave way in the mechanism beneath the deck. ‘Bodies usually pop up from the bottom within twenty-four hours of going down, you see, this time of year. You die, you sink to the bottom until the gases in your body build up and you swell –’
Rose held up a hand. ‘OK, I get you.’
‘In the winter it’s different, might take three or four weeks.
But not in spring. . . ’ He paused. ‘You know how many bodies they’ve had brought into Wapping, miss? None.’
She stared. ‘What, none at all?’
‘Not a single one. So if all these people have gone under, where’ve all the bodies gone, eh? Who’s got them?’
Rose couldn’t answer him.
‘They say it’s something to do with that ghost ship,’ said Fraser.
‘Saying it’s cursed. That it’s. . . luring people here.’
She found she wanted to blurt out everything she knew, just to share it with someone. To tell him how the dead crew of the Ascendant 67
seemed to be haunting the people they knew and loved, urging them, begging them to join them.
But no. Even if he somehow believed her, this man clearly had enough on his plate. So she gave him the censored version. ‘There’s something iffy going on, all right. I met this high-up old naval bloke, he was well on to this whole “throw yourself in” thing. Wanted to talk to Anne when she tried to jump. Wanted to know if anyone else like her turned up.’
‘Why?’ Fraser said. ‘What’s wrong with these people?
What’s special about them?’ She shuddered. ‘I dunno.’
Fraser straightened up, wiped his hands on a rag. ‘Mate of mine over at Waterloo, Fisky. He was saying there’s more of them each night. That’s why the marines have been brought in. Has to be them holding the bodies somewhere. . . ’
‘Where?’
‘Fisky didn’t say. . . couldn’t say.’
‘Too many secrets being kept around here,’ muttered Rose. ‘Can you help me? With finding Anne, I mean?’
‘Sorry, love, got to get this boat on patrol. You’d best try someone at Waterloo. Though I doubt they’ll have been told much themselves.’
He looked at her, pale and melancholy. ‘By the soldiers, I mean.’
There was a loud, ugly honking from the road up above.
Her driver was getting impatient.
‘I’d better push off. Taken up enough of your time, haven’t I?’ She forced a big grin for him. ‘Good luck with it, yeah? Glad you’re on the case, PC Fraser. Whatever you might think, you’re a hero, dealing with this.’
He didn’t answer, and she hurried back up the steps. For all the cheer in her grin, Rose was feeling worse now than she had before.
‘They can’t just open fire like that!’ shouted Vida, scrabbling up from the floor, broken glass biting at her palms. ‘Stop it!’ she yelled up through one of the broken windows. Perversely, the soldiers took that as their cue to get blasting again. ‘Crew on board, you maniacs! You just saw me come in!’
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‘’Scuse me!’ The Doctor had dashed back over to the ship’s controls.
‘I could use a little help over here.’
Vida stared at him. ‘Give it up, Doctor, they’re firing at you!’
‘I think you’ll find they’re firing at us.’ The engines roared, the floor lurched and they were under way.
‘Stop the engine!’ she shouted. ‘I have clearance! I have my own office – just about, anyway. Why would they be shooting at –’
‘You said yourself you’ve been a thorn in Crayshaw’s side.’ He looked at her and shrugged, suddenly deadly serious. ‘I think he allowed you on board so you could be killed along with me.’
She felt suddenly sick. ‘Killed?’
‘What do you reckon, Vida, ten to starboard?’ He spun the
ship’s wheel with abandon as another burst of gunfire splintered teak frames and thick glass alike. The tug turned sharply, and Vida’s stomach lurched with it. ‘Aye, Captain!’ he cried in a silly voice. ‘Starboard ten, soldiers nil!’
‘Why the hell would Crayshaw want to kill me?’
‘Oh, it’ll seem like a tragic accident – stray bullet or something. But as far as he’s concerned, your being here is proof of your guilt. I mean, first we enjoy a secret tryst in your office, then I rampage through the whole secret underground base, then you meet me here – well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? You’re trying to help me escape. . . ’
‘Circumstantial rubbish!’
‘It is a bit dodgy.’ He straightened up the tug, squinted through a hole in the tarp made by one of the bullets. ‘Dodgy as trying to steer this thing blind.’
Vida was still reeling. ‘He’d be court-martialled!’
‘You’d think so, wouldn’t you? The fact that he’s doing it anyway suggests to me that someone, or something, is close to getting what they want.’ The Doctor came away from the eyehole. ‘Useless. I’ll have to get out there and take off the tarp. You steer.’
‘We’re on the Thames in a tug boat.’ She crossed to the wheel and gripped it with trembling hands. ‘How far d’you think you’re going to get?’
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He crossed to the doorway. ‘Doesn’t take that long to get to the other side.’
‘There’ll be soldiers already heading us off!’ She paused. ‘So we’ve got to get to somewhere more public, haven’t we? They can’t just open fire in front of witnesses, can they? Can they?’
But her question hung in the air unanswered. The Doctor had gone.
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Mickey had to admire Keisha’s staying power. She was still rattling at the door with. . . well. He wanted to think it was superhuman strength, but since he was feeling kind of subhuman right now, it probably wasn’t.
With a guilty twinge he half-wished it was Keisha who’d cleared off and Anne stuck in the bathroom. But she was Rose’s mate and he wasn’t about to let Rose down again.
‘Just take it easy!’ he yelled for the twentieth time. ‘I ain’t letting you go anywhere out in this state!’ Big words, Mickey, he thought. But the truth was, he couldn’t hold on much longer. Was there anywhere he could try to lock her inside, a cupboard or something? But no, it was the sort of furniture that came flat-packed with no proper instructions.
It would fall apart in two seconds with someone like Keisha shut inside it –
But then the door handle finally slipped from his sweaty fingers as, with an almighty cry, Keisha rammed the door open. Make-up smeared, eyes red and narrowed, for a moment she was terrifying.
He threw himself at her ankles, brought her down.
‘Get off me!’ she shrieked, kicking to be free.
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‘No way!’ he shouted back, clinging on to her ankles. ‘I let Anne go.
No way am I letting you follow her.’
The phone started ringing shrilly as if in protest. They both ignored it till the answering machine kicked in. Then, as a female voice crackled out from the speaker, Keisha went suddenly rigid.
‘It’s your mum, love.’ A long pause. ‘Have you. . . have you seen him? Has Jay come to you?’ She sounded as if she was trying not to cry.
Keisha was still holding herself dead still. Mickey was afraid she was dead for a moment, and cautiously let go of her legs. ‘I’m coming down. Tomorrow.’ Her voice was clipped now, trying so hard to hold it together. ‘Because. . . he needs us. We’ve got to go to him, ain’t we?
Get to him before the feast.’
She stayed on the line for a few silent seconds. Then, with a click, she hung up. A chill went through Mickey as he clocked Keisha. She was holding herself as rigid as a corpse, her eyes wide and staring.
A single fat tear had snaked through the black mush of her eyelashes and was dribbling down her cheek.
‘You ain’t heard from her in a while, have you?’ he panted. She shook her head a fraction. ‘Not in years.’ Then her eyes screwed up and the tears started in earnest.
Mickey stood up slowly, aching all over, watched as she curled into a ball. ‘I’ll make us some tea, yeah? Hot and sweet.’ He walked wearily over to the kitchen. ‘I think we could both use it.’
“That’s her!’ On the way to Waterloo, just as Rose was losing all hope of ever spotting Anne again, she glimpsed silver hair and tweed through the taxi window.
The woman passed through a pool of
streetlamp-orange before ducking down an alleyway close to the river.
Rose tapped the taxi driver on the shoulder. ‘Can we get down there?’
‘One-way system,’ he grunted. ‘Have to go round.’
Have to get out, then, she thought. ‘Stop! I’m gonna be sick!’ The taxi driver braked hard. Rose threw open the passenger door and scrambled outside.
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‘Oi! What about my fare, you little –’
‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ Rose yelled back, sprinting down the dark alley after Anne. ‘I hope.’
The alley gave on to a posh little terrace of townhouses. Anne had cut across the road and through the parked cars. She was doglegging towards the river all right.
Rose forced herself to run faster, faster. ‘Anne!’ she cried, catching up now. ‘Anne, wait! Listen to me!’
The woman suddenly turned. Rose’s heart plummeted. It wasn’t Anne at all, just some poor old lady, beside herself with terror.
‘I don’t have much money!’ she said, clutching her little bag to her chest. ‘Please leave me alone.’
Rose held up her hands. ‘It’s all right, I thought you –’
The woman changed tactic. ‘Help,’ she called. ‘Someone help me!’
But her cries were drowned out by a chorus of screams beyond the courtyard.
‘They’re going to kill themselves!’
‘Leave me alone!’
‘Get back to your seats! If we tip over you’ll end up in there with
’em!’
Still yelling ‘sorry’ over her shoulder, Rose followed the sound of the shouts. She ran out of the courtyard and dodged through the traffic on the main road, making for the thoroughfare beside the river. There was a big floating restaurant barge moored to her right, but so many diners had left their tables to stare out over the balcony rail that it was listing badly. A smaller crowd had gathered on a wharf jutting out over the river. As Rose ran to join them she could hear more cries:
‘Why have you blocked off the bridges?’
‘She’s on that ship, she needs me!’
‘We have to go!’
And when she reached the wharf she could see that, down on the tiny stretch of brown beach by the dark river, a dozen soldiers were struggling desperately with a ragtag crowd of men, women and children. They were holding them back, or trying to. Rose held her hand to her mouth as she saw one young boy, maybe eight or nine, break 73
through the khaki barricade and hurl himself into the water. He was fished out by a soldier, but managed to break free and throw himself in again. ‘My dad needs me!’ he shouted. The soldier had to carry him out flailing and yelling, clutching him tight to stop him going in again. ‘He needs my help! I have to get to him before the feast!’
The mad hoot of boat horns rose up from the river, like wild deranged animals in pain. Rose jostled past the onlookers and saw a river police patrol boat blocked by some kind of military vessel. Soldiers were jumping aboard. Rose thought she glimpsed huddled figures half-buried by blankets.
A man nudged her, conspiratorial. ‘They say they’ve had dozens chucking themselves in,’ he said. ‘Just like lemmings, one after the other. Determined, they are.’
‘She’s still there!’ sobbed a woman on the beach. ‘I’m a good swimmer. You have to let me reach her. She’s in the wreck of the Ascendant.’
‘It’s half a mile from here!’ A soldier had his ha
nds clamped on her shoulders. ‘But even if it was right next door, you can’t seriously –’
‘It’s true, she told me. I saw her!’ The woman struggled in his grip.
‘As plain as I’m seeing you!’
‘They should’ve left that wreck at the bottom of the sea,’ said another man, rousing Rose from her thoughts. ‘It’s cursed all right. They reckon this madness is carrying on up and down the river.’
Murmurs of agreement behind her. ‘Anywhere they can get to the river, they’re chucking themselves in. Anywhere that’s not blocked off.’
Straight away, Rose realised that she would never see Anne again.
‘It must be bad if they’ve got the marines in for it,’ a girl in leathers agreed. ‘Police can’t cope.’
Or else they’re not being given a chance to cope, thought Rose.
‘It’s sinful,’ said an old man behind her. ‘Suicide is a sin. These people should be ashamed.’
‘They don’t want to kill themselves,’ Rose told him.
‘Not in their right minds,’ the know-all man agreed, as the soldiers finally brought the desperate crowd under control. ‘Like those idiots at Christmas, ready to jump and end it all. Mass hysteria, that was.’
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‘No, I mean, these people aren’t trying to kill themselves,’ she insisted.’
‘Oh?’ The man looked down at her sniffily. ‘What makes you the expert?’
‘Listen to them! This isn’t about suicide. They just need to get to the people they love. People they thought they’d never see again.
Wouldn’t you do anything, risk anything, to reach someone that special? Even. . . even dying?’
He stared at her. ‘You’re a nutter, like they are!’
Rose opened her mouth but no words came out. Jay is there, a voice in her head was telling her. Just for a moment she felt a prickling at the back of her own mind, an urge to get down there and wade into the dark water. To find Jay, and help him. It would be so easy if she just-The know-all nudged the person next to him. ‘This one reckons them drowned sailors are sat on that tug boat, just waiting for visitors!’