Doctor Who: The Death Pit Read online

  ‘These things quite often work themselves out in highly unpredictable ways. Luck has a lot to do with it. Although one can make one’s own luck, I always think. At least I think I think that. Or else someone told me that. Probably someone lucky.’ He made his way across the foyer towards her, half loping and half tiptoeing with a general air of being highly delighted to see everything around him including the dust on the broken grandfather clock. Bryony thought she’d never encountered anyone so remarkable in her life.

  She was right.

  As the man toped, or liptoed, up to Bryony’s desk he continued amiably: ‘Quite possibly you’ll discover you’re a creature of infinite resource. It’s very warm for January, isn’t it? Or then again I may have missed January and I’m definitely not in Chicago. Am I?’

  Bryony heard herself say, ‘Arbroath.’

  ‘Well, that’s quite close. I degaussed the Mackenzie Trench circuit before I set off. Which sometimes works. But mostly not.’ And he smiled again, even more largely. ‘Hello, I’m the Doctor.’ He seemed somehow like her oldest friend, like a wonderful relative she’d heard a lot about but never met.

  Bryony, while wondering how any human being could have that much hair – this kind of dense, lolloping head of wildly curly hair – fumbled through all the possible replies she could make to this Doctor person. Among them were, ‘Who on earth are you really, though?’ and ‘How did you know what I was thinking?’ and ‘What?’ and ‘Do you ever wash that scarf? Or can’t you because it would object? Would it be like trying to wash a cat…?’

  While she urred and ahed, the Doctor nodded patiently, even slightly annoyingly, as if he were coaxing a dim child through a really easy sum. On the one hand he was clearly the type of person who should make anyone sensible very nervous, but on the other he filled her with the deepest sense of trust she’d ever experienced. Which took her right back to supposing she ought to be nervous.

  Eventually, she managed, ‘Do you have a reservation?’ Which was a completely boring thing to say and made him look gently disappointed.

  ‘A reservation? Well, no, I don’t believe I do. When I travel I generally bring my own accommodation.’ The Doctor’s very large and very curious eyes lifted to ponder the ceiling while his monologue ambled along both gently and unpreventably. ‘I might be due for a holiday, of course. I always forget to take them. Usually someone reminds me, but there’s no one to do that for me at the moment.’

  Bryony wondered if he was just some weirdo who was camped in the scrub by the lake – they’d had that kind of problem before. He smelled a bit peculiar – but it was a clean kind of smell, more like the way the air smelled right before a thunderstorm with a trace of added icing sugar than someone who woke up in a tent.

  He continued, while apparently trying not to grin. ‘I was lost in a virtual jungle for a while quite recently. Have you ever been lost in a virtual jungle? Takes it out of you. Perhaps I should have a holiday?’ He eyed her name tag. ‘Bryony Mailer, do you think I need a holiday, should I stay here?’ Then he looked straight at her the way an extremely bright boy might if he were expecting ice cream.

  And Bryony Mailer thought – This is it. This is what’s next.

  Then she told the Doctor. ‘Yes. I think you should stay. You should stay here.’

  *

  At the most secluded edge of the Fetch Estate in a small, but dazzlingly well-equipped cottage, Miss Julia Fetch – she had never got around to marrying – rearranged her extensive collection of glass octopuses. (Or octopodes.) She had them made in Venice by an increasingly elderly team of master glass blowers, lamp workers and glass artists. She softly ran her – she had to admit – increasingly elderly fingers across the rounded head of an Octopus rubescens and gently waved at the perfectly modelled tentacles of a red-spot night octopus, or Octopus dierythraeus. She smiled.

  As the years had passed, she’d found that she had become slightly forgetful, perhaps even very forgetful, but she had perfect recall when it came to the names of octopus species. She had always been fond of octopodes (or octopuses) and she was using a tiny fraction of her monumental cash reserves to have every variety of octopus modelled in glass. There were over a hundred to reproduce and each exquisitely delicate sculpture took nearly a year of the craftsmen’s work. It was very possible that she wouldn’t quite manage to see the collection completed. She was also sole patron and very generous supporter of the Julia Fetch Foundation for the Care and Support of Octopuses (or Octopodes). These were really her only two remaining indulgences, apart from the cottage’s fantastic kitchen – which she hardly used – and the marble-lined bathroom and generously proportioned bath in which she soaked her sometimes rather achy limbs, while wishing that she had more legs. Or more arms. Or both.

  When she was younger Miss Fetch had enjoyed the usual toys and treats of the ultra-rich: buying sports cars and villas on sun-kissed coastlines, owning a London townhouse and a moderately sized castle (with village attached) quite near Folkestone, running stables full of racehorses, and country estates, all of which were seething with fat, juicy, slow-moving game birds and succulent deer. But she didn’t really enjoy driving and paying other people to drive her Bugattis and Duesenbergs and Alfa Romeos had seemed silly. Filling her villas (and the townhouse and the castle) with loud strangers hadn’t been nearly as much fun as she’d expected and filling them with friends was very difficult because having friends when you’re vastly rich just gets quite complicated. Rattling around next to her swimmerless swimming pools, or wandering alone across her dusty ballrooms had been depressing. She’d caught herself talking to the geckos in one place and half expecting them to answer. Her racehorses were beautiful, but had never seemed that fond of her – they tended to be slightly highly strung. And she had never been able to bring herself to kill anything on her estates. In fact, she’d been vegetarian for at least twenty years, if not forty, or sixty… Eventually, she’d given away all her homes apart from the cottage. They’d been turned into community centres and octopus research facilities. She’d sold her sports cars and horses and let her estates go back to nature and be overrun by un-shot-at animals and, by now, some quite rare plants, which nobody shot at either.

  Or that was the past which she currently remembered. She sometimes had the feeling that she had previously remembered other pasts, but she couldn’t be sure. Being this old was slightly confusing. Then again – as the twins often told her – it was very reasonable to be confused when she knew so much and had been to so many places and done so many things, occasionally in diving gear. (But never dressed as a pirate.)

  And as long as she had the twins – her beautiful, kind and charming Honor, her handsome, kind and charming Xavier – she knew that everything would be all right. That was something she didn’t forget.

  She never left her cottage these days. She didn’t need to. A dedicated geostationary satellite poured a constant flow of information into her personal media hub – located in what used to be the pantry – and she could spend all day, if she wanted, learning more about octopus camouflage techniques, or the cunning ways in which they could impersonate other sea creatures, or reading her Foundation’s latest test results on octopus intelligence. From the hub, she could also keep an eye on the stock market and watch her money quietly making more money.

  But she did feel the need for a little company now and then. She did think – perhaps regularly, perhaps only once a month, she wasn’t entirely certain – that it would be nice to invite some pleasant people to take tea with her. Nothing grand, or fussy – just tea with small sandwiches and perhaps slices of fruit cake and maybe scones.

  She did sometimes tell the twins about arranging to have tea and they did promise to go and find her suitable guests, but she couldn’t – if she was honest – absolutely recall how often this happened, or if she had ever served anybody tea, or discussed the mating rituals of squid while buttering very thin toast and handing out napkins. Occasionally she dreamed that the inside of her
mind was somehow becoming occupied by a being much cleverer than she was, something with dark tendrils, or tentacles reaching into her personality and softly wriggling about across her memories in a way that made them jumble and fade.

  Still, it didn’t matter. She was entirely happy and probably had forgotten her last tea party in the usual old lady type of way. Probably, if she concentrated, she could say how many cucumber sandwiches this or that visitor had eaten and whether there had been enough jam. And there was no reason to worry if she couldn’t. As she stared out through her window at the well-groomed trees and glossy shrubs bordering her golf course, she nodded to herself and smiled again. She had a good life. And sixty-eight perfectly lovely Venetian glass octopodes. Or octopuses.

  *

  David Agnew was a man who purposely ate octopus whenever he could. He was currently sitting in the Fetch Hotel’s Sweet Spot Bar and wishing he was, instead, lolling by the pool at his Greek island villa, tucking into some fresh octopus legs and shooting geckos with his air pistol. These were the kind of things he enjoyed.

  He was not enjoying his vodka and orange, which was warmish and rather unpleasant and definitely hadn’t involved fresh orange juice, even though he’d asked for it specifically. Some chance of proper service in a dump like this. Still, Fetch Brothers had a fabulous golf course and he could usually get round it in 86. Or 90. Definitely in 98.

  Agnew considered complaining, but he couldn’t be bothered because at present he felt extremely good about life. He’d showered after he left the course, changed into his new, rather dashing, safari suit and he wasn’t due back at the office for another two hours. That gave him more than enough time for a spot of lunch. He snapped his fingers to summon the barman and ordered a prawn cocktail and a basket of scampi and chips. And a glass of Liebfraumilch.

  While he waited for his bar meal, he glanced round at the golfing prints, the photos of men in large caps and plus fours, the little shelf of donated trophies and the Challenge Cup. This year, he had a real chance of winning the Cup. There had been ten players who were better than him on paper, but seven of them weren’t competing this time round.

  Actually – he corrected himself – eight of them wouldn’t be competing. Yes, he was sure of that. He was absolutely sure that Paul Harris wouldn’t be trying for the Challenge Cup this year. Or any other year.

  David Agnew tugged at his beige jacket to smooth it and grinned. The world was a very satisfactory place.

  Then it became significantly less satisfactory as a grassy, shabby, scrawny, sweaty man clattered into the bar with a golf bag he seemed quite unable to control. Knocking over a number of stools as he proceeded, he then sank to a halt at the table next to Agnew’s and flopped the bag messily down beside him. Its ancient clubs emerged like a rusty threat and disfigured the carpet.

  Agnew gave the newcomer his best withering stare and pointed to a large sign which read GOLF BAGS AND GOLF ATTIRE ARE NOT PERMITTED BEYOND THE CLUBHOUSE.

  At this, the dreadful interloper flinched and said, ‘Oh. Oh, dear… I… but I’m… well, I thought that as I was… I’m a resident… guest… that is… oh, dear… I am very…’ He fumbled at the bag’s shoulder strap, which had come adrift, and stood up rapidly in a way that produced a shower of tees, grass tufts and dried mud. Then he reached into his bag and pulled out – Agnew couldn’t begin to guess why – its last remaining club, a battered putter, and waved it around as if he was conducting some type of interior orchestra.

  ‘Careful! You nearly had my head off with that. What’s wrong with you?’

  The putter crashed down across Agnew’s table while the ghastly little man mumbled, ‘Wrong…? No, it’s just me… me, you see… people always seem to find that me being me is wrong… I don’t mean it to be…’

  Agnew bellowed, ‘Sit down!’

  At this, the stranger squeaked, ‘OK.’

  Agnew announced, ‘I have a headache and would like to finish my lunch in peace.’ Which was a confusing thing to say as his lunch hadn’t arrived yet, but he was too annoyed to make sense. Agnew frowned while the man peered at him.

  ‘Well, I… Sorry for speaking… but I won’t interrupt. That is… I’m Mr Ian Patterson.’ The grubby man recited his name as if it was something he’d had to memorise recently. ‘And I… being here without golfing was… it would have seemed… but I don’t play golf… and…’ He shoved the fallen clubs back into his bag distractedly. ‘They loaned me these… things… and I already had the… the putter thingy…’ Then he started to thump at his clothing in a doomed effort to remove the layer of muddy dust under which he was now operating. This simply spread the dust further.

  ‘Mr Patterson!’

  ‘Ah!’ Patterson ducked warily for an instant and stopped thumping. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Why don’t I give you a golf lesson?’ Agnew smiled like a crocodile approaching a fat gnu he’d caught out paddling by itself. ‘Would you like that? Eighteen holes? Ideal, I’d say… I’m David Agnew. Allow me to be…’ He clearly found it difficult to say the next word. ‘… Helpful.’

  Before Patterson could even think about how unlikely this was, he found himself suddenly having his golf bag thrust into his confused arms and being propelled out of the bar while Agnew shouted to the barman, ‘No lunch for me. Busy. Cancel it all. Back in fifteen minutes.’

  This puzzled Patterson because even he knew fifteen minutes wouldn’t give them enough time for a full round of golf, not that Patterson wanted a full round or really anything more to do with golf. It seemed a ridiculous game and – oh, dear – he was being badgered along towards the front entrance and – oh, no – here was Bryony, lovely Bryony, talking to a bizarre-looking guest and apparently getting on extremely well with him – it was the curly hair, women loved curly hair – Patterson’s hair was as flat and lifeless as his hopes – and it was ginger – and…

  ‘Good afternoon, Mr Agnew.’ Bryony had lifted her head. Her extremely attractive head. And because of the whole attractiveness thing it was horribly impossible not to look at her, while she then said, ‘Good afternoon, Mr Patterson.’ And the whole looking at her thing meant that Patterson was completely, supernaturally, aware that she was looking at him in return. This caused a kind of searing pain to dart straight into his chest and then bang right out again through his back. It was such a real sensation that he worried about his jacket and whether it had been singed.

  ‘Oh, I’m… sorry… covered in mud… and grass… and… trying some, er, golf…’ And the last thing he saw of her as he was bundled down the steps and outside was a smile. It was a slightly confused, if not dismayed smile, but it had been for him.

  She’d smiled at him.

  That was wonderful.

  *

  As the golf-related chaos receded, the Doctor continued talking to Bryony while also thinking a great many things at once. He was aware that the ability to do this was an indication of genius. He was a genius, after all, and what kind of genius would he be if he didn’t know that?

  Currently, he was wondering why the TARDIS had deposited him here. Even at her most random, the TARDIS always worked within her own kind of personal logic, so his arrival must have some kind of reason behind it. Unless it didn’t. Why Arbroath now, as opposed to Chicago in a snowstorm several months ago when the Chicago Area Computer Hobbyists’ Exchange was going to develop its MODEM work and create an inadvertent danger to all life on Earth? Which he’d just have to deal with later. Or rather, earlier… As his friend Robert Louis Stevenson had often told him, there did usually need to be an extremely pressing reason for someone to be in Arbroath, so what was it? And simultaneously the Doctor was finding it odd and worth considering that ever since he’d materialised his mouth had tasted of Maillindian Fever Beans, when he hadn’t eaten any in years – dreadful things, just like chewing on old Earth pennies. That needed an explanation. Metallic taste, metallic taste… He searched his immense and extremely disorderly memory for dreadful, or marvellous, or significant e
vents which having a metallic taste in his mouth could indicate were on the way. The words Telepathic Clamp flittered past for his consideration and he dismissed them. No one on Earth would have such a thing for hundreds of years. And there were very few creatures who could generate anything like one – each of them so staggeringly horrible that they would be bound to have already caused the kind of chaos that leaves definite traces: arm-waving, screaming, running about, the telling of wild stories… And meanwhile he looked at Bryony Mailer and thought what a splendid girl she was, really promising for a human being, and wondered why that very untidy fellow who’d just left hadn’t mentioned being in love with her before he was pushed outside, because the chap clearly did adore her. The Doctor reflected, not for the first time, that it was a miracle human beings ever reproduced, given the way they seemed to make the whole process so difficult. When they weren’t running about being scared and trying to kill each other, they were being shy. It was ridiculous.

  At which point, what the Doctor could only understand as the most massive THOUGHT he had ever encountered battered into his consciousness and overloaded every one of his remarkably agile and adaptable neurons.

  As he fell over, his mind had just enough room to reach out for the single word fascinating before everything went blank.

  *

  Moments after the Doctor fell, Julia Fetch pottered across her cottage kitchen and set out a stack of doilies and side plates on the table, just in case they might be needed to slip under cakes later at tea. You never knew when people might drop round. Then she wondered if she actually had any cakes…

  Meanwhile – and much more helpfully – Bryony Mailer rushed round from behind the reception desk just in time to not catch the Doctor as he crumpled up into a multicoloured heap on the foyer floor. ‘Oh goodness. Doctor? Doctor?’ He looked quite serene, but was completely unconscious. ‘Doctor whoever you are?’ When she took his pulse it seemed very strong, which was good. It also had a kind of built-in echo which surely was much less good.