Doctor Who: Rags (4 page)

‘You really are amazing Doctor. You’ve dined in all the most exotic restaurants in the universe, and here you are looking forward to sausage and eggs at a pub in the middle of nowhere.’

The Doctor returned her grin fondly, his white bouffant hair barely perturbed by the slipstream. He steered Bessie deftly round the tortuous bends, past tors that had lost some of their grim aspect in the sunshine, past sheep mulling blankly over the stretches of moorland.

‘The middle of nowhere is sometimes the most rewarding place to be, Jo,’ he said, in his familiar mock-patronising tone. ‘And sausage and eggs take some beating.’

As soon as they had reached the beginning of the moor Jo had 25

noticed that the Doctor’s eyes were continually straying towards the probe on the dashboard. They did so now, and she realised that despite his playful tone he was really rather worried about something. When she had inquired about the reason for this sudden trip to the extreme reaches of the Southwest, he had fobbed her off with some story about research. She had sensed that wasn’t true then, and she was certain of it now. But for once she wasn’t going to pry. If he wanted to keep things close to his chest he must have his reasons, and she wouldn’t irritate him by pressing for them. A first for her, she thought, and smiled to herself proudly. She really was growing up quickly with the Doctor for a companion. But then that was hardly surprising was it, considering some of the things she’d been through with him.

The Doctor saw her smiling and obviously thought his attempt at obfuscating the real issue with trivial nonsense was working because his grin widened. Pompous old devil, she thought affectionately, and gazed out across the bleak but beautiful moorland sweeping past them. Despite her concern, the fresh smell of the heath was invigorating and her spirits rose defiantly.

They were nearing the town now. Outlying cottages huddled behind stone walls for protection against the encroaching bleakness. Whitewashed walls and gardens bursting with spring flowers marked a determined effort to shrug off the all-pervading mood of the moor.

They passed the houses and turned a corner to find themselves in the high street. There was the pub, over to the left; there was the prison looming in the distance; and there was the band playing on the moor beyond the town.

‘Oh great, there’s a fair on!’ Jo chirped delightedly. The Doctor swung Bessie into the kerb beside the pub and sat for a moment with the engine running, staring in the direction Jo was pointing.

‘That’s no spring fair,’ he said gravely. The tone of his voice made Jo turn. He looked suddenly very old. When the device on the dashboard began to glow, ever so slightly, the lines on his 26

face deepened with his frown.

Jo forgot about her hard-won maturity. ‘What is that thing for, Doctor?’

‘It’s a tracking sensor, Jo. And it means we’ve come to the right place.’ He was dropping his avuncular attempts at protecting her from the truth and, rather than making her afraid, this only made her feel relieved. She wasn’t easily fooled, despite her innocent, goofy, surface act, and maybe he was beginning to realise that.

The Doctor transferred his gaze from the fluttering glow within the translucent sensor column to the band. He switched the engine off, and they could hear the music.

The music rose into the spring air with a lazy gusto that belied its vehemence. A breezy but sinister crunch of guitar, bass and drums married to the uncompromising growls of the singer. The four musicians looked like fancy-dress trolls gatecrashing an Old England fête.

‘Scum,’ belched the singer. ‘The scum of the earth.Scum, scum, scum of the earth.’

Nick gaped. Sin stared. Rod and Jimmy began to feel like smiling, but couldn’t quite do it. There was something too unwholesome about the lurching stride of the anti-tunes, the latent viciousness of the musicians. This band dealt out attitude like an axe in the face. And yet, somehow, it felt right. Rod and Jimmy started to let themselves go, release tensions and resentments that had been folded away inside. Let go.

Nick felt the same liberation blast through him. It was simultaneously breathtaking and terrifying. The lyrics spoke to him, the music spoke to him, in a cacophony that spat on melody while also courting it; a murder of song that paradoxically threw out hooks of harmony at once irresistible and repulsive.

And the band played on.

The Doctor was watching the musicians play. He and Jo stood on the fringe of the crowd, beside the wall. Jo was staring, and she 27

was sweating. Something yawned in her, a gulf opening wide. She didn’t feel the Doctor’s hand as he touched her arm. She had forgotten he existed.

The Doctor withdrew his hand. Jo was trembling, and even though she was dressed as usual in a skimpy miniskirt and impractical trendy top, he knew it was nothing to do with the cold. He glanced round at the rest of the crowd. Tension, fear and excitement were jolting through them like electricity. He could taste the unease like bitter wine.

The band finished a song. A death rattle of evil guitar vibes, then silence. The green-haired singer sent a missile of phlegm into the crowd. Nobody offered a protest.

‘It’s time.’ the singer rasped, ‘for the scum... to inherit... ‘

The band blasted into another number.

Prison Officer Evans seized hold of Eddie Price’s shoulder. ‘Did you hear what I said? Move it!’

Eddie didn’t blink an eyelid. Pemo Grimes was rigid beside him.

The ten cons were watching the band: the music carried easily across the moor, a tremble of subversion in the sunshine.

Officer Evans had reached the limit of his patience. He whipped out his stick and brandished it before Eddie’s eyes. ‘You got a choice, Price. You move, or you do a month in the hole.’

‘Join the Unwashed,’ the singer called to them. ‘Join the Unforgiving Join the Ragged, for we are the way’

Price chose to move.

He stooped to pull something from the wheelbarrow in front of him, swung it upwards glinting in the sunlight, slammed one end of the pickaxe blade through Officer Evans’ chin. The PO went down squawking, dragging the implement with him.

The two remaining POs watched the bloody event with a surreal lack of understanding.

Pemo Grimes moved next. He threw one thick arm around PO

Jellard’s throat and held him fast, choking him. PO Samuels tried 28

to bolt for it. Three cons grabbed him, and hauled his arms behind his back.

‘Join us,’ the band called. Join the Unwashed, and the Unforgiving.’

The riot hit the prison at forty-three minutes after two in the Met-noon. All morning everything had been quiet within the complex.

Then...Bedlam.

Cons smashed everything they could get their hands on: chairs, crockery, windows, screws. The officers retreated before the onslaught, locking the doors to the main containment halls of the wings, effectively sealing off the cons’ exit from the blocks but leaving them in control of large sections of the complex. The governor called an emergency meeting in his office after alerting police task-forces from Exeter and Plymouth. He listened to the bloodthirsty chanting coming from the blocks, and seriously wished he had chosen to be a baker, like his old dad.

The two guards were dragged across the moor towards the band.

They tried to argue, to reason with their captors, but the cons remained eerily silent as they tramped over the heather.

The band continued to play as the prisoners approached, welcoming their new audience. Constable Jervis saw them too, as he pushed his way through the crowd, and all thoughts of simply pulling the plug on the raucous band left him immediately. He hurriedly turned back towards his car to radio for help. The crowd held him firm in their embrace. The music, the ferocious music, pummelled at his brain.

Pemo Grimes pushed Officer Jellard before him as he moved to stand between the band and the stone wall. Tom Ellis and Sparky Peters clung on to Officer Samuels, who was still attempting to appeal to their common sense, his pleas lost under the music.

Eddie Price lowered his wheelbarrow.

The band finished another song. Silence. The crowd shifted 29

uneasily. A few uncertain cries went up. Some people began to break away. Most simply froze, waiting.

They didn’t have to wait long. Constable Jervis had nearly made it out of the crowd when the band began their final number.

Something made him twist his head to stare backwards. He saw the cons force the two screws down on their knees in the grass.

He saw the singer chuckle lewdly into the mike. The guitarist slammed chords like pike thrusts through the audience. The bass player let loose low notes kicked out of hell. The drums exploded into a crescendo.

‘We... will never... forgive.’ The singer chanted the words, shaking his head slowly, grinning.

Pemo Grimes pushed Officer Jenard face down in the grass and took a shovel from Eddie’s wheelbarrow. He turned the blade on its side and swung it down brutally. Once.

‘We...’

Twice.

‘Will never...’

Three times.

‘Forgive.’

Officer Jellard’s head leaked blood into the grass. Officer Samuels stopped his pleading. He gaped up into the faces of the cons, into the faces of the band.

‘We will NEVER forgive.’

A pair of garden shears opened. Closed.More blood.

The four musicians killed their music and flung their instruments into the grass beside the two corpses. They turned as one and strolled slowly towards the back of the cattle truck.

The cons watched them go; the roadies began to gather up the gear. The crowd began to scream.

The prison riot stopped as abruptly as it started. The cons returned to their cells like sheep, vacant and subdued, and waited for the screws.

Constable Jervis had not made it to his car. He lay three yards from it, his helmet smashed, his head smashed. Nick had seen him

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go under as the crowd began to panic, and now he dragged Sin away from the stampede, pulled her towards the haven of the Devil’s Elbow.

The pub was deserted. Even the Beast had gone. Nick and Sin stood inside the doorway and watched the turmoil on the streets of Princetown.

After a while the Beast turned up, looking guilty and confused.

Nick ordered two pints, the coins shaking in his hand, and waited tor Rod and Jimmy.

And after a while, they came.

31

Jo watched the police take the cons away. The prisoners looked dazed and confused, like they’d just woken up from the wildest party of their lives and knew they’d done something bad, but couldn’t remember quite what it was. Jo was shaking. Their bewilderment scared her almost as much as their former violence.

The Doctor watched them too, his eyes narrowed. Jo saw him glance at the cattle truck still waiting beside the wall. The roadies were sitting in the dark cab, smoking. The police had questioned them briefly, perfunctorily - or so it seemed to Jo. They hadn’t even gone to the back of the truck to speak to the musicians.

And what were the musicians doing in the back of the truck anyway? Why didn’t THEY sit in the cab?

The thought was gone almost as soon as it entered Jo’s head.

She frowned, but couldn’t remember what she had been thinking about. The police were going; the cons were back in safe hands.

The crowd was dissipating. Most of the townsfolk were silent, stunned, returning to their homes as though they too weren’t sure about what had just happened. Jo could hear the jukebox playing in the Devil’s Elbow. ‘Black Sabbath’. It was filling up quite nicely in there, she thought, and the idea of a drink was suddenly very appealing. She shook herself slightly. She was acting like nothing had happened. Was she shocked too? Just like everyone else around her? Everyone except...

She hadn’t said a word to the Doctor since the murders. She looked at him now, and he was still watching the truck. He turned to her suddenly, as if she’d spoken.

Are you all right, Jo?’ He put a hand on her arm.

‘I’d like a drink.’ It came out abruptly, making her sound like a spoilt child.

‘Of course. Go on inside, I’ll join you shortly.’

‘Why, what are you going to do?’

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He was ushering her towards the pub, deliberately not answering her question. ‘Be careful who you mix with,’ he said.

‘There are some decidedly odd people about!’

She was about to walk away, then stopped. She felt drugged.

The whole situation was surreal. The Doctor hadn’t mentioned the murders either. She could see the barman serving drinks through the open pub door, business as usual. Had the whole world tipped upside down? Had she slipped a sanity gear?

‘Doctor, those prison officers - they’ve just been murdered.

Horribly. And no one really seems to have noticed!’