Pack Animals (14 page)

Toshiko decided that it was time to get the Visualiser from the Vaults.

FOURTEEN

The front wheels of the chair jarred against the ambulance door for the third time, and Jack gasped in pain. ‘Sorry,’ said Owen, who was steering. ‘I’d usually ask a porter to do this.’

‘I’m honoured,’ winced Jack, who had insisted on getting into the wheelchair in the first place. He wanted to escape the ambulance before it left the zoo.

Owen warned him that the foot was ‘hanging by a thread’. Except that he used medical terms that sounded like tendons or subcutaneous exposure or something. Didn’t matter, thought Jack. Whatever it was called officially, it hurt like hell. And yet he had literally hopped into the seat of the chair, and urged them both out of the ambulance and onto the tarmac of the zoo’s main thoroughfare, in the face of Owen’s objections.

The paramedics protested, too. The dumpy one, Brenda, had waved her credentials at Owen. Barry, the quietly spoken guy with the face like a disappointed horse, hovered morosely in the background, clearly reluctant to intervene beyond a token objection. Owen mentioned the word ‘Torchwood’, but Jack thought it was probably the sight of his holstered SIG P228 semi-automatic that persuaded them to stop hassling him. Owen casually exploited their discomfort by commandeering their ambulance. He strongly implied that the dead body constituted a biohazard, but that he and Jack were at liberty to leave – Jack lost track of the clinical jargon that Owen tossed at the cowed paramedics. As a triumphant conclusion, he told them to confirm it with Control back at Cardiff General.

Bumptious Brenda and by-the-book Barry seized on this like drowning swimmers grasping a lifebelt. Which in turn gave Owen the opportunity to reroute their radio call to the Hub. Toshiko swiftly substantiated everything that Owen had said. Verbatim, in fact, because he stood behind them and fed it directly to her from his PDA.

‘What are we gonna do about getting back to the General?’ Brenda bleated at Owen, once her call had finished.

Owen waved airily, a gesture that encompassed not only the other injured zoo visitors being treated at the scene, but also a couple of other ambulances that had parked nearby. ‘Plenty of other people to assess here. After that, get a lift from another crew.’

Barry shrugged. Brenda was opening her mouth for a fresh remonstration when a shout from a paramedic took her over to another victim. There were two stretchers. On one, a grey-faced, white-haired woman was receiving oxygen. The second stretcher’s occupant was overlaid with a stitched red blanket, but the corpse’s arm had slipped from beneath it. The arm dangled free for a moment, uncovered. From the gnarled finger joints, Jack could see that Walter and his wife had finally been parted.

Owen got the collapsible chair down from the rear of the ambulance, and wheeled Jack away from prying eyes. They ended up in a secluded area to the side of the reptile house, far from the milling crowd of rubberneckers and emergency staff, and Jack was able to call back to the Hub.

‘Tosh, what have we got on Achenbrite? If you can hack into the zoo’s CCTV, you might get some visuals on them.’

‘On the whole, I’d rather not,’ said Toshiko’s voice in his ear. ‘And you know that “CC” means “closed circuit”. They’re not on an accessible network. You might as well ask me to hack the contents of one of their filing cabinets.’

Jack pondered this. ‘Those Achenbrite guys had a logo on their overalls. Crossed keys. Like the Papacy, but without the crown.’

‘I’ve set off a search now.’

Jack grinned. ‘Brilliant, as always. And Tosh – great job convincing the ambulance crew on that call they made.’

He could hear in her voice that she was smiling too. ‘Think of me as the fourth emergency service.’

‘I rely on you in a crisis, you know that.’ Jack could hear something else in her voice too. ‘Are you OK? Sounds like you’re gasping for breath.’

‘It’s been a busy morning for me.’

‘Unless,’ Jack suggested, ‘this is one of those dirty phone calls?’

‘That’s not the kind of emergency service I had in mind,’ tutted Toshiko, and Jack could picture her disapproving frown. ‘I thought I’d move some of the furniture around. You won’t recognise the place… Here you go.’

There was a computer bleep as her search results arrived. Jack shaded the display monitor on his wrist monitor with a cupped hand, and squinted at the miniature image.

In comparison with their surroundings, even on this reduced scale, the familiar grey-suited figures were brutally large. The video surveillance images showed that they were corralling a barking pack of dogs around a block of low, flat buildings. ‘You’re showing me a rerun of
Animal Rescue
?’ Jack said.

‘Seemed like nothing important at the time. They recaptured nearly a hundred animals after a mass breakout from a breeding kennels in Lisvane. The Torchwood systems flagged it as insignificant because it was just domestic animals, not aliens.’ Toshiko caught her breath again. ‘We only tagged it at all because there was contemporaneous Rift activity.’

‘Probably the alien tech they used. But no signs of them capturing extraterrestrials?’

‘Not unless they were disguised as border collies.’

‘You’d be surprised. All right. Thanks, Tosh. And don’t put your back out.’

There was the briefest of pauses before Toshiko said, ‘Pardon?’

‘Moving furniture,’ Jack explained as he signed off. ‘Leave the heavy lifting to Ianto. He’s a bit of an expert.’ He looked around, levering himself up a little on the arms of the wheelchair. ‘Owen, where
is
Ianto?’

‘Dunno, mate,’ Owen said, and holstered his weapon. No point in drawing unnecessary attention. ‘I thought you were in a rush to get out of that ambulance ’cause you knew where Ianto was. I told you, I just followed the blues and twos.’ Here he indicated a couple of police officers who were directing members of the public to leave the zoo and discouraging stragglers who had not yet evacuated.

Owen was saying something else, but Jack didn’t hear it properly. He was distracted by the sight of someone else. ‘Gimme a break,’ he muttered, and shrank into the wheelchair.

David Brigstocke was picking his way across the grass verge towards them. He showed his Press pass to one of the police officers. The PC was more occupied with a weeping woman, and nodded Brigstocke on. The journalist had one hand in the pocket of his cheap check jacket. No doubt clicking on his digital recorder as he prepared to accost Jack once more.

‘Who’s your friend?’ Owen asked Jack.

‘David Brigstocke, BBC Radio Wales.’ The journalist offered a handshake that Owen did not accept. ‘And yet, I know
you
, Dr Harper. Born fourteenth of February 1980. Recruited into Torchwood in—’

‘Yeah yeah,’ interrupted Owen. ‘Tell me something I don’t know.’ He grabbed the handles of the wheelchair, but was unable to manoeuvre Jack away because the newcomer had placed his feet directly by the front wheels.

‘All right.’ The journalist spoke directly over Jack’s head, staring intently at Owen. ‘I know you were involved in that fatal shooting at the Ostelow Academy last February. On your birthday, too – don’t you get any time off? The “Valentine’s Day Massacre”, that’s what the
Western Mail
called it. Only they didn’t have any pictures of the fish-headed alien that started the brawl. Torchwood did a pretty thorough cover-up.’

‘You’re the one who’s fishing,’ Owen replied calmly.

‘No casualties, either. All tidied up by your colleague, Mr Jones, no doubt.’ Brigstocke flicked a glance down at Jack. ‘Nice to see him earlier today. Is he around?’

Jack kept his face neutral.

‘Or perhaps,’ continued Brigstocke casually, ‘you got your mates in Achenbrite to handle that? I saw them here earlier.’

Jack stiffened at the name. He groaned inwardly as soon as he saw that Brigstocke had registered his involuntary reaction.

‘You gonna get out of our way?’ Owen asked in a dangerous tone. ‘You could be a casualty, Mr Brigstocke. Hit and run by a wheelchair.’

Brigstocke stood his ground, still smiling. ‘That wouldn’t be a threat, would it, Dr Harper?’

Jack gestured to Owen not to respond. ‘It’s OK, Owen. I can handle this.’

The journalist snorted. ‘Handle me, you mean?’

Beneath the ambulance blanket, Jack’s foot throbbed and he wanted to shout at the pain. Instead, he gritted his teeth and tried to smile politely. ‘Now is not a good time, Mr Brigstocke.’

‘When would be a good time, Captain Harkness?’

‘Kinda busy right now. Dr Harper is taking care of me…’

Brigstocke offered another sarcastic handshake to Owen. ‘I should congratulate you, because you’ve worked miracles on this patient.’ His humour seemed to be dissipating, though. ‘I saw your injuries, Jack. All right, that head wound looked worse earlier than it does now. But they covered you over with the sheet, I saw that. They thought you were dead, and they’re supposed to be the experts. Paramedics don’t make mistakes like that.’ A harder, more insistent tone had entered his voice. ‘So, would it be fair to say that your deadly injury has healed? The whole world would marvel at that, wouldn’t they, Jack?’

Jack put his hands on the wheel rims of the chair to indicate that the conversation was over, and he was ready to leave. ‘Another time.’ He clamped his teeth together, and began to roll the chair across the tarmac walkway. Owen paced behind him, but Brigstocke scuttled alongside.

By the time he’d reached the police line, Jack had abandoned any hope of escape.

Brigstocke dropped to his haunches in front of the wheelchair. ‘Why won’t you give me the time to talk about Rhodri?’ He placed his hands on Jack’s knees like a supplicant. A jolt of fresh agony sparked through Jack’s limbs and he stifled a yell. ‘You can tell me what happened to him. Not for a news story, Jack. But for his family. For his friends.’ His voice caught in his throat. ‘Yes. And for me.’

‘Dunno what you mean.’

‘Don’t lie to me, Jack! I’ve seen what’s been going on here at the zoo today.’

‘Yeah. It’s a tiger escape. Nasty business. Panic. Lot of people got hurt.’

‘I followed you here, you idiot! From Holy Innocents. I
saw
that thing. That was no tiger. What else have you got concealed in this place – a flying unicorn maybe?’

Jack blew out a long sigh. ‘Sorry, David. I really can’t help you. And I think you kinda know that.’

Unexpectedly, Brigstocke yelped and jerked to his feet. He was holding his hand behind him for some reason, like he’d been kicked in the butt.

The policeman behind him staggered. His peaked cap dropped off, though he managed to catch it and replace it on his head. ‘Steady, sir,’ he said to Brigstocke, and resumed his calm conversation with the distressed woman.

No sooner had the cop turned away again than his legs buckled and he dropped to his knees. His cap flipped right up into the air, and then shot across the walkway as though thrown there. Jack heard a filthy insult uttered in Welsh and a slapping sound. The cop reacted by snapping his hand to his own face. When he turned round angrily to confront his assailant, he glared angrily at David Brigstocke. An angry red mark was already showing finger marks on the cop’s cheek and neck.

‘All right, sir, I think we’ve had enough.’

Two more police officers confronted the bewildered Brigstocke.

Jack felt the wheelchair start to move briskly along the tarmac path and away from the scene. He turned awkwardly to ask Owen to take it easy. Owen was several metres away and watching the wheelchair propel itself away from him and up the gradient of the walkway.

The chair stopped, turned slightly, and applied its own brakes.

Jack sensed the gentle touch of a warm hand stroking his neck tenderly. Hot breath against his face. The soft caress of lips, the insistent pressure of an exploratory tongue parting his lips and flicking over his teeth. He’d know that kiss anywhere. He closed his eyes and surrendered to it. After a moment, he was finally able to gasp: ‘Ianto!’

He grinned at Owen as he jogged up the path. ‘You all right, Jack? It looked like you were having a fit. Ouch!’

‘Careful,’ Ianto’s voice said from somewhere nearby.

Owen gaped at nothing. ‘Oh, you are bloody kidding me!’

Jack’s bellowed a huge laugh. ‘The invisible man. I wish I could say I was glad to see you, Ianto. What happened?’

He heard Ianto give an exasperated sigh. ‘I dunno. And unlike you, I can’t tell how badly injured I might be. I think we should get back to the Hub. Get away from that journalist over there while he’s occupied with the policeman that I clobbered.’ Jack heard Ianto chuckle. ‘Why I am pointing? You can’t see me.’

Jack’s wheelchair sprang forward again as its invisible driver steered it towards the zoo exit.

FIFTEEN

The Vectra took another corner too fast, and Rhys bounced off the side window again. He hated being a passenger; he always wanted to drive himself. He threw a wild look over at Gwen, but she’d given up apologising after the first three sharp turns had jounced him against his seatbelt.

She was engrossed in her driving. He could tell from the fierce concentration in her eyes. It was a steely focus that he recognised from home, the signal that she wasn’t going to be distracted or dissuaded. She was in her ‘all or nothing’ mode. Either they would catch up with Gareth in his Mondeo, or Rhys was going to wake up in the remains of his own company car, enveloped by the air bag and ready to admire the efficiency of the Vectra’s crumple zones.

When Gwen accelerated sharply between two badly parked white vans in a side street, Rhys couldn’t help but wonder whether the object of their pursuit cared quite so much about passers-by and property. That grotty red Mondeo shouldn’t be able to outrun this brand-new Vectra, except that its driver didn’t hesitate about hitting other vehicles or, on one occasion, a pedestrian. Gareth shot down a residential street and dinged every parked car along its length. Wing mirrors littered the narrow carriageway, and an outraged chorus of car alarms brought even more outraged owners out to survey the damage.