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Epub ISBN: 9781409071839

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Published in 2009 by BBC Books, an imprint of Ebury Publishing

A Random House Group company

© James Goss, 2009

James Goss has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988

Torchwood is a BBC Wales production for BBC One

Executive Producers: Russell T Davies and Julie Gardner

Original series created by Russell T Davies and broadcast on BBC Television ‘Torchwood’ and the Torchwood logo are trademarks of the British Broadcasting Corporation and are used under licence

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner

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ISBN 978 1 846 07783 8

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Commissioning Editor: Albert DePetrillo

Series Editor: Steve Tribe

Production Controller: Phil Spencer

Cover design by Lee Binding @ Tea Lady © BBC 2009

Typeset in Albertina and Century Gothic

Printed and bound in Germany by GGP Media GmbH

Recent titles in the
Torchwood
series from BBC Books:

With apologies to Little Dorrit

Acknowledgements

Miss Havisham respectfully presents her compliments to Mr Davies, Mr Tribe and Mr Russell, while gratefully acknowledging the assistance of Miss Raynor, Miss Seaborne, Mr Lidster and Mr Binding.

She also tenders her sincerest gratitude to Mr Minchin for the loan of the speedboat.

TORCHWOOD RISKASSESSMENTJames GossBOOKS

I

THE EVENING

OF A LONG DAY

In which the events of last night are recounted, the seventh seal is broken, and our heroes encounter something quite remarkable

Jack, Gwen and Ianto stood in the Torchwood Hub, looking at the coffin. All around them, the vast space clicked and groaned as the storm raged outside. It had been a long night.

Jack reached out to touch the coffin, then drew back his hand and shook his head grimly. ‘This is bad,’ he said. ‘Very, very bad.’

At that point, alarms went off. Red lights pulsed angrily, sirens whooped, and deep within Torchwood chimed the striking of a very old bell.

‘But not that bad!’ Jack protested, reacting in terror. ‘No! No! No! No!’

It’s a pity no one could remember who’d owned the buildings before they had been an air force base. But they had gone valiantly through two world wars, survived a few grim decades as a private airstrip, and finally they had become an industrial estate. But they had always contained a large amount of storage, which had long ago been unhappily converted into the Swindon Self-U-Store.

People kept a lot of things there – from furniture they’d never need through to books they’d never read. Old carpets came and went. Exercise bikes piled up like abandoned dreams. But, through all that time, no one had ever opened the door of Storage Unit Seven. Well, there’d never been a need.

And now, with the distant striking of an ancient alarm bell, the door opened with a gentle creak, and a figure stepped out into the harshly lit corridor. It was the figure of an immaculately dressed Victorian lady – properly attired from her well-polished boots through to her neatly tied hat. She looked around herself with grim approval and, hoisting her skirts up as far as decorum would allow, made her way gingerly along the dank corridor towards an area labelled
Reception
.

At the desk, nodding with late-night fatigue, a fat man in an orange fleece slept through a news channel. For a moment, the woman paused, watching the screen with a mixture of fascination and disapproval. And then she tapped the man smartly on the shoulder. Startled, he woke up, blinking, and looked at her.

‘Good morning,’ she said, crisply. ‘I would like to know two things, if you please.’

He rubbed at his eyes and struggled to focus on her. ‘Where’ve you come from?’ he demanded. ‘It’s 3 a.m.!’

‘I know that,’ she said, smiling politely. ‘But I would very much like to know the year.’

Without thinking, he told her it was 2009. She nodded with mild interest and tilted her head to one side.

‘And might I trouble you for a copy of Bradshaw’s railway timetable?’ She started to look mildly bored.

He got as far as opening a drawer before realising that they didn’t own such a thing as a railway timetable.

‘It’s of little consequence,’ she sighed. ‘There’s unlikely to be a service until dawn. No matter. Thank heavens I have my
Little Dorrit
.’ And then she expertly knocked him unconscious and strode out of the Self-U-Store and towards the railway station.

An hour later, she guiltily crept back in and stole his wallet.

It had all been a bit of an anticlimax, really, thought Gwen as she coasted over the last speed bump on the way to work. After the horror of the last few days, the alarms last night had seemed like some absurd warning of doom. She’d been expecting explosions, fireworks or the imminent launch of
Thunderbird Two
. But, after less than a minute, they had just stopped, the bells ringing out like a missed call.

Jack, hands clamped round his head, had straightened up sheepishly and realised Gwen and Ianto were staring at him.

‘What,’ Gwen asked, more sharply than she meant, ‘was that?’

Jack laughed nervously. Which wasn’t like him at all. ‘Oh . . .’ He windmilled his arms around. ‘False alarm. Hey, it was nothing.’ He looked as casual as a politician caught in Jeremy Paxman’s headlights.

Ianto clearly wasn’t convinced either. ‘I take it that was some kind of warning system?’

‘You think?’ Gwen was oddly charmed by this.

Ianto nodded. ‘But what’s it for, Jack?’

Jack jammed his hands in his pockets and, for an instant, looked as though he was about to start whistling. ‘Ummm. An obsolete failsafe. That’s all. Redundant. Yeah. Defunct. Out of date. Past its sell-by date. We’ll unhook it tomorrow. Hock it on eBay.’

He realised his friends were staring at him. Decidedly unconvinced. He looked down at his boots.

‘Look,’ he mumbled – actually mumbled – ‘It’s not like we need some flashy system to tell us we’re in trouble. We know that. But we’re handling it. And the bells and whistles – it’s all extra stress we don’t need.’ He shrugged, and tried out a low-voltage Harkness grin. ‘Don’t worry – it’s as outdated as Nana Mouskouri. If there was any danger, I’d let you know. Now – both of you – go home. Ianto – don’t tidy up. Just leave it. Gwen – see that man of yours, find out if he’s grown a beard. And get some rest. See you back here in the morning.’

He smiled. And the smile stuck like a greasy egg in an old frying pan.

Well, it was the next day now, and the world still hadn’t ended. It was raining heavily, one of those grey Cardiff days when the sun’s elsewhere. Gwen parked the car and stumped down into work, feeling the wind bite into her. She glanced nervously out to sea. She knew what was out there, and she knew how dangerous it was.

Rhys had sensed her mood and kept well back that morning. He’d been artificially bright, making tea and quiet conversation like they’d had an enormous row. She’d reached across and hugged him before she left for work. His face fell.

‘Gwen,’ he’d said. ‘You look so sad.’

And she’d nearly cried. ‘I know.’

She had to give him credit for being the sensitive husband while also guilt-tripping her into the middle of next week.

‘You won’t tell me what it’s about, will you?’ he’d said, eyes flicking away.

‘No. No, I won’t,’ she’d replied. ‘I’m too scared.’

She grabbed something hot and bacony from one of the shops in the Bay, smothering the white bread in ketchup. A little bit of cheap heaven on a wet morning in Cardiff. On an impulse, she nipped back into the shop and got two more bacon rolls. A little treat for the boys. The last few days had been so grim.

And with that, she walked into Torchwood.

Of course, had Gwen been looking in the other direction, she’d have seen something quite remarkable striding past Tesco. But no, she missed it completely.

With less than a quarter of an hour to go until something quite remarkable happened, the Hub looked as ordinary as a vast underground base could. A bit cold, a nip of damp in the air like a stately home, lights twinkling from workstations. Ianto was pottering around, making noise and coffee. Jack was prowling in his office. In the corner, Gwen could see the coffin. Jack had covered it with a big old velvet drape. It looked like Dracula’s tomb. Not helping, she thought.