Risk Assessment (19 page)

‘Would you like me to issue you with a periodical? I have a Christmas issue of
The Strand
that I believe you haven’t yet perused. It contains a highly amusing acrostic.’

‘No, thank you,’ said Gwen, getting out of the leather chair and crossing over to the porthole. ‘I’m quite happy looking at the view for the moment. My husband will be round in a few minutes.’

Gwen tried ringing again. Still nothing, no signal.

‘May I remind you, ma’am, that we are travelling too fast for your telephone to establish a stable transponder signal.’

‘Yeah yeah yeah,’ snapped Gwen. ‘Can’t we slow down?’

‘Negative, ma’am.’ The voice was unflappable. ‘I regret that our orbit is several thousand miles an hour too fast. Even then, there are issues of distance above the mast and of connecting with your registered telephony provider.’

‘I’m not going to stop trying,’ vowed Gwen.

‘I realise that, ma’am,’ the voice continued smoothly, ‘and I applaud your determination. I only regret that I am forbidden from assisting.’

‘Great,’ sighed Gwen. ‘My husband is going to be worried frantic.’

‘Indeed. I’ve taken the liberty of putting the kettle on. Another pot of tea will relax you and promote a tranquil nature.’

‘Bloody marvellous,’ said Gwen. ‘Thanks to you, I’m spending most of my time in space on the loo.’

The voice was silent.

Agnes stood on the quiet shore. The sea washed up and down as the crew dragged and stacked the coffins into neat rows. The beach stank of diesel and saltwater, and the mists rolled across the coffins like a graveyard scene. Jack stood next to her, watching as Ianto ticked off coffins against a list on one of his many clipboards.

‘Hard work is taking our minds off things, isn’t it?’ said Agnes.

She marched towards the first row of coffins, running a hand slowly across it. ‘Your long journey is ended, noble soldier,’ she said softly. ‘Welcome to your final resting place.’

Jack stood by her. ‘I’ve seen enough of this kind of thing,’ he said. ‘El Alamein, Ypres, Kandahar. . .’

‘It’s not a competition,’ said Agnes, gently.

‘Who were they?’ Jack mused.

‘We may never know,’ said Ianto. ‘I suppose the least we can do is honour them.’

‘Yes, Mr Jones,’ said Agnes. ‘Is this the last of them?’

‘Nearly,’ said Ianto. ‘There’s another boatload, and then that’s it. All of them ashore. And no sign of any more coming through.’

‘Good,’ sighed Agnes. ‘Then perhaps their dreadful conflict is at an end. Maybe they won. I hope so.’

‘Do you think they were fighting against that creature?’ asked Ianto.

Jack shook his head. ‘That thing didn’t leave bodies. There wouldn’t be anything to bury. These are the victims of a completely different atrocity.’

‘Well,’ said Agnes, ‘let’s honour them.’

The boat headed out to fetch the last of the coffins, the mist rolling over it.

Rhys got home. He stripped off his oil-covered uniform, dropping it into a thick black sack with a Torchwood logo on it, then turned the shower on. These days there was always enough hot water. He looked around the flat, picking up a couple of cereal-encrusted bowls and carrying them sadly to the sink. He opened the fridge and grabbed at a beer and wandered back to the bathroom. Banana Boat said they’d be having drinks at Buffalo, but he didn’t fancy it. He couldn’t quite face lying about where Gwen was. He couldn’t quite face that she might not come back.

So he stood, watching the water run, sipping his beer.

His phone chirruped briefly, but he ignored it. He’d get a new one at the weekend. Something to do.

Gwen swung open the door of her room. She hadn’t quite called it a cell, but that was what it was. On the other side of the door was the centre of the ship, a long metal tube of riveted bronze sheets. She pulled herself uncertainly along the walkway that was neither up nor along, feeling convinced that every echoing footstep was the sound of her foot hitting space. She craned her neck to look out at the portholes and tried to work out how big the ship was. Not too big, she thought, feeling a bit dismissive. First spaceship, so best not to be snippy. But it didn’t feel like a ship for hundreds, or even ten. If anything, it felt a bit like a space caravan, which was a whole notion she was convinced her mum would approve of. She hauled her way to a bulkhead, which looked like the most solid door she’d ever seen. For the last two days the door had remained shut. It had a solid wheel that refused to turn.

‘I am sorry, ma’am, but this door remains sealed to you,’ came the electronic voice.

Gwen sighed, trying to twist the wheel. ‘I don’t care,’ she said.

‘I appreciate that, ma’am. I regret I am unable to assist you.’

‘What about the owner?’ she said. ‘Will I see them?’

‘I am afraid the owner is not at home and cannot see you.’

‘So they’re off the ship?’

‘Ah, no, ma’am.’ A tiny, embarrassed pause. ‘The owner of the ship is not at home
to
you
at this present time. If you would like, I could pass on a message for you.’

‘Really?’ sighed Gwen. ‘Well, it’s the same as last time. I would like, very much like, to go back to Earth. I would like to speak to Captain Jack Harkness and my husband. And I would like to know why I am here. And. . . how long you plan on keeping me here? I don’t know if this means anything to you, but I work for Torchwood.’

There was a pause, and a genteel click. ‘Ah, yes, ma’am. We are aware of the Torchwood Institute.’

‘Oh,’ said Gwen. And thought about it.

‘Oh,’ she said again.

The beach was eerie by tungsten torchlight. Jack and Ianto stood on the edge of the cliff, watching the men carry the last of the coffins ashore.

‘I’ll say one thing about your Miss Havisham,’ said Ianto. ‘She arranges a mean funeral.’

‘That she does,’ said Jack. His tone was grim.

They picked their way down the path as the boat roared off into the night. All that remained were the coffins and Agnes.

‘Captain Harkness, Mr Jones, good evening,’ said Agnes, striding across the beach. ‘I am pleased that you are here to help the fallen find peace.’

Jack nodded. Ianto could tell Jack was remembering something.

After a moment’s pause, Agnes ventured, ‘And I do confidently hope that we shall not have to prepare similar ceremonies for Mrs Cooper. Rest assured of that.’

Jack looked at her sharply.

‘I’ve not really prepared a ceremony,’ said Agnes simply. ‘We know so little about them. I wouldn’t wish to insult them by consecrating them to a god they knew nothing of, or comfort them with a salvation alien to them. Instead, all I can offer them is the ground they lie on.’

She spread her hands.

Gwen sat in her room, worried by what it reminded her of. For one thing, it wasn’t really like a spaceship. Or at least, not in the ‘Houston, we have lift-off’, tinfoil and goldfish-bowl sense. No spaceship she’d ever heard of had a wooden bookcase crammed full of leather volumes with a padded leather chair in front of a working gas fire. The only incongruity was the camp bed she slept in.

‘Computer,’ she asked. ‘What is this room?’

‘Your bedroom and parlour, ma’am. Is there anything you require?’

‘No, thank you. I meant, what is this room normally?’

‘Ah, it is more usually the study. I am afraid the guest quarters aboard this rocket are sadly limited and it was decided, after some small consideration, that you would find this more comfortable than one of the storage areas.’

‘Oh, there are storage areas, are there?’

‘Indeed, ma’am. Handsomely provisioned for our flight.’

‘Can I see them?’

‘I am afraid not. They are, regrettably, in the area of the rocket that I am currently unable to conduct you around.’

‘Very good,’ said Gwen, thinking,
I am beginning to sound like bloody Jeeves.

Presently, the computer served her afternoon tea. It arrived through a dumb waiter – a Wedgwood pot with matching cup and saucer and a plate full of buttered scones.

Gwen ate, thinking. Then she got up, crossed to the library and selected a volume at random. In truth, she’d found the selection a little dull. The books were very heavy, curiously cumbersome, and the print quite intensely small. They’d obviously been much read, and ranged from impenetrable works of science, pompous history (mostly about the Romans), a couple of slim volumes of Greek, far too much poetry (Robert bloody Browning), and a few works of fiction. About the only one of which she’d heard was
Jane Eyre
. She was steadily persevering with it, but her mind really wasn’t on it.

She found herself in a curious state. On the one hand, she was locked up, had no one to talk to, couldn’t chat to Rhys, and had only a set of Improving Works to read. On the other hand, she was in space. She couldn’t get over how beautiful the Earth looked from this vantage point. It had all the magic of being in a plane above the clouds, only a lot more so. Sunrise looked amazing and sunset oddly heartbreaking. She spent hours just staring out of the window in a daydream.

By craning her head, she could make out some of the shape of the ship she was in. Pleasingly, like Tintin’s rocket, it appeared to have fins and a tapering nose. It wasn’t red – the surface appeared to be a worn copper and bronze, beaten about like an antique kettle.

All in all, she wasn’t bored.

She thumbed through the book again, and then flicked back to the name plate.
Ex Libris. . .
She struggled again to make out the handsome signature, with its dashing array of loops and curls. She was no handwriting expert, but it appeared to belong to someone jolly pleased with themselves. But fair’s fair, she thought. Rocket ship. That deserves a bit of smug.

She had a theory, all right, just no evidence to back it up.

It was Ianto who detected the energy signal. An alarm went off on his PDA, causing Agnes to shoot him an annoyed glance. The three of them were standing in front of the coffins. Jack was solemn, Agnes reverential, and Ianto was, truth be told, a tiny bit nonplussed. He’d been to enough funerals of people he loved that he didn’t quite see the point in standing around the last rites of some people he didn’t know.

Before the alarm went off, he did catch himself wondering exactly how Agnes was proposing to bury the coffins. There wasn’t much sign of a pit in evidence, and he didn’t relish having to dig one himself. He suspected the usual Torchwood solution of paperwork would be called upon and he’d find himself lumbered with the job of issuing docket numbers and placing all the coffins in storage. On reflection, probably much better. There was a new industrial estate in Barry he’d noticed, and, once they’d made absolutely sure the coffins posed no further threat, he’d probably rent a nice little warehouse and seal them up there.

It wouldn’t be the first time he’d done that. A land registry search for ‘I. Jones’ would have uncovered quite a complicated array of property in his name, ranging from a disused electronics warehouse in Newport and a Wool Museum in Cilau Aeron through to an old carpet factory in Gabalfa. There was even an abandoned manse in the Brecon Beacons, which had once, briefly, been occupied by a lesbian squatters collective, who’d ignored his letters begging them to move out for their own good. He’d not felt like visiting to find out what grisly fate had befallen them.

On the whole, though, Ianto Jones preferred hiding secrets in warehouses, in neat rows, with a disarmingly tedious phrase, such as ‘Geological Survey Implements’ or ‘International Gazetteer of Accountancy: Research Documents’. He was amusing himself by devising a suitable alias for the coffins when his PDA started to bleep.

He looked at it in embarrassed alarm, trying to work out what it was doing. At the same time, Jack’s wrist-strap computer chirruped like an underfed house cat.

They both looked at their respective screens and then at Agnes.

‘Agnes,’ said Jack, worried. ‘Something’s up.’

She didn’t bother to turn around, or to disguise the annoyance in her voice. ‘What kind of something, Captain Harkness?’

‘We’re getting an energy build-up.’

‘Indeed?’

‘From the coffins.’

Gwen, indecently full of seed cake, set out along the corridor again, hauling herself along by the guy ropes. The corridor was the only bit of the ship that reminded her of all that stuff about artificial gravity. Somehow (and she wasn’t quite sure how it worked without her brain giving notice) the door of her parlour became the floor of the corridor, allowing her to walk up the twenty metres or so to the hatchway. She couldn’t work out what was up or down, and even thinking about it made her dizzy.

As she neared the hatchway, the computer spoke. ‘I am afraid—’

‘Oh, shove it,’ she growled, and knocked heavily on the door.

‘— the master is unable to—’

‘Hello!’ she shouted.

‘— at this present—’

‘Hello!’

‘— and that, if you’d care to—’