|
'How few? Several hundred?' Peri scoffed.
The Doctor frowned at her. 'Ha! Several hundred! No! Only thirty-seven. Not bad for this old thing,' he added, patting the console. The shutters on the scanner screen opened with a low hum.
'Oh great!' said the American, 'A slum! A dirty old slum! I might as well go and get changed...' She started for the inner door of the TARDIS when the Doctor put his hand on her shoulder.
'Your mode of dress is still suitable, Miss Brown.' His tone changed. 'Hear that signal?'
Peri nodded.
'Puzzling isn't it? There's something going on here,' he said, his eye caught a small crowd growing on the screen, 'and it looks like there's something else going on here too...' His hand flipped the red door control upwards and vanished through the large double doors before they had fully opened. Peri sighed, lifted her skirt a little, and ran after the Time Lord.
The policeman slowly turned away from the dead body having draped his regulation cape across the blood speckled face. Horrible, but something that was becoming distressingly commonplace nowadays. 'Please keep back,' he implored the curious crowd that was growing by the minute. 'The poor girl doesn't need an audience...' He stopped as he noticed a needle workers nightmare walking through the crowd, flashing a rectangular piece of card as he came.
'Excuse me...excuse me..thank you. Excuse me,' The Doctor neared the police officer who, quite rightly regarded him with something rapidly approaching suspicion. He smiled and flashed the card for the millisecond. 'Smith, special branch.' he said.
'Plain clothes division, sir?' the policeman asked. 'And I'm sorry sir, but how can you smile when this has happened, I don't know.'
The Doctor looked down at the cape-covered shape, the dried blood on the cobbles matt and reflectionless and bending down, lifted the edge of the cloak. 'Knife attack?' he asked, a grim, troubled expression replacing the smile.
'Yes, sir. The sixth in recent weeks...but you probably know that. It's a terrible world we live in...'
It's going to get a lot worse too, thought the Doctor. He turned to see Peri hovering on the edge of the crowd, her eye having caught the blood. The crowd were intently staring at her and her fancy clothes. 'Ahhh, my assistant, Miss Brown.' Peri took one step forward.
'What's going on, Doctor?' she questioned. The policeman frowned.
'Well naturally,' said the Doctor to the policeman, 'I'm a qualified doctor too. Very useful when it comes to treating Foot and Mouth...' He shot Peri a quick glance which was fully understood, buttoning her lip.
The Doctor fully knelt down, yellow trousers contrasting with the thick red across the ground. Something else red...glittering...taking a pair of tweezers from his pockets, he picked out of the coagulate, and held it up to his eye line. A small piece of a jewel...can't have been anything this poor girl owned, no ruby this...yet, it's construction...
'What have you found, sir?' The policeman was bent to the Doctor's ear, his hand over his mouth as the smell from beneath the cape rose to meet him.
The Doctor remained silent, his eyes slightly closed, his mind working overtime. 'I...' He snapped back to reality, and stood up. 'I have some tests to perform, so if you'll excuse me...can you make all the necessary arrangements?' he said to the policeman, his gaze flitting back to the corpse.
'Already done, sir.'
'Good man. I'll be in touch.' and with that, the Doctor strode through the crowd, Peri following in his wake, asking a thousand questions.
'Go home,' the policeman wearily told the crowd. 'There is nothing to see here.'
From the shadows of one of the many alleys that shot from the main street, Jeremiah Hardstaffe watched the strangely dressed newcomer depart from the scene of the crime with his companion.
Back in the sanctuary of the TARDIS, her stomach settled and her head cleared, Peri put down her mug of tea and called through the inner door to the Doctor, 'Who could have done that to that poor girl?' her voice shaking with anger and unease. The Doctor strode back into the console room, clutching a battered black case. Opening it, he took out an old violin and ragged bow.
'Can you play the violin?' he asked quizzically, raising it to his chin and scraping a few discordant notes from the instrument.
'No,' she replied, ' and neither can you by the sound of it.'
 
|
killer page3
