The Romance Of Crime Part 7

'It's the chief,' the dome supervisor started to say, 'she's '

Margo's voice came from Pyerpoint's communicator.

'Pyer... point...' she said slowly.

'Isolate her,' Pyerpoint ordered. Shom noted the lines of concern on his face. 'Take her back to her cabin. I will join you there.'

'I am coming, Pyerpoint!' Margo screamed. Her voice was suddenly powerful. 'I am coming for you!'

Pyerpoint shook his head pityingly. 'This situation is tragic, tragic,' he told Shom. He spoke into his communicator.

'Supervisor, restrain the chief.'

Margo struggled from the grip of the supervisor. 'No!' she cried. 'Leave me alone... you are...' Her face contorted as she bit at her tongue, as if trying to stop herself from speaking.

The Doctor took a step forward, He held her jaw in his hands and looked into her eyes. Something he saw there troubled him. 'Night starvation. You need a good lie down and a dose of salts,' he advised her.

She snarled. Her face was filled with hatred. She pushed the Doctor aside and ran from the dome. The supervisor halted only to register the bizarre attire of the Doctor and Romana and bolted after her.

Romana, perturbed, pushed a stray lock of hair back under her cap. 'She looked almost rabid.'

'Yes, there's something very wrong there,' the Doctor said.

'The breakdown's happened incredibly quickly. Probably been building up for months.'

'Still, I suppose it's none of our concern.' Romana looked through some papers on the vacated desk of the dome supervisor. She held up a sheet of paper triumphantly. 'Oh, look, a map.'

The Doctor looked out at the stars.

Romana examined the map, committing several important locations, including that of the TARDIS, to her memory. 'If the security officer's cracking up, this station really is coming unstuck. Could there be a connection with Spiggot's mission, do you think?'

'Well, everything's connected in some way,' the Doctor replied, nodding to the stars. 'It's the nature of the connection that's important.'

'Don't be so pompous.'

He turned abruptly. 'Is that a map you've got there?'

'Yes.'

'Tell me what's on it.' He made for the exit.

She followed. 'Hmm. Courtrooms.'

'No, no. Tried one, tried 'em all.'

'Dungeons?'

'Absolutely not, I can do that any day of the week.'

'How about the gallery?'

'Ah! Now that sounds more interesting.'

'I've lost her,' the voice of the dome supervisor reported over the communicator. 'Somewhere on level ten, she slipped away from me.'

Pyerpoint switched off the channel. He turned to Shom and whispered, 'Shom, we will locate the chief ourselves. She may return to her cabin.'

Shom nodded. 'Yes, sir.'

Spiggot had returned to his luxury suite and was enjoying his midday meal, provided by the dispenser with its customary lack of culinary aplomb. He finished off the food and sighed.

He longed for the simple, plain, traditional cooking of his own folk. Pies, mash and plenty of gravy. Out here in s.p.a.ce the grub was flash but tasteless.

Still, he couldn't complain. Everything was going his way, every element falling into place perfectly. His methods had worked again. It looked like he was going to succeed once more. In a way, he thought, it was all so inevitable. Yeah, cracking crimes was the easy part of his life. But what about Angie and the kids? He'd messed up there, and badly.

He stood up. He'd given Pyerpoint enough to worry about, with the security check and the two crazies. The old goat had fallen for it all.

It was time to start the real work.

Shom and Pyerpoint found Margo as she emerged from a lift on level five of the station. Her hair was dishevelled and her eyes stared straight ahead. Her lower lip trembled.

'Margo, you need a rest,' Pyerpoint said gently. He came towards her and placed one of his gnarled hands on her shoulder. 'Let us help you.'

Her face jerked into life as she caught sight of him. 'Yes, rest,' she said oddly, slurring the words. 'I must rest. There is much to be done.'

Shom leapt back as her back straightened and she knocked Pyerpoint's hand away. She shouted, 'I cannot rest! I must have control! The time is close, Pyerpoint!'

Pyerpoint appeared perturbed by her words. 'Sedate her,'

he ordered.

Shom unclipped a small stunner from his belt. He leapt forward and pressed it to Margo's neck. She lunged for him, growling ferociously. The sharpened tips of her fingernails scratched his cheek.

'I will... have control,' she snarled. Her legs buckled as the drug took effect. 'The time... is near...' Her eyes rolled under fluttering lids and she collapsed.

Shom rubbed his wounded cheek. The scratch had drawn blood. 'I've never seen the like of it, sir,' he said. 'What's happened to the chief? She's the last person I'd have thought '

Pyerpoint regained his composure. 'This is not the time to speculate,' he said evenly. 'Margo is very ill. I will take her back to her cabin myself' His face was filled with what Shom took to be confusion and pity.

Shom nodded uncertainly. He hadn't realized how much Margo meant to the old man. Pyerpoint obviously cared enough to break the rules that he was employed to uphold in order to protect her. It was touching, in a way. 'Right away, sir. Shall I call a medic?'

Pyerpoint shook his head impatiently. 'I will handle this matter. Now, return to your duties and say nothing of this.'

'Splendid!' cried the artist as he stepped back from the completed canvas. He waved his paintbrush about in glee.

'One of my very best. I astound myself'. The subject, the materials, the...' He appeared to search his extensive vocabulary for the best way to describe the latest pinnacle of his invention. 'The... the piquancy! Yes, the piquancy of the whole!'

'Your brushwork is awfully broad,' said the Doctor, who was looking over his shoulder.

'Naturally,' the artist replied. 'It's a very broad work, conceptually speaking.' He broke off and stared at the Doctor.

'And who in the halls of Hades might you be?'

The Doctor bowed. 'Well, I'm the Doctor, this is Romana, and we're travellers, and we thought we'd take a look at your gallery, and...' He trailed off as he realized that the artist was not listening.

The fellow was frantically smoothing at his bald head with one hand, attending to hair that had disappeared long ago. The other hand was extended towards Romana. His large rolling eyes were occupied in an active appraisal of her. The Doctor huffed. Romana tended to bring this reaction out in people. It was most irritating.

'Ramona,' the artist said slowly.

'Romana,' she corrected him.

'Romana.' His slippery tongue relished every syllable. He took her hand and planted a small kiss upon it. 'An enchanting name for an enchanting young woman. Where did you come by it?'

'Prydon Academy,' she told him. 'And I'm actually a lady.'

He took a step back and emitted a seedy chuckle from the deepest point of his larynx. 'A lady, oh, of course, yes, I should have realized! A regal vision! The n.o.ble brow, the milk white skin, those pert lips.'

The Doctor coughed. 'Er, excuse me?'

The artist ignored him. He led Romana forward until she was standing directly within a pool of light that shone from one of the gallery's hanging lamps. 'Yes, yes!' he enthused.

'You, my dear, will make a scintillating subject.' He leant closer and slipped a long arm around her shoulder. 'Tell me, sweet child, have you ever posed for life cla.s.ses?'

Romana was untroubled by his attentions. 'Suppose I don't want to be your subject?'

The artist waved a hand dismissively. 'Oh, but my dear, you are so clearly suited to my methods.'

The Doctor tapped him on the shoulder. 'Listen, I '

'Do you mind, sir? I am conducting business.' He broke off and stared at the Doctor, then at his clothes. His expression altered to one of cautious welcome. 'Don't I know you?'

The Doctor thought for a moment. 'I hope not.'

'You're nothing to do with the old scratcher?'

'Mr Pyerpoint?' the Doctor guessed correctly. 'No.'

'I have it, you're from the arts committee, another of their wretched inspections. Oddstock, is it? No, no, he's dead, isn't he, though how anybody could tell I don't know. You're not that fool Mellenger, and you're certainly not Sybilla Strang, as she's a woman, just about, so...' He clicked his fingers. 'I've hit upon it! You're Fenton Breedley, aren't you?'

The Doctor attempted to say no, but the artist was in full flow. 'Caught the teensiest glimpse of your exhibition at the Regional back in '19. Rather unaccomplished. What are you doing here, then?'

'I'm the Doctor and I've never exhibited anything,' the Doctor gasped.

'We're not inspectors, just visitors,' said Romana.

The artist took a step back. 'Visitors? To the gallery?' He took another look at them. 'I say, you're not lawyers or anything?'

The Doctor wandered over to a grotesque sculpture that was mounted on a nearby plinth. Its fierce eyes seemed to stare back at him. 'No. Just visitors. Mr, er...'

The artist bowed. 'Stokes, Menlove Ereward Stokes.'

The Doctor nodded an acknowledgement. 'Mr Stokes.

What is the point of this collection? It does seem somewhat irregular, having an art gallery at the bottom of a courtroom.'

Stokes raised an affronted eyebrow. 'Does it so? Yes, I suppose to the nescient mind that is how it might appear. The endeavour is entirely mine. I established myself here on this miserable blasted rock seven years ago, on the death of my father. He was a planetary councillor, you know.'

'Oh, really?' the Doctor mumbled, thoroughly unimpressed.

'Yes. But the half-life of public service was not for me. His unfortunate demise provided me with the funds necessary to create this modest snuggery. I am official artist in residence.'

Romana read from a plaque attached to a representation of a deformed creature that was covered in blood. ' Ventol, the Ventol, the three-headed killer of the lower city three-headed killer of the lower city. Nasty.'

'Are all your pictures of criminals?' the Doctor asked.

'Yes,' Stokes replied. 'I have employed as my subjects many of the murderous souls to have met their deaths here over the last seven years. Most are happy to trust themselves to me.'

The Doctor shook his head as he examined more of Stokes's work. 'Why can't you paint nice things, like sunflowers?'

'Oh, Doctor. Our society needs a fearless artist to delve into the criminal psyche.'

'Hmm,' the Doctor said doubtfully. 'It'd help if you could do it better.'

Stokes snapped upright. 'What did you say?' He wagged an aggressive finger at the Doctor. 'I suppose those ageing cretins at Gelheissen sent you to check up on me, did they? I'll show them. My genius is before its time. And when I return, I'll show them!'

'I don't like people pointing an aggressive finger at me,'

the Doctor told him. 'And I'm afraid I really have no idea what you're talking about.'

Stokes jeered, 'I've faced tougher men than you, Doctor. I have encountered villains worse than you could possibly imagine!'

'Oh, really?'

'Yes. The Zinctown Basher, Strapping Jack, all have pa.s.sed through my studio. I dared to take a mask of Xais herself! And so your ignorant ramblings are unlikely to impress me!'

A promising argument was interrupted by a polite request from Romana. 'Mr Stokes?'