Doctor Who_ Just War Part 20

'You need medical attention?'

'No. My friend the Doctor. He must have been captured on the beach. If he was, he'd have been brought here.' The thought had only just occurred to her.

'You are the only prisoner in the complex.'

'Where else would prisoners be taken?' Benny was standing now, surprised how unfamiliar the soles of her feet felt with weight on them. She stretched her legs, arms and spine in turn.

'Criminals would all be in normal police cells.'

'What about military prisoners?' Benny began ma.s.saging her right shoulder, easing away some of the stiffness. Her left shoulder would have to wait: her right hand was still in a splint.

'There aren't any.'

'If there were?'

'Here at the complex.' Her eyes were watering. The woman was almost on the verge of tears.

'Nowhere else?' Benny insisted.

'Nowhere else. Even if he was dead he would have been brought here.' Benny's stomach lurched. She pitched over towards the slops bucket, her nose suddenly full of the smell of disinfectant and vomit. The Doctor couldn't be dead. The possibility didn't exist. There had been too many times before when she'd thought he was dead and he wasn't.

She straightened up. That wasn't exactly logic, was it?

He hadn't rescued her. He knew what n.a.z.is did to their prisoners. If he was alive he would have dropped everything and come running to save her in the nick of time. Wouldn't he? She'd learnt that the Doctor s definition of 'a nick of time'

occasionally left a bit to be desired, but by any calculation he should have rescued her by now. She remembered the single shot, now. He'd been on the beach when there was a shot.

No burst of machine-gun fire. No Germans shouting warnings. A single shot. She hadn't seen the Doctor since.

Kitzel handed Benny a flannel to wipe her mouth.

'Nurse. I'm an archaeologist. On one of the first digs I went on, I discovered a great h.o.a.rd of daggers. At least that's what I thought at first. It doesn't matter where this dig was, but the civilization we were excavating was meant to be pacifist. If these were daggers, then all previous notions of their culture would be overturned and I'd be famous. All this so early in my career. It turned out that it was just a cutlery drawer. One of the senior archaeologists took me to one side and said that there was something I had to remember, and I do, I remember the exact words: "The distinction between a dagger and an inoffensive knife blade is hard to draw and may never have been clear cut." '

Before Kitzel could react, Benny was holding the b.u.t.ter knife at her throat.

'Now, you're going to take me to the morgue. If we are challenged, you are going to stick up for me. If you don't, if you even speak, I cut your throat. Understood?'

Kitzel nodded, her mouth clamped shut.

The dust still hadn't settled when dawn came. Chris's eyes watered as he picked his way across the rubble. Bricks and shattered gla.s.s littered the streets. It was very quiet.

Everything was dead. There was still an after-image here of the evening before, when this had been a small fis.h.i.+ng town.

Chris had walked up this street ten hours before, when old men had been playing boules in front of the town hall. Their ghosts were still there, persisting even after their town had gone. What struck Chris was a sense of deja vu deja vu: he had seen this scene, or one very like it, in monochrome photographs of Blitz damage. The reality was only a little more colourful than the black and white pictures and the thick fog drifting in off the sea only added to the effect. With their fronts and roofs blown away, the buildings reminded Chris of giant doll's houses. The streets were full of debris, small fires still burning. A handful of rescue teams were toiling away. Every single window in the town had been shattered. The buildings looked like a row of people with their eyes gouged out.

Behind him, the sound of the Doctor's crunching footsteps stopped. Chris turned. The Doctor's expression was carefully neutral. Neither of them had slept last night.

The Doctor was still carrying the briefcase containing the stolen plans.

'The townhouse,' he said. Yesterday, on the way into the town, the Doctor had pointed out the same building. Chris peered through the gloom, but couldn't see it at first. When he saw that where the townhouse had once stood there were two vast craters and a single wall, three storeys tall decorated with a patchwork of wallpaper and wood panelling.

The ground was covered in bricks, plaster and roof slates.

There wasn't even enough to call it a ruin.

'How could they have done this?' Chris asked.

'The Germans do it every night. They've done it to London, Southampton, Bristol, Coventry, Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield, Hull- '

'But how could they? I know the n.a.z.is are evil, but most of these people were French,' Cwej insisted.

'We don't have time to discuss the morality of war: we need to find Hartung.' The Doctor turned a chunk of masonry over, sc.r.a.ped away at the rubble. Chris was about to speak again when the Doctor discovered something. The little man bent down. Chris moved forward to catch a glimpse, but the Doctor held him back. Using Chris for support, the Doctor pulled himself to his feet, then picked up his briefcase.

'Her name was Ulrilda Fegelein, from Falkenstein in Germany. She liked opera, she had a small collection of gramophone records. She told me a very rude joke about two sailors and a one-eyed goat, but she didn't understand it.

Ulrilda liked her coffee black and strong, with two sugars.

She wasn't old enough to vote when elections were abolished, but she would have voted for the n.a.z.is given a chance. Did that make her evil?'

'Yes.' Chris was surprised by the certainty in his own voice. The Doctor looked shocked, but Chris continued, 'She had a choice. Everyone gets a choice. There is evil in the universe and there is injustice. The n.a.z.is are evil. Everything they stand for must be wiped out, without mercy.'

The Doctor managed a thin smile. left my home planet many years ago. I discovered things on my travels, things I never suspected: monsters and villains, death and disaster, ghosts and G.o.dlings, evil coalescing from the beginning of the universe. Dark forces. I've fought against them, beaten them back. Wiped them out, as you say. But I've always tried to show mercy.'

Chris was angry now. 'Sometimes mercy isn't appropriate. The British tried to bargain with the n.a.z.is. They gave them the benefit of the doubt, they tried diplomacy. The n.a.z.is took advantage of them, sliced away more and more territory. Used the time to build up their military.

Appeas.e.m.e.nt doesn't always work. The n.a.z.is are monsters.'

The Doctor looked up from his excavations. 'That's your perspective. That's my perspective. From a monster's point of view, though, things look rather different. I've always tried to listen to the monster's point of view. You'd be surprised how pa.s.sionate, how eloquent, they can be.'

'Herr Doktor,' a German voice called out.

'Speak of the devil,' muttered the Doctor, who stood up and dusted himself down.

Chris followed the sound, and saw a n.a.z.i officer stepping towards them through the fog. The man was of average height and build, and wore his uniform as though it were a Savile Row suit. As he got closer, Chris guessed that he must be in his late fifties: his thin white hair had receded to his crown, his face was lined and sunken.

'Oberst Oskar Steinmann,' the Doctor announced. The officer stopped in his tracks.

'Herr Doktor,' he responded formally, clicking his heels together. He sounded almost relieved, Chris noted with some surprise. He scanned the area, but the officer was alone.

'I am sorry, Oberst. I had no idea this raid was going to happen.'

'No, Doktor, I'm sure that you didn't,' Steinmann said softly. The n.a.z.i pointed at Chris, who prepared for the worst, but Steinmann simply asked, 'I take it this man is not really one of my officers?' The remark baffled Chris until he remembered that he was still wearing a n.a.z.i uniform.

The Doctor grinned. 'This is Christopher Cwej, a friend of mine.'

'The policeman,' Steinmann said pleasantly, offering his hand. Chris found himself shaking it.

The SID staff car raced through the fog towards Paddington station.

'So what do we know?' Roz asked. George only had one telephone, in the front room. Just before seven o'clock it had rung, waking them. When George returned to the bedroom, all he said was that they were needed at Paddington and that a staff car was on the way. They'd dressed and left the flat quickly.

'The transport police picked up a man half an hour ago.

Scotland Yard were trailing a known German agent, a woman, on behalf of MI5. They've known about her for six months, but they didn't pick her up because we've always thought that she could lead us to bigger fish.'

'Von Wer?' Roz suggested, hesitantly.

'Well, Five don't know about von Wer,' Reed grinned.

'But they might just have arrested him.'

'So the arrested man made contact with the known spy?'

'Yes. They met and they exchanged a code phrase on one of the platforms of Paddington tube station. Neither of them realized that we had been following the woman. Both were arrested. His ident.i.ty papers were forged.'

Roz nodded. It was straightforward enough. It didn't sound like the Doctor, either.

'Did the admiral mention the Granville raid?' Roz asked.

'He said it was too early to tell. Bomber Command claim one hundred per cent success, but they always do. If it's as foggy as this in Granville, we won't have got any aerial photographs this morning.' Reed was still sullen. When Kendrick had announced the decision to bombard Granville, George had been shocked. Walking back to his flat together afterwards, Roz had found that she was the one defending the decision. Even though there hadn't been an air-raid on London last night, they had been in no mood to go out on the town. They had sat together silently in George's front room.

When she looked into his eyes, she could see raw feelings, the same emotions she felt herself: rage, frustration, a sense of injustice. One of the beliefs they held most dear had been betrayed by a superior officer. Roz had been through all this before. Reed hadn't. They had needed to do something positive together, something pa.s.sionate and life-affirming.

But now it was twelve hours later. Thousands of French civilians had died last night, business in London continued as normal.

The car threw itself round Marble Arch. They were ten, perhaps fifteen, minutes away.

Professor Summerfield was in front of Kitzel, the cutlery knife concealed up her left sleeve.

The young nurse struggled to remain calm. It was still very early in the morning, and there was no one around yet.

She had already judged that escape would be impossible.

'How far is it to the morgue?' Summerfield demanded.

'It is the next door down,' Kitzel said quietly. Summerfield seemed at home in these featureless corridors. There was a spring in the older woman's step again, even though, as far as Kitzel understood, she now thought that one of her friends was dead. Perversely, the archaeologist seemed almost relaxed.

Summerfield glanced up at the sign. "LEICHENHAUS".

The morgue?' Kitzel nodded. Summerfield pushed down the handle and stepped inside, holding open the door for Kitzel to follow.

The morgue was cool and brightly lit. Kitzel had never been in here before, but it was almost exactly the same as the morgue in the Cologne sanitorium where she had done her training. An autopsy table in the middle of the room, cold storage drawers on one wall, a basin and a row of lockers on another. The attendant, a little bespectacled man in his forties, stood as they came in.

'You've brought this one in prematurely, nurse. You want me to arrange something?' He leered at her. The young nurse recoiled. She had heard stories about this nasty little man, and she believed them.

'Bolt the door, Kitzel,' Summerfield ordered. Kitzel did as she asked. The attendant was suddenly worried.

'Who are you?'

'I'm the Professor, and this is my friend Kitzel,' Bernice announced.

'What's going on here?' He looked from Summerfield to Kitzel.

'Liberation,' said Summerfield simply.

There was a flash in the morgue attendant's hand, a lightning-swift response from Summerfield: a slas.h.i.+ng motion, a yelp of pain and a clatter as something fell to the floor. The attendant clutched his wrist. Then Summerfield was poised on tiptoes, her knife in hand.

'In case you missed that, Kitzel,' Summerfield was explaining, 'he tried to pull a scalpel on me and I cut open his wrist. Hold this.' She tossed Kitzel the knife. Before the nurse could react, Summerfield had grasped the back of the terrified attendant's head and brought it down hard on the edge of the autopsy table. His legs buckled and he fell against the tiled floor. Kitzel felt the weight of the knife in her hand, and decided to lay it down.

'Is he dead?' Kitzel winced.

'Well, he's come to the right place if he is,' Summerfield said dismissively. Kitzel bent over. The attendant was still breathing. The nurse made him comfortable, examined his cut wrist and then glanced up at Summerfield, who was opening up one of the large army lockers. She dug around in the contents for a moment then pulled out a shapeless dark blue piece of cloth.

'It's my coat,' Summerfield explained, dusting off some of the dried mud. As she was doing that, something else in the locker caught her eye and she glanced back. Summerfield swallowed, and reached inside, pulling out a long black umbrella. Its handle was red bakelite, shaped to resemble a fragezeichen fragezeichen.

Summerfield was examining something sewn to the material. 'It's a little name-tag. It says "This is the property of Doctor - " - I can't read the name, it's covered by a patch of oil - "if lost please return to Portland Street Library, Paddington, London".'

'This is your friend's umbrella?'

'Yup,' said Summerfield absentmindedly, as she flicked through a set of notes on the clipboard. 'There are only two bodies here. Drawer 3 and Drawer 7. It doesn't say what date they arrived, it only says "March". One of them might be the Doctor. You'll have to help me.'

Summerfield moved over to Drawer 3, and tried to pull it open. Kitzel joined her. The drawer still wouldn't budge. They tried again, and Summerfield grunted some curse. Kitzel tapped the keyhole.

'There's a lock,' she said lightly. They caught each other's eye and smiled. Kitzel regained her composure as she realized what she was doing, but this only made Summerfield chuckle again. The older woman had already found the key on the floor by the attendant, and was slotting it into the lock. This time the drawer opened without resistance, sliding out and locking rigidly into place.

The body was that of a boy, about Kitzel's own age.