Doctor Who_ Time Zero Part 6

The smirk vanished. 'Er, no. Indeed not. As I was about to explain and as I'm sure everyone here knows, several pages were recovered separately and are currently on display in the British Museum.'

'Just thought I'd mention it,' the Doctor said happily. 'Do go on.'

The auctioneer prepared to go on.

'It's a fascinating exhibition,' the Doctor said turning round in his seat and addressing the audience as a whole. 'Absolutely fascinating.'

'Doctor!' Correll said quietly, stifling a smile.

'I can thoroughly recommend it, you know. But I expect you've all been.' He turned slowly back to face the front. 'That'll be why you're all here.' Then suddenly he was looking at the audience again, and Correll was surprised at the piercing intensity of his gaze as he focused on the third row from the back. 'I suppose that the interest in the exhibition is what persuaded the vendor that now was a good time to sell it. After the best possible price, I imagine. Out for every penny.'

The auctioneer cleared his throat impressively. 'If you've quite finished, sir.'

The Doctor seemed to consider. He nodded. 'All done, as they say.' He settled into his chair and laced his fingers together over his waistcoat.

'Then perhaps we can start the bidding. Shall we say at one thousand what is it now?' He demanded as the Doctor's hand shot up once more.

'I'm so sorry,' the Doctor said, his face a mask of bewilderment, 'I was placing a bid.' He blinked. 'If that's all right with you?'

The price rose quickly. Correll bid five thousand pounds for the journal, but was immediately overtaken by a bid for six thousand. 'Someone's keen to get it,' Correll whispered to the Doctor.

He nodded absently. 'I wonder just how keen. And why.' Suddenly his face was alive with eager amus.e.m.e.nt. 'I don't actually have any cash on me,' he said quietly, 'otherwise I'd bid the price up a little and see what happens.'

'At eight thousand, two hundred pounds,' the auctioneer noted.

'Is it worth that much?' Correll asked.

'In my expert opinion?'

'Yes.'

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. 'It's not worth a penny,' he said.

'Going once.' The auctioneer raised his little hammer.

Correll sighed. 'Oh what the h.e.l.l.' He waved discreetly to the auctioneer.

'Eight thousand, five hundred,' the auctioneer noted. Then almost immediately. 'And now nine thousand.'

'It's that man on the mobile phone.' The Doctor nodded to a gaunt*looking man with steel grey hair in a suit standing at the side of the room. He had a mobile phone to his ear and was smiling with evident satisfaction.

'La.s.siter,' Correll said. 'He's an agent.'

'Not the actual buyer then. Pity.'

'Going once at nine thousand.'

La.s.siter's smile was widening into a grin.

'And going twice.'

The Doctor's hand shot up again. 'Twenty thousand pounds,' he called out.

The Auctioneer was about to bring down his hammer. He blinked rapidly several times and stared at the Doctor.

'What's the matter?' the Doctor asked. 'Did I get it wrong again?'

'My colleague's is a serious bet, sir,' Correll said.

The auctioneer nodded. 'Very well, thank you Mr Correll.'

The Doctor seemed startled and impressed. 'You've been here before!'

Correll laughed. 'Once or twice, I admit.'

Across the room, La.s.siter was speaking frantically into his phone.

'Are we all done at twenty thousand?'

La.s.siter, still speaking, held up his hand, asking for a pause.

'I'll have to hurry you, sir.'

Then he switched off the phone and put it in his inside jacket pocket.

The Doctor bit his lower lip. 'I may have just cost you twenty thousand,' he murmured. 'Sorry.'

Correll shrugged. 'Don't sweat it.'

Then La.s.siter called out, his voice clear and confident. 'Thirty thousand.'

'There again...' the Doctor said. 'May I?'

Correll laughed. 'Be my guest.'

The auctioneer was looking to the Doctor now, waiting for him to complete his brief conversation with Correll.

'Is it with me again?' the Doctor asked politely. 'I see. Well, shall we say forty...' He broke off and sighed, shaking his head. 'No.'

Correll could see La.s.siter breathing a sigh of relief.

'No,' the Doctor went on. 'Let's make it fifty thousand, shall we?' There were gasps from the audience. All heads turned tennis*match style towards La.s.siter. The look on his face was one of resignation. 'One hundred thousand pounds,' he said.

Attention returned to the Doctor. He examined his fingernails.

'Going once.'

He smiled at Correll.

'Twice.'

He sucked in his cheeks and inspected the auctioneer. He blew out a long breath, and eventually he shook his head.

'Thank G.o.d for that,' Correll said as the hammer came down.

'All done at one hundred thousand pounds. For your client, Mr La.s.siter.'

'A lot to pay for an historical curiosity,' the Doctor said.

There was a break after the journal was sold. The audience stood and mingled. There was coffee in the foyer, stronger drinks in Gordon and Painswick's bar. There was just one topic of conversation. Correll could see La.s.siter waving away all questions about his client.

The Doctor seemed more interested in the elderly lady in the tiara.

She wore a full*length dress in pale green. Her face was long and lined with wrinkles, incredibly old. Her hair was brilliant white and her thin fingers cramped and curled with arthritis.

'You want a coffee?'

'No, thank you, Mr Correll.' The Doctor smiled thinly. 'I want to know who she is.'

'Hope you don't mind if I do. Excuse me.' Correll left him still watching the lady intently.

Five minutes later he returned with a cup of coffee and with information. It had taken him only a few pertinent questions of people he knew in the coffee queue to find out what he wanted.

'Her name,' he told the Doctor, 'is Alice Romanov, apparently.'

'Romanov?' The Doctor's forehead wrinkled into a frown. 'Really?'

'So I'm told. She doesn't get out much. First time she's been seen here, but it's no secret she's been looking to sell some of the family papers and doc.u.ments.'

The Doctor nodded. 'I can imagine there would be some interest.'

'She's a Grand d.u.c.h.ess,' Correll went on. 'Her father was Alex something*or*other, son of the last Tsar.'

The Doctor's attention snapped from the Grand d.u.c.h.ess back to Correll. 'Alexei Nikolaivich, son of Nikolas II.'

'That's it.'

'May I?' Without waiting for an answer, the Doctor lifted Correll's cup from the saucer he was holding and drained it. 'Ah!' He smacked his lips together. 'Thank you. Alexei Nikolaivich,' he said again, staring off into the distance. 'Yes, a fine lad. A good, quiet boy.'

'Her father?' Correll wondered how he knew.

'I doubt it.'

'Why?'

'Because he was shot in a cellar in Yekaterinburg in 1918 when he was only thirteen years old,' the Doctor said. 'That's why. Or at least, that's what we all thought.'

'Maybe n.o.body told her that.'

'Or was it fourteen?' The Doctor was counting on his fingers. 'Did I miss his birthday?' he wondered aloud, his tone a mixture of surprise and regret.

'You reckon maybe he escaped?' Correll asked.

The d.u.c.h.ess was nodding and smiling, making her way towards the door.

'I reckon maybe I'll follow her. There's more to all this than meets the cheque book.' He grinned enormously at Correll. 'Thanks for all your help, Lionel. I'm sure we'll meet again.'

'I hope so,' Correll said, and meant it.

The d.u.c.h.ess was at the door now.

'And thanks for the mouthful of coffee. Stimulates the brain cells marvellously, you know.'

Correll smiled. 'I'll get another cup,' he said.

The Doctor was already halfway across the room. 'No thanks,' he called over his shoulder. 'That was plenty.'

'I didn't mean for you,' Correll said. But the Doctor was gone.

'Follow that cab!' The Doctor always got a buzz from saying it.

The cab driver, true to form, didn't bat an eyelid. 'Right you are, Guv.' The traffic was heavy, and the Doctor soon lost sight of the black taxi that the Grand d.u.c.h.ess had taken.

'Sorry about that, Guv.'

'It's Doctor, actually. And never mind.' He settled back in the deep back seat of the taxi with a sigh. 'I wonder where they were going,' he said to himself.

'Could find out for you, Doc.'

The Doctor was on the edge of the seat at once, seatbelt straining and clicking with the sudden movement. 'Really? A search you think? Divide up the area into quadrants and systematically trace all the possible routes through each, interviewing pa.s.sers*by and accosting pedestrians?'

'No, actually, Doc.' The driver half turned in his seat and grinned over his shoulder. 'I was thinking of calling Charlie on his mobile and asking him where he's going. He was driving the other cab, you see.'

The Doctor did see. 'Oh,' he said, slightly disappointed. 'Well, it's worth a try.'

There was a mobile phone on the dashboard and the driver was already hitting b.u.t.tons.

'Try not to arouse their suspicions,' the Doctor asked.

The driver nodded. 'Private investigations, eh? Divorce evidence, that sort of thing?'

'She's a frail old lady,' the Doctor pointed out.