Part 14 (2/2)

'Oh, cool!' beamed Joel. 'Hey, there are so many questions I want to ask you.'

'Oh, yes?' The Doctor sat up, wondering if Isaac had given Joel a list.

'Well, mostly stuff I've been trying to work out about UNIT dating,' said Joel. 'For instance, the time the Zygons attacked Parliament with their fleet of cybernetically enhanced plesiosaurs - was that nineteen seventy-five or nineteen eighty?'

'I'm not sure if I can remember...' The Doctor sat back with a sigh. 'You tell me something.'

'Okay.'

'What's it like working with Admiral Summerfield?'

'It's great.' Joel grinned in the mirror. 'I love knowing knowing, you know? I look up at the stars, and I know that there are people out there. I know there's a future.'

The Doctor said nothing, watching the white sky out of the window.

It had been, thought Woodworth, a generally lousy morning.

She had woken up long before her alarm had gone off, after another night full of half-remembered dreams and sudden awakenings. She checked in the cupboards and under the bed. Nothing but dust b.a.l.l.s and the smell of wood polish.

She showered for twenty minutes, leaning her forehead on the steamy inside of the gla.s.s. Five hours' sleep after a night spent in a frozen field.

She wandered downstairs in search of coffee and the paper. The management was noisily throwing out a couple of dungareed wackos from the peace camp, who were just as noisily demanding to be served.

She sat in her room for a couple of hours, looking at maps and reading reports. She made a call home, and had to pull out her schedule for another look. Blast, she was going to miss lunch with her mystery man. And she hadn't even found out his last name yet.

Luckily, he was early. She found him in the bar at 11 a.m., looking morose. He was playing with a pocket calculator, which he put to one side when he spotted her.

'h.e.l.lo again,' he said, waving his hat about.

She plonked herself into the seat opposite him.

'Morning.'

He regarded the bags under her eyes. 'Is everything all right?' he said.

'Oh, yes,' she said. 'But I've got to run off at twelve - my day's all muddled up.' He nodded. 'The truth is,' she added, 'I have a bit of a recurring nightmare.'

'Ghosts,' he smiled.

'Yes,' she said. Little white figures running about, prodding her with their slender fingers. 'Ghosts.'

'I'm sorry I had to run off like that,' he said. She still hadn't quite picked his accent. 'Family trouble.'

'Nothing serious, I hope.'

'Oh, no.' He pretended to be studying the menu. She had just decided not to ask when he said, 'It's a longish story, but my... adopted daughter has just met her biological father for the first time.'

'Oh. Oh, I see. That must be very difficult.'

'I'm trying not to interfere, to give them a bit of s.p.a.ce.

half tempted just to leave them together here for a while, except... I'm still not sure why she even wanted to meet him.'

'Couldn't comment,' said Woodworth. 'I had an adopted friend who never bothered to track down his original parents.

He said they were just strangers and they might as well stay that way.'

'She's always wanted to meet him, ever since she was small.' The Doctor put down the menu. 'Not much in the way of vegetarian food,' he said. 'We're not getting on very well.'

'You and your daughter?'

'Her father and I.'

'Is he a bit of a villain, or do you just rub one another up the wrong way?'

He laughed. 'I think it's actually more professional rivalry than anything.'

'And what does your wife think about it all?'

He gave a strange smile. 'I'm not married. Currently,' he added hastily.

Woodworth glanced at her watch. She might not get a chance to do anything with that useful piece of information at this rate. 'Look, I've got to buzz off. But we must do this properly. Dinner?'

He folded his hands on the table. 'I'm all yours,' he said.

Isaac hung up the phone on the wall. 'Still nothing,' he said.

Benny stopped turning the handle on the coffee grinder.

Her father came over to the counter and picked up some of the brown grains, rolling them between his fingers. 'That's enough,' he said.

'I'll never play the violin again,' said Benny, shaking her aching hand to get the circulation going. Her father picked up the little bowl of coa.r.s.e coffee and moved to the cooker, where a saucepan of water was just coming to the boil.

He switched off the gas flame and measured six careful spoonfuls of the coffee into the boiling water. He was riveted by those tablespoons, smoothing the brown powder to make sure they were level. When was the last time she'd seen someone concentrate so utterly?

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