Part 10 (1/2)

Ace's trips to her local cemetery in Perivale had normally been at the dead of night, on a dare to do something outrageous like spray 'Satan Lives!' on a gravestone. She'd got out of that phase by the time she was thirteen, although Midge and Jay had carried on doing it for a while. Prats.

They were cool places, though, in every sense of the word.

And she stood beside one now, wondering what to do next.

She had got dressed as quickly as she could, but there had been no sign of the scarecrow by the time she came out of the Green Man. There were half-formed boot prints in the scuffed-up earth towards the centre of the green, but nothing more. She had returned to her room again, just in case the Doctor had magicked himself into existence with a puff of sulphur, but his room was as he had left it. So, he wasn't coming back in a hurry, and the only course of action was to do what he had wanted her to, and carry on looking... for something. But since she didn't have the faintest idea of what that something was, Rebecca Baber - clearly the only civilised and vaguely intelligent person in Hicksville - seemed a good place to start.

Ace stood, distracted by a large stone cross just outside the churchyard. It was a memorial for the thirteen men of the village killed while serving in Prince Albert's (Somerset Light Infantry) Regiment during the First World War.

Pte Daniel Burridge: Killed defending the lines, Ypres, 31st October 1914 lines, Ypres, 31st October 1914 Sgt Thomas Baber: Ga.s.sed, 24th April 1915 Major Nicholas Hatch: Died of shrapnel wounds, the Somme, 8th July 1916 wounds, the Somme, 8th July 1916 Pte Walter Smith: Killed, saving his officer's life, Pa.s.schendaele, 20th September 1917 Pa.s.schendaele, 20th September 1917 L/Cpl Edward l.u.s.ton: Shot, Marne, 19th March 1918 March 1918

Ace felt a terrible p.r.i.c.kling sensation behind her eyes and cursed openly. It was stupid. stupid. Why was she upset by the fate of men who'd been dead for over fifty years by the time she was born? She Why was she upset by the fate of men who'd been dead for over fifty years by the time she was born? She hated hated that side of her nature, and had spent months on Iceworld trying to pummel her sentimentality out of her. There were times when she so wanted to be hardened to the cruelties of the universe, to just let the sickness wash over her. that side of her nature, and had spent months on Iceworld trying to pummel her sentimentality out of her. There were times when she so wanted to be hardened to the cruelties of the universe, to just let the sickness wash over her.

She reached out and touched the memorial, and said something under her breath. Then, like a rabbit caught in the lights of oncoming traffic, she stepped back, bewildered and lost.

'Bye, lads,' she said, glancing around in case anyone was watching. Then she turned her back on the plain stone memorial and the ghosts of the past.

A black metal fence ran along the graveyard boundary, pointing the way to the vicarage. It was a lovely old thatched cottage that backed on to the church. It reminded Ace of picture postcards from the 1950s.

Ace found the back door open and saw a harsh-looking man in his early fifties sitting at the kitchen table. His brow was creased in concentration as he wrote in a scuffed leather-bound journal with a fountain pen. Presumably this was Rebecca's father, the vicar. Ace thought she could smell fire and brimstone from where she stood.

Most churchmen in Ace's experience - even the doddery old simpletons - had an agenda more sinister than the Cybermen. Despite this, she decided to be pleasant, and see how far it got her. After all, the man's daughter did seem to be a fully fledged member of the human race.

Ace coughed and tapped lightly on the door, smiling as the man's head slowly raised from his book.

Instantly, Ace knew what sort of person the Reverend Baber was, and that her initial suspicions had been correct.

It was in the eyes. She really was was in a Hammer film, and this was the local Peter Cus.h.i.+ng. in a Hammer film, and this was the local Peter Cus.h.i.+ng.

'Yes?' he asked in a haughty tone that put Ace's back up straight away.

'Morning,' she said. 'I'm here to see Rebecca.'

'Are you indeed?' The vicar stood, and moved his gla.s.ses to the edge of his nose, peering at Ace the way she would have scrutinised a slug. She thought him tall, for a vicar, with a thin, pinched face. 'May I ask why a young girl like yourself isn't on her way to church?' His tone was brusque, but with a hidden menace. Ace was really annoyed now.

'First off, right...' she began, about to give him her considered opinion that she wasn't a 'girl', and how she spent her time was her own business, and why didn't he go off and perform an exorcism or something? Fortunately, she was interrupted by Rebecca bursting into the kitchen behind her father.

'I thought I heard voices,' she said in a bubbly voice. She wore a pretty floral summer dress that made her look much more countrified and less sophisticated than the previous day. Rebecca gave Ace a wink and said, 'Hi, come in.' She turned to her father. 'I trust you've been making our guest at home?'

Baber said nothing, but Ace could see the aggression draining from his features, replaced with something akin to embarra.s.sment.

'Thanks very much for your help,' said Ace as she walked past the man, following Rebecca up the stairs and into her bedroom. It was a large, pleasant room that faced south, and a huge bay window allowed the sunlight to flood in. It afforded a magnificent view of the village and the scattered fields beyond. The rest of the room was s.p.a.cious and uncluttered, nothing like her own bedroom either in the TARDIS or back in Perivale. There was a desk with a touchscreen computer on it, and hundreds of books dotted across every possible surface and shelf.

Rebecca flopped on to the bed, and giggled as if at some private joke.

'What's so funny?'

'Oh.' Rebecca sat up. 'Daddy. He's always like that with new people. Very stuck in his ways.'

'Why isn't he he at church, then?' at church, then?'

'He's finis.h.i.+ng his sermon, I think. He'll be gone soon.'

'Good.' Ace glanced out of the window again. 'Great view you've got here.'

'Awesome, isn't it?' asked Rebecca. 'In the summer, when I was a kid, I used to sit out on the ledge, and dangle my legs over. It was so so thrilling. It's only twenty feet to the ground but when you're ten, that's like being on top of the world. All the boys used to come by on their way to play football and I'd flirt with them. It was great.' thrilling. It's only twenty feet to the ground but when you're ten, that's like being on top of the world. All the boys used to come by on their way to play football and I'd flirt with them. It was great.'

Ace was surprised. The old man didn't look the sort to allow his daughter to get away with flas.h.i.+ng her pants at the first, second and third eleven. 'Didn't your dad have something to say about that?' she asked.

'Oh yes, but Daddy's always been tolerant of my excesses.

He says we are what we are.'

This didn't sound at all like the Reverend Baber that Ace had just met. She sat down on the swivel chair next to the computer, picking up one of a stack of orangy-red school exercise books in a pile on the table.

'Just marking my year-eleven general studies cla.s.s,'

Rebecca explained. 'Essays on the social effects of the Great Drought of '02.'

Ace had loathed history at school. She picked up an exercise book, glancing at the beautifully looped handwriting.

'What're they like, your kids?' she asked.

'Oh, they're little horrors. The girls are the worst actually, really b.i.t.c.hy and obsessed with s.e.x. Just like I was!'

Ace smiled.

'The lads are more difficult to teach because their minds are always on other things,' continued Rebecca. 'Usually football. But they're bright enough. Which one have you got there?'

'Gail Burridge.'