Part 26 (2/2)

'First cla.s.s?' asked the Doctor, as though interested in such trivialities.

'Of course,' said Winstone. 'By the time I got here, Matt was gone. His wife's leaving him, you know. And there's some scandal brewing, too. A couple of the papers have got hold of it. He's lied to the House. Bad times ahead for cousin Matthew, I reckon.'

'And you?'

'Oh, I'll survive,' said Winstone casually. 'I always do.'

'Do you know what we found up in Liverpool?' asked the Doctor angrily.

'Terrible housing, ma.s.s unemployment and rampant crime?' said Winstone. 'I blame the government, myself.'

'Shanks was contaminating the water supply,' continued the Doctor. 'I'm sure now that the genetic material unleashes mental powers - turns people into psychic batteries. Not everyone can cope with it.' The Doctor's eyes were dark and unblinking. 'As we speak, hundreds of people in Liverpool are being slaughtered. Men, women and children. Innocent lives lost. What's made the whole thing worse is that the area has just been flooded with weaponry. Tell me, where do you think this superfluity of arms originates?'

'I can't imagine,' said Trevor.

The Doctor sighed. 'Shanks wasn't clever enough to come up with the scheme to pollute the water supply all on his own.'

'No, indeed,' said Trevor. 'Bright lad, our Ken, but a very linear mind.'

'Hatch, on the other hand?'

'Remember what I told you in Giroland? Deep as the Earth's core.'

'The obscenity of what you people are doing staggers me,'

said the Doctor with a furious anger in his voice. He leaned on the desk, almost shouting at Winstone, despite the gun still trained on him. 'Do you understand?'

'Nothing to do with me,' said Winstone, without blinking.

'I'm just a legitimate businessman.'

'An arms trader,' continued the Doctor, spitting the phrase at Winstone. 'A broker in death.'

'Your point being...?'

'Why?' shouted the Doctor.

'Why? Why is the sky blue? Because it is.'

The Doctor half turned, throwing up his hands in impatience. 'That's nonsense,' he said.

'Selling arms to Shanks's boys is no different from selling them to some bunch of Arabs in the Middle East. I sell metal tubes. Once they're out of my hands I don't care what the buyer does with them.'

'When you were six,' said the Doctor, slumping into a leather armchair, 'I visited the school with Nyssa. You sat on my knee and told me you wanted to be an astronaut. Do you remember?'

'Yes,' said Winstone. 'You told me a story about an astronaut who wanted to be in s.p.a.ce so he could see the face of G.o.d...'

'But when he got there, he couldn't see anything but s.p.a.ce,' continued the Doctor. 'Do you remember the moral of the story?'

'No.' There was an almost innocent curiosity in Trevor's voice now.

'The moral was,' began the Doctor slowly, 'that sometimes we do the right thing for the wrong reason, and sometimes we do the wrong thing for the right reason. But that right and wrong are always involved.'

'The money Matthew made from brokering the arms deals, and all his other projects, goes to an infertility clinic,' said Trevor suddenly. 'I don't know why I'm telling you this.'

'Because you want to,' said the Doctor. 'Infertility? I knew it. It's all to do with the village, isn't it? Once anybody leaves, they lose the ability to reproduce.'

Trevor nodded. 'You are are smart. Matt wants me to kill you, you know.' smart. Matt wants me to kill you, you know.'

'But you won't,' said the Doctor.

'Won't I?'

'No,' said a voice from the blackness of the corridor.

'Because if you do, it'll be the last thing you ever ever do.' do.'

'Chief Constable,' said the Doctor as Denman walked into the room, both hands around a pistol. 'How much of that did you hear?'

'Most of the incriminating stuff,' said Denman. 'Some idiot left the door open.'

'Ah, that was me,' said the Doctor brightly. 'I thought it was about time you got here.'

'Right, sonny,' said Denman moving closer to Winstone.

'You're nicked. Put the gun down and lie face down on the floor.'

Trevor smirked. 'I don't believe you have the authority to arrest me any more. Not after everything that happened last night.' He placed his gun on the table. 'In any case, that's all a bit hackneyed, isn't it, Mr Denman? What do you except me to say? ”It's a fair cop, guv. You got me banged to rights and no mistake”?'

'How about ”ow”,' said Denman, punching Trevor in the face. Trevor toppled backward over his chair. Denman rounded the desk and kicked him savagely in the ribs. The anger that he had struggled to contain during the encounters with Shanks and Hill finally spilled over. 'Last night my daughter killed herself. She's dead because of people like you, you verminous b.a.s.t.a.r.d,' he said, kneeling down and punching Winstone again. 'Do you hear me? Nicola's dead.'

'I'm sorry,' wailed Trevor as the Doctor leapt over the desk and pushed Denman away.

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