Part 25 (2/2)

He had to speed up the old man was coming back. He was carrying a mop and bucket.

'If you want a job done properly...' Limb muttered.

McBride's hand closed gladly on a metal bar. He dragged himself forward and crawled through into the corridor.

He was crawling through Ace's blood...

Horrified beyond pain, he had lurched to his feet and run from the h.e.l.lish dungeon into the sunlight.

'Even in the midst of life, we are in death...'

McBride had heard the spiel often in the past. It went with the job.

But this was indescribably worse. He'd been there. He should have saved her. The Doc had trusted him...

He'd managed somehow to get himself to a hospital lucky not to have punctured a lung then had discharged himself prematurely and gone straight to the cops. They'd checked out the zoo, then had 127 suddenly gone quiet. Polite, regretful, blank in response to McBride's enquiries. McBride knew when he was being stonewalled. It was the Cyber thing all over again. A cover-up.

Then the body had turned up. That had caught them on the hop it made a bit of a splash in the papers before they could squash it.

There couldn't even have been an autopsy. It was all too quick. They just wanted the whole thing out of the way.

Dead and buried. McBride almost laughed.

He'd tried unsuccessfully to find Rita he was going to raise a holy stink about this. That was when the Doctor had appeared, silently, like a ghost, pale and drawn, old-looking, and told him no.

That was all he'd said: no. He'd told him when the funeral was, then left, and McBride hadn't seen him until just now when he'd turned up at the graveside.

He looked at the strange little man. He seemed even smaller.

Shrunken by his loss...

He hadn't yet met McBride's eyes.

The vicar finished his recitation and leaned towards McBride and the Doctor.

'Would you like to throw the earth now?'

They each had a handful of earth. Solemnly they let it fall, first the Doctor, then McBride. The earth rattled hollowly off the lid of the coffin.

Apart from the two of them, the vicar and some professional bearers, there was no one else around the sad little grave, though a policeman lurked some distance away beneath the trees.

'Thank you, gentlemen,' the vicar said. 'My deepest condolences. I shall leave you alone now.'

'Thank you,' the Doctor croaked.

The vicar smiled sympathetically and shuffled off.

'I'm sorry, Doc. I failed,' McBride said.

'The fault is mine, Cody,' the little man said in a quiet, hollow voice.

'I did a terrible thing bringing her here. I found her body, you see. In the future. I found out the point in time where it was to happen and brought her back here. I didn't want this hanging over her... or me. I was sure I could prevent it.'

He shook his head slowly. The pair began to walk from the lonely graveside.

'Did you know there are laws of time?' the Doctor asked.

'Yeah?' McBride could barely follow all this.

'And I broke them. I came here with prior knowledge of future events, intending to change things, and in doing so I've helped make 128 them happen. Time won't be tricked, Cody.'

'It was George Limb, Doc!'

'I know.'

'I saw him do it - I couldn't stop him. He had this big flunky sounds mad, but I'd swear it was James Dean...' McBride shrugged. '...

and he '

'James Dean?' the Doctor interrupted, suddenly sharp-sounding.

'The movie star. He was killed in a car crash back in '55. This guy was a dead ringer for him. Tough, too'

McBride's hand rested lightly on his bandaged ribs.

The Doctor stopped walking.

'This situation gets worse by the minute, Cody. I half feared as much.'

'What?'

'James Dean. It appears I'm not the only one who's been messing around with time.'

129.

Chapter fourteen.

'What in the name of Jesus has been going on here?'

General Crawhammer sucked furiously on the fat stump of a cigar.

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