Part 14 (1/2)

Butcher grinned again. 'He already did. In exactly those words.'

'Just a coincidence of terminology,' said the Doctor. 'The point I'm trying to make is that we're not your enemies.' Butcher snorted and turned away and 85started towards the door. 'That's a good idea,' said the Doctor. 'Go home and sleep it off. It's been a long day and you have killed a woman.'

Butcher stopped in his tracks. He had his back to them but Ace could see the tension in his shoulders. He turned back to them and said, 'What did you say?'

'Merely that you have every reason to be upset,' said the Doctor. 'Why don't you sit down and talk to us. Ray could offer you a beer, couldn't you Ray?'

'Sure,' said Ray uncertainly, his big frame bobbing towards the refrigerator without actually moving in that direction.

'I'm not sitting here drinking beer with you,' said Butcher.

'But we never finished our discussion about your work, your writing,' said the Doctor. Butcher came back into the room.

'What about my writing?'

'I told you how much I admired your first four books but I never mentioned your short stories. Small vivid cla.s.sics like The Woman in the Night, Tarpaper, The Woman in the Night, Tarpaper, Fire Escape, The Head on the Coin Fire Escape, The Head on the Coin.'

'I wrote those years ago.'

'Nonetheless, small cla.s.sics one and all.' Major Butcher ignored him. He turned and walked towards the door. The Doctor called after him, 'And how could I ignore your other novel, the masterful Shadow Man Shadow Man?' Butcher said nothing, going out and slamming the door behind him.

'Hey man,' said Ray. 'Could someone open that door again. It's a hot night and we need some breeze in here, baby.'

Outside in the night, Butcher walked swiftly, trying to raise enough of a breeze to cool himself down. He was almost back at his quarters when he realised what the Doctor had said. He had mentioned a novel of Butcher's called Shadow Man Shadow Man.

But Butcher had written no such novel. He fully intended to do so, but so far the novel only existed as notes. Butcher's heart began to hammer in his chest. He felt himself sweating in the warm night. There was only one explanation.

The Doctor had broken into his quarters and found Butcher's notebook.

He hurried back to the prefab hut and unlocked the door. There was no trace that the door had been forced in his absence, but then a professional would leave no such trace. He left the door open behind him so that the fresh air from outside displaced the hot stale air trapped in the tin hut. He took off his s.h.i.+rt and poured himself a drink. There was no hurry now. He checked the lock on his desk and it showed no signs of being forced, but again that signified nothing. He took out the fat brown notebook and opened it at a 86page marked with a braided black cotton bookmark. Here were his notes on Shadow Man Shadow Man. This is what the Doctor must have seen.

Then a disquieting thought occurred to Butcher. He went through the note book, checking every page. He felt the sweat gather on him again, despite the air flowing in from the night. Nowhere in the notebook had he written the t.i.tle Shadow Man Shadow Man. He had only thought of it recently and hadn't yet written it in the book.

He hadn't written it anywhere. He had only thought it.87.

Chapter Seven.

Into the Desert There was the sound of weeping up at the Oppenheimer house.

Butcher had woken up that morning with a clear determination to get to the bottom of the puzzle about the Doctor. But the events of the day soon overtook him. First he had to deal with the first wave of the considerable amount of paperwork generated by the violent demise of Rosalita Gracia Cruz Tenebre, as he learned was the full name of the dead woman. That took all morning and well into the afternoon. Next he had to pay a call on Oppy. Although, of course, he'd already relayed the news of Rosalita's death, Butcher hadn't been up to the house in person and this was something he felt obliged to do. Oppy met him outside the house and diplomatically guided him around to the back door.

They went into the kitchen to talk. The kitchen was cool and dark, the tiles s.h.i.+ning. Oppy told him she had washed the floor just before she had left, to take what he thought was an afternoon off work to be spent shopping.

Instead Rosalita had taken the revolver she had kept in an oil cloth under her bed (Butcher had the oil cloth along with a typed report from one of his sergeants) and gone down to the pond where she'd tried to blow Butcher's head off.

Nevertheless, Butcher shared some of Oppenheimer's regretful nostalgia when he spoke of the dead woman. The kitchen still smelled spicily of Rosalita's chilli, and there was a small but genuine sense of inconsolable loss, somewhere deep in Butcher's stomach.

The sound of weeping that echoed from the living room was clearly Kitty Oppenheimer's response to the situation. Butcher noticed a bottle of gin, a jar of honey and a sliced lime on the kitchen table. Kitty was drinking martinis and mourning the loss of her cook. Dead drunk at four in the afternoon.

'Incidentally,' said Oppy, 'I've given Dr Smith some time off.'

'What?'

'And the Doctor's a.s.sistant Acacia and Ray Morita.'

'Why?'

'The Doctor is a keen amateur geologist.'

'I'll bet he is.'89.

Oppenheimer shook his head in amus.e.m.e.nt. 'I understand that you have a professional obligation to be suspicious, Major, but Dr Smith has written some very highly regarded papers about fossils. And while he's here in New Mexico he wants to examine the local geological formations. I can hardly say no to him, especially since his discussions with Teller seem to have got him off my back. And anyway it's going to be a working break.'

'What kind of a working break?' said Butcher. He noticed that the sound of crying from the living room had ceased. Somehow the silence was worse than the woman weeping.

'I told Ray Morita to go with him.' Oppenheimer shook his head affectionately. 'He and the Doctor share a very unusual way of looking at things. Their approach to physics is subtly different from everyone else's here. I thought it might be a fruitful combination if I threw them together.'

'And the girl is going along too? In case they feel the need to do some calculations while they're looking for fossils?'

'More or less, Major. That's right. Have you ever seen her in action? The girl is exceptional. A genuine prodigy. As you may know, we have some very sophisticated electronic computing machines here on the Hill. But this girl has them all beat. If we had twenty like her it would put this project on a whole new footing.'

'Yeah, it probably would,' said Butcher. His sarcasm was lost on Oppenheimer because Kitty chose that moment to emerge from the living room and come swaying down the short hallway into the kitchen. She gazed at Butcher for an uncomfortable moment without saying anything. Then she said, enunciating with great care, 'Murderer.'

Butcher turned away. He heard her go to the table and start fumbling with the gin bottle and the limes as he walked out the door. Oppy followed him into the yard and they stood in the dappled shade of the trees together, staring up into the hot blue sky. 'Kitty doesn't know what she's saying,' said Oppy.

Butcher cut off the apology. 'When are the Doctor and the others setting off on their little jaunt into the desert?'

Oppy consulted his watch. 'They left half an hour ago.'

Butcher cursed silently, suppressing his anger. He came to a sudden decision. 'I think I need some time off myself,' he said. 'After what happened yesterday.'

'Naturally,' said Oppy. 'The only reason I didn't suggest it was that I thought you'd refuse.'

'Just the rest of the day,' said Butcher.

'Of course.' When Butcher left, walking along the crazy-paving footpath, Kitty saw him from the living room window and swept the curtain shut. He hurried off down Bathtub Row, striding towards his quarters where he was 90going to change into some more suitable clothing. And then he would requisition a vehicle from the motor pool.

Something suitable for driving in the desert.

Ace bounced along in the front seat of a jeep borrowed from the motor pool.

'Are you sure you know how to drive this thing, Doctor?'

The Doctor grinned at her. He was sitting in the driving seat, his hat off and the wind blowing through his hair. He was wearing a heavy tweed jacket like a country gentleman on an outing. 'It's no Bessie, but nonetheless quite an enjoyable vehicle to drive.' He peered out over the downfolded windscreen, at the desert landscape that came rus.h.i.+ng towards them. 'I'm sorry if it's a trifle uncomfortable, Ace, but there's no roads hereabouts so the going is rough. And even if there was a road, these vehicles are not exactly designed with comfort in mind. The suspension in particular leaves something to be desired.' The Doctor kept on grinning happily as he s.h.i.+fted gears, steering the growling jeep across the forbiddingly rugged terrain.

Ace bounced up and down in her worn leather seat, her motion echoing the contours of the ground they were driving over. 'That's all very well, but my b.u.m's going to be black and blue tomorrow.'