Part 20 (1/2)

The Doctor had extracted Silk's letter from inside the envelope and was thoughtfully perusing it while Ace searched for more envelopes addressed in her hand. 'You know what else might be helpful?' said Elina.

'What's that dear?'

'Those ledgers. Those great big ledgers the Storrows keep.'

The Doctor looked up from the letter. 'Ledgers?'

'That's right,' said Albert excitedly. 'Big huge volumes. The Storrows record details about business transactions, but also about their so-called clients. They have names, addresses, personal facts. . . '

'Some very very personal facts,' added Elina, her fat cherubic face turning hot and red. personal facts,' added Elina, her fat cherubic face turning hot and red.

'They're like personal histories. I suspect the Storrows have some pretty unsavoury reasons for keeping them. In fact, I bet they use them to apply leverage.'

'Leverage?' said the Doctor. 'You mean blackmail?'

'I'm afraid so,' said Albert. He went and stood beside Elina. The woman took his tiny hand in her huge one. 'The Missus and I didn't know what kind of people they were when we started working here. Then by the time we found out. . . '

'Don't castigate yourselves,' said the Doctor. 'You're making amends now.

And I would certainly like to see those ledgers.'

'They're upstairs in the office. I'll go and get them,' said Albert.

130.'Oh but they're heavy,' said Elina. 'And they're up on that high shelf.'

'I'm not a child, woman.'

'They're much too heavy for you to reach down.' Elina rose ponderously from her chair. 'I'll come up and help you.'

'Not with your veins you won't,' said Albert fiercely. 'You know what those stairs do to your legs.'

'I'll help,' said Ace. She rose from the love seat, leaving the Doctor to look through the envelopes as Albert led her from the room. The carpeted staircase rose upwards from the entrance hall into the cool, shadowy, quiet s.p.a.ce of the second floor. There was a sweet, dusty smell of dying flowers in the air.

'This is very good of you,' said Albert. 'I could probably wrestle those darn ledgers down by myself, but Elina's right. They're awfully big.' He reached the top step and stood aside politely to let Ace go past. They were in a narrow corridor with framed photographs on the wall on either side. The photographs were similar to the ones in the alb.u.m downstairs. Glamour shots of celebrities, carefully staged studio shots with immaculate lighting. It was amusing to Ace to note how many of the sleek men and women were posed with cigarettes, as though tobacco was an essential part of their mystique.

Some of the photographs were more candid shots, taken informally indoors and outside. In some she recognised the chapel in the background. Several featured Albert and Elina posing with the celebrities. Ace had just begun to wonder why movie stars and famous athletes would want to pose with the caretaker and his wife, when she came on one photo depicting a beautiful oriental woman flanked by the couple. There was no question of the woman's ident.i.ty. It was Lady Silk, and Albert and Elina were standing on either side of her.

That was weird.

Ace turned to Albert, who was following close behind her, to ask him about it. As she turned she saw Albert stepping away from her, pulling his arm sharply back, then lunging at her in a violent blur of movement. There was a look of vicious glee in his eyes. His fist slammed into her face, high on her right cheekbone, and Ace felt her head snap back. The pain was intense, as though the whole side of her face was collapsing, and the blow knocked her off her feet. She fell backwards, hitting the wall, dragging framed photographs down off it. One of the pictures, in a large heavy metal frame crashed down on her head and bounced off, the gla.s.s shattering. The blow from the heavy picture frame felt like it was pus.h.i.+ng Ace down into deep, muddy water. She fought to retain consciousness.

All she could think was that she had to warn the Doctor. She opened her mouth and tried to scream, and Albert stepped forward and kicked her in the pit of the stomach. Ace heard the breath whoop out of her mouth and felt her 131body hinge forward at the waist, a broken toy. Consciousness began to melt away redly at the edges. She distantly felt Albert continuing to pummel her, but it was all irrelevant now.

She stared at her feet as she blacked out.

'Ace. Ace.' The voice was a low, insistent whisper. It kept coming at her. It wouldn't leave her alone. The voice was familiar, but that didn't make her any more eager to listen to it. Ace tried to go back to sleep. She tried to roll over and pull the covers over her head. But she couldn't move. There were no covers. She wasn't in bed.

She was sitting in a chair with her hands tied behind the back of it. Ace raised her head and wearily opened her eyes. The Doctor was sitting opposite her, also tied to a chair. They were in a circular room with a spiral staircase descending through a well in the centre of the floor. There was a raised semi-circular platform at one end of the room with a telescope perched on a tripod upon it. The telescope was pointed at a wide curving window that revealed an expanse of sky, full of clouds stained with sunset colours. That was all Ace could take in. She shut her eyes again.

'Ace. Wake up. Please. You must wake up.' The Doctor was persistent, pleading, wheedling but she just ignored him. What was the point waking up when you were tied to a chair in some kind of observatory with a telescope?

The only sensible thing to do was to go back to sleep and hope you'd wake up somewhere else.

'Ace!' The Doctor's voice was imperative, relentless. It was like trying to sleep while your neighbours were drilling the walls. Ace opened her eyes again. She was staring at the floor now, at her feet. They were tied to the front legs of the chair. Staring at her feet reminded her of something.

The last thing she'd seen before she blacked out. Sitting there in the upstairs hall with her back against the wall, broken pictures all around her and Albert beating the h.e.l.l out of her. With the memory came fear and anger, but mostly anger.

'The little creep sucker-punched me,' she said. Her voice sounded strangely quiet, rusty. Her mouth was dry.

'Good girl, Ace,' said the Doctor fiercely. 'You're awake now. Stay awake.'

'Oh G.o.d. I feel sick. My head hurts.'

'They've been dosing you with chloroform every time you woke up.'

'The toerags.' Ace stared across the room at the Doctor. She tried to smile but her lips wouldn't move. She could feel the swelling of a black eye on her right cheek. It felt tight and hot. Then something the Doctor had said began to alarm her. 'Chloroform?'

132.'Yes, although I think they might be using ether, too. In any case you're all right now. Take deep breaths.'

Ace looked at the window. The sun hadn't sunk entirely yet. It seemed to be only a few minutes after she'd gone upstairs with Albert. 'How long have I been out?'

'Almost twenty-four hours.'

'Twenty-four hours?'

'Yes it's the night of the following day.'

'So I guess we missed Duke Ellington,' said Ace.

The Doctor smiled. 'I'm afraid so.'

'Pity. Why have they been keeping me unconscious?'

'They obviously want us helpless while they decide what to do with us.

They've also been dosing me, though the chloroform hasn't had the desired effect because of my somewhat different metabolism. I've been pretending to sleep and waiting for you to come round.'

Ace shook her head, trying to disperse the thick clouds that seemed to clog it. 'Albert and Elina. They're not the Storrows' caretakers.'

'No, they're the Storrows themselves. We should have suspected something.

They were all too conveniently cooperative and eager to betray their employers. I should have suspected something.' The Doctor smiled sadly. 'I'm sorry I got you into this.'

'It's what I signed up for,' said Ace. 'So what do we do now?'

'Actually, there are quite a number of courses of action open to us. I was merely waiting for you to wake up, because your a.s.sistance is required in all of them. Do you feel ready?'

Ace shook her head again. The room seemed to pulse and ebb around her before stabilising. 'As I'll ever be.'

'Then I suggest we work our way across the room. It's possible to move in these chairs if we're patient, by rocking from side to side. We will work our way to that telescope and then, with your help, we will tip it over. This is the critical part. We must break it, break its lens, but without making too much noise. Between the two of us I believe we can manage that.'