Part 3 (2/2)

Tommy smiled with the others before becoming more serious. 'That may be, but I seem to recall we were still just upstarts when we all got out of the army. It didn't take us long to push the old-timers out of the area. That's not going to happen to us.' He slammed a fist down on the table. 'These are my streets and n.o.body is taking them away from me!'

Tommy made eye contact with each one of his men as he looked around the table. 'Jack's done a good job in my absence but I'm taking control again now. Any resistance is to be crushed everybody got that?' Nods all round. 'Now get out there and spread the word Tommy Ramsey is back!'

The meeting at an end, the lieutenants filed out one by one.

Brick made his own report to Tommy once the others had gone.

'I followed the girl like you said. She lives in the boarding house on Great Sutton Street run by Mrs Kel y. Been there two weeks, no bother to anybody, no visitors, keeps herself to herself.'

Tommy nodded his appreciation. 'Good work Brick.

Tomorrow you '

He was interrupted by the arrival of Billy Valance, who staggered into the meeting room and collapsed on to a chair. He looked dishevelled and disorientated.

'Where the h.e.l.l have you been?' Tommy demanded.

'Meeting finished five minutes ago!'

'Sorry Tommy,' Billy said. 'I've been wandering the streets in a daze, hardly knowing who I am or where I was.'

'You're not making much sense now. What happened?'

'I don't know,' Billy replied, forlornly shaking his head. 'It was the watchmender, I think he used some trick. It all happened so fast, I hardly knew what hit me.'

Tommy lifted Billy's face up by the chin and stared deep into his lieutenant's bloodshot eyes. 'You telling me the truth or you having a laugh?'

'It's the truth, Tommy, I swear!'

The gang boss slapped Billy across the face once, twice, three times. He drew his hand back for another swipe and Billy cowered before his cold fury. 'Please, Tommy, I'm sorry. It won't happen again!'

'You better be right. I've just told the others that Tommy Ramsey is in charge and you come in here saying you can't even rumple the clothing of an old man! What kind of fool do you think that makes me look, eh?'

Tommy slapped the whimpering man again for good measure.

'Now listen to me carefully. Tomorrow, you go back to the watchmender and you make an example of him.' Tommy looked to his bodyguard. 'You better take Brick for your own protection!'

Billy nodded his understanding, his bottom lip wobbling like a blubbering infant.

'Now get out of my sight!' Tommy snarled.

A police call box stood in Whitecross Lane, just around the corner from the Fixing Time shop. A gentle humming could be heard near the tall blue structure but an Out Of Order notice was pasted to its front door.

Sarah approached the TARDIS nonchalantly and knocked three times on the door. It opened after she had waited a few seconds and Sarah stepped inside. No matter how many times she entered the TARDIS, that first moment after coming through the doorway always left her disorientated. Intellectually, she knew that the time machine was bigger on the inside than it was on the outside dimensionally transcendental was the Doctor's tongue-twisting explanation for the phenomenon. But her senses still rebelled at the sudden s.h.i.+ft in reality. As far as Sarah's body was concerned, she should be inside a rather cramped upright cupboard. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The control room was a many-sided chamber that gleamed with light and energy. Dozens of roundels were set into the walls. In the middle of the room was a central console, with a cylindrical rotor at its heart that rose and fell when the TARDIS travelled through time and s.p.a.ce. Around the rotor were set panels of switches, dials and b.u.t.tons. The operation of the TARDIS remained a mystery to Sarah. To her it was like a Boeing 747 she didn't need to know how it worked, she just wanted to be sure she would arrive at her destination safely. The Doctor often complained about the TARDIS's erratic sense of direction but he seemed to have tamed its liking for the scenic route of late. The time machine had been arriving at its intended destination safely, even if the destination had proven to be anything but safe for the travellers.

The Doctor looked up from the central console and smiled at Sarah as she entered. 'Here at last! I was beginning to wonder if you would make it.'

Sarah took her coat off and hung it on a hatstand in one of the room's many corners. 'Tommy Ramsey had his bodyguard follow me back to the boarding house. I took the long way here to make sure I wasn't followed.'

The Doctor returned to fiddling with a mess of wiring that had been pulled from one of the central console's panels. 'And were you?'

'No, I don't think so.'

'That's alright then,' the Doctor replied soothingly. He plucked a burnt and blackened circuit from the wiring and held it up in front of his face. 'This is the culprit.'

He walked to a door on the far side of the control room. It led off to a bewildering array of corridors, rooms, chambers, storage s.p.a.ces and even a swimming pool. Sarah had once tried to explore the labyrinthine interior of the TARDIS, but the closer she got to its heart the more confused she became. She contented herself with converting a large, friendly room into her living quarters and raiding clothes from an immense walk-in wardrobe. It had provided her period clothes for this sojourn in 1952. She decided that the trouser suits for women and artificial fabrics from her own time would attract unwanted attention in this era. The Doctor never seemed to bother trying to blend his attire with his location, yet his clothes seemed to match his manner no matter where or when he went.

'Doctor, I ' Sarah began.

'Be right with you,' he replied, his voice echoing as if it were coming from the other side of a vast cathedral. When he returned to the console room his travelling companion was visibly shaking. 'Now, what were you my dear, what's wrong?

What is it?'

Sarah told him about her encounter with Tommy. The Doctor placed a rea.s.suring hand around her shoulders.

'I I almost got a man killed today,' Sarah stammered. She walked away from the Doctor, hugging her arms around herself.

'Perhaps coming here was a mistake. Perhaps the photo is wrong perhaps we aren't meant to be here, not now, not in this place.'

'I only wish that were true,' the Doctor said quietly to himself.

'Thousands of people will die in the next few days,' Sarah continued, not hearing his comment. 'How can you know our coming here doesn't cause those deaths? We could be responsible for what is about to happen!'

'We are no more responsible for what is about to happen than you are responsible for the actions of Tommy Ramsey,' the Doctor replied. 'He seems to be the key to the next few days if only we could learn how he is involved, we could unlock the mystery...'

'You know, sometimes Doctor, I don't understand you at all.

We've been here two weeks and in all that time all you've done is mend clocks and watches in that shop of yours. It's like you don't care, don't want to get involved. Thousands of people are going to die in the next few days '

'Don't you think I know that!' he said. 'Do you think I enjoy waiting to be a witness to tragedy and death?'

'Then stop waiting! Do something to stop it!'

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