Doctor How and the Deadly Anemones (15 page)

“Uh, yeah. Like maybe the once that she mentioned.”

“And the clock on the motherboard of your computer has probably been out too. Am I right?

“Uh, yup. Come to think of it, there was this stuff on the news about people being late for work. And a bit of a scare about a computer virus causing motherboards to slow up.”

“So,” he sighed, giving Kevin a raised eyebrow. “Nothing unusual at all.”

“Aw, Doc.”

“I would say no harm done, but I’m not so sure. Still, it could have been worse – it could also have been a
singing
flower. That really would have been the end.” He pointed his Ultraknife at the flower and it stopped bobbing.

“Hey, what did you do?”

“Disabled it,” said the Doctor matter-of-factly. He pocketed his Ultraknife and looked pensive.

“But that’s my Mum’s. It’s the kinda thing she likes.”

“Well it’s not going to do her any good Kevin. And it’s not going to do any of us any good, frankly. It’s a small-scale time distorter. Not very powerful, but it’s way beyond your society’s technological capabilities. It’s very primitive by my standards, but no one else is supposed to have this kind of stuff.
No one
. I don’t like this one little bit.” He picked it up and looked underneath. “And I doubt very much that the Chinese have the technology – they’re only human too. Nor was it manufactured by accident. This is part of something much, much bigger. Where did she get it?”

“Oh, she’d have picked something like that up down at Brixton Market. There are always loads of stalls and little shops selling junk like that.”

“Just sheer chance? Hmm. Come on, we have to get to Brixton Market.” He pocketed the plastic flower and pot, his hand going deeper into his pocket than physically possible.

“You still feeling her? Your Spectrel, I mean?”

“Of course. Just handing her this sample.” He held the front door open for Kevin, who exited and locked it behind him.

“Couldn’t you get When’s Spectrel to look at it?”

The Doctor snorted. “My dear cousin would spend the next decade wittering on about the handiwork and never get to the analysis. We simply don’t have the time.”

They walked quickly back down the pavement to When’s Spectrel. The Doctor tapped on the door, which swung open. They squeezed through the entrance and into the large control room within. The door shut automatically behind Kevin.

“We found a little device,” said the Doctor to the expectant-looking When. “Solar-powered, giving it a long life. It also explains your observation that night-times were quiet.”

“May I see it?”

“I put it in my Spectrel’s lab.”

“But you don’t even know where your Spectrel is, Peter! I could have analysed that for you.”

“I’ll get something back using my Ultraknife as intermediary. Besides, we’re going to see if we can get some fresh ones.”

“Fresh ones?”

“Yes, now steer us to Brixton Market.”

“Oh, you don’t want to go there,” said When. “Not after that terrible incident the other day.”

“Walter, that was in the sewers. Trinity was a witness to it. It was a polyp imported illegally by the late Rindan consul and her husband. Please do try to keep up with out-of-town news.”

“I like to concentrate, Peter. You know that.”

“Well just concentrate on getting us to Brixton Market. Please. Now.”

“If you would care to give me an address, then I will happily oblige. Brixton Market has grown somewhat in recent years. There’s the Brixton Village, for example, an indoor market made of small units selling everything from ethnic –”

“The corner of Electric Avenue and Atlantic Road.”

“Ah, but –”

“On the north side of Atlantic Road, underneath the overhead railway.”

“As you wish, Peter,” said When a little snootily. He fiddled with the controls.

“Well?” asked the Doctor.

“Same problem as you had trying to get to Kevin’s. I can’t get close to the place without quite a lot of error creeping in.”

“At least that confirms there’s a load of them there. How near can you drop us off?”

“Well, let me see…”

“Oh, just let me handle this, will you?” The Doctor nudged his cousin out of the way, took out his Ultraknife and thought hard. “Right, come along Kevin.”

The Doctor grabbed Kevin’s upper arm and made towards the door. He pushed his assistant through it and then followed him out.

“Doc, I can’t believe –”

“You’ve been in Brixton Underground station plenty of times before, lad.”

“Yeah, but I’ve always arrived by train. And don’t you think a Post Office box is going to look a little, erm,
out of place
down here?”

“I suppose you’re right. But even if the cloaking were to fail, the sheer disbelief of seeing one down here might work for us. Probably not worth the risk keeping it here given my cousin’s lack of practice and apparent lack of interest.” He opened the door to the box and stuck his head in. Kevin heard him giving instructions to his cousin. He closed the door and turned to Kevin. “I told him just to go home. Always a bit of a risk to these things – no sense in putting us both in jeopardy.” The Post Office box disappeared.

There was a stirring of air on the platform and a pair of bright headlights appeared out of the darkness up the track, with an accompanying thunder. Through the station on the other platform they heard a train head out to the north.

“Let’s get out before the crush,” said the Doctor. They went through one of the archways to the centre of the station between the platforms and headed up an escalator. “We’d have been a quarter of a mile away if I’d not taken her underground, you see. And if I’d asked Walter to drop us that far away he’d have suggested Brixton sorting office. You know, all his postal stuff.” He gave a weary expression.

They headed for the barriers and went through with their Oyster cards, up the steps into the bustling streets of Brixton. They headed left through the heaving crowds waiting for buses, then turned left into Electric Avenue – the curving street behind the Underground station that connected Brixton Road with Atlantic Road. It was pedestrianized; the surface underfoot covered in rubbish from the day’s activities.

“Right,” said the Doctor over his shoulder, “keep your eyes peeled, lad.” The Doctor had his Ultraknife in his right hand, keeping it partly covered. “We’re very close. Almost too close to get a directional feel. I suspect there are a few already scattered around in flats in the immediate vicinity.” He was clearly irritated by the crowds, excusing himself politely when he found someone in his way – which was with almost every step he took. Kevin tagged close behind, not minding the barging and shoving.

The first few stalls they passed were fruit and veg. The Doctor looked earnestly past them. “Butchers,” he said, nodding at the butchers’ shops.

“Yeah, right,” said Kevin.

“It’s what attracted the
polyp
,” hissed the Doctor. “All that blood and meat in the waste water.” He glanced over at one of the butchery windows. “Good grief. I’ve not seen cuts of meat like
that
in London since the fifteenth century. And not those particular
parts
of the animals either.”

“Like, it’s what ethnic people want to eat, Doc. It’s in their tradition.”

“I know, but it’s just so long since I’ve seen it. I suppose if the English were sticking to tradition there’d still be barbecued starlings on a stick and four-and-twenty blackbirds in a pie.”

“
Gross
, man.”

“That’s rather my point. Be thankful you haven’t had to eat them at a party.”

“You didn’t, did you?”

“What do you think?” The Doctor shot him a look.

They came to the end of Electric Avenue that met with Atlantic Road. A train thundered past on the elevated railway line above the shops on the other side. “Very strong indication of activity over the road,” said the Doctor. “That’s why we couldn’t get near.”

“That’s Brixton Village – like Walter mentioned. They were going to knock it down a few years back but they relaunched it with that new fancy name. It’s dozens of little retail spaces.”

“Come on, then.”

They jogged across the road and under the overhang of the platform of the railway station above.

“In here,” said Kevin, pointing to a railway arch that doubled as an entrance.

The light was all artificial, and the retail units were shops in miniature, divided up into avenues and streets. They were mostly no more than ten by fifteen feet, sometimes with a couple of tables and chairs or a display table outside. The air was redolent with the smell of spicy food and exotic fragrances, and the place was busy.

The Doctor looked around. “How charming,” he said in a tone which left Kevin wondering whether his comment was genuine or sarcastic. “At least it has a logical layout that we can follow for a systematic search. I don’t need my Ultraknife to detect the disturbance. Every fibre of my being feels it.”

“Like, what does it feel like?”

“Really unpleasant. Like being bathed in treacle, but without the promise of sweetness. It’s bitter.”

“Uh-huh,” said Kevin, giving the Doctor a sideways look. “Are you like one of these people who sees sounds as colours an’ stuff like that?”

“The condition in humans is called
synaesthesia
. One sense stimulates another. An individual might see colours or smell certain smells when hearing musical notes. Or see numbers and equations as landscapes. For some beings these are entirely natural ways of experiencing their surroundings.”

“Coolio. How’s the treacle?”

“Getting thicker and more bitter.
Horrible
. To put it in your parlance, someone is
like really messing with time
.”

They headed up one complete street, jostling through the crowds, passing cafés, nail booths, hairdressers, a photographer’s studio, and a miscellany of shops selling what the Doctor described as ‘tat’. It was these last shops that interested him most, and they scoured the shelves looking for the plastic flowers. They went up an avenue and started down the next street. The Doctor stopped Kevin with an outstretched arm.

“There,” he said, and pointed to a shop with a display of cheap plastic bric-a-brac outside it. There were a dozen of the plastic flowers bobbing weakly in the artificial light. He picked one up and examined it, paying particular attention to the underside.

A large black woman in her forties gave them a toothy smile from the inside of the shop and came out. “Can I help you?” she said in a West African accent.

“How much for these?” asked the Doctor.

The lady looked at his suit and said, “The dancing daisies are eight pounds each.”

The Doctor spluttered. “They’ve got a price tag of five on the bottom! And they’re not daisies. They’re anemones.”

She took the plastic flower from him, peeled off the price tag and handed it back to the Doctor. “Previous owner,” she lied. “I bought them to sell on. I have to make a mark-up, darling. And they’re
dancing daisies
. Alliteration, innit?”

“They’re anemones. The flowers of the daisy are actually a
pseudanthium
– a head consisting of many flowers, which is why they have so many small petals. This, madam, has five large petals and is an
anemone
. Specifically, it looks like a snowdrop anemone.”

The lady sucked her teeth. “You might have a suit and an education, but I know how to sell. People think anemones are jellyfish. And it’s too difficult to spell.
Dancing daisies
sells, man.”

“Alright, alright,” said the Doctor, irritated. “Here’s ninety pounds for the lot.”

“A hundred-and-twenty.”

“A hundred-and-twenty? But there are twelve. That should be ninety-six pounds! I’m only asking for a six pound discount.”

“I don’t give no discounts. Besides, I use these to get the punters in, and then I upsell them to other things. So they’re worth more to me than face value, darlin’.”

“Do you have any more in stock besides these?” The Doctor was fumbling in his inside breast pocket.

“Yeah, man. I got a couple of big boxes back there. Two hundred, maybe more. I can’t give you no volume discounts.”

The Doctor’s laugh contained a note of hysteria. Then his face changed. “Trading Standards officer,” he said, whipping out a card from his pocket and showing it to the woman, who cast a wary eye over it. “If you’re displaying them at one price you can’t sell them at another. I’m going to have to impound these.”

“You can’t impound them over an issue of price, man.”

“They’re also defective. I’ve had complaints.” The Doctor started fumbling in his unnaturally deep outside waist pocket, his arm disappearing up to the elbow.

“Complaints? From who?”

“This young man.” The Doctor pointed at Kevin. “His mother bought one and it doesn’t work.” He brought out the plastic flower from his pocket with a flourish. “See?” He put it down next to the others and the three of them stood in silence for two seconds as they waited for the light to activate it. It remained motionless.