"Come on in," he replied. "It"s lovely."
"Not likely," she said, though she walked down to the water"s edge and allowed the tide to swirl in around her feet.
She was right. Despite the heat of the day, the water was freezing. Within a minute her feet were aching with cold right through to the bone.
Andy stood up and waded towards her. Tegan couldn"t help thinking how great he looked in his tight blue trunks, water trickling through the wiry hair on his chest, dappling his broad shoulders. Suddenly, five feet from her, he leaned forward, scooped up two great handfuls of water and drenched her.
She leaped back, gasping. "You beast!" she shrieked when she managed to get her breath back. She kicked water at him, but it was no more than a token gesture. Andy was laughing so much that he fell backwards into the water anyway.
At HMS Bilford the Brigadier"s brainstorming session was continuing apace.
"Could this infection be transmitted from person to person, Doctor?" Turlough asked.
"It"s possible," the Doctor said. "I"ll know more once I"ve pinpointed its exact nature. So far it"s proving impervious to a.n.a.lysis."
"We could set up a lab for you here, Doctor, if that TARDIS of yours doesn"t carry the necessary equipment," the Brigadier said with the trace of a smile.
The Doctor raised his eyebrows. "Thank you, Brigadier, but I don"t think that will be necessary."
"It"s not a bad invasion plan... if it is is an invasion plan," an invasion plan,"
Benton said, then reddened when everyone looked at him.
"What I mean is, well it"s sneaky, isn"t it? Coming in by the back door, so to speak. And somewhere like this, well it"s the obvious place. Lots of people coming and going all the time.
You could pick up the infection here, then go back to, say, London or Glasgow or Birmingham and spread it on there. It could be all over the country in no time."
"It is is a feasible scenario, sir," Mike Yates said. a feasible scenario, sir," Mike Yates said.
"Alarmingly so," the Brigadier agreed. "How long before this infection begins to take effect, Doctor?"
"A matter of days, it seems, though I suspect it rather depends on the individual and the level of contact. Our young friend in the mortuary had been in the town only four days, you say?"
Mike nodded. "He arrived last Wednesday."
"Hmm. Then a solution must be found quickly."
"I"ll leave that up to you if I may, Doctor, whilst I concentrate on containing the problem," said the Brigadier.
"Contain how?" asked Turlough.
"First of all by attempting to get the necessary authority to quarantine the town, close down the beach and ban the sale and consumption of seafood."
Mike pulled a face. "With all due respect, sir, I think that might prove difficult. This is is the height of the season, after all. There"s bound to be a huge amount of opposition to your proposal, both locally and nationally." the height of the season, after all. There"s bound to be a huge amount of opposition to your proposal, both locally and nationally."
The Brigadier was silent for a moment, then he nodded thoughtfully. "Yes, I do take your point, Yates. I"ll just have to convince the chaps at Whitehall that we"re facing a national emergency, won"t I?"
"Yes, sir. But I still don"t think it"ll be easy. So far the only evidence we"ve got that there"s anything amiss is the chap in the mortuary, and he alone hardly const.i.tutes the beginnings of an epidemic."
"What about the other people given hospital treatment after last night"s incident?" asked the Doctor. "Did none of them exhibit similar symptoms to the dead man?"
"Not as far as we"re aware, Doctor," said Mike.
"Perhaps they went out of their way to keep themselves covered up," suggested Benton.
"Hmm," said the Doctor. Abruptly he slapped his hands down on his knees. "Well, whilst you concentrate on containment, Brigadier, Turlough and I will attempt to get to the heart of the matter."
"How?" Benton asked.
"By setting the TARDIS coordinates for the area in which Mr Elkins saw the object come down."
"Won"t that be rather dangerous?" Turlough asked, trying to conceal his alarm.
"Not at all," said the Doctor airily. "The TARDIS has an in-built ability to seek out the nearest safe landing spot - which is why she never materialises inside solid objects or underwater. If there is a solid, hollow object - a s.p.a.cecraft, for instance - on the ocean bed, you can rest a.s.sured the TARDIS will find it."
Charlotte had never had a harder night to get through. She had finally drifted off around 5 a.m., just as it was getting light. When she had seen the result of the test she had begun to shake - not just her hands or her arms, but her whole body, as if someone had started a powerful motor chugging inside her belly.
Dropping the strip of plastic she had rushed to the toilet and thrown up. So violent had the reflex been that she had been terrified the foetus might be harmed, and yet there was a part of her that thought that losing the baby at this early stage would maybe not be such a bad thing. She had thrown up twice more, and each time she had felt certain that if it happened again it would turn her inside out. When the urge finally subsided, she sank to the toilet floor, trembling and weeping.
How long she sat there she wasn"t sure. She might have been there all night if it wasn"t for the thought that Mum - or even worse, Dad - might wake up at any time, needing the loo. Though she felt drained of energy, she pushed herself to her feet, flushed the toilet and stumbled back to her room.
She flopped on to her bed, curled into the foetal position, and dragged her bedclothes over her legs.
She lay like that for a long time, her mind full of rushing thoughts. Before she had known she was pregnant, she had decided that she was going to keep the baby, but now she didn"t really know what to do. She felt sick and lost and frightened.
Finally, around dawn, exhaustion overtook her and she slipped into a sleep that was ragged and fitful with half-remembered dreams. It was the sound of someone banging on the door that dragged her out of sleep.
She opened her mouth to shout "Hang on", but the sound that emerged was, "Nu-arrm."
"Charlotte, it"s Mum. Are you up?"
Her mother"s voice crystallised her thoughts, cut through the last clinging threads of sleep. Sitting up, she called in a cracked voice, "Hang on a minute, Mum."
She took several deep breaths in an attempt to rouse herself and tried to rub the tiredness from her eyes before realising it was deeply ingrained in her body. She was halfway across the room when something on the carpet tugged at the edge of her vision. She looked down and saw the pregnancy testing kit. She scooped it up and shoved it into her suitcase, beneath her underwear. When she opened the door seconds later her smile belied her crashing heart.
"Hi, Mum," she said, speaking quickly to hide what she felt sure was a guilty expression. "Are you OK?"
Though she nodded, Imogen didn"t look look OK. She looked drawn, haggard. OK. She looked drawn, haggard.
"Not too bad," she said. "I was so exhausted I slept like a log at any rate. How about you?"
"Oh...I didn"t sleep so well. I had too much stuff on my mind. You know?"
Imogen gave a tight but sympathetic smile and reached out to touch her daughter"s cheek. "I"m sorry to burden you with all our problems - mine and Dad"s, I mean. We should sort ourselves out, shouldn"t we? Not heap it all on you."
Charlotte shrugged and tried to make a joke of it. "You need someone to sort you out." Then she asked tentatively, "How is dad this morning?"
"Still snoring. I"ve left him to it. He"ll have a killer of a hangover when he comes round, I shouldn"t wonder, and it"ll serve him right."
Charlotte"s legs felt wobbly. She crossed back to the bed and sat down. "What time is it?"
"Gone half ten. We"ve missed breakfast, I"m afraid." Imogen gave a watery smile. "We"re not really getting our money"s worth out of this holiday so far, are we?"
Charlotte yawned. Her eyelids felt full of grit. "It"s OK. I"m not really hungry anyway."
"Me neither. I could murder a coffee, though." Imogen paused, then said, "Chris didn"t come back last night."
"Didn"t he?" said Charlotte neutrally.
"No. I think maybe I should call the police."
"I"m sure he"ll be OK, Mum," Charlotte said. "He"s probably staying away to punish us."
"All the same, it would set my mind at rest if the police at least knew he was..."
A peculiar expression, somewhere between distress and confusion, crossed her face, and Charlotte knew her mum had balked at the word "missing". She understood why immediately. It sounded too ominous, too final.
"I"ll come with you," she said quickly. We"ll go downstairs, ring the police, then we"ll go out somewhere and treat ourselves to a really nice breakfast. Just give me ten minutes to get ready, OK?"
"OK. You don"t mind if I wait here for you, do you?"
"No problem. I won"t be long."
Though all Charlotte really wanted was to sink back on to her bed, close her eyes and blot out the world, she spent the next ten minutes making herself presentable. She had a wash and brushed her teeth, promising herself that tonight, without fail, she would have that lovely warm bath she"d been so looking forward to. She sc.r.a.ped her hair back into a ponytail. She dressed in shorts and a pink sleeveless top, wondering how long it would be before her b.u.mp started to show.
She was desperate to tell Mum about the baby, but she knew this wasn"t the right time. She"d know when the moment arrived, she told herself. Everything would come together and she would just know. know.
She was about to announce that she was ready when there came three sharp raps on the door. Charlotte and Imogen looked at each other, Imogen"s face a mixture of alarm and hope. Charlotte crossed to the door and opened it. The slight, vulture-like figure of Mrs Macau stood there.
"There are two gentlemen to see you downstairs," she announced before Charlotte could say anything. She was already turning away when Imogen, still sitting on the unmade bed, stammered, What... who... who are they?"
"Police officers," Mrs Macau said, the disapproval evident in her voice.
Imogen paled. "Police officers?"
"Did they say what they wanted?" Charlotte asked quickly.
"I didn"t enquire," Mrs Macau looked as if she was about to turn away again, then paused. "I don"t put up with trouble on my premises."
Charlotte felt her face flush with indignation, but the words that emerged from her mouth sounded like an apology. "We"re not going to cause any trouble."
"I do hope not," said Mrs Macau. "Good day."
Charlotte turned to her mum. Imogen"s eyes were wide and fearful.
"It"ll be nothing," Charlotte said rea.s.suringly, though her insides were fluttering like a moth. "They probably just found Chris asleep on a park bench. They"ll want us to go down to the station to pick him up."
Imogen nodded eagerly, but said nothing, and the two of them went downstairs. Charlotte expected the policemen to be uniformed, but they weren"t. They were waiting in the hallway, looking hot and uncomfortable in their grey suits and ties despite their unb.u.t.toned shirt collars.
They straightened up when the two women appeared, like army privates in the presence of a commanding officer. "Mrs Maybury?" said the foremost of the two men. Charlotte was about to defer to her mum when Imogen stepped forward, anxiety making her movements and voice jerky.
"Yes, that"s me. What"s happened?"
"Is there somewhere more... comfortable we can talk?"
Why? What is it you"ve come to tell us?" Imogen snapped.
"There"s the lounge," said Charlotte, slipping into the familiar role of arbitrator. "We can go in there."
Dusty sunlight streamed through the tall bay windows, enlivening the red flock wallpaper, but seeming to bleach and age the lumpy sofa and pale brown carpet. The sofa rustled when the women sat down on it as though its misshapen cushions were filled not with foam padding but with straw.
The senior officer perched on the edge of an armchair facing them, elbows on knees, trousers riding up to reveal fluffy green socks. His colleague, a younger man with fuzzy sideburns and wiry eyebrows that clashed in a tangle above the bridge of his nose, leaned against the wall, arms folded.
"I"m Detective Inspector Worthington," the seated officer said, and there was something about the urgent compa.s.sion in his voice that increased the fluttering dread in Charlotte"s belly. "I"m afraid you"re going to have to brace yourself for some distressing news."
"What is it?" Imogen whispered, and Charlotte could feel her mum trembling beside her. "What"s happened?"
Gently DI Worthington said, "This morning a body was washed up on the sh.o.r.e several miles from here. We believe it to be that of your son, Christopher."
In the silence that followed it seemed as though time was coming to a slow, soupy halt. Distantly Charlotte heard a door open and it seemed to give her the momentum to ask, "Why do you think it"s Chris?"