Doctor Who - New Adventures - 34 - Warlock by Andrew Cartmel

Author:Andrew Cartmel
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Science Fiction, General, Fiction
ISBN: 9780426204336
Publisher: London Bridge
Published: 1995-03-14T07:00:00+00:00

He began to write in big angular letters. Creed saw Christine Bowman wince at the piercing screech of chalk on blackboard.

‘Mrs Woodcott,’ said Harrigan. He underlined the name. ‘An interesting girl, this. I call her a girl because I’m old-fashioned. Also because compared to an elderly party like me she is just a young slip of a thing.’ His smile faded. ‘But 144

compared to any of you kids she’s an old woman. In fact, that’s kind of all we know about her.’ Harrigan lowered his piece of chalk.

‘We looked through the public records. We have a date of birth and a name, which is just enough to give her an official existence. But get this. Her name actually appears to be Mrs Woodcott. “Mrs” being her first name, spelled just like that. Computers are stupid. They’re as willing to accept “Mrs” as a name as “Mary”. It’s in every database right back to her childhood. So either her parents had a very odd sense of humour or someone has been messing around in the British police computer, altering her official records.’

‘Why would anybody do a thing like that?’ said Webster. There had been a feeling of tension in the room since the Bowmans had arrived and stared with evident hostility at Creed. Now that tension suddenly broke and everybody laughed.

‘Why indeed,’ said Harrigan. He tapped the name on the blackboard. ‘And why are we interested in Mrs Woodcott? Well, it seems the British police have her name linked to warlock on all their databases. Linked, like, how many times, Webster?’

‘Over a hundred and twenty-two thousand at the last count.’

‘You see? So as far as this drug is concerned, she is the woman everyone wants to talk to. Including us. But she’s dropped out of sight. The British police and every intelligence service in Europe are looking for her.’ His deep, wrinkled eyes blinked like a toad’s. ‘And all the king’s horses and all the king’s men have come up with diddly squat.’

‘The smart betting is that she’s somewhere in London. But none of the spy satellites have been able to spot her on the street. She’s hidden herself very effectively.’

Harrigan rocked back on the heels of his boots and studied the blackboard.

‘Right, now memorize a couple more names.’ He wrote them quickly with his chalk. ‘Justine and Vincent Wheaton. A married couple. Very ordinary, very respectable. Nothing remarkable about them. No criminal record. She’s English by birth, he’s an American émigré. Webster says his records in the USA are so squeaky clean that they must be a fake.’

‘I can’t say for sure,’ said Webster. ‘But, yeah, my instinct is that his files have been resprayed.’

‘There is one anomaly in this perfect life, though. Tell us about it, Webster.’

‘Well, it’s a kind of a spooky coincidence, really. I’ve been able to retrieve some of the records from this dormant computer here in the King Building.

And it seems this guy visited the place when he was a kid. He is registered in the database here as a guest.

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