The Death of Art by Simon Bucher-Jones

Author:Simon Bucher-Jones [Bucher-Jones, Simon]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Science-Fiction - Doctor Who
ISBN: 9780426204817
Publisher: Doctor Who Books
Published: 1996-10-14T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

A dark silhouette moved behind the light. The pain in his head made Chris squint and the lamplight refracting through his eyelashes made the figure loom large and distorted, but he knew who it was.

‘Now we are going to talk candidly,’ said Inspector Jarre. A woman barely wearing a scarlet dress – that under other circumstances would have made Chris blush – placed a tray of objects in the circle of lamplight. Incongruously, he was reminded of the magician at his fifth birthday party; the one who had flung down his cards in disgust when confronted by three generations of trained observers.

The memory helped him force a chuckle, although his mouth felt dry and slack, and he wondered sickly about concussion. He tried a situational analysis. He had been hit, and hit hard. Probably with a cosh or another blunt instrument. He was undoubtedly a prisoner. In the Café Fantômas? He couldn’t be sure. The fight drove his surroundings into limbo. Standard disorientation technique. His chuckle had sounded thick and nervous. Good, that was how he wanted it.

‘Come on Anton, untie me,’ he whined. ‘I’ve been hazed when I joined the gendarmerie. And get the girl to put the tray away. I don’t need any memory training.’ If he had learnt anything from the Doctor, it was the importance of being under-estimated. If he could make Jarre laugh, make himself out to be an imbecile, let the Inspector claim he was only testing a new colleague, he might get out of this.

‘No, you don’t, do you?’

No smile there.

‘However, I would like you to look at these items closely. Do you recognize them?’

Chris looked hard at the tray. He wondered if he could kick it up into Jarre’s face and overturn the lamp. His hands were tied behind his back to a chair that was probably heavy, but he thought he could lift it and run at the same time. He exerted an exploratory tug. The chair was fastened to the floor. His legs were tied as well. Jarre was not taking any chances. Why was he so scared?

‘These papers, for instance.’ Inspector Jarre scooped the contents of Chris’s wallet from where they lay on the tray, and shuffled them like a hand of cards. ‘They look accurate enough, at least superficially. Nevertheless, your manner and competence alarmed me.’

Chris tried to look useless. Lord knows he felt it. He had been worrying about his identification papers since the Doctor had whipped them up with a collection of plastic wheels, hollow circles and pins, a two-colour biro and something called a John Bull printing set, and signed them with the names of the Minister of the Interior and the Minister of War. The fact that they had met every inspection to date did not fully remove the lack of confidence that the Doctor’s bargainbasement methods of forgery inspired. Chris’s face dropped as Jarre continued: ‘So I sent a telegram to the Alpine Massif. The answer came before I left the Préfecture this evening.

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