The Winning Side - Lance Parkin by Doctor Who

Author:Doctor Who [Who, Doctor]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: time, adventure, action, hunter, bomb, war, Sci-fi, Doctor Who, SCIENCE FICTION, telos
ISBN: 9781845838003
Publisher: Telos
Published: 2011-04-27T04:00:00+00:00

Radford’s office was on the top floor of the manor house. One wall was sloped, with a couple of grimy skylights. The television here took up the whole of the back wall. Radford sat in front of it, behind a small chipboard desk.

There was nowhere for Emily to sit, so she stood. Her overalls were scratchy against her skin.

Her old clothes were now in neat plastic bags laid out on the desk. One for the dress, one for each shoe, one for her knickers, one for her nylons, one for her watch. There was a seventh bag, which Radford was holding up.

‘Where did you get this?’

‘What is it?’

He handed it over. It was the scrap of newspaper from the barn. Emily couldn’t even remember keeping it, but she must have put it in her dress pocket.

‘I found it,’ she said.

‘It’s four years old.’

‘So I gather.’

‘The Anti-Litter Patrol should have picked it up.’

‘The what? Do you mean those men in that van?’

‘Newspapers are returned, pulped and recycled. Hoarding newspapers is unpatriotic.’

‘It’s about three inches square, it’s hardly a hoard.’

Radford pulled a rubber speaking-tube from a slot on his desk and gave a quick set of instructions.

A minute later, a small man ran in with a copy of the newspaper, then scurried out.

‘The same newspaper, the same date,’ Radford told her.

It wasn’t the same picture. There was a picture of a tank on the old scrap of newspaper. This one showed a squadron of aircraft on a fly past.

‘It must be a different edition,’ she said. Newspapers had different regional offices, and different editions throughout the night.

‘One edition,’ Radford said. ‘There is only one newspaper. A man with two watches never knows the correct time.’

Emily shook herself. She knew for a fact she’d only just heard that expression for the first time. She knew she’d said exactly the same thing to Honoré yesterday.

‘Sorry?’

‘You don’t know what to believe, do you? There you have a tank, part of the force that liberated Cairo. Here are our planes, heroically destroying Cairo rather than let it fall to the enemy. If you’d seen only one of these papers, you’d have known what happened. Now you can’t be sure.’

Emily looked from one to the other. ‘I suppose not.’

Radford was watching her carefully.

‘So...,’ she continued, ‘which is true?’

Radford smiled. ‘Whichever one I tell you.’

Emily shook her head. ‘Either we liberated Cairo or destroyed it. One of these is true, one of them isn’t. Regardless of what you say happened.’

‘Why does it matter?’

‘It matters to the people of Cairo,’ Emily countered.

‘Does it? Either way, the city was a battleground. Either way, women and children died. They probably saw tanks and planes that day. There was a fierce battle. But ask them who won... Why would you take their word for it? Would everyone there say exactly the same thing? And why would it matter to you, anyway?’

‘That’s what newspapers are for.’

‘Yes. To tell you the truth.’

Radford had lit a match. He took Emily’s scrap of newspaper from its bag, then set light to one corner, dropping it into an ashtray.

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