The House That Jack Built: The House That Jack Built

pavement problem again. The council were looking into it, I believe…'

Alexander chuckled and nodded his head towards Ianto. 'I like him. He definitely deserves his own office.'

'Is there a list?' Gwen said. 'Somewhere I can put my name down? I'd like a pot plant, too, if the budget will stretch.'

'Ooh…' Ianto smiled. 'There's a Venus Flytrap in the containment chamber you can have. Saves me having to feed it.'

Jack looked at Gwen. 'Careful, it eats thirty kilos of fresh meat a day. We found it in the Brecons after following up reports on missing hikers.'

'It just loves Kendall Mint Cake.' said Ianto.

'God save me from your world,' Alexander muttered, running his fingers along the surface of the tarmac. 'I'm going to need access to your chemical stores and maybe that greenhouse upstairs.'

'Sure,' Jack replied. 'What are you after?'

'I want to mix something up that will dissolve all this tarmac and leave the body intact. You might want to take a sample first. Run some broad-range scans.'

Ianto held up a finger, walked to a drawer, pulled a lump hammer out and struck the edge of the tarmac with enough force to chip a piece off.

Gwen stared at the mallet. 'Don't you ever ask to tap my knee with that.'

Ianto smiled. 'Good for tenderising plant food.'

'And in box number two…' Jack said, yanking open one of the large drawers to reveal the body of Gloria Banks.

'Burn victim?' Alexander shrugged. 'What's the connection?'

'The location. They were found only metres and hours apart,' Jack replied. 'Also a large chronon surge at the time and location of death in both cases.'

'I'm a physician and chemist, not a physicist,' Alexander noted, 'so it's not really my field. However,' he smiled, 'I'm also excruciatingly clever and in love with the sound of my own voice, so I'll comment anyway. Chronon particles aren't proactive enough to do damage themselves, even in extraordinarily high doses. They are a symptom not a cause.'

'Agreed,' Jack replied, 'but they're also our only lead to what's going on.'

Ianto dashed up the stairs and over to his desk, reappearing next to Gwen on the railings. He held up what appeared to be a mobile phone. 'This can be used to trace chronon particles.' He looked at all three of them in turn and shrugged as they didn't say anything. 'I'll get my coat then, shall I?'

Later, Ianto sat down in the dry of a bus stop, eating fish and chips in the company of a couple of empty crisp packets, a carrier bag, several crushed beer cans and a stray cat that eyed him — or rather his fish — from the other side of the shelter.

'There's no end to the glamour of life in Torchwood,' he told the cat. 'It's just like James Bond except more… really, really crap.'

Perhaps the cat didn't believe him. Certainly it was happy to risk the rain until he threw it a few flakes of cod. 'Thank you,' he said, as it decided to hang around. 'I hate eating alone. The menu isn't what it could be either.' He held up the fish. 'You should try Brenda's on St Mary Street. Much tastier.' He smiled. 'The service isn't bad either. Ask for Patrick.'

He'd spent the last couple of hours wandering up and down the streets, trying to pick up a trace of chronon particles. He'd hung around the road where Danny Wilkinson's body had been found but, noticing a few curtains beginning to twitch, had decided to head up to the high street and keep his head down for an hour. Last thing he wanted was a slanging match with nosy suburbanites.

He flung the cat as much of his fish as he could dig free of the batter and ketchup mush he had created and dumped the rest in a wastepaper bin. Digging a wedge of serviettes from his jacket pocket, he began to scrub his hands clean with rainwater and dedication.

He decided it was probably safe to head back towards the Land of Twitching Curtains. He should give the place another thorough sweep for an hour and then call it quits. Opening his umbrella, he stepped back out into the rain.

A group of kids were sheltering under the awning of a convenience store. Cigarettes and a two-litre bottle of strong cider passed between their lips, the usual night-time sports whatever part of town you were in. A smart- looking woman gave them a wide berth as she aimed for the store entrance. A couple of wolf whistles followed her inside, but she ignored them.

'Look at that poof,' one of them said as Ianto walked past. He tried to think of something scathing to shout back, but he could come up with nothing that didn't sound desperate rather than witty, and he didn't want to give them more ammunition.

He crossed the road and tried to walk as nonchalantly as possible. Ridiculous… He'd faced off alien invasions with a quip and a spring in his step, but put him up against a bunch of chavs and his nerve went. Pathetic.

He heard them wolf whistle again and turned to see the smart-looking woman leaving the shop with a bottle of wine in her hand. She marched straight into the road, taking as wide an angle away from the kids as she could while still heading home. 'Fancy joining the party?' one of the boys shouted, much to the hilarity of the others. 'Swap you some of your booze for a bit of tongue!' He waggled it for her, but she kept her attention fixed firmly on the road.

Little bastards. Ianto was walking back towards them when the scanner in his pocket began squealing. The woman stared at him, a hint of panic in her eyes. Ianto clawed the scanner out, trying to look both reassuring and apologetic.

'The poof's got a rape alarm!' one of the kids shouted. 'He should be so lucky!'

The scanner was going haywire, and Ianto could make neither head nor tail of what it was trying to tell him. He looked up, hoping to at least reassure the panicking woman. He smiled at her and there was obviously enough sincerity there as she was beginning to smile back when something collided with her from behind. Her body spasmed into a star shape that would have been almost funny were it not for the look on her face and the distinct cracking of bone that carried between the electronic bleeps of the scanner. Her umbrella — a small affair decorated with autumn leaves — popped into the shape of a cocktail glass and fell from her hand. She appeared to hover for a few seconds, then she fell forwards and began to roll, over and over, coming straight at him.

The kids outside the shop were running away in the opposite direction, they could see that the night had taken a bad turn and they'd be best placed anywhere but here.

As the woman drew close, tumbling over herself, arms and legs spinning at angles that proved them free of their sockets, Ianto became aware of another noise between the bleeping of his scanner: the grinding of metal wheels on tracks. There was a taste of ozone on the air, as faint as a memory of childhood fairs.

Just before the ghost of a tram hit him, Ianto had the good fortune to disappear, leaving behind the woman, who came slowly to a halt as the present day reasserted itself.

EIGHT

And still the feeling wouldn't go away. Steve had left for the prior commitment of a pub quiz in town, and Rob was at the point where he was so tired all he could do was stand and stare at the mess around him without being able to usefully interact with it. Last time she'd seen him, he had been staring at a half-built wardrobe, clearly wishing the bloody thing would just have the decency to screw itself together.

Julia was drinking wine. Not enough to become as wrecked as the house, but enough to make her not care so much about the mess.

The mess and the ghost.

Not that she would let herself use that word.

She kept seeing him, the fat man. She had caught a glimpse of his colourful tie — red paisley, autumnal swirls — while filling the kitchen cupboards with their mismatched crockery. She had seen him in the bathroom mirror as she filled the cupboard with half-full bottles of medicine and ran her thumb across the ageing bristles of their