The House That Jack Built: The House That Jack Built

sweat from his palms on the shiny breast of his pinstripe suit.

They got to the foot of the stairs, and Rob turned around, stretching his back and dragging Ianto into the lounge.

He laid Ianto on the sofa and then came dashing towards her.

'I think I saw some fire stuff in the cupboard under the stairs,' he said, rubbing his hands together from the cold. He saw a look on her face that worried him. 'Don't,' he said, shaking slightly. 'If I stop, I'll lose it. Seriously, I've got to keep moving, don't think… just do.'

He pushed past her and jogged to the cupboard, yanking the door open and rifling through the junk inside. They were going to have to throw most of this crap away, whatever Julia might say. There were boxes of newspapers and magazines, a stack of yellowing paperbacks, an old croquet set (though one of the mallets had clearly been damaged at some point, as the shaft was wrapped in plastic tape), an old Dansette record player… so much rubbish. He grabbed a box of the newspapers and spotted a couple of carrier bags of dried kindling. No coal or larger logs, though; no doubt they were outside. They could stay there. He'd build the thing out of sticks and newspaper, rather than go hunting for them; there was plenty of it, after all. He took it all through to the grate, closing the lounge door behind him, and began snapping fire-lighters over scrunched-up balls of decade-old newspaper.

'What are we doing?' Julia asked.

Rob shook his head. 'That man will be here soon.'

'So?' Julia responded. 'For all we know he's… I don't know.' She hugged herself. 'He might be no help at all. I mean… Jesus … What's happening, Rob?'

Her voice was getting more high-pitched, she was losing the numbness that had kept her going, and now she just wanted to start lashing out.

Rob was sinking into himself, his fingers slowly ferreting around in a matchbox for a fresh match to light.

'Why are we even still here?' she asked.

Rob couldn't give her an answer, slowly striking a match against the crumbling sandpaper. The match snapped, unlit. He hunted for another.

' Seriously,' Julia continued, 'this is ridiculous. Please tell me you have the van keys? We could be driving up the road and away from here…'

The second match flared.

Julia walked towards the lounge door, determined to get out of the building.

The door began to vibrate in its frame, wood hammering against wood, hard enough to bring dust from the ceiling. Julia gave a surprised yelp and Rob dropped the match to the floor, running to her side and grabbing her protectively. They squeezed each other as the banging continued, a pounding that seemed to move from the door across the walls and ceiling, like a colossal hammer being brought down on the house all around them.

The television switched on, its screen filled with static, the white noise of the speaker drowning out the faint crackle of a building flame where the dropped match was setting fire to the rug. Anything can be heard in the chaos of white noise, whispers and the delicate shapes of words beneath the crackle and pop. If Rob and Julia had been feeling rational, they would never have believed they heard voices in the speaker.

They were not feeling rational.

Rob's fingers dug into the pale flesh of Julia's shoulder, pressing bright white crescents into the pink of her skin as the house continued to beat around them. Julia wasn't in the least surprised to catch the smell of onions on her tongue, she had no doubt the fat man was pressing his weight against the other side of the door at that very moment.

It was Ianto, opening eyes crusty and chill with the rime of frost, that spotted the danger coming from the lit rug. He rolled off the sofa, an awkward grunt knocked out of him as his limbs refused to hold him up, dragged himself by his elbows and rolled onto the tiny fire, his damp suit hissing as it extinguished the flames. His mind was slow to function, but somewhere right on the periphery of his awareness — and even above the noise of the television — he heard a familiar engine outside the house, the heavy wheels grinding gravel beneath them. He heard two doors slam closed, and the sound of boots running towards the front door. He tried to move but pins and needles rioted through his body, as frantic as the TV static that threw its light onto his face.

'They're here,' he whispered, as the pounding in the walls suddenly stopped to be replaced by a far more comforting knock on the door.

ELEVEN

'It was one of those stupid moments when I thought I might like to put down roots.' Jack's hands were moving at great speed, grabbing what to Gwen seemed a random selection of wires and components from the metal shelving. 'They don't happen often, and when they do I stamp on them quick. They cause nothing but trouble.'

'And mortgage payments,' Gwen chipped in, opening the large canvas bag wider so that Jack could drop everything in.

'It seemed a good idea at the time. It was a nice place, and I could afford it.'

'Bit big for a man on his own, perhaps?'

'I like my space,' he replied with a grin. 'Besides, I often had company.'

Jack grabbed what looked like a tape deck and dropped it into the bag, making Gwen grunt with the weight.

'I just bet you did.' She put the bag down and zipped it shut. 'What's all this stuff for anyway? Shouldn't we be on our way?'

'I'm going as fast as I can!' Jack grabbed another bag. 'But we may need some of this stuff if we're going ghost-hunting.'

'Who ya gonna call?' Gwen muttered, deadpan.

'Torchwood!' Jack yelled, shouldering the second bag. 'To the Mystery Machine!'

'Don't try and quote popular culture,' Gwen sighed. 'You always get it wrong.'

'Never,' Jack laughed, heading out of the Hub. 'I am the man with his finger on the pulse.'

'This from the man who thought Little Britain starred Tommy Handley…' Gwen replied, following after him.

Down in the Autopsy Room, Alexander sighed and lifted his head from his examination of Danny Wilkinson's body.

'Excuse me, children!' he shouted. 'May I remind you that some of us are trying to work down here?'

He waited for a response, but the only one he got was the heavy Hub door rolling closed behind Jack and Gwen. The penny dropped. 'Oi!' he shouted. 'I'm still down here!' He dropped his scalpel next to Danny's sliced kidneys and pounded his fist on the examination table. 'Bloody typical …'

***

Gwen often moaned that Jack drove like he did everything in life: aggressively, theatrically and at enough speed that he hoped people wouldn't notice the rough edges. He had never had an accident, but Gwen wasn't sure why not; he seemed to be working very hard at it after all. Ianto had told her about the number of speeding tickets the police sent to the dummy license address — it was a morning's work every few weeks hacking into the system and making them all vanish again.

'I thought there was no such thing as ghosts,' she said, trying to take her mind off the journey.

'There's not…' Jack replied, using the gears to slow him down enough to take a roundabout without sending the SUV into a roll. 'Not in the traditional sense anyway. That doesn't mean there aren't phenomena that have given rise to the belief in ghosts over the years.'

'Residual haunting, right? The stuff that Bernie Harris's ghost machine picked up on.'