The House That Jack Built: The House That Jack Built

'Fancy seeing you here,' said Gwen.

'Someone reported a mad cow on the rampage in Boots, spraying people with baby oil. Not you by any chance?'

'I have an alibi.'

'Oh yes, where is Rhys? Scoffing a few pasties?'

'Don't be mean.'

'Just my way. You know I love him really.'

He lifted his handcuffs off his belt and put them on the shoplifter's wrists.

'I was going to give you a bell, actually,' he continued, his attention back on Gwen. 'Just had a call through about something spooky in Penylan. Sounded right up your street.'

'Oh yeah?' Gwen wasn't sure she liked the sound of that.

'Aye, some kid found embedded in a pavement, you know, like literally embedded …'

'Come on, Andy.' Gwen gave a pointed look at the shoplifter. 'Time and a place, eh?'

'Oh… yeah… well, y'know… if you're not interested?'

Gwen sighed and reached for her mobile.

'But do I really need the poker chips and playing cards?' Rhys wondered aloud. 'I mean, special features are good, yeah, but games compendiums? Seems a waste of money. They'll be putting Cluedo in with Poirot next.'

The shop assistant was new and still had some enthusiasm for the job and an urge to make sales. 'The poker stuff's just a bonus,' he said. 'It's the first twenty-one Bond movies in two-disc, digitally remastered editions…'

''Digitally remastered', is it?' Rhys scoffed. 'It's a wonder we ever managed to watch the crappy old things really.' His mobile rang and, seeing Gwen's name on the screen, he looked around as if he'd been caught in a drug transaction. 'All right, love, won't be long, will I? I'll have a cappu-oh… You what? … Bloody hell, Gwen! I only turn my back for five minutes and there's a national emergency is there? … No… No… I know you can't… No… Right.'

He ended the call, shoving the phone back in his jeans with a sigh.

'Twenty-one films, is it?' he said to the shop assistant. 'That's a lot of hours filled. I'll take it.'

There's nothing quite like the luxury of a cup of coffee prepared by someone else. The sort of coffee that you watch someone labour over. You watch them grind the beans, fill the scoop, steam the milk, pump the espresso. Then, if you're Ianto Jones, you watch them pick you out a juicy Pain au Raisin and drop that fruity bad boy into a takeaway bag. Nice.

Having found a barista whose coffee-making skill he actually trusted, Ianto was becoming quite the fan of having someone else do all the work. The fact that this Queen of the Beans, this Empress of the Roast, was a grumpy little Chinese girl whose service was lousy and attitude abominable didn't take the edge off it in the least. She could spit in his eye if she so wished. As long as she didn't do it in his coffee, he would pay her with a smile.

He didn't sip at his cappuccino as he walked along the jetty to the Tourist Information entrance, preferring to wait and drink it with his pastry, his own perfect little moment. Having had the first good run of sleep in about a week — the fact that it had taken place during the day being neither here nor there; when part of Torchwood, you grabbed it when you found it — he was determined to continue his good fortune over a nice relaxing breakfast. Or afternoon tea, he thought, checking his watch with a sigh.

He unlocked the Tourist Information door, stepped inside and locked it again behind him. The grockles were not well served on the Marina of late. He'd opened for maybe two days over the last fortnight, things having been just too busy for maintaining the cover. Reaching over the counter, he tapped in the four-digit code sequence that opened the concealed door in the wall. Saluting a rather tatty poster of Max Boyce with his coffee cup, Ianto stepped into the tunnels beyond, cutting through their damp gloominess with a whistle. Even the distant scuttle of rats couldn't intrude on his good mood.

At the main gate, the entry code was long enough to feel like a piano piece as he beat it out on the lock-pad. The heavy door rolled out of the way and finally he was in.

'Hello?' he shouted. No reply. Perfect. He was on his own.

He settled at his desk and booted up the RSS reader. Popping the white cap off his coffee, he grabbed the pastry bag and settled back in his chair with a sigh. The rest of the day could not go wrong, not from such sturdy foundations, it was unthinkable.

While scrolling through BBC News with one hand, he brought up the sensor reports for the hours he'd been away. Torchwood had Cardiff wired up like a politician in a hooker's boudoir: there wasn't a mouse fart that was not catalogued and calibrated by one sensor or another. You had to be attentive when you had a space-time event outside your window, it moved things around while you slept.

He took a bite of his pastry, a stray raisin tumbling over his bottom lip and skydiving into his lap. He tutted and flicked it away. Reaching for the serviette that came in the bag, he tucked it above his perfectly knotted tie — full Windsor, naturally — like a bib. He didn't altogether care what the pastry did to his waistline, but it could keep its damned paws off his suit.

His attention was drawn by a chronon spike in the Penylan area. It didn't have the temporal decay signature of the Rift, but he couldn't think what else it might be. He entered Penylan as a search filter for police radio traffic. The two seconds it took to offer the fate of Danny Wilkinson to his screen was more than enough time for a mouthful of pastry, but after reading the transcript he didn't fancy another.

***

The oak tree sagged pitifully in the centre of the recreational lawn. When it shuffled its leaves in the wind it was with the bored resignation of an underpaid conjuror, struggling his way through a card trick at a particularly awful children's party. The attitude was contagious: nobody carried themselves with enthusiasm at the Mercy Hill Care Home. The residents could be excused — enthusiasm, like a solid bowel movement, was ancient history to most of them — but even the staff sighed their way through the day, gazing listlessly into the middle distance as if waiting for death. It was not a cheerful place, and that reason alone was sufficient cause for Alexander — a congenitally miserable bastard — to make it his home.

He sat beneath the dejected oak and watched as various residents pottered their way around the garden. He tutted at Trudy Topham, standing in the middle of a rhododendron bush, spilling fragile memories into the breeze from her slack mouth. Someone would fetch her back inside just as soon as they could be bothered. In the distance, Leon Harris could be seen making one of his twice-weekly bids for freedom. Staff usually caught up with him before he made it past the fence, but every once in a while he managed a little further. He had once been found crawling along the central reservation of the M4, but that was a few years ago now and his legs were no longer as strong as they were. Alexander stretched back in his wheelchair, yawning and playing on the bony xylophone of his ribs with his fingers.

'Careful now, Mr Martin,' Nurse Sellers said in his ear. 'We don't want you falling out, do we?'

Alexander was half-tempted to try, if only so he could cop a feel of her weighty breasts on his chin while she manhandled him back into his chair. Reduced to pratfalls in order to arouse oneself… there were times when he absolutely despaired. He sank back into his chair with a sigh.

'No, nurse, we don't. Any sign of this doctor of yours yet?'

'He's no doctor of ours, Mr Martin,' Nurse Sellers stressed, as if to a particularly slow child. 'I did explain that. He's sent by the Council to judge our standards.'

'Worried?'

'Don't be silly… I'll thank you not to suggest you've received anything but the very best of care here at Mercy Hill.'

'Wouldn't dream of it.' He gave a brief smile. 'Cross my heart and hope for a cardiac team on standby. So who do you think ratted you out?'

'It is not a question of being 'ratted out', as you put it, Mr Martin. All care homes receive independent visits from time to time. You're just lucky that it was your name he picked out of his hat.'

'Aren't I just? The thrill is almost sexual.'