His gaze flickered from Lucy to Gwen and back, reflecting his dim awareness that he’d blundered into a conversational minefield. ‘Um… any more drinks?’ he asked.
‘So,’ Gwen continued, ‘how did you, er…’
‘I went to a clinic,’ Lucy explained. ‘I was desperate, and I saw an advert. Actually, I think it was a flyer at a club, or something. So I went along, and they gave me a consultation, and some herbal pills. And they worked — they really worked! The weight just melted away from me!’
Gwen winced, not liking the sudden image conjured up by Lucy’s words. She glanced sideways, looking to meet Rhys’ eyes and share a silent moment with him, but he was looking directly at Lucy’s face. And he was smiling.
And that was, of course, the perfect moment for Gwen’s mobile to bleep, alerting her to an incoming text message.
She knew what it was before she even opened up the mobile to look at the screen.
Gwen looked up from the screen, with its bitter message, an apology on her lips, but neither Rhys nor Lucy had even noticed the disturbance. She could probably have left the restaurant there and then without them even knowing.
So she did.
TWO
‘Turn right here!’ Toshiko called out, trying to make herself heard above the roar of the engine.
The Torchwood SUV swung round a corner, almost spilling her from her seat. She grabbed hold of a strut with one hand whilst the other used a trackball to keep crosshairs centred on a map on the computer screen in front of her.
Jack was driving. That was always a bad thing as far as Toshiko was concerned. Especially when she was navigating. He seemed to assume that when she said ‘right’ or ‘left’ then that abrogated any responsibility he had to check for other traffic, pedestrians, buildings or, in one instance a few minutes ago, the existence of a roundabout which he then went the wrong way around.
‘Any sign of that alien tech?’ Jack yelled from the driver’s seat.
‘Nothing,’ she called back. ‘I’ve not seen any signals since the one half an hour ago.’ She glanced sideways, towards the front of the SUV, but the sight of tall buildings whipping past against a black sky made her feel sick, so she concentrated on her display.
‘That’s the one you triangulated to the nightclub?’
‘To the block in which the nightclub is located,’ she corrected. Toshiko glanced back at the map display. ‘Left!’
The SUV veered again, and somewhere behind them Toshiko heard a squeal of brakes, a blaring horn and a sudden
‘Have you ever thought about getting hold of a Torchwood helicopter?’ Owen called out. ‘We could probably get there faster, and cause fewer accidents on the way. Two benefits for the price of one.’
‘If I had a helicopter,’ Jack yelled back, ‘then I couldn’t do
‘Where’s Gwen?’ she asked, more to distract Jack from his stunt driving than anything else.
‘She’s gone out to dinner,’ Owen and Jack answered in harmony.
‘I texted her,’ Jack added. ‘She’s meeting us there.’
‘She went to the Indian Summer,’ said Owen, just to prove that he knew something Jack didn’t. ‘I think she was meeting Rhys.’
‘And even if we did have a Torchwood helicopter,’ Jack continued, ‘where would we land it? SUVs are easier to park.’
‘Last time we went out in this vehicle,’ Toshiko said quietly, ‘you parked it in the foyer of an office block. The time before that, you parked it in the middle of the Taff Bridge. I can’t help feeling that finding suitable parking spaces is not high on your list of priorities.’ Catching a glimpse of a flashing red set of arrows on the map display, she called out: ‘Stop anywhere along here.’
The vehicle slowed and then slewed sideways into what Toshiko fervently hoped was a parking space, as opposed to someone’s front garden. Owen broke the sudden silence by saying, ‘Wait for a moment while my stomach catches up with us. And wait… and wait… and
Jack jumped out, while Owen pulled open the SUV’s side door and gestured for Toshiko to go first.
The SUV was parked across the mouth of an alleyway off St Mary Street. They were obviously in the middle of a crime scene: the nearby shop fronts reflected the flashing lights of police cars between each other in a crazy neon chiaroscuro. Uniformed officers were standing around, staring at the Torchwood team with barely disguised hostility. It was something Toshiko was used to. Nobody liked to be outranked, especially when they didn’t understand what was going on.
The street ahead of them was closed off with red and yellow striped incident tape. Turning, Toshiko could see that the street behind them was closed off as well; at least, it had been until the Torchwood vehicle had driven straight through. Now the tape just lay limply on the ground. None of the police officers standing around made any attempt to pick it up again.
Owen slid the door shut behind him, and Jack led the way down the alley to what appeared to be the entrance to a nightclub, to judge by the sign suspended from the brickwork above the door. Policemen around the doorway moved away as they approached.
‘Bloody Torchwood,’ one muttered as they passed. ‘Who do they think they are?’
Jack sighed. ‘They’d better not clamp it while we’re gone.’
The nightclub was empty of living people, although Toshiko could smell their presence in the humidity of the atmosphere: sweat, stale tobacco, cheap aftershave and cheaper perfume. The overhead lights had been turned on, and their glare transformed what had probably been something high-tech and impressive in the near-darkness into something that Toshiko felt was rather tawdry. Not her kind of place. She wasn’t really sure what her kind of place was, but this wasn’t it.
A long bar took up most of one wall, stocked with hundreds of upside down bottles of spirits, beer taps and drink dispensing hoses left limp across the bar. The surface of the bar was translucent acrylic, and it was lit from beneath. When the overhead lights were turned off, it would form the major source of illumination in the club, but now it just served to highlight how much the walls needed a new coat of paint.
The central area was reserved as a dance floor. It was scuffed by too many pairs of feet, and stained by years of spilt drinks, but none of that would have been evident with the lights off. Scaffolding hung from the ceiling, and spotlights hung from the scaffolding, fitted with motors so they could rotate and pan around, randomly picking dancers out of the crowd. Elsewhere, tiny video cameras could follow the spotlights, transmitting their images to flat-screen monitors that were located around the walls.
Tables were scattered around various platforms on different levels separated from one another by chrome rails and steps.
‘Nice place,’ Jack commented as he strode in. ‘I wonder who did the decor for them. I might just have them redo the Hub in the same style.’
‘What, with a bar?’ Owen asked.
‘Or maybe I’ll just get Laurence Llewellyn Bowen to come in and put swags of velvet and stencilled oak leaves everywhere,’ Jack continued. ‘Just for a change.’
‘Swags?’ came a voice from the doorway.
‘“Swag” — an ornamental drapery or curtain that hangs in a curve between two points. There’s a proper word
