Into the Silence

Putting the coffee cup down, Ianto touched the Bluetooth device attached to his ear. 'Break's over. I'm back in location.'

'Good. We're in place.' Jack's voice was clear in his head. 'Hope Cardiff's finest male voice choir are ready to make some more beautiful music together.'

'Ha, bloody ha.' Ianto ended the connection and waited for Drew, suddenly feeling very alone in the sanctity of the church, even though Jack and Gwen were in the SUV, only fifty metres away at the most, hidden up a side street away from the glare of overhead lighting. They were parked on a double yellow, but Cutler had wryly commented that parking tickets were one thing he could take care of.

At least there hadn't been any fresh killings, which was a good thing. It was always possible, if not likely, that the alien had been taken back through the Rift and was long gone. It seemed more probable, however, that there had been a lot less rehearsing going on in the city after the death of Maria Bruno. Many of the competitors had simply packed their bags and quit. Five of their number had been murdered, and their logic seemed to be that if the killer could get to someone as famous as Maria Bruno, then no one was safe. Those with weaker stomachs and lesser talents had vanished, and those who were determined to stick it out and see the competition through were reluctant to give the songs full voice. Yet still Ianto and Drew belting their numbers out all day wasn't bringing the alien to them.

They had picked St Jude's because it was secluded and as close to the epicentre of the deaths as they could find. Cutler had used his team to call every hired space in Cardiff to find out when they were booked out and when they were empty. Ianto and Drew had been rehearsing all day, and would keep on into the night if they had to. Police cars were stationed throughout the city during peak rehearsal times, each with instructions to contact Cutler immediately should they see anything unusual or suspicious. But Ianto reckoned that, given that the city was pretty much in mourning, he and Drew were the only ones singing with any vigour in its streets.

Drew's voice carried out from the small room to the left of the altar, rising up and down the notes of the octaves, and Ianto jumped slightly, before smiling at his own nerves and then sipping more foul coffee, which probably wasn't helping the general undertone of tension that filled his veins. So he wasn't alone after all. Still, he'd give himself a couple more minutes before letting the other man know he was back.

Unusual or suspicious. Or perhaps a shape-changing alien that likes to rip people open and demolecularise their vocal cords. That would be more precise.

If it had been up to Jack or Cutler, the competition would have been cancelled completely, but that idea had been squashed from on high. The competition was good for Wales. It was a celebration of everything that was finest about the small nation. It was good for tourism. And, of course, this year it was being televised. Whoever it was that had been on the phone to Jack had definitely laboured that point. Ianto had heard every word, and he'd been standing several metres away. The competition finals were to go ahead. And it was up to Torchwood to make sure they did so smoothly and safely. Ianto could understand their concerns. Seeing a person ripped apart on stage during a live television show probably wouldn't go down well with the viewing public. Especially before the watershed.

And so here he was, hoping they could lure the alien. It was a one in a thousand shot, and so far there wasn't a glimmer of a spike in Rift activity. Ianto now had almost as little faith in the plan as he had faith in his own ability to sing.

Taking his damp jacket off, he dropped it onto one of the pews at the front and then put his coffee on top of the grand piano over to the right. Inside his trouser pocket the circular portable prison device felt heavy and awkward against his leg and served to remind him of exactly what he and Drew were really doing here.

It might not have been the kind of field work he'd hoped for, but it was still dangerous. Both he and Drew were taking risks with their lives, and as much as Ianto had got used to that concept during his years in Torchwood, it still came as a shock when the risks were for real. For Drew Powell, who was just an office-bound insurance broker, it must be frightening, especially on top of his loss.

'Drew?' Ianto called, feeling slightly bad about the irritation he felt. 'I'm out here.'

He shoved the final pieces of chocolate bar into his mouth and was washing it down with coffee when the chubby man bustled in from the antechamber.

He stared at Ianto, before one finger rose and pointed with venom towards the plastic coffee cup. 'I sincerely hope that is a black coffee.'

'It's a latte. Sorry, I should have brought you one. Didn't think.' Ianto held the cup forward. 'You can have some of mine if you like. Although I warn you, it's not the best. Didn't you go out and grab anything?'

Drew ignored the question, his chin wobbling as he glared. 'You're drinking a milky coffee before singing?' His eyes widened as they caught the crumpled chocolate bar wrapper unfurling on the piano top. ' And eating chocolate?' His voice squeaked out from some reedy place at the top of his range, and Ianto's irritation flushed back into his cheeks.

'Is that a problem? I was hungry.' I've been bloody working all day, he wanted to add, but he bit the words back in a gulp.

Drew snatched at the wrapper and the cup, flamboyantly tossing them into the waste-paper basket tucked behind the piano, leaving a trail of creamy coffee splattered up the back wall that was not going to impress the vicar.

'Of course it's a problem,' he snapped, fingers fluttering through the empty air between them. 'You said you were a singer. Any singer worth his salt knows no red wine, chocolate or coffee before singing. It's death to the vocal cords.'

Half-listening, already resigned to disappointing his partner, Ianto thought Powell was lucky he wasn't aware of the irony of his words. They hadn't shared with him the nature of the mutilation his boyfriend had suffered. There was only so much that Drew Powell needed to know, and that information was limited to knowing that they were trying to trap a serial killer.

'I'm sorry,' he muttered, feeling sorry for a lot of things, drinking coffee not amongst them.

Drew's hands gripped his comfortable hips and he shook his head. 'No wonder you're having problems getting a decent note out. Still, never mind. I'll have to work with what I've been given. Although what Ben would have made of it, I dread to think.' Hovering his finger over the play button on the portable stereo, Drew raised an eyebrow. 'Now, what do we have to remember?'

Ianto gritted his teeth against the patronising 'we' and took a deep breath. 'Not to breathe with my shoulders and to tuck my diaphragm in.'

'Bravissimo.'

As the first strains of music started, Ianto wondered whether his love for the duet from The Pearl Fishers was lost for ever. It was beginning to feel like it might be.

The approaching dusk crept slowly across Cardiff, evening greedily consuming any light in the damp cool air and replacing it with an infectious grey gloom.

The streets were hushed, and even the traffic was moving with more caution, as if fearful that the mysterious killer that plagued the streets would follow the thrum of the engines and claim their drivers' lives and insides when they reached their destinations. Pedestrians peered cautiously over their shoulders and shivered at the headlines written boldly on A-boards, all declaring No leads in hunt for Serial Slasher! City in terror! and found they huddled closer together as they scurried home.

Strange things often happened in Cardiff, and on a subconscious level its residents were toughened against them, but this was different. In the rain and the mist that poured in across the water, as if even the Bay itself could feel the anxiety that pulsed through the city's inhabitants, the fear that ate at the heart of the Welsh nation was like that which had haunted Whitechapel over a hundred years before. Ripper. Slasher. The words were too similar for most people's liking, and as more vivid details of the gruesome nature of the murders emerged, splattered across the pages of the papers, more residents hurried home to turn their lights on, lock the doors, and take comfort in each other's heat on their sofas.

In the pubs and bars, people watched each other carefully. Who could you trust? Really? Eyes were furtive, glancing up, down and around. Danger could lurk in any direction. There were whispers of heavy feet on roofs, strange figures seen loitering in dark places, there and then not there. Wild stories bred by feverish imaginations.

Cars headed out, away from the bright lights of the Bay, many visitors cutting short their trips, declaring to disappointed hoteliers and bed and breakfast owners that 'the weather was too unpleasant', but the delicate