Fic: Hyperboloids of Wondrous Light 5/10
Title Hyperboloids of Wondrous Light 5/10
Fandom Doctor Who (Eighth Doctor Adventures)
Chapters One, two - three - four - five - six - seven - eight - nine - ten
Pairings Eight/Alan Turing, vague mentions of Eight/Fitz, historical pairings, some obligatory Doctor/TARDIS.
Beta infiniteth
Word count of chapter 5892
Word count of entire fic approx. 58 500
Ratings/warnings NC-17. Sexual situations, 1950s intolerance, Earth arc angst, mental illness, suicide.
Spoilers The Turing Test. Brief mentions of plot points in The Curse of Fenric.
Disclaimer I own nothing, and I am actually a really nice person who writes this stuff in hope of making up the awfulness of reality.
Summary The Doctor, the amnesiac genius without a name, is formidable as an intellectual companion and desirable as a lover, but the mystery around his identity and his quest to find out who he once was draws in anyone associated to him, until it threatens them with a reality that even Britain’s brightest mind cannot comprehend.
As Alan had expected, despite his new accommodations, the Doctor’s visits remained sporadic, and varied in length. Sometimes they would simply go for a walk or have tea and talk of mathematics. Sometimes they would sneak into Alan’s room when his landlord was not hawkishly watching his tenants and enjoy more worldly pleasures. When the Mark 1 became operational in April, the Doctor came to see it and congratulated him greatly; his flattery meant more to him than the congratulations from anyone in the department or the attention of the press. He started pondering his new paper and, because of those very ideas, was caught up in an intellectual debate which was really to be blamed on the press, who had a tendency to clumsily call the machines “electronic brains”. One of the main opponents against the idea that a machine could ever think was a priest, whose reasoning was particularly biblical. Alan had to show the letters to the Doctor, and was glad when he laughed as much as he had done.
The Doctor’s habit to simply appear remained, sometimes with such startling suddenness that Alan became quite alarmed. It was therefore surprising when in July Alan’s secretary knocked on the door and told him:
‘Telephone call for you, sir. From doctor... I didn’t catch the name.’ Guessing the identity of the caller, he followed her out and took the telephone.
‘Turing speaking.’
‘Hello, Alan - I need to be quick, I’m afraid,’ the Doctor’s voice said; hearing it disembodied was odd. ‘I’m in a bit of a pickle. Do you think you could help me out...?’
Moments later, he had ended the call, collected his coat and was dashing through the department and out, towards the central police station. The duty sergeant looked up when he slammed the door open and stopped at the desk to catch his breath. When he had recovered, the policeman said:
‘How may I help you, sir?’
‘You’re keeping someone here I need to see - the Doctor.’ He frowned, but checked his records. As he waited, Alan worried that this was some kind of elaborate joke, but then the sergeant said:
‘Doctor John Smith?’
‘Yes,’ he answered with conviction he did not have. ‘What has he been arrested for?’
‘Trespassing and obstruction, sir. Are you Doctor Smith’s solicitor...?’ he asked, but at the end of the sentence he was taking in his dishevelled appearance and he sounded quite unsure, and none too pleased at the idea of letting him see the prisoner.
‘No, I’m not. Thank you,’ was all he could think of to say and then turned to leave. There was a telephone-box close by and, checking that he had the right coins, he stepped in and took out his address book. Then he realised he did not know who he was going to call. His first thought was his brother - he was a practical kind of person, the kind you wanted around when dealing with the law - but he knew that that would not work. He would have to explain how he knew the Doctor, and John would disapprove if he knew that his little brother had been involved with someone who had been arrested. He looked through the address book and stopped at the obvious alternative.
The wait for someone to answer on the other end was so long that he was worried that the money would run out before there was a reply. But then there was a click and a woman’s voice said:
‘Mister Alexander’s office.’
‘Hello - could I please speak to Mister Alexander? Tell him it’s Doctor Turing.’
‘Certainly, sir.’ Another silence, which made him start worrying an old bruise on his thumb, a bad habit which always struck when he was nervous. Finally Hugh Alexander’s familiar voice sounded in the receiver.
‘Hello, Prof! Long time...’
‘Hello, Hugh,’ he said, smiling to himself. ‘I’m afraid I’m not calling to chat. I need your help with something.’
‘Oh?’ So Alan told him what he knew, making it sound like he was more informed than he was. When he finally finished, there was silence. ‘No,’ Hugh said. ‘No, Alan.’
‘He helped us,’ he answered in a load whisper. ‘He solved that problem of ours, don’t you remember? We owe it to him.’
‘Well, this isn’t about owing him for his service to king and country, is it?’ Hugh answered with a sigh, which did not sound disapproving as much as exasperated. ‘Really, Alan, what is it about this Doctor chap which turns your head? You are never out of line otherwise...’
‘I’m not out of line - I’m not trying to be,’ Alan answered back, getting rather flustered. ‘I’m just asking a favour.’
‘It’s a favour too big,’ Hugh said. They were silent for a moment, and then he continued, as if feeling he needed to defend himself: ‘Honestly, I can’t go around making the police release people like this.’
‘He’s not guilty of any of those things,’ Alan objected. ‘He was never rewarded in any way, even if he helped us...’ There was yet another pause, and then Hugh sighed.
‘Only this once.’
‘You’ll do it?’
‘Yes, yes, I will, but it will never happen again, do you understand?’ he said, sounding almost hectic about the importance of this.
‘Yes, I understand perfectly,’ Alan answered. ‘Thank you, Hugh.’
‘God help me,’ he just said, then in a more friendly tone: ‘You’re bad at keeping in touch, Alan - get better at it. Next time you’re in Cheltenham, let’s have lunch or something.’
‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Thank you - I really mean it.’
‘I hope so,’ Hugh sighed. ‘I’ll deal with it at once. It may take some time, of course - get stuck in the pipelines...’
‘Of course.’ Then they said goodbye and hung up. Alan turned his steps towards the police-station again and settled on a bench close by, picking up a book from his pocket to keep himself busy. He did not spare it much thought, but glanced up every time the doors opened. After some two hours, they swung up and the unmistakable form of the Doctor appeared. He hurried past, not noticing him.
‘Doctor!’ Alan shouted and left the bench at a run while trying to stuff the book back into his pocket. ‘Doctor!’ The Doctor spun around and when he caught sight of him, his face split into a wide smile.
‘Alan! I knew calling you would work,’ he said as the other man caught up with him.
‘Thank my friends in the Secret Services,’ Alan said under his breath, so that no passers-by would hear them. He almost had to run to keep up with the Doctor. ‘Where are you going?’
‘Train-station,’ he answered, narrowly avoiding running into an old lady. ‘From there to London, and then to Paris, and then to Zürich. Something’s going on, and I want to find out what it is - if it’s something sinister...’ He stopped abruptly and whirled around to face Alan. ‘Will you look after her for me?’
‘Who?’ Alan asked, but then he realised that the Doctor had taken his keys out of his pocket and was working one of them lose from the key-ring. When it had been freed, he pressed it into Alan’s hand and closed his fingers around it, looking him in the eye to make sure that he understood.
‘I’ll be back to collect the key later,’ he said and then, after a moment’s hesitation, leaned in and kissed his cheek. ‘See you.’ And then he was gone, running down the street with his coat flying behind him. Alan put his free hand to his cheek in a vain attempt to keep the sensation of the kiss from disappearing. Then he became aware of the shape of the key digging into his hand, and he looked down at it. He knew where it led.
***
More than a week passed before Alan had time to leave work early to brave the slums. He did not want to go there after dark, so he had had little choice but to wait. Even in daylight, the house looked eery, its derelict frame little more than a skeleton which had not lost all its skin yet. He could not help looking around suspiciously when he stepped up and started unlocking the door. It would be easy enough to break into the house, considering that most of the upper floor were gone, so if someone saw the front-door being unlocked, they might be given a reason to burgle it.
The interior was no less unsettling than the exterior. It was unnaturally quiet without the Doctor’s endearing rambling, and cold had permeated the walls. When he stepped into the only inhabited room, he saw that it was much like it always was. The bed was made, but books and journals were scattered over it, as well as over the floor. Many were in strange languages; Alan recognised one of the titles as Tamil. Then he realised that one of his own articles was there, and he smiled, as if the Doctor had just paid him a silent compliment.
The wardrobe was in the far corner of the room. It seemed inevitable that he would turn his attention to it - the Doctor had asked if he would look after “her”, and he could only guess that this was what he had meant. He had heard the Doctor refer to the box as “she” a few times. Briefly he remembered that the Wrens at Bletchley Park had referred to the Bombe decryption units as “she”, as if pretending they were ships. Perhaps it was something similar at work here. It was probably just one of the Doctor’s odd ideas, but Alan felt that indulging him a little would not hurt, and he wanted to be able to say that he had done as he had asked.
‘Hello,’ he said experimentally, staring straight into the blue-painted wood. Ridiculous, he then thought to himself, but something compelled him to raise his hand and feel the door. At first he thought it was locked, but just as he drew his hand away the door moved a fraction. As if called, he opened it and looked into the wardrobe. He could not see why the Doctor was so attached to it, more attached to it than to anything else, it seemed, even (he dreaded to think) than to him. Experimentally he opened both doors and stepped inside the box to look at the interior. It looked perfectly ordinary, the walls on the inside painted the same dark blue as the outside.
The sensation came too quickly for him to register its reason, but all of a sudden, something like vertigo came upon him. It was as if he could see something in the corner of his eye which made him sway, and for a moment he felt as if he was falling. Then, as if reality grabbed hold of him again, he stumbled out of the box and collapsed on the floor. He still felt dizzy and a little sick, but he could not tell what had caused it. Probably just a head-rush, he told himself and sat up properly. What else could it be? He could not accept the apparent answer - surely it could not have been because of the box...
‘It’s just a box,’ he said out loud, trying to ignore how badly he was panting from the experience. As soon as he had calmed down, he got up, closed the doors of the wardrobe and after a final look around he left quickly.
***
The weeks passed in a blur, and there was no sign of the Doctor. Occasionally Alan went back to the derelict house where the Doctor stored his things to make sure everything was in order, but he did not go close to the strange box in the corner. When almost two months had passed since he last saw the Doctor, his concern had turned into real worry, and not knowing quite what else to do, he went back to the police station. The duty sergeant obviously recognised him when he entered.
‘What can I do for you, sir?’ he asked, not sounding very helpful at all.
‘About two months ago, you arrested a man who gave his name as Doctor John Smith,’ Alan started, thinking that asking about “the Doctor” would take too much explanation.
‘I think I remember that, sir.’
‘Have you, well...’ He shuffled his feet, bit his lip and then said: ‘Has he caused any more trouble?’ The sergeant looked at him as if he was quite mad. ‘Only - I don’t know where he is. He’s... gone missing. Only he does do that kind of thing...’
‘I’ll check the records, sir,’ the man said with a sigh. As he disappeared, Alan fidgeting with the loose key to the house in his pocket. After not long, the sergeant returned. ‘Doctor Smith has not had any more contact with this station, at least. Would you like to report him missing?’
‘Thank you,’ Alan said quickly. ‘I don’t think that’s quite necessary.’ He left, feeling he was probably overreacting about the Doctor’s absence. The sergeant’s response had not been encouraging; he glanced over his shoulder to see him speaking on the telephone. Trying to put it all out of his mind, he went back to the department. He only just noticed a black car parked outside the police station.
That evening when he came home, a black car was parked on the other side of the road, and he could not help wondering if he had not seen it before. When leaving the department for lunch the next day, he was certain that the same car was waiting outside. The paranoia everyone had felt during the war years came back. He started cycling alternative routes to the department and went for lunch at new places, but the black car kept catching up with him. After a week, the constant tension was taking its toll on his nerves and making concentrating on his work hard. Every half-hour, he would glance out of the window; he could just about see the car from there.
It was during one of these meanderings between the desk and the window Miss Popplewell knocked on his door and announced:
‘There’s a telephone call for you, sir.’ Happy for the distraction, he went out to the anteroom and took the receiver she was offering him.
‘Turing speaking.’
‘Hello, Alan,’ a melodious voice, remarkable in its softness, said. Alan gulped.
‘Doctor. Are... are you alright?’
‘Don’t worry about me,’ the Doctor said on the other end of the line; he could imagine him smiling. ‘I wanted to thank you. For looking after things.’
‘No need,’ he said, feeling flattered and embarrassed at the same time. ‘Glad to do it... What’s that sound?’ There was something like an engine in the background. Years of working machines had made him good at telling how machinery looked by its sound alone, but he could not imagine this. It sounded immense, but that was not what baffled him. There was something more to that sound than valves and electrical charges. The engine noise sounded almost like singing.
‘Oh, nothing,’ the Doctor answered hastily. ‘Just the line being a bit dodgy.’ He sighed, half with frustration at the strange answer, half with relief at hearing his voice again. He had missed him more than he had wanted to admit to himself.
‘Are you coming back soon?’
‘I don’t know. I wish I could tell you, but I have no idea.’
Alan bit his lip, trying to assess the risk that the line was tapped. Then he decided that if they had been so thorough, they should not be so obvious with that car. Therefore he just turned his back to his secretary and said quietly:
‘Doctor, I think I’m being followed.’
‘By whom?’ the Doctor asked, suddenly businesslike.
‘I don’t know. Just always the same car...’
‘Come on, Alan,’ he said, now in a playful tone, as if chiding him. ‘You’ve done the secret stuff - you can handle it.’
‘This is different,’ Alan grumbled. Codebreaking was nothing like spying.
‘For how long?’ He was serious again.
‘About a week.’
‘If they haven’t done anything yet... Hm, don’t worry to much about it.’ He nodded.
‘Alright.’
‘I hope to be back soon. And thank you.’ Alan was just about to thank him for calling, but he had already hung up. With a sigh he put down the receiver and went back into his office. After some deliberation, he dropped the blinds on the window and took his shoe off. They were getting a little old, and the inner sole had been coming loose for some time now. It was easy enough to tear it up, and he found that the key to the Doctor’s house fitted well under it. It would certainly be uncomfortable but, he thought as he glued the sole back on, it would be fairly fool-proof. He knew the Doctor was right; he had played the game before and knew the rules, but if these people had any serious interest in him, he wanted to know why.
By some small miracle, he managed to get some work done, and when it was approaching five o’clock, he decided it was time. He collected his coat and hat and bid his secretary a good day. Then he marched out of the department building, down the street and up to the black car as if he had some idea what he was doing. When he reached it, he tapped on the window hard to get the driver’s attention. The man at the wheel opened the door and stepped out. He was fairly nondescript, a rather ugly sneer the only thing in his face which was properly noticeable.
‘Are we in the way, guv’nor?’ he asked, in an accent better than his choice of words.
‘I want to know why you’ve been following me,’ Alan said, his voice sounding shrill and strange to his own ears. The man watched him for a few moments, the sneer widening slightly.
‘Orders,’ he said at last.
‘Whose orders?’ There was another measuring look, and then the man raised his eyebrows and said:
‘You’d better get in.’ Although it was phrased as an advice, it was obvious that this was yet another order. Alan gave him a disdainful look and stepped into the back seat. He now saw that there was a woman sitting in the other front seat; she seemed to try to catch his eye in the mirror, but he promptly looked out of the window, feeling disgusted at the surveillance he had been under.
The drive was no longer than ten minutes, and when they stopped, they made him follow simply with a nod. He had decided that the man was probably not much more than a driver. The woman, however, had the air of a spy about her. He could not tell where they were, but the building looked like it had been hurriedly emptied to make a temporary headquarters. The room which they showed him into was by its featureless appearance unmistakable as an interview room.
The door closed behind him, leaving him on his own. For a moment he panicked - what had he got himself into? No, he said to himself. This would be the worst possible moment to lose control. You’ve done nothing wrong. You’ve got nothing to hide. Let them ask their questions - they’ve made some kind of mistake. He took a deep breath and sat down at the table. First he simply intertwined his fingers, but he could not conjure up such a semblance of calm, so instead he took out his cigarettes.
He was on his second when the door finally opened. He had to stop himself from jumping to his feet, and tried to hide how he snapped into the attention when his interrogator entered the room. To his surprise, he was not a civilian; his uniform resembled an RAF captain’s, but it was not complete. Despite not being entirely in regulation clothing, he gave off the air of a man who cared excessively for his appearance, with not a hair out of place. Alan remembered the unpleasant briefings at Bletchley Park with military men who did not understand the technicalities of codebreaking and imagined that the boffins could simply conjure up the information they needed. On top of that they often despised the eccentricity and dishevelledness of many of the cryptanalysts, making a point of looking unnaturally well-groomed themselves. He would not be surprised if this man was like that, but now, his old shoe gave him more worry than his stubble and worn jumper. He curled his toes and felt the edge of the key under the sole.
The man did not speak for some time after sitting down, but leafed through one of the quite thick files he had with him. Alan’s cigarette was close to burning his fingers, and awkwardly he reached out to the ash-tray to stub it out. The movement seemed to alert the officer of his presence, and he looked at him as if fascinated that there was another person in the room. Alan met his eyes defiantly and, inwardly wondering why he was not keeping silent, asked:
‘Why am I here?’
‘You must know that,’ the man answered. To Alan’s surprise, his accent was a broad American.
‘No, as a matter of fact I don’t.’
‘Really?’ he snorted and kept looking through the file.
'Why would I?’
‘Do you really know nothing about the secret services, Doctor Turing?’ the officer asked, looking at him again.
‘Why would I?’ Alan repeated. The man raised his eyebrows, as if mentally awarding him the round, and then tapped the file.
‘Everything there is to know about you is in this file. Everything. We know about Enigma. We know about the Delilah machine. We know about why you were sent to America during the war, and we know about the Russian codes. And not only that - anything you’d care to name which relates to you - anything which might be of any kind of value - is in here.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he just said. The man gave him a disapproving look and put down the file, still open. The table was so narrow that Alan could see the contents, even if he could not read the text. There was a photograph paperclipped to one of the pages; his heart jolted when he saw that it was of Neville. Why was there a picture of Neville in his file? The answer was almost too easy. When the man had said they knew everything, they meant everything, not only about his work, but about his private life as well. When he looked up from the file, he found the man watching him as if he were trying to convey something important only through his eyes. Unsettled by this breach of privacy, he looked away.
‘Who are you?’ he asked. ‘MI5?’ The American laughed softly.
‘MI5 takes care of the... little more mundane cases.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘That you’d rather want to be interrogated by MI5,’ he answered. There was a long silence, which was finally broken by an abrupt: ‘You’ve been asking questions about the Doctor.’ Alan looked up, surprised at the mention of the name. ‘Isn’t that right?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said again, but weakly.
‘Playing dumb won’t help, Doctor Turing,’ the man said, his tone much sterner now. ‘We know that you enquired about the Doctor on July the 7th and September the 13th at the central police station here in Manchester. In July you even got him out of custody through a pretty little trick with your contacts at Cheltenham.’ He did not answer. The interrogator decided to press on. ‘I said everything was in this file. It’s not quite true.’ Alan would not give him the satisfaction of asking what it was, but he was rapidly realising that whatever was going on, he had probably made a mistake to pursue his enquiries. ‘What were you doing the two first months of 1945?’ He stiffened, but did not answer. ‘We know where you were throughout the war, apart from those two months. This document-’ he held up two typed pages ‘-is obviously a right-down lie. Where were you?’ You don’t know because you’re not supposed to know, Alan thought. Greene had assured him that he would write up some kind of explanation to the odd code and the Doctor’s part of the story. As far as his Majesty’s Government was concerned, the Strangers were a non-event.
‘I was at Hanslope,’ he said, too choked to sound casual.
‘No, you weren’t,’ the American retorted. ‘And you weren’t in Bletchley either.’
‘My work during the war is classified,’ Alan said, voice rising in indignation.
‘Nothing is classified for me.’
‘Is that so?’ he answered, angered by the man’s arrogance. ‘You haven’t even told me your name or rank, let alone who you work for. Assuming I will tell you anything is preposterous.’ The interrogator watched him, seemingly torn between scorn and sense, and then said, ignoring his request:
‘Tell me about the Doctor.’
‘There’s nothing to tell,’ he said quickly.
‘Yes, there is.’
‘I don’t know anyone by that name!’ Alan almost shouted. It had the opposite of the desired effect; the interrogator smiled maliciously.
‘But that’s not a name, is it? It’s a title. Why did you call it a name?’ Realising his mistake, Alan looked away and rubbed his face, hoping it would help him concentrate.
‘I met a man who called himself the Doctor in December 1944 at Oxford. I held a lecture at S:t John’s College.’
‘Thank you,’ the man said. ‘And then?’
‘There’s nothing more to it,’ he answered simply.
‘That’s a lie. When did you last see him?’
‘I haven’t seen him since then. It’s six years ago.’
‘So why did you ask the police if they knew where he was only a week ago?’ the American asked, face contorted in anger. ‘Why suddenly so interested?’ Alan did not answer, but resolutely kept his mouth shut. The interrogator breathed in violently, like a bull getting ready to charge. ‘There are two months of your life unaccounted for,’ he said, stressing every syllable. ‘We know you came to Bletchley Park on Hugh Alexander’s orders. After that, the trail runs dry. You weren’t there, but you weren’t anywhere else either. All we know is that in some way, the Doctor was involved. Britain’s top cryptanalyst goes missing, and there is no proper record of it, only a pack of typed half-lies. We know you have consorted with a dangerous man...’
‘“Dangerous”?’ Alan repeated incredulously.
‘Exceedingly,’ he answered. ‘Tell me. Where did he take you?’
‘Nowhere,’ Alan just said.
‘Try again.’
‘I honestly don’t see where you hope your line of enquiry is going to take you, sir, but...’
‘Tell me about the Doctor!’ the American all but screamed. His sudden rage shook Alan, and, afraid at what he would say otherwise, he simply kept silent. ‘What has he shown you?’ He shook his head. ‘Tell me.’
‘There’s nothing to tell.’ It came out as a mere whisper.
‘Do you know his current whereabouts?’ the man pressed.
‘I don’t know anything,’ Alan said, and was scared at how truthful this was.
‘What of the box?’
He looked up, shocked.
‘What do you mean?’ he asked, throat gone dry.
‘He always has a box with him, no matter what.’ His toes curled against the key in his shoe, reassuring himself that it was still there. ‘Has he shown you it?’
‘What of it? It’s just a box,’ Alan said, not seeing what interest the man could have in it.
‘When did you see it?’ the captain asked, his eyes lighting up.
‘In ’44.’ It was only half a lie; he had been shown the strange box in Bletchley when he met the Doctor for the second time. He felt it would be better not to mention the house in Manchester.
‘You said “just a box”,’ the American noted, scoffing slightly. ‘Have you seen the inside of it?’
‘Yes,’ he said, not understanding the relevance of these questions at all. ‘It’s just a box. There’s nothing special about it.’ Only he knew that that was a lie - there had been something - that sense of vertigo when he had stood inside it...
His answer seemed to worry the officer. He leaned back in his chair and seemed to think, then picked up the as yet untouched file and looked in it.
‘Something’s wrong,’ he murmured, and then told him: ‘Describe the Doctor.’ Alan hesitated, but then decided that it would not do more harm than he had already done.
‘A little under average height. In his forties, I guess. He has shoulder-length light-brown hair and blue eyes...’
‘What about his clothes?’ he asked, looking up in the ceiling while listening.
‘Very old-fashioned - almost dandyish,’ Alan admitted. ‘He always wears a waistcoat and cravat, with a wing-collared shirt. He’s got a bottle-green coat, and a pocket watch. He wears his hair let down.’
‘So he doesn’t look like this?’ the officer asked, picked up a photograph from the file and handed it to him. Alan laughed in disbelief when he saw it; the man in it was tall and boney, his hair cropped and his face harsh and big-nosed. He had none of the Doctor’s beauty, not any of his elegance; his clothes looked like those of a labourer.
‘This isn’t him,’ Alan said, conviction in his voice. ‘Completely different man.’
‘Are you sure?’ the American persisted.
‘Believe me, the Doctor isn’t an easy man to mistake for anyone else,’ he said.
‘You’d be surprised,’ the interrogator said, as if half to himself, and then suddenly got to his feet. ‘You’re free to go.’ He took the picture from him and put it back in the file, which was bulging with documents; when he closed it Alan saw the word on the tag: “Doctor”. When he saw that he was still seated, the officer said: ‘I said you could go. I’m afraid there’s been some kind of cock-up - breakdown of communication, probably. Sorry about that.’
‘What? Just like... that?’
‘Would you prefer it if I charged you with something?’ the officer asked sarcastically, and Alan got to his feet. With the sigh of a defeated man, the man took both files under his arm and was just about to leave when he seemed to remember something. ‘A word of advice,’ he said, turning back. ‘The Doctor is not to be trusted. Watch out for him. Even if he’s not himself now, he should not be trusted.’
‘Why?’ Alan asked, his dislike for the man returning rapidly.
‘Because people who trust him have a worrying tendency of having awful things happen to them,’ the American answered. ‘If he turns up again, send him on his way. Whatever he might have said to you is probably a lie.’
‘You don’t have very high thoughts of him, I see,’ Alan observed coldly.
‘Let’s say I have my reasons,’ he answered. ‘Just trying to be friendly.’
‘I think I can pick whom I trust myself, thank you,’ he said and passed him. ‘I’ll show myself out.’ He kept his face as he ventured through the dreary corridors and down the stairs, and only when he stepped outside did he allow the agitation to reach him. The question of trust was one he did not like contemplating; he trusted the Doctor too much, and not at all. What had the Doctor done to warrant that the mere mention of his name lead to interrogation? Involuntarily, Alan looked up at the building again, as if trying to find answers to what he was dealing with. He doubted that whatever organisation the RAF officer worked for was actually stationed there - he had a feeling that he had been called in from outside. What he had said at the beginning of the interview came back to him - “you’d rather be interrogated by MI5.” Who were worse than MI5? He sifted through abbreviations of organisations he had heard of during the war, but however he tried, Alan could not think of anything which made sense with what had happened.
That old fear of the Doctor’s actual identity struck him again. The nameless interrogator was right - it was not a name, it was a a title. People had names. People made sense. However deeply bogged down in the Secret Services they were, they were ordinary human beings. But the Doctor... there were never any answers, only questions. Perhaps he had been right all those years ago when he had wondered if he was a spy - perhaps “the Doctor” was just a code-name, and the big-nosed man on the picture he had been shown was another holder of the same position. There were few other explanations which made much sense, but even that theory felt flawed. The Doctor disappeared off constantly, but he was never truly secretive - or what that just a clever disguise? If he seemed absent-minded and bent on careless talk, no one would suspect him... But for whom would he work? Judging from the interview, he had no formal bonds with the British government, if he was not a renegade, in which case the question remained unanswered. He had noticed already during the war that the Doctor knew Russian - perhaps he was a Soviet agent. But it still did not add up. Did he have his own ulterior motive - perhaps he was not true to any organisation? Besides, the fact that he knew Russian meant nothing - he knew he spoke French and German and Japanese, and apparently Tamil and Arabic and Turkish and Greek, to mention a few of the languages there were books in at his house. It said nothing.
As Alan walked down the street, he wished that he could just view the Doctor as just another lover, or perhaps as an intriguing riddle. It seemed impossible - the Doctor would not be contained even within those harmless distinctions. Every time he met him, there was a part of Alan which screamed at him to get away, because this man was dangerous, just as the officer had said, but he simply could not give into that urge to flee. There was so much keeping him back, and not only romantic attraction; the Doctor was an equation which needed to be solved, but also someone who could never be understood. His presence gave reality the feel of an adventure. Even now, as he made his way home shaken and intimidated, his life was a little more thrilling because of the Doctor. He had told whoever was after him nothing which would help them find him, and the key to the house was still secure in his shoe. In case they still followed him, he would not go back there, and he would not ask for the Doctor again until he came back. He just hoped that he would do so soon.
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Fandom Doctor Who (Eighth Doctor Adventures)
Chapters One, two - three - four - five - six - seven - eight - nine - ten
Pairings Eight/Alan Turing, vague mentions of Eight/Fitz, historical pairings, some obligatory Doctor/TARDIS.
Beta infiniteth
Word count of chapter 5892
Word count of entire fic approx. 58 500
Ratings/warnings NC-17. Sexual situations, 1950s intolerance, Earth arc angst, mental illness, suicide.
Spoilers The Turing Test. Brief mentions of plot points in The Curse of Fenric.
Disclaimer I own nothing, and I am actually a really nice person who writes this stuff in hope of making up the awfulness of reality.
Summary The Doctor, the amnesiac genius without a name, is formidable as an intellectual companion and desirable as a lover, but the mystery around his identity and his quest to find out who he once was draws in anyone associated to him, until it threatens them with a reality that even Britain’s brightest mind cannot comprehend.
As Alan had expected, despite his new accommodations, the Doctor’s visits remained sporadic, and varied in length. Sometimes they would simply go for a walk or have tea and talk of mathematics. Sometimes they would sneak into Alan’s room when his landlord was not hawkishly watching his tenants and enjoy more worldly pleasures. When the Mark 1 became operational in April, the Doctor came to see it and congratulated him greatly; his flattery meant more to him than the congratulations from anyone in the department or the attention of the press. He started pondering his new paper and, because of those very ideas, was caught up in an intellectual debate which was really to be blamed on the press, who had a tendency to clumsily call the machines “electronic brains”. One of the main opponents against the idea that a machine could ever think was a priest, whose reasoning was particularly biblical. Alan had to show the letters to the Doctor, and was glad when he laughed as much as he had done.
The Doctor’s habit to simply appear remained, sometimes with such startling suddenness that Alan became quite alarmed. It was therefore surprising when in July Alan’s secretary knocked on the door and told him:
‘Telephone call for you, sir. From doctor... I didn’t catch the name.’ Guessing the identity of the caller, he followed her out and took the telephone.
‘Turing speaking.’
‘Hello, Alan - I need to be quick, I’m afraid,’ the Doctor’s voice said; hearing it disembodied was odd. ‘I’m in a bit of a pickle. Do you think you could help me out...?’
Moments later, he had ended the call, collected his coat and was dashing through the department and out, towards the central police station. The duty sergeant looked up when he slammed the door open and stopped at the desk to catch his breath. When he had recovered, the policeman said:
‘How may I help you, sir?’
‘You’re keeping someone here I need to see - the Doctor.’ He frowned, but checked his records. As he waited, Alan worried that this was some kind of elaborate joke, but then the sergeant said:
‘Doctor John Smith?’
‘Yes,’ he answered with conviction he did not have. ‘What has he been arrested for?’
‘Trespassing and obstruction, sir. Are you Doctor Smith’s solicitor...?’ he asked, but at the end of the sentence he was taking in his dishevelled appearance and he sounded quite unsure, and none too pleased at the idea of letting him see the prisoner.
‘No, I’m not. Thank you,’ was all he could think of to say and then turned to leave. There was a telephone-box close by and, checking that he had the right coins, he stepped in and took out his address book. Then he realised he did not know who he was going to call. His first thought was his brother - he was a practical kind of person, the kind you wanted around when dealing with the law - but he knew that that would not work. He would have to explain how he knew the Doctor, and John would disapprove if he knew that his little brother had been involved with someone who had been arrested. He looked through the address book and stopped at the obvious alternative.
The wait for someone to answer on the other end was so long that he was worried that the money would run out before there was a reply. But then there was a click and a woman’s voice said:
‘Mister Alexander’s office.’
‘Hello - could I please speak to Mister Alexander? Tell him it’s Doctor Turing.’
‘Certainly, sir.’ Another silence, which made him start worrying an old bruise on his thumb, a bad habit which always struck when he was nervous. Finally Hugh Alexander’s familiar voice sounded in the receiver.
‘Hello, Prof! Long time...’
‘Hello, Hugh,’ he said, smiling to himself. ‘I’m afraid I’m not calling to chat. I need your help with something.’
‘Oh?’ So Alan told him what he knew, making it sound like he was more informed than he was. When he finally finished, there was silence. ‘No,’ Hugh said. ‘No, Alan.’
‘He helped us,’ he answered in a load whisper. ‘He solved that problem of ours, don’t you remember? We owe it to him.’
‘Well, this isn’t about owing him for his service to king and country, is it?’ Hugh answered with a sigh, which did not sound disapproving as much as exasperated. ‘Really, Alan, what is it about this Doctor chap which turns your head? You are never out of line otherwise...’
‘I’m not out of line - I’m not trying to be,’ Alan answered back, getting rather flustered. ‘I’m just asking a favour.’
‘It’s a favour too big,’ Hugh said. They were silent for a moment, and then he continued, as if feeling he needed to defend himself: ‘Honestly, I can’t go around making the police release people like this.’
‘He’s not guilty of any of those things,’ Alan objected. ‘He was never rewarded in any way, even if he helped us...’ There was yet another pause, and then Hugh sighed.
‘Only this once.’
‘You’ll do it?’
‘Yes, yes, I will, but it will never happen again, do you understand?’ he said, sounding almost hectic about the importance of this.
‘Yes, I understand perfectly,’ Alan answered. ‘Thank you, Hugh.’
‘God help me,’ he just said, then in a more friendly tone: ‘You’re bad at keeping in touch, Alan - get better at it. Next time you’re in Cheltenham, let’s have lunch or something.’
‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Thank you - I really mean it.’
‘I hope so,’ Hugh sighed. ‘I’ll deal with it at once. It may take some time, of course - get stuck in the pipelines...’
‘Of course.’ Then they said goodbye and hung up. Alan turned his steps towards the police-station again and settled on a bench close by, picking up a book from his pocket to keep himself busy. He did not spare it much thought, but glanced up every time the doors opened. After some two hours, they swung up and the unmistakable form of the Doctor appeared. He hurried past, not noticing him.
‘Doctor!’ Alan shouted and left the bench at a run while trying to stuff the book back into his pocket. ‘Doctor!’ The Doctor spun around and when he caught sight of him, his face split into a wide smile.
‘Alan! I knew calling you would work,’ he said as the other man caught up with him.
‘Thank my friends in the Secret Services,’ Alan said under his breath, so that no passers-by would hear them. He almost had to run to keep up with the Doctor. ‘Where are you going?’
‘Train-station,’ he answered, narrowly avoiding running into an old lady. ‘From there to London, and then to Paris, and then to Zürich. Something’s going on, and I want to find out what it is - if it’s something sinister...’ He stopped abruptly and whirled around to face Alan. ‘Will you look after her for me?’
‘Who?’ Alan asked, but then he realised that the Doctor had taken his keys out of his pocket and was working one of them lose from the key-ring. When it had been freed, he pressed it into Alan’s hand and closed his fingers around it, looking him in the eye to make sure that he understood.
‘I’ll be back to collect the key later,’ he said and then, after a moment’s hesitation, leaned in and kissed his cheek. ‘See you.’ And then he was gone, running down the street with his coat flying behind him. Alan put his free hand to his cheek in a vain attempt to keep the sensation of the kiss from disappearing. Then he became aware of the shape of the key digging into his hand, and he looked down at it. He knew where it led.
***
More than a week passed before Alan had time to leave work early to brave the slums. He did not want to go there after dark, so he had had little choice but to wait. Even in daylight, the house looked eery, its derelict frame little more than a skeleton which had not lost all its skin yet. He could not help looking around suspiciously when he stepped up and started unlocking the door. It would be easy enough to break into the house, considering that most of the upper floor were gone, so if someone saw the front-door being unlocked, they might be given a reason to burgle it.
The interior was no less unsettling than the exterior. It was unnaturally quiet without the Doctor’s endearing rambling, and cold had permeated the walls. When he stepped into the only inhabited room, he saw that it was much like it always was. The bed was made, but books and journals were scattered over it, as well as over the floor. Many were in strange languages; Alan recognised one of the titles as Tamil. Then he realised that one of his own articles was there, and he smiled, as if the Doctor had just paid him a silent compliment.
The wardrobe was in the far corner of the room. It seemed inevitable that he would turn his attention to it - the Doctor had asked if he would look after “her”, and he could only guess that this was what he had meant. He had heard the Doctor refer to the box as “she” a few times. Briefly he remembered that the Wrens at Bletchley Park had referred to the Bombe decryption units as “she”, as if pretending they were ships. Perhaps it was something similar at work here. It was probably just one of the Doctor’s odd ideas, but Alan felt that indulging him a little would not hurt, and he wanted to be able to say that he had done as he had asked.
‘Hello,’ he said experimentally, staring straight into the blue-painted wood. Ridiculous, he then thought to himself, but something compelled him to raise his hand and feel the door. At first he thought it was locked, but just as he drew his hand away the door moved a fraction. As if called, he opened it and looked into the wardrobe. He could not see why the Doctor was so attached to it, more attached to it than to anything else, it seemed, even (he dreaded to think) than to him. Experimentally he opened both doors and stepped inside the box to look at the interior. It looked perfectly ordinary, the walls on the inside painted the same dark blue as the outside.
The sensation came too quickly for him to register its reason, but all of a sudden, something like vertigo came upon him. It was as if he could see something in the corner of his eye which made him sway, and for a moment he felt as if he was falling. Then, as if reality grabbed hold of him again, he stumbled out of the box and collapsed on the floor. He still felt dizzy and a little sick, but he could not tell what had caused it. Probably just a head-rush, he told himself and sat up properly. What else could it be? He could not accept the apparent answer - surely it could not have been because of the box...
‘It’s just a box,’ he said out loud, trying to ignore how badly he was panting from the experience. As soon as he had calmed down, he got up, closed the doors of the wardrobe and after a final look around he left quickly.
***
The weeks passed in a blur, and there was no sign of the Doctor. Occasionally Alan went back to the derelict house where the Doctor stored his things to make sure everything was in order, but he did not go close to the strange box in the corner. When almost two months had passed since he last saw the Doctor, his concern had turned into real worry, and not knowing quite what else to do, he went back to the police station. The duty sergeant obviously recognised him when he entered.
‘What can I do for you, sir?’ he asked, not sounding very helpful at all.
‘About two months ago, you arrested a man who gave his name as Doctor John Smith,’ Alan started, thinking that asking about “the Doctor” would take too much explanation.
‘I think I remember that, sir.’
‘Have you, well...’ He shuffled his feet, bit his lip and then said: ‘Has he caused any more trouble?’ The sergeant looked at him as if he was quite mad. ‘Only - I don’t know where he is. He’s... gone missing. Only he does do that kind of thing...’
‘I’ll check the records, sir,’ the man said with a sigh. As he disappeared, Alan fidgeting with the loose key to the house in his pocket. After not long, the sergeant returned. ‘Doctor Smith has not had any more contact with this station, at least. Would you like to report him missing?’
‘Thank you,’ Alan said quickly. ‘I don’t think that’s quite necessary.’ He left, feeling he was probably overreacting about the Doctor’s absence. The sergeant’s response had not been encouraging; he glanced over his shoulder to see him speaking on the telephone. Trying to put it all out of his mind, he went back to the department. He only just noticed a black car parked outside the police station.
That evening when he came home, a black car was parked on the other side of the road, and he could not help wondering if he had not seen it before. When leaving the department for lunch the next day, he was certain that the same car was waiting outside. The paranoia everyone had felt during the war years came back. He started cycling alternative routes to the department and went for lunch at new places, but the black car kept catching up with him. After a week, the constant tension was taking its toll on his nerves and making concentrating on his work hard. Every half-hour, he would glance out of the window; he could just about see the car from there.
It was during one of these meanderings between the desk and the window Miss Popplewell knocked on his door and announced:
‘There’s a telephone call for you, sir.’ Happy for the distraction, he went out to the anteroom and took the receiver she was offering him.
‘Turing speaking.’
‘Hello, Alan,’ a melodious voice, remarkable in its softness, said. Alan gulped.
‘Doctor. Are... are you alright?’
‘Don’t worry about me,’ the Doctor said on the other end of the line; he could imagine him smiling. ‘I wanted to thank you. For looking after things.’
‘No need,’ he said, feeling flattered and embarrassed at the same time. ‘Glad to do it... What’s that sound?’ There was something like an engine in the background. Years of working machines had made him good at telling how machinery looked by its sound alone, but he could not imagine this. It sounded immense, but that was not what baffled him. There was something more to that sound than valves and electrical charges. The engine noise sounded almost like singing.
‘Oh, nothing,’ the Doctor answered hastily. ‘Just the line being a bit dodgy.’ He sighed, half with frustration at the strange answer, half with relief at hearing his voice again. He had missed him more than he had wanted to admit to himself.
‘Are you coming back soon?’
‘I don’t know. I wish I could tell you, but I have no idea.’
Alan bit his lip, trying to assess the risk that the line was tapped. Then he decided that if they had been so thorough, they should not be so obvious with that car. Therefore he just turned his back to his secretary and said quietly:
‘Doctor, I think I’m being followed.’
‘By whom?’ the Doctor asked, suddenly businesslike.
‘I don’t know. Just always the same car...’
‘Come on, Alan,’ he said, now in a playful tone, as if chiding him. ‘You’ve done the secret stuff - you can handle it.’
‘This is different,’ Alan grumbled. Codebreaking was nothing like spying.
‘For how long?’ He was serious again.
‘About a week.’
‘If they haven’t done anything yet... Hm, don’t worry to much about it.’ He nodded.
‘Alright.’
‘I hope to be back soon. And thank you.’ Alan was just about to thank him for calling, but he had already hung up. With a sigh he put down the receiver and went back into his office. After some deliberation, he dropped the blinds on the window and took his shoe off. They were getting a little old, and the inner sole had been coming loose for some time now. It was easy enough to tear it up, and he found that the key to the Doctor’s house fitted well under it. It would certainly be uncomfortable but, he thought as he glued the sole back on, it would be fairly fool-proof. He knew the Doctor was right; he had played the game before and knew the rules, but if these people had any serious interest in him, he wanted to know why.
By some small miracle, he managed to get some work done, and when it was approaching five o’clock, he decided it was time. He collected his coat and hat and bid his secretary a good day. Then he marched out of the department building, down the street and up to the black car as if he had some idea what he was doing. When he reached it, he tapped on the window hard to get the driver’s attention. The man at the wheel opened the door and stepped out. He was fairly nondescript, a rather ugly sneer the only thing in his face which was properly noticeable.
‘Are we in the way, guv’nor?’ he asked, in an accent better than his choice of words.
‘I want to know why you’ve been following me,’ Alan said, his voice sounding shrill and strange to his own ears. The man watched him for a few moments, the sneer widening slightly.
‘Orders,’ he said at last.
‘Whose orders?’ There was another measuring look, and then the man raised his eyebrows and said:
‘You’d better get in.’ Although it was phrased as an advice, it was obvious that this was yet another order. Alan gave him a disdainful look and stepped into the back seat. He now saw that there was a woman sitting in the other front seat; she seemed to try to catch his eye in the mirror, but he promptly looked out of the window, feeling disgusted at the surveillance he had been under.
The drive was no longer than ten minutes, and when they stopped, they made him follow simply with a nod. He had decided that the man was probably not much more than a driver. The woman, however, had the air of a spy about her. He could not tell where they were, but the building looked like it had been hurriedly emptied to make a temporary headquarters. The room which they showed him into was by its featureless appearance unmistakable as an interview room.
The door closed behind him, leaving him on his own. For a moment he panicked - what had he got himself into? No, he said to himself. This would be the worst possible moment to lose control. You’ve done nothing wrong. You’ve got nothing to hide. Let them ask their questions - they’ve made some kind of mistake. He took a deep breath and sat down at the table. First he simply intertwined his fingers, but he could not conjure up such a semblance of calm, so instead he took out his cigarettes.
He was on his second when the door finally opened. He had to stop himself from jumping to his feet, and tried to hide how he snapped into the attention when his interrogator entered the room. To his surprise, he was not a civilian; his uniform resembled an RAF captain’s, but it was not complete. Despite not being entirely in regulation clothing, he gave off the air of a man who cared excessively for his appearance, with not a hair out of place. Alan remembered the unpleasant briefings at Bletchley Park with military men who did not understand the technicalities of codebreaking and imagined that the boffins could simply conjure up the information they needed. On top of that they often despised the eccentricity and dishevelledness of many of the cryptanalysts, making a point of looking unnaturally well-groomed themselves. He would not be surprised if this man was like that, but now, his old shoe gave him more worry than his stubble and worn jumper. He curled his toes and felt the edge of the key under the sole.
The man did not speak for some time after sitting down, but leafed through one of the quite thick files he had with him. Alan’s cigarette was close to burning his fingers, and awkwardly he reached out to the ash-tray to stub it out. The movement seemed to alert the officer of his presence, and he looked at him as if fascinated that there was another person in the room. Alan met his eyes defiantly and, inwardly wondering why he was not keeping silent, asked:
‘Why am I here?’
‘You must know that,’ the man answered. To Alan’s surprise, his accent was a broad American.
‘No, as a matter of fact I don’t.’
‘Really?’ he snorted and kept looking through the file.
'Why would I?’
‘Do you really know nothing about the secret services, Doctor Turing?’ the officer asked, looking at him again.
‘Why would I?’ Alan repeated. The man raised his eyebrows, as if mentally awarding him the round, and then tapped the file.
‘Everything there is to know about you is in this file. Everything. We know about Enigma. We know about the Delilah machine. We know about why you were sent to America during the war, and we know about the Russian codes. And not only that - anything you’d care to name which relates to you - anything which might be of any kind of value - is in here.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he just said. The man gave him a disapproving look and put down the file, still open. The table was so narrow that Alan could see the contents, even if he could not read the text. There was a photograph paperclipped to one of the pages; his heart jolted when he saw that it was of Neville. Why was there a picture of Neville in his file? The answer was almost too easy. When the man had said they knew everything, they meant everything, not only about his work, but about his private life as well. When he looked up from the file, he found the man watching him as if he were trying to convey something important only through his eyes. Unsettled by this breach of privacy, he looked away.
‘Who are you?’ he asked. ‘MI5?’ The American laughed softly.
‘MI5 takes care of the... little more mundane cases.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘That you’d rather want to be interrogated by MI5,’ he answered. There was a long silence, which was finally broken by an abrupt: ‘You’ve been asking questions about the Doctor.’ Alan looked up, surprised at the mention of the name. ‘Isn’t that right?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said again, but weakly.
‘Playing dumb won’t help, Doctor Turing,’ the man said, his tone much sterner now. ‘We know that you enquired about the Doctor on July the 7th and September the 13th at the central police station here in Manchester. In July you even got him out of custody through a pretty little trick with your contacts at Cheltenham.’ He did not answer. The interrogator decided to press on. ‘I said everything was in this file. It’s not quite true.’ Alan would not give him the satisfaction of asking what it was, but he was rapidly realising that whatever was going on, he had probably made a mistake to pursue his enquiries. ‘What were you doing the two first months of 1945?’ He stiffened, but did not answer. ‘We know where you were throughout the war, apart from those two months. This document-’ he held up two typed pages ‘-is obviously a right-down lie. Where were you?’ You don’t know because you’re not supposed to know, Alan thought. Greene had assured him that he would write up some kind of explanation to the odd code and the Doctor’s part of the story. As far as his Majesty’s Government was concerned, the Strangers were a non-event.
‘I was at Hanslope,’ he said, too choked to sound casual.
‘No, you weren’t,’ the American retorted. ‘And you weren’t in Bletchley either.’
‘My work during the war is classified,’ Alan said, voice rising in indignation.
‘Nothing is classified for me.’
‘Is that so?’ he answered, angered by the man’s arrogance. ‘You haven’t even told me your name or rank, let alone who you work for. Assuming I will tell you anything is preposterous.’ The interrogator watched him, seemingly torn between scorn and sense, and then said, ignoring his request:
‘Tell me about the Doctor.’
‘There’s nothing to tell,’ he said quickly.
‘Yes, there is.’
‘I don’t know anyone by that name!’ Alan almost shouted. It had the opposite of the desired effect; the interrogator smiled maliciously.
‘But that’s not a name, is it? It’s a title. Why did you call it a name?’ Realising his mistake, Alan looked away and rubbed his face, hoping it would help him concentrate.
‘I met a man who called himself the Doctor in December 1944 at Oxford. I held a lecture at S:t John’s College.’
‘Thank you,’ the man said. ‘And then?’
‘There’s nothing more to it,’ he answered simply.
‘That’s a lie. When did you last see him?’
‘I haven’t seen him since then. It’s six years ago.’
‘So why did you ask the police if they knew where he was only a week ago?’ the American asked, face contorted in anger. ‘Why suddenly so interested?’ Alan did not answer, but resolutely kept his mouth shut. The interrogator breathed in violently, like a bull getting ready to charge. ‘There are two months of your life unaccounted for,’ he said, stressing every syllable. ‘We know you came to Bletchley Park on Hugh Alexander’s orders. After that, the trail runs dry. You weren’t there, but you weren’t anywhere else either. All we know is that in some way, the Doctor was involved. Britain’s top cryptanalyst goes missing, and there is no proper record of it, only a pack of typed half-lies. We know you have consorted with a dangerous man...’
‘“Dangerous”?’ Alan repeated incredulously.
‘Exceedingly,’ he answered. ‘Tell me. Where did he take you?’
‘Nowhere,’ Alan just said.
‘Try again.’
‘I honestly don’t see where you hope your line of enquiry is going to take you, sir, but...’
‘Tell me about the Doctor!’ the American all but screamed. His sudden rage shook Alan, and, afraid at what he would say otherwise, he simply kept silent. ‘What has he shown you?’ He shook his head. ‘Tell me.’
‘There’s nothing to tell.’ It came out as a mere whisper.
‘Do you know his current whereabouts?’ the man pressed.
‘I don’t know anything,’ Alan said, and was scared at how truthful this was.
‘What of the box?’
He looked up, shocked.
‘What do you mean?’ he asked, throat gone dry.
‘He always has a box with him, no matter what.’ His toes curled against the key in his shoe, reassuring himself that it was still there. ‘Has he shown you it?’
‘What of it? It’s just a box,’ Alan said, not seeing what interest the man could have in it.
‘When did you see it?’ the captain asked, his eyes lighting up.
‘In ’44.’ It was only half a lie; he had been shown the strange box in Bletchley when he met the Doctor for the second time. He felt it would be better not to mention the house in Manchester.
‘You said “just a box”,’ the American noted, scoffing slightly. ‘Have you seen the inside of it?’
‘Yes,’ he said, not understanding the relevance of these questions at all. ‘It’s just a box. There’s nothing special about it.’ Only he knew that that was a lie - there had been something - that sense of vertigo when he had stood inside it...
His answer seemed to worry the officer. He leaned back in his chair and seemed to think, then picked up the as yet untouched file and looked in it.
‘Something’s wrong,’ he murmured, and then told him: ‘Describe the Doctor.’ Alan hesitated, but then decided that it would not do more harm than he had already done.
‘A little under average height. In his forties, I guess. He has shoulder-length light-brown hair and blue eyes...’
‘What about his clothes?’ he asked, looking up in the ceiling while listening.
‘Very old-fashioned - almost dandyish,’ Alan admitted. ‘He always wears a waistcoat and cravat, with a wing-collared shirt. He’s got a bottle-green coat, and a pocket watch. He wears his hair let down.’
‘So he doesn’t look like this?’ the officer asked, picked up a photograph from the file and handed it to him. Alan laughed in disbelief when he saw it; the man in it was tall and boney, his hair cropped and his face harsh and big-nosed. He had none of the Doctor’s beauty, not any of his elegance; his clothes looked like those of a labourer.
‘This isn’t him,’ Alan said, conviction in his voice. ‘Completely different man.’
‘Are you sure?’ the American persisted.
‘Believe me, the Doctor isn’t an easy man to mistake for anyone else,’ he said.
‘You’d be surprised,’ the interrogator said, as if half to himself, and then suddenly got to his feet. ‘You’re free to go.’ He took the picture from him and put it back in the file, which was bulging with documents; when he closed it Alan saw the word on the tag: “Doctor”. When he saw that he was still seated, the officer said: ‘I said you could go. I’m afraid there’s been some kind of cock-up - breakdown of communication, probably. Sorry about that.’
‘What? Just like... that?’
‘Would you prefer it if I charged you with something?’ the officer asked sarcastically, and Alan got to his feet. With the sigh of a defeated man, the man took both files under his arm and was just about to leave when he seemed to remember something. ‘A word of advice,’ he said, turning back. ‘The Doctor is not to be trusted. Watch out for him. Even if he’s not himself now, he should not be trusted.’
‘Why?’ Alan asked, his dislike for the man returning rapidly.
‘Because people who trust him have a worrying tendency of having awful things happen to them,’ the American answered. ‘If he turns up again, send him on his way. Whatever he might have said to you is probably a lie.’
‘You don’t have very high thoughts of him, I see,’ Alan observed coldly.
‘Let’s say I have my reasons,’ he answered. ‘Just trying to be friendly.’
‘I think I can pick whom I trust myself, thank you,’ he said and passed him. ‘I’ll show myself out.’ He kept his face as he ventured through the dreary corridors and down the stairs, and only when he stepped outside did he allow the agitation to reach him. The question of trust was one he did not like contemplating; he trusted the Doctor too much, and not at all. What had the Doctor done to warrant that the mere mention of his name lead to interrogation? Involuntarily, Alan looked up at the building again, as if trying to find answers to what he was dealing with. He doubted that whatever organisation the RAF officer worked for was actually stationed there - he had a feeling that he had been called in from outside. What he had said at the beginning of the interview came back to him - “you’d rather be interrogated by MI5.” Who were worse than MI5? He sifted through abbreviations of organisations he had heard of during the war, but however he tried, Alan could not think of anything which made sense with what had happened.
That old fear of the Doctor’s actual identity struck him again. The nameless interrogator was right - it was not a name, it was a a title. People had names. People made sense. However deeply bogged down in the Secret Services they were, they were ordinary human beings. But the Doctor... there were never any answers, only questions. Perhaps he had been right all those years ago when he had wondered if he was a spy - perhaps “the Doctor” was just a code-name, and the big-nosed man on the picture he had been shown was another holder of the same position. There were few other explanations which made much sense, but even that theory felt flawed. The Doctor disappeared off constantly, but he was never truly secretive - or what that just a clever disguise? If he seemed absent-minded and bent on careless talk, no one would suspect him... But for whom would he work? Judging from the interview, he had no formal bonds with the British government, if he was not a renegade, in which case the question remained unanswered. He had noticed already during the war that the Doctor knew Russian - perhaps he was a Soviet agent. But it still did not add up. Did he have his own ulterior motive - perhaps he was not true to any organisation? Besides, the fact that he knew Russian meant nothing - he knew he spoke French and German and Japanese, and apparently Tamil and Arabic and Turkish and Greek, to mention a few of the languages there were books in at his house. It said nothing.
As Alan walked down the street, he wished that he could just view the Doctor as just another lover, or perhaps as an intriguing riddle. It seemed impossible - the Doctor would not be contained even within those harmless distinctions. Every time he met him, there was a part of Alan which screamed at him to get away, because this man was dangerous, just as the officer had said, but he simply could not give into that urge to flee. There was so much keeping him back, and not only romantic attraction; the Doctor was an equation which needed to be solved, but also someone who could never be understood. His presence gave reality the feel of an adventure. Even now, as he made his way home shaken and intimidated, his life was a little more thrilling because of the Doctor. He had told whoever was after him nothing which would help them find him, and the key to the house was still secure in his shoe. In case they still followed him, he would not go back there, and he would not ask for the Doctor again until he came back. He just hoped that he would do so soon.
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