Silhouette (12 page)

‘They went this way.’

‘But you don’t know where they were headed?’

Jim shook his head. ‘Sorry, but no I don’t. Although …’ He gave a short laugh. ‘Well, it’s probably a coincidence, but I happen to know that Orestes Milton lives just along here. Well, in the next road. You know, the industrialist.’ He hesitated as he caught Jenny’s expression. ‘I can see that you do know who I mean.’

Jenny nodded. ‘So what made you think of Milton?’

‘Oh, just that I gather from talking to some of the folks at the Carnival that he’s a regular visitor. The rumour is that he’s intending to buy them out or something.’

‘I ain’t heard that,’ Jenny told him.

‘Well, as I say, perhaps it’s just a rumour. Or maybe he wanted to make the Lizard Woman a special offer for her services.’ He turned back towards the Embankment. ‘I must be getting back.’

Jenny grabbed his arm and turned him round. ‘Not till you’ve shown me where this Milton bloke lives.’

The house looked ordinary enough from outside. Big, expensive, set back from the road. The curtains seemed to be drawn and there was no sign of life.

‘So now what?’ Jim asked.

‘We take a look inside is what.’

‘We can’t just break in,’ Jim told her.

But Jenny was already marching up the drive. ‘We won’t break in,’ she called back over her shoulder. ‘We ring the bell and demand to see Madame Vastra.’

‘Who?’ Jim said. ‘Oh never mind,’ he muttered as they stood together at the door.

Deep inside the house a bell jangled in response to Jenny’s pull on the metal chain hanging close by. They waited for a full minute, but no one answered.

‘No one home,’ Jim said. He reached out and tried the door handle. ‘Goodness – it’s open.’ He pushed open the door.

‘Then let’s take a look inside.’

‘I don’t know about that – are you sure?’

Jenny was already in the hallway. Lights came on as she moved further into the house. Jim glanced back, then followed. There were several doors off the hall, and a wide flight of stairs leading to the upper storeys. While Jenny stood looking round, deciding which way to try first, Jim went past her, heading for a
passageway along the side of the staircase.

‘There might be someone in the servants’ quarters who can help us,’ he said. ‘I’d feel happier talking to them than explaining myself to Mr Milton if he is at home.’

Jenny followed. It was as good a place to start as any. The passage gave into an open area, again brightly lit, though Jenny couldn’t see where from. More doors led off this. One of them was slightly open, and Jim pushed it further open.

‘Good Lord,’ he said quietly. ‘I think you should see this, Jenny.’

Jenny joined him at the door. Inside the room was dark, except for a ring of focused lights, so stark against the darkness they seemed almost solid. Within the circle, a single spotlight shone down on a figure standing beside a lectern.

‘Vastra!’ Jenny hurried into the room.

‘Jenny? Thank goodness.’ Vastra moved closer to the ring of lights. ‘It’s a force shield, I’m trapped inside.’

‘What is this place?’ Jim said. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Never mind that, let’s just get her out of there,’ Jenny told him.

Vastra reached through the bars of light to take Jenny’s hands. ‘There’s a control panel on the wall by the windows,’ she said.

‘Over here?’ Jim replied, hurrying across the room.
‘Yes, I’ve found it. I guess this turns off those bars of light.’

The lights cut out abruptly, and Vastra pulled Jenny into an embrace. ‘Thank goodness. I thought I was trapped in here for ever.’

‘I’m afraid,’ said Jim, his hand still on the control panel, ‘that you probably are.’

The bars of light reappeared. Now that Jenny had stepped forward, towards Vastra, she too was trapped inside their circle.

‘Jim? What’s going on? Did you do that? Turn them off again.’

‘No, my dear,’ Vastra said quietly. ‘I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have come. Now we’re both trapped.’

Jim was walking slowly towards them. He stopped the other side of the bars, the light from the cage illuminating his face. As it faded and dissolved into an expressionless blank.

Behind the blank-faced man, the door opened to allow another figure to step into the room. He was a slight man, with receding dark hair and a neatly trimmed beard.

‘You’ve done well, Affinity,’ he said, his intonation slightly nasal. ‘Very well indeed.’

‘You must be Mr Orestes Milton,’ Vastra said.

‘I suppose I must,’ the man admitted. He walked up to the cage, standing just far enough away that neither Jenny nor Vastra would be able to reach him through the bars. ‘I’m delighted to meet you both.’

‘The feeling is not mutual,’ Vastra told him.

‘What do you want?’ Jenny demanded.

‘Oh, what do any of us want? Fame and fortune. Long life and happiness.’

‘You won’t get any of those if you keep us locked in here,’ Jenny said.

Milton laughed. ‘Oh a threat. Very good, yes, I like that. I can see you might be very useful.’

‘How can we be useful to you?’ Vastra asked. ‘We shall do nothing to cooperate.’

‘You know,’ Milton said, ‘our mutual friend here once told me much the same thing. And now he’s happy to do whatever I tell him, aren’t you?’

The blank-faced man that Milton had referred to as Affinity bowed his head. ‘Of course. I exist to serve.’

‘Good, because I have another task for you,’ Milton told him. ‘Empath has been keeping an eye on our other friends and could do with some help. Find him, would you?’

‘Of course.’ When he raised his head, he was Jim once more. ‘Bye, Jenny.’ He turned towards Vastra, and as he did his features shimmered and changed into the lizard man, Festin. ‘Madame Vastra, it was a privilege and a pleasure.’

‘I wish I could say the same,’ she told him coldly.

Affinity’s face blanked out as he raised his hand in farewell. The light from the cage bars glinted for a moment on the red crystal set in a ring on his middle finger. Then he turned and left the room.

‘Who is he really?’ Jenny demanded. ‘What is he?’

‘He was the master of ceremonies at the Carnival of Curiosities when I first met him.’ Milton went over to an alcove and lifted a chair out of the shadows. He positioned it in front of the cage and sat down. ‘You’ve probably seen him, introducing various attractions.’

‘He’s Alfie?’ Vastra said in surprise.

‘He used to be. Sometimes he still is. You will understand better, perhaps, if I tell you a little about myself.’ He pulled a watch from his waistcoat pocket and inspected it. ‘Yes, we have plenty of time.’ He tucked it away again.

‘You wish to gloat?’ Vastra said.

‘Dear me, no. Only those lacking in self-confidence feel the need to gloat. I’m very well adjusted and quite at ease with myself, I assure you.’

‘Then why not leave us in peace?’ Jenny snapped.

Milton shrugged. ‘If you wish. I think that if I explain myself a little it will help you come to terms with what will happen to you. And I confess it would be pleasant to speak to people who could actually understand something of what I’m talking about. But if you’d rather die in ignorance, well, that’s your choice.’

He stood up, gave a polite nod of farewell, and turned to go.

‘No, wait,’ Vastra said. ‘We will listen.’

‘I really don’t wish to inconvenience you any more than has already been necessary,’ Milton said.

‘You wish to talk, and we have nothing better to do than listen.’

Milton sat down again. ‘Very well. And of course you are hoping that the information I impart will give you some advantage. It won’t, but please do go on hoping. Hope is so important in these sorts of
situations, don’t you think?’

‘Just tell us who you are and what you’re doing on this planet,’ Jenny said.

‘Ah, so you have realised I’m not local? That will help. I imagine your association with the Doctor has given you a rather unique perspective on the universe among your fellows.’

‘The Doctor is a rather unique person,’ Vastra replied.

‘Well, I won’t argue with that. But we’ll get to the Doctor later. First allow me to apologise for the inconvenience you are suffering, but as you will realise I can’t afford to be found by the authorities.’

‘You’re a criminal?’ Jenny said.

‘Oh, please. I don’t subscribe to such labels. I am a businessman. An innovator. An entrepreneur. My name really is Orestes Milton, in case you were wondering. Well, it’s actually Milton Orestes but the inversion seems to fit better here in London.’

‘You say you are a businessman,’ Vastra said. ‘So what do you deal in?’

‘Ah, now that’s the nub of the matter. I develop and sell weapons. A perfectly honourable and legitimate venture, you might think.’

‘I think it depends on the weapons,’ Vastra told him.

‘Which was just the point that various stellar authorities and indeed the Shadow Proclamation
made in their arrest warrant. And indeed the subsequent trial ruling, or so I believe. I did not actually attend in person, you see.’

‘You’re on the run,’ Jenny realised.

‘A rather quaint, but accurate way of describing my present predicament. I was forced to leave my premises in something of a hurry without time to bring much with me. So in order to re-establish my business I have had to make use of the materials readily available on this rather backward planet.’

‘Which is why you came to London,’ Vastra said. ‘The most advanced city in the world.’

‘Advanced is a little generous, but yes.’

‘And you’re hiding here to avoid being arrested,’ Jenny said.

‘I shall shortly be reopening for business, but of necessity in a rather reduced and somewhat clandestine capacity.’

‘And what are these weapons you trade in?’ Vastra asked. ‘The ones that are deemed illegal.’

‘Oh well, you’ve just met one of them.’

‘Jim?’ Jenny said. ‘He’s a weapon?’

‘My speciality is in developing weapons based on genetic enhancement. I take life forms, tweak the DNA and other genetic and cerebral attributes and weaponise them.’

Vastra was horrified. ‘You weaponise
people
?’

Milton shrugged. ‘And lizards, I’m not fussy.
Any life form that has potential. Like I said, I am a businessman as well as an innovator. So with Affinity, or Alfie as he used to be called, I have merely enhanced his natural abilities.’

‘By stealing his face?’ Jenny said.

‘I have given him many faces. He was, as I said, the master of ceremonies, for want of a better term, at the Carnival. To say he had the gift of the gab would be an understatement. He could pack in the crowds, enthuse any audience, get money out of the most tight-fisted of pessimists. He did it by playing on the needs and desires of whoever he was with. Oh, it wasn’t a conscious thing, but he had a talent for putting people at ease, for modifying his personality to suit whoever he was speaking with. I have merely enhanced that ability. And now he can become whoever the person he is with would most admire or respect or want to spend time with. Usually it’s an aspect of themselves, a sort of distorted reflection.’

‘But – why?’ Jenny said. ‘By making him anyone, you’ve made him
no
one.’

‘That’s a bit deep and philosophical for me, I’m afraid,’ Milton told her. ‘But think of it from my point of view. Imagine how useful Affinity can be, not just in luring you here, though that does rather prove my point. But imagine how useful he would be in tricky negotiations, or diplomacy. Not to mention the obvious applications relating to industrial and actual
espionage. Think what you have yourselves already told him without the slightest qualm.’

‘You make it sound very gentlemanly,’ Vastra said. ‘But when all is said and done, you are a murderer.’

‘I protect my assets, if that’s what you mean.’

‘Is everything business to you?’ Jenny demanded.

‘Oh yes. I allow my assets to continue to practise and refine their skills at the Carnival of Curiosities. It is all good training. But there is a risk, and that risk must be eliminated whether it be a curious member of the paying public who stumbles across something they shouldn’t, like the late Mr Hapworth, or one of the other carnival people who knows too much.’

‘And Clara?’ Jenny said. ‘You tried to kill her too.’

‘Possibly a mistake,’ Milton admitted. ‘I see now that she may be more use alive.’

‘Are those paper birds things you enhanced as well?’ Jenny asked.

‘No. They are just paper.’

‘But they attacked Clara,’ Vastra said. ‘And I assume they somehow killed Hapworth too.’

‘They are stronger than they look,’ Milton said, smiling. ‘Properly animated just a few of them can lift a metal letter-opener and drive it home. But Silhouette must take the credit for that, not me.’

‘And is she enhanced too?’ Vastra said. ‘Another weapon of yours?’

‘Of course. She was such a brilliant puppeteer,
with a real talent for manipulating two-dimensional objects like the cut-out shapes in her Shadowplay. Now, with expanded and enhanced psychic abilities, she can control any nearly two-dimensional object. Paper, even shadows – she can do it for real.’

‘Provided she uses her skills as you tell her,’ Vastra added.

‘Well, obviously. But the real prize, I have to say – the real prize will be the Doctor. Oh yes,’ he went on, ‘I know all about the Doctor from yourselves and from what he and his friend Clara have said.’

‘The Doctor won’t help you,’ Jenny said, ‘Not ever.’

‘Even though I have the two of you as hostages? I’m sure he’ll come round to the notion. The alternative really does not bear thinking about, I’m afraid. And imagine what a weapon
he
would make.’

‘Not a weapon you could ever control,’ Vastra said.

‘It might take more than simple cerebral implants, I agree,’ Milton conceded. ‘Although they have proved effective enough in controlling Affinity and Silhouette, and Empath too.’

‘Empath?’ Vastra asked.

‘Have I not mentioned Empath? How remiss of me.’ Milton checked his watch again, sighed and stood up. ‘Now I really must be getting on. So many things to attend to. But don’t worry, you’ll meet Empath soon enough.’