DARK HOLIDAY
CHAPTER THREE
Donna went over and put a reassuring hand on the girl’s shoulder. Strands of the girl’s dark hair were plastered to the side of her face, clinging to the tears that coursed down her cheeks. “It’s alright, we’re here now.” She said in a comforting voice. The girl’s long blue dress was muddy and torn. Without looking at Donna or the Doctor, she began rocking back and forth and starting rambling, “Kevin’s been missing for two days. I was so worried about him. He was to meet me near the Hopewell bridge, Thursday night. I think he was going to ask me to the dance at the school, he seemed so nervous. Kevin was always so shy. It took him months just to get ’round to kissin’ me, and even then it was only a quick peck on the cheek! She stroked the boy’s cold waxy forehead. “He was so good to me. Always had a smile for me, always there, looking out for me, making sure I wanted for nothing. I–I can’t believe he’s gone.” For the first time, she looked up tearfully at Donna, “Who could have done this awful thing to him? Kevin wouldn’t have harmed a fly. I don’t understand.”
Donna looked up at the Doctor, as if waiting for him to say something. For just a moment, the Doctor simply crouched there, silent and grave. While the girl was talking, he’d been surreptitiously examining the boy’s body for signs of how he’d died. Now, the Doctor brooded over a discovery he’d made, wondering how much he could actually tell the grief-stricken young woman, without driving her over the edge into madness. He signed and asked softly, “What’s your name?” The Doctor reached into his coat pocket and handed her some tissues. She took them without seeming to really notice them. “Cath-Catherine.” She sniffed, “Catherine Taylor.”
The Doctor looked into her eyes, trying to maintain eye contact. The first thing he needed to do was to draw the girl’s focus away from the corpse, so he could get some answers out of her. “Well, Catherine, I’m the Doctor and this is Donna.” He said evenly. “We’re going to need to ask you a few questions, and I want you to try and answer them as best you can, alright? We’re too late to help Kevin, here, but if whoever did this is still out there, you can help us to prevent any more deaths like this. Do you understand?” She gave him a bewildered look, and Donna, stroking the girl’s hair, said, “It’s alright, you can trust him. The Doctor wants to make sure no one else has to go through what you’re feeling right now.” Mechanically wiping her face with the tissue, Catherine looked up at the Doctor and nodded her assent. The Doctor gave her a slight smile, and said, “Good girl, you’re very brave, Catherine Taylor.”
Standing, he shoved his hands into his coat pockets, looking down at her. “You said Kevin went missing on Thursday. Do you have any idea where he was going, why he might have ended up way out here?” Catherine shook her head. “I don’t know. He sometimes went out walking here on the moor, because he said he liked the open places, that being out here made him feel free, somehow. He was an orphan on the streets in London, when he was twelve, he got collared by the police for stealing an orange, and spent a year in jail. Never liked closed spaces, after that.” “A year in jail for stealing an orange!” Donna gasped. The Doctor waved her to silence. “Not now, Donna. You can be outraged later.” He squatted down again. “I need you to think, try and remember, was there anyone else around, that day? Maybe some stranger, or someone new to the area?”
Catherine thought about it and shook her head in the negative. “There’s been no strangers through the village in a couple of weeks, and the only new people are a young newlywed couple, who’ll be spending their summers here. They’ve rented old Mrs. Gavin’s cottage, down by the river.”
The Doctor looked up thoughtfully. “Have they? What do you know about them? Is there anything different about them? Anything unusual you’ve noticed, anything at all, no matter how so small?” He urged her. Catherine seemed to draw a blank for a moment, and started to answer ‘no’, when she stopped. The Doctor leaned forward. “What is it?” He asked eagerly. “Well, I don’t know if it’s all that unusual. But, my Uncle George owns the village shop, and sometimes I help him out on Saturday mornings. I’ve noticed that the young lady, Mrs. Williams, buys an awful lot of salt. I overheard her ask my uncle if she could place a special order for a barrel. Took Uncle George by surprise, that did!”
The Doctor dug his hands down into his coat pockets and began pacing furiously. Donna bent down, and helped the girl up, “Come on, you’ll catch your death down there. We’ll take you home, and see that your Kevin is seen to.” She brushed a strand of hair from Catherine’s eye, and gently turned her away, so she was no longer facing the boy’s body. “Tell me, did that woman ever give your uncle a reason for needing so much salt?” She asked the girl.
The Doctor whirled around and stood there, looking intently at Donna and Catherine. The girl sniffed and nodded. “That’s the other strange thing. I heard her say she was preserving some meat. Yet later, when her husband came in to pick up the barrel of salt, he claimed that they needed it because they had a bad infestation of slugs.” Donna glanced at the Doctor and they simultaneously raised their eyebrows. Then, sadness returned to his face, as he squatted down and closed young Kevin’s eyes. Straightening again, the Doctor’s eyes were afire with determination to seek out the truth. “Right!” He exclaimed. “I think we’ll see Catherine home, and then pay a little visit on this Mrs. Williams–maybe I can put a little salt under her tail, and get some answers.”
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