Guy Adams - The House That Jack Built - The House That Jack Built

'Used to watch his programme with my mum, Mysterious World or whatever it was called.'

'There was a lot more to Arthur than that,' Jack said with a smile. 'I shared some wonderful summers with him in Colombo.'

'Of course you did,' Julia replied dismissively.

Jack grinned, not caring in the least whether she believed him or not. He grabbed another camera and walked into one of the empty rooms. 'He wrote three "laws" over the years, the third of which is probably the most famous, though the others are just as accurate.' He fixed the second camera in place in the far corner and trailed the cable back out of the room with them, dropping it again down towards the ground floor. 'He said that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic".'

'I've heard that,' Julia admitted as they walked into the next room.

'Yeah, I find myself saying it a lot in this job. That's the problem with the clever things people say, they get quoted so often people forget to pay attention. Think about it, imagine everything we take for granted today and how miraculous it would have seemed a couple of centuries ago. We're always getting closer to understanding, always . Ghosts? Visions? They're unexplained today, but tomorrow they'll be science.'

A third camera in place, they began to head down the stairs again.

'OK,' said Julia. 'I accept the idea that we may have explanations for weird stuff in years to come, but help me out, what could it have been that we saw? It was so real.'

'It was in here, yes?' Jack walked into the spare bedroom.

'Yes.' Julia was embarrassed at how scared she felt walking back into the room, her heart beating faster in her chest and her breath becoming laboured. 'She was right there,' she said, pointing to the bed.

'Which is exactly where the bath used to be,' Jack said. 'When I lived here this was the bathroom. I imagine your aunt changed it after what happened in here.'

'What happened?'

'Your aunt used to keep lodgers, do you remember them?'

That feeling of guilt again. 'I didn't really know her that well. We didn't visit much when I was a kid. You know how it can be with family, you go your separate ways.'

Jack nodded. 'Know what you mean. Well, it doesn't matter. She had lodgers. It helped pay the bills, I guess, stopped her rattling around the place. But… something bad happened to both of them. One, a librarian called Kerry Robinson, slit her wrists in the bath. Right there,' he pointed at the bed.

'So what I saw was just the past? I was watching something that had happened years ago?'

'Exactly. No ghosts, no spirits, just history becoming visible somehow.'

'But how's that possible?'

'That's what we need to find out.'

'But it wasn't a ghost?'

'No.'

'Just an image?'

Jack grinned, fixing a camera in the roof. 'You got it!'

'So when I keep seeing that fat man, he's just an image too?' Julia was beginning to stutter and shake. Jack hadn't realised she'd been this close to breaking, had thought she was getting it together. He never had been much good at reading people.

'It's OK,' he said. 'That's my point, nothing here can harm you. It's just images, that's all, like watching old movie footage. It has no physical presence.'

'But… Rob got wet.'

'What?'

'He tried to help her, the woman in the bathtub, she was right in front of him so he tried to help her. To begin with, he couldn't touch her, his hand kept going through her,'

'That's right…'

'But then, just before she vanished, he got wet … the water from the bath soaked him, it was real… he touched it.'

Jack didn't know what to say to that, had no explanation for how it could be possible. 'OK… So that's… weird, I'll give you that.'

'So they can touch us, they are real.'

'I don't know. We'll find out, though, like I said. That's what we do.'

'But the fat man…'

'Don't worry about him,'

'You don't understand… If he can touch us, he can hurt us…'

Jack suddenly noticed a curious smell.

Julia was pointing over his shoulder.

'He's behind you!' she shouted.

The fist, a sweaty, pink baseball bat of fingers, hit Jack in the small of his back, making him cry out with pain. His leg gave way beneath him as the two fat hands clasped his head, the wet palms oozing over his face, the smell of sweat and sex so strong on them that he felt the urge to gag.

'Run,' he said to Julia through mashed lips, though she hadn't waited to be told, pulling herself out of the room and to the top of the stairs where she began shouting for help. Her words were muted, Jack's ears sealed shut beneath the man's grip, but he could see the force of them in her red cheeks and the spittle that flew from her lips.

He grabbed his attacker's wrists — refusing to even think about the impossibility of such a thing; like he'd said to Julia, answers always came in the end — forcing his thumbs into the tendons, trying to stop the crushing grip and the probing of nails dressed with brown crescents of dirt into his eyes and mouth.

There were bright white explosions in his eyes as the pressure increased. He stamped down with his feet, desperately trying to kick his attacker, shatter a knee, perhaps, or break a toe. Fat he may have been, but he was strong too. He shook Jack and squeezed hard, stealing the force from his blows.

Jack was quite convinced the man was going to kill him. While this wasn't the irrevocable catastrophe for him that it was for most people, he had little doubt that the man wouldn't stop at one victim. Having promised Julia he would keep her safe, this bit deep into his conscience. Why hadn't she just run? He saw her move into the main bedroom… What was she doing? He wasn't to find out — his attacker shoved him towards the floor, and there was an awful cracking noise in his ears as the man's foot came down on the back of his skull.

It had been a matter of some determination on Alexander's part not to worry about anyone else in life. It wasn't just that he was a misanthropic old git — though that was certainly the case — it was that being, quite literally, an illegal alien in the arse-end of one of the more unattractive and unenlightened galaxies was hard enough without bringing the sensibilities of others into it. Put simply: he had enough on his plate. Which is why it irritated him that he couldn't stop wondering what Jack was up to. He had been hired to poke Torchwood's stiffs (and positively crisp in the case of Gloria Banks) and the rest of their business was most certainly none of his.

Still, the situation was rather intriguing. Albeit, he had concluded, not in the biological sense. The two humans had died through rather self-evident causes: one had choked and one had burned. The interest lay in how either of those things was possible. It was infuriating to be teased by these unusual circumstances and yet play no deductive part in them. He was Mrs Hudson to Captain Jack's Holmes. How despicable. Alexander couldn't abide the thought of being a bit part in anyone's drama.

He would join in their investigation, and to hell with their opinions on the matter. He spun his wheelchair around and looked up the flight of metal stairs.

Just as soon as he figured out a way of leaving the building.

Rob heard the sound of Julia screaming and was determined to run to her aid. If only he could move.

What was happening to him? He was struggling to recognise himself any more. The reflection in the kitchen window was the portrait of someone he knew, a decent man he was sure, a kind and gentle man, one who loved his wife and would never do anything to harm her. Someone not at all like him. How he wished he could make the pressure in his head go away. All he needed was peace and quiet. A little time on his own.