Doctor Who BBCN19 - Wishing Well Read Free

out of earshot.
    ‘Oh, take no notice,’ the Doctor said airily. ‘He’s probably been moved on by the locals or something and he’s got a grudge against the village.’
    Martha shivered, remembering the man’s sharp little eyes. They had seemed to look right through her at the end, almost as if he was committing every detail of her to memory.
    10

    They had walked another mile or so when a Land-Rover roared around the corner behind them and gave a blast on its horn. The Doctor and Martha jumped out of the way as the battered old vehicle skidded to a halt beside them. In the driver’s seat was a beaky-nosed old woman in a bush hat and camouflage jacket.
    ‘Lost?’ she demanded through the open side window. The Land-Rover was old and muddy, with wiper-shaped holes in the grime covering the windscreen.
    ‘Er. . . ’ said Martha.
    ‘On our way to Creighton Mere,’ said the Doctor.
    ‘Well, you’re on the right track then,’ advised the woman. ‘Hop in if you want a lift!’
    They climbed in and the woman pulled off before they had properly sat down.
    ‘In a hurry?’ Martha asked, wriggling her bottom into the worn canvas of the old passenger seat. The interior of the off-reader was no better than its exterior. Martha guessed the vehicle was genuinely ex-military.
    ‘I’m 83,’ announced the woman. ‘No time to lose.’
    11

    ‘I like your style,’ said the Doctor.
    He introduced himself and
    Martha.
    ‘Angela Hook,’ the woman responded, swinging the Land-Rover wildly around a sharp bend in the road. She changed gear with precision – Martha noticed that the gear stick was just that; a long, plain metal stick poking out of the muddy footwell – and then floored the accelerator. The vehicle surged forward with a loyal roar and they bounced and bumped over a series of traffic-calming ramps.
    ‘Blasted humps,’ growled Angela, jerking in and out of the driver’s seat with bone-breaking force.
    ‘I think they’re supposed to slow you down,’ Martha yelled over all the rattling.
    ‘Rubbish! I preferred it when they called ’em sleeping policemen,’
    Angela said. ‘They just make me want to speed up!’
    The Land-Rover rumbled around another bend, and shot through a large brown puddle sending up a spectacular spray of mud.
    ‘We met an old man before,’ said Martha. ‘A right old scruff. . . ’
    ‘Probably Old Barney,’ said Angela without taking her eyes off the road. ‘He’s been wandering around these parts for years. Harmless but smelly.’
    ‘He tried to put us off coming to Creighton Mere.’
    ‘Did he, indeed? I’ll have words with him! Creighton Mere’s a lovely place. Miserable old sod.’
    ‘Do you live in Creighton Mere?’ enquired the Doctor.
    ‘Born and bred, love, born and bred.’
    ‘Are there any tea rooms there?’ Martha asked.
    ‘Not yet,’ Angela said, glancing across at her passengers, as if checking them out for the first time. ‘But we’re working on it. Are you tourists?’
    ‘Sort of.’
    ‘Good! You’re just the kind of people we want!’
    ‘Really?’
    The Land-Rover emerged from beneath a leafy tunnel into the centre of a small village. Martha glimpsed a large, well-kept rectangular lawn and war memorial, with an old-fashioned red phone box in front 12

    of a nice-looking pub, a baker’s shop and a convenience store. The steeple of a church was visible above the tops of some trees, and then there was a rather grand-looking house which overlooked everything.
    Actually, it was more than a house: behind elegant wrought-iron gates, a gravelled drive led up to the impressive portico of a Georgian manor. Martha got quite a shock when Angela deliberately swerved the Land-Rover past the gates and gave it a series of harsh honks on the horn.
    Martha glanced at the Doctor, who gave an amused shrug.
    ‘Sorry about that,’ laughed Angela. ‘Force of habit! That’s Henry Gaskin’s place and it’s my sworn duty to be as big a nuisance as possible to him