Doctor Who: Rags by Mick Lewis Page A

come up with any insults I ain’t heard from this town a hundred times.’
    ‘What about a coward?’ She had to hurry to keep pace with him.
    ‘Yeah, why not? I’m not John Wayne, you know. Calling me a coward’s not gonna make me turn round, squint and say "The hell I am!” I don’t give a damn. But just for the record, what am I supposed to be scared of? Not that I’m really interested.’ He sneered at a middle-aged housewife doing her afternoon shopping who was watching him with a frown, her head tied up in a silk cravat like a wrinkled, disapproving package.
    ‘You’re scared of my brother. Of the fact that he’s achieved something and you haven’t, and never will.’
    Kane snorted. ‘Any tosser with a silver spoon wedged up their hole can achieve. You try underachieving, like me. That takes real hard work.’
    ‘So I take it you won’t be going to see his play then?’
     
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    Kane stopped outside Merretts greengrocer’s, plucked an apple from the display box outside, took a big bite and replaced it. He carried on walking. ‘Is he gonna be in it, or is he going to be producing it?’ He sneered the word. He sneered a lot of words these days. His whole life had become a sneer, and that was fine by him. That was his guard against the world, against the bastards who were out to prove he was nothing.
    ‘He’s starring in it.’
    ‘Then I’ll definitely be going. Me and a couple of tins of rice pudding.Opened of course, with a spoon for flicking.’
    ‘It’s a special occasion for him, Kane. Don’t spoil it.’
    ‘That’s what this is all about, isn’t it?’ Kane stopped again and faced her, deliberately blocking the path of Sergeant Sallis, the village bobby, who had to step around him on the narrow pavement shaking his head with contempt.
    ‘Yes, that’s what this is all about. I wanted to ask you, as a favour to me, not to do anything nasty.’
    Kane laughed harshly. ‘Nasty! Hell, your brother knows all about nasty. I could tell you some things would make your eyebrows stand on end.’ He paused thoughtfully. ‘Anyway, why’s he doing this play here, in this one-hog place, if he’s such a big-shot producer at the BBC?’
    ‘It’s going to be filmed for television when he performs it at the Edinburgh Festival. This is a dry run in front of the people he knows best. A sort of thank you to his roots.’ Cassandra bit her lip. He could tell even she knew how crap that sounded. He resisted the urge to pull her apart. Or almost.
    ‘He’s coming back to remind us how great he is,’ he spat finally.
    ‘And to let us know how privileged we are to have known him.
    That’s why he’s coming back.’
    She frowned, her eyes angry now.
    ‘Are you going to cause any trouble? Yes or no?’
    ‘Are you going to sleep with me? Yes or no?’ When she didn’t answer he laughed. And belched.
    ‘Don’t worry, Cassandra. Of course I’m going to cause trouble.
     
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    I’m going to make this homecoming very special indeed: He blew her a kiss and disappeared inside the Co-op to get some more fags.
     
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Chapter Six
    The last hunt of the season had ended in failure. The horns were silent now, their jubilant cries scorned. With dusk spilling across the Dartmoor landscape and the twilight mourning of a blackbird tickling in their ears, the three riders decided to split off from the rest of the hunt in search of some much-needed cheer.
    He had almost had the fox at one point; the hounds streaming after the streak of russet cunning, the cream of Devonian aristocracy pounding along behind. Through a knot of larch trees they had galloped, thorns and brambles tearing skin and blood-red livery, and then out into the open again; and there was the pack, milling confusedly at the edge of a brook where an old stone bridge crouched protectively over the laughing water. They had scanned the moorland - tors, heather, sheep. Of the fox, nothing could be seen.
    Edward Mortimer had pushed his animal