‘Ianto, hun, could you go and feed the meter? Quickly.’
‘Sure,’ said Ianto, and hefted something onto his lap the size of a labrador with handles. It appeared to be the world’s largest handbag. He dived into it muttering, ‘I’m sure I’ve got a purse in here somewhere.’
Gwen stifled a laugh. ‘Oh, no one needs a bag that large!’
Ianto looked up, puzzled. ‘But, I needed something big enough for my gun. And my house keys, and my MP3, and the phone, the PDA, the chargers, and a copy of Captain Corelli. Honestly, by the time you slip in some mints and a spare pair of tights, it’s full house, I can tell you.’
Jack arched an eyebrow.
The traffic warden tapped on the windscreen.
Jack held up his Torchwood ID. The traffic warden shook his head.
Jack looked back, placatingly, and started fishing around in his pockets. ‘Honestly, we save this city from alien disaster several times a year, and they still make us adhere to parking regulations. Do you know who really developed the internal combustion engine? Torchwood did. And this is the thanks we get. Well, that and one-way systems – the product of a tiny mind.’ Jack pouted, looking for all the world like a spoiled child. It was at moments like this, those rare moments when little things didn’t go Jack’s way, that Gwen saw the true hero. A man not frightened by vast evil, corrupt states or lost souls, but baffled by pettiness, bureaucracy and muddling mediocrity. Why he had sentenced himself to Wales, she would never really understand.
They were parked outside Rhys’s work.
That morning, Gwen had stormed into Torchwood, magnificently worried.
‘My husband’s too pretty!’ she’d yelled. ‘You’ve got to do something, Jack!’ She caught the look in his eye. ‘Don’t you go sassing me, Harkness. I am deadly serious.’
‘Sass?’ tutted Jack in mock affront. ‘I don’t do sass, do I? I prefer to think of it as kittenish charm. What do you think, Ianto?’
‘Definitely kittenish,’ said Ianto.
‘Sod the kittens,’ Gwen was in full flow. ‘Rhys woke up bloody gorgeous this morning, and I want to find the woman who’s done that to him.’
As she spoke, she was flinging photos from her phone up onto the Hub’s screens, until pictures of Rhys bobbed across the wall. Some were of their wedding, two were before and after shots of the back of his head, and one was of him this morning, wearing only a towel and waving sheepishly at the camera.
‘Look at Rhys!’ Gwen shrieked. ‘Overnight he’s gained an extra two inches!’
Jack carefully didn’t say anything. Ianto examined the intricate walnut inlay of the table surface.
Gwen pressed on. ‘It’s not natural. It’s wrong, that’s what it is. He goes on a date with a supermodel. He wakes up the next day all Abercrumpet. Shortly after Ianto wakes up bloody gorgeous. Buzzz! I rather do think there just may be a link.’
She suddenly knew she had Jack’s full attention. Finally.
‘Emma Webster. This woman is speed-dating, Jack. She is combing through Cardiff’s singletons – those she likes get a free makeover, those she doesn’t end up dead. Whatever she’s using, whatever her power, it’s not been around more than a week. She’s got her hands on some alien thing and… and… she’s using it to make her ideal man.’
‘Rhys?’ said Ianto and Jack.
They looked again at the picture of the jovial, weakly smiling bloke drifting across the walls of their boardroom.
GWEN IS THE GREEN-EYED MONSTER
‘Oh, hi, Gwen,’ said Large Mandy from the office, laughing her normal large laugh. ‘Are you here for Rhys? He’s just on the phone. Would you like a doughnut?’
Gwen glanced at the plate full of pastries. Mandy was obviously Rhys’s enabler, keeping him fuelled on whatever crap she could lay her hands on. Ah well. She wondered how Mandy had taken Rhys’s sudden transformation. And then she found out.
‘I must say, Gwen, love, he’s looking knockout today. The girls from upstairs have been popping down to have a peek. He’s quite something – I’ll say this, married life suits him. Not like my Ted. Oh, I tell you, you wouldn’t believe the size of him these days. I always tells people I work in haulage and they looks at Ted and they laughs. It’s our little joke, see.’ Mandy laughed. ‘I’m glad we lives in a bungalow these days, or lord alone knows how I’d get him up and down the stairs.’
‘Right,’ said Gwen. This was about all she could ever think to say to Mandy.
Rhys popped his head round the door. ‘Gwen? I thought it was you.’
He looked really happy to see her. Actually, he looked bloody stunning. It was ages since she’d seen him look this happy.
‘Come in, come in – I’ve got things to tell you. It’s about… Her!’
She wandered into his office, watching as he excitedly shut the cheap, thin door. She imagined Mandy on thundering tiptoe sneaking closer to eavesdrop on the other side. She clearly wasn’t alone in this – Rhys had dropped his voice to a spy movie whisper.
‘She! Phoned! Emma!’
‘When?’
‘Just now! Asking me out on a proper date!’ Rhys was actually rubbing his hands together.
‘Congratulations. You going to tell her you’re married?’
‘No! I’m going to go on the date.’
‘Rhys are you out of your tiny skull? For all we know that woman is a crazed killer. Look what she’s done to you already…’
Rhys looked down at himself and flashed her the same proud, silly smile he normally saved for when he let one off in the car. ‘Oh, I dunno. I don’t think it can be her. She’s so nice, love, but this is just careful eating.’
Gwen glanced bitterly at the half-eaten doughnut on a plate by the phone. ‘Bollocks. That woman is dangerous, she is manipulative, and she is after you. You are not going on that date.’
‘She’s hardly the black widow, is she?’
‘Rhys, wherever she goes, corpses turn up. She’s sliced through the dating scene in Cardiff. And now she’s sunk her claws into you. She is dangerous.’
‘And she’s expecting me to pick her up tonight at eight. And I’m going.’
‘What?’
Rhys’s stubborn streak was showing. ‘You want to find out more about her? You will. You can put a wire on me, you can all follow me. Dinner with her? She’ll open up to the Williams charm, tell me everything about her, and you can all listen in. If she is the Black Widow of the Bay, then you can arrest her. If she’s just a lonely gorgeous soul, then I’ll do my best to let her down gently.’
Let her down gently? ‘Oh, I’m sure she’ll cope.’
‘You are so jealous!’ Rhys appeared delighted at this. ‘It’s fine. Admit it, Gwen – I’m your best lead. And isn’t it just nicer to have a friendly chat over a bottle of wine than hosing her down in your cells? I won’t let anything happen to me. And at the slightest sound of danger, you and Jack can come crashing in like cowboys and save me.’
‘Too bloody right we will.’
‘Do I get a code word?’
‘Cocktail sausage. Work it into conversation however you will.’
‘Can’t it be saveloy?’
Gwen hugged him. ‘I love you, but I think this is really, really silly. I don’t want you coming to any harm.’
Rhys shook his head. ‘You always were a terrible judge of women. Emma’s a nice girl. And this is a first date. Nothing ever happens on a first date.’
Gwen stared at him, open-jawed. ‘If she doesn’t kill you, I will.’
EMMA WEBSTER IS DETERMINED
‘I will not end up a gin-addled spinster in a cat-soaked attic.’
She scanned down Facebook and noticed that her ex, Paul, had changed his relationship status. She felt cold and unhappy. She’d always thought that, you know, maybe at some point they’d get back together. But here he was ‘in a relationship with Helen Corrigan’. There was even a picture of the two of them out together. She looked bright and young and happy and a bit on the drunk side. He looked as good as he’d ever looked. And underneath it, he’d posted: ‘Hey babe! I can’t believe it – the one time I look better than you in a photo, and I’m SLAUGHTERED!!!’