And tonight he was here again.
For all he knew – or cared – the kid behind the bar could be just putting the same cold Americano in front of him that Owen had been bent over for the last week as he waited.
All that mattered was that he was there when the twins returned.
SEVEN
Goldman and Grace had offices that looked out on the Castle. Jack Harkness stood before the estate agent’s massive window that was filled with colour photographs of the city’s prime housing market – much of it located high up in the sky – and his eyes roved across the interior shots of stylish twenty-first-century accommodation to the looming presence of the Castle reflected in the glass from behind him. This was where ancient Cardiff met the modern city, in an estate agent’s window. It was kind of fitting, he thought. And then his eyes roved some more, and found his own reflection.
Not bad.
Not bad at all, considering all that he had been through over the years.
And there had been a lot of years for Jack Harkness. He had decided to quit counting them a long time ago. Time hadn’t held the relevance for Jack that it had for most people in a very long… well, time.
It was one of the first things you revised your opinion on when you were a Time Agent, and your work took you across galaxies and aeons, and it was a tough job to work out which was the cooler.
Eventually, however, he had wound up in London in 1941. The Blitz. He and the Time Agency had had a parting of the ways by then, and Jack was more of a lone operator doing what he had always done best – taking care of himself. And that had been when he had met the man that was going to change his life. And, pretty soon after, the concept of time and the point of counting it in years, even centuries was going to come pretty low among Jack’s priorities.
Jack had decided that when you couldn’t die, it was best not to keep count of the years. For one thing, there was no need: the counting of time was, after all, just a measurement of mortality. For another thing, it was the best way of keeping sane.
So Jack didn’t worry about the passing years, he just tried to get on with enjoying immortality.
‘If you’ve finished admiring yourself, shall we go in now?’
The voice lanced through Jack’s thoughts. And he saw himself smile in the window, the pictures of modern Cardiff before him, the ancient Castle behind him, and Gwen Cooper – no, Williams – beside him. He reminded himself that he was going to have to get used to that new second name. Marriage, he thought, was good for her. She was lovelier than ever.
‘You know,’ he told her, ‘Rhys is a lucky man, Mrs Williams.’
Gwen froze and stared at him. She blinked, then took out her mobile phone, her gaze never leaving his.
‘Rhys? Hi… No, everything’s… Yeah, later… Yeah, lovely… No, it’s… Look, Rhys, will you stop a minute? Thanks. It’s just…’ She paused, took a breath. ‘It’s just I’ve been thinking, love, and I’ve decided I’ll be keeping my own name. You know, for work and that. It’s not that I… What?’
She listened for a moment, then broke out in a huge grin.
‘I love you, Rhys Williams.’ She switched off her phone.
‘What’d he say?’ Jack asked.
‘He said, “Yeah, I know that, love.”’ Gwen beamed back at Jack.
And maybe that was what Jack needed. Confirmation that she was happy, that she knew she had done the right thing a little over two weeks ago.
Jack smiled. ‘Let’s go see what they’ve got to say about your disappearing estate agent, PC Cooper,’ he said, and he opened the glass door for her to go into the showroom ahead of him.
Gwen swept into the front office of Goldman and Grace, Jack close behind her, and together they took the place in. Nothing extraordinary. Jack had lived in the Hub for a long time, and they didn’t have estate agents where he came from in the fifty-first century, so he didn’t have a whole lot of experience on which to judge, but he guessed this was par for the course. Good photographs, well presented; relevant details, clearly arranged. The same went for the staff: well presented and clearly arranged. And it didn’t take long for one of them to settle on the new arrivals – not like a bird of prey, more like a blackbird delicately probing for nourishment.
‘Can I help you?’ the blackbird enquired.
It was a tall woman in her late forties, dressed elegantly. She was smiling, and it was almost convincing. But not quite.
Jack let Gwen open the business. She was the cop, after all.
Gwen gave the blackbird her own smile. ‘Hi. What’s your name?’
The blackbird’s smile faltered a little. People usually told her they were looking for two or three bedrooms, or somewhere with a garden, they didn’t ask her name.
‘Jan,’ the woman said.
‘Well, Jan, we’re making enquiries about a colleague of yours. Brian Shaw.’
Gwen saw the defences go up around Jan like the USS Enterprise on red alert.
‘What sort of enquiries. Who are you?’
Jack saw one of the SkyPoint brochures and started flicking through it. He made it look like idle curiosity. At the same time he said, ‘Is he about?’
‘It’s his day off,’ she said.
‘You sure about that?’ he asked.
‘Look, what is this? If you’re the police I’d like to see some ID.’
But Jack hadn’t finished. ‘You see, the way we hear it, he’s disappeared.’
‘I really don’t know what you think you’re playing at, but if you don’t leave I’m going to call the police.’ And Jan picked up the closest phone to prove she meant business.
The phone was on the desk of a guy of about twenty. He had ginger hair, and a razor nick on his neck. There was a corresponding tiny smear of blood on his collar, which Gwen judged was a size too big for him. The office junior, she guessed. And she caught his eye for a moment. She read the anxiety there.
‘Call the police if you like, Jan,’ Jack told her. ‘When you do, be sure to mention the word Torchwood. They’ll appreciate it. It’ll save them a wasted journey.’
Jan was out of her depth. Luckily, she had a lifeguard. He came in a pinstriped suit and had silver whiskers and his name was Grace.
‘I’ll handle this, Jan.’
Jack and Gwen turned to see the pinstriped man in the doorway of a back office. As they did so, he went into smiling mode. With him, it went with an offered manicured hand.
‘Arwen Grace,’ he said. ‘This is my business. How can I help you, Mister…?’
Jack took the man’s hand and shook it. ‘Harkness. Jack. Captain.’
‘A services man,’ Grace noted with pleasure. ‘I did twenty years in the navy. I take it that you were a flyer.’
‘Of sorts.’
Gwen felt excluded from the club.
‘Gwen Cooper,’ she said, projecting her hand.
Grace shook it and smiled. He said he was charmed. And Gwen recognised the tone. He may have been charmed, but Gwen knew when she was being disregarded.
Grace indicated for them to follow him and led them into a comfortable if old-fashioned office. As he closed the door behind them, Gwen caught the ginger-haired guy she’d taken for the office junior watching them. And she recognised the look. She had seen it plenty of times before when she’d done the Cardiff beat. It was a look you learned quickly as a cop – of someone who knows something, but is too scared to talk.
‘The fact of the matter,’ Grace was telling them, ‘is that Brian Shaw has a few problems.’
Yeah, like vanishing into thin air.