Free Doctor Who by Kate Orman Page A

around the stranger’s office. Tonight they’d be at home with their family. Maybe peeling potatoes for Christmas dinner. She wondered if they would realise someone had been in their space. That would be a creepy feeling. ‘Have you actually ever done this before?’
    Bob shook his head, flashing a grin in the near-darkness. ‘Never in my life.’
    The phone said, ‘Are you there?’
    Peri gripped it. ‘We hear you, Doctor.’
    â€˜Good. Since you’re calling, I assume by now you’re somewhere inside the building.’ Peri felt slightly deaf in one ear. She shifted the receiver to the other ear, but the Doctor’s voice was still annoyingly quiet on the other side of the test line. (He was calling from a payphone in the hotel lobby, his computer still connected to Swan’s.)
    â€˜We’re here. What are we supposed to do now?’
    â€˜Swan will be busy for a little while. The item we’re after is in a storeroom in the basement. I had assumed she would keep it close at hand, but apparently she’s locked it away where no-one would think to look for it.’
    â€˜How do you know that?’
    â€˜Hackers have one weakness,’ said the Doctor smugly. ‘They always want someone to know what they’re up to. They need an audience.’
    â€˜Uh, right, Doctor.’
    â€˜Now, off you go.’
    Peri put down the phone. For a panicked moment she wondered if she’d left fingerprints on it, before she remembered that she was wearing gloves. I could never do this professionally, she thought.
    Two floors above them, Sarah Swan was physically disconnecting the computer from the ARPAnet. It was the equivalent of tearing the phone cord out of the wall.
    Bob and Peri snuck out of the office that had been their hideaway and went back to the fire-stairs.
    Halfway down, Peri grabbed Bob’s arm, rather harder than she’d meant to. They both froze. In the empty building, thesound of footsteps was hard and clear above them.
    The only way to go was downwards. They rushed down the stairs, sneakers pattering, hoping to God the firedoor was enough to muffle the sound.
    Peri was still holding Bob’s arm. She steered him into a narrow side corridor which led to a bathroom. Bob killed his flashlight as the firedoor opened up above them.
    There wasn’t time to squash into the cubicle. Instead they stood stock-still in the lightless corridor, trying to be invisible. A fluorescent bulb flickered into life, but its pale light only reached a little way into their hiding place.
    Swan walked right past them a moment later, in a hurry. She had a fire axe.
    Peri crept to the end of the brick corridor and risked a look around the corner. Swan was unlocking a low steel cupboard against a nearby wall. She swung it open and crouched down to look inside. The beige metal door was covered in warning stickers about dangerous chemicals and explosives. My God, thought Peri, is the woman making a bomb?
    But when Swan locked the cupboard again, she hadn’t taken anything out of it. Peri crept back into the unlit end of the hall just as Swan stalked past. They heard her steps going up the stairs, and the groan and slam of the firedoor.
    Bob was about to step out into the basement, but something made Peri stop him. They stood together in the dimness, trying not to breathe audibly.
    Then the firedoor closed a second time. Peri risked a quick look, but the stairs were empty. Swan must have been standing at the top of the steps, listening, wondering whether anyone had been waiting for her to leave.
    â€˜She’s so paranoid!’ murmured Peri.
    â€˜We
are
out to get her,’ Bob whispered.
    They crept across the floor to the locker. ‘Now, what do you suppose she might keep in here?’ smiled Peri.
    â€˜
A Scandal in Bohemia
,’ said Bob.
    â€˜What?’ said Peri.
    Bob gave her a ‘don’t you know anything?’ look. ‘Sherlock