Notes: the characters aren't mine and the story is! Redkilt pretty much inspired this after she and I were tossing ideas around, and I decided to work on this as my month-long Halloween project (my other projects will be temporarily on hold); if there's enough interest in this, I might write a sequel—or even a series. This is also an experiment in character POVs; since I'm going for a pseudo-film noir feel here, I'm writing this in Jamie's POV. This is a Season 6B fic.
My name is McCrimmon—Jamie McCrimmon. I've been a lot of things in my life—a piper, a soldier, a wanderer… But, for the moment, I'm an investigator. Aye, I probably should explain…
It was only after I met the Doctor years ago that I became a wanderer. There was much about him I didn't know when I started traveling with him—all I knew at the time was that he was the most amazing man I had ever met, and he had a magic box called the TARDIS that could take you anywhere through time and space. I eventually found out that he was a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey—that was before we were separated by his people. But, thankfully, we found each other again; he was branded as a criminal and was forced to work for his people as a punishment, but, even then, I promised to stay with him. Because I still think he's the most amazing man I've ever met.
The two of us now work for the Celestial Intervention Agency—an agency of Time Lords. They send the Doctor to places to do their work for them, but for the moment, they didn't seem to have any missions for us. And the Doctor and I aren't fond of sitting around and doing nothing. He took me to somewhere in London in the 1880s and introduced me to some friends of his—one of them was a detective, and the other wrote about the detective's cases. That gave the Doctor an idea; he decided that he and I should open a private investigative service of our own, at least until the Agency summoned us back to Gallifrey—which, at the time, seemed as though it would take months. Not wanting to encroach on his friends' business, he decided to open our investigative service in another time and place; we ended up in 1959, in a place called New York City. And that was when we opened Smith & McCrimmon Investigative Services, Ltd.
Unfortunately, our clients didn't seem to be bringing us the thrilling, adventurous cases that the Doctor's acquaintances seemed to get—most of the time, we were chasing after unfaithful lovers to see if they were engaging in any secret rendezvous. The Doctor complained that he could find the same thing in pointless romance novels that he had in the TARDIS library; I was unable to resist the temptation to ask him why he had pointless romance novels in the library. He gave me a very indignant look and insisted that they had belonged to his granddaughter.
The tedium all changed the night the lassie in black entered our office.
Neither of us had been expecting any clients that late at night; the Doctor and I had indulged in supper and drinks at a club before watching one of those musical plays in those grand theatres—the Doctor had been wanting to see The Music Man for a while, and I finally agreed to go with him. I think we might have had a wee bit too much to drink; the two of us left the theatre with our arms around each other, singing "Seventy-Six Trombones," much to the amusement of passersby.
We had made it back to the office that the Doctor had rented for us and had been sobering up with some coffee when the lassie arrived.
She was dressed in black, and she even wore a black veil to hide her face. She was accompanied by a man, who was wearing a wide-brimmed hat that was also pulled down to obscure his face. The man also was holding the lassie's hand, which made the Doctor and me both realize that, this time, we would not be chasing down stray lovers. This was going to be our first interesting case.
The Doctor glanced at me with a knowing look before looking back to our clients.
"Welcome to Smith and McCrimmon Investigative Services… limited," he said. "I am Doctor John Smith, and this Mr. James McCrimmon. How may we be of service?"
"I appreciate your willingness to help, Doctor," the lassie said. "I am hoping that you can find our missing son."
She was speaking in a hushed tone; I wasn't sure whether it was because of her misery or her further attempts to conceal her identity (or, perhaps, both), but there was one thing that stood out—her accent. Just the sound of her accent was like honey to my ears; I would recognize a fellow Scot anywhere.
"Aye, I'll turn the world upside-down to aid one of my people," I declared. "What happened to the poor bairn?"
"He's not exactly a bairn," the man said; his voice was English, not Scottish. "He's thirteen."
"Rest assured, we shall do our best to find him, regardless of how old he is," the Doctor promised. "How long has he been missing?"
"Three days," the lassie said. "There hasn't been a trace of him since."
"Oh dear…" the Doctor said, and even I quickly sobered at the seriousness of the situation. "Perhaps you should start at the beginning…"
"Our son, Anthony, has made some new friends recently…" the lassie said, her voice quiet and quivering. "Over the last several weeks, they've been spending a lot of time on Long Island. He'd started coming home late and we'd been talking to him about it, but… Three nights ago, he didn't come home."
Her voice broke, and the man placed a hand on her shoulder.
"We've… had a child taken from us before," he said. "The thought of it happening again is…"
"…Too much for any parent to bear," the Doctor finished.
There was something in the Doctor's voice that told me he knew exactly how this couple felt. There was still much about him I didn't know, but this certainly wasn't the time to start questioning him.
An awkward silence now filled the room, and I chose the moment to speak up.
"You've spoken to the lads who were with him?" I asked.
"The police have," the man said. "They have nothing to say; they claim that he left their group, and they never saw him again."
"I don't believe that," the lassie said, darkly. "Not for a moment. They know something, but they're too afraid of the police to admit to whatever they know. And so, the police have no leads whatsoever."
"They've been doing everything they possibly can over the last three days," the man added. "Of course, they haven't gotten anywhere."
"I see," the Doctor sighed. "Which then begs the question—why have you chosen to consult me for this?"
"Don't complain!" I muttered under my breath. "We're finally doing something other than spying on lovers…"
"It's a valid question, Jamie," the Doctor murmured back. "We haven't been here in New York all that long, and yet these two people are willing to trust us with the fate of their child."
He looked back to the couple, who exchanged glances with each other.
"You inspire my confidence," the lassie said, as she glanced back at the Doctor. For some reason, she wasn't looking at his face, but at his bow tie, which was pinned to his collar as it usually was.
There's no one who thinks more highly of the Doctor than I do, but even I have to admit that "confidence-inspiring" is not how I'd describe the Doctor's manner of dress. Still, the fact remained that this lassie and her husband had come to us for help.
"There is something I need to ask you," the Doctor said now, bringing me back to reality. "From the tone of your voice, it seems as though you disapproved of your son's newest group of friends."
"It's no secret that we do," the man replied. "We'd been trying to discipline him—give him a curfew after he started staying out late."
"He only got more and more rebellious," the lassie said, her voice strained. "We think it's a phase he's been going through."
"…Then, do you think it is at all possible that your son's absence is voluntary?" the Doctor asked.
"It has crossed our minds, yeah," the man said.
"Those friends of his are covering something up—whether for him or for their own selves," she added. "Anthony doesn't have access to much money—neither do his friends. If he has run away, he couldn't have gotten very far."
"Aye, then he's probably somewhere in the city, if he is hiding," I said.
"We're hoping so," the lassie said. "If it's anything else, then I don't know what we can do."
"You don't think he's hiding, though," the Doctor observed.
She stared for a moment before nodding.
"My intuition tells me otherwise. Even so, I have faith in you." She paused to look at the Doctor again. "I realize that we don't have much information for you; if you don't want to take the case…"
"If you'll give me a moment to converse with my associate…" the Doctor replied, gently taking me by the arm to the other side of the room. "Well, Jamie, what do you think?"
"Is there even a need to ask me?" I answered. "This is the first real case we've gotten, and besides that… It wouldn't be like you to refuse to help a child in trouble."
He smiled at me.
"Oh, Jamie, you do know me well, don't you?" He turned back to the couple. "We will take your case—and do the very best we can possibly do."
"I believe you will," the lassie replied. "Thank you, Doctor. You, too." She looked to me, and though I couldn't see her face on account of her veil, I knew she was looking at us with some amount of hope; his clothes may not inspire confidence, but the Doctor always seemed to know the right thing to say.
"I do have one more question," the Doctor added. "These… acquaintances of your son's—where might I find them?"
"They find different places to skulk around at nights—lately, they've been trespassing on some of the cemeteries in the Brooklyn Heights area," the man said.
"Across the river," the Doctor mused. "I see… Dare I ask what they do in those cemeteries?"
"Scare the daylights out of visitors—what else?" the man sighed; had he not been so worried for his son, he probably would have sounded exasperated. "They've got nothing better to do."
"Other than lure others astray, evidently," the Doctor sighed. "Very well, then; if you leave me a way to get in touch with you, we can set off on our search right away."
"We'll leave it in your capable hands," the lassie said, handing a card to the Doctor.
There was an address and some numbers printed on the card, but no name. I opened my mouth to say something, but the Doctor gave me one of his "Shush, Jamie" looks, and I decided to listen to him this time.
The couple soon left.
"We'd best be off," the Doctor said.
"Aye, but… You never asked for their names," I said. "Why?"
"When we had our advertisement for this investigative service printed in the paper, we promised that anonymity would be given to those clients who asked for it," the Doctor reminded me. "We know the boy's name—that's the important thing."
"Even so, we don't know his last name," I reminded him.
"Now, Jamie…" the Doctor said. "I am certain that those people want their son back and told us everything we needed to know in order to get the job done. I know better than anyone that there are reasons why a person does not wish to reveal his or her name."
That was opening the conversation to a whole other area; John Smith wasn't the Doctor's real name—it was a name that I had given him a while back because I hadn't known what his real name was; he had liked it so much, he kept on using it.
And I still didn't know what the Doctor's name was. Of course, I wondered—how could I not? And as the Doctor and I looked at each other again, I knew that he was waiting for me to ask.
I never had asked before; I had decided that the only way I wanted to know his name would be if he wanted to tell me on his own. And as we looked at each other, just as I knew that he was waiting for me to ask, he knew that I wouldn't.
He smiled at me again.
"Someday, Jamie," he promised. "I'll tell you. But we can talk about that some other time; we've got work to do!"
He placed the couple's calling card into one of his many pockets and headed out the door. My mind soon returned to the case, as well, as I followed close behind.
