Chapter Three

Cat Among The Pigeons

Ace froze for a moment. She wasn't good at this type of thing. She usually left the incredible deductive skills and feats of mental acrobatics to the Doctor. As she had put it once, she was the muscle of the operation. She looked over at the Doctor, who gave her the faintest of smiles, and an encouraging nod. She looked at the two remaining men again. The guy with the smart phone.

"You," she said, pointing at him so there could be no mistake. He looked up at her.

"Yeah, what is it?"

"Did you kill that girl?" she asked him bluntly. The reaction was exactly what she had thought would happen. He immediately looked shocked, and said, very loudly, "NO!"

"All right, all right, there's no need to shout," she said, wincing. "Pass me your phone for a minute, would you?"

When he hesitated, she stepped over and tugged it from his hand. Skimming the screen, she could clearly see that he had been texting his girlfriend. She read the first message, and raised an eyebrow. "You might want to go light on the romance, mate. Trust me there."

His ears went red, and she tossed the phone back. "You've been texting on that phone all the time, and you were doing it really well with just one hand- your left one. You're not a right-hander, are you?"

"I told you already," he said, recovering a bit of his bravado. Ace looked to the Doctor for advice, and received a vague nod that told her she was doing the right thing.

Through the process of elimination, they had figured out that two of the three suspects were unlikely to have done the killing. She wasn't ready to strike them off the list completely; being with the Doctor had taught her that, at least. That left one person.

"So," said the Doctor, turning to the man with the overcoat draped over his arm. "What possible motive could you have for murder?

"I told you, I didn't do it," he said, looking annoyed. His facial expressions were convincing, which, in Ace's book, meant absolutely nothing at all. She looked up at the digital clock set above the doors. Ten minutes. The landscape rolled serenely past them- buildings, parks, big glass domes holding who-knew-what. She looked at the man.

"No offence," she said sweetly, meaning every offence she could fit into those two words. "But you're the only one here who has no proof of being either right- or left-handed."

He glanced between her and the Doctor. "What about you two, then?"

Ace scowled. "What about us?"

"You haven't proven anything, either," he said with the air of somebody who is feeling very, very smug.

Ace opened her mouth to respond, but the Doctor beat her to it once more. "Why would we need to?" he said with a raised eyebrow. "We're the ones telling you about this, after all."

Ace dug in her jacket pockets, pulling out a large sheet of paper. She had taken to carrying around various obscure items just in case they would come in handy during an alien attack or something. She rummaged around a bit more- signed copy of War and Peace that she hadn't got around to reading yet, prototype sonic hammer that she was building, various alien currencies, a set of ordinary screwdrivers for safe-cracking, slingshot, hanky that was most definitely not hers- but couldn't find a pen. "...Professor?" she asked, looking at him.

He produced a new-looking HB pencil from behind her ear, and passed it to her with a slight grin. She took it, and scribbled her name, Ace McShane, as well as a quick drawing of a cheetah. All with her left hand. "There you go," she said, handing the pencil back to the Doctor. "Left handed. That enough proof for you?"

He paused, put off for a moment, and then pointed at the Doctor. "What about him?"

"Ambidextrous," the Doctor said proudly, pulled another pencil out, and drew the Seal of Rassilon with his right hand, writing the opening lines from Moby Dick with his left. He finished off abruptly, and handed the pencil to the man. "Why don't you prove your innocence, then?"

He hesitated, even took the pencil, and then sighed. "Fine, I lied. I'm right-handed. But I only said it because I didn't want to be accused of anything!"

"Yes, well," the Doctor shrugged. "It's a bit late for that, don't you think?"

"But I'm completely innocent!" he exclaimed. "You won't be able to prove anything, because there's nothing to prove."

The Doctor nodded courteously, and motioned for Ace to sit down again. "We won't bother you again."

As she sat, he whispered to her, "What do you think?"

"I think," she said carefully. "That we've got our man."

He smiled at her. "Good thinking back there."

"Thanks, but that means nothing if we can't prove he's the bloke before we get to the next station."

Together, they looked up at the digital display. Seven minutes. How do you root out a killer in seven minutes?

Ace's brain was working hard. What had she seen back at the murder site that could help? She remembered having head something about how the most meaningless details could help solve a crime on some sort of cop show once. She never thought she'd have to ever put that fact into action. Ace closed her eyes, trying the picture the scene exactly as she had seen it.

A crumpled, broken figure, on the ground. She was blonde and petite, and had a pink Hello Kitty satchel slung over her shoulder. A brown leather cord lay inexplicably over her body, and shards of glass (maybe from a broken window?) glinted around her.

Her eyes snapped open, and she clicked her fingers together in delight, just because she could, and didn't want to yell something stupid like Eureka instead. "Professor," she said, nudging him frantically. "There were shards of glass around the girl's body. I thought they were from a window at the time, but there wasn't a broken window anywhere around."

She could practically see the gears in his complicated Time Lord brain turning underneath the straw Panama hat. He grinned widely, tapped her on the nose, and stood up once more. "Ace," he said. "You are a genius."

"Thanks," she said smiling brightly. "Now, let's go and bust this toerag."

To be continued...