Heading for Hell
Thank you so much for your responses. They are well appreciated and help give me motivation in order to carry on writing! I am going to be introducing Martha and Mickey (back in the Doctor's universe) into this in the next chapter so be on the lookout. Enjoy!
Chapter 2
"Hi, I'm Doctor John Smith and this is Rose Tyler."
The Doctor held up his Torchwood ID card to the awaiting security guard. Nodding, the slightly podgy man - the one which Rose was adamant was a lovely guy despite his many outer flaws - swiped his own along the slot and allowed the two employees passage through the steel double-doors leading to Torchwood's main camp. Rose gripped the Doctor's hand tightly as a way of keeping him close-by as they made their way through the narrow, seemingly endless corridors. They were tired and starved of energy. Rose's mind had sprung into overdrive ever since she had received the desperate phone call from her mother. After reassuring her that she'd go and investigate the circumstances surrounding her step-father's mysterious disappearance, with a heavy heart, Rose had hung up the phone before hopping into her car with the Doctor hot on her heels.
As they reached the end of the last corridor, they stood aimlessly for a second before a large, wooden door. A polished metal plaque engraved with the words Pete Tyler - Head of Torchwood was placed purposefully on the upper middle of it. Letting his eyes fall back down onto Rose, the Doctor squeezed her hand with reassurance before asking:
"Are you okay?"
Her skin was pale; her voice tight.
"Of course," she replied. "You know me, I'm always alright." Her voice was laced with a slight amount of sarcasm.
The Doctor knew he had been stupid to ask even before the words had escaped his month. With a slight smile - understanding that of course she wasn't, but the added extra of being pushed any further was not needed - he grabbed the handle that was in front of them with the hand that wasn't holding Rose's to open the door with ease. Artificial light from the many lit lamps led them into the office. It was relatively small for somebody who so rich and important. Wooden filling cabinets could be found in every corner of the room. A large, rectangular shaped table stood in the middle centre-stage; an obvious place where Pete would hold meetings and entertain associates. Almost every other work surface was scattered with an endless amount of paperwork; all left unfinished.
With a sigh, the Doctor immediately noticed two police officers stood by a wall to the far side of the room. Their loud, ringing walkie-talkies were a clear giveaway of their presence. Just what Rose needs, the Doctor thought unbelievably. More hassle, more interference. Nodding with acknowledgement, he watched as one of the officers - the more petite of the pair; a women with short, black hair and an hourglass figure - approached the couple from the opposite side of the room with her face edged with nothing but concern.
"Miss Tyler, Mr Smith," she addressed sincerely.
The Doctor shook his head at once, inwardly cringing.
"Call me the Doc—John," he said, flushing red with embarrassment though catching his words before they slipped off his tongue. "And this is Rose."
Rose herself was seemingly busy elsewhere, however. She had already slipped her hand from out of the Doctor's without his acknowledgement and was in moderate conversation with the other police officer in the room - this time, a man with greying, short hair that was plastered to his forehead who had Harry Potter type glasses on - about the ins and outs of Torchwood and what it was all about. Although Rose was obviously anxious about her step-father's whereabouts, she politely answered all of the questions thrown in her direction without hesitation and without giving too much away.
After all, Torchwood were a completely isolated institute. They were separate from the police and from the government. It seemed these two officers had never even known Torchwood had existed before now. It was very much an alien concept to the pair of them, quite literally. Of course they knew who Pete Tyler was because of his involvements with the well-known company of Vitex, but besides that, they knew just about an inch from nothing. Rose was puzzled as to why the police had even been called so early into Pete's disappearance - especially over to Torchwood. But, if she knew her mother as well as she thought she did, this was probably all down to her doing. She had a tendency to worry a lot more than the average women, even parallel earth hadn't changed that. And, because she had already lost Pete once - although both Tyler women were forever reminding themselves that the man they had lost all those years ago wasn't this version of Pete - Rose had a gut feeling that Jackie was a little more than paranoid over where her husband was.
"Your father's PA is women in her late fifties named Susan Redgrave," the officer Rose had been speaking to, PC Jenkins, stated. "Is this correct?"
Rose nodded in agreement just as the Doctor and the other officer - who the Doctor had discovered was PC Carter - crossed the room to stand beside them.
"Yeah, Susan," Rose replied. "She's been Dad's PA for well over three years now. Does a good job of everything as far as I know. But what's she got to do with anything?"
"Mrs Redgrave was the last person we know of to see your father before, we presume, he disappeared," replied PC Carter. "She says that the last time she saw Mr Tyler was here, in his office, after a meeting with the rest of the Torchwood crew."
"Oh," was all the Doctor had to say to that. He and Rose had attended that meeting earlier on in the day. It made sense. It's where they had collected that piece of space debris from - it had been assigned to them by Pete himself.
"Mrs Redgrave then states that she had stayed behind to clear away the mugs used in the meeting when Mr Tyler told her was going out to get something from his car and would be back in few minutes," PC Carter continued. "She didn't wait around for him but when she returned to his office almost an hour later at precisely 16:27, Mr Tyler was gone."
Rose swallowed the lump that had been building up in her throat thickly. This was not good. It sounded way too suspicious for her liking.
"So that's it? He disappeared without a trace. Not even one?" the Doctor asked incredulously from behind where Rose stood.
Now he understood why Torchwood in this universe at least, wanted to say separate from the police. He had never really liked them. They were forever putting off the job on hand. If they wouldn't sort things out themselves, he'd take matters into his own hands. He'd done detective work before, if he could even class this as detective work, after all. Those case weren't as important as finding Rose's father, but still. He had the knowledge if it came down to it.
"Not exactly," PC Jenkins explained. "You see, as Mrs Redgrave was about to walk into the room, she states that she saw some sort of blue beaming light and then lapses of smoke following on not that soon after. By the time she had finally entered the room, she states that the light and smoke was gone. So was Mr Tyler."
Both the Doctor and Rose's eyes widened in shock as well as fear.
"But there was a trace left, of sorts," PC Carter adds. "A crack on the wall is now visible that Miss Redgrave is adamant was not there before. It stretches along the far wall over there, but is only very faint."
All heads in the room turned to face the direction PC Carter motioned her hand towards. The Doctor - with his perfect sight thanks to the reading glasses he had forgotten to take off through the rush of getting over here - could make out the fine line perfectly which crept diagonally along the wall behind Pete's desk and the main filling cabinet of the room. Rose, squinting in order to see anything on the wall but whiteness, took a while longer to see the crack. Once the pair of them had found it, the Doctor and Rose walked a few paces closer. The Doctor immediately reached out to touch the wall.
"Wow," he said with disbelief written all over his face. "What do we have here?"