Torchwood: Exodus Code

as Gwen pushed it across the wood floor. Panic squeezed his chest, adrenalin spiking his system.
    In that instant, terror gripped Rhys. He understood exactly what Gwen was doing. He had to stop her.

24
    SERGEANT ANDY DAVIDSON carried a cup of milky tea and two chocolate biscuits into the main Swansea squad room and settled at his new desk. This was his favourite time of the work day, before too many of his shift had arrived to fill the room and he had a couple of minutes to himself to review the night-watch sergeant’s notes before thinking about the day’s assignments. He’d been shuttled around South Wales quite a bit over the last couple of years, a series of temporary attachments following his unexpected promotion. He had a nasty feeling that the top brass now saw him as more trouble than he was worth. An unauthorised trip to London and a confrontation with some nameless MI5 spook had, Andy reckoned, led to this latest posting away from Cardiff.
    Sliding his cup and saucer in front of his monitor, Andy set his hat on his desk, mussing his short blond hair. He dunked his biscuit in his tea and scrolled through yesterday’s reports. Two burglaries, a rash of shoplifting, a fight at the cinema, disturbance of the peace at Bracelet Bay, an assault at the university library, an arson in a local stable, and a supermarket confrontation that had resulted in the store being closed for the rest of the day.
    CID had been called in to the supermarket incident and the assault in the library. The detectives were still investigating the latter, but an arrest warrant had been issued an hour ago in the former. When Andy read the name on the warrant, his biscuit slipped from his fingers and dissolved into his tea.
    ‘Damn,’ he said, licking the melting chocolate from his fingers. Pushing his cup aside, he clicked on the full report. The more he read, the more he thought the assault on the manager didn’t sound like his Gwen. And the other woman, the one who’d ripped her ear off, well, she was obviously a nut job. Maybe escaped from the Dellmore Institute, he thought. Still, he’d have to bring in Gwen. He’d do it himself, first thing after morning roll call. It was the least he could do for his friend.
    When he finished reading the supermarket file, something ‘pinged’ in his head. His new girlfriend, Bonnie from Blackpool, was taking psychology classes at the local college and she was teaching Andy to pay attention to his instincts, to be open to his ‘buried tiger.’
    Grrr! Andy grinned at the thought of her. What would Bonnie have made of Gwen, he wondered.
    The old Andy Davidson would have taken his hunch to his superiors, then settled back at his empty desk with his tea and biscuits. But this was the new Andy, and just because he’d turned down a transfer to bigger police districts to stay close to his mum didn’t mean he wasn’t ambitious, a trait Bonnie was fiercely encouraging. Andy was doing his best to please her in every way and if she liked his buried tiger, then he was going to keep it roaring.
    Andy scrolled back to the notes he’d read on the assault at the university. Something odd about that one, too.
    Gulping down his lukewarm tea, Andy snatched up the rest of his chocolate biscuits and headed out of the squad room.

25
    RHYS TOOK THE narrow stairs two at a time, slipping once on the carpet tread, forgetting about his wrist and putting both hands down to steady himself. Ignoring the pain that shot up his right arm, he crawled up the last few stairs on all fours. At the upstairs landing, he paused, steadying his breathing, focusing on Gwen’s whereabouts.
    He couldn’t hear her movements now. Where was she? He tucked himself into an alcove at the end of the hallway and listened. Had she found what she was looking for?
    Something heavy thumped to the floor and he realised that Gwen was tearing through the chest of drawers in Mary’s room. Why was she looking in there? Rhys stood up, his head aching, his wrist throbbing. He was puzzled – pleased, but puzzled. If Gwen was in Mary’s room, then she wasn’t looking for the key to her weapons store after all – she knew exactly where that was.
    Or had she lost her memory as well as her mind?
    Gwen let out a shriek from the bedroom and then came flying into the hallway, spotted Rhys standing stunned at the other end and charged him. Rhys darted out of the way, tripped and tumbled down the stairs, finally able to stop himself before crashing