Dr. Who - BBC New Series 28 by Beautiful Chaos # Gary Russell Read Free Book Online Page A

distract him.
    The tension was broken by little Professor Rossi, stumbling back around the tents after a trip to the town for some milk and teabags.
    ‘Now, now, I could hear you up on the main road.
    What’s going on?’
    ‘Nothing,’ Sean grunted. ‘Sorry Prof.’
    Rossi shook his head, scratching the scar that created a small slash across his cheek. At uni, everyone joked it was a duelling scar he’d got fighting for a woman he loved, but one day someone discovered the truth – that ten years earlier he’d been cut in the car accident that had killed his wife. Everyone lost interest in imagining romantic things about the scar after that.
    ‘What am I going to do with you three? I bring you out here from university for the mid-term break, to visit the family home, and to give you all the chance to improve your frankly dodgy archaeology marks. And all you do is play with the broadband, flirt with poor Tonio there and embarrass him, or drink too much orange wine. You are here to work, you know. Being sociable is a pleasant side effect but not essential. What is essential, however, is teamwork. Sean and Jayne, I don’t care if you can’t get on, but you will work together. Jayne and Ben, I don’t care if you want to fight over Tonio’s attention, you will work together. Sean and Ben I don’t care if you can drink one another under the table at night, provided you turn up fresh and able the next day. Is all that understood? I am not your parents but I am the man who will mark your
    end-of-term papers, and you would do well to remember that keeping me sweet is a positive move.’ Rossi put some cartons of milk on the table next to the laptop. ‘So, whose turn is it to make tea?’
    Sean volunteered as Rossi scooped up the laptop.
    ‘Hopefully the Bursar has forwarded some more funds to us so we can try and trace those tunnels through the hills across to the lake.’
    ‘How far do your family go back here, Professor?’
    Jayne asked.
    Rossi shrugged. ‘I’m in the process of finding that out at the library. Certainly my paternal great-grandparents were the ones who moved to Ipswich, but I suspect their roots are here right back to the fifteenth century.’
    Ben headed over with his sieve. ‘So we are looking for more than fifteenth-century Italian pots and pans then? I said so! Come on, Professor, what’s the big secret?’
    ‘Ah,’ Rossi grinned. ‘Well, you see, somewhere in this area an entire Dukedom vanished. A whole town with a castle and everything was based around here, or in the hills or somewhere in the vicinity of that lake beyond the orange groves. I’m trying to find its borders.’
    ‘How do we know?’ Sean asked as the kettle boiled.
    ‘It’s in the records in the library,’ Tonio said in good but heavily accented English.
    Jayne and Ben stared at Tonio in mute shock – and slight horror.
    He grinned. ‘Oh right, you both thought I didn’t understand English,’ he laughed, a deep bellowing laugh.
    So did Professor Rossi. ‘Now that,’ he said, ‘is funny.
     
    Did neither of you realise?’
    Dumbly, they both shook their heads as Sean busied himself with the tea, determined not to catch their eyes.
    ‘But that means…’ Jayne started.
    ‘Everything we’ve said…’ added Ben.
    ‘About you…’ Jayne again.
    ‘You… you heard… Oh God… kill me now…’ Ben put his sieve down and sat hard on the ground.
    Tonio tousled Ben’s dark hair and winked at him, before throwing a look to Jayne. ‘Sorry, you lose.’
    ‘Course I do,’ Jayne said. ‘When does life ever go Jayne Greene’s way?’
    The laptop bleeped and, leaving the students to sort out the tea and Tonio’s confession, Professor Rossi accessed his emails in response. Nothing from the Bursar, but there was one message:
    From: Madam Delphi
    To: [email protected] Subject: SAN MARTINO
    Professor Rossi
    My congratulations, you have rediscovered your heritage, and you are indeed in San Martino, just as