Almost Perfect

CARDIFF IS A ONE-WAY CITY

Town was even worse than earlier. Someone was slumped across every bench, or, in some cases, just stretched out across the pavement. Exhausted pensioners sat slumbering at bus stops. Rain beat down mercilessly on cars, buildings and people. Traffic crawled sluggishly, causing Gwen to scream with frustration.

‘It’s this new one-way system,’ she howled.

‘Or the end of the world,’ said Ianto.

‘Whatever.’ Angrily, she shook the tracking device which refused even to bleep.

The lights changed and the SUV slid glacially forward in the traffic.

‘Look at the sky, Gwen,’ said Ianto, sadly.

Gwen looked, and didn’t like it. Cardiff had its fair share of menacing clouds, but these were biblical in their darkness. Pushing down on the buildings, boiling angrily away, pouring rain down on the city.

‘That doesn’t look good,’ Gwen sighed.

The car crawled along a few hundred metres, and suddenly the tracking device screamed like a toddler.

‘Bloody hell!’ Gwen yelped, waving it around. She frantically adjusted the settings and the screaming subsided. ‘It’s over there,’ she pointed. ‘Jack’s over there.’

Ianto took the tracker and stared at the screen. ‘What can have produced that many pheromones? That’s off the scale, even by Jack’s standards.’

‘I know,’ said Gwen, grimly. ‘We’ve got to get to him.’

‘Charles Street,’ said Ianto. ‘It’ll be a few minutes before we can get back round the one-way system.’

‘Sod that,’ snapped Gwen. ‘Just park on the pavement.’