Chapter Text
As on so many other nights in Cardiff, a persistent rain was falling. Captain Jack Harkness pulled in his coat a little tighter and turned up his collar as he made his way around the puddles dotted along the nondescript side street. Two drunks stumbled past him with kebabs, shoes slapping noisily against the wet pavement. The A in the sign above the tattoo parlour buzzed, flickered and finally gave out. A siren wailed along the adjacent road, slowly fading away into the dank night.
Jack ducked into a doorway, pushed his sodden hair off his forehead and rapped loudly on the plain black door. After a moment, a hatch slid open, framing a suspicious eye, which flicked back and forth, assessing Jack’s appearance.
“Yes?” a voice snapped eventually.
“Got an appointment with Bartie,” Jack explained.
The eye gave him one last perusal before the hatch snapped shut. Jack was left alone with the rain again. Then, he heard bolts scraping back, and the door opened a crack.
He stepped out of the rain and the door shut behind him. He found himself in a narrow corridor, poorly lit, with flaking paint on the walls and scented with decades of cigarette smoke that would never be expunged from the fabric of the building. The owner of the eye gestured with a bulbous red head that Jack should proceed along the corridor.
At the far end, he was confronted by yet another door. This one swung open immediately, and Jack stepped into a bookshop. At least, at first glance, it appeared to be a bookshop. If you were to give it a second glance, you would notice the layers of dust on the shelves, the absence of any book published after 1993, and the distinct lack of any kind of organisation.
A diminutive figure in a round spectacles sat behind the till. He was wearing a neat shirt and waistcoat and a floral bowtie. He also had leathery brown skin and a small pair of tusks either side of his porcine snout.
“How can I help you?” he enquired, in an accent that could have passed for native.
“Here to see Bartie,” Jack repeated.
The alien nodded and waved a hand behind him. “Go on through.”
Jack went round behind the till and pushed open the door marked ‘staff only’. He was hit by a wall of warmth and shrill music that made him wince. He fought the urge to retch as his nostrils filled with a dozen different alien body odours, enhanced by the exertion of dancing and the arousal of mating season. Jack descended the stairs slowly, eyes roaming over the dancefloor, packed with dancers of all shapes, sizes, colours and appendages, to the bar, with its range of unusually coloured drinks, to the booth in the far corner.
There sat Bartie Shackles, in his own roped-off booth, surrounded by his bodyguards. He lounged back into the plush seats, drink in one hand, cigar in the other, his tail curled ostentatiously on the low table in front of him. Jack pushed his way across the dancefloor, but was brought up short by one of Bartie’s heavies, a rogue Judoon who rolled his square shoulders, curled a thick lip and sniffed Jack dubiously.
“It’s alright, Fo,” Bartie told him. “You can let this one through.”
Fo took a step back and unhooked the rope to let Jack through.
“I see business is booming,” Jack observed as he took a seat.
“I give the aliens of this city what they want,” Bartie declared, the fronds hanging from his face twitching as he spoke. He beckoned over a young lix’i’cot. “Get this man a drink,” he instructed her. She nodded and darted off to the bar. Her six hands would come in useful for carrying drinks.
“Why did you want to see me?” Jack asked.
“Something very valuable has gone missing,” Bartie explained. “I want it back.”
“What’s that got to with me?”
“I was hoping you might feel able to assist in its retrieval.”
The lix’i’cot returned with Jack’s drink. He took a sip of the bright blue liquid and grimaced at the bitterness. “That’s not really my job.”
“I can hardly go to the police, can I?” Bartie reasoned.
Jack gestured round at Bartie’s eclectic patrons. “Don’t you have friends who could help you out?”
“This is case which requires…” Bartie searched for the right words. “Subtlety. Delicacy, even. I’m sure you wouldn’t want my customers causing chaos on the streets of Cardiff, would you?”
Jack had to concede that he did not. “What’s been stolen?” he asked.
“The Dumnomnii Torc,” Bartie stated. He pushed a button on his wristband and a holographic image appeared. A bejewelled and intricately twisted neck piece rotated slowly in the air. “It has been in my family for generations. It was one of the few possessions I had with me when I fell through the Rift.”
“And who has it?”
Bartie switched the image to one of a man in a suit. Even in a translucent blue hologram, the man looked like a pretentious arsehole. “Newton Poppleford,” Bartie said. “Owner of a number of exclusive jewellery stores across the UK. He’s got it in the vault of his Cardiff branch.”
Jack contemplated the revolving image of Newton Poppleford. “I’m not sure Torchwood are the right fit for this job,” he said eventually.
“On the contrary,” Bartie smiled. “I think you’re the perfect fit.”