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feet. ‘Yeah, sure. That’s what Torchwood does, innit? Kill you and make it look like an accident, yeah?’ He spat a gob of dark blood at Jack. ‘Murderer!’
    ‘OK, that’s enough!’ Jack grabbed the Blowfish and spun him around, slammed him up against the wall. Then he jerked one of his arms hard up between his shoulders. ‘You’re comin’ in.’
    The handcuff clicked on and Kerko snarled. ‘Taking me back to your HQ? What for? Why don’t you just kill me now?’
    ‘That’s not how I do things,’ Jack growled.
    ‘Tell that to my brother, arsehole!’
    Jack pressed his lips close to Kerko’s ear. ‘It’s too late for him. But it’s not too late for you.’

NINE
    Gwen sat at her workstation and shivered. All this steel and concrete , she thought, looking across the water at the mirrored tower rising up through the cavernous ceiling. Half of Torchwood’s funding must go on heating bills.
    The Hub was abnormally quiet. She could see Ianto watering the plants in the Hothouse; a dark, silent, ghostly shape beyond the glass and ferns and bottles.
    She shivered again and stared at the old, complicated machinery contained in the base of the water tower. The mirror panels surrounding the Rift manipulator were covered in algae, and with the constant trickle of water it looked more like a botched plumbing job than a super-complex control system for a time and space anomaly.
    It was Gwen’s turn to monitor the Rift sensors. Torchwood’s semi-organic computer system ran its own routine of checks and balances on the powerful temporal energies the Rift contained, but day-to-day data analysis required human consideration. She glanced at the photo stuck to her workstation, reaching out to touch it gently. No more Tosh. No more Owen.
    And soon, no more anyone.
    If this Undertaker’s Gift thing was as bad as Jack thought, then the three of them were up against the end of the world. Again. What was it the Hokrala lawyer had said? A world of suffering?
    Ianto stepped as quietly as a cat into the pool of light which surrounded her workstation. He stood as neatly as a cat as well, feet together, all tidy and groomed and contained. He carefully placed a fresh mug of coffee down on her workstation, making sure it was on a drinks mat. Great , thought Gwen. He’s watered the plants and now he’s watering me. I am a plant.
    ‘Shouldn’t you be checking on our guest in Cell One?’ Ianto queried.
    ‘Shouldn’t you be checking that Hokrala writ?’ she asked. She looked at him and smiled sweetly.
    ‘Ah. Touché. Coffee took priority, I’m afraid. It usually does.’
    ‘That’s avoidance tactics.’
    ‘Psychologists call it displacement activity. Finding other things to do instead of the ones we should be doing.’
    Gwen nodded thoughtfully. She picked up the mug and sipped. ‘Good coffee, Ianto.’
    ‘Slow-roasted Arabica. It contains natural antioxidants. It should help.’
    She looked up at him over the rim. ‘Help with what?’
    ‘Sometimes it’s easy to slip into a poor frame of mind. In this line of work it’s hard not to become morbid. Drink the coffee and immerse yourself in work. Does it for me.’
    ‘O-kay.’ Gwen sighed and ran a hand through her hair, keen to change the subject. ‘Where do you think this Undertaker’s Gift could be, then? Somewhere in or around Cardiff, allegedly.’
    ‘How big is it, do you think?’
    ‘How big does a temporal fusion device need to be? The size of a house? A car? A football?’
    ‘A pinhead?’ Ianto blew out his cheeks. ‘We know nothing .’
    ‘I’ve set the Rift scanners to detect the kind of energy signature the computers say would be indicative of a temporal fusion device,’ Gwen said, tapping the keyboard array. ‘It’s got to be high-end alien tech, and it’s got to give off some kind of signal, even if it’s just a general power leakage. . .’
    ‘Any luck?’
    ‘Absolutely nothing.’
    ‘Tried anything else? A radiatory numospheric scan