Chiltern grabbed his throat and choked him off. 'You know,' he said, 'I wasn't intending to do this, but I think I may let you meet them.'

'My pleasure,' the Doctor gasped.

Chiltern smiled grimly. 'No,' he said, 'I don't think so.'

Chapter Fifteen.

Anji and Fitz stood looking at the note that Rudy, after ringing the bell insistently, had delivered into their hands. It lay open on the table, and they were reading it for the second time.

Dear Fitz and Anji I have been kidnapped by Scale. It would be a good idea to rescue me.Yours, The Doctor PS. Tell Sabbath to help you.

'It's a good effort,' said Fitz gamely. 'I mean, he really tried. But it's not actually very helpful, is it?'

'No,' said Anji.

'Still,' Fitz turned the note over, 'he did draw this map for us. I suppose those little boxes are meant to be houses. So this one with the X would be Sabbath's.'

'Yes.'

'What do you suppose these puffy things are? Trees? Gardens, maybe?'

'Possibly.'

'I don't know about this telling Sabbath to help us. I don't think he'll go for that.'

'Well, they're supposed to be working together. He'll have to do something.'

'No he won't.'

'Yes,' she said firmly, 'he will.'

Anji put on jeans, one of Fitz's spare coats, and a cap she found in the TARDIS wardrobe. If they were going Doctor-rescuing, she'd be damned if she'd do it in a sari. At night, she could probably pass for a boy, and of course there was no need to dress up for Sabbath.

Fitz checked the map every time they passed under a streetlamp. 'Might be duck ponds.'

'They're jam,' she snapped. 'Gigantic pools of jam.'

Fitz glanced at her sideways. 'Bit tense, are you?'

'Fitz,' she said between her teeth, 'it's natural to be a bit tense when your friend is in danger and you're not sure you'll get him out this time. Also when you're going to have to work with a posturing ham like Sabbath. If he pulls that sinister, mysterious act on me again '

'All right, all right, point taken.'

'Why does he wear that stupid coat?'

'He said once it was in a spirit of irony.'

'Hah! He's just ashamed to admit he thinks it's cool. And he should be. It's embarrassing.'

'It's just a coat, Anj.'

'And that name! "Sabbath." Like a comic-book villain. He probably thought that sounded cool too. I'll bet his real name's Melvin or something. He's so full of himself. He's like... like... Wile E. Coyote, Super Genius!'

'I'm glad you're getting this out of your system before we actually have to talk to him.'

'Whereas we're like... like...'

'Don't say the Road Runner.'

'No. There were two of them.'

'Not Bugs and Daffy. I mean, Bugs is all right, but Daffy '

'No. The two...were they squirrels?'

'Chipmunks.'

'No, that was Disney. I think they were squirrels.'

'I don't want to be squirrels.'

'Some sort of rodents.'

'I don't want to be rodents. Rodents won't have a chance against Sabbath even if he is the Coyote. This is too much like that cartoon planet, Anj. I don't feel I was at my best there.'

'But all they did was tear up the house. Oh, and jerk the cat up the chimney.'

'Cats and chimneys. It's not relevant.'

'No,' she said gloomily.

'It's not the image we want in front of us when we confront him.'

'No.'

'I mean, we worked with him once, remember?'

'That was before he tore out the Doctor's heart.'

'Yeah,' he admitted.

She said in a small voice: 'I can still hear his screams.'

'Yeah,' said Fitz after a beat.

They walked on for a few minutes without speaking.

'But, Anj,' he said finally, 'this was the Doctor's idea. He must have had a good reason for it. He just didn't tell us.'

'As usual,' she muttered. 'Here's the park. You'd better consult that very useful map.'

The house, when they located it, was dark.

'What if he's not home?' Anji said worriedly. 'He could be out cruising the centuries in that timesub of his.'

'One way to find out.' Fitz yanked the bell pull. If this produced any noise, it didn't come through the thick door. They waited. Fitz stepped back and looked the house up and down. 'Nice place.'

'I suppose we're at the right one. That map wasn't exactly to scale.'

'I didn't see anything that could have been those puffy shapes, did you?'

This question was apparently inconsequential to Anji; in any case, she didn't reply. Fitz walked up and down, admiring the long windows. 'I think the curtains are drawn tight. So someone might be here.'

'Well, we can't just go from mansion to mansion pulling the bell at this hour.'

'Rich area,' Fitz observed. 'Bound to be well patrolled. We'd better hope we don't end up jailed for trespassing.'

'Great,' she muttered.

'I, at least, am dressed like a gent. You look like a, what, an urchin? Or Is that a fish?'

'Both,' she said glumly. She was starting down the steps to join Fitz when the door silently swung open. They peered in at an elegant entrance hall, softly lit by a gas-flame chandelier. At the back, two graceful matching staircases curved up and met at a high landing, above which a large bevelled window caught gleams from the chandelier. The floor was composed of black and white squares of marble, softly lustrous in the gaslight.

'Cor,' said Fitz.

'Showy,' she sniffed, though she was impressed in spite of herself. 'The door opening by itself like that. Like that haunted house at Disneyland.'

'Could have been answered by an ape,' Fitz observed.

Anji had nothing to say to that. They stepped inside. The door quietly shut. Anji half-expected arms holding candelabra to swing out from the wall, an image from an old film she couldn't quite remember. But nothing of the sort happened. Fitz simply pointed to a door to the left that stood open, and they walked through it into a drawing room in which Sabbath was sitting by the fire.

Confounding Anji's prejudices, he was wearing a beautifully tailored dark suit. He lounged in a wing chair to one side of the fireplace, facing them, his long legs stretched out comfortably, a large brandy snifter in one hand. In front of him, not too near the fire, sat a small, slender-legged table bearing a bottle and two more snifters. A pair of wing chairs were drawn near to this. Tall candles in equally tall silver candlesticks burned on either end of the marble mantel. Sabbath smiled, showing his fine white teeth. Not for the first time, Anji was struck by his eyes, merry, brilliant and cruel the eyes of a genius gypsy, she thought unwillingly. Maybe even the gypsies' king.

'We were about to give up,' she said with irritation.

'Never give up,' Sabbath purred. 'Isn't that the Doctor's motto? Please, have a seat and a drink. I can recommend the brandy.'

They sat and he poured for them. Anji glimpsed an embossed imperial seal on the bottle. She warmed the glass in her hands, an action that drew an amused approving glance from Sabbath, and took a hesitant sip, then stared down at the liquid she had just tasted.

'Ambrosial fire,' murmured Sabbath. 'More?' he said politely to Fitz, who had simply knocked his down.

'Erm, no thanks.' Fitz set his snifter carefully back on the table. The warm glow the drink had kindled in his stomach was already moving to his head. 'Very nice, though.'

'Yes,' said Sabbath drily, 'it is.'

Anji was irritated again. She set down her glass too. 'The Doctor needs your help.'

'I'm not surprised. What is it this time?'

She passed him the note. He squinted in puzzlement. 'What are these puffy shapes?'

'Other side,' she said, embarrassed.

Sabbath turned the note over and raised an eyebrow. He smiled slightly. 'The Doctor is more ahead of the game than I imagined.'

'He always is,' she said, 'but I don't know what you mean here.'

'Only that I've met Mr Scale and his action doesn't surprise me.'

'Why didn't you stop him?'

'I didn't say I knew exactly what he was planning. In any case, I doubt he surprised the Doctor either. He's a most obvious rascal. How did the Doctor manage to write this note?'

Anji recounted what Rudy had told them about the Doctor's visit with Hugo and Vera.

'I see.' Sabbath handed the note back. 'So he went with Scale willingly, in the hope he'd take him to the man with the machine. Not a bad plan at all if you can count on someone coming after you. Yes, I have to hand it to him, this is nicely done.'

'He'll be thrilled you think so,' she said sarcastically. 'Once we find him, that is. How are you going to do that?'

Sabbath took another sip of brandy and savoured it for a moment. 'Because of the, ah, heart condition,' he smiled like a shark, 'the Doctor and I have what he refers to as a biodata connection.'

'Right,' said Fitz, abruptly joining the conversation. 'Like in San Francisco.'

Both Sabbath and Anji stared at him and he subsided.

'So you can track him.'

'Not yet.' Sabbath's smile this time was lazy and ominous. 'He tracked me with equipment in his TARDIS. I've been putting together a similar device, but I haven't finished It yet.'

There was a silence. The flames glinted in Sabbath's glass as he raised it to his lips again, his eyes on Anji.

'I'm not letting you into the TARDIS,' she said.

'Why not?'

'I don't trust you.' The remark sounded childish to her in the face of his urbanity.

'Clearly, however, the Doctor trusts me. He could hardly have counted on my having finished my own device.'

He watched her with a chess master's amused detachment. She clenched her fists in her lap.