'Are you ill?'

'No, I... Bad dreams.'

'Would you like a sedative? Or perhaps some tea?'

She looked uncertainly around the room, biting her lower lip. 'I think maybe... I'd just like to talk. Is that all right?'

'Certainly.' He offered a chair.

'Not here. Can we go back to my room?'

'It's much more comfortable here.'

'I know.' Her eyes darted at the shadowed corners. 'But...'

'And we shouldn't be in your room without a nurse present.' She looked at him for a moment in bewildered innocence. 'Oh.'

She blushed. 'There's an orderly on duty in my hall. Mr O'Keagh. But I...'

'He doesn't have to overhear us. He can stand just outside the door, as long as we keep it open. I don't mean in the least to insult you. The clinic has adopted this policy for reasons of both privacy and propriety.'

'Yes, I understand.'

'But it really would be much more pleasant for you here. I can summon '

She shook her head firmly. 'I feel safe there.'

'Then that's where we'll talk.'

Chiltern recognised O'Keagh as one of the newer employees, a young Irishman with the build and face of a boxer. There was no sense pretending the violent ward didn't occasionally need men like that. It would be good when Miss Jane could be moved. He and O'Keagh gave each other good evenings, and he followed Miss Jane down to her room, the only one whose door stood open, letting in light from the gas fixtures in the hall.

'I wish I could have a lamp,' she said as he came up. 'Or at least a candle.'

'I'm sorry. It's difficult, I know. But we have to be careful of fire.'

She smiled crookedly. 'Of patients setting fires, you mean.'

'I'm afraid so, yes. The public rooms are illuminated till ten.'

'It's not the same.'

'No,' he agreed.

She made no move to go inside but simply stood looking up at him. In the gaslight, her brown eyes were very dark, almost black. 'You're a real gentleman,' she said, 'aren't you?' He smiled uncertainly, a bit embarrassed, and she ducked into the room. He followed her, and something heavy smashed into the back of his head. He cried out as he fell, and then cried out again when his assailant stepped forward into the light and he saw his face. The last thing he heard was a voice coming from Miss Jane, a high, wavering voice that said, 'I'm sorry, Doc, but I had to do it. The silly bitch was going to kill herself!'

Chapter Five.

After seeing the Doctor off to the railway station in the morning, Anji and Fitz had been left at loose ends.

'I think,' she said with some asperity, 'that after all our time together he could be a bit more forthcoming.'

'Well,' Fitz observed, 'it might not be that he's keeping things back, it might just be that he's hiding the fact he doesn't know anything.'

Anji saw the logic in that.

'All right, then.' she said. 'Sight-seeing day. I vote for the Crystal Palace.' Fitz groaned. 'Fine, Mr Tour Guide what's your suggestion?'

'All this history,' he complained, 'it's too much like school.'

'Well, it all is is history, as far as we're concerned. That can't be helped, can it?' history, as far as we're concerned. That can't be helped, can it?'

Fitz perked up considerably when he actually laid eyes on the building.

'Disneyland ain't in it,' he pronounced, gazing in amazement at what seemed like at least a mile of glass walls, some of them blindingly bright in the sun.

'Neither is Mies van der Rohe,' murmured Anji, equally impressed. The building struck her as a bit mad in a giddy, enjoyable way. In spite of its symmetry it was more Frank Gehry than Mies, she thought as they entered a fantasia on the possibilities of building materials. She and Fitz stared up. Three levels of galleries ran the length of the vast hall of sunlight they found themselves in, and live trees grew almost to the arched and soaring roof. The huge space was jammed with people and noise a cacophony of shouts and laughter underscored by the hiss of steam, the grinding melody of barrel organs and the wailing, echoing boom of a calliope organ. The great glass vault was sheltering a funfair.

Anji clung to Fitz's arm just to keep front getting separated as they squeezed through the crowd. 'I've never seen anything like this!' she shouted in his ear. He shook his head in mute agreement. The fair had neither the sleekness of Alton Towers nor the flimsy tawdriness of cheap travelling carnivals. With its ornately carved and painted rides, stages, and exhibit fronts, all in continual bright motion, it was like an antique child's toy come to life.

A red and white striped hot air balloon bobbed up under the glass ceiling. In niches in baroque facades, automatons draped in carved faux-Grecian robes turned and stiffly raised their arms, like figures Anji had seen on ancient cathedral clocks. Illustrated show cloths promised wonders for only a few pence. Anji and Fitz found themselves stuck in front of one depicting a four-tusked woolly mammoth trampling a hapless and very tiny Neolithic hunter. An elaborately lettered sign proclaimed that within was to be found the thigh bone of the prehistoric behemoth.

'What twaddle!' said an aggrieved voice to their right. It came from a dark-haired young man about Fitz's age in a light grey summer suit and straw boater. Despite this casual attire, he had a scholarly look about him, though this was somewhat obscured by his scowl. 'Utter rubbish. The proportions are all wrong. That hunter fellow doesn't look as if he'd come up to the animal's knee if it had knees, which it doesn't seem to. And where did anyone get the idea a mammoth has four tusks? They've confused it with a mastodon.'

'What's inside then?' said Fitz curiously.

Their companion snorted. 'An ordinary elephant's thigh bone, if you're lucky. If you're not, the femur of an ox. It'll be set up at a distance in a black velvet-lined box and carefully lit so you can't tell its exact size.'

'You seem to know a lot about it,' said Anji.

'Oh, I always visit these shows. Hoping, you know, I'll find someone has unearthed a genuine fossil. It irritates me, though, how bally inaccurate they are.'

'Are you a palaeontologist?' asked Anji.

'Geologist, actually.' The man offered each of them his hand in turn. 'George Williamson.' As they gave their names, he fished in his pocket and found a card. 'I end up learning a lot about fossils because, combined with the various strata of rock, they give us a dynamic picture of the earth's history as progressive progressive, not static and created all at once.'

'Right,' said Fitz. 'Evolution.'

'Yes.' George's face lit up. 'You're a student, then?'

'Well, have been,' said Fitz hesitantly, wondering how far his fourth-form science classes were going to carry him in this discussion. He'd always rather liked fossils, though, and had tended to pay attention during lessons about them. He wished he could remember when Darwin published that book of his, the one that caused all the fuss.

'There is so much happening now,' Williamson continued enthusiastically. 'So many old theories challenged. And it's past time! It's been almost a quarter of a century since Lyall, yet there's still resistance to the evidence that God did not create the world in seven days.'

'Well, of course not,' said Fitz. Williamson seemed surprised and impressed at his casual tone.

'Actually, I'm giving a small talk at the Olympia Hall in Islington this evening about an upcoming expedition to Siberia. There'll be mammoth bones there, I can tell you! Seven o'clock. That is,' Williamson suddenly seemed abashed at his boldness, 'if you think you might be interested. Delighted to see you if you are. Cheerio.' And he pushed away into the crowd. Fitz looked at the card Williamson had handed him. It was printed with the geologist's name and an address in Bloomsbury.

'Might be interesting. I've always wondered how those arctic explorer blokes in this century managed with just dogs.'

'Not very well, as I recall,' said Anji. 'The names Scott and Sir John Franklin come to mind. I don't think the mammoth bone is worth our tuppence, do you?'

'Definitely not. Let's see what else is on offer.'

They passed a long row of little coin-operated machines, prettily wrought In curving iron, their windows showing various scenes. For a ha'penny they could watch a mechanical hand raise a hammer and bring it down on an anvil. For a penny, they were treated to a scenario: the lower doors of an official looking building opened showing a man facing a bewigged judge who banged his tiny gavel sternly; then the upper doors opened, and the man, noose around neck, was dropped through a gallows trap and swung there.

'Charming,' Anji murmured.

They watched children on the carrousel and ventured on to a similar ride involving boats carved in the shape of swans and another that featured so-called Rolling Ships with full-size sails. In spite of Anji's prodding, Fitz ignored the opportunity to wield a sledgehammer and send a marker up a pole to reveal his strength of arm.

They skipped the exhibit whose sign announced The New Marvel of Electricity That Will Illumine The Birth Of The Twentieth Century and managed to resist the temptations of the waxworks show despite promises of figures of The Most Revered Public Heroes and a tableau of Nelson Wounded At Trafalgar. Anji was curious about a theatrical production called The Fatal Choice Of Mary Hardwicke, but uncomplainingly slipped out with Fitz after five minutes in which, in front of a painted backdrop of a parlour, a stern father and his pale but resolute daughter emoted at each other while waving their arms about.

The most magnificent facade belonged to the Phantasmagorical Exhibition. Horned grinning demons and gilded angels framed panels depicting ghosts and goblins, while to the left of the elaborate entry doors a rococo organ seemingly played itself. After this build-up, the show itself was disappointing. The ghost was effective a transparent, white-veiled figure that Anji suspected was somehow projected through a combination of mirrors and lenses hidden in the orchestra pit. But the skit played out by the actors who supposedly couldn't see the apparition was all high jinks and broad comedy, the climax arriving when the hero, a young man with alarming side whiskers, slipped on a pie.

After this experience, Anji was inclined to pass on The Black Chamber Of Secrets, a little octagonal building with no facade, its only decoration being bright yellow letters painted on its black walls proclaiming an Optical Wonder and Astonishing Visions. The slovenly proprietor slumped on a chair beside the entrance, clearly the worse for drink, and eyed them unenthusiastically from red-rimmed eyes. As they made to move on, he roused himself enough to call hoarsely, 'Wonders inside, lady and gentleman. Impossible visions of the unexpected. The laws of time themselves suspended.'

Fitz and Anji looked at each other. 'You never know,' he said, and handed the proprietor eightpence.

'Thank'ee, sir.' The man stood up. He was younger than he had seemed from a distance, with strong shoulders and no grey in his long, sloppily tied-back brown hair. His bloodshot eyes were a dismal muddy colour. He smiled obsequiously, showing crooked, tobacco-stained teeth. 'Micah Scale, at your service. You won't be disappointed. No sir, you will not.' And he pushed open the door and shufflingly led them into the exhibit. The inside was plain, with a scuffed black-andwhite linoleum floor. The only light came from an oil lamp attached to one of the unpainted walls. 'Over there, please. Left side.'

He pointed to a long, mirror-surfaced table, as big as a door, that almost filled the small room. Above this hung a knobbed brass cylinder extending up through the centre of the roof. A railing prevented observers from getting too dose and marring the experience with their own reflections.

'Now when I dim the lamp,' Scale continued, shutting the door, 'it will be completely black. The lady mustn't be frightened.' He leered at Anji. 'It's only for a moment.' Anji restricted herself to a sigh. Scale slowly turned down the lamp until it flickered out. 'And now,' he said in the darkness, 'I will open the miraculous camera!'

A lit scene suddenly appeared in the mirror. For a moment Anji thought she was seeing a film projected from below, until she remembered that, even as a fair attraction, moving pictures were still a couple of years away. Though the effect was startling and mysterious, the scene presented struck her as an oddly dull choice: a marshy landscape with a couple of rural cottages in it. She and Fitz watched dutifully. After a while, a chicken ran out of one of the yards.

'Well,' said Scale at her elbow, making her jump. 'Not very exciting today, I'm afraid.'

'Is it ever?' said Fitz.

'Oh, yes. You get people walking about. Hunters sometimes.'

'So you never know what you'll be showing?' said Anji.

'Of course I know,' he said angrily. 'I'm a professional, I am. It's just that it's changeable. Like life!'

'Right,' said Fitz soothingly.

'Look!' Scale's tone was defensive. 'There in the background, see that silver glint. That's the river, that is.'

'Very impressive,' said Anji politely. This only seemed to irritate him further.

'I was robbed,' he whined. 'A regular hall of mirrors, I had, till they was stolen from me, a poor man. The most magnificent hall of mirrors ever seen oh, you wouldn't be looking down your nose at them. They'd They'd have shown you something!' He leaned into Fitz's face, eyes teary. 'It's not fair!' have shown you something!' He leaned into Fitz's face, eyes teary. 'It's not fair!'

'No,' Fitz agreed diplomatically. Anji twitched his sleeve.

'But I know who took it.' Scale wheezed closer. 'I know where he is. And some day I'll have back what's mine!'

'I'm sure you will.' Fitz groped for the door.

'Don't go.' Scale suddenly sounded desperate. 'Wait a bit. You'll soon see something better. Sometimes there's cows.'

'Great, lovely, thanks, but have to run.' Fitz pulled open the door and he and Anji hurried into the light. She looked back, expecting Scale to come after them, but the entrance remained dark and empty.

'Well,' said Fitz. 'That was fun.'

'Creepy.'

'Yeah, wasn't he?'

'The projection too,' she said. 'I mean, how did he do that? It wasn't a film. But it was the moving image of a real landscape.'

'Well, how'd they do that ghost thingy? They're a lot more technical than I'd given them credit for, these Victorians. They're such bloody bores in history class.'

'I dare say the Doctor knows all about it. We can ask him when he comes back.'

'Let's go and find some supper. I'd kind've like to see that George fellow's lecture.'

'You?' she said askance. 'Something you can't drink, inhale, play, dance to or '

'Right, nip my first fragile step towards self-improvement in the bud.'

'Heaven forfend,' she murmured. She supposed that she ought to go along if only to observe the first stages of bloom of this new Fitz, but she was feeling in need of a twentieth-century fix. She returned to the TARDIS. A few hours later, as the Doctor was leaving the theatre in Liverpool, she was curled up in jeans with a bowl of popcorn, halfway through some archival reruns of Absolutely Fabulous Absolutely Fabulous.

Chapter Six.

Octave sat in his dressing room and waited for the knock at the door. The man had found him again. Of course. Had he really thought he wouldn't? He must have come in at the last moment, because when Octave had surreptitiously surveyed the audience half an hour before curtain, there had been no sign of him. But then, later, up on the stage, when Octave had dropped one of the hoops he was supposed to be linking and unlinking, and, hot with embarrassment, stooped to retrieve it, his eyes fell on the front row, and there was the green coat, the grave, handsome face, the strange eyes...

Octave clasped his hands together hard and shut his eyes. For just an instant, he entertained the familiar, vain fantasy that when he opened them he would no longer be in another shabby, poorly lit dressing room in some seedy provincial theatre. He would be in the past.

Before.

At the knock, he jumped and stared whitely at the door. He didn't move to answer, just watched the doorknob, dumbly. The knock came again.

'Mr. Octave?' said the dreaded voice.

Octave rose, and went to meet his destiny.