19.He hurried down the narrow path towards his shed, eager to be out of earshot.

He fumbled for the key in his pocket, clumsy in his woollen gloves.

He'd take them off as soon as he was sure that his wife wasn't looking.

Daft great things. A Christmas present from his sister-in-law.

The door creaked open and he vanished gratefully inside. The inside of the shed was damp and musty, the air tinged with the smell of compost and manure. Arthur drew a deep breath. He'd spent too long cooped up in the house with the smell of his wife's lavender drawer-liners.

Checking guiltily over his shoulder, he reached up and pulled a stack of flower pots from a shelf above the door. Pulling the stack apart he produced a battered packet of Rothmans and a box of Swan Vestas.

Confident that his wife had returned to her housework, he lit up and took a deep lungful of tobacco smoke. Sighing with contentment, he settled back into the tatty armchair that he had hidden out here last summer. He had found it on the local dump. Pete Phillips had helped him get it home one weekend when their wives were busy at some Tupperware party.

Now the shed was his own private gentlemen's club. His smoking-room.

He blew another lungful of smoke into the air, watching it billow lazily through the shaft of light streaming through the doorway. He reached for a dog-eared copy of Whitaker's Almanack Whitaker's Almanack, intent on settling back in his chair to finish his cigarette, then he noticed the hole in the side of the shed.

'What the devil?'

Wedging his cigarette b.u.t.t between the p.r.o.ngs of a small garden fork, Arthur creaked to his knees to inspect the unwelcome damage. He pulled a hessian sack to one side, cursing as the ripped bag spilled its contents across the dirt floor.

Something had been at his bulbs!

He struggled to his feet muttering angrily under his breath, all thoughts of a leisurely smoke banished. He prodded at the hole in his shed with the toe of his wellington. The entire wall was loose, the nails ripped from the timber. He scowled. A badger most likely. Determined little beggars.

He stubbed out the remains of his cigarette and rummaged in a rusty tool box for a hammer. Might as well get the repair done right away.

Who knew what might invade his s.p.a.ce if he didn't fix it? And if the b.u.g.g.e.rs had been digging in his vegetable patch... Well, he still had that sprung jaw trap, and to h.e.l.l with what the local bobby said about it.

Blue smoke billowed around him as he stepped out into the garden.

Arthur fanned it frantically with his hand. G.o.d, if the Dragon found him smoking indoors...!

He eased himself gently along the side of the shed, boots slipping in the slick mud. He had meant to pave this side of the garden. He had the 20 flags put to one side, ready. In the summer perhaps.

As Arthur rounded the end of the shed his jaw dropped.

'b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l!'

His vegetable patch looked like the Somme. His carefully planted rows of beanpoles were broken and scattered like matchwood, earth was piled in huge untidy mounds, and potatoes and leeks were strewn everywhere. In the middle of it all was a hole, maybe three foot wide, the lip littered with the rest of his bulbs.

Arthur cursed and threw his hammer down in disgust.

'Little b.u.g.g.e.r!'

'Arthur Baulstrode, you just watch your language.'

His wife's voice drifted from the house. Arthur ignored her. There was a rake leaning against the side of the shed. Arthur s.n.a.t.c.hed it up and approached the hole.

The edge was treacherous and crumbling. Arthur moved forward and peered down into it, balancing himself with the rake. It was unlike any badger sett he had ever seen.

Icy spots of rain started to fall and Arthur looked up in irritation. Grey clouds had started to encroach on the blue of the sky. That was all he needed. What chance did he have of getting any gardening done now?

A sudden high chirruping made him start. There was something moving at the bottom of the hole.

Arthur nodded grimly. 'Got you, you b.u.g.g.e.r!'

He stabbed down with the handle of the rake.

Ivy Baulstrode heard her husband's bellow of pain and frowned. He'd probably twisted his ankle again in that blasted allotment of his and would come limping into the house any moment expecting sympathy.

Well, he wouldn't get any from her.

She poured herself a mug of tea and took a noisy sip. Why he bothered with that pitiful little scrub of land when there was a perfectly good greengrocer at the end of the road...

There was another cry of pain from the garden, shriller now, a note of panic in his voice. And something else, a chittering...

Ivy turned to the window in alarm, and the china mug slipped from her fingers, exploding into fragments on the linoleum.

Her husband staggered around in the middle of the lawn, flailing his arms, screaming in pain. And around him crawled... at first she'd thought they were cats Ants, easily a foot long. Their jaws snapped and sliced at his clothes.

The lawn was already soaked in blood.

Ivy Baulstrode started to scream.

21.

Chapter Three.

Ace stepped out of the TARDIS and wrinkled her nose in distaste. It was damp and musty. Pipes and cylinders loomed out of the gloom and there was a sharp scent of engine oil. Buckets and mops were propped up against the dark brick, stained overalls hung from hooks. It looked as if they were in a boiler-room.

The Doctor was making his way around, prodding at things with the tip of his umbrella, wiping his finger along the pipes and grimacing at the grease. He'd not been very forthcoming about where they had landed. All Ace knew is that it was London and the 1950s.

She unzipped her jacket. It was sweltering. The Doctor seemed unconcerned, wrapped up in his scarf and duffel coat, straw hat perched untidily on his head.

'Great, a cellar,' Ace whined.

'Useful things, cellars. The Doctor fiddled with the door lock. 'Good for keeping things in.'

The door swung open.

'Things like TARDISes. Shall we?'

He vanished through the door. Grinning, Ace followed him.

The bas.e.m.e.nt was cavernous. Long wide corridors stretching in all directions. The walls were lined with heavy, grey metal cabinets, the ceiling hung with cl.u.s.ters of arm-thick pipes. Ugly industrial light fittings, most of them empty of bulbs, hung between them. The ones that did work cast grimy pools of light onto the concrete floor.

After the warmth of the boiler-room, it was bitterly cold. The Doctor was trotting down one of the corridors towards a set of heavy double doors. Ace followed him, frowning as she pa.s.sed several stainless steel trolleys, thick with dust.

'It looks like a hospital, Professor, but it's not exactly E.R E.R.'

'Perhaps they weren't expecting guests.' He pushed open the double doors revealing a gloomy stairway.

'Shall we try upstairs?'

The Doctor vanished up the stairs. Ace bounded after him.

The next floor was blinding after the grime of the bas.e.m.e.nt, the walls bright white tiles, hazy sunlight streaming through the netted 22 windows. Ace pulled the nets aside and peered out. It was London all right. She could see the Houses of Parliament on the other side of the Thames. A bright red double-decker bus chugged lazily over Westminster Bridge. The pavements were wet and glinting under the morning sun. It was remarkably devoid of people.

'It's not exactly buzzing, Professor.'

The Doctor appeared at her shoulder and pulled out his pocket watch, It's only just after dawn. We're early birds, I'm afraid.'

'Great, worms for breakfast.'

'Very nutritious apparently, but let's see if we can find a better choice. There's bound to be a staff canteen.'

'We're not staff.'

The Doctor pulled himself up proudly. 'I'm a Doctor, aren't I?'

As they made their way through the corridors, Ace started to get uneasy. Dawn or not, there should have been someone around. Her one memory of hospital she'd had her appendix out when she was ten was of nurses waking her for breakfast at some unG.o.dly hour, the sun not even up. So far they'd not seen a soul, just empty wards and echoing corridors.

The Doctor had methodically worked his way from floor to floor, occasionally peering into wards, checking signs pinned to walls. Once, somewhere on the fourth floor, he had suddenly held his hand up, head c.o.c.ked on one side, and bundled her into a storage room. The room was piled high with stainless steel trays and bowls and green plastic surgical gowns. The slightly antiseptic smell had made her queasy, but before she could protest the Doctor had held his finger to his lips.

The footfalls from the corridor had been heavy, numerous and in step. Military footfalls.

She had tugged at the Doctor's sleeve. Soldiers?'

The Doctor had said nothing, but eased the door of the storage room open a crack. Ace hadn't been able to see a thing, just heard the clatter of the fire doors at the end of the corridor.

That had been the only sign of life they had found. Now they were climbing the stairwell to the sixth floor. The top floor. The last floor.

Ace was now certain their landing hadn't been a random one. The Doctor's wanderings were too deliberate. He was looking for something. That had p.i.s.sed her off. Ulterior motives once again.

There was something else. He kept looking at her. Not directly, not obviously, but every time she looked in his direction his head snapped away sharply.

The Doctor scampered up the last flight of stairs and pulled at the 23 heavy double doors.

'Locked...'

Ace shrugged. 'Disused?'

The Doctor tapped his lips with the handle of his umbrella. 'The rest of the place hasn't exactly been at capacity, so why lock this floor...

No, I rather think the reverse is true.'

He dropped to his knees, rummaging in the pocket of his jacket.

'Keep a look-out, would you?'

He started to pick the lock with a bent hairpin.

Ace sighed and slouched over to the window to watch the constant, sometimes heavy flow of people in the street. An army truck appeared on the other side of the river. Ace watched it trundle over the bridge and pull up in the street outside. Half a dozen armed soldiers scrambled from the back of it and vanished out of her sight.

'There's an awful lot of firepower running around here, Professor.'

The Doctor just grunted, absorbed in his lock picking.

Pulling the nets aside she craned her neck, nose pressed to the gla.s.s, trying to see what was going on outside. She frowned. The truck had an American star on its side. What were the Yanks doing in an old London hospital?

'Aha!'

With a cry of triumph, the Doctor jumped to his feet and thrust his hairpin back into his pocket. He pushed at the door and it swung silently open.

Beaming at her, he reached out his hand. 'Come on, but quietly.'

Catching her by the arm, he pushed open the door. The corridor beyond was quiet and empty. Curtains were drawn over most of the windows, giving everything a murky yellow hue. There was the same antiseptic smell as before, stronger now Ace's stomach churned.

The Doctor padded slowly through the shadows, peering through doorways. It all looked the same as everywhere else to Ace. Empty beds, disused equipment.

She tugged at his sleeve. 'This is stupid, Professor.' she hissed.

'There's nothing here.'

The Doctor raised a finger to his lips. 'Listen.'

Ace listened. There was a beep. Regular. Mechanical.

The Doctor nodded at one of the wards. 'Through there, I think.'

He crossed to the open doorway and stopped dead. 'Wait there. Taking his hat, off he crammed it into his pocket and vanished into the ward.

Ace flushed with anger. She was d.a.m.ned if she was going to be left in the dark if he had found something. 'Oh, no you don't.'

She bounded after him.

24.'You don't drag me round some poxy old hospital then leave me out as soon as you...'

The words dried in Ace's throat. The ward was empty except for a single bed, but there was enough medical equipment scattered around that bed for a dozen patients. Tubes and wires wound from boxy c.u.mbersome machines, drips snaked from stainless steel supports. A tangle of wires and amidst them a figure.

Ace swallowed hard.