coat, Trevithick, disappear into the night.

'A body?' said Cooper incredulously.

Robin glanced up the stairs at his stepmother's bedroom 'Yes! Outside the fence. It was in uniform. Could've been door. She was sleeping peacefully now. She'd be all right. If a security guard.'

he could just have a word with the Doctor. Find out where 'What did it look like then?' Hawthorne c.o.c.ked his head he and the girl were staying and get a chance to talk to her.

to one side.

Interesting women didn't often come to Crook Marsham.

'I don't know. He was all rotten. Decomposed.'

With one last, guilty look up the stairs, he pulled on his 'We're wasting our time.'

coat and pushed his way outside into the freezing night.

'Now look,' said Cooper sternly. 'If you think you can get out of trouble by making up c.o.c.k-and-bull stories...'

'Ace? What kind of a name is that?' said Hawthorne 'I saw it!' yelled Ace.

witheringly.

'Well, let's go and have a look, shall we?' Hawthorne 'Does it matter?'

pushed his gla.s.ses up the bridge of his nose.

Ace was alert now, her eyes flashing in agitation. Cooper 'We can't,' sighed Ace hopelessly. 'It melted away.'

and Hawthorne stood before her with arms crossed like 'Came and went like a summer cloud, did it?'

angry parents.

'All right, Tom, Leave it. Something's obviously 'What does matter, young lady, is what you're doing in happened.' Cooper turned and looked Ace in the eye. 'If the this compound. Suppose you tell us that?' Cooper's face was phones were working I'd call the police. As it is, just think set in a stern frown.

yourself lucky...'

'Look, I told you. I was in the village with my friend...'

There was a deafening screech as the entire room flooded 'This..."Doctor"?'

with power. The strip lights flickered, died, and were 'The Doctor, yes. He went off to the monastery and I got replaced by orange emergency lamps. Data screed across bored. I sneaked in here for a look around. That's all.'

the consoles, forcing gauges and needles into irrational regions of the scale.

122.

123.

'Here we go again!' cried Cooper, hands flapping at her 'Her too.' Ace indicated Holly with a nod of her head.

sides. 'Quick, you - Ace - make yourself useful. Go to the Vijay jumped out of bed, clutching a blanket around his living quarters.'

waist and scanning the room for his discarded clothes.

'I don't- '

'That's OK. She needs the rest. I don't want to wake her.

'Left, left, then right,' called Hawthorne, throwing himself You can go now - er?'

into a swivel chair as paper poured from the printout to the 'Ace.'

floor.

'Right.' Vijay smiled. 'Thanks.'

'Get Vijay,' said Cooper, 'and Holly if she's awake. Their Ace let her eyes linger briefly on his finely muscled chest rooms are marked. No time to explain!'

and then, mentally admonishing herself for her wandering 'But...'

thoughts, exited.

'Go!'

She ran all the way back to the control room where Ace scrambled to her feet and dashed off into the interior Cooper ushered her into a chair. Both she and Hawthorne of the building. Emergency lights flashed around every were totally engrossed in the eruption of data which blank wall, heightening the hectic atmosphere. She raced crackled like a bonfire around the huge room.

past lockers and storerooms, even a TV lounge, before she spotted a door marked 'H. Kidd'.

Sleep was a beautiful release and Betty Yeadon, for once Ace paused, panting for breath, knocked and threw open free of her nightmares, wallowed in it. Muted colours the door. Empty. She cursed.

flashed across her closed lids as her breathing settled into a The next door bore the legend 'Vijay Degun' and a sign soft, regular pattern.

cannibalized from a cardboard 'Fragile - With Care' notice The room around her was empty, Robin's vacated chair which now read 'agile - Wit...'

pushed back against the wall. The frosty night outside Ace didn't knock this time.

whispered around the drawn curtains.

Inside the room, Holly and Vijay lay curled naked against Betty turned over in her sleep as a bubble of memory one another, a mess of blankets pulled haphazardly around floated to the surface of her unconscious. There was a dull them.

thud somewhere below.

Ace cleared her throat in embarra.s.sment and Vijay sat up Plash sharply, his thick black fringe obscuring his eyes.

The curtains stirred slightly and there was another smaller 'I'm sorry,' she said quietly. 'They want you in the control sound, as if bare winter branches were sc.r.a.ping at the room. There's some sort of emergency.'

window.

Vijay looked momentarily nonplussed and ran his hand Plash through his hair as if to wake himself up. 'Right,' he said at She opened one eye, feeling the weight of drowsiness last.

gushing through her brain like thick soup.

124.

125.Thud Betty looked at the bottom of the door. A four-panelled, She opened both her eyes and felt suddenly alert. The glossy white door, under which a pool of black sea-water bedside clock ticked loudly.

was slowly forming.Plash She tried to speak, call, scream, but her throat tightened Plash into a rasping croak. All that came out, in a whisper so low Betty pulled herself back to the headboard and dragged she scarcely heard it herself, was a name.

the blankets around her. The rustling sound came again and 'Alf?'

she glanced feverishly around the room.

From behind the door came a soft, low chuckle.Thud Thud 'Doctor! Doctor, wait!'

She gazed at the closed bedroom door. There were four Robin called after the little figure who'd made amazingly panels in it. A white, glossy door. Silence hissed about her.

rapid progress across the coal-black moor. The moon bled Thud pale light on to the Doctor's face as he turned and looked Plash back. Robin ran to catch up with him, feet sinking into the Thud mud.

There was something coming up the stairs. Dragging its 'h.e.l.lo again,' said the Doctor as the boy reached him, out feet.

of breath. 'Shouldn't you be with your mother?'Thud 'It's OK. She's sleeping,' said Robin. 'I - I just wanted to...

The other sound reminded her of rain-soaked shoes.

well, your friend, the girl...'Plash 'Ace?'

She knew who it was. What it was. The dream that wasn't 'Is that her name? Ace.' He turned the name over on his a dream. The wet footprints in the carpet. The terrible tongue like an unfamiliar delicacy.

skeletal grip on her cheek.

'Her real name's Dorothy but she wouldn't thank me for Plash telling you.'Thud 'Well, I just wondered whether...'Thud 'Yes?'

The rustling came again. Betty jammed her fist into her The Doctor raised an eyebrow, enjoying the young man's mouth, eyes bulging in naked terror. Where was Lawrence?

discomfort.

Where was Robin? Where were they?

Robin was saved by a terrible, whooping scream which The footsteps stopped. The door seemed to loom before echoed across the moor like the howl of a wolf. Both he and her, heavy with the presence behind it.

the Doctor jumped in alarm. There was movement about a hundred yards ahead and they turned to make it out. A 126 127.

small, silhouetted figure was stumbling about, making pressed flat so that his mouth and nose were just two gory incomprehensible gurgling sounds in its throat.

holes, as though he'd been flung against plate gla.s.s.

'Come on!' cried the Doctor, grabbing Robin's arm.

The Doctor moved towards the body and gingerly The figure was stationary now, swaying a little in the touched Prudhoe's arm. There was a horrible crack as moonlight and sobbing uncontrollably. The Doctor pulled tissues split apart and clouds of opaque vapour flooded the out a torch from his capacious pockets and swept the beam little niche. The Doctor gagged as the smell engulfed him.

on to a blanched, panicky face, the stern mouth flecked with Robin turned and ran outside, hurling himself down on the spit, the eyes two perfect circles of fear like bullet holes in heather.

ice.

Pushing a handkerchief into his mouth, the Doctor forced 'It's Mrs Prudhoe!' hissed Robin.

himself to watch and shuddered involuntarily as the body 'The missing man's wife?'

rippled and fell inwards, trickling away into the ground.

Robin nodded vigorously. The Doctor placed a rea.s.suring The Doctor remained a few minutes more and then hand on the old woman's wrinkled brow. 'All right. It's all stepped outside, drinking in the frosty air with relief. He right now, Mrs Prudhoe. Mrs Prudhoe? What's wrong?

patted Robin on the shoulder as the boy knelt there, What happened?'

doubled up.

She stared at the Doctor but seemed to look right through 'What... what happened to him?'

him, struggling against the firm grip of his hands, her The Doctor shook his head and looked up at the sky mouth working away in silent protest.

above them. He sighed heavily. Would there never be an Sensing his ministrations were futile, the Doctor let Mrs end to it?

Prudhoe go and she shambled off into the darkness, weeping.

Trevithick turned up the collar of his coat as a chilly wind 'Doctor! Over here!'

from the moor shivered through the village. It was b.l.o.o.d.y Robin was some way off now. He had found the little cold. He rubbed his gloved hands together and grumbled a enclave in the rocks surrounded by stubby trees. The Doctor little under his breath.

picked out the area with his torch and the beam bounced Christmas Eve tomorrow! In all the excitement, he'd over black moor and grey stone as he advanced. He could almost forgotten. But now he could sense that lovely, feel Robin's breath by him as he turned the beam into the indefinable crisp-ness in the air. Was it snow? Would they hole.

have snow for Christmas? He looked forward to that 'Jesus,' cried Robin, taking a step backwards as the torch beautiful, serene quiet which heavy snow always brought to revealed the appalling sight within.

the world and the satisfying crump his steel-toed winter Jack Prudhoe lay in a heap, legs and arms snapped, boots would make in virgin drifts. Nothing quite like it.

paunchy skin streaked with purple scratches. His face was 128 129.

If memory served, they'd finished the last Nightshade Trevithick caught a smell on the breeze, recognised it and around Christmas. December 1958, wasn't it? Only ten years, felt his stomach heave. He turned and ran. About fifty yards yet it seemed like a lifetime. He could remember the from the Dalesview Home, something stepped out into the producer's party afterwards: the usual mix of sentiment and road.

jollity, too much booze and too many false promises to keep It couldn't be. It couldn't be.

in touch. He'd walked home that night knowing it was the It was under the yellow streetlamp just as it had been the end of an era. Things were never quite the same again.

night before.

But at least his public remembered him! Perhaps they 'No!' Trevithick gasped, his lopsided mouth falling open.

were planning a reunion. Or a new series? Or (he pulled up The creature was almost seven feet tall, a shiny, black-sharp at the thought) This Is Your Life!