had just had a 'funny turn', and that Ace was worried about his dementia. Maybe she was. Maybe this would be how she felt if, by some miracle, she ever got close to Mum, and if Mum got Alzheimer's. She didn't want to think about it.

Claire tapped her on the arm and she looked up to see Claire staring at the door with a smile on her face. Ace turned. In the doorway was an elderly man in a dark grey cardigan and, at his side, was the Doctor.

Sooal put down the telephone in the laboratory and smiled at the Tulks a.s.sembled around him, edgy and impatient. Their snowy hair shone like watery blood in the orange light. 'One of the care a.s.sistants,' he said. 'Someone's told them that they've seen an elderly man and a stranger with a cream hat going into the pub in the village.'

'Can we be sure it's him?' asked a frail woman, her voice hard, her eyes glinting like steel.

Sooal nodded. 'Eddie? I think so.' He chuckled as if at some private joke.

The woman looked round the small gathering, taking in the familiar faces, seeing them clearly for the first time in three years.

Friends, colleagues. She turned to Sooal. 'Forget the Doctor, whoever he is. He's not the important one.' She looked at the-others. 'Follow me,' she said. 'We have a job to do.'

'I think he needs a brandy,' the man said as the Doctor settled himself onto one of the bar stools and gave Ace a not-altogether-focussed smile.

'Water will be '

'Just have the brandy, Professor,' said Ace, barely able to contain her joy at seeing him. She clasped his cold hands in hers and squeezed them as hard as she could, ignoring his wince as she did so. 'You look as if you need it: With a gentle nod, he acquiesced. 'Where the h.e.l.l have you been I've been worried sick about you.'

'It's a long story, Ace. Well,' he grinned ruefully, 'not so much long as puzzling.' He shot a glance past her to the man with whom he'd come in, watching Claire pour a Guinness. 'And blue still leaves a funny taste in my mouth.' He pinched his nose confusingly and looked up, smiling lopsidedly. 'You haven't met a woman called Stacy Chambers, have you? Or maybe Tracy.

Norma wasn't too sure.'

Ace pulled a shrug with her face. 'Can't say I have. Why? She important?'

'I really don't know. Norma seems to think she is.'

'Maybe she's one of the ones that's vanished.'

'Perhaps. Perhaps.'

'Anyway,' said Ace, as she realised the Doctor's new friend was hovering at her elbow with a pint of Guinness in his hand.

'Who's your mate?'

'Ace, this is Eddie. Eddie Ace.'

They shook hands awkwardly.

'So what happened?' Ace turned back to the Doctor.

'I'm not sure after you and Michael left me, I think Eddie came along and took me to the boathouse down by the loch. I had a bit of a nap, Eddie told me about what they've been doing to him up at Graystairs, and then we came back here. I had a feeling this might be where I'd find you.'

'Hang on, hang on. Rewind a bit, Professor. When I pulled you out of the ship, you were completely gone. What was all that about?'

The Doctor absently rubbed the back of his neck and, somewhat uncomfortably, accepted the double brandy that Claire offered him. He swirled it around in the gla.s.s, his brow furrowing as he stared into it. 'I saw Joyce earlier, back at the hotel,' he said. 'She told me how you'd rescued her from the ship. I had to find out what it was all about so I wired myself up.' 'And it turned you into a vegetable,' Ace admonished, watching him sniffing his brandy.

He nodded almost sheepishly. 'I wasn't prepared for the fact that it was designed to paralyse its subjects, prevent them from moving about or disconnecting themselves; and it was evidently designed for human brains. I think mine,' he lowered his voice to a whisper and glanced around the bar, 'confused it a little.'

'I know how it feels.'

'And then, of course, you came along and got me out.'

'In the nick of time.'

He raised an eyebrow and smiled wryly. 'Almost as if you'd known exactly what was happening, eh?'

Ace looked away guiltily.

'I take it,' he said slowly and carefully, 'that you haven't been... careless?'

'Professor! As if!'

His eyebrow inched higher up his forehead.

'After our little chat,' she said in a whisper, realising that she was glancing around the bar in the same way that the Doctor had, 'I made sure I was a good girl.'

'Well, it's never too late, is it?' He jabbed her, gently, on the nose.

'Anyway,' she changed the subject, suddenly feeling awkward. 'What about Eddie here?'

'Ah! Eddie!' Ace glanced over her shoulder at him. He'd sat down at the bar and seemed to be taking huge delight in his Guinness. She looked back to see the Doctor slipping from his stool and beckoning Ace over to a corner table. She followed him.

'Eddie is a very confused man,' said the Doctor as they seated themselves. 'Apparently he's escaped from Graystairs and they're getting in a flap about his disappearance. That's one of the reasons Joyce sent me the postcard. He went missing a couple of days ago and has been drifting around the woods and village ever since.'

'Most of Graystairs' residents are confused what's so special about him?'

'For a start, his memory seems to be returning.'

'Isn't that the whole point of the treatment?'

The Doctor raised a hand. 'It's not so much the fact that his memory's returning or, at least, seems to be. It's what he's remembering that's so disturbing.' The Doctor gave her a quick summary of what Eddie had told her about the horrific nature of the memories that were surfacing. She felt herself go cold as he told her of the burning cities and screaming children. 'Eddie seems to think that the staff at Graystairs are actually implanting false memories in him for some reason.'

'And what do you reckon?'

He shook his head. 'I'm not sure, Ace. My own faculties aren't quite a hundred per cent yet. Whilst I was on board the ship, I had a couple of disturbing flashbacks myself.' He paused.

'Well, one of them was a flashback. A memory of Leela in the snow. But the other one ...' He tailed off, staring down into his gla.s.s again.

'So did they put that in your head?'

There was silence. Ace watched his eyes, saw the puzzlement on his face. 'No no I don't think they did. But I think there are two separate treatments going on: the memory implantation and the multiple processor array the people wired up in the s.p.a.ceship.'

'And you've no idea what that's for yet, then?'

He tapped the side of his head. 'Part of me's still working on that one. And then, of course, there's Stacy Chambers.'

'Who do you think she is?'

'I'm not sure. Norma seems to think that she's the key to all of this. She's heard her name whispered around the place, but I haven't found her.'

Ace laughed gently. 'And here's me thinking that I was the one having all the fun.'

'Well!' came a familiar voice from behind her. 'The wanderer returns!' She turned. Standing behind her, his jaw tense as he looked down at them, was Michael.

'Michael!' she exclaimed, standing up. She moved as if to give him a hug, but read something in his body language, his rigid stance, and thought better of it. His eyes were fixed on the Doctor.

'You're looking better than the last time I saw you,' he said without a trace of humour.

'Doctor this is Michael. If it hadn't been for him, I'd never have got you out of Graystairs.'

The Doctor smiled up at Michael and held out his hand; but Michael's hands remained resolutely in his pockets. Awkwardly, the Doctor looked at Ace and dropped his hand back to the table.

'I came to check on Ace,' Michael said pointedly.

'What's going on between you two?' Ace said, getting fed up with the veiled hints at something in their past. 'Have you two met before?'

The Doctor frowned and shook his head. 'Not that I '

'No,' Michael cut in. 'We haven't met. Like I said, your reputation goes before you, Doctor.'

'I take it that isn't a compliment.'

Michael milled humourlessly. 'What do you think?'

'Is it something to do with why you came all this way to look for your mum and then were too scared to come out in the open?' asked the Doctor quietly, his eyes narrowing. 'Running away from something, Michael?'

Michael snorted and turned away from them, heading for the door. The Doctor was suddenly on his feet.

'You're not going to get anything sorted out if you keep running away,' the Doctor said softly. Ace winced. It was almost as if the Doctor were spoiling for a fight, trying to provoke him.

Michael turned slowly as the Doctor edged his way around the table until they stood not three feet apart. Ace looked over at Claire behind the bar, poised with a gla.s.s and a tea-towel in her hand. Her face was tense: she must have seen this sort of standoff a dozen times before.

'Have we met before?' asked the Doctor again. 'Or have I yet to meet you again?'

Michael laughed a harsh, barking laugh.

'No, we haven't. But I've heard a lot about you. And I've got something for you.'

The Doctor raised his eyebrows expectantly.

And without another word, Michael drew back his arm and punched the Doctor full in the face.

Chapter Fourteen.

'You b.a.s.t.a.r.d!' Michael grunted, shaking his arm as the Doctor struggled to sit upright, sprawled amidst fallen furniture, gla.s.ses and ashtrays. 'You b.a.s.t.a.r.d!'

Claire came hurtling around the bar, tea-towel still in hand.

In the far corner, Douglas and Scar-face looked on, clearly not sure whether they should intervene. The Doctor was trying to prop himself up on his elbows, blood all over his mouth and his chin, spattered down the front of his jumper; Michael, red-faced, was struggling to hold himself back from laying into the Doctor again.

'Right!' Claire bellowed. 'That's enough enough!'

But as Michael took a step towards the Doctor, Ace launched herself at him. She and Michael tumbled backwards, Michael's arms thrown out.

'Ace! No!' sputtered the Doctor, as the two of them went down in an ungainly heap, Ace swearing like a trooper as she laid into Michael. The Doctor staggered to his feet, wiping his face with the back of his hand. He looked momentarily baffled at the copious amount of blood there, but hurried over and began pulling at the waistband of Ace's jeans. Michael's flailing leg caught him on the shin, and with a startled grunt, he hopped away.

Claire grabbed Ace's jacket as Scar-face and Douglas rushed over, and began trying to drag Michael out from beneath the scrum.

'Get off me, you gits!' bellowed Ace, slapping at Claire's arm.

But the combined efforts of Claire, Douglas and Scar-face eventually succeeded in separating them. They squared off against each other, panting, until Ace saw the blood drying on the Doctor's face.

She turned to Michael, red-faced and sweating. 'What was that for? You bully try picking on someone your own size!'

Michael gave a snort of derision and shook Scar-face's hand from his arm.

'Ask him,' he spat, jabbing a finger at the dishevelled Doctor.

'Ask Doctor Death there!'

Ace began to launch herself at him again, but Claire and the Doctor held her back.

'No, Ace. Let him finish,' said the Doctor quietly.

Ace looked at him the Doctor's face was dark, intense.

Pained. She gave a look of disgust and pulled away from Claire.

'I'll finish alright, Doctor. I've been wanting to meet you for a very long time. D'you know that? I've wanted to give you that message for months now and if she hadn't jumped in, I'd have given you the same message from a dozen other people.'