'It'd be a lot easier to take you and all this timetravel business seriously if you actually looked looked like an alien,' she said. like an alien,' she said.

'Rather than just the man who runs the Perivale hardware store?' he completed her thought for her and threw her a mock-offended look. He reached into his jacket pocket.

'And if you pull out those b.l.o.o.d.y spoons, I'll slap you!' He withdrew his hand slowly, empty.

'And it's hard to remember that you know more about this timetravelly stuff than I do; webs of time, paradoxes. All that head-screw stuff.'

'I'm not infallible, Ace, whatever what you think I think.

Almost, but not quite. Ten centuries of time travel gives you a nose for these things. It's not that I don't trust you. It's that I don't trust me me. I don't trust me to tell you things that I think you ought to know. I need to keep the bigger picture in sight. It's too easy to get so close to the trees that you can't see the wood only to watch the whole forest go up in flames because you forgot to put out the camp fire.'

Ace stared at him. 'You haven't got a clue what you're talking about, have you?'

He drew himself up, mustering as much dignity as he could manage. 'I couldn't possibly comment,' he replied, sounding vaguely hurt and then batted her gently with his hat and stood up. 'Anyway, we've landed in Scotland.' he announced, as if it were a natural sequitur. 'Come on. And no, you can't wear a kilt.'

He glanced around the room as he left.

'Tracy Emin would be proud of you.'

'That's lovely,' said Mrs Wesley, leaning back in her chair to admire Mrs Denning's cross-st.i.tch kittens-in-a-basket (cruelly described by Megan as sounding more like something off a menu). Mrs Denning had run out of blue thread when she'd reached one of the kittens' eyes, and had used yellow, giving the poor creature a rather sinister appearance.

Mrs Denning smiled appreciatively, and laid her week's work on her lap, smoothing it out lovingly.

'I'll turn it into a cushion for my daughter, Wendy,' she said thoughtfully. 'She loved the puppies-at-play that I gave her for Christmas.'

'I'm sure she did,' said Mrs Wesley, with just the hint of a raised eyebrow. 'When's she coming up?' She set down her knitting, strangely bored and frustrated with it, and picked up a book.

Mrs Denning's mouth puckered in thought. 'Sat.u.r.day, as usual, I expect.'

'That's nice.' Mrs Wesley opened the book at the silk-ta.s.sled bookmark, remembering that she'd put it down a couple of weeks ago when the realisation dawned on her that she'd read the same page at least twice.

'I expect she'll bring the grandchildren with her this time.'

'I expect so.' She started reading, one ear still tuned to her companion's gentle meanderings.

'Did I tell you that one of them's starting at university soon Justine, I think. Something with computers. She's very clever, is Justine. Very clever.'

Mrs Wesley nodded and glanced up, through the picture window: across the slope of the lawn and the sprawling flowerbeds she could see Megan, struggling with the handbrake on Mr Eccles' wheelchair. In frustration, the gangly girl kicked at it, and it must have come free, for moments later she set off at a leggy gait in pursuit of the liberated, freewheeling Mr Eccles.

'She doesn't care, you know,' muttered Mrs Denning. The two of them watched as Megan pursued the runaway vehicle, catching up with it just in time to prevent Mr Eccles from meeting a watery fate in the loch.

'Who doesn't care?' asked Mrs Wesley, only now registering that Mrs Denning had been addressing her.

'Megan. I don't think she's really cut out for this.'

'For what?'

'Looking after us lot.'

'Oh, I don't know,' said Mrs Wesley. 'She does a lovely impersonation of Shirley Ba.s.sey, you know, on cabaret nights.'

Mrs Denning turned sharply. She was trying to disentangle a knotted ball of embroidery silks. 'What?' she snapped, totally confused.

'Megan,' said Mrs Wesley, not looking up, flipping the page backwards and forwards and wondering if there was one missing. 'Shirley Ba.s.sey.'

'Where?'

Mrs Wesley finally looked up from her book. 'I think it's time for your medication, dear. I'd better call her.'

'Who?'

With a sigh born of several weeks in close captivity with Mrs Denning, Mrs Wesley closed her book, placing the bookmark precisely up against the gutter of the page. 'Shirley Ba.s.sey, dear.

Shirley Ba.s.sey.'

Alexander leaned over the railing at the edge of the boat, relieved that he could still see the bubbles from John's scuba equipment.

He'd argued with his brother about doing a dive so late in the day, but after the first week John hadn't wanted to waste any more time. Moby, the cable-operated floating camera that John had built, had failed almost as soon as it had been dropped into the water some sort of static discharge that also meant the boat's handrail was a frequent source of electric shocks. They had acc.u.mulated so little data on the marine species in the area that John was dreading returning to Professor Quail with nothing to show for the not-inconsiderable sums that had been spent on this trip. Alexander was less concerned. He hadn't really wanted to come anyway: it had only been because his mother kept going on and on about it that he'd agreed to accompany his brother. He'd always wanted to see the world of course, but the cold misery of the Orkneys was only strengthening his reserve to go somewhere hot and sunny. And dry.

He gave a start as John surfaced, splashing and thrashing about. He panicked, thinking that something was wrong, until he saw John's raised arm, fingers formed into a circle. OK. As John trod water and began to move towards the boat, Alexander could see that his clumsy swimming was caused by the fact that he had something in his other hand. Alexander rushed to the head of the ladder and threw the lifebelt out to his brother. He leaned over and took the object from John as he grabbed the lowermost rungs and began hauling himself up.

It was heavy a lot heavier than it looked. Matted in seaweed and barnacles and dripping with water, it was about the size of a house brick, but roughly ovoid. Through the tangle of vegetation that clung to it, he could make out the glint of metal.

John heaved himself onto the deck, pulled off his mask and peeled back the suit around his head.

'b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l, that was cold!'

He shook his head, spattering Alexander with cold, salty droplets. In the light of the lamp, swinging from the roof above them, they pulled at the weeds on John's find, casting them back into the sea. It was revealed to be a chunky ball, dull gunmetal grey, set in the centre of a narrower doughnut made of the same metal.

'Strange,' whispered Alexander, prising off the barnacles that had cl.u.s.tered on it surface.

'Yeah and there was more of that static.' John shook his hand in emphasis. 'Come on downstairs. I want to get out of this gear. You won't believe what else is down there. Let me get out of this suit and I'll tell you.'

The two of them clattered down the wooden stairs, and whilst John headed for the cabin to change, Alexander placed the object gingerly on the table, clearing aside the gutted remains of Moby.

'So what are you supposed to be?' he said to the thing. It sat there, wet and inert, tipped over on its side. He tilted it carefully with a biro, remembering what John had said about the static shock. He rooted around for a screwdriver and scratched gently at the pewter-like surface. It marked surprisingly easily. But as he watched, the scratch faded away as if the metal had spread to fill it.

'Weirder and weirder.'

'What's weirder and weirder?'

John came out of the cabin, pulling a black jumper over his head and reaching for the packet of cigarettes on the bench beside him. He lit one as Alexander told him about the scratch.

'Where did you find it?' asked Alexander.

John blew out a cloud of smoke and gave a short laugh.

'That's the really really odd thing. There's something else down there odd thing. There's something else down there something huge. Too big for the spotlamp to show it properly.

All I could see was a great big dome, something like that. And this was fastened to it, sort of plugged into the side.'

Alexander stared at him. 'And you unplugged it why why, exactly?'

'Because, smart-a.r.s.e, that thing is probably what's scared all the fish away. And this' he tapped the device with the biro, '

might give us a clue as to what it is.'

'What?' Alexander said. 'Like pulling out the firing pin of a grenade and looking at it gives you a clue as to what the grenade's going to do next?'

The tea was half cold. And stewed. And against her instructions, Bernard had put sugar in it.

But it didn't matter. It looked like her mother was going to be OK, but Joyce felt like she was waiting for permission to smile. Months of worrying and fretting couldn't just be wiped out by a few vague words of comfort. She had to try not to get her hopes up too much. Nothing was certain anymore.

But still...

She looked around for a member of staff, intending to follow Graystairs' protocol and ask someone to show her to her mum's room. But they all seemed to be busy. Megan had vanished completely, and she could see Bernard struggling to take a pair of scissors and a magazine away from one of the residents. The man protested, his face crumpling like a child's, and tucked his hands under his armpits in a disturbing reflection of a tantrum. She put the cup and saucer down on the table, glanced round once more, and headed out into the hallway and up the stairs. Soon, she found herself at her mother's door. In the centre of it was a small porcelain plaque bearing the words The Peonie Room The Peonie Room in an irritatingly fussy script. She turned the handle and pushed the door open. in an irritatingly fussy script. She turned the handle and pushed the door open.

For a moment, she thought her mother had got up and was sitting on the bed. She opened her mouth, the good news bubbling out of her. But as the figure turned, the words clotted in her throat. Thin and white, hairless like some dwarfish, Tolkienesque figure that had ascended from its subterranean lair, the man parted pale lips and a hiss emerged, like the snarl of a cornered cat. She had a brief impression of papery, ivory skin, somehow ratlike, and tiny pink eyes in milk white corneas. The man was holding a slim, chromed cylinder, aiming it at her mother's face.

'What's going on?' she demanded.

The man's eyes flicked to her side, and only then did Joyce realise that there was a fourth person in the room.

As she turned, something thumped into the base of her skull and the room slammed up in her face. She was sent spinning down into darkness and silence.

The Doctor breathed deeply as Ace tumbled out of the TARDIS behind him. In front of them, basking in the bright spring sun, was the Dumfries village of Muirbridge. At least that's where Ace had been a.s.sured they were not that she really trusted him, of course. The greens and purples of heathers spread away, down into the crook of the valley where the village nestled at the crossroads of two skewed country roads. The sky was almost cloudless and a pale, duck-egg blue.

'Very picturesque,' exclaimed Ace dubiously, clouds of steamy breath forming in front of her face. 'A bit cold, though.'

'That's because this is April, 1982, eight o'clock in the morning, and we've just come from August, 2012, just after lunchtime. Do try to keep up, Ace.' His tone was dark and irritated, and Ace noticed how he was avoiding looking her in the eye. So he should, she thought. The mention of lunchtime had set her stomach rumbling, and she wondered if her body had forgotten that she'd had fish and chips in London just before they'd left.

He shut the TARDIS door behind them as Ace hoiked her rucksack onto her shoulder. She glanced back at the Doctor, and noticed him looking around in an absent-minded-professor sort of way, as if he'd lost something.

'Doctor?'

'Yes, yes,' he snapped back. 'I'm coming.'

'No need to bite my head off!'

He sighed and dredged up a fairly poor imitation of a smile.

'Up for a little stroll?' he said with a rather forced jollity, rolling his r r s as if getting in practice for later. He strode off ahead of her, umbrella swinging on his arm, one hand clasped to his hat as the wind struggled to s.n.a.t.c.h it from him. s as if getting in practice for later. He strode off ahead of her, umbrella swinging on his arm, one hand clasped to his hat as the wind struggled to s.n.a.t.c.h it from him.

'So what are we looking for, then? Alien invasion? Mad scientists? Spatial anomaly?' She caught up with him after about ten yards.

'Yes, yes, I expect so. But first there's something more important to attend to.'

'Which is... ?'

'A nice cup of tea and a good fry-up.'

Behind them, back up on the hillside, and just a few hundred yards from where the stocky blue shape of the TARDIS stood, a slender figure dragged itself painfully up from the shelter of the heather and watched the departing figures. Its eyes were bright and knowing: perfect timing, it thought, and sank silently back into the heather.

The village of Muirbridge was as peaceful and picture-postcard as it had looked from up on the hillside. A scattering of tiny, whitewashed shops and houses, a village green, and the few locals they'd seen had, bizarrely, resembled extras from an Agatha Christie. Ace gave the Doctor a sideways glance as they strode into the village, past a stark, grey war memorial and onto the main street.

'1982 you said? Are you sure?'

'Trust me, Ace. Not everywhere in the world in 1982 shares Perivale's cutting-edge taste in rah-rah skirts and eyeshadow.'

They pa.s.sed a couple of young men in jeans farm workers, Ace supposed who smiled at her and once at a safe distance gave her a low whistle. The Doctor had to restrain Ace from shouting something back at them. The Doctor's unerring nose for a pot of English breakfast had, unfortunately, erred. As Ace reached out for the door handle of the teashop, the Doctor pointed at a handwritten sign on the door and his face fell. Open Open 10.00am-4.00pm 10.00am-4.00pm.

'Cheer up, Professor you might be able to get a cuppa at the pub.' She pointed down the street to where a sign, decorated with a painting of two little fox cubs peering out of a hole in the ground, flapped lazily to and fro, catching the morning sunshine.

'But then a pub's not likely to be open yet either, is it?'

'Highly unlikely. In that case, perhaps we should kill two birds with one stone and see if we're in time for breakfast somewhere else.'

'Where?'

'At Joyce's hotel.'

'Right.' Ace looked at him dubiously. 'Is this the point where you finally decide that I should be let in on things?'

'The big picture, Ace. Remember the big picture.' He paused and patted his breast pocket. 'One of the postcards I picked up from the Countess was from an old friend of mine. Joyce Brunner. One of UNIT'S top physicists. From what I can gather, she's here with her mother.'

'On holiday?'

'On a mercy mission. Her mother's suffering from Alzheimer's disease, and Joyce has her booked into Graystairs, a local Alzheimer's treatment clinic. And she's worried about something.'

'Don't suppose she actually said what it was, did she?'

'No, I'm afraid she didn't.' He smiled brightly at her. 'But that's what we're here to find out, isn't it?'

Joyce's card had told the Doctor the name of her B&B, and after politely enquiring of an elderly lady with a shopping trolley that clinked and clattered like it was full of empty bottles, they found it, out on the edge of the village. Set in a small, tidy garden of neatly-trimmed box hedges and one rather lopsided topiary dog the B&B radiated an air of quiet calm that Ace found intensely irritating, but which the Doctor seemed to appreciate.

An unfeasibly clean welcome mat greeted them at the door as the Doctor rang the bell.

A bright little woman in her fifties, dressed in a blue overall, answered the door with a cheery smile, beckoning them in.

'Beautiful day, isn't it?' she said, bustling around to the other side of the reception desk, tucking a fluffy yel ow duster into her overall pocket as she did so.