The driver was nodding, taking the point. 'They're the absolute worst,' he said. ''Ere, Charlie?' he shouted when the phone was answered. 'Control here.' He turned and winked violently at the Doctor. 'Need a position check from you, and current destination.'

'Just about to drop off a client at Eleven, Anderson Avenue,' Charlie reported.

'Triff. Thanks, Charlie. I'll be in touch.' He leaned back and called to the Doctor over his shoulder. 'Anderson Avenue then?'

'Please.'

'Right you are. Me and Charlie often do the auction rooms,' he explained. 'Known each other for years, we have. You wouldn't believe what people will buy at that place!'

'I think I might,' the Doctor said.

Number Eleven Anderson Avenue was a large Regency*style house set back from the road. The Doctor learned from a polished bra.s.s plaque on the gatepost that it was called 'Lakeside Manor' and it was a 'Retirement Home' which also offered nursing care.

The cab had dropped him in time to see the familiar pale green back of the d.u.c.h.ess as she went through the front door. The driver had agreed to wait for ten minutes. The Doctor hesitated, reading and re*reading the sign. She was an old lady, and if she was selling off her personal papers then she might have fallen on hard times. And perhaps Lakeside Manor was exclusive and expensive. Even if there was no evidence any more of the lake.

He strode up to the front door and was delighted to find it unlocked.

Inside was a large entrance hallway. At the end of it was another door, with a security number*pad beside it. A notice asked visitors to kindly sign in and out in the book. There was a biro attached to the book by a length of string and a ma.s.s of yellowing sticky tape.

The Doctor did not sign the book. He looked to see who the last person to sign in was. But the last entry was several hours previously an illegible scrawl that might have said 'B. MacAlister'. Or not.

The keypad posed only a simple puzzle. The code was a pattern rather than a sequence, which made sense. There was another keypad on the other side of the door, he noticed as he let it swing shut behind him. He was in a corridor which stretched as far as he could see. It was painted in hospital green and there were doors off each side at regular intervals. Impersonal printed nameplates were slotted into bra.s.s frames on each door.

'Can I help you?' The woman was in her twenties, dressed in a typical nurse's uniform. Her name badge read 'Mary'. 'They're all out today, I'm afraid. A trip to the theatre. A matinee of something or other by Priestley. Quite a treat of course.'

'Of course.' The Doctor smiled. 'I was looking for an old lady...'

Mary seemed amused. 'Well all the old ladies are out, as I said. Except for Mrs MacAlister. And Miss Fredericks, of course.'

The Doctor wondered why Miss Fredericks counted as 'of course' when it came to skiving off the organised trips. But he knew better than to ask.

'Mrs MacAlister,' he said. 'That's the one.'

'Ah, you're a friend of her daughter. Come to collect her?'

The Doctor smiled. He didn't like to lie, but he was happy to let her believe she was right. Mary pointed out the room, and went about her business.

'Thank you,' the Doctor called after her.

Mary waved a hand without looking back.

The Doctor tapped politely on the door labelled 'Pam MacAlister' and went in.

The old lady was sitting on her bed. She was in her nightgown. Her hair was grey*to*white and her face round and kindly. There might have been some superficial similarity with the Grand d.u.c.h.ess, but it was obviously not the same woman.

'I'm so sorry,' the Doctor said gently. 'I think I have the wrong room.'

'I thought you were my daughter,' the woman said.

'I can a.s.sure you, I'm not.'.

'So I see. Where is she? When's she coming back to see me?'

The Doctor backed out of the room. 'I don't know,' he confessed. 'But I don't think she can be far away.'

The code to get out was the same as to get in. There was a young woman watching as the Doctor let himself out into the hallway. She had shoulder*length fair hair and strikingly green eyes, rather like a cat's. He smiled at her politely, absently, not really remarking her. Perhaps she smiled back. Perhaps she was the old woman's daughter. Or another of the staff.

'Back to the Auction Rooms, Doctor?' he murmured as he got back to the road. The taxi was still there, and the driver leaped out to open the door for him.

'What's your name?' the Doctor asked as he climbed in.

'Albert.'

'Thank you, Albert.'

The Doctor said nothing all the way back to Gordon and Painswick. Albert, apparently sensitive to his thoughtful mood, was also silent until they arrived outside.

'h.e.l.lo. What's going on 'ere?'

The Doctor looked out of the window, brought back to reality by Albert's voice.

Several police cars were at the kerb, lights flashing. An ambulance was parked in amongst them, tile back doors open expectantly. There were several uniformed policemen at the main entrance, politely turning people away.

He paid off the cab and gave Albert a generous tip.

'Looks serious. You think they'll let you in?' Albert asked.

'I think they need a Doctor.'

39: Cold Blood

The cry cut through the air like a hot knife.

Fitz had no idea how long he had been asleep, or even if he had slept at all. The nights were taken up with a mixture of shivering and dozing, dreaming and drifting...

But when he heard the cry, he was immediately awake. His first thought was that something had startled the dogs. But a moment later they started howling blood*curdling animal yells that served only to emphasise the terrible humanity of the initial scream. He was out of his blankets and crawling rapidly from the tent before he had time to think.

The dogs were still barking, the sound echoing round the hollow. A thin sliver of a moon lit the icy landscape with an eerie pallor. Fitz stumbled his way across the hollow, half running, half falling. He did not really know where he was going, but he was as sure as he could be that the cry had come from the west edge of the hollow. That was where the dogs were tethered he had thought it was the dogs. And the dogs had been frightened by something.

Galloway's tent was apart from the others, and not far from the dogs. Fitz could see the animals pacing back and forth in agitation, pulling at their leashes, forms low to the ground as if in fear. Or perhaps preparing to defend themselves.

The flap of Galloway's tent was open. George was standing beside the tent, white*faced. The light from his lamp flickered through the opening and made the canvas walls glow an insipid yellow. How come we have to make do with candles? Fitz thought incongruously. George stepped aside and motioned for Fitz to take a look in the tent. He stooped and looked inside. And screamed.

His foot slipped from under him in the entrance and he was falling, his scream one of surprise. But it was fuelled by what he could see inside the tent.

George was beside him, catching him, lifting him, pulling him back.

'Thanks,' Fitz gasped. 'Did you did you see?'

George nodded, his face grave. 'I heard the cry, like you I expect. I came to see what had happened.'

'I slipped,' Fitz said, embarra.s.sed now more than fearful. 'A patch of ice.'

Price loomed out of the darkness, Graul and Caversham close behind. Caversham had a rifle and was swinging it in a low arc, covering the area, his eyes piercing bright in the darkness. Suddenly Fitz saw him not as a figure of fun, an armchair adventurer with wild stories of derring*do, but as an alert and intelligent explorer and hunter. He shivered.

'It's not ice,' George said slowly. He swallowed and pointed down at the ground. 'Frozen, yes. Liquid... But not ice.'

Fitz followed George's gesture, conscious that the others were looking too. Looking at the dark stain that flowed from the tent and out into the hollow. He had slipped on frozen blood. A trail that led back to the body lying p.r.o.ne on the floor of the tent Hanson Galloway, eyes wide and staring, beard sodden and stiff with the frozen blood, and a wooden tent peg hammered through his temple.

'But who...?' Fitz gasped. He turned to face the others, and found them all staring at him. Caversham's gun was pointing at his head. 'Oh come on!'

'You did attack him with a tent peg this evening,' Caversham pointed out.

'You were angry with him,' Graul said.

'We all were!' Fitz protested.

'And now we find you at the scene of the crime,' Caversham went on.

'Crime?' George said. 'Maybe it was an accident.'

Price leaned menacingly towards Fitz. 'It doesn't look like an accident,' he said.

'I heard his cry,' Fitz said, trying to stay calm. 'I guess we all did. George got here first. Just.' He turned to George.

'That's true,' George said slowly. 'Fitz wasn't here when I arrived.'

'You mean, you didn't see him here,' Caversham said.

'Hey, look, what is this?' Fitz was getting angry now, and loud. The dogs were still pacing, still growling. 'I was asleep in my tent when he pegged out.' He paused, realising what he had said. 'Sorry. Anyway, George will tell you. Won't you, George.' But George did not answer. 'George?!'

'I'm sorry, Fitz,' he said slowly. 'I don't know.' He shrugged apologetically. 'I heard the cry and I came running. I didn't look in your tent, I didn't see you at all until just now.'

'So he could have been out here all the while,' Graul said.

'Well, I wasn't.' It sounded a bit pathetic, even to Fitz.

'Let's worry about it later,' Caversham said, lowering the gun. 'Until and unless we can prove anything else, maybe we should a.s.sume it was just some freak accident. Let's all try to get some sleep, and we'll bury him in the morning.'

'I suppose he is dead,' George said.

Caversham stepped past them carefully on the slippery ground and lowered the tent flap, tying it in place. 'He's dead all right,' he said.

'We won't bury him in this,' Price pointed out, stamping on the ground.

'We'll lay him out and pile stones over the body,' Fitz said. 'Though I doubt that's what he would have wanted.' Somehow that seemed to bring an element of closure to the situation, and everyone went back to their beds.

'They all think I killed him,' Fitz said to George back at their own tents. 'And they're pretending they can believe it was an accident.'

'Why would they do that?'

Fitz gave a short nervous laugh. 'Because there's n.o.body to arrest me out here. And because, deep down or even not so deep down they don't think it was that bad a thing to do.'

'It's murder,' George said quietly, the moonlight casting sharp shadows down his face.

'Yes,' Fitz agreed, 'it's murder. And what really worries me is that I didn't didn't kill him. Because that means that someone else here did.' kill him. Because that means that someone else here did.'

'That doesn't mean they have a motive for killing you or me.'

'Oh yes if does. If I die now, if I have an unfortunate accident, then everyone will think the case is closed. And I won't be there to argue my innocence. My accidental death is now someone else's alibi.'

'Watch your back,' George told him.

'Thanks.' Fitz closed his tent up and climbed under the blankets. 'And my head.' He was shivering, and he didn't get back to sleep.

38: Audit

The policemen at the entrance to Gordon and Painswick had no difficulty believing that the Doctor was a high*powered forensic expert sent for by the Scene of Crime Officer. He never actually said as much, but that was the impression they got.

Once inside the building, the very fact that he was inside the building seemed to serve as his credentials.

'Where is it?' he demanded of the first person he saw.

'Down there, sir. Second door along. You with Furness?'

'I will be as soon as you get out of my hair,' the Doctor told him.

He found the room easily. There was another policeman outside. The door was standing open and a photographer was just leaving. 'You can't go in there, sir,' the policeman told him.

'I can go anywhere,' the Doctor replied icily. 'I'm with Furness.'