The cigarette slipped from Guy's gaping mouth. The man, obviously a nut, caught the ciggie adroitly between his thumb and forefinger. Guy glanced about, suddenly suspicious for any sign of hidden cameras. Nothing.

'I say!' the man called, his wet dark curls plastered against his face. 'Those can kill you, you know.'

Guy sighed and pulled out another cigarette. 'The way today's going, they'll have to be quick.'

'Not the cigarettes,' the man called back, gesturing that Guy should look behind him. 'I was referring to the knitting needles.'

Uh-oh.

Guy whirled round and found his gran rushing at him with a long grey needle in each hand, like some demented pensioner samurai. Pa.s.sers-by screamed as the old woman threw herself at him. He reeled back, twisted round, and with a shriek, Granny went over the parapet.

'Gran!' yelled Guy, swearing in disbelief as she hit the murk with a mighty splash. The man in the water ducked back under and resurfaced with her in his arms. She was staring about, bedraggled and bewildered.

'Gran,' he shouted, his voice cracking as his misty eyes welled up with tears. 'For G.o.d's sake, why why?'

'She'll be all right,' the man called. 'She's in shock. But someone or something's out to get you, Guy Adams.' He started kicking back in the water, towing Gran safe and unstruggling through the water towards the riverbank. 'Don't go home tonight, it isn't safe!'

Guy couldn't speak. He shrugged helplessly.

'103 Galbraith Road. Flat D,' shouted the man, spitting out a grisly mouthful of the Thames. 'Wait there for Anji. You'll be safe!'

Guy saw his latest guardian angel reach the side, and watched incredulously as his gran was dragged safely up on to dry land. Then he started to run, away from the crowds that had gathered, from the tourists taking snaps and home movies of the insane scene.

Galbraith Road? Where was that? What psycho ward had that nut escaped from and who the b.u.g.g.e.ring h.e.l.l was Anji?

How was any any of this happening? of this happening?

He was getting home, locking the door, phoning Julie and staying in for the rest of his life.

He trooped up his grey street in Stockwell, too tired to run any more. There were plenty of people about, but that was small comfort; he felt any of them might attack him as soon as look at him.

Home at last. As he struggled to turn his key in the stiff lock he heard raised voices. Pushing open the door he saw the man downstairs, his fat fifty-year-old frame squeezed into black leathers, rummaging through the utility cupboard in the communal hallway. He was yelling at his wife.

'It's been pinched! This would never have happened if your stupid nose weren't so bleedin' sensitive sensitive!' He p.r.o.nounced the word with a savagery Guy found astonishing. 'D'you think I can afford to give petrol away?' The man noticed him. His tone didn't soften. 'You ain't seen my petrol can anywhere have you? Only filled the swine yesterday.'

'Sorry, mate,' Guy stammered, pushed past him and bolted upstairs before something horrible could happen.

When he reached his front door, he found it ajar. Hadn't he locked it this morning?

His eyes seemed to be getting mistier as he walked inside. 'h.e.l.lo?'

Julie was lying on the couch. Asleep.

'Jules? What are you doing here?'

Asleep with a purple bruise on her forehead. Beside her, on a cushion, Guy saw his jacket neatly folded on top of his briefcase. He frowned. He'd left them in the office, how could 'Your girlfriend's unconscious.'

Guy jumped. The Asian girl, the office temp, had stepped out of the bathroom.

'What the h.e.l.l are you doing here?' he demanded. 'How did you get in?'

'She let me in. Sort of,' sighed the temp. 'I knocked on your door, she opened it and tried to clobber me with a mallet.'

'Sure she did.' Guy noticed the hammer lying on the floor. 'And yet she's the one unconscious with the lump on her head. Did you hit Mike as well? Is that what turned him crazy?'

The temp gestured down the hallway. 'You can check out the dent in your wall back there if you like.'

'Why would Julie want to attack you?'

'She thought I was you.'

Guy threw up his hands. 'Oh, right, of course, I was forgetting. It's Everyone Kill Guy Adams Day today, isn't it?'

'Yes, quite frankly, it is is.' The new girl's eyes flashed, she was losing patience too. 'But the Doctor's found out about it and has volunteered us to watch over you.'

'The doctor? Whose doctor?'

'Does it matter? You can trust him.' She marched up to him. 'So how about a little grat.i.tude? You think I wanted to sit all day in your c.r.a.ppy office for four pounds an hour? Listening to your boss's so-called jokes and you clicking your tongue every two seconds?'

'I don't click my tongue!' Guy protested.

'And then when I bring your stupid gear back and nearly get my brains knocked out by your psycho girlfriend '

A shriek from the sofa made them both turn. Julie looking very attractive in a floaty red dress that nicely offset her blonde hair was running at him, face twisted in rage, wielding the hammer.

Guy froze in disbelief.

But before the blow could fall, the temp punched Julie's lights out. A straight right to the jaw, and his girl went down.

The temp sulkily rubbed her bruised knuckles while Guy, trembling, stared down at Julie.

'You are so dumped!' he shouted at last.

'Believe me now?' the girl asked softly. 'My name's Anji, which you'd have known already if you actually took a few moments to treat your temps like human beings.'

'Anji?' Guy took an involuntary step back. 'That nutter in the Thames told me to find you.'

'That nutter is the Doctor,' said Anji. 'The lift engineer's name is Fitz, and the old bag in the canteen is really a young bag called Trix.'

The door to the spare room suddenly opened. A little silhouette was framed against the window.

'And while we're doing the roll call,' Anji went on, 'who is that?'

'My nephew!' said Guy, baffled. 'How did he get here? He's only six.' He stepped forwards. 'Hey, Pete, where's your mum then?'

'I've been waiting for you to come home,' Pete said plaintively.

'Well, I'm here. But you shouldn't be, should you? And this isn't really the best of...' Guy glanced at Anji and down at Julie self-consciously, then shrugged and opened his arms. 'Well, come on, then, better give your uncle a hug.'

Pete ran forwards happily and jumped into Guy's arms. He swept the boy up and swung him round. Then frowned. Pete's clothes felt wet.

'Guy, put him down!'

Pete stank of petrol.

Guy heard the strike of little flints by his ear, a hiss of gas.

'No!' yelled Anji.

A whoosh of flames engulfed him. Pete clung to Guy's neck and screamed as they burnt.

Three.

Care in the community Anji swore, grabbed the throw from the couch and billowed it out into a large ta.s.selled rectangle. The flames were huge, engulfing the little boy. Guy overtoppled, crashed down to the floor on top of him, and Anji covered them both with the throw. Then she yanked down both curtains from the window and used them to swaddle the smouldering bundle. The room stank of burnt hair and flesh.

'Are you all right?' Anji felt sick to her stomach. 'Guy, are you all right?'

'Can't breathe,' he choked, and Anji pulled the curtains away from his head. He was shivering with shock, his face blackened and red, but the burns didn't look too serious. Not compared to those of Pete beneath him.

Anji opened the window and stuck her head out. She caught two sweet lungfuls of fumy South London air, then turned back to the stench of the living room.

'We should call an ambulance. In the meantime, get his clothes off,' she ordered. 'The flames are out but he'll still be burning. I'll wet some blankets to try to cool his skin. And yours too, OK?'

Guy nodded dumbly, pulled softly at his squirming nephew's clothes.

While she called 999 and soaked blankets in the bath, Anji surveyed the scene: Julie lying bruised and spreadeagled on the floor, Pete whimpering and clutching himself, too stunned even for tears. Her and Guy in the middle of it all like Bonnie and Clyde gone wacko. 'We have to get out of here before the ambulance arrives,' Anji said. 'Too many questions. We could be tied up with the police for hours.'

'We can't just leave him here,' Guy said softly.

'The ambulance will be here soon. First sound of sirens, we get going.' She gave him a sympathetic smile. 'Pete'll get proper care.'

'My sister will kill me.'

Anji nodded. 'Very likely, on today's evidence.'

Guy gently pressed his fingers to his sticky, reddened face. 'I think I need the hospital too.'

'No, Guy. You need a Doctor.' She wrapped Pete in the damp blankets and swabbed at him gently. Anji prayed that the boy's injuries looked worse than they were. 'We have to get you away from anyone who knows you, for their their sake as much as yours. I've got a car outside.' She sighed, shook her head. 'Christ, I sound like a third-rate gangster.' sake as much as yours. I've got a car outside.' She sighed, shook her head. 'Christ, I sound like a third-rate gangster.'

'And what if you try to kill me too?' said Guy sullenly.

'You may not have noticed but I just saved your life twice.' Anji could hear distant sirens already, and gestured to Julie. 'If you'd rather hang around to cry on her her shoulder...' shoulder...'

'OK,' Guy muttered.

Anji didn't drive away until they'd seen the paramedics carry Pete and Julie into the back of the ambulance. Guy sat slumped in the MG's pa.s.senger seat, his sandy-brown hair a worse mess than before, a glazed look on his not unhandsome face.

She looked at him more closely. He was in his mid-twenties, his eyes were green, his nose short and straight with a bulbous tip. Cute in a grubby sort of way; you could imagine him (once the burns had healed up, of course) fronting some shoegazing band like Travis or Coldplay more than you could working out fishing subsidies in Westminster. Then again, did she look like the type who travelled through time and s.p.a.ce?

The type who'd used to travel through time and s.p.a.ce, anyway.

Now she was finally back in her own world, in her own time, nothing was about to make her leave it again. And as soon as the Doctor had sorted whatever was causing this weird stuff around Guy and moved on, she would have her flat back. She She could move on, too. could move on, too.

And she could barely wait.

'How're you doing?' she asked Guy.

He clicked his tongue. 'Don't prompt a ten-minute diatribe you may not feel like hearing.'

'Good plan.' Anji started the car. 'You can phone the hospital from my place.'

The drive to her Docklands flat took over an hour. Guy had pa.s.sed most of it alternating between lengthy silences and doing the tongue-clicking thing. Anji turned the radio up to drown him out. It was amazing how much better everything seemed just being back in her old car and listening to some unchallenging R'n'B on the stereo. She felt she fitted again. Though she felt bad for Guy and what he must be going through right now, it was hard to control the smile that kept tugging at her cheeks.

At least until she saw the little girl.

A quick chill shuddered through Anji, like someone wasn't so much walking over her grave as jumping up and down on it. The girl was a skinny thing, standing by the TARDIS, which the Doctor had landed with unexpected accuracy just round the corner from Anji's flat. She was a little older than Pete, maybe eight or nine, with long blonde hair and wonky eyes that looked... wrong, somehow. They were milky blue, a touch freakish. And staring right at Anji.

The girl had a bulky bag on her back and a dolly tucked under one arm, and clutched a dog lead with both hands. Her dog sat beside her, watching her intently, but the girl had adoring eyes just for Anji.

Anji took the corner too fast, trying to get out of view.

'Thought you weren't trying to kill me,' grumbled Guy as he was thrown against the pa.s.senger door.

'Keep up the tongue clicking,' Anji told him, 'and it's a whole new ball game.'

Anji said she lived on the 22nd floor. It was another world, thought Guy, stepping through the chrome and gla.s.s reception area and into the plush lift. He rested his burnt, sore cheek against the cool mirror; it felt good.

'You make a good living, then,' he observed.

She nodded enthusiastically. 'Yeah, I get a bounty for every civil servant I hand over to the satanic authorities I work for.'

'That isn't funny.'

'But more interesting than explaining about how I lost the great job I used to have in the City, and the advantages of a flexible mortgage.'