'He's just such a wit!' said Fitz, clutching his ribs as if they were about to crack.

'What the h.e.l.l's going on in here?' demanded Trix. 'I'm trying to act like I'm calling from an office and there's you two whooping it up next door...'

Guy shrugged, unable to stop grinning. 'Sorry Trix, only we've had a bit of a breakthrough here.'

'Me too.' She looked smug even through her latex mask. 'That supplier did have the bulk order placed. And I managed to charm the delivery address out of him. It's a warehouse outside Denham.'

'Fab,' said Fitz. 'Well, in case you're interested, you were totally wrong about the names on the list.'

'Gloat all you like once we're on our way,' she told him, unfazed as usual. 'We should strike while the iron's hot.'

'I hate ironing,' Fitz complained.

'What about Stacy?' Guy suggested. 'Strength in numbers?'

'Crowded in Anji's car,' said Trix, shaking her head.

Fitz nodded. 'Besides, she's only had a few hours' sleep.'

Guy nudged him in the ribs. 'Tiger.'

'Grrr,' said Fitz, somewhere between Leslie Phillips and Tigger, making them both laugh.

'Give me strength,' sighed Trix. 'And the driver's seat!'

After what felt like hours, the Doctor began to warm up again. His breathing became deep and regular, the bluish tinge to his skin began to fade.

'I think it might be bad that they talked to him,' said Chloe. 'While they were trying to get through before, it meant they had less energy to put into stopping me and Jamais and Erasmus.'

'Stopping you from stealing people from one universe and hiding them here?' asked Anji pointedly.

'And where did you find the book?' The Doctor sat bolt upright as he asked the question, stared across at Chloe.

'You can see?' asked Anji.

'More clearly all the time. Well?'

'The book,' Chloe said quietly, 'found me. It was waiting just for me. A future history.'

'But who wrote the book, Chloe?'

She shrugged. 'Maybe we all write it. That's why we're all in it.'

'Could it belong to those wraith things? Is that why they're so p.i.s.sed off at you, they want it back?'

'No, they're angry because of what Timeless does.' The Doctor looked at Anji gravely. 'Because of the damage they've done to this reality, pa.s.sing back and forth, playing with the parallels.'

'We don't play!' Chloe stroked Jamais fiercely. 'We just help people, that's all. The people that I find.'

'You're a Sensitive,' said the Doctor encouragingly. 'You see things, feel things that others don't.'

Chloe nodded. 'When my other heart shrivelled and had to be cut out, it left me with new sight.'

'You used to have two hearts?' Anji turned to the Doctor, who was staring in shock. 'But Doctor, that's like '

He shushed her quickly, all his concentration fixed fiercely on Chloe. 'It's her story we want,' he hissed.

'I find people on lesser Earths who are hurting,' she began. 'You know, people from the alternative realities. Then, me and Erasmus, we take them here. To Real Earth.' She smiled suddenly. 'Jamais sucks out their souls and breathes them into the body of their double. We give them a fresh chance here.'

Anji's eyes widened. 'Their souls?'

The Doctor seemed dismissive. 'I imagine she's speaking figuratively. Jamais can harness unthinkable energies instinctively. A man is the sum of his memories, and characters form over time.'

'Growing up is a form of time travel?' Anji ventured.

'Of course it is. And Jamais must be able to capture that experiential energy that builds over time. A life essence, if you will.'

'But how could he know to do that? He's an animal.'

The Doctor shrugged. 'How does a spider spin its web? How does a caterpillar know to prepare for metamorphosis? Explanations are for those looking on. Those that can do it just get on with it.'

Anji turned back to Chloe. 'So what about those poor people who were just getting on with it the people on Real Earth who find themselves replaced? What happens to them once you've inserted someone else's soul in their body?'

'They are displaced as the new soul a.s.serts itself.'

'They die.'

Chloe shook her head. 'They just change. All people change, with time.'

'With time, yes,' breathed the Doctor. 'It's not an instant process, is it? The leftovers are still needed the person you dragged here from a lesser Earth forms a fund of energy that the transplanted soul must draw upon until stability is reached in its new body. And because you can't have two identical people being witnessed during the process of stabilisation, you send the leftovers off into hiding.'

Anji nodded. 'Or ideally ship them to another country, so if it's discovered there's two versions of the same person knocking about, they're harder to trace.' A sort of cold excitement was balling in her stomach as everything fell into place at last. 'But why kill the people you bring back from a lesser Earth? Why not help them find new ident.i.ties or '

Chloe shook her head. 'Final stability is only achieved once the exhausted original body is...'

'Killed? Of course,' said the Doctor. 'Otherwise the transferred soul will slowly revert back to the original form as Time tries to right the damage.'

'Besides, the process wears them down,' Chloe said sadly. 'Makes them simple and weak. It's better we clear them away.'

'That's horrible,' said Anji. She turned to the Doctor. 'Remember that woman Fitz saw in Bournemouth, the double of the one that Basalt murdered...'

He nodded. 'I suppose that where necessary, the cuckoo soul is drafted in to help cover up what's really happened. To allay any suspicions over a sudden disappearance.' He flashed a dark smile at Anji. 'After-sales service, I suppose you could call it. The woman's neighbours might be puzzled by her slightly odd behaviour, but they'll accept she's simply moving away...'

'Whereas who's going to miss poor old Nencini at all.' said Anji bitterly, 'shut away in a concrete box in Streatham?'

'Don't hate me,' Chloe pleaded. 'It's nasty and cruel and horrid, but if we're to help and protect anyone it is...' She said the word like it tasted bad: '...necessary.'

'None of this is necessary!' Anji argued. 'You protect people prepared to hijack someone else's life, to live their lives for them, even to partic.i.p.ate in the cover-up! I don't know how they live with themselves.'

'They forget all that they were, once the soul is a.s.similated into its new form and two become one,' said Chloe. 'But the joy they feel as they find themselves here in a new life, a better life... oh, it's like waking from a terrible dream, and feeling the sun on your face... And they're so happy to be alive. To know that everything's all right now.' The little girl closed her eyes and smiled. 'That's the timeless moment that makes everything worthwhile.'

'Timeless moment?' Anji snorted. 'What are you doing, quoting your own ad campaign?' She stared helplessly at the strange little girl who seemed so innocent. 'None of this can be worthwhile, Chloe, not when it's balanced out by murder.'

'But '

'And since you're not very good at the details of how to murder someone and get away with it,' the Doctor cut in, 'you find people who are, to do your dirty work for you.'

Chloe shot him a reproachful glance. 'I hate the clearing away.'

'But if the originals have to die, then best it be done neatly and without fuss, hmm?' The Doctor's voice had hardened. 'It's quite an operation, isn't it? Can't be cheap.'

Chloe looked back down at Jamais, who had wriggled his head into her lap. 'It's why Erasmus charges for our service. He says we have to treat it like business to make it work. It was me who thought of the name,' she added proudly.

'And I suppose Daniel Basalt is the Timeless employee of the month?' The Doctor gave a sardonic smile. 'With the rather enterprising stand he's taken on your clean-up operation.'

'I hate him,' hissed Chloe.

'Maybe,' said Anji. 'But it's your your fault. You've let him foster a whole community of low-lifes who pay to kill people with no comeback.' fault. You've let him foster a whole community of low-lifes who pay to kill people with no comeback.'

The little girl's face crumpled in tears. 'Don't hate me, please please.'

'Why did you use him in the first place?' Anji demanded.

'Because he's efficient,' the Doctor surmised. 'And Erasmus needs that. The more technologically advanced the world becomes, the harder it is to pull off these callous stunts without discovery.' The sneer was back on his lips. 'So while any old killer with a taste for silver would've done for the job in the old days, in the twenty-first century a more sophisticated disposal structure is required.'

'And who cares how cruel it is?' Anji added bitterly.

'I care.' Chloe sounded unexpectedly fierce. 'Even if Erasmus does not. That's why I asked you to stop him. Before we must take him away to another Earth like Erasmus has promised.'

'So that's Basalt's real payment,' breathed the Doctor, lying back down as if suddenly exhausted. 'Escape. A pa.s.sport to a better life.'

Guy wound up driving Anji's car to Basalt's warehouse; Fitz and Trix had both fancied a go, but he pointed out that he was the only one with a valid licence.

'Should've got your mates to fix us one up, shouldn't you, Susan?' grumped Fitz from the pa.s.senger seat. He turned to her, bunched up in the back seat, and sighed theatrically. 'I knew you'd end up looking like your mother.'

'Oh, shut up,' said Trix, staring out of the window at the grey morning traffic with the map book open on her lap. She'd touched up her old woman disguise so it was better than ever. She said that if Basalt was around she didn't want him recognising her; which hadn't made Fitz feel a whole lot better about going in plainclothes.

Fitz sighed. 'Wish we knew where the Doctor and Anji had got to.'

'Probably taking in the Florentine sights.' muttered Trix, 'while we chase round like eager puppies digging up bones for him.'

'What are we going to do?' asked Guy as he joined the M40 out of London. 'Raid this warehouse single-handed?'

'Sure,' said Fitz. 'And if Basalt's there, we capture him and turn him over to the police on a charge of buying over-elaborate coffins.'

'We snoop round his place and gather evidence.' said Trix patiently. 'Pin down the whole thing about what's happening, how he's involved.'

Fitz looked uppity at Trix's image in the rear-view. 'Changed your tune, haven't you? Thought you were all ready to go rushing in guns blazing.'

'What, so I have to pick one approach to a problem and stick to it doggedly whatever happens in the meantime?' She looked back at him, the picture of aged innocence. 'Is that the way you do it in this time-travelling game, oh wise one?'

Fitz grimaced. 'Lucky for you I wouldn't hit an old lady,' he grumbled.

They carried on in silence. Guy enjoyed flooring the MG on the more open roads of the A40 once they'd pa.s.sed the perimeter of the M25. 'Jesus, I remember the countryside!' he called cheerily.

'I used to come this way to visit my mum,' said Fitz sadly. 'On the bus to West Wycombe.'

'No time to visit her now, I guess,' chirped Guy as he razzed past a black BMW on the inside lane.

'She's dead,' Fitz told him. 'But hey, she tried to kill me before she pa.s.sed on if it's any consolation.'

'We should start a club, mate,' Guy told him. 'Comes to something when even your mum takes a pop at '

With a sickening crunch something smashed into the back of them.

'What the ' yelled Guy. It was the BMW.

'That's not her now, is it?' enquired Trix, rubbing her neck.

'Bit of an overreaction for pa.s.sing him in the inside lane,' Guy shouted, honking the MG's horn. But the BMW was driving in for another bash.

'Floor it!' yelled Fitz.

But as Guy tried to pull away, an Escort ahead of them swung into their path from the middle lane. He braked and spun the wheel to the right, clipping the Escort's rear b.u.mper. Horns beeped and blared all around them.

The windscreen was clouding up. Guy fumbled with the air conditioning then his guts twisted with fear as he realised what was happening.

He swore. 'That mist stuff! It's happening to me again!'

Twenty-five Pilgrimage 'I just don't understand you, Chloe.' Anji shook her head to emphasise the point. 'You talk about caring... You reward a cold, brutal murderer like Basalt with cash for clearing away your leftovers, but what about your other victims? How is it fair that all the happy, successful people you turn into carriers for the screw-ups on a lesser Earth should have everything taken away for someone else to enjoy?'

'But they're the same person,' said Chloe, confused. 'Like I said, two become one. They live on, don't you see?'

'No,' said Anji. 'I don't see.'

'Think of a train journey, Anji,' said the Doctor, lying on the floor beside her. Clearly he was still weak from his experiences with the wraiths. 'The 17.10 from Marylebone becomes the 17.51 from Saunderton, becomes the 17.57 from Princes Risborough... it's not the train that changes each time it pa.s.ses through a station. It's the perception of whoever's interacting with it.'

'You're condoning this?'

'I'm explaining it,' said the Doctor quietly. 'The view of life as it must seem to two spirits as misguided as Chloe and Erasmus.'