'Could he have been literally blown off the cliff by the explosion?' asked McGarry.

The scene-of-crimes officer, who, Hickman decided, looked as if she had just left college rather than had four years at a busy police station, did not think so. There were not even any slight blisters or fabric scorches. If caught in an explosion, even for a second, the blast would have caused some damage if it had been strong enough to blow someone over a cliff. Having delivered this statement - therefore suggesting that Charlie Coates jumped, fell or was pushed prior to the explosion - she returned to her proper task: trying to ascertain what had happened inside the two buildings. It took her three hours to come to the same conclusion Martin Hickman had immediately. There were no answers, and the questions would remain unresolved for ever.

155.

Hickman's team, however, did find something near the rubble. Mewing quietly to itself, half-starved, was a white kitten, possibly only six or seven weeks old. Its slightly singed fur suggested that it had been near to the explosion and was the one lucky survivor. 'I think we'll call you Solo,'

Hickman said. 'You're the only one here and it goes with that black patch around your eye.'

Five hours, twenty-three minutes after he and his team had arrived, Hickman led his engines back to the village.

All he could think about were eight funerals, eight eulogies and eight coffins - only one of which would contain a body. And somehow he believed that Charlie Coates's estate would have difficulty finding enough pallbearers, let alone mourners.

As he turned the steering wheel and coasted his engine into the depot, Martin Hickman felt the little white cat with the black-circled eye crawl on to his lap, purring. 'I wonder what you'll be like when you grow up,' he muttered.

'Tickets, please. Oh, you all right, miss?'

Polly looked up at the old man in uniform through aching, red-rimmed eyes. She had been crying reasonably quietly but constantly for nearly five hours now. Every time she thought she had exhausted her reservoir of tears, she just had to think about Simon, Carfrae or Peter and she would start again. Uncontrollably.

'Yes, I'm fine, thank you. Just a bit weary and tired. I'll be fine.'

'If you're sure. Ticket, please?'

Polly momentarily panicked and then remembered what Tim had said. Or tried to - it seemed a bit dim, rather like when he went to buy the tickets. Something about not really needing them, and getting free rail travel. Polly had been sure that was bound to be illegal, even in 1994, but he had seemed so certain. Just as he had been about not being able to do anything about the kids.

156.

'My . . . my friend's got them. He's queueing at the buffet car . . .' That's what he had said she ought to tell the ticket man.

'I see. Right. What does he look like, then? Your friend?'

'What? Oh, you don't believe . . . well, he's very tall, wearing black. A leather jacket. Jet-black hair swept back, high cheekbones you could rest a cup on. Blue eyes - deep blue eyes. Soft spoken. . .' Polly trailed off. That was a highly emotive description of someone, she thought.

The ticket collector obviously thought so too. He smiled.

'Can't really miss him then, can I?'

'It's all right, I'm here.'

Polly found herself eager to smile at Tim as he arrived back and a strange flush ran through her. He was back and everything would be OK. Tim would sort out this annoying, interfering man with his petty tickets and inane concerns about her ridiculous crying.

'You don't need to see our tickets.'

The ticket collector frowned. 'I think I do, actually.'

Tim whistled. Softly but just audibly. The ticket collector stared blankly at him for a moment and then smiled. 'All seems in order, sir. Thank you. Can't be sure when we'll get to London though, sorry.'

'Why not?' asked Tim.

'Problems earlier in the Chester area. No one's telling us what exactly but it must be quite serious. The whole area has been closed off and we're being diverted via the Leeds line. We'll be arriving at Kings Cross rather than Euston.'

'Thank you. Please don't pa.s.s this way again.'

'Certainly not, sir, whatever you say. Have a safe journey.' The ticket collector wandered away, whistling to himself, checking everyone else's tickets and informing them of the delay.

'How did you do that?' Polly leaned across the table and flipped the lid off a steaming cup of British Rail tea. She sniffed. 'Well, here's something that hasn't changed in twenty years. It still smells and looks awful.'

157.

'It hasn't changed in about forty actually. They made a conscious decision to use bad tea when they introduced catering facilities for second-and third-cla.s.s travellers.'

Polly grinned. 'D'you remember that? How far back do you go?'

'A long way. A proper Methuselah.' Tim sipped his tea and grimaced. He blew on it to cool it down and instead forced a few drops to leap on to the tabletop.

'Messy pig.' Polly wiped up the mess with a British Rail napkin. 'I see your manners are still on a neanderthal level.'

'Fractionally before my time.' Tim tried the tea again.

'You know, if we wanted to, Thorgarsuunela and I could have taken over this world.'

'Thor who?'

'Oh, you know her as Fraulein Thorsuun, bursar of South Thames University or whatever it's called. Miss Frost she said the students call her. They're not far wrong.'

'So why didn't you? Take over the world, I mean. Can you control everybody like you did that ticket man?'

'Yes. If I want to. The humanoid brain is especially susceptible to ultrasonics. There were secret military experiments in the mid-Eighties using sound as a weapon.

Restructuring the harmonics of people yelling or screaming.

Women in labour, the severely mentally disturbed, accident victims - basically people in pain, which always produces the most natural and violent harmonies possible.'

'That's evil,' said Polly. 'I'm glad I missed the Eighties.

Why did people put up with it?'

'Well, the general public were largely unaware of it.

Those few that stumbled across the truth were warned to keep out - or face the consequences. Faced with that kind of deterrent, they kept out. But sound is a terrific manipulator. Just the slightest out of resonance harmonic, and the human mind becomes malleable. It does no permanent damage but temporarily makes people susceptible to subliminal or coercive suggestions. Like you saw with that man.'

158.

Polly stared out of the window. 'And Coates? What did you do to him?'

'I simply told him to drop off to sleep. He's probably wide awake now.'

Polly suddenly remembered. 'No, he might have been in the Gatehouse when that went up like the Grange. He's dead, too!'

'Keep your voice down, Polly!' Tim looked around furtively. One of the other pa.s.sengers was flicking a cold stare at them, clearly annoyed that they were disturbing her concentration but the look from Tim sent her speedily back to the pages of her new Carrie Fisher novel. 'What d'you know about time, Polly?'

'In what sense?'

'You travel in it, right? The Doctor and his dimensionally transcendental machine?'

'Dimensionally what? If you say so, I suppose so.'

'Time is relative, Polly, but in many ways it is preordained. I'm sure the Doctor has told you not to interfere with your own past. One little slip or event halted, and you could cease to exist, damaging the web of time irrevocably.'

Polly nodded. 'He calls it chrono-chaos theory.'

Tim laughed. 'Yes he would. What rot. Anyway, your future is similarly mapped out but of course you don't know it. To someone in 2094, today is history and your part in it is recorded somewhere.' He waved his arm around the carriage. 'Everybody now is someone's past. But what if you could see the future?'

'I wouldn't want to.' Polly folded her arms. 'That would be. . . pointless. Why live if you know what's coming?'

'Good philosophy. However, no one is immune to a little warning. You've used tarot cards before?'

'I had mine read years ago. My friend Claudia used to do readings. I don't think she was very good.'

'Few people are. But to me, these are a gateway to the future. To reading your destiny. Here, cut the pack.' Tim 159 produced a pack of tarot cards and placed them face down on the tabletop. 'Go on.'

Polly cut the pack twice and tried to pa.s.s them back, but Tim shook his head. 'Only you can hold them or the majik won't work.'

Polly turned the first card over. 'Oh, look. A p.u.s.s.y cat.'

Suddenly she stopped and stared at Tim. 'The Cat-People . .

'Quite deliberate, I a.s.sure you. You are woven into their future as much as they into yours. Keep going.'

Polly laid out four cards. The Sun. The Three of Cups, upside-down. Also upside-down was the High Priestess.

Finally, the Knight of Swords.

'I'm not going to comment on any of these,' Tim said.

'Merely interpret them for you. The two reversed cards are interesting. Carry on, three above.'

Polly turned another three. Another reversed card, the six of Swords. Then the Ace of Pentacles, followed by the seven of Swords.

'That one,' Polly pointed to the seven of Swords, 'reminds me of the cat in my dream. At the house in London where I saw you.'

Tim looked at the card, showing a female warrior carrying a sword. Six others were embedded in the ground and in her other hand rested a tabby cat. 'Needs the scar, though.' He motioned for her to continue.

Two cards above the three, the four of Pentacles and a reversed Knight of Wands.

'Now I want you to put one card, face up above them to create the pyramid. Then above that another solo card, but face down.' Tim pointed to the cards. 'OK?'

Polly nodded. 'When I had my tarot read by Claudia, I had the High Priestess, only it was the right way up.'

Tim smiled at her. 'Strange that - it's a common card for women but not so for men. Now, are you happy with that lot?'

'A few too many reversed ones for my liking but that's random choice for you.'

160.

'I Ching is another science altogether. Let's not get into that. OK, turn the top card over.'

Polly did so - another reversed card. The Lovers. She smiled.

'Before you say anything,' Tim said, 'it's a common misconception that the lovers means anything romantic. It's more of a suggestion of a partnership or friendship, often in business. The fact that it's reversed implies you've made a bad choice somewhere along the line.' He pointed at the Sun. 'A strong card because although it's not high up in the pyramid you've created, it was nevertheless the first card you turned over. It suggests joy, pleasure - often a.s.sociated with travel. Somewhere hot perhaps.'

'Travel? Well, we're on a train now.'

'True. The six of Swords directly above also means travel but as it's reversed, it suggests a delay. Which, as that nice ticket collector told us, we're experiencing whether we like it or not. Back to the cards, Miss Wright, if you please.'

'So, this upside-down three of Cups?'

Tim sipped his cooling tea. 'Hmmm. Fun and frivolity but again, as it's reversed, a hoped-for union might not take place. It's placed between a sun and relationship card - unfortunately indicating that whoever you've got designs on might not be the right person. You'll enjoy their company but it won't lead to anything permanent.'

'Well, travelling with the Doctor hardly gives me time for anything romantic.'

'Ben?'

'Ben?' Polly laughed. 'Oh, he's very sweet, but we're not really a couple. Just good friends, as they say. Besides, Uncle Charles would have a fit, giving me away to a working-cla.s.s sailor.' She swallowed some tea and pointed to the upside-down High Priestess. 'I don't like the look of that if it's meant to represent me.'

'Oh, don't worry. The High Priestess is normally cool and collected - it's a card of extremes in many ways. It embodies the female psyche. Reversed it just goes to another extreme; it suggests that you're someone who is 161 forever caring about people more than yourself - you put them ahead of your own happiness or safety. Take it as a warning - someone you're committed to caring about might turn out not to be worth it.'

'The Doctor?'

'Could be. Why him particularly? Why not Ben? Or me?'

Polly shrugged. 'Don't know. Just seems the most likely candidate.'

'Fair enough. The Doctor could well be represented here by either the Knight of Swords or the Knight of Wands. The Swordsman is frequently a.s.sociated with medical things though. He could well be linked to your reversed Lovers card but maybe not. You need to think quickly about him though, he has a tendency to rush in where others fear to tread.'

'Sounds like the Doctor all right.'

Now, this is interesting. Between your two Knights is the seven of Swords, featuring our dream cat. This card usually suggests a rip-off, a swindle. Could be referring to either Knight but as it's the Knight of Wands rather than our Doctor-card, the Knight of Swords, which is reversed, it probably applies to him. He's almost certainly someone working against you, a swindler and very insincere although you will have spent a lot of time building up your trust in him. Again, this links to the reversed High Priestess and your putting too much energy into someone over your own needs. The Knight of Wands is not only reversed but he's below the reversed Emperor card - a definite fall from grace. Possibly the most important card in the warning sense in the whole hand.'

Polly was nodding. 'And this upside-down Emperor?'

'He's a man of status but he's fallen from favour. Again, another liar or maybe you're just getting a distorted picture of him because other people put him on a pedestal. He's not so much unreliable as unable to deliver on his promises.'

'Charming.' Polly drained her tea. 'OK. Last two.' She jabbed at the two Pentacle cards.

162.