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‘My dear chap,’ said the Doctor, ‘let us be a little more subtle than that.’

Lodge, whose friends didn’t normally use such words as ‘subtle’, turned to Sarah in despair. ‘What’s the old geezer talking about?’

‘The “old geezer”,’ she said, hotly, ‘is much brighter than you are, so listen to him!’

Lodge turned back to the Doctor. ‘All right. What’s the plan?’

‘We have a fight,’ said the Doctor.

Lodge didn’t understand. ‘Eh?’

The Doctor put on a loud, Cockney accent. ‘It was you what grassed on us!’

Lodge understood now. In his world, ‘to grass’ meant to give information to the police—the worst possible social behaviour. He immediately reacted: ‘I never grassed in my life!’

The Doctor stood up, towering over Lodge. ‘Get on your feet, you low-down dirty stool pigeon!’

‘Stool pigeon’ was another term that meant an informer.

Lodge jumped up and faced him. ‘You don’t call me names like that and get away with it!’

‘Don’t I?’ sneered the Doctor. ‘I know what they say about you in these parts. You’ve always been a copper’s nark. Your family are well known for it.’

This stung Lodge. The only loyalty he knew was to his immediate family. The insult deeply offended him. ‘All right, you great dressed-up twit,’ he bellowed. ‘You asked for it!’ He swung his fist at the Doctor’s face. The Doctor sidestepped, and landed a light blow to Lodge’s chest.

Sarah screamed at the soldier: ‘Stop them!’

The soldier ran forward, waving his rifle as though he was about to strike his two struggling prisoners. Sarah stuck her foot out. The soldier tripped, tumbling forward. Lodge grabbed and held on to the rifle. The Doctor caught the soldier, applying a Venusian karate hold to the man’s neck. The soldier passed out, unconscious. The Doctor gently lowered him to the bare floorboards. Lodge watched in amazement.

‘What did you do?’

‘Never mind,’ said the Doctor. He looked around for means of escape. ‘We can get through that window.’ There was a brick wall opposite the window: clearly it let on to an alleyway.

Lodge aimed the gun at the Doctor. ‘You go through the door, the way we came in! ‘

‘But we’ll all three go together,’ Sarah said.

‘Not while I’ve got the gun,’ said Lodge viciously. ‘You two—out through the door. While you’re being overpowered by the soldiers, I’ll go through the window.’

Sarah stood up and faced Lodge. ‘You dirty cheat! We shouldn’t have had anything to do with you.’

Lodge grinned. ‘That’s right. But then I didn’t have your nice education, did I? Where I was brought up life was rough. You had to look after yourself or go under...’ His attention focused on Sarah, he didn’t notice the Doctor’s quick move to come behind him. The Doctor’s hands slipped round Lodge’s neck, again applying the Venusian karate hold. Lodge gurgled for a moment, dropped the gun, then fell to the ground unconscious.

‘What a boring fellow,’ said the Doctor. ‘Now let’s get out of here.’

They raced to the window, climbed out into the alleyway. ‘This way,’ said the Doctor, grabbing Sarah’s hand and dragging her towards the street that ran in front of the drill hall. As they came out into the street, the Doctor stopped. ‘Just what we need,’ he said, eyeing a parked Army truck. It was a small vehicle with a covered-in back. ‘In that we’re not so likely to be stopped by military patrols.’

The Doctor jumped into the driver’s seat; Sarah got in beside him. He looked at the ignition switch.

‘We’re not in luck this time,’ Sarah said. ‘There’s no key.’

‘But with a piece of wire I could jump the ignition.

Let’s see what they’ve got in the back.’

The Doctor turned and slid back the door that led into the rear of the van, and looked straight into the snout of a levelled rifle.

‘Ready to go to the detention centre now?’ asked the soldier. ‘Because this is the van that’s going to take you!’

The Doctor and Sarah sat side by side in the back of the detention centre van as it sped through the deserted streets of London. Their wrists were handcuffed together.

‘Honestly, Doctor, that wasn’t very clever,’ said Sarah reproachfully.

‘How was