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Finer went on. 'I didn't mean to. I lost my temper. I shouted at her. I remember every word I shouted. Listen to me. Listen to me you little bitch.

You will listen to me and do as I tell you. You will do as I tell you, you little bitch. I remember every word.' He shook his head, never taking his eyes from the Doctor's. 'She defied me the way they do, and I hit her. And I hit her again and I kept on hitting her. I don't know why. It was insane. I'm not like that. I was never like that. I was never that sort of father.' He looked away. I did worse. I didn't call the police or anything like that. I hid what I'd done. I dumped her body in that wood. That's why the machine's aligned in that direction. The magnetic anomaly's real but it was just a coincidence.'

'No,' the Doctor said. 'It wasn't.'

Finer said, 'I don't want to have killed my daughter.' He looked into the Doctor's eyes again. 'You're going back to stop me.'

The Doctor found himself overwhelmed by pity. 'I'm sorry,' he said. 'I'm genuinely sorry for your daughter and for you. But you cannot go back and change things.'

'I don't care what effect it has on the future,' Finer said. 'I don't care about anything except not having done it. I'm not going to have done it.'

The Doctor said, 'No,you misunderstand me: I'm not saying you shouldn't, I'm saying you can't. It isn't possible. There may be a time line: a place where you haven't done it. But this isn't it. This can't be it.'

"That's what we're going to find out, isn't it?' Finer said and, with a sudden flick of the joystick, he upended the lift cradle and the Doctor found himself falling into the pulse tunnel. 'Stop me!' Finer was shouting from the cradle.

'Stop me from doing it!'

Barry had seen from the moment they walked into the security supervisor's office that there was absolutely no chance of the quiet chat Bill Parnaby had in mind, but he hadn't expected a full-scale knock-down-drag-out row to develop.

The stocky, bullet-headed security supervisor, whom Barry had never liked, had taken to banging his desk with his fists. It was a sure sign that he was afraid he was losing the argument, and Barry would have enjoyed it much more if he hadn't felt guilty and worried about what had happened to the Doctor.

'It cant be done!' the security supervisor yelled. 'My job's at stake here!'

Detective Sergeant Simpson was remaining admirably calm. Barry could see it was a wickedly effective technique, especially against an aggressive oaf like the security supervisor. 'Two young women have had a serious attempt made on their lives,' Simpson said. He was ticking points off on his fingers.

Chloe Pennick was sitting sipping coffee. She looked a bit shaken and it occurred to Barry that coffee might not be the best thing for her under the circumstances.

One of them has run off,' the security supervisor countered. 'Waving a ruddy great knife. Which, when I last looked, was classified as an illegal weapon.'

What was it the Doctor had said about his assistant: she was erratic rather than eccentric and came from a peculiarly primitive background. Was she doing something practical about all this, Barry wondered, while they sat around here arguing?

'And I'm not sure this famous attempt on their lives wasn't something they took, or smoked,' the security supervisor added.

'Or drank?' Simpson murmured.

Was that a dig at his detective constable? Barry wondered. The young man looked a little the worse for wear. If it was, it didn't register with him but it did seem to be a palpable hit on the security supervisor. He suddenly looked very shifty.

Simpson continued, 'I have a direct link between a recent suicide and an unsolved murder' He unfolded another finger.

'Don't piss on my boots and tell me it's raining,' the security supervisor raged, and thumped his desk for emphasis. 'It's a coincidence, not a link -

let alone a direct link!'

And,' Simpson looked towards Barry and folded up a third finger, 'we have a disappearance.'

'I can't do it, Bob,'