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'Sooner or later it's always tried.'

'Has it ever worked?' Barry asked.

'Only in the most advanced and dangerous situations.' The Doctor's gaze took in the multiple CCTV cameras and, closing the capsule again, he peered towards the control and monitoring suite and the banks of screens and recording machines. 'You set out to do this right didn't you?'

'Of course,' Barry said.

'A genuine scientific study. Good. That's a plus anyway'

'I admit I was all over the place to begin with,' Barry admitted, looking suitably contrite. 'It took me a while to focus down on to the accepted areas of serious parapsychology.'

The Doctor paused in his explorations and fixed Barry with a searching look. 'What changed you?' he asked.

Barry shrugged and smiled. 'A nod's as good as a wink,' he said. 'Or a note indeed.'

The Doctor nodded. 'There was no alteration in the basic circumstances then? You didn't notice anything different happening?'

'Nothing at all,' Barry agreed. As I'm sure you realise there was a feeling of threat there for a while, but it didn't come to anything once I gave up the custard wrestling.'

'Custard wrestling?'

'Sorry. Bad private joke.'

'So you've kept an open mind throughout all your researches?' the Doctor pressed.

'That's why they pay me the big bucks,' Barry said.

'Do they?' the Doctor asked. 'You're well paid and all this is well funded?'

'I've got no complaints.' Barry smiled. 'I hope you feel the same way'

The Doctor looked noncommittal. 'I can see no point in complaining.'

'As long as you're satisfied,' Barry said.

'I'm a long way from satisfied,' the Doctor said. 'There may not be much time left and there are a lot of questions that need answering.'

'Ask away'

'The accident?' the Doctor prompted.

Barry said, I'll need to do some more detailed investigation, but my best guess is that something went wrong with the tank's heating system and that the red insulating gel – the stuff you were looking at? - went kerflooey.'

'Kerflooey?' the Doctor said. 'That would be some sort of technical term I imagine?'

Barry smiled. 'Excessive heat made it volatile and it leaked. At which point we all thought we were up to our necks in blood.'

The Doctor went back to the tank and collected some more of the gel with his finger. 'Why should you think that?'He held the finger out for Barry to see. 'This looks nothing like blood.'

'I've thought about that. Maybe the word was in our minds. One of the kids kept calling the tank a bloody great coffin.

Maybe blood was in our heads.'

'Leela?' the Doctor said sharply. 'Does that sound reasonable to you?'

Leela was working on the edge of her knife with a sharpening stone, something she routinely did when she was bored or upset. She pouched the stone and sheathed the knife before saying, 'To have blood in your head and in your eyes takes imagination or fear.'

'Do you and your students have especially vivid imaginations?' the Doctor asked. 'Or some reason to be terrified?'

'I saw it too,' Leela said. 'When I came into this room I saw the blood. I saw it was blood. Then I saw it was not blood.'

'I've thought about that as well,' Barry said. 'I have a possible solution.

Fumes. The overheated gel was giving off fumes which caused us all to hallucinate.'

'How much of what happens do you record?' the Doctor asked, making his way into the control and monitoring suite.

Barry followed him in. 'All our experiments are continuously monitored and videotaped.'

'This was just a test of the new equipment though,' the Doctor said.

'I recorded as normal. You never know when something valuable is going to show up, do you?'

The Doctor beamed. 'Excellent.' He glanced at the racks of carefully labelled cassettes and then at the machines, all of which contained tapes."The answers will be somewhere here.'

'No I'm afraid not,' Barry said sheepishly. 'That's what I was rechecking when you arrived. The tapes for that particular time seem to have been wiped.'