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'Get on with trying to cover it up, for example.'

'Cover what up?'

'Exactly.' Simpson's cadaverous smile broadened. 'When you know what it is they want to cover up you know what it is that's important to them. Then all you need to know is why it's important to them and you're home and dry.'

Bartok still looked sceptical but he was smiling now. Welcome to Cobblers Are Us.'

'Get back to your paperwork.' Simpson sipped his coffee again and then put it to one side in disgust. 'Stuff tastes of plastic'

Bartok said, 'Using a Biro’ll do that.' He stood and picked up his own coffee.

'By the way,' he said. 'I know why they were in that wood.'

'Why who was in what wood?'

'The Cox girl and her friends. The séance? In whatcha-callit Norswood.'

'Because it's supposed to be haunted presumably'

'They were trying to contact the spirit of that girl that was found in there.'

Simpson retrieved his coffee and took a sip before saying, 'Amanda Joslin.'

Bartok looked blank. 'Sorry?'

'That was the name she went by. Amanda Joslin.'

'Went by?'

'Stepfather's name. She was adopted.'

Oh right.' Bartok nodded. Well anyway, they wanted to ask her to tell them who her murderer was.'

'Maybe we should have done that at the time,' Simpson said. As I remember it's one of the many avenues we didn't go down. I wonder how they knew about her?'

'It's common enough knowledge isn't it?'

'Five years ago?' Simpson shook his head. 'It's got to be at least five years ago. People don't remember five years ago. It wasn't even that big a deal.

Not what you'd call a high-profile case. Some of the locals might remember, some local coppers might remember. I remember. Not students though. Can't see any reason why students should. They come and go, why should they know about it?'

It was a murder,' Bartok protested. 'Within sight of the campus.'

'No it wasn't,' Simpson said. 'We never found out where it happened.'

She wasn't killed in that wood?' Bartok could not hide his surprise.

'She was dumped in Norswood but we never found out where she was killed. We couldn't work out how she got there even. Could have fallen out of the sky as far as we were concerned.' Simpson did not look or sound smug when he added, ’You see. You didn't know about it and you're a copper'

Bartok said, 'I wasn't here then.'

Neither were they'

The Doctor strode purposefully through the campus with Leela jogging at his side. It was a fine, fresh morning and he was feeling better. There was finally some concrete evidence that something was happening, and so at last he could get on with coming to grips with it. There would be no more unproductive dithering. No more ifs, ands or buts. He could rule out the bottled water, for example. This was nothing to do with the Clearspring water or the Clearspring Water Company if indeed there was such a thing There was clear evidence here of temporal shift anomalies linked to multidimensional voids, or possibly multidimensional voids linked to temporal shift anomalies, but whichever way round it was there was certainly evidence of them both. Of course it wasn't evidence that he could personally vouch for since he hadn't actually seen either of these phenomena for himself, but Leela had seen them.

And he knew Leela was a reliable eyewitness and he trusted her completely. At heart she was still basically a superstitious savage, however, and what she thought she saw could be affected by what she expected to see. And if what she was saying was accurate, then she was describing something that was disorientating and could be mind-altering.

This meant that if his interpretation of what she described to him was right, it was unlikely that her description of it was accurate in the first place. But if her description of it was not accurate in the first place, then was his interpretation right? And if his interpretation of it was not right, then could her description of it have been accurate in the first place? But if her description was accurate, then his interpretation was right, and her description