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Still crouching, Ace backed towards one of the two exits to the bridge. Maybe this would throw him; maybe he’d take the wrong one.

The corridor was short and ended in a roughly circular room. Two airlock doors were set into the far wall. She spun round, checking the room for other exits – as she heard a high, nasal chuckle from the corridor.

‘One dead end,’ Sooal whispered, ‘for one very dead little girl.’

After Ace had gone back through the transmat, Joyce had bundled Jessie and Connie off to their rooms, not knowing what else to do with them. And then she’d gone straight to her mother’s room - only to find it empty. In a slightly befuddled haze, she’d stood outside the room, wondering what to do now: was the spaceship where the treatments took place? Had she missed Mum being taken down there?

She turned sharply as she heard the sound of a door being opened, further down the corridor, and stepped quickly back into her mum’s room. Through the crack, she watched a little man in a cream hat pad, catlike, down the corridor and out of sight. One of the residents, no doubt, off for an early morning constitutional. She waited a few moments and then remembered what the girl, Ace, had said. The Doctor was here. He’d know what to do. Ace had said. they were booked in at the B&B. With any luck he’d be there now Then they could come back and find Mum. Get this whole mess sorted out. Silently, she slipped back out into the corridor and down the stairs to the front door.

From a window, a pair of impatient eyes watched Joyce leave. As Joyce vanished into the wood, the figure let the curtains drop back against the window. It wanted to leave the room, wanted to go downstairs: it had come here for a purpose, and it itched to get its job done. But it could not afford to be seen – not yet.

There was a time and a place – discovery was inevitable, but there were a few hours still to go before it could begin.

In frustrated silence, it lowered itself gingerly to the bed, a jolt of pain reminding it of the events of the night before. All it could do now was to stay out of sight and wait.

The morning air cleared Joyce’s head after the almost suffocating warmth and perfumed air of Graystairs, and as she made her way towards the B&B, she went over and over her memories of her experience aboard the ship in the hope of fixing it clearly in her mind. She knew the Doctor, if she found him, would be able to make sense of it. As she walked up the hill to the B&B she was pleased to see Mary pulling back the downstairs curtains. She waved cheerily at Joyce and went to the door to let her in.

‘Mrs Brunner!’ she exclaimed. ‘Where have you been?

Everyone and their aunt’s been asking about you!’

Joyce shucked off her damp coat and Mary hung it on the coat-stand near the radiator.

‘It’s a long story – and I’m not even sure if I believe half of it myself. There wouldn’t be a pot of tea brewing, would there?’

‘Of course there would, pet. You go through into the lounge and I’ll bring it in. Pop the gas fire on if you like. The central heating hasn’t kicked in yet, and it’s still a wee bit nippy.’

Mary bustled off to see to the tea, and Joyce sank into the chintzy heaven of the sofa, slipping off her damp shoes and giving her feet a good rub. She closed her eyes, determined not to fall asleep, and was almost immediately subsumed in a torrent of numbers again, flashing past her, streaming away into the darkness. She forced her eyes open and stared at the mantelpiece clock, relieved to see that she’d only nodded off for a few minutes. Mary was setting the tea tray down on the teak coffee table. As she stood up, Mary’s attention was caught by something outside the window, and she crossed to it. Pulling the net curtains aside, she turned to Joyce and beamed at her, ‘A bit of a reunion for you, What a start to the day, eh?’

Joyce leaned forward in her seat. Strolling jauntily up the path was a familiar little man in a cream hat, a furled umbrella over his shoulder. Reunion? What on earth was Mary talking about?

Sooal almost laughed aloud. The girl