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Ace caught a glimpse of something moving behind one of the gates. ‘Look out.’

There were no cars to hide behind here. The Doctor snagged her with his umbrella and pulled her back against the wall. There was a wooden door; the Doctor gave a sharp shove at the lock and the door sprang open. A small china sign warned them to beware of the dog.

‘In here,’ said the Doctor, hustling Ace through. She quickly closed the door behind them and turned around.

They were in a long, narrow, well-kept garden. Washing was hung out on a white line, there was no sign of movement from the house. A large Alsation sat on the lawn and watched them.

‘Nice doggie,’ Ace said hopefully.

The Doctor watched the street through a knot-hole.

‘I think that’s the lot,’ said the Doctor after a minute.

He opened the door and stepped into the street. The Alsation watched them go with incurious eyes.

‘So where are they?’ Gilmore could feel things slipping out of his control.

‘I’ve checked the whole building, sir,’ said Mike.

‘They’ve gone.’

Gilmore didn’t need this, not now, not with the Ministry of Defence breathing clown his neck. A square mile of Shoreditch had been evacuated. They wouldn’t be able to keep a lid on events forever, whatever the cover story. And now the Doctor had taken it in his head to vanish, just when Gilmore needed him.

He told Mike to deploy look-outs. ‘And then take a squad and sweep the area,’ he added. He caught Rachel’s eye; she looked worried. ‘I want the Doctor found and brought back here.’

There was a tangle of bodies in the yard – four or five men in work clothes were sprawled on the cobbles, their limbs twisted in unnatural positions. The Doctor knelt quickly and lifted a man’s wrist.

‘Daleks,’ he said, and for a moment Ace saw a terrible anger in his face. The Doctor let go and the arm fell limply back. Ace heard a faint humming sound. Behind the bodies was a casket set on crude wooden trestles – the sound was coming from there. As the Doctor approached the hum grew in intensity. ‘Be quiet,’ he said to the casket; the sound diminished.

‘Is that it?’ asked Ace.

The Doctor placed a hand on the pitted metal and smiled. ‘The Hand of Omega – the most powerful and sophisticated remote stellar manipulation device ever constructed – is in here.’

Ace glanced at the bodies. ‘Are you sure you want the Daleks to have it?’

‘Absolutely,’ said the Doctor.

Ace picked her way through the bodies and touched the casket with her hand. There was a tingling sensation in her fingertips and it was cold.

‘You know what to do, don’t you?’ The Doctor was talking to the casket. ‘Yes, of course you do.’

He talks to it as if it were...

‘It’s alive?’

The Doctor nodded. ‘In a manner of speaking.’ He walked to a big pair of sliding doors. ‘You don’t mess about with the interior of stars unless you have some intelligence.’ There was a normal sized door set into the larger sliding ones. ‘It’s less intelligent than the prototype, though. That one was so smart it went on strike for better conditions.’

The Doctor opened the door and beckoned Ace in.

Inside it was dim. She could make out a big storeroom whose shelves were piled with wooden planks, trays of nails and paint pots. Ace saw that it was all covered in a thin layer of dust; it smelt of resin and paint-stripper.

Down a short connecting corridor she could see what looked like an office.

The Doctor checked to see if anyone was about and stepped in. The office contained a desk, a chair, a filing cabinet and something else. Ace immediately recognized it as Dalek technology.

Somebody sits in it, she thought, and the helmet fits over their head. She started to climb onto the seat.

Whoever uses this thing is small – like a kid.

The Doctor pulled her away. ‘What is it?’ she asked.

The Doctor looked at the chair thing. ‘Some kind of biomechanoid control centre,’ he said, ‘Adapted for a small human.’ He examined one of the connecting fibres. ‘Of course – it’s a battle computer.’

‘Why would a human need to sit in it?’

‘The Daleks major drawback is their dependence on logic