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‘Holy priceless collection of Etruscan snoods, Batman!’

He nearly burned his nose off trying to pull the T-shirt over his head while holding the communicator up to his ear.

‘Tony!’ he yelped, snatching the cigarette out of his mouth.

‘Yeah, it’s me. I know it’s seven in the morning. Go take a look at what’s standing outside the post office.’

He dragged on his jeans and went to the window.

The police box was sitting on the grass verge at an angle, the door facing towards the street. It was a dim, blue shape in the winter mist. The first few drops of morning rain spattered on Joel’s window.

Tony’s voice buzzed in his ear. ‘Well, it wasn’t there last night,’ said Joel. ‘I’m gonna go wake up the Admiral. You and Ms R had better get up here.’ He snapped off the communicator and stuffed it into his back pocket.

The Doctor insisted that the others stay inside the TARDIS.

After the bumpy ride through the wormhole, no one was willing to argue with him. Benny, however, was already outside.

‘This could be a trap,’ he said. ‘It might be some sort of virtual reality, or the Land of Fiction. It might be a cleverly constructed replica of a sleepy, wet English village.’

Benny stood in the rain and looked up and down the main street — actually, the only street. There were a handful of houses, a café, a post office which sold groceries (or a grocery which sold stamps).

‘It might be,’ she said. ‘But it’s not.’

The Doctor looked at the question-mark handle of his umbrella. He flipped it over and opened it. He gathered Benny up, her freshly cut fringe already plastered to her forehead. ‘I think we should explore cautiously.’

‘I say we explore a couple of butter croissants and a cuppa,’ said Benny.

‘I’ll tell you what,’ grinned the Doctor, as they walked down the street. ‘Why don’t we go to the tavern and listen for rumours?’

‘Do they have butter croissants in taverns?’ said Benny.

She took a deep breath. Late-twentieth-century air, freshly Washed. The sudden plunge back into normality was helping her brain settle back into place. ‘You didn’t bring me here Just to calm me down,’ she said suspiciously.

‘Believe it or not, this is the source of the transponder signal.’

‘The Tisiphone,’ said Benny, ‘is conspicuous by its absence. Unless it’s in the lost property at the post office.’

The temporal tangent may have been slightly off,’

muttered the Doctor. He stopped outside the café, glancing around in irritation, as though he felt he was being watched.

THE PYRAMID, said a hand-painted sign over the door.

FOOD FOR MIND AND BODY. ‘It’s a bookshop upstairs,’

observed

Benny.

‘And a coffee shop downstairs,’ said the Doctor. ‘Shall we investigate?’

‘Er, here they come,’ said Tony.

Joel’s voice said, ‘Okay, we’re staying where we are.’

‘What do I do if they —’

‘The Admiral will come downstairs in a minute. Just take it easy!’

‘Right. Sorry.’ Tony flipped the communicator shut and tucked it into his back pocket. He smoothed down his apron, as the Doctor and Benny came in from the rain.

The place was saturated with the smell of coffee, that roasting — acetone — steam smell. It was wood and leather and mirrors, old and worn and comfortable. A corkboard was covered in fliers. A narrow staircase lead upwards to the bookshop.

Behind the counter, a bearded man was washing up coffee pots in hot, soapy water, steam rising around him.

‘Good morning,’ he said, in a soft voice. ‘Sorry, I’ve just got to finish these — I’ll be with you in a moment.’

There were two or three dozen types of coffee listed on the blackboard. Everything from cappuccino to espresso granita to chocolate-covered coffee beans. A separate menu covered pastries and sandwiches.

Benny sat down at one of the little tables, suddenly feeling wobbly. It had been four hours since she’d first entered the TARDIS, less than an hour since she’d been breathing smoke and badly recycled air aboard the Tisiphone.

Banged about, boggled and nearly blown up. It was as though she’d never been