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It wasn’t the Doctor. It was Tom Sullivan, the old guy from the post office. ‘Are you all right, missus?’ he said. ‘Is this fellow annoying you?’

Roz dusted herself down. ‘No more than usual,’ she muttered. ‘No, I’m fine, thanks very much.’

Tom gave Cwej a suspicious glance, but pushed his hat back down on his head and wandered off down the road towards the graveyard. Roz watched him go, thoughtfully.

‘It was the ghost,’ said Chris. ‘The Doctor’s ghost. Well, not his ghost, but the one he was talking about before. That little machine started going nuts.’

‘Oh, great,’ said Roz. ‘Government conspiracies, UFOs, and now ghosts.’

‘It recorded stuff when I was having that dream this morning,’ said Chris. He plucked a dead bee from his joggers. ‘And the bees were there again.’

‘Okay, well, we’d better let Isaac know.’ Roz headed for the coffee shop door.

‘It showed me the future,’ said Chris.

Roz hesitated at the door. She didn’t look back at him.

‘At least, I think it was the future,’ he said.

He wanted to go to her, put his arms around her again.

Touch her. He wanted to touch her.

He stood where he was, still in the road, awkward.

‘At least, I hope it was the future,’ he said quietly.

Roz glanced at him with eyes like black glass. She pushed open the door, and followed the sound of bells into the shop.

On the staircase, Benny screamed, ‘JASON!’

‘The same,’ he said, opening his arms.

Benny hurled herself down the stairs and shot across the floor. They ended up in an awkward embrace, with her arms and legs wrapped around him. He stumbled back under her weight.

Roz came up and stood next to the Doctor. ‘You’ve been busy,’ she said.

He glanced at her. ‘What’s yellow, black and fuzzy?’

‘A bee,’ said Roz.

‘I don’t know either,’ said the Doctor, ‘but there’s one crawling up your arm.’ He reached up his hand, and the lone insect hopped onto his index finger.

‘Doctor!’ Chris exploded into the shop. ‘Jason!’ He caused a moment’s chaos by trying to shake Jason’s and the Time Lord’s hands, especially since Benny was still firmly fastened around her husband, trying to kiss him to death.

‘What was that spaceship? Why did it look like a boat? Are you both okay?’

The Time Lord looked past Benny and Jason, to where Isaac was coming down the stairs. Their eyes met for a moment.

‘Conference,’ said the Doctor.

‘What’s all the shouting about?’ muttered Joel.

He logged off the bulletin board and switched off the brand-new ancient computer. He gripped his cigarette in his mouth as he pulled on his trainers.

It wasn’t until he raised his head that he saw the window.

There was something wrong with it.

It was covered in bees.

Joel took a couple of steps towards the window. The insects were all on the outside, their furry bodies pressed up against the glass. They wanted in.

Joel’s mouth opened, and the cigarette dangled from his bottom lip.

There was something in the room with him.

‘Oh shit,’ said Joel. ‘ Incoming!’

His whole life flashed before his eyes in a flurry of beating wings. It was like being inside a bird, inside that furious heat and movement, all those feathers. It was as though his life was a ribbon of landscape below him and a roc (Frequency: Very Rare) had plucked him up and was flying over it, faster and faster.

There was the first time he saw Star Trek VI at the cinema, with a crowd of cheering fans, and the flow of happiness and excitement had been almost overwhelming.

There was his Professor X script, all carefully plotted out and typed up at the age of fifteen, ready to send off to London. Thrown out the door into the mud by his father because the pages were littering the floor of his room.

And there was the moment when the time rift had grabbed him —

There was a sudden jar, a grinding sensation that shook the insides of his bones. For a moment he thought it was going to kill him, smash him between its movement and the wall of time.

The beating wings grew louder, then faster,