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'Have you wondered,' he asked, 'why Ruth chose to pose as a journalist?'

'No,' said Nina, and felt foolish for not having thought of it. 'But it is weird, isn't it? Like drawing attention to herself.'

'When you would imagine that's the last thing she wanted to do. My point exactly. So what did she want to find out, that could only be found by that method?'

Nina frowned. 'She asked me about the last lifeboat shout, when they found that body in the sea. She wanted to talk to Steve about it.'

'And did she?'

'It was how they first met. But I don't know what she asked him. And I'd be the last person he'd ever tell,' she added ruefully.

'Hmm ...' the Doctor said again. 'Links ...' He did something else to the console, and a faint, humming vibration began, faded, stopped. 'The unfortunate young man who drowned. Do you know if he's been identified yet?'

'I don't think so. Though there was something weird about him; rumours that he wasn't normal, and —' She stopped and stared at the Doctor in consternation as the penny dropped.

The Doctor smiled thinly. 'I think, Nina, that — as the saying goes — you've got it in one.'

'He was an alien, too! Oh my God, I never thought; it didn't click!'

'I didn't arrive here in time to see the body, more's the pity. But the nature of the rumours — genetic modification, the whole Frankenstein thing — it fits, doesn't it?'

It certainly did. 'So there were two of them, and one got killed, and now Ruth's trying to — But hold on; what is she trying to do? If she wants his body back, she should be hanging around at the mortuary, not here.'

'Quite. Therefore we can make an educated guess that that isn't what she wants. And whatever she does want, she thinks your brother can help her.'

'I can't work that out at all,' said Nina. 'OK, he was in charge of the lifeboat crew, but all they did was bring the body back. They don't know anything else about –' She stopped. 'Oh, shit.'

The Doctor looked at her in surprise. 'Pardon?'

Nina, though, wasn't thinking about her language. Something had abruptly and frighteningly slotted into place in her mind. Steve's blistered hands

She whispered, 'He must have touched him.'

'What?' The Doctor sounded baffled. 'What do you mean, Nina? Who must have touched whom?'

She told him about Steve's symptoms, worry growing like a canker with every moment. 'It's possible, isn't it?' she finished. 'If he's an alien – Steve must have touched him when they got him out of the water! And now he's seeing Ruth, and the blisters have come back, and he's getting ill —'

'Wait, wait, wait!' The Doctor held up both hands, palms out. 'Calm down, Nina.' He came back from the console and dropped to a crouch beside her, taking hold of one of her hands and squeezing it until some of her tension ebbed. 'Let's take this step by step. Steve's hands became blistered, yes? Did any of the other crew suffer the same thing?'

She frowned. 'No-o ... I don't think so, anyway. But Charlie Johns –'

'The fisherman who died?'

'Yes. It happened to him.'

'Was he in the lifeboat crew?'

She laughed, though there was a shaky edge to her laughter. 'No! He's

– he was – much too old. This was later, after the ... No, hang on; I'm getting this all wrong.' She shook her head as if to clear a muddle, then made an exasperated noise. 'Sorry. Steve didn't get the blisters after they brought the body in. It was at the same time as Charlie. After the dive.'

'Dive? What dive?'

'Oh, it was a few days later,' she said. 'One of Charlie's crab-pot lines got snarled on the sea-bed. Steve and a couple of others helped him free it; there was some junk down there, wreckage that the currents must have brought in, and –'

'Nina.' The Doctor's tone stopped her in her tracks, and his expression became taut suddenly, his eyes lighting unnervingly. 'Tell me about the wreckage. What did they find?'

She shrugged. 'Junk, like I said. Probably stuff off a container ship, or something.'

'They didn't bring any of it to the surface, did they?'

'Yeah, they