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'Probably! But there are several, so – oh, please come back from the edge!'

He relented and she heard him coming to join her at a safe distance from the drop. 'Sorry,' he said. 'I didn't mean to scare you.'

Nina made an inarticulate noise and forced herself to open her eyes again. 'Now what?' she said.

'We've got to find a way to get to that cave.'

'In that sea? You must be out of your mind! Look.' She glared into his face. 'You wanted to see where the cave is. I've shown you. But the only way to get any closer is by boat, and it?' you tried it in these conditions, you and the boat would get smashed to bits, and you'd probably wash up in Padstow next week!'

'What about the lifeboat?'

'Even they'd be pushed; especially now the tide's turned! And we don't know that it's the right cave, or if it is, that we can even get to Ruth!'

'You're right ...' The Doctor sighed heavily, a sigh of frustration. 'All

right, then. It'll have to be Plan B.'

Even when he returned to the cliff edge Nina didn't realise what he meant by those last words. But when he rubbed one heel experimentally on the brink, then dropped to a crouch and slid his whole foot cautiously over, the penny abruptly and horrifyingly dropped. 'What are you doing?' Her voice went shrilly up the scale.

He smiled reassuringly. 'Don't worry! I'm quite good at this sort of thing:

'Good?' she spluttered. 'I don't care how good you are, no one can get down this cliff, it's suicidal! Come back here!'

He hesitated, peering down at the pounding sea. 'I'm sure I can manage to reach those rocks ...'

'You'll be in pieces on those rocks it?' you try that stupid stunt!' she yelled furiously. 'Get back! Just do it!'

She thought he was going to listen and see sense, for he began to draw his foot back again. But then he stopped. He looked at her, a strange, elemental figure with the roaring sea behind him and his hair blowing like smoke in the gusting wind. Then he smiled, and Nina's heart turned over in disbelieving terror as his eyes revealed his intention. 'I'm sorry,' he said. 'But I don't really have any other choice.'

He slid over the edge and disappeared.

'No!' Nina's scream was snatched by the wind and buffeted away like the cry of a soaring gull. She tried to struggle to her feet but the fear wouldn't let her stand up, would barely even let her move. Yet she had to move, had to see — on hands and knees she crawled, scrabbling, towards the edge, then lay flat and, clasping at one of the tussocks of pinks, looked over.

Her stomach gave a colossal lurch as the view slammed into her brain. The sea was a rolling grey turmoil a sheer two hundred feet below, and the waves rolled in one on top of another, breaking on the rocks with thunderous power and hurling spray into the air. Incredibly, impossibly, the Doctor was nearly half way down the cliff. He was clinging to the rock face like a spider to a house wall, both hands and one foot anchored on projecting outcrops while his other foot groped for a new hold. Directly below him two breakers met and clashed; the spray went up like a waterspout and smashed against his back, soaking him and almost knocking away his precarious grip.

'Doctor!' Nina was sobbing and she didn't know if he could possibly hear her above the roar of the surf. 'Doctor, for God's sake come back!'

He did hear her voice, if not the words, for he looked up quickly, hair dripping and sea water streaming from his clothes. '... all right ... she made out over the din. '... see the cave mouth ... be able to ... ah!'

The last word was a yell of surprise as another, bigger wave exploded against the cliff face. Nina saw the water and spray start to rise, knew what was going to happen — but there was nothing she could do, nothing that was of any use at all —

The ricochet of the wave's onslaught rose, shattered and fell, and the entire weight of the water came crashing down on the Doctor's head. He vanished in a welter of white foam.