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Swan slumped on the bed, weeping, while Anji and Fitz stood awkwardly by and the Doctor poured out more tea for everyone. 'Now,' he said, sitting beside Swan and handing her a mug, 'exactly what has happened? When did you realise he was gone?'

'I woke up around four,' she sniffed, 'and he wasn't there.'

'You have to understand,' said the Doctor gently to Anji's and Fitz's bewildered looks, 'that Teddy never leaves the house.'

'Never,' Swan echoed. 'Not for years.'

'Where have you looked?'

'I didn't know where to look. I came here, I banged on the shutters, but you didn't answer.'

'I came in late,' said the Doctor. 'Could he be with relatives?'

She shook her head. 'They're all dead.' Anji and Fitz glanced at each other.

'I went to the Nightmare of Horror. It was the only place I could think of. I thought maybe he wanted to see his work installed. Some cops were driving off as I got there. There was this room and blood.

'You don't know that that had anything to do with him.'

'But what what ?'

'You have to remember Dupre was involved.'

'Could he have hurt Teddy?' she asked in a small voice.

'I don't see why he would. He admired him as an artist.'

'But he was crazy!' she wailed.

Having no soothing reply to that, the Doctor just patted her shoulder.'Let me take you home.'

'We'll come, too,' said Fitz.

"That's not necessary,' said the Doctor.

But -'

'It's not necessary,' repeated the Doctor firmly, rising and helping Swan to her feet. 'I'll see you at your hotel in about ninety minutes.'

Back at Death's Door, Swan went through the house from top to bottom, in case Acree had returned and hidden somewhere. The Doctor accompanied her silently. Daylight didn't much affect the look of the rooms, since most of the windows were stapled over with near-opaque purple and crimson cloth.

But he could see the dust in the corners, and the cigarette burns on the floors and carpets.

'Tell me about Teddy,' he said, after a bit. 'He sees things.'

She nodded.

'Is that all?'

She looked puzzled.

'Which of you does magic?'

'Oh, that's me.' Swan opened a cupboard and moved some towels around, as if they might conceal someone. 'I try to close up his third eye. His third eye is open. I think that's the problem.'

'But you said he wasn't sure the things he saw were real.'

'It could still be a third-eye problem.'

OK, thought the Doctor. Aloud he said, 'His family are dead?'

'They had all died before I met him.'

'When was that?'

'Eight years ago.'

'Is he from here?'

'No, he grew up in Connecticut.'

'How long has he seen things?'

'All his life. Since he was a little boy.' They had come to the bedroom. Swan went to the altar and lit several candles. She stood looking down at them gravely.

'And he never did magic?' pursued the Doctor, keeping his eyes off Acree's altarpiece on the wall. 'Never tried himself to close his third eye?'

'No. It "was like a curse. You can't lift your own curse.' She shot him a sideways glance. 'You know about that.'

The Doctor stood still. She went and sat on the bed.'Come over here beside me.'

He did. She looked at him soberly with her beautiful eyes. 'All the lost people come here,' she said. 'Why should you be any different?'

'I am different.'

'Are you? Is a dry well a hundred feet deep drier than one twenty feet deep? If you're a planet sixteen billion miles from any sun, are you really any different from a planet only one billion miles out in the dark? In any way that matters?'

He didn't answer. She leaned forward and brushed her lips with his. He pulled quietly away.

'You can't help me, Swan.'

'Him neither,' she said. 'Him neither.' She lay down turned her back, her face in the pillow. 'Go away now.'

He stood up. He said awkwardly. 'After twenty-four hours, you can file a missing-persons report.'

'Go away,' she said.

Fitz was waiting for him on the pavement.

'Don't look at me like that,' he said, unruffled by the