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Though neither of them had taken more than a few swallows of coffee, Thales refilled their mugs. 'This is very strange.'

'Strange isn't in it,' said Fitz. 'The son faked his death, buried a stock in his coffin and killed his foster family' Thales looked at him in alarm. 'We're certain the drowned plantation and that charm are connected.'

'But what has this to do with the Doctor?'

Fitz glanced at Anji. She nodded. 'Well,' he said, 'that charm was the Doctor's.'

'The Doctor's?' said Thales softly.

'Yeah. He found it. And he took it to the bone bloke to try to find out what it was. He came here first, actually, but you weren't open.'

'Here. I see.'

'You talked to him about it later, didn't you?'

'Yes. But he never mentioned he was the one who had brought the charm to Chic'

'He's secretive,' said Anji dourly.

Thales looked slowly from one of them to the other. 'Yes,' he said, 'I'd gotten that impression. It made me wonder whether he were a magician himself.'

'He's an adventurer,' Fitz said quickly. 'He's seen and done a lot of unusual things.'

'Have you known him long?'

'Feels like several lifetimes.'

'Is he ?' Thales trailed off. 'He's unique, isn't he? Special. The sort of person who would find a charm like that.'

'Yes,' said Anji, a shade uneasily. The conversation was taking an awkward turn.

'But,' Thales said with sudden firmness, 'he doesn't have the charm now.

And why would anyone, this son you're talking about, think he did? If, as you seem to believe, he's a magician, surely he would be able to discern where the charm actually is. He wouldn't need to contact the Doctor at all.'

Fitz brightened, relieved. 'That's a point.' He looked at Anji.

'It's a good point,' she said slowly. 'We hadn't thought of it that way'

'I'm sure he's all right,' said Thales, almost vehemently. 'Sure of it.' He paused, then added quietly, 'He has to be.'

Anji and Fitz left the Museum of Magic feeling, if not exactly reassured, not quite as worried. The Doctor's absence seemed less troubling, more likely to be due to his habitual unpredictability.

'I suppose we did panic,' Anji sighed.

'Yeah, maybe,' said Fitz, unembarrassed. 'It's always hard to know with him. You overreact, and then he walks in after a three-day hunt for the perfect jelly baby and you feel like a right git. So next time he's gone, you tell yourself it's just him being disorganised and forgetful, and find out he's been locked in a dungeon by something with tentacles. But I think Thales has it right about Delesormes Jnr not needing to have anything to do with him.'

'So what kind of trouble is he in?'

'As long as it doesn't involve some loony who's slashed his family to death, I can put off worrying about it.'

They had a late supper at an oyster bar, then strolled along the broad pedestrian promenade by the river.

'Thales is odd, isn't he?' she said.

'He's just an old scholar. Reclusive. He'd fit right in as a don.'

'He seems sad.'

'You'd be sad too if you had to haul yourself about on those crutches.'

He was old enough for it to be polio, Anji thought sombrely. Travelling with the Doctor, with his uncanny resilience and astounding TARDIS medical lab, she sometimes almost forgot the mortal realities of disease. 'And frightened too, don't you think?'

'Just a natural dormouse.'

'Perhaps that's it.' Anji squinted into the brisk breeze, arms folded, watching the slow water. 'You know, because it's America's major north-south commercial link, the Mississippi is controlled by levees that route it through New Orleans instead of further west, and supposedly keep it from flooding. But the river doesn't like being contained. About ten years ago, over a thousand levees failed. The cost was almost ten billion pounds.'

'Really?' said Fitz. 'OK. Let me tell you one. This is the city of jazz, right? Louis Armstrong and Jelly Roll Morton and that lot. Well, you can't find a bleeding jazz club here. There's about three.'

'Why?'

Fitz shrugged.