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'You can destroy them?'

'If it proves necessary. It's only one ship, Staines, it wouldn't last long against the RAF. I have the situation under control. Can you say the same about Alexander Christian, or the Doctor?'

Staines chuckled. 'Surely now the Martians are here we don't need to - '

Greyhaven leapt from his chair and grabbed the lapels of the Home Secretary's jacket. 'Those two are the greatest threats to what we are doing here. Find them, Staines, and kill them.'

'You don't want them captured?'

'So that they are brought here and I can tie them up while I boast about my plans? No, I want them dead. Post that to all police and army units.'

Staines made a note of that. 'Is there any more business?'

'That wil be all, thank you Home Secretary. See you at seven.'

***

Just before three o'clock Eve Waugh received a phone cal . She was in her hotel room with Alan, getting ready to go to the Tower of London. They were talking through their plans: they would try and charm Xznaal into granting an interview.

74

'How do you dress to meet a Martian warlord?' Alan asked her.

'Edward told me to treat it like any other state banquet.'

'That helps,' he chuckled.

'Your tux will be fine,' she assured him.

'And I'm taking my camera but keeping it in my bag?'

'That's right. Don't even try to sneak a shot of the Martian, you might cause an interplanetary diplomatic incident.'

The phone rang. Eve answered it and spoke for a couple of minutes.

'Don't change just yet,' she told Alan when she'd finished. 'Where's Canterbury?'

Alan checked his road atlas. 'About an hour away, I think. South of here.'

'That was the Doctor. He says he wants to talk to us. He's told us exactly where he is and says he wants to meet us at four-thirty. We can get there and back in time for seven?'

'No problem at all, if we leave quickly. I'm sure that your friend Greyhaven would like to know where the Doctor is.

Are you going to tell him?'

Eve hesitated.

75

Chapter Ten

An Englishman's Home

The Doctor had lit a fire, shaking the match until it went out.

Benny and the Brigadier sat in front of it, nursing the mugs of cocoa he had just made for them. It was getting dark outside, the sun was already dipping behind the orchard. For the moment, they kept the curtains open, watching the view. If Bernice had been in one of her periodic melancholy moods, or if she'd had something a bit stronger to drink than cocoa, she was pretty sure that she would see something deeply symbolic about the blood red sky. The Brigadier was sitting in the Doctor's favourite armchair, so the Time Lord sat down on the sofa, alongside her.

'Miss Waugh is late,' the Brigadier said, a gentle warning in his voice.

'If she was going to call the authorities, she would have done that already,' the Doctor replied.

Their journey to Allen Road had been along something of a scenic route, avoiding the motorways, A-roads and big towns. It hadn't helped that the Doctor had got them lost somewhere south of Maidstone. Tempers had become frayed, but they'd ended up in Adisham just before three o'clock. The Doctor had stopped off at Mrs Darling's shop to buy some milk and bin bags, and to make a quick phone call. Then they'd driven up to the House and parked Bessie safely undercover in the garage. Only then had the Doctor revealed that he'd just told Eve Waugh, the American journalist, and anyone tapping her line, exactly where they were.

'Why did you cal her?' Benny asked.

He had looked puzzled. 'We need al ies. Help. She's a talented young lady, and people in America will listen to what she has to say.'

She and the Brigadier had looked at each other, unsure whether to trust the Doctor's judgement or to run to the hills. After half an hour of cheerful domesticity away from the rioting and alien devastation, they had become more relaxed. The landscape here was peaceful, unchanged by the Martian Invasion. From here it was easy to believe that the spacecraft over London was a mass hallucination or purely a local difficulty for