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The lock looked like a Yale, but Rachel guessed it was going to be a lot less straightforward than that.

‘Why did we leave the Doctor there?’ she asked.

‘This is his time machine, we –’

‘I know what this is. But the Doctor was right there.’

‘With his companions. Three against two. Our opponents are a team, one used to conflict. If we had confronted them they would have beaten us. Without his TARDIS, the Doctor can’t get far.’

‘I suppose,’ Rachel conceded. They’d spent two weeks coming up with this strategy, talking it through, checking the Doctor’s previous behaviour to see what he would do.

‘My plan worked. We didn’t just take his TARDIS. . . ’

‘. . . We drove a wedge between the Doctor and his companions in the process.’

‘It’s difficult to keep track of how many birds we killed with one stone,’

Marnal said gleefully.

‘The Doctor is still dangerous.’

Marnal wasn’t listening, though. He held his hand flat against one of the wood panels of the police box. ‘Hello, old girl,’ he said.

Rachel must have had a scathing look on her face.

‘Try it,’ he suggested.

Rachel did, placing a hand on the door. It wasn’t humming like a boiler or a computer. It felt more as though she was stroking a cat. ‘It’s alive!’

‘Yes.’

She looked up at it. ‘It’s locked?’

‘I can get in,’ Marnal assured her. ‘I have the key.’

‘What about the Doctor?’

‘What about him? There’s no way he can find us here.’

‘Well, actually, we’ve got two ways,’ the Doctor replied. ‘First, we have this little device.’

He put the glowing plastic ball down on the melamine counter in a little café they’d found.

‘We can’t analyse it without the TARDIS lab,’ Trix pointed out.

‘Well, which leads me to the second clue.’

‘The lorry,’ she said.

‘Indeed. Now, unless we’ve made enemies of a bunch of builders, whoever stole the TARDIS must have hired the lorry.’

‘Or bought it.’

58

‘Possibly. But the key thing is that it was acquired recently – the tracks it left looked as though the tyres were very fresh. It’s a specialist piece of equipment.’

‘Not that specialist.’

‘No, but there can only be a finite number of places where they could have got one.’

Trix didn’t think it would be easy. Finite encompassed a lot of numbers, and if she was doing anything like stealing the TARDIS she’d have paid a little extra to buy some silence.

‘They knew who we were,’ Fitz said gloomily. These were his first words for a while.

‘An old enemy out for revenge?’ Trix wondered.

‘Who knew Sam,’ the Doctor added. ‘I’m not so sure. It’s not as though there’s a shortage of candidates, it’s just. . .

Well, the chief suspects must

be the two people I saw in the control room a couple of days ago. Do you remember, Fitz?’

Fitz shrugged. ‘Look. I need a cigarette. I’m going outside.’

He patted Trix on the shoulder, but it was clear he didn’t want her following him.

‘Two people in the control room?’ Trix asked.

‘A man and a woman. I didn’t think I recognised either of them, but I may be wrong. There was something familiar about both of them, and that’s nagging away at me a little.’

‘Is Fitz all right?’ Trix asked.

The Doctor looked up from the plastic ball. ‘Oh yes. He’s upset about Sam.’

‘And you’re not?’

‘I don’t remember her. She was young, and clearly she travelled with me, so. . . yes, I feel something.’

Trix had a sudden image of a tall, middle-aged woman with blonde hair standing alone in a space station at the end of time. It had happened a few months ago. They’d watched her die. Just one of many deaths they had seen, but this had been someone special. ‘Miranda,’ she said.

The Doctor looked up.

‘You didn’t mourn her after she died, either. You hardly reacted at all when she was killed right in front of your eyes. She was your daughter, Doctor. Not that you ever talked about her, let alone went to visit her. When we got back to the TARDIS, when you had some time on your own, did you cry for her then?’

The Doctor shook his head. ‘The two of us spoke beforehand. Afterwards, I stayed in my room and thought about our time together, and that I was now a grandfather.