• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

‘Look, Doctor,’ she said, ‘I really am sorry if I’ve upset you but –’

‘A journalist?’ said the Brigadier. ‘When we last met, you were some sort of scientist, surely? Studied, er, bugs.

wasn’t it?’

Oh Lord! Things were getting more complicated by the minute. ‘Bugs?’ she said brightly. ‘Oh, that sort of bug.

Viruses and things. Yes. I mean, no. That was my Aunt Lavinia.’

The low humming of the circuit was getting louder and higher as the Doctor adjusted something in its innards.

‘Really? I would have sworn – ’

‘Is it important, Brigadier? Because I’m trying to get some work done.’

‘Goodbye, Miss Smith,’ the Doctor added in a near shout, over the electronic screaming beneath his fingers.

‘But, Doctor – ’

‘The Psycho-Telemetric circuit of the TARDIS has gone on the blink and – ’ Pop! The unbearable noise stopped. A small wisp of smoke drifted up.

‘Now look what you’ve both made me do. Brigadier!

What do you want, for Pete’s sake?’

The Brigadier seemed to be in no way put out. ‘I want you to come with me to the opening of this new exhibition thing on Hampstead Heath.’

‘Exhibition?’

‘Theme park: funfair; whatever.’

‘You mean Space World?’ said Sarah, glad of a change of subject. ‘I might come too. The press launch is at twelve.’

‘Lethbridge-Stewart!’ said the Doctor, ‘Let me understand you aright. You have catastrophically interrupted a very tricky operation – on which, I may say, the entire navigation system of the TARDIS could depend

– to invite me to a children’s funfair?’

The Brigadier explained. The body of a young man had been found near the perimeter fence of Space World. He seemed to have been attacked by some sort of animal.

Scotland Yard had turned the investigation over to UNIT

and the Brigadier had thought it wise to take charge himself.

‘I have to get stuck in straightaway. Before the Press arrive. Ask a few questions, that sort of thing.’

‘Ask Miss Smith to hold your hand, then. She’s very good as asking questions.’

Okay, okay, so she’d got it wrong. Did he have to go on about it?

‘I need your help, Doctor. You see, the reason the police want us to be involved was – well, apparently the thigh bone had been bitten clean through. With one snap of the teeth.’

Hang on, there was a story here.

‘There isn’t a creature on Earth capable of doing that.’

‘Precisely,’ said the Brigadier. ‘The pathologist said in his report that it looked as if the man had been savaged by...’ He paused.

Well? Well? By what, for Heaven’s sake!

The Brigadier continued somewhat hesitantly. ‘It sounds absurd, I know, but – by a six-foot, sabre-toothed rottweiler.’

Oh Lordy! Was there ever a story here! Let them try to stop her coming too!

Chapter Three

As Billy Grebber swallowed a couple of aspirin for his breakfast in lieu of his customary fry-up, he noticed that his hand was trembling. Okay, he thought, so he was scared.

And it was all so unfair. He’d always tried to keep his nose clean. Well, more or less. What was the point of making a pile of dosh, if you were looking over your shoulder all the time for the fuzz – or worse? And as for duffing up the opposition, or having a ruck with every geezer who tried it on, well, leave it out. Look at Tel, who’d ended up splattered all over a car park in Bethnal Green for coming the old soldier with that tearaway from Brum. Or Tel’s brother for that matter, going slowly crazy in Parkhurst.

And now, just when he was on the verge of making a couple of sovs for himself out of his share in Space World (he reckoned on half a million, give or take the odd grand), he’d got himself mixed up with a pair of maniacs who...

His stomach turned again as the image of the previous night rose up before his mind’s eye. He groaned. What the hell was he going to do? The Old Bill weren’t stupid.

They’d soon make the connection. And then what? Billy Grebber, finito.

One thing was for sure: he was going to have it out with that brain-damaged cretin Freeth!

He swallowed the remainder of his tea to settle his still heaving stomach