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'Oh, sorry, did you want one?' asked Fitz.

'What I want,' said Sam, slumping down beside him.'is some time off:

'A night out; said Fitz, apparently deep in thought. 'You're new in town, aren't you?'

Sam eyed him warily. 'You could say that, I suppose.'

'Then when I knock off, how about letting me show you how good it looks painted red?' said Fitz, grinning rakishly.

Sam considered. A siren signalled the approach of the ambulance. 'Maybe,'

she said. 'But any more lines like that and you'll be going home in that thing.'

2.3

Roley was seated now in a plush red leather armchair, apparently trying to assume an air of nonchalant professionalism - something the Doctor was able to demonstrate with no effort at all. He peered round the man's office with polite interest, perched on a high-backed wooden chair.

Sam looked round too as the Doctor and Roley started talking.

Watercolours in old oak frames vied with expressions of abstract colour on huge canvases. Old books lined the shelves. Large windows flanked by stately drapes looked out over the tranquillity of the grounds. Sam was reminded vaguely of the last posh house she'd been in, Norton Silver's place, years ago. That was the thing with art and antiques, she decided.

You could be anywhere between 1998 and 1938, and places like this would look practically the same.

'You've got six of them? Here?' asked the Doctor, letting out a low whistle.

'Quite a collection.'

Sam's ears pricked up, and she suddenly wondered what they were talking about.

'Six,' affirmed Roley. 'For the last two months. All of them with the same essential psychosis.'

'They believe they've been possessed by the devil?' asked Sam.

'Certain of it; said Roley with a kind of schoolboy glee. 'But it's more than just some kind of schizophrenia. I looked through scores of case studies, and found myself thinking, "Roley old boy, there's something a little queer going on here."'

'Which was?'

'Which was, these people - there were more than six, but the others are dead or untraceable now, I'm afraid - have lived in and out of mental homes and hospitals, poor creatures. And each has experienced the same delusion in their manias. Their accounts all match, practically word for word in some cases.'

'Really?' The Doctor cocked his head to one side. 'And what was the delusion?'

'Some babble about a weird old cave, though I'm certain no such place exists.' He laughed, a high-pitched, fluting sound.

'Some form of echolalia?'

'Oh, undoubtedly, undoubtedly. But it's fascinating, don't you think, that these individuals should share not only the same basic mania but also retain specific memories of an undoubtedly fictional place, when they've been billeted everywhere from Aberystwyth to Norfolk? One of my subjects has even had the most vivid dreams on the subject, night after night.'

The Doctor grinned. 'You have a theory, don't you, Dr Roley?'

'I do indeed. Tell me, Doctor...?'

'Doctor.'

'Doctor Doctor?'

'It's ironic, isn't it?" piped up Sam. 'We often laugh to ourselves.'

'It's why I prefer just "Doctor",' said the Time Lord, affecting embarrassment.

Tell me, Doctor,' said Roley, swiftly moving on. 'Are you familiar with the writings of Jung?'

'Dear Carl,' said the Doctor, smiling.

'Well... you'll be aware he felt it ambiguous at times to differentiate the illness from its cause.'

'In mental illness,' rejoined the Doctor, 'he felt that regression of the libido allowed memory associations by means of which further development could take place.'

'The patient gets ill to get better?' asked Sam.

'Quite, young lady, a first-class summation. Freud saw such regression as an illness, but Jung saw it as a practical attempt on the part of the injured mind to rectify itself.'

'How does that fit with anything?' said Sam, wishing she wasn't asking quite so many questions in front of the Doctor.

'It may be a little unfashionable these days, but, like Charcot and his pupils, I believe in a combined vision of body and