Part 24 (2/2)

The Doctor's mouth was wide open, but it was silent now.

The Interrogator was motionless, lapping up every moment. He was in direct control of the Doctor's mind. The Doctor's thoughts were his thoughts. His face twitched as each agony he was inflicting on the Doctor fed back to him.

'So much,' the Interrogator breathed. Every thought and memory would take a little prising out of the Doctor's mind.

'Focus,' the Deputy ordered.

The screen on the Interrogator's console was showing a blue box. An image of the Doctor's TARDIS, taken by one of Sallak's robot marines on Falkus. The Doctor was standing to one side, along with two young people: a tall man and a dark-skinned woman. This would act as a trigger image the Interrogator would search the Doctor's mind for it.

The Interrogator gleefully pulled levers, as if he was operating a rack. Each adjustment brought a new type of scream from the Doctor. Each agony was mirrored on the Interrogator's face.

Finally a new image swam into view. The same police box, sitting on a lawn.

'There,' he gasped.

'Where?' the Deputy demanded.

But the image had gone.

Ferran watched the Interrogator, who was swaying slightly. 'He has a powerful mind.'

'Your address,' the Deputy said. 'What is your home address?'

Instinctively, the Doctor remembered. The address appeared on the screen, but the words were blurred.

'He's too powerful,' the Interrogator said. He stared ahead, he started clutching his chest.

'What's happening?' Ferran demanded to know.

The Interrogator lunged for the console, started scrabbling around it.

'He's trying to release the Doctor,' Ferran realised. It took both him and the Deputy to pull the Interrogator away from the control panel.

'Why?' the Deputy asked.

The Interrogator opened his mouth, but no sound came out. Then he keeled over.

'Oh dear,' the Doctor said from the table. 'It looks like the poor chap forgot how to keep his heart beating.'

Ferran and the Deputy turned to the Doctor. The Time Lord was smiling, undeterred by being blindfolded.

'I saw inside his mind,' the Doctor said. 'And I have no doubt that he deserved that. Now, let me out, and we'll discuss this rationally.'

The Deputy drew his pistol, pointed it at the Doctor and fired.

Ferran shoved into him just in time. The energy bolt exploded against the back wall, shaking the room.

'There's a better way,' Ferran told him, puffing the circlet from the Interrogator's head and placing it on his own.

He felt the Doctor's thoughts.

'My Lord, this is most dangerous,' he heard Sallak say, through two sets of ears.

Ferran narrowed his eyes, focused on his hatred for the Last One.

'Miranda,' the Doctor echoed, weakly.

The image on the screen changed. Now there was a girl with frizzy blonde hair, standing at a window.

Ferran smiled.

Miranda didn't need much sleep, indeed she could do without it.

Tonight she had wanted to doze and dream, but the weather conspired against her. The rain was clattering against the roof, the wind was shaking the trees as if they were rattles. She was also buzzing from asking Bob out, with her father's absence, with his warning her to be on her guard. She was drowsy and warm.

She'd read and reread the comic she'd borrowed from Bob, and was sure she was missing the point.

The grandfather clock had tocked its way past midnight. It could be set to chime the hour, but Miranda and her father both agreed that was merely irritating.

The television sat unwatched in the corner, there to provide illumination as much as anything else. Miranda was dimly aware that it was the weather forecast, and that there was a severe-weather warning in force across the whole country.

Miranda went over to the window, drew the thick velvet curtain back a little, and watched the rain. The garden was walled off from the rest of the world, the house was set back from the road. It was like her own private kingdom. Very safe: the walls were lined with infrared sensors, there were security cameras around. A burglar, intruder or her father's 'enemy' could get into the grounds, with difficulty, but Miranda would know they were there. They couldn't get into the house, she was sure of that. The doors looked like wood, but underneath were made of thick steel plate. The windows all had locks, and were double-glazed. Her father had insisted on the best when they'd moved in. It had sounded paranoid, as though he had been expecting trouble, but Miranda was grateful for it.

There was a light in the garden. Either a flas.h.i.+ng light, or one that was being continuously obscured by branches as they swayed in the wind. She tried to work out which.

There was a distant crack of thunder. She hadn't seen the lightning; perhaps that had been before she'd gone to the window. In which case the storm was still a long way away. She wondered how far.

There was the light again, a regular pulsing light. It was like a signal, the sort of beacon a secret lover would use to signal across the moor to his lady, or that a spy on a clifftop would send out to a submarine.

She dismissed the idea that it was Bob. He was possibly capable of a romantic gesture, but it wouldn't be something so cryptic.

She saw the lightning this time, or thought she did. Automatically, she began counting under her breath. Six seconds later there was a roll of thunder.

The flas.h.i.+ng light was calling to her: she felt it drawing her towards it.

No, that was silly. She tried to a.n.a.lyse the thought, but it remained out of reach, as though it belonged in a primal part of her brain. The nearest she got was that it was calling her home.

Miranda went to the front door, opened it.

The rain was coming down in sheets, all beautifully lit by the security light above the door that had flicked on automatically as it sensed her presence. Another sign that there wasn't an intruder he'd have triggered it.

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