'Don't do that,' she added. 'It makes you look like a kid.'

'Sorry.'

'Now, what is it?'

'Well, it was the spike. The murder weapon.'

'What about it?'

'Well, when I bagged it, I noticed that it had a scratch on it.'

Forrester thought back. 'Yes, I remember. So what?'

'Well, I couldn't help noticing that on the probe, it didn't. Not when she was committing the murder.'

She tried to remember the picture on the screen. 'It was very fuzzy,' she said dubiously. 'You couldn't possibly tell.'

'But I could!' he said excitedly. 'You could see it from all angles on the probe screen. Nothing. Not a scratch anywhere.'

'So so what are you saying?'

He looked down at the table. 'I'm saying that the spike we bagged is a real one, and the one on the record is a simulated one. I'm saying that the real one has a scratch but the simulated one is perfect. Too perfect.'

'Let me get this right. You're saying '

'I'm saying that I think the mind probe record was faked,' he muttered, too low for the rest of the Adjudicators to hear.

'You what what? Are you mad?'

'Mind probe records can be faked. You know that.'

Forrester couldn't believe what she was hearing. 'Yeah, but do you know what sort of technology is needed? Do you know how much it costs?'

He nodded mutely.

'And you think anybody is going to go to all that trouble for an underdweller?' she added. She was lacing her words with as much sarcasm as she 47could possibly muster, and Cwej was wilting under it. 'So who's responsible, then?'

He shook his head silently. It looked to her like he was on the verge of tears.

G.o.ddess, what were were they teaching the kids at the Academy these days?' they teaching the kids at the Academy these days?'

'Fine,' she said, quieter. 'Let's hear no more about it then.'

'I know what I saw,' he insisted stubbornly, not meeting her eyes.

'Yeah, I know what you saw too. An illusion. Something that wasn't there.'

'Easy way to check.'

'Yeah?'

'Go back through the mind probe record.'

'No,' she shouted. 'I am not pandering to your sense of the dramatic. The woman is the killer. I'm sorry if the tidiness of the thing offends you, but it's true. The simplest solution is usually the true one.'

'That's not true,' he said mulishly.

'It's street-true,' she snapped, 'and that's what counts.'

The walkway carried them back towards where they had left the TARDIS.

Bernice was quiet as she watched the towers slip past. What on Earth were they doing there?

'Odd,' the Doctor said from beside her, 'I don't usually have that effect on the people I talk to.'

'Perhaps,' Bernice said, 'we should try another approach. Any ideas?'

'The Imperial Landsknechte,' the Doctor replied. 'The champions of Earth, scourge of offworlders, defenders of the Empire.'

'Landsknechte? What, like marines? How do you work that one out?' she asked sceptically.

'The number burned into that poor Hith's tail. It's an Imperial Landsknechte identification number. They use them for prisoners of war. I noticed back on Oolis that Homeless Forsaken had one as well.

'And where are these records?'

'Er . . . not on Earth.'

'No,' she sighed. 'No, nothing's that simple, is it?'

'It's the only lead we have,' he replied, and scurried out to the centre of the walkway. 'We'll have to use the TARDIS to get to the planet Purgatory. That's where the records are kept.'

A thought struck Bernice with some force. 'Er, Doctor?'

'Hmm?' he said, glancing up at her.

'Haven't we gone past the tower where we left the TARDIS?'

He gazed around. 'I don't remember seeing it,' he said with some foreboding.48.

Bernice felt a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach. 'Neither do I,' she said.

'Oh dear,' he said. 'Oh double dear. Oh double dear with whipped cream and a cherry on top.'

'You can say that again.'49.

Chapter 4.

'I'm Evan Claple and this is The Empire Today The Empire Today , on the spot, on and , on the spot, on and off the Earth. Today's headlines: in s.p.a.ceport Seventeen Overcity off the Earth. Today's headlines: in s.p.a.ceport Seventeen Overcity a woman crashes a flitter into an office block after seeing her lover a woman crashes a flitter into an office block after seeing her lover with another man; in s.p.a.ceport Two Overcity twenty-five are killed with another man; in s.p.a.ceport Two Overcity twenty-five are killed when a restaurant owner laces meals with zeelan toxin; in s.p.a.ceport when a restaurant owner laces meals with zeelan toxin; in s.p.a.ceport Nine Undertown riots result in over three hundred dead. In a special Nine Undertown riots result in over three hundred dead. In a special report tonight, we ask: what is happening to the heartland of the report tonight, we ask: what is happening to the heartland of the Empire?' Empire?'

'So where now?' Bernice said.

They were standing by the walkway at the point where the TARDIS had been, and where it wasn't any longer. For a while they had thought that they were in the wrong tower, but the square imprint of the TARDIS's weight was evident in the plastic. All around them, people pa.s.sed by without giving them a second glance, some of them waving their gloved hands in mid-air as they interacted with centcomp.

The Doctor had a haunted expression on his face.

'I don't know,' he whispered. 'I really don't know. I can't sense where she is.'

Bernice took a deep breath. She couldn't remember seeing the Doctor quite this het up before, and for no reason. Galactic crises, near-death experiences, hair-raising risks, all of these things she had seen him shrug off with a smile and a merry quip. Take his TARDIS away, however, and he went to pieces. It was as if he couldn't function properly without it.

'Okay, let's go through the alternatives,' she said, trying to be practical.

'What could have happened to it?'

The Doctor shrugged. 'Well,' he said hesitantly, 'there's the HADS.'

'HADS?'

'Hostile Action Displacement System,' he explained. 'It's a defensive mode that the TARDIS slips into if threatened.'

'I didn't know the TARDIS had any defences.'

'Not defences in the death ray sense.' He seemed rather put out that she should even think of it. 'Defences in the sense that the old girl vanishes if she's attacked.'

Bernice nodded. 'Sounds sensible. But who would attack a large blue box?'50.

'Somebody who knew who it belonged to,' he said darkly.

'That's a bit paranoid, isn't it?'

'Paranoia is just another word for a heightened appreciation of how badly the universe wants to get you.'

'Yes, very deep. However, in your case, I wouldn't be surprised. What else?'

'Well, it could have just been taken,' he said in a way that made it clear that he didn't believe it.

'Taken?'

'Cleared away. Moved.'

'So we check the lost property office,' Bernice suggested.

'I doubt somehow that it will be so simple.'

'Then what do you suggest?'

He gazed suspiciously around at the crowd. 'Does it strike you as coincidental that the TARDIS vanishes at the same time that we begin to investigate a mystery concerning the fate of the Earth?'

'To be frank, yes it does.'

'I sense the machinations of the cosmos at work. The ineluctable clockwork of fate. Jung would have agreed with me. Dear old Jung. Never believed in coincidence, you know. Synchronicity, that's what he called it.'

'So you think this Jung has stolen your TARDIS?'

'No, no, no. Jung was a psychologist. He was a student of Freud, but they fell out.'

'Fell out of what?'

'Never mind. He liked beetles.'

'Who doesn't? Look, why can't you accept that this is probably a misunderstanding?'

'Because there is a connection. Believe me, Bernice, I've been involved in more conspiracies than you've had double scotches. Something is going on.'

She snorted. 'If you've been involved in that many conspiracies, someone ought to ask you where you were on November 22nd, 1963.'

He delved in his pocket.

'I'm sure something important was happening around then,' he muttered.

'Let me check my five-hundred-year diary.'

'Do the words "gra.s.sy knoll" mean anything to you?'

'No, although I once met a ghastly Kroll. Why do you ask?'

'Never mind,' she sighed. 'I was only joking. Where do we go from here?'

The Doctor rubbed a hand across his face. 'Purgatory,' he said finally.

'There's a trail pointing towards the Imperial Landsknechte records. If we follow it, we may find the TARDIS at the end of it.'

'May?' Bernice asked.51.

'Nothing in the universe is certain except death and taxes,' the Doctor replied, and walked away.

'What do you mean, you're pulling the plug?' Forrester shouted.

Rashid just sat sprawled behind her desk, the light gleaming off her oiled quiff, and stared at Forrester. 'I mean what I say,' she drawled. 'I'm pulling the plug. You got a result. That's what counts. Good work.'

'But . . . ?'

Forrester glanced sideways at Cwej for backup. He was studiously examining a spot on the wall just above Rashid's head. Never trust a rookie for support.