V
The TARDIS was sitting in a small grassy area, too small to be a park, too irregular to be a square, in the middle of the town, and the Doctor was sitting outside it, in a deck chair, walking through his memories.
The Doctor had a remarkable memory. The problem was, there was so much of it. He had lived eleven lives (or more: there was another life, was there not, that he tried his best never to think about) and he had a different way of remembering things in each life.
The worst part of being however old he was (and he had long since abandoned trying to keep track of it in any way that mattered to anybody but him) was that sometimes things didn’t arrive in his head quite when they were meant to.
Masks. That was part of it. And Kin. That was part of it too.
And Time.
It was all about Time. Yes, that was it . . .
An old story. Before his time – he was sure of that. It was something he had heard as a boy. He tried to remember the stories he had been told as a small boy on Gallifrey, before he had been taken to the Time Lord Academy and his life had changed forever.
Amy was coming back from a sortie through the town.
‘Maximelos and the three Ogrons!’ he shouted at her.
‘What about them?’
‘One was too vicious, one was too stupid, one was just right.’
‘And this is relevant how?’
He tugged at his hair absently. ‘Er, probably not relevant at all. Just trying to remember a story from my childhood.’
‘Why?’
‘No idea. Can’t remember.’
‘You,’ said Amy Pond, ‘are very frustrating.’
‘Yes,’ said the Doctor, happily. ‘I probably am.’
He had hung a sign on the front of the TARDIS. It said:
SOMETHING MYSTERIOUSLY WRONG? JUST KNOCK!
NO PROBLEM TOO SMALL.
‘If it won’t come to us, I’ll go to it. No, scrap that. Other way round. And I’ve redecorated inside, so as not to startle people. What did you find?’
‘Two things,’ she said. ‘First one was Prince Charles. I saw him in the newsagent’s.’
‘Are you sure it was him?’
Amy thought. ‘Well, he looked like Prince Charles. Just much younger. And the newsagent asked him if he’d picked out a name for the next Royal Baby. I suggested Rory.’
‘Prince Charles in the newsagent’s. Right. Next thing?’
‘There aren’t any houses for sale. I’ve walked every street in the town. No FOR SALE signs. There are people camping in tents on the edge of town. Lots of people leaving to find places to live, because there’s nothing around here. It’s just weird.’
‘Yes.’
He almost had it, now. Amy opened the TARDIS door. She looked inside. ‘Doctor . . . it’s the same size on the inside.’
He beamed, and took her on an extensive tour of his new office, which consisted of standing inside the doorway and making a waving gesture with his right arm. Most of the space was taken up with a desk, with an old-fashioned telephone, and a typewriter on it. There was a back wall. Amy experimentally pushed her hands through the wall (it was hard to do with her eyes open, easy when she closed them), then she closed her eyes and pushed her head through the wall. Now she could see the TARDIS control room, all copper and glass. She took a step backwards, into the tiny office.
‘Is it a hologram?’
‘Sort of.’
There was a hesitant rap at the door of the TARDIS. The Doctor opened it.
‘Excuse me. The sign on the door.’ The man appeared harassed. His hair was thinning. He looked at the tiny room, mostly filled by a desk, and he made no move to come inside.
‘Yes! Hello! Come in!’ said the Doctor. ‘No problem too small!’
‘Um. My name’s Reg Browning. It’s my daughter. Polly. She was meant to be waiting for us, back in the hotel room. She’s not there.’
‘I’m the Doctor. This is Amy. Have you spoken to the police?’
‘Aren’t you police? I thought perhaps you were.’
‘Why?’ asked Amy.
‘This is a police call box. I didn’t even know they were bringing them back.’
‘For some of us,’ said the tall young man with the bow tie, ‘they never went away. What happened when you spoke to the police?’
‘They said they’d keep an eye out for her. But honestly, they seemed a bit preoccupied. The desk sergeant said the lease had run out on the police station, rather unexpectedly, and they’re looking for somewhere to go. The desk sergeant said the whole lease thing came as a bit of a blow to them.’
‘What’s Polly like?’ asked Amy. ‘Could she be staying with friends?’
‘I’ve checked with her friends. Nobody’s seen her. We’re living in the Rose Hotel, on Wednesbury Street, right now.’
‘Are you visiting?’
Mr Browning told them about the man in the rabbit mask who had come to the door last week to buy their house for so much more than it was worth, and paid cash. He told them about the woman in the cat mask who had taken possession of the house . . .
‘Oh. Right. Well, that makes sense of everything,’ said the Doctor, as if it actually did.
‘It does?’ said Mr Browning. ‘Do you know where Polly is?’
The Doctor shook his head. ‘Mister Browning. Reg. Is there any chance she might have gone back to your house?’
The man shrugged. ‘Might have done. Do you think—?’
But the tall young man and the red-haired Scottish girl pushed past him, slammed the door of their police box, and sprinted away across the green.