Prologue
Elsie Turner glanced around her to see if no-one was looking and then pulled the gate to the little park open and went inside. Although it had been a fine day, the spring evenings were still a little chilly after the Sun went down and she pulled her brown mackintosh tighter around her with her belt.
She spotted their bench and walked towards it, wobbling a little on the new shoes she had bought herself only last week. Elsie still felt a little guilty about it, what with the War and rationing and everything, but thought she deserved a little treat now and again. She looked about but the small park in the square was empty except for her and a few sparrows that fluttered between the puddles of water on the pathway. She reached the bench, next to a bed of wonderful red and white tulips and sat down. She smiled at how she had come to think of it as 'their' bench after only a few short weeks, but that time had been so special. She adjusted the line of her nylons fussily and straightened her smart black and white headscarf.
Elsie checked her watch; it was a little before nine, so she was early. Time to apply a little more lipstick and mascara; Derek liked her to look her best, and she liked to look her best for him too. She delved into her small handbag and got out her mirror. She'd been so lonely since her Alf had passed on, and it had been pure luck that she had met Derek when he came into the shop. They'd clicked almost immediately and he came back for his cigarettes every day since. At least she could thank the War for that – whoever thought she would be seeing a soldier? She felt a pang of guilt for her late husband and remembered the frowning face of Mrs Barry when she had caught Derek and her whispering together in the shop. But she didn't really care; at least now she could share a smile, a cup of tea, and some quiet stolen moments.
The sound of a snapped twig made her smile; trust Derek to try and creep up on her! She heard breathing, but it sounded laboured. Then she caught the reflection of a shape in her mirror and turned around quickly. Her face contorted and Elsie screamed in terror at the thing that loomed over her.
1.
The TARDIS door opened quickly and the Doctor stepped out glancing around him slightly suspiciously as if he were expecting something.
The TARDIS had landed in a small fenced park surrounded by large Georgian houses. It was fine and bright, but there was also a slight chill in the morning air. Katherine followed the Doctor out and looked around her with interest. "Where have we landed this time Doctor?" she asked brightly.
"London, Katherine," replied the Doctor evenly, and then his eyes met Jack's as the Captain stepped out and closed the TARDIS doors behind him, "during the Second World War!"
"Oh," whistled Jack, and pulled a guilty face. The Chula ship hadn't been one of his better cons, they had been lucky not to have ended up wearing a permanent gasmask, but at least he had met the Doctor. "This brings back memories! Don't want to hang around here then; we could end up meeting me!"
Katherine looked bewildered but the Doctor ignored her. "Exactly," he said, and then paused.
Jack shrugged. "Let's get out of here then!"
The Doctor looked indecisive, remembering the readings on the console. "We should, but in the TARDIS, I'm sure there was……" He broke off and looked around again. "Just a quick scout about; Jack, take Katherine and get her some clothes to fit in with the period, I don't want to stand out."
Jack shrugged and nodded, and he and Katherine disappeared back inside the TARDIS as the Doctor strolled over to a park bench. With a small smile he plucked a discarded newspaper from a bin next to it. The headline on the front page read "Churchill becomes Prime Minister of Great Britain." The Doctor looked at the date. "May 1940," he breathed, "about a year before last time."
He scanned the area around him with interest; this was a fascinating period in Earth's history and one that he had visited several times before. Then he saw the unmistakeable shape of a body lying under some bushes. Dropping the newspaper, he leapt towards the body and dropped to his knees to examine it further. It was the body of a woman dressed in a brown mackintosh and black and white headscarf.
2.
It was all too clear how she had died. The terrible gaping wounds and bruising on her neck meant that it must have snapped almost cleanly. The Doctor reached down and gently closed her staring eyes.
Jack and Katherine left the TARDIS and crossed the park to join the Doctor. Jack still wore his usual blue grey greatcoat but Katherine now wore a pretty blue and white patterned dress with a matching white jacket and hat. She gasped when she saw the prone body in the bushes next to the Doctor. "What happened to her?" she asked, trying to hold back any fear.
The Doctor got to his feet and looked down at the woman's corpse. "She was killed," he replied sadly.
"But what killed her?" asked Jack grimly, looking around the little park for any signs of danger.
"I'm not sure," replied the Doctor slowly, avoiding Jack's eyes and letting out a breath. "You know, I have a really bad feeling about this Jack!" He gathered his thoughts. "Come on," he said to his two companions, "we don't want to be caught next to a dead body in wartime – they'll have us shot! And we can't do anything to help her I'm afraid!" Putting his hands in his coat pockets, the Doctor abruptly strode off out of the park and into the surrounding street. Exchanging a worried glance, Katherine and Jack followed him.
****************
As they left the park, a hand slowly parted the branches of some large bushes close to where the body lay, and a figure watched the Doctor and his companions as they walked away. It was a man dressed in a crumpled brown suit, complete with patterned bow tie. He was in his mid to late fifties, with thinning grey hair, pale blue eyes and a very worried expression on his lined face.
He produced a grubby handkerchief and mopped his sweating brow. He had searched the streets virtually all night, ever since he had discovered the smashed, empty table and broken door. If only he had been quicker! Now there had been another one. He took a deep breath; he had already gone too far to stop now.
3.
The early morning London traffic, full of cabs and red London buses covered in garish adverts, was just starting to pick up as the Doctor, Jack and Katherine walked alongside a main road from Kensington Gardens. The Doctor still had an intense expression and his eyes swept around him intently.
Katherine had never been to London before and stared about her open-mouthed before remembering her aristocratic upbringing, and tried to retain some dignity! She also struggled to keep up with her friends' long strides. "Doctor," she started, a little out of breath, "you said the Second World War? Is the whole world at war in this time?"
The Doctor nodded but didn't look at her. "Every part of the world was affected in some way or another. But this is only the start of the War for Great Britain." He glanced back at Jack who looked down, avoiding the Doctor's piercing gaze. "The worst is about to begin."
Suddenly the Doctor stopped abruptly and Katherine almost cannoned into him. He twisted his neck around and looked behind them. A middle aged man in a brown suit was perhaps fifty feet behind them, but as the Doctor stopped and turned, the man seemed to panic and ran down a side street and out of sight.
Come on!" shouted the Doctor, and ran back along the street, followed by Jack and Katherine. He got to the corner where the man had run into the side street and stopped again. The man had vanished. Jack and Katherine hurried up. "Who was that?" asked Jack, catching his breath.
"I don't know," replied the Doctor, "but he was following us I think."
Katherine pointed down at the floor. "I think he dropped something, look!"
The Doctor glanced down and his face turned to stone. "Oh no," he groaned as he reached down to pick up what looked like a sophisticated metal hearing aid with alien patterns etched onto it.
"What is it?" asked Jack carefully.
"It's a Cyber-control earpiece!" The Doctor reached into his pocket, pulled out his sonic screwdriver and scanned it over the earpiece. "It's receiving a signal too." He looked around them with concern. "They're here somewhere!"
4.
Sgt. Tom Harris flinched as he saw the terrible injuries on the young soldier. He normally loved his job, but there were days when he hated being a policeman. This was one of those days. Later he'd have to go and explain to a young wife that her husband would not be coming home that night. He only hoped there were no kids involved. Even after nearly twenty years in the force, he'd still not got used to doing it. Harris got to his feet and nodded to his fellow PC to recover the body with the tarpaulin. Out of the corner of his eye he could see young PC Michaels being sick in the gutter nearby; his first time. "What could do this to a man?" Harris muttered to himself quietly, his eyes narrowed in disgust. Wiping his hand over his moustache, he straightened up, pushed back his greying brown hair, and put his helmet back on his head.
"What's happened here Sgt?" A man's voice shook Harris from his thoughts and he turned to see two men, one in a brown coat, the other dressed in a blue air-force greatcoat, together with a pretty dark haired girl.
"Nothing that concerns you sir," replied Harris automatically. "I'd move along sir, you don't want to upset the young lady; it's not a pretty sight," he added grimly.
The man in the brown coat fished a leather wallet and showed it to Harris. "I'm the Doctor, this is Captain Jack Harkness – American liaison; and Miss Katherine here is my secretary."
Sgt. Harris took the wallet and inspected the paper within. He was surprised by what he read and then saluted smartly. "Sorry sir, I wasn't expecting CID today!"
The Doctor smiled. "That's alright Sgt." His tone and expression became more serious. "Now tell me what's happened here? You've found another body?"
Harris nodded and the Doctor knelt down and lifted the tarpaulin a little to look at the corpse. The wounds on the body of the young man were even more terrible than the woman they had discovered earlier. His whole chest had been punctured by something massive, leaving a gaping, bloody hole.
5.
It had moved through the streets of London whilst it had been dark, but as the dawn broke it had felt vulnerable and tired, and knew it had to find a place to rest and hide. It had found such a place earlier in the night and the bushes and leaves felt strangely comfortable. Not that it could really remember what 'comfortable' meant. But it had been disturbed by an intruder that had sat so close to it. It knew it was logical to kill the intruder before it betrayed its' position.
Now it had found a new hiding pace in a lane behind some houses. There was a broken yard door that it had managed to slip through and crouch behind some old bins and wooden planks. It shook its' head to clear it of the insistent buzzing, but it didn't work. The buzzing remained as it always remained.
How long it had stayed hidden in the yard it did not know. It kept losing consciousness, slipping into a strange state of that was a mixture hibernation and inactivity.
Suddenly it opened its' eyes. Something was approaching. It would have to kill again and rose to its' feet preparing to strike, but then it paused. Faint recognition flitted through its' brain as the figure in the crumpled brown suit drew near.
********************
"That's the fifth in less than a week now!" Harris whispered, pointing to the body.
Katherine looked at Sgt. Harris with horror. "You've found five poor souls like this?" she asked quietly.
Harris nodded grimly. "That's right Miss. All round this area. All murdered brutally."
"Is there any pattern?" Jack asked.
Harris shook his head. "Not that we can see, but you're welcome to come back to the station. We have all the details there." He lowered his voice and stepped closer. "We've got to catch whoever did this as soon as we can. People are starting to talk about Nazi killers on the loose!"
The Doctor got to his feet, still looking down at the corpse as he covered it with the tarpaulin again. "I don't think the killer is a 'who'; more like a 'what'. No human could have made those wounds."
"So what is killing these people then?" asked Jack with disgust.
The Doctor opened his hand to reveal the Cyber earpiece and looked at it grimly. "Oh I think that's obvious. The question is why? And how did they get here?"
6.
The Doctor bit his lip in thought. "I think its time we divide our efforts! Sgt Harris, take Katherine and Jack back to the station; they'll help you try to find a pattern to the killings – not that I think there is one."
"Why bother then?" interrupted Jack caustically.
"Because you might find something, or at least establish the area we're looking in," replied the Doctor.
"What about you Doctor?" asked Katherine.
The Doctor looked down at the metal earpiece again. "Oh, I'll just have a walk around," he said breezily, trying to mask his worry. He produced his sonic screwdriver from his jacket. "If I can establish a correct frequency I can scan the area and find a source." He looked meaningfully at Jack and Katherine and then grinned. "Perhaps I'll bump into our brown-suited friend?"
*******************
The Doctor walked briskly down the street occasionally taking a reading from his sonic screwdriver as he waved it about in various directions. The whine that the screwdriver emitted was low in pitch and the Doctor knew that it wasn't picking up any of the signal that was being received by the Cyber earpiece. Frowning in concentration, he adjusted the setting and tried again. Suddenly however, and before he could take any further readings, a young woman cannoned into the back of him and collapsed to the pavement.
The Doctor turned swiftly around and attempted to help the woman to her feet. She was in her early thirties, with light brown hair pulled back in a bun to reveal a pretty, but serious face. She was dressed in a long blue coat, belted at the waist, with a matching blouse and skirt.
He smiled gently as he pulled her to her feet. "Hello! Sorry, I didn't see you there!" As the Doctor looked closer, he could see that she had been crying. Her blue eyes were red and bloodshot. "Are you alright? Not broken anything?" he grinned. "I'm the Doctor by the way – pleased to meet you!"
Embarrassed, the woman rubbed a sleeve across her face, wiping away the tears with a sniffle. "Emily, Emily Clark. And I'm fine," she half sobbed, looking back over her shoulder nervously.
The Doctor followed her gaze, but could see nothing untoward. He looked back at Emily and smiled. "I can help if you let me. What are you afraid of?" he asked quietly.
Emily met his eyes and he could see she was on the verge of hysteria. He put an arm gently around her shoulders for comfort. "Come on, what's wrong?"
The tears started to pour down her cheeks and she began to sob as all the pent up emotion got free. "It's what he's doing; what he's done! I can't stand it any longer! I had to get out!"
The Doctor held her cheeks with his fingers and looked at her closely. "What has 'he' done?" he asked.
"He's created monsters!" Emily sobbed.
