The Doctor and Liv made their way back towards the TARDIS, pausing only to fill a small flask that the Doctor had found in his satchel from a tap set in the side wall of the Taberly Inn. As they neared the green, Liv eyed the summer seats by the duck pond quickly.
'At least the pensioner from hell's gone,' she said, as they stepped onto the grass and made their way towards the TARDIS. The Doctor produced his key, and slid it into the police box's lock, but didn't turn it. Instead, he began to jiggle it around, pantomiming a jammed lock.
'Don't look right now,' he said quietly, 'but we seem to have a shadow.'
'Where?' Liv asked, lowering her voice to match the Doctor's.
'Over there - on the other side of the green, near the church.'
Liv allowed a few seconds to pass before she looked around. She could see someone, standing by the church with a camera aimed right at them, the dying sunlight glinting from its lens.
'He's been following us ever since we left the Inn,' the Doctor explained.
'Do you recognise him?' Liv asked, finishing her sweep of the village before turning back to the Doctor.
'What makes you think I'd recognise him?' the Doctor asked. 'I've never been to Taberly before in my life. Well, this one, anyway – and I'm pretty sure I don't remember being here before that either.'
'Fair point,' Liv admitted. 'I wonder who he is…'
'Only one way to find out,' said the Doctor, leaning out from behind the TARDIS and waving at the photographer with a grin. 'Good evening! Lovely weather we're having, isn't it?'
'Did you really just do that?' Liv asked, giving the Doctor an exasperated look. She glanced towards the photographer again, who had let the camera drop around his neck, and was looking slightly unsure of himself.
'Of course,' the Doctor replied, placing the TARDIS's key back into his pocket and walking towards the photographer. As they grew closer, Liv was able to more easily discern the man's features – he was young, maybe early twenties, with sandy blond hair sticking out from a beanie hat, and a slightly fearful expression. The Doctor smiled as he climbed over the low-hanging chain that marked the boundary of the green.
'Hello there,' he said. 'I'm the Doctor.'
'Douglas,' the young man said. 'My name, I mean. Douglas Hamill.'
'Hello Douglas,' said the Doctor. 'This is my friend Liv Chenka – we couldn't help but notice that you've been taking pictures of us.'
'Um, yeah,' said Douglas, blushing. 'Sorry about that – but you are important.'
'Any more ego boosting like that, and he'll be insufferable,' said Liv, nodding towards the Doctor. 'What do you mean, important?'
'It's just… you're the first strangers that've come to Taberly in the past six months,' said Douglas. The Doctor raised an eyebrow.
'Is that so? I mean, it seems like it's a bit out of the way, but no new people in that time – at all?' he said. Douglas nodded.
'That definitely doesn't sound good,' Liv muttered. The Doctor nodded.
'No, it does not,' he said, before continuing to talk to Douglas. 'How long have you been here?'
'I've been here for a year,' Douglas replied.
'I see,' said the Doctor, nodding. 'And you're absolutely sure that no one else has visited Taberly in all of that time?'
'No one who wants to stay for any length of time, anyway,' said Douglas. 'A friend of mine tried to come up from London – each time, something got in the way: car broke down, landslide in the mountain – malfunctioning satnav.'
'But Taberly's not entirely cut off?' Liv asked. Douglas shook his head.
'Supplies can get in – lorries carrying food, clothes, stuff like that.'
'Hasn't anyone noticed that there's a town in England that no one can visit?' Liv asked.
'No one apart from me and my friend,' said Douglas, with a shrug. 'As you said, Doctor, it's a bit out of the way – not many people come here anyway.'
'Why didn't your friend try and hitch a ride with one of the lorries?' the Doctor asked. 'If they're all getting through, I mean.'
'We tried that,' said Douglas. 'The lorry broke down five miles away from here.'
'Coincidence?' asked Liv. The Doctor shook his head.
'In my experience, there's no such thing,' he said. 'So what changed – six months ago, I mean. Why did Taberly stop taking visitors?'
Douglas turned, and pointed north.
'At the foot of the valley, there's a water-purification plant – it supplies water to the whole valley,' he said. 'They started building it eighteen months ago – it came online about seven months ago, now.'
'Just a month before people stopped being able to get into Taberly?' said Liv.
'Another 'coincidence',' the Doctor muttered. 'This new plant gets switched on, and a month later things start getting spooky – that adds up in all the wrong ways.'
'So why did you come here?' Liv asked Douglas. 'You said you'd been here for a year.'
'The man in charge of the Taberly plant is called Professor Graham Holloway,' said Douglas. 'He was one of my lecturers at university – I never really liked him much, but the man was a genius. About two years ago, he quit his post at the university, and disappeared off the face of the earth for six months. When the Taberly plant was announced, he was named Plant Director.'
'Disappeared?' the Doctor asked.
'Well, no one saw him in all that time,' said Douglas. 'At least, no one I've ever spoken to. The official story is that he went to Japan, but that story falls apart the minute you start digging into it.'
'So you followed him here?' the Doctor asked. 'Why?'
'Not exactly,' said Douglas. 'Just before Professor Holloway quit the university, he came to Taberly on a research expedition with another member of the university faculty – Danny Richmond. Doctor Richmond was my mentor – I helped out with some of his research, and we got along really well. He told me about the expedition – trace amounts of an unknown chemical element were detected in the Taberly area, and they came to try and track down the source. They were investigating a cave system near the foot of the valley.'
'When was this expedition?' the Doctor asked.
'Two years ago,' said Douglas. 'Just before Professor Holloway disappeared – as well as Danny Richmond. Only he didn't come back, like Holloway did.'
'Richmond disappeared as well?' said Liv.
'Yeah, and I never managed to track him down,' said Douglas. 'I searched for him for months – no one else was interested, Danny didn't have any family or anything. So I tried to contact Professor Holloway just after he took his post at the plant – except he didn't want anything to do with me. Wouldn't agree to see me, but I wasn't going to let go without a fight.'
'You came to Taberly to see him,' said the Doctor. Douglas nodded.
'Yeah, that's right,' he said. 'I managed to surprise him one morning, near the plant – it was still being built at the time, but he was there to oversee the construction. I tried to ask him a few questions – what had happened to Doctor Richmond – but he wouldn't answer, just had site security throw me out.'
'So why did you stay?' asked Liv.
'Danny was a good mentor, and a good friend,' said Douglas. 'I don't know what happened to him – but Graham Holloway does. I'm going to make him tell me, one way or another.'
'Tell me about what happened when the plant got switched on,' said the Doctor, but Douglas never got the chance to reply. Something hit the Doctor's side – he staggered away in shock, only to find the old woman who'd shouted at them earlier standing there, brandishing her walking stick at him.
'I told you earlier – you're not supposed to walk on the grass!' she exclaimed, gesturing to the trail of footprints the Doctor and Liv had made on their way across the green towards Douglas.
'I'm sorry – but there's really no reason to attack me!' the Doctor replied, clutching his side and wincing. 'At the end of the day, it's only a patch of grass.'
'Doesn't matter,' the old woman said. 'You shouldn't walk on it! It's not allowed!'
She raised her stick again, brandishing it dangerously, and Liv grabbed the Doctor's arm.
'Doctor, maybe we should go,' she said. The Doctor nodded.
'That seems like a good idea,' he said.
'The cottage I'm renting isn't far from the village,' said Douglas pointing over his shoulder. 'Five minutes' walk – we'll reach it in no time.'
'That sounds good,' said the Doctor. 'Lead the way, Douglas.'
They set off quickly, leaving the old woman behind, still waving her stick in the air after them. Eventually, she gave up her pursuit, and returned to her summer seat by the duck pond.
'Send Miss French up, immediately.'
'Right away, Professor Holloway.'
Graham Holloway released the button on the intercom through to his secretary, and relaxed back in his chair. He closed his eyes, and turned his head to the ceiling. He only moved when the door opened, and a young woman entered – she wore her hair back in a severe fashion, and a stony expression on her face. She took a seat on the other side of Holloway's desk, and waited.
'We have strangers. In Taberly,' Holloway told her.
'That's impossible.'
'Apparently not,' said Holloway. 'And according to Brother Hark, one of them's a Time Lord.'
Miss French's mouth twitched, but otherwise, she showed no reaction.
'What do you want me to do?' she asked.
'Go to Taberly,' Holloway ordered. 'Tomorrow. Two objectives – firstly, observe the strangers; find out why they're here. Secondly, find the Time Lord's TARDIS and have it brought here. In addition to stopping the Time Lord from informing the rest of his interfering race, if we can gain access, the technology inside could be… useful.'
'Of course, Professor.' Miss French stood up, and left the office.
Douglas led the way along a narrow country road to a tiny cottage overlooking the valley. The Doctor and Liv waited as Douglas fought with the lock on the door, before entering. The cottage's interior was cramped, but cosy – a laptop was open on a low table, alongside an untidy pile of printouts of various news articles and maps.
'It's not much,' said Douglas, blushing as he closed the door – he obviously hadn't been expecting visitors when he left the cottage this morning. He moved around the room quickly, tidying up some of the papers and straightening his laptop. 'Sorry about the mess.'
'Oh, you should see the Doctor's… house,' said Liv, smiling. The Doctor looked offended, but he let the jibe slide.
'Quite a nice view,' he said, peering through one of the windows. 'Right down to the bottom of the valley – is that the Taberly water plant there?'
He pointed through the window, towards a group of grey buildings in the distance. Douglas nodded.
'That's why I picked this place,' he said, handing the Doctor a pair of powerful binoculars. The Doctor accepted them, and held them up to his eyes, looking through the window.
'Everything looks normal, for a water plant,' said the Doctor. 'Apart from that building, near the eastern fence - what is that?'
'It's marked on the plans as a storage building,' said Douglas, checking one of the maps on his table as the Doctor handed the binoculars to Liv.
'I can't see them storing much in there – it's tiny!' said Liv.
'Isn't it?' said the Doctor. 'A storage room – very likely. I wonder what's really inside.'
'I've got no idea,' said Douglas, shaking his head. 'And I can't get anywhere near it – security on that building in particular is extra strong.'
'You've tried to get into the compound?' Liv asked. Douglas nodded.
'Not long after they switched the plant on – I got right up to the fence, but the guards spotted me before I could cut my way through. I only just managed to get away before they caught me.'
'I see,' the Doctor muttered.
'Security's tight during the day – twenty guards on rotating patrols,' said Douglas. 'At night, it's even worse; that number goes up to thirty.'
'Cameras?' the Doctor asked.
'Everywhere,' Douglas responded. 'I don't know exactly how many – the plans don't show them.'
'You're thinking about breaking in?' Liv asked, looking up at the Doctor.
'Only if the tried and true method of getting in doesn't work first.' He nodded.
'What's that?' Douglas asked.
'Walking straight up to the front door and knocking,' Liv said. 'It works surprisingly well – most of the time.'
'That'll never work,' Douglas scoffed.
'Of course it will, it never fails – I'll just tell them I'm from health and safety,' said the Doctor. 'You can get in anywhere if you tell them you're from health and safety.'
Douglas didn't look like he believed the Doctor, but he didn't press the point.
'I can't go to the plant just yet, though,' said the Doctor. 'Not until I know a bit more about what's in the water. I need some idea of what I'm looking for.'
'I can help you there,' said Douglas, lifting something up from the kitchen bench, beside the sink – it was a cooking pot, the inside of which was lined with some sort of crystalline deposit. He held it out towards the Doctor, who looked into it with interest. 'I boil all of the water I use, ever since I found out about this.'
'Now, that's very interesting,' said the Doctor, taking the pot from Douglas and examining closely. He held it up, and sniffed the deposit, before tapping the pot – it made a dull sort of sound as it connected with his knuckles.
'What is it?' Liv asked. The Doctor produced his sonic screwdriver and held it above the pot, the blue light pulsating softly.
'Some sort of chemical residue,' he replied, examining the sonic once he'd finished waving it around the pot. 'The exact signature's difficult to isolate – but it's definitely alien.'
'Are you sure?' Liv asked.
'No,' the Doctor admitted, 'but the screwdriver doesn't recognise it, that's for sure. Doesn't mean it's from another planet – it might just be a previously undiscovered element from here, on Earth.'
'That's possible, I suppose,' said Liv.
'Sorry, but it sounded like you just said the deposit was alien.' Douglas looked perplexed.
'Did I?' the Doctor muttered, distractedly, still examining the residue in the pot. 'My apologies. Must have been a slip of the tongue.'
Douglas looked as though he was about to argue with the Doctor's excuse, but Liv started talking before he got the chance.
'You think someone, or something, at the water plant's responsible, don't you?' she asked the Doctor.
'It's a distinct possibility,' said the Doctor. 'I'd even go so far as to say that it's probable – maybe even certain. But I can't be sure – what if it's just a natural occurrence? I need to get into that plant, and see for myself.'
'Don't you want to go back to the TARDIS and see what this stuff is?' Liv asked. The Doctor shook his head.
'No, I want you to go back to the TARDIS and see what this stuff is,' he replied, with a grin. Liv scowled at him.
'You don't want me to come with you to the plant?' she asked.
'There's less chance of getting caught if there's only one of us – after all, it's harder to spot one person than two,' the Doctor replied. 'Besides, we don't want to put our eggs all in one basket – it's good to multitask.'
'So, you get to go on the exciting, daring, secret mission to infiltrate a high security compound, while I get to go and do experiments on a cooking pot,' Liv said, sounding deflated.
'Well, 'experiments' is a bit optimistic,' said the Doctor. 'The TARDIS's scanning equipment's quite easy to operate – it's a bit like using a microwave, really.'
'You're not helping,' said Liv, frowning at the Doctor – nevertheless, she took the pot from him.
'There's no point in going anywhere tonight,' said the Doctor. 'It's getting dark – in a few minutes, I wouldn't stand a chance of seeing my hand in front of my face, never mind finding my way over the fields to a high security compound.'
'You can stay here,' said Douglas, pointing to a door at the side of the room. 'There's a spare bedroom just through there – only a single bed, though.'
'That's alright, Liv can use that,' said the Doctor. 'I've had the recommended eight hours of shuteye for this month. If I feel tired, I'll use the sofa.'
Again, Douglas looked perplexed, but this time decided that any argument was unnecessary.
'What about Douglas?' Liv asked in an undertone.
'What about him?' the Doctor asked.
'Can we trust him?'
'He's the only person in Taberly not giving us the cold shoulder,' said the Doctor, shrugging. 'I don't think we have much choice – take him with you tomorrow, and keep an eye on him.'
'You want me to take him with me – to the TARDIS?' Liv seemed incredulous.
'Why not? The TARDIS is an excellent judge of character,' said the Doctor. 'If Douglas isn't genuinely trying to help us, she'll know – and hopefully, she'll try and warn you.'
Liv mulled this over.
'Alright,' she said, after a few moments. 'And listen – don't get yourself killed tomorrow, either.'
'I wouldn't dream of it,' said the Doctor, removing his satchel and setting it down beside the sofa. 'Be careful in Taberly, too.'
'Why? What have I got to worry about – apart from a pensioner with a walking stick?' Liv smiled. The Doctor sighed.
'I don't suppose you're ever going to let me live that down, are you?' he asked with an exasperated tone. Liv shook her head.
'Not for a very long time.'
A/N: I hope you're enjoying the story so far. Please leave a review - it helps so much to keep me writing!
