North London, 1st June 1953

Dorian woke bright and early with the sun as its first rays crept over the North London skyline. He checked the calendar on the wall of his one man bedroom – 1st June 1953 – the day before Queen Elizabeth II's coronation.

He dressed in a casual suit and tie, rolling up the sleeves of his shirt and slipping a tweed jacket over the top. He was posing as a local doctor this time, working undercover for Torchwood to investigate the strangest thing Dorian had ever seen, and that was saying a lot. He re-read the file on his desk: people with no faces were being found in this area and no one knew what was causing it.

He switched on the Television in the corner to check the day's news while he greased his hair back, as was the style of the decade. He had bought the TV set only yesterday from Mr Magpie, the local electrical supplier down the road. It had been unusually cheap, but Dorian wasn't complaining, tomorrow would be the seventh coronation of a British monarch that Dorian had seen, well, eighth if you included Edward VIII who abdicated after less than a month – that had been embarrassing.

He checked his hair once more in the mirror and slipped on his polished brown shoes before stepping downstairs and wishing his landlady, Mrs Harrison, a good morning.

'What seems to be the problem Tommy?' Dorian asked the young lad, looking pale beneath his combed brown hair. His big, burly father stood behind him, breathing loudly.

'He's looking pale,' Mr Connolly announced.

'Yes, I can see that, thank you Mr Connolly,' Dorian smiled. He had met men like Connolly before – self-important and arrogant, telling everyone about how they had fought in the war, as if they were the only ones.

Mr Connolly snorted. 'Well do something about it then!'

'Mr Connolly, I cannot treat someone for simply "being pale" without knowing what is causing the problem. So if you would kindly let me continue my examination, then maybe I can help your son.' Dorian thought he saw the corner of Tommy's mouth twitch into a smile as his father resumed his angry silence.

'So, Tommy, what's bothering you?' Tommy's face slackened and he seemed to turn even paler, but the boy said nothing. He had dark shadows beneath his brown eyes. 'How have you been sleeping?'

'Not well,' Tommy admitted. Mr Connolly coughed.

'And why is that?' Dorian asked softly. The Connollys were one of the families Dorian was keeping an eye on – Tommy's grandmother had not been seen in over a week.

'The banging, all night–'

'The pipes, he means,' Mr Connolly interrupted, 'we've had some problems with the plumbing lately.'

Dorian looked from the shy young man to his rhino of a father. Dorian reached into his desk and pulled out a prescription form.

'Take this to the chemist – it's a sleeping pill that should help you get a few nights of rest until you can get those pipes fixed,'

Tommy gratefully took the slip of paper and, looking uncertainly at his father, left the room. Mr Connolly started to follow.

'Mr Connolly,' Dorian called, standing behind his desk and halting the man at the door, 'a number of people have also had problems with their plumbing, so do be careful.'

Mr Connolly glared at Dorian before slamming the door on his way out. Dorian flung himself back onto his seat and wondered whether Mr Connolly had understood Dorian's warning.

Back out on Florizel Street at lunchtime Dorian simply observed: the Jacksons were putting up their bunting, Mr Magpie was delivering a TV to the Bells and there was a black car pulled up outside the Gallaghers'. Dorian sat, waiting, on the street corner with a sandwich and a mug of tea that Mrs Jackson had made him.

All his attention was on the front door of the Gallaghers – if the men in black brought someone out of there then Dorian would need to act fast to catch up with them before they disappeared. After a month and a half on the job Dorian had only found a couple of clues that could help him.

Dorian watched and waited. That was until a blue scooter braked hard to avoid a double-decker bus, right in front of him. Dorian jumped to his feet, expecting a head injury at least. But what he saw instead pulled him up short. The man driving the bike took off his helmet, revealing a thick head of gelled brown hair, high cheekbones and sharp eyebrows. Dorian had seen that face a number of times before, always when trouble was about to erupt.

It was the face of his father.

The girl sat behind the Doctor wore a long bright pink skirt, very out of style, and a blue jacket. Dorian hadn't seen the girl in almost 100 years but it had to be Rose, the Doctor's companion.

Dorian's mind turned over possibilities. He could just go and talk to the Doctor. He could introduce himself to the Doctor. He could ask the Doctor to help solve the mystery of the faceless people. But before Dorian had decided what he would do, the front door of the Gallaghers burst open.

'Someone help me! Please! Ted!' Mrs Gallagher cried. Two men in black overcoats pulled Mr Gallagher out of his house. Mr Gallagher's face was covered by a blanket, but Dorian knew that it was only to stop other people seeing that the man no longer had a face. 'Leave him alone, that's my husband!'

The Doctor and Rose ran to Mr Gallagher's aid, but Dorian had seen this happen before. He set down his tea and started running down the street, past his father, past Rose, and past the Connolly's who had come out to see the commotion.

Dorian ran as fast as he could, trying to keep his head start on the car. He managed to stay ahead until the car turned into what Dorian called "Market Street". There wasn't an actual market, but every time Dorian had chased the Police car down that street two men and a cart of fruit and veg blocked the end of the street. But Dorian had been patient and watched that street too. He turned off into a side street as the black unmarked car drove behind him. The vegetable cart was just being made ready as Dorian jogged down the alleyway.

Dorian edged cautiously past a tall metal gate topped with barbed wire. The black car had pulled up beyond the gate. Dorian climbed up onto a covered bin and peeked over the wall; the two men and their driver exited the vehicle, holding the blanketed Mr Gallagher between them. They headed towards the dark, square building, pushing Mr Gallagher along. Once they were inside Dorian lifted himself up and over the wall, landing on the balls of his feet with a quiet thump.

After nearly two months of waiting, watching and planning, he was in the Police base. But what would he do now?

Dorian crept around the side of the building until he came to a plain, heavy, wooden door. Muscles straining at the effort, Dorian pulled the door open, grimacing as gravel scraped loudly in the quiet afternoon. Once the door was open far enough for Dorian's slim frame to slip through, he entered the building.

The interior of the Police base was dimly lit, so it took a few moments for Dorian's eyes to adjust from the blazing sunshine outside to the darkness inside. As he suspected, the building was a converted factory warehouse, with a large open floor and mesh cages along the walls. There happened to be one such cage opposite Dorian and, to his horror, it was occupied.

Edging closer, Dorian was sickened and outraged to find that the cages were filled with faceless people. He wondered at the humans and their fear of the abnormal – how they could just herd these people into cages and lock them up in pens as though they were cattle?

Here were these people who, had not only had their faces removed by some powerful, and as yet unknown, force, but they had also been publicly dragged from their families and were now locked in dark cages where it was standing room only. And all this from a country that had only recently won a war against a regime of extremism and ethnic cleansing.

He shook his head in disgust.

Approaching one of the cages, Dorian reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out a wire cutter, your standard doctor's tool, and began to snip himself a doorway into the cage. Once inside, he pulled out a small thin torch from his pocket. The torch was ideal for looking at people's throats and eyes, but it was just as good for examining people with neither.

This was the first time Dorian had got close to a faceless person, so he decided to thoroughly examine one while he had the chance. There was a young woman in a knee-length brown skirt and a cream blouse to Dorian's right. He shone the torch over her faceless face and gently ran his fingers over where the nose, mouth and eyes should have been. All the while he quietly murmured what he was doing, just in case the woman could still register sounds. But the woman didn't seem to notice Dorian's attentions, and remained stationary with her head cast downwards, occasionally shuffling on the spot.

'What happened to you?' Dorian wondered aloud as he examined the woman's perfectly smooth jaw line. There was no sign of separation – the skin was simply continuous over the face, as though it had always been without facial features.

There was a distant clanging as someone pushed open a door at the far end of the warehouse. Dorian clicked off his torch and shuffled into the crowd, blending into the anonymous mass. Two dark suited men pushed a stumbling, blanket-covered figure ahead of them. They stopped in front of the door to Dorian's cage and unlocked the mesh door. In the dim light of the warehouse they didn't notice the hole where Dorian had cut himself a door. All around him the faceless figures began to flex their hands with a rubber-like stretching sound, and all shuffled to face the intruders. It was actually quite intimidating. Dorian briefly wondered why he didn't receive a similar reaction, but dismissed the thought.

'Get in, thing,' one of them spat, pushing the faceless figure into the pen. Dorian recognised the three-piece suit of the person – it was Mr Gallagher. The way the faceless people were being treated was sickening Dorian, and cover or no cover, he had to do something.

Shuffling quickly and quietly, Dorian left the cage through his make-shift gate and stole after the two men who were grumbling about having to be delivery boys for the inspector.

Sure enough the two men led him up a flight of stairs to the door of an office. Dorian hid behind the corner as they went in.

'Stuck 'im in, sir!' one of them announced before the door shut behind them with a dull clunk. As per his Torchwood training, Dorian assessed his environment. The Police didn't seem to have paid the bills for the factory, or they were very cautious about not standing out, because everywhere was dimly lit. The only light seemed to come from the few rays of sunlight that managed to get through the layers of dirt and grime on the window panes. There were cardboard boxes strewn across the corridor, the only clear path was to the office, where boxes had been kicked aside or piled up against the walls. The pipes in the ceiling were uncovered and loose wires hung down to head height.

Dorian turned his attention to the office. From all he could see of the room through the small window in the door, it was a long, low-ceilinged room with a large window and some filing cabinets. He decided that it was time to make himself known to the Police.

Checking that his Torchwood ID was still in his top pocket, Dorian crept forward until he was standing with his back against the wall beside the door. He heard the voices inside murmuring in discussion. Dorian put one hand on the cold door handle and stepped quickly into the room.

The reaction was astounding. One of the goons fell backwards off his chair; the other dropped his cup of tea over his trouser leg. The one who seemed to be in charge, who Dorian had seen when Mr Gallagher was taken, pulled a pistol from his belt and aimed it at Dorian.

'Stop right where you are, sonny,' he ordered. Dorian sighed and raised his hands above his head. The man aiming at Dorian, at point-blank range, was a tired-looking, middle-aged man in a dark suit. Judging from his position behind his desk and his calm demeanour when threatening to shoot someone, Dorian presumed that he was the inspector the other two had been moaning about.

'Who are you and how did you get in here?' he barked. Behind him the other two had recovered from their initial reactions enough to pull their identical pistols on Dorian too. Both were red in the face and looked angry enough at Dorian's intrusion to shoot him there and then.

'Captain Dorian Smith, Torchwood,' he began.

'Torchwood? Never heard of it,' the one who had fallen off his chair muttered.

'I have my ID in my top pocket, if you'll let me reach it?' Dorian told the inspector, who nodded at the tea-spiller. The man lowered his weapon and stepped towards Dorian, slipping the ID wallet from Dorian's breast pocket.

The inspector scanned the ID card and looked uncertainly up at Dorian.

'Lower your weapons men,' he ordered, doing the same himself. 'Killick, get onto Headquarters and check Captain Smith's identity.' The one who had dropped his tea grudgingly went to the telephone at the back of the room.

'I'm Detective Inspector Bishop. Please, take a seat,'

The inspector indicated to the chair on the opposite side of the desk.

'Okay Captain Smith, let's talk,'

'I'm here investigating reports of possible extra-terrestrial activity resulting in the removal of people's faces,' Dorian began.

'Extra-terrestrial?' one of the goons scoffed, 'you some sorta nutter?'

'Easy Graves,' Detective Inspector Bishop warned. Graves snarled in Dorian's direction.

'No, I'm not mad,' Dorian replied with a glare, 'but I am angry. I've seen how you treat these people–'

'When?' Demanded Graves. Dorian liked him even less now. His colleague, Killick, was still on the phone in the far corner.

'Not ten minutes ago – I was down in one of the cages when you and your buddy over there added another "thing" to the crowd,' There was no mistaking the accusation in Dorian's tone, but Graves did nothing but leer at the young blond Captain.

'They're not normal, what d'you expect me to call 'em when they ain't got faces?' He took a forceful step towards Dorian.

'People, perhaps?' Dorian rose from the desk to meet his challenge.

'Now now gents, let's calm down a tad,' Urged Detective Inspector Bishop, a faint look of panic in his tired eyes.

'Sir?' Killick was finished on the phone. He beckoned to Bishop and Graves.

'Captain Smith, you stay here. Graves, with me,' they joined the third man at the back of the room in quiet discussion.

Dorian checked his breathing; his hands were shaking with rage at Graves' lack of compassion. If there was one thing Dorian was proud of inheriting from his father, it was his ability to be compassionate towards everyone and everything. Yet it was that which made serving in two World Wars and numerous other conflicts a living hell.

The three Police officers had fallen silent. Dorian looked up from his now still hands to see the apprehension in Bishop's face, the curiosity in Killick's and the sadistic glare in Graves' as he raised his pistol from its holster to point at Dorian.

'Headquarters has just given us some quite unusual facts about you Captain Smith,' the Inspector told him. Dorian backed up against the window. 'Especially concerning your reaction to gunshots.'

Dorian wondered what Headquarters had told them, and more importantly, why?. Graves was aiming at point blank range, and Dorian knew from experience that if he fired it would really hurt.

'Just to check that you really are who you say you are, we're going to have to test you with this. If you are Captain Dorian Smith you will have nothing to worry about and we can talk later. But if you aren't,' Graves sneered as he adjusted his aim, leaving the sentence hanging.

Two loud shots were the last things Dorian heard as the right of his chest was pierced. A bullet. And again on his left. His vision went black as he crumpled to the floor.