They took a taxi to the Strand. The Brigadier had said the he didn't need Liz or the Doctor to accompany him on his errand, but she suspected that he was secretly a little relieved when they had both insisted on tagging along.
Liz had taken a nap for a few hours after lunch and, although still tired, she at least felt that she'd last the evening without drifting into unconsciousness. The shops were closing, commuters were walking west towards Charing Cross, double-decker buses and black cabs hooted as they vied for space on the road. It would have seemed like a perfectly normal evening in London, if not for the boarded up windows of the clothes shops, and the blobs of green ooze in the gutter, where the mannequins had fallen.
"Can't beat the 'Blitz Spirit', eh Brigadier?" said the Doctor, as he stepped out of the way of a portly man in pinstripes who was heading for the railway station at a brisk trot. "Patch the windows, sweep up the glass, pop the dummies in the back of a truck, and everything's back to normal."
"Where are all the dummies?" said Liz, as they set off up Bedford Street, "There must have been thousands of them."
"Oh, I put Captain Yates onto the clean-up operation," said the Brigadier. He'd changed into civvies before they left UNIT headquarters – black trousers, blue shirt, regimental tie and grey jacket - and she tried to ignore the part of her brain that told her he looked very dashing. "He's not been with us long, but he seems to have a decent grasp of logistics. He's been liaising with the local councils, requisitioning dust carts and such. Seems to be going well so far."
They reached the top of the road and turned right towards St Paul's Church and the main piazza.
"Are you alright, Alistair?"
Liz looked around when she heard the Doctor's quiet question, and saw that the Brigadier had stopped on the corner to look across the area where the market had once been.
He nodded. "Yes. It looks different now. I don't think the warehouse…" He paused, took a breath. "I don't think it's here any more." He shook his head, as though to clear it of bad memories, and pointed north. "The pub's that way, I think. Come on."
The carpet in the Dog and Duck smelled new, but the oche and dartboard to the left of the bar gave the place a schizophrenic feel, as though it hadn't quite made up its mind whether it wanted to bring back its pre-refurbishment clientele, or reach out to the opera-goers and the well-heeled shoppers who frequented the upmarket shops that were springing up in place of the old flower market.
At 6pm, it was quiet – too late for the shoppers, too early yet for the theatre and opera audiences – and they picked out a corner away from the window, with a high wooden screen behind the padded benches. Liz and the Doctor slid onto the benches, the Brigadier remained standing.
"What would you like to drink?" He said it with the weary resignation of a man anticipating having to order pineapple-and-lemonade, or something with a little umbrella in it.
Liz would have killed for a small white wine, but the devil in her made her determined to ask for something he wouldn't be expecting. "I'll have half a best bitter, please." She'd never tasted the stuff before, but felt amply rewarded for her adventurous choice by the look on the Brigadier's face.
"Doctor?" he prompted.
"I don't suppose they have a decent Burgundy?" said the Doctor, "Or a nice Bordeaux?"
The Brigadier sighed. "I'll ask," he said, and went across to the bar.
The Doctor was looking over Liz's shoulder, towards the window and the view beyond. "Fascinating," he said, "What a difference a few centuries can make to a place."
Liz was still finding it difficult to believe the time-travel part of the Doctor's story, but she made an effort to swallow her scepticism. "You mean you've been here before? In the distant past?"
"No," he said, "In the future. I'm afraid the Daleks will make a terrible mess of it a few centuries from now. Still.." - he patted her hand – "…nothing for you to worry about. They'll be forced to retreat. Eventually."
"That's a comfort," said Liz, dryly, wondering whether she should ask what 'daleks' were, and deciding she was better not knowing. She turned her attention to the bar as she heard the pop of a cork, and saw the barman fill a small wine glass from the bottle he'd just opened.
"There we are, sir," she heard him say, "A pint for you, 'alf a Best for your good lady, and a glass of red for your dad."
"Well, really!" huffed the Doctor, as Liz snorted with laughter.
"Come on, Doctor, if you're as old as you claim to be, you're old enough to be the Brigadier's ancestor, let alone his father," she giggled.
"That's hardly the point." He smoothed his cloak, and folded his arms. "Wretched Time Lords! I shall complain to the High Council next time I see them. Just because I didn't like any of the faces they offered me."
At the bar, the barman was handing the Brigadier his change.
"Thank you," said the Brigadier, "Tell me, is Mary going to be in this evening?"
The barman nodded. "She'll be in about seven," he said. "Friend of Alan's are you? I could tell you was military soon as you came in."
"It was Alan who sent me, yes," said the Brigadier, carefully. "I have a… message for her. If you wouldn't mind sending her over, when she arrives?"
"Yeah, alright squire, if it won't take long. We starts getting busy about seven-thirty so…"
"Actually, you might want to consider giving her the rest of the evening off." The statement was spoken quietly, and the Brigadier did nothing more than straighten up and rock on his heels, but he exuded an air of authority that screamed 'British Officer'.
Liz had stopped laughing. Next to her, the Doctor had sat forward, his sulks apparently forgotten.
"Oh, bloody 'ell. Don't tell me… Those sodding robots, was it?"
"I'm afraid so."
The cover story, by now all over the Evening Standard as well as the TV news reports, was that experimental robots designed for the military had been mistakenly delivered to retail stores and, when activated at a pre-set time, had automatically assumed an attack mode.
"Sodding scientists," said the barman, as he grabbed a cloth and worked off some of his anger on the bar top, "Mad, the lot of 'em."
The Brigadier delivered their drinks and slid into the seat opposite. "I wish I could tell him that it's scientists we all owe our lives to," he said.
"Well, you know the old saying," said Liz, "No good deed goes unpunished." She raised her glass and took a mouthful of beer. It was all she could do not to spit it straight back out, but good manners and stubbornness won out and she swallowed it down. Half a pint, she realised too late, was an awful lot of liquid to get through when you really didn't like it.
Next to her, the Doctor spluttered over his red wine, and gave it a doubtful sniff. "What is this? I'm sure it's been nowhere near France!"
"I believe it's Chianti," said the Brigadier, "And I could have bought my own vineyard for what I just got charged for it."
"You were robbed," said the Doctor, pushing the glass away.
With a sigh, the Brigadier reached across and pulled Liz's half-pint across to his own side of the table, then slid the wine glass in front of Liz. "I'll get you a glass of water, Doctor, hopefully that won't cost me the other half of this month's salary," he said, as he stood up again.
The Doctor nodded, thoughtfully. "Could you ask if they've got any peanuts?"
The cobbled surface of the piazza shone under the glow of the streetlamps as they stepped out of the Pub into the twilight. The bass thump of loud music was audible above the hum of distant cars, and the smell of beef and onions carried on the breeze.
"Poor girl," said Liz, her thoughts with the young woman for whom the landlord was solicitously calling a cab – at UNIT's expense. "Do you think she'll be alright?"
"I'll let Benton have her details," said the Brigadier, tucking the piece of paper with Mary's address into his pocket. "He can notify the girls in Personnel."
"But she's not a dependant," said Liz, "She won't have any money coming."
"No, but we can make sure she gets the moral support she'll be needing." He buttoned his jacket and turned to head across the Piazza back to the Strand. "UNIT looks after its own."
"Alistair." The Doctor stopped on the corner, and pointed north. "Surely it would be a shorter journey if we headed that way?"
The Brigadier flicked a glance at where he was pointing, met the Doctor's gaze for a moment, then nodded. "Yes, it would," he said, and resumed his course south.
The Doctor fell into step beside Liz as they followed. "He had to get all the way back to Goodge Street," he said, in an undertone. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "It's that way."