CHAPTER V

Gérardin shut the door behind his guests, and the Doctor said, "Keep your back against the wall."

"Excuse me?" she asked nervously, obeying.

"You don't want to get snuck-up-on again," he said. "Cover me." He stepped forward toward the planter.

"Cover you?" she repeated.

"Just keep your eyes open," he muttered. "Try not to blink."

Martha's heart leapt into her throat. "Try not to…" Her jaw hung slack after that, and her eyes glazed over with ugh, not that rubbish again.

He looked at her through piercing brown eyes. "The trouble began when the stonework came in. You've been losing time," he said. He parted two large palm leaves in order to see into the planter. "And there are at least two weeping cherubs in here."

He reached into the foliage and emerged holding a little statue of a chubby cherub, hiding its eyes. It was maybe twelve inches tall, and matched the Victorian swirls of the planter and benches all around.

"Oh my God," she groaned.

"Well, don't worry too much," he said lightly, setting the thing down upon a bench. "I mean, how much time did you lose? Five minutes the first time? Ten the second time?"

He scanned over the cherub with the sonic, and then commented, "Yep, here they are again – the little angels. They're almost cute, aren't they?"

"If you say so."

"Oh, come on, Martha," he urged. "It's not like they pack the punch of their older cousins. Unless you were planning to die of a heart attack in the next fifteen minutes anyway, the touch of a cherub can't kill you. Just irritate you."

"Says the man who hasn't been touched yet," she said, crossing her arms in annoyance.

"Only trouble is," he mused, stepping free of the planter area. "Eighteen floors, two planters on each, minus the lobby and the absent thirteenth floor, that's probably at least sixty-four of these things, and that's assuming that there's only two in each planter. That's a hell of a lot of time being eaten."

"Hence the TARDIS' alert," she said.

"We need to find a place to sort of set up camp," he said. "Out of sight of these things. You know, so we can draw up a battle plan."

"Well, maybe we can convince people we're the police," she suggested. "I've still got the psychic paper…"

She patted down her jacket and trousers, and felt the little wallet in her back pocket, and dug for it. She had looked away for a few seconds, and when she looked up, the Doctor had vanished.

Martha set her jaw in exasperation and waited. Seconds later, he emerged from the lift down the hall, soaking wet.

"Wound up in the pool," he called to her. "It was embarrassing – they were having a party."

Martha kept her back to the wall and made her way round to the main hallway. The Doctor covered one end of the hall, Martha the other. They backed into the lift together.

"How do we stop these things?" she asked, doors closed, lift still.

"We just have to confine them," he said. "Put them away. Beter still, lock them up. Better still…" his eyes grew wide. "Ooooh."

"What?"

"Remember how we trapped them before? The big ones I mean, at Wester Drumlins in the cellar?"

"Tricked them into looking at each other."

"Yeah. We have to do that again."

"But there's so many of them!"

"Then we'll have to be systematic about it. Now where can we lock them up?"

Martha stepped forward and hit the button on the lift. "I might know a place."


"Hello again," Hervé said, grinning. "Miss Bankhead, looking lovely as always."

"Hi," she said. "Can you show me that screen again, the one that shows the inside of the cupboard?"

Hervé looked at her sceptically. "Why?"

"Sorry, classified."

Hervé cocked an eyebrow.

"Seriously," she assured him.

"By whose orders?" the guard asked.

"The, er, King of Belgium," said the Doctor. "Miss Bankhead, credentials again please."

"No, I saw your credentials the first time," Hervé said. "I remember. But I'm going to have to call Monsieur Gérardin."

"We've just been to see him," the Doctor said, smiling. "Lovely man. He liked us!"

"You've been to see him," Hervé worked out. "After you saw… who was it?"

"Mm? Oh, the fellow who was waiting for us! Beaumont on ten. Another lovely, lovely man."

"I'm not sure I know him."

"New to the building, new to the area, as a matter of fact," the Doctor said, beginning his machine-gun-like speech pattern. "Came from Aix-en-Provence, he did, and he and Gérardin, well, they're great friends since childhood. Anyway, Beaumont wanted to do something about the smell in his flat – call it new-flat smell – so some fumigators were called in and found that there was a termite infestation, so they fumigated with the help of some exterminators. But then Beaumont found that the exterminators had stolen some of his property, so he wanted to sue them and he asked for Gérardin's help, but Gérardin didn't want to get involved in a lawsuit – public image and all that, especially with the termite business. That's nasty. Do you know what termites can do to property? Do you know how fast they can eat up your life? Oh, Hervé I could tell you stories. This one flat I lived in, in Chelsea, it had…"

"Stop right there," Hervé said, holding up one hand. "Are you insane?"

"Absolutely not. I'm just doing what needs to be done. Unfortunately, because of the delicate nature of the termite problem and the potent chemicals… well, I really shouldn't say anymore. It's an under-your-hat kind of affair."

"What's it got to do with the King of Belgium?"

"Oh, everything, Hervé!" the Doctor said loudly. "Haven't you been paying attention, kid? Blimey! All right, listen. When Beaumont was working as an actuary back in Sussex…"

"Never mind," Hervé stopped him. "Just… stop talking. He gave you permission?"

"Who?"

"Gérardin. He gave you permission to be in the broom cupboard?"

"'Course he did! Why else would we be here? Do you really think we would flash fake credentials at you just so that we could look inside some stupid cupboard? I don't know about you, Miss Bankhead, but I have better things to do with my time." Martha nodded heartily in agreement. "So, Hervé, my boy, mind letting us do our jobs, and telling us where this cupboard is?"

With a frown, Hervé said, "Basement, door opposite the lift."

"Thanks, Hervé," the Doctor said, slapping the guard on the shoulder. "You've done a good thing."

As they turned to go, they heard a loud, but familiar noise. Their eyes were drawn to the south wall, which was essentially all windows. They saw the Doctor himself running past, at full speed, a brown streak of screaming frustration. As his voice died down, the travellers looked at each other.

"Was that…?" Martha asked.

"Me? Yeah," the Doctor answered, sighing.

"Blimey."

"It's going to be a long day."


"You go left, I'll go right," Martha said as she stepped off the lift for what felt like the eightieth time that day. They were back on the eighteenth floor – they had decided to start at the top of the building and work their way down.

"No, I think it's best if we stick together," he corrected. "More eyes means less chance of a cherubic zap."

They both went left, and they each reached into the planter and extracted, very carefully, a stone cherub.

"It's heavy," Martha said. "Hard to believe they can move so fast."

"But they can, so just be careful," he said, staring intently at the sculpture-that-wasn't-a-sculpture in his hands. "Okay. Lift. Keep the little angel where you can see him."

This was considerably more difficult for Martha than for the Doctor, as holding a thirty-pound block of concrete away from her body required upper-body strength that she simply did not possess. But she didn't say anything just now. She resolved to look about for a trolley or something once they were inside the broom cupboard.

They took the lift down to the basement, and as promised, a door just opposite was labeled broom cupboard. The Doctor sonicked it open, and then sonicked the camera before they walked into its sight."

"Doctor, if you break the camera, he'll come down here," Martha said.

"I didn't break it, I froze it," he said. "He'll just see a freeze-frame of that shelf. Until the end of time, if I wanted. Follow me."

The Doctor walked deep into the closet, into the darkness, and began scanning the walls with the sonic.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm looking for the least thick wall, the loosest bricks, et cetera," he answered. "Ah ha. Here we go."

He got close to the wall and concentrated the sonic beam on two bricks low to the ground. He pushed on them and they moved surprisingly easily. Beyond them, the Doctor and Martha saw pipes. "Well, little angels," he said. "Welcome to your new home."

They set the little angels down on the floor. They backed up several steps and regarded them. They were now standing a good ten feet from the angels.

"Okay," the Doctor said in a loud whisper. "On the count of three, blink. We'll do it together. Ready?"

"Wait! Why?" she wanted to know.

"Because we have to get them to come after us so they'll uncover their eyes."

She sighed. "Okay. But if I wind up in someone's bathtub fifteen minutes ago, I shall be very cross."

"Oh, just do it. Ready?"

On his count, they blinked at the same time. Both angels had uncovered their eyes and had their hands reaching out toward Martha and the Doctor, their faces set in childish surprise.

"Wow, it worked," Martha remarked. "Maybe this won't be so hard."

"You know," the Doctor mused. "It occurs to me that we could just bring the other angels down here and let these two watch over them. We don't have to do this with all of them!"

"Hm," she said. "Nice idea. Let's do it. Maybe we can catch lunch."

They each picked up a cherub and placed it in the hole, then the Doctor turned them to face one another. They left the cupboard and shut the door behind them.


When they reached the eighteenth floor this time, they were greeted by an eerie sight.

Two more angels sat on the carpet, hiding their eyes, about five feet from where the lift door opened. They were waiting.