In the lab at UNIT HQ, a fine argument was in the works. "Brigadier, I told you this morning, I am a scientist, not a detective," the Doctor said. He leaned closer to the flickering screen of the oscilloscope on the work bench and squinted at it. "Jo, the frequency generator on this thing is not working properly. Call down to--"
The Brigadier, not in the least put off by the Doctor's dismissive attitude, interrupted him. "Now listen here, Doctor. I've got Scotland Yard banging on the door with this. We're supposed to liaison with local authorities as they need us."
"Well do what you like." The Doctor glanced at Jo. "Jo, get on that call with Supply, will you. We can't move forward without a reliable frequency generator."
She nodded and shot a look at the fuming and impatient Brigadier. He saw the glance and let her know with a single look that he was depending on her. Used to soothing the Doctor and making peace when she could, Jo immediately went to the telephone and called down to the supply clerk. After a moment, when the Brigadier rocked back and forth on his heels and the Doctor completely ignored him, she replaced the receiver and said, "No frequency generators in stock, I'm afraid. We should see one Monday at the earliest."
"Blast this infernal beauracracy of bits and pieces!" the Doctor exclaimed. He slammed down the probe of the O-scope, breaking it and not caring.
"Look Doctor, I really need you to spare some time to this case," the Brigadier told him. "I can't do this without you. A young woman has been killed, and the circumstances are dubious--really extraordinary. We may be dealing with a Jack the Ripper here."
"Brigadier, that is the lookout of Scotland Yard and the police force. As I said, I am not a detective!" he barked.
He was interrupted as Jo stepped closer to look at the O-scope. The Brigadier paused. Jo knew how to handle the Doctor when he became stubborn.
"How do you know it's the frequency generator, Doctor?" she asked. "Maybe we could jury rig something if it's just a short circuit."
"I'm not a repair man, Jo," he said sulkily, but his voice was quieter. Ever since his young assistant had stepped in the way of an energy bolt meant for him and saved his life, the Doctor had become downright docile with her. There were times when she was the only person at UNIT who could handle him.
She looked up at him and smiled. "I thought it might be interesting. You could show me how they work," she said. "You're just dying to give me another lesson in electronics, aren't you?"
He smiled back at her. The Brigadier refrained from snorting. UNIT's scientific advisor was impervious to all stratagems except flattery. Now that he valued Jo Grant so highly, he shamelessly enjoyed her admiration for him.
"Well, we'll see," he said, trying to sound gruff with her but failing. With the crisis at Devil's End concluded, the Doctor felt more at home. The adventure had been just odd enough, just dangerous enough, to satisfy some of his pent-up energies. And Jo's willingness to sacrifice herself for him seemed to have restored some of the happiness he had felt with his previous companions. He had a new confidence and trust in her.
She glanced at the Brigadier, as though suddenly aware that he was still there. "Who did you say was killed, Brigadier?"
"A poor young woman from Northern Ireland, Miss Grant," he said. "Here in London just a week after being married."
"Oh, poor girl!"
"Very young thing. Twenty-one or thereabouts, I believe," he said. "About your height I should say. Ruthlessly murdered. And she's not the first."
"And her husband?"
"Pegged as the culprit," the Brigadier told her. "That's the unusual thing--"
The Doctor snorted. "Married men murdering their wives is as old a marriage itself, Brigadier."
"They were very much in love by all accounts, Doctor. And he was a divinity student. They were on their way back from a mid-week prayer service when it happened."
The Doctor's curiosity got the better of him. "Does he admit to it?"
"Yes."
"Well I don't see where the mystery is--"
"Five," the Brigadier said. "Five murders like this in the past month. Devoted husbands, lovers, boy friends, ruthlessly murdering the women that they love. Completely unaccountable. And more women will die unless we can determine what's motivating these fellows."
The Doctor hesitated. There were things he wanted to do at the lab, new ideas for building a dematerialisation circuit that could bypass the interlocks set in the TARDIS by the High Council of the Time Lords. And the Doctor often had little patience with the infrastructures of highly organised groups like Scotland Yard. He actually did better with impromptu groups of people who would easily follow his charismatic leadership.
Jo waited just long enough for him to consider, and then she rested a hand on his sleeve. "Doctor, could you just go see the poor man that did this to his wife?" she asked. "Just to see if you think there's something behind it that UNIT should look into?" She looked up at him appealingly. In spite of himself, the Brigadier marveled at her. Certainly with her big dark eyes and earnest face, Jo Grant was hard to resist. The amazing thing was that she knew it so well and could work with complete confidence, persuading the Doctor and convincing him that investigating this mystery was entirely his idea.
The Doctor relented. "Well," he began. Then he said, "If it matters to you, Jo, I could take a look into it." He suddenly smiled and chucked her under the chin. "Or do you just want to play detective for a while?"
"I think I would feel better knowing why these women are being killed," she said. "If it's not just all a horrible coincidence."
A look of concern passed quickly across his face, and he watched her as she went to get his cape for him. "You'll stay by me then," he said.
"Of course she will," the Brigadier said gruffly. "Miss Grant, you are to stay with the Doctor. Understood?"
She came back with the cape and her own jacket. "Of course, Brigadier. Not many places to run off to in a lock-up."
* * * *
It was hard to be afraid of Ronald McClellan. Jo had been prepared for a larger, tougher sort of man, perhaps one who would cringe and fawn on the Doctor and try for sympathy. What they found when they were ushered into the cell by a stony faced policeman was a young, very fresh-faced man, who stood immediately at their entrance, but kept his eyes downcast.
"How do you do," the Doctor said formally. "I'm the Doctor, and this is my assistant, Miss Grant. We'd like to ask you a few questions if you don't mind."
"You may ask your questions sir," he said, still not looking up. He pointed to a single chair in the cell. Jo took it. He and the Doctor sat on the small cot.
"You know I killed my wife," he said before the Doctor could speak. McClellan's heavy Ulster accent somehow made him seem more pitiful. "I did it, sir. I don't know why, but I killed Mary."
"Do you remember anything about it?" the Doctor asked.
"Oh, aye. We were at t'service: a little congregation that meets just a few blocks from this lock-up. Everything was all right. I had to say a few words about the sister church back at home-I'm Northern Irish-and then we wanted to get away. People were eager to talk to us though. Mary was that patient and congenial: a good minister's wife-"
"Were you annoyed with her?" the Doctor asked.
"Oh no, sir. Impatient to leave mind you, but I had to admire her. Her duty was to be kind and hospitable to folks, and she was doin' her duty, even on her honeymoon. I knew she wanted to get away with me." At last, he afforded a small, meek glance at the Doctor. "She didn't deserve what I did to her, sir."
"What happened?" the Doctor asked.
"We got away at last. We walked back to the rooms we'd borrowed-"
"Borrowed?" Jo asked.
"Friends we knew through the church. They lent us their place while we were in London. The police have been over and over it, but I don't think there's anything there to explain it," he told her. "It happened outside, before we went in."
"The report said you strangled her?" the Doctor asked.
"I did." He began to sniffle, and then to weep. "And I remember it, too. I remember doing it. I know I did it. Mary, my poor wife." He broke down into sobs. The Doctor looked at Jo with a troubled, confused look. She was just as confused. She had expected him to be a bit more defensive, or at least less articulate about his role.
"But why?" she asked. The Doctor shook his head. He spoke instead. "What were you thinking when you did it?"
"It doesn't make any sense," McClellan sobbed. "It doesn't make any sense what I was thinkin'-"
"Tell me anyway."
"She had to hold still. I had to make her be still. She had to hold still--beneath me--lower than me. I forced her down to her knees. I still see her eyes--what's happened to me? Mary, why did I do this to you?" He wept uncontrollably, unable to pull himself together. The Doctor was silent. McClellan wiped his eyes on his sleeve and at last spoke again. "You should have seen her on our first day-so surprised and pleased by every thing. I had flowers waiting for her, and a new dress she'd seen back home and couldn't afford. I got it for her and mailed it down before the wedding so that it would be all laid out when we came in." At last he glanced at Jo. "I'd never told her how beautiful she was until we were married. I picked her up and brought her through the door, and I forgot to put her down, you know. I just stood there, in that front room, telling her how beautiful and good she was--" He caught himself. After a long pause he said, with a strange, sorry grimness, "I always knew I was a sinner. But what strange darkness comes out of a man and kills the person he loves best and is most grateful to? What's inside of me to do that? Even a selfish and criminal man spares the thing that does him good and makes him happy."
"We'll look into this," the Doctor said. "You may have been under some influence. We'll question the others."
* * * *
Stan Bilkins was a few years older than Ronald McClellan, and slightly more composed. He had been sitting in lock-up for two weeks, but he was used to it. He accepted a cigarette from the Doctor and gestured for his two visitors to sit down. He sat back on his cot with his legs stretched out, his back against the wall, the picture of a man accustomed to waiting for arraignment.
"Mighty gen'rous of you guv," he said, lighting up and exhaling thankfully. "They won't let me have no smokes alone. Afraid I'll burn meself or something."
"Why is that?" the Doctor asked.
"I was that suicidal when I first come in. They got me on tranqs even now, but it ain't as bad as it was. Not since I met the minister fellow." And he jerked his head in the general direction of McClellan's cell.
This puzzled the Doctor. "Why is that?"
"Come now, guv. You think a bloke like that could find the stomach to kill his wife?" Stan asked. "I could've believed it of meself. I'd never hit Joan, never so much as spoke cross with her, not even that time she left the brake off the car and it rolled through the front of the flat. She was a good woman, my Joan. But I was a bad lot, and I knew it. So when it happened, they told me I'd snapped and done her in, and I believed them. But now I don't know."
Jo was puzzled by his offhand candor. "Why do you call yourself a bad lot?"
"Why, Miss, I got a history as long as your arm," he told her. "Nothing violent. Just theft. A crate here and there from the back of shops. Nothing anybody would much miss. Got really drunk once and took off all me clothes for a dip in the Thames. The local constable patrol was not amused. But I never hurt nobody before, never threatened nobody, never so much as laid a finger on nobody, until I killed my Joan." And his face, which had been laconic and slightly cynical, became sober for a moment. He fell silent. The Doctor did not speak. After a long moment, Stan said, "I denied all the petty stuff, which I had a right will to do and enjoyed it. But killin' her, there was no denyin' that, and I don't know why ever I done it." He let his head rest back against the wall, and Jo realized that he was moderately tranquilized even then.
"Can you tell us what happened?" the Doctor asked.
"I'd just picked her up from the doctor's," he said. To their surprise, he came around to reality and suddenly let out a sob of unguarded grief. "She were pregnant. We'd just found out. Just then, down t'the Women's Health Centre."
"And you were not married?" the Doctor asked.
"Oh don't be stupid!" He brought himself under control, took three or four drags of the cigarette, and said, without looking at his visitors. "We were that happy. I said we should get married right away, but Joan said it were too funny to be wearing a wedding dress and looking like that. She wanted to wait until after the baby came, and have a fancy wedding."
He drew his knees up and rested his elbows on them. He paused for a moment, and now it was obvious that he was trying to be coherent and clear. He looked at the Doctor. "I was that impatient to know. They put me off by meself in a little waiting room, and I thought that must mean it was bad news. Like maybe something we thought was her being pregnant was something else. I was standing there in this closed off little room convincing meself Joan had cancer and promising God I would reform and be a better man if He would just let her recover. Finally the doctor of the place come in all smiles and tells me to come out to the front desk. And there's Joan, looking like the sunshine."
He stubbed out the cigarette on the metal frame of the bed and accepted another one from the Doctor. But he forgot to light it. "I wanted to get her home. Oh, she was so happy. She told me right off we would have to name the baby Sparky." He started to laugh and cry at the same time and again caught himself. "She had that odd a sense of humor. Could you imagine, she asked me, how people would look when they asked us what we would name the baby, and we tell them we'll name him Sparky? She was laughing and laughing over that. Had her one hand on me shoulder and neck, and the other on my knee as I drove, talking at me, and laughing. I used to call her my blue bird. Nobody could be happy like Joan could be happy." His voice trailed off.
"When did it happen?" the Doctor asked.
Stan put the cigarette between his lips and lit it. "Just after I parked the car. I started to get hot. Hot behind my ears. And mad. She kept moving, walking in front of me. Moving. We went inside, and she was goin' up the steps ahead of me. I bet she was still talkin', but I couldn't hear her. Just the moving. So I leaped up and grabbed her. She must have started screamin', but I didn't hear it. She kept moving, and it made me wild. I knew I could make her stop, and I did. She was finally still. Because I killed her."
He took the cigarette out of his mouth and met the Doctor's eyes. "Tell them I need a pill," he said. "I'll dream about her if they don't give me a pill. I've killed me woman and child."
* * * *
The Doctor was silent on the short drive back to UNIT HQ. Jo did not think to ask him if he would take on the investigation. Her mind was back in the cells of the jail. It was not until they had returned to the lab, and she was going through the automatic routine to make tea that he said, "I'll need transcripts of the police interviews with all five suspects, Jo."
She was startled out of her grim reverie. "All right," she said. "I'll see to it right away, Doctor."
She plugged in the electric tea kettle and would have gone to rinse out the cups, but he stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. "You all right?" he asked.
She looked up and nodded. "Yes, I'm fine." She offered a faint smile and made to get the cups.
He stopped her with just the slightest pressure on her shoulder and looked into her eyes. "Does it frighten you, Jo?"
"It frightens me for them," she told him. "Those men aren't murderers."
"No, I don't think so either." His eyes were quiet, gentle. "You don't have to--"
"This is my job, Doctor. I want to help you with this investigation. I can do it."
He stepped aside to let her get to the sink. "I know you can."
* * * *
Lethbridge Stewart entered the lab three hours later to find that it had been converted to a sort of police enquiry room. Transcripts lay scattered across the workbench, and requisitions for autopsy information were neatly stacked in an OUT basket, awaiting delivery. Jo had strung a clothesline across one wall, and had hung up enormous sheets of white paper from it, each one annotating details from the transcripts and reports. She was still at work writing things up in two different color pens. The Doctor was reading through one of the thick transcripts.
"So I gather that you find the case relevant to your work, Doctor?" the Brigadier asked.
The Doctor did not glance up. "Are there any more obvious statements you'd like to make before you pitch in and help?"
"Have you found any similarities?"
Jo stepped back from the sheets. She glanced at the Doctor and shook her head. He looked grim.
"Aside from the gender of the attackers and the gender of the victims, no," he said.
"They weren't all married, and they weren't all in love," Jo added. "Four out of five were between lovers or spouses, but there's one that was a nurse, recently divorced, killed by a postman at the clinic where she worked. They were strangers to each other."
"Wasn't one of the other victims a nurse?" the Doctor asked. Jo glanced back at the sheets of paper on the wall and nodded.
"But at a different location; different job; killed by her husband of 27 years. She was the oldest victim." She glanced back at the Doctor and Brigadier. "He was the oldest assailant--52."
"Time of day?" the Brigadier asked. The Doctor shook his head. Jo supplied the information.
"The oldest victim was killed at about ten o'clock at night. The nurse killed by the postman was murdered at about noon. Mary McClellan at 9:00 at night; Joan Rourke at 5:00 in the afternoon; the other woman at 9:00 in the morning."
"I've got a call out for autopsy reports and biological samples," the Doctor told him with a nod at some of the papers. "Pending your approval."
The Brigadier fished a pen out of his shirt pocket. "Tell me where to sign."
* * * *
Jo hand delivered the recs for autopsy information and samples, and the next day she brought back a briefcase full of papers and a refrigerated case of samples.
The Doctor was eager to get started. She paced back and forth while he donned gloves and opened the case.
"Look," she said. "Why don't I go out and gather more information? We have three more men to question. They're all under guard. I'll be quite safe."
He was secretly relieved to hear her offer. As long as Jo was busy with tasks, things went smoothly in the lab, but once she got bored or curious, there were sure to be interruptions: anything from endless questions to beakers and sensors being knocked over by accident. Early in her career, he had simply barred her from the lab whenever he was busy, but her loyalty and devotion to him now made that course impossible. It hurt her feelings to be pointedly sent away, and he found himself much more aware of her feelings these days. So he was quick to agree with her plan.
"That's a splendid idea, my dear. Start asking those men for details of the day of each killing. What they did, where they went, what was said back and forth. We may unearth a link somewhere-even down to what they ate and drank."
"Right. I'm on it!" Pleased at his confidence in her, she started for the door, but the Brigadier popped his head inside, his eyes serious.
"We've got another one, Doctor. But she's survived. She's down in hospital. I want you there."
The Doctor pointed to Jo. "Stick with your plan, Jo. I need those details. We'll come back and compare notes." She nodded. The three of them strode out together, intent on their tasks, but she left them to sign out a car, and the two men went outside to Bessy, the Doctor's vintage roadster.
"What do you make of it?" the Brigadier asked. "If you uncover mere psychological aberrations, we're off the case. It goes back to the sole jurisdiction of Scotland Yard."
The Doctor shook his head. "In a single month?" he asked. "Five--well, now six senseless attacks by men with no motive to kill, all within one city. One case would be highly suspect. Statistically speaking, it's impossible that each man was acting from a naturally occurring or non-induced psychological breakdown."
They climbed into the car. "So you're saying-"
"Something made them do it."
The Doctor started the ignition, and they rolled out. The Brigadier folded his arms and frowned. He had to raise his voice to be heard over the air flow as they drove. "The thing is, who's next to commit murder?" he asked. "I mean, it could be any of us--any man, I mean. Decent men like Captain Yates or Sgt. Benton--"
"Or you, Brigadier," the Doctor said grimly.
He expected a snappish retort, but instead the Brigadier's voice was sober, "Or me, Doctor. How does a man fight an enemy he cannot perceive?"
* * * *
The five men were not all incarcerated in the same building. Jo wanted to go straight to the men she had not yet seen, but there had been something so pitiful in Ronald McClellan's grief that she detoured to pursue a second interrogation with him.
"I was wondering," she asked him. "If you could be a bit more specific about what you did that day--that last day with your wife."
He was now more composed than he had been the previous morning, and her return to his cell seemed to help him pull himself together. Apparently, a third party coming in to make some meaning out of events encouraged him.
"Well now," he said. He met her eye today, his own eyes still filled with sorrow and a humbleness of a man deeply ashamed. But he spoke clearly. She sat in the hard chair in the cell and pulled out her notebook.
"We were still abed late in the morning," he said. "Mary wasn't feeling well, and we had an appointment in the late morning to see a doctor-"
"She was that ill?" Jo asked.
"Oh, nothing serious, Miss Grant. But . . . " Now he looked away, modest. "This was the first time. I mean, the way the doctor explained it--well, I'm a biological landscape you see, and so was Mary. So when we, you know, had our first night together--"
"You mean she got an infection?" Jo asked helpfully.
This directness relieved him and embarrassed him at the same time. "Aye, Miss. It hurt her to use the bathroom. But she knew all about it. She made an appointment with a woman's doctor, and we went down at ten. Mary said they might not even examine her, just give her an antibiotic to take. But no, they put me off in a little dark waiting room off the main one. And the doctor there examined her but said it was just a minor bacterial infection. Mary got some pills to take and some waxy things--"
"You were put in a room off the waiting room?" Jo asked.
He nodded. "I think when Mary first came in, she was that uncomfortable, you know, that maybe the doctor thought it was something more serious. The doctor said I might be better off in private, and she would come get me."
Jo was writing at a furious pace. "But it wasn't serious."
"No, how could it be? Mary and I had never been with anyone but each other."
"Who was the doctor you consulted?"
"Rocelyn Mayes," he told her. "A lady doctor."
Jo shuffled through her many papers and notes. "At the Women's Health Centre?"
He nodded. "Aye." He hesitated. "Does that mean something to you?"
"I don't know." She slipped her notebook and papers back into the briefcase. "Another victim was at the Women's Health Centre as well." She made herself not sound excited over the lead. She paused and smiled at him. "I think that's all for now, Mr. McClellan," she said. She extended her hand. "Please take heart. The fact is, there's a lot more to what happened than we know."
His eyes did not lose their sadness. "I did kill her, Miss. Whatever we don't know, we do know that."
"But we have yet to know why," she said. "I don't believe you are a murderer, and I do believe you loved your wife very much."
After leaving him, she put in a call to the liaison at Scotland Yard. With their authority and reputation, they could get the records from the Women's Health Centre more easily than she could.
She had to drive through London to interview George Cally, the only one of the five men who had a history of violence.
"Aw, that was years ago," the constable told her as he led her down a short, dark hallway to the cells. "Told the wife to get out of his way when they were arguin'. He said later he knew he was about to lose his temper with her and wanted to get away. She blocked his way, and he hit her. It preys on him now. Like he's bein' punished for it years after the fact." The constable unlocked the heavy door to Cally's cell warned her before she went in. "He's a bit dodgy from what he done, Miss. Not right any more."
"Not right?" she asked.
Unafraid of the prisoner, the officer swung the door open. "Cally, you took your medicine, eh?"
The bare cell was so small that Jo felt a little claustrophobic as she realized she would have to go inside to get a decent interview. On the cot, which took up more than half the floor space, an unshaven man in his forties sat and stared at the floor.
"Go away," he said.
"You can see him in one of the interview rooms, Miss," the officer told her. "Or right here. I'm just outside the door."
She wanted the interview to be as informal as possible, so she smiled and said, "This will be fine."
She had not been afraid of either McClellan or Bilkins, but as soon as the door slammed behind her with its heavy, iron sound, Cally looked up at her, his eyes alight with both malice and unhappiness.
"Fine," he echoed. "Fine for some. Don't you know I'm a murderer?" he asked. "I killed my wife. And I'll kill you, Miss."
She took the threat coolly. "Nonsense, Mr. Cally," she said, holding his eye with hers. She set down the briefcase. "I wanted to ask you some questions."
He did not remove his gaze from her face, though her cool reply put him off his stride for a moment or two. It seemed incomprehensible to him that she should not fear him.
"I said I'm a murderer," he told her urgently, though he did not raise his voice.
"And I would like to ask you some questions," she repeated.
He began to breathe more heavily, and Jo wondered if she should call out for the guard, but before she could do anything, Cally launched himself at her. In the confines of the narrow cell, there was no where to go to avoid his huge hands. He gripped her throat, and kept his voice a harsh whisper as he bore down on her. "I killed her. And I'll kill you, because I'm a murderer! A no-account, an evil man. I'm killing you like I killed her." He squeezed his hands into her throat, cutting off her air.
She gripped her hands together and swung hard with her arms against his arms, loosening the grip just enough for her to draw one breath, but she could not break his hold. He pushed her into the wall and then began bearing down on her again, forcing her to the floor. Her vision went black. "I am killing you, like I killed her," he said. She could not call out, and her struggle to break free lost its strength. She felt the floor come up and hit her as her knees gave out, and still he was bearing down on her, his fingers rammed like steel rods into her throat. Click here to see Episode Two.
