Strange Darkness;Always the Third Doctor!;Jo Grant;Katy Manning;Jon Pertwee;UNIT;TARDIS;
Strange Darkness
Episode Two
Written by Jeri Massi
Outside the closed door of the hospital room, the Brigadier paused to speak to the Detective Inspector assigned to the case.
"Where is the husband now?" the Brigadier asked him.
The man nodded towards the elevators. "Up about three floors, guv. Under watch."
The Doctor was startled. "What? Hospitalized?"
"Dying of leukemia." The man flipped open his memo book to double check. "Yeah, that's what it is, leukemia. Final stages, so I'm told, or not far from it. That's how the wife escaped him. His strength is low."
"She was caring for him?" the Doctor asked.
The man nodded. "Unaccountable," he said. "Just unaccountable. Married thirty-five years."
The Brigadier shot a glance at the closed door of the hospital room. "Is she able to talk to us?"
The detective nodded. "Go on in. She's not very bad off. Just shocked. She's mostly worried for him."
They knocked and entered. A woman in her very early sixties was propped up on pillows in bed. Her steel gray hair was done in one of those styles from a professional salon. There was a middle class, respectable, solid look about her, as well as a certain faded attractiveness.
"Mrs. Harding," the Brigadier said. "How are you? We are the investigators from UNIT. I am Lethbridge Stewart, and this is the Doctor."
"Come in Captain," she told him. "Come in. I am very able to speak. Do you have any word on my husband, Jack?"
"I'll be happy to check on that for you, madam."
"It was the medication. It had to be the medication, Captain," she told him. "He would never do that otherwise. Jack's as mild as milk."
He became slightly dismissive. "I'm inclined to agree with you madam, but--"
She interrupted him by handing him a slip of paper. He glanced at it and passed it to the Doctor.
"That's the list of his medications," she said. "I wrote it up just now. You sir, Doctor. Couldn't they interact with each other?" she asked. "In a bad way, I mean?"
"Perhaps." The Doctor read the list carefully. "He's taking all this at once?"
"Oh, different doses at different times," she said. "But yes. He had his chemotherapy, and then suffered several infections. A bit of pneumonia that I really thought might do him in, but he came back from it. It's the nausea that brings him so low now. We just started a new drug for that. And then he just swears by these vitamins I get for free at the clinic--"
"Clinic?" the Brigadier asked.
"Well, we've spent a good bit on his medical care. There are extra expenses you know, that have to be borne. I thought it best to watch out for myself. We can't both be down at once. I get the vitamins at the nutritional clinic near our house. It's a private organisation. But it's run by medical doctors."
"But your husband takes the vitamins as well?" the Doctor asked.
"Yes. We can't tell if they've done him any good or not. What do you think? Did the drugs do something to him?"
The Doctor looked carefully at the list. "There are so many here, Mrs. Harding. It's difficult to say. It might just be possible." He glanced from the list to her. "Did he start on any of these just recently?"
"Well, he's been taking the vitamins all along, but I just picked up a new bottle yesterday. And the nausea medicine; it's a new drug he's trying."
"Nausea from the chemotherapy?" the Brigadier asked. "I thought he had finished the chemotherapy."
She nodded and raised a hand to her bruised throat, fingering the sensitive skin there, called away from their presence for a moment. "I'm sorry," she said, coming back to them. "Yes Captain. It's an after-effect. They said it could last for several weeks. You see, the chemotherapy wasn't really bothering his stomach at all, not directly. It inflames a tiny nerve center at the base of the brain that triggers the nausea and vomiting. So the specialists found him this new medicine. It blocks those nerve cells from reacting as much. Done him a world of good. He only started taking it yesterday. But he could keep food in his stomach almost right off."
"When he attacked you," the Doctor said. "You fought him off?"
"I did Doctor. Not mean and hard. He was--crying like. A little like a sleep walker, maybe."
"Crying?" the Brigadier asked.
She nodded. "He came at me, his face all red. He was jabbering a bit, saying he was hot. Then he started to be angry because I was moving about the kitchen, cleaning up from breakfast. I didn't know what had gotten into him. But his face was so livid red that he looked like he was out of his mind. I was somewhat ready when he came at me. I was sure it was the medicine doing it. A bad pill or something."
"He did grab you around the throat?" the Brigadier asked.
She took her hand away from her throat to show him. "But he could hardly stay on his feet. I got my hand on the tea kettle and hit him on the side of the head with it. It burned his scalp a bit because it was still warm."
The Doctor glanced at her. "It infuriated him?"
She slowly shook her head. "No, quite the contrary, Doctor. It seemed to clear him up for a bit. He started screaming for me to get away, to get out of there. Then he commenced to smashing up the dishes and glasses, as though something had hold of him, and he just had to break things. I ran out to call the police, and he came after me. I locked him out of the bedroom and got to the phone. But little Jack, who never so much as swatted the dog with the paper, finally broke down the door. By then he was clean out of his mind. He got me again, around the throat, but I kept pulling away as he got weaker. Just as my own legs were going out from under me, the police came."
The Brigadier was deeply impressed and sobered. "What a horrible experience," he said.
She looked at them both, suddenly alone and vulnerable and worried. "But once it wears off, he'll be terribly worried and frightened, sirs. When may I see him? They haven't taken him to jail have they? I know it wasn't really him doing it."
* * * *
When Jo came around again, she had a blurred impression of men scrabbling or fighting in a corner. She heard the scuffle much more clearly than she saw it--the groans and cries of George Cally as the constable, cursing profusely at him, wrestled him into submission and put restraints on him. Strong arms got under her shoulders. She saw a woman's face, and then a man's face alongside it. Both of them were asking her questions.
"He stopped," she gasped. She tried to tell them not to hurt him, but she could not make her words come out. The strongest impression that she had was that the constable was even more frightened and horrified than she was, and was giving vent to it by restraining Cally with more than necessary force. She wanted to tell him not to hurt Cally, that Cally had stopped choking her before the door had crashed open. But her head swam, and it was still hard to get her breath.
When she came around again, she was in a sort of infirmary, and a gray haired, serious looking man with a white jacket on over his suit was peering at her and taking her pulse.
"Can you hear me, Miss?" he asked.
She nodded.
"Does it hurt here?" His finger touched her throat. Her hand whipped out and knocked his hand away. Even she was startled by this. He did not try to touch her throat again. "All right," he said soothingly. "All right. I don't think there's any damage done to you; just bruising." He hesitated, and then patted her arm. "I'll be checking on you every five minutes or so. You need to stay very still for a half hour or so."
She lay very still. She wanted to be still. Her throat felt bruised and sore in a way it had never felt before, as though muscles and skin she'd never known she had were now inflamed and angry. There was a tightness in her chest, and she could not determine if it was there from the attack or because she was still so frightened.
She did not think anybody could sleep after such a close brush with death, but she fell almost instantly asleep. What woke her was a low voice speaking with great irritation to somebody else. "All right sergeant, see to him then, and this time try not to make such a blasted hash of things! It's enough we've got them murdered in the streets. We don't need it right here."
She opened her eyes. A slightly scruffy looking man in a rather cheap suit with a wide blue tie was bringing in a tray of mugs and packets of sugar. He set it down on a table against one wall, and then pulled up a chair alongside her. He had an untidy mustache and furry gray and brown eyebrows, but his eyes were soft and dark. Indeed, in spite of his scruffiness and the harsh words he had just given to somebody, she instantly liked him.
He smiled back at her. "Miss Grant?" he asked softly. "I'm Chief Inspector Jules. I brought you some good strong tea."
He helped her to sit up, then made the tea. He emptied several packets of sugar into one of the mugs, looked around for a spoon, and then stirred the tea with his pen and brought it to her. The hot, sweet tea helped wash away some of the soreness at the base of her throat. He sat down with his own mug and let her drink. When about half of her tea was gone, he said softly, "I understand that George Cally attacked you in his cell."
"He stopped," she whispered. "He stopped before he--before he finished."
The detective's eyes showed both doubt and a certain new respect for her. "Are you saying that because you pity him, Miss Grant?"
She looked directly at him and spoke the truth. "I do pity him," she whispered. "But I'm telling you the truth."
"He killed his wife, you know."
She nodded. It was difficult to talk. Using the muscles in her throat was painful. She took another huge swallow of tea, and he stood up and found a teapot so that he could make more. "We owe you an apology," he said. "I owe you an apology. It was madness and negligence to leave you alone with him."
"I wanted to be alone with him," she replied, her voice still reduced to an aspiric hiss. "The constable offered to take us to an interview room and stay there, but I said no."
He plugged the teapot in again and then sat down in the hard chair. He looked at her with his doe-like eyes from under the frowsy, grizzled eyebrows. "So why do you think he attacked you?"
"I think he's trying to prove to himself that he's a killer," she whispered. "He's trying to force himself to believe it's his fault he killed his wife."
"Do you think he's gone mad?"
She hesitated and then nodded.
Detective Jules spoke to her for another thirty minutes, and she had two more steaming mugs of very sweet tea. Their conversation was no more than a polite attempt to give her a chance to collect herself. But he was relaxed and pleasant to talk to. There was something comforting about him, a sort of determination to see to her in an offhand, friendly way.
"One of our people can drive you home," he began as she was ready to leave. She shook her head. "I'm fine, really."
He nodded and let her go. Her legs were steady as she left the building and found her car. But as soon as she climbed into the front seat, she saw that she was not fine. One look at the rear view mirror showed her that the side of her face was bruised and swollen from hitting the floor. And there were distinct finger marks bruised into the fragile flesh of her throat. She had seen the photographs of the murdered women, and now she looked just like them, except she was alive. Her own eyes, still showing fear and stress, were the only difference.
* * * *
The Doctor strode into the lab. "Jo!" he called. "I've got some prescriptions to be filled!" He glanced around, saw her jacket hung up in the corner, and strode around the lab, looking for some other sign of her. "Jo?"
The store room door was open. "You didn't get that frequency generator did you?" he asked hopefully. He poked his head inside tiny room. She stood at the back, where the light was dim, her hand resting on one of the shelves, a picture of uncertainty.
"You've changed your clothes!" he said with some surprise. As she did not answer, he became concerned. "Jo?"
"I--I didn't mind so much until now," she began in a curious, hoarse voice. He strode into the room.
"Maybe you'd better not," she told him.
"Whatever is the matter?" he asked. He came and stood in front of her, looked down at her, and it took him a moment to realize that what he had taken for shadow on the side of her face was not shadow. It reduced his voice to a whisper. "Jo!"
"I'm all right, really," she said. But tears suddenly spilled down her cheeks. The brave front of professionalism could not be maintained forever.
"Who did this?" he gasped. "How did this happen?" He quickly gathered her to himself, gentle and concerned as he could be whenever he chose. He was still wearing his cape, and he moved it over his shoulder so that it was draped over her as well, heavy and comforting, closing her in. "Tell me who did this." His voice, still a whisper, was almost frightened. His big hands, suddenly authoritative, gentle, and skillful, traversed over her head, checking for more injury.
She realized that he feared something far more invasive and degrading than had actually been done to her, but to her own surprise, she couldn't answer him. His concern made her cry even more than she had expected. His alert mind began putting together some clues--her mission for the
day, the bruising on her face, the strained quality of her voice. She had
changed into a pullover with a cowl neck. He looked down at her, touched the
fabric at her throat, and as she did not resist, he used two fingers to pull the
cowling to the side. He looked at the bruising on her throat, and she looked
away. He removed his fingers from the cowling. "Tell me who," he whispered.
She made herself answer him. "One of the men has gone mad. He wanted to believe
he could kill. He tried to kill me, but he couldn't make himself do it." She
suddenly shivered with an uncontrollable shiver. Her life had lain in the narrow
margin between Cally's insanity and the last vestiges of empathy that remained
to him.
His voice was filled with remorse. "I should never have sent you off to them
alone."
"Yes you should. I could have had a guard. I didn't want one." Her voice was
trembling, and the shivering did not stop, in spite of her words. "It really was---brief. He tried to strangle me, but he stopped himself."
"All right, all right." He pulled her in and stroked the hair on the very top of her head, silent until she was calm again.
"Doctor," she said at last.
"What's that?"
"We have to decide who these crimes are against."
He looked down at her. "What?"
She pulled away enough to look up at him. "Is it to kill women?" she asked. "Or is it to destroy men? Is somebody trying to destroy these men by making them kill women?"
He frowned, his eyes thoughtful. Before he could reply, she spoke again: "Two of the men were at the Women's Health Centre," she said. "Both of them there the same day they killed their victims. It was the first two men we talked to."
"And the others?" he asked.
"No," she told him. "I've been back here for nearly an hour and checked, and it doesn't seem that the others ever came near the place. But it may be worth checking. Both Bilkins and McClellan were sent into a private waiting room off the main waiting room."
Calmer now, he smoothed back her hair from her face, and his analytical eyes, she knew, were looking at her black eye and scraped cheekbone, measuring them up to see how she had hit the floor, how hard, how many times. "Private consultation rooms are not unusual, Jo," he said.
"For a bladder infection?" she asked.
"We'll check it," he promised. "Tomorrow. All right?" He let her go but kept his eyes fixed on her, grave and concerned. She squeezed his hand and offered him a faint smile. "I'm all right," she said. "Did I hear you say there are prescriptions to check?"
"Yes." He fished in his pocket and brought out a list. "We'll need samples of all of these and a history of where they came from."
She looked up, hopeful of a third tie-in, but he shook his head. "Not the Women's Health Centre, I'm afraid. One of our suspects is in the final stages of leukemia. He was seeing several doctors, but entirely at hospitals and clinics.
She glanced at it and nodded. "I made a good contact with an Inspector Jules," she told him. "I want to follow up with him on some questions."
Out front, the Brigadier called aloud: "Doctor? Where are you?"
Jo steeled herself to go out and be looked at. The worst part about walking around with a black eye was the notoriety. The Doctor took her hand and walked out with her.
"What now?" the Doctor asked as he let Jo stay back by the shelving outside the storage closet door. He came forward.
The Brigadier had a clear plastic bag in his hand. "Is Miss Grant all right?" he asked. "I just got a call patched through from an Inspector Jules, inquiring after her. Wanted to know if she'd gotten back all right."
"I'm fine," Jo said from the shelves.
The Doctor nodded at the bag. "What have you got there?"
The Brigadier passed it to him. "Bit of evidence. A crushed syringe found at the eldest victim's murder site. One of the two nurses."
"Why wasn't I notified of this?" the Doctor asked.
"Well it's in those reports," the Brigadier began.
"Where? Page 253? Do you know how many reports I've still got left to read?" the Doctor snapped. "Not to mention running about with you and testing the other samples."
"All right, all right," the Brigadier said soothingly. "Scotland Yard ran its own tests and found nothing unusual about the contents. But they thought they would pass it on to you to be sure."
"What were the contents?' The Doctor opened the bag and looked inside at the sticky fragments of glass, plastic, and metal. "Looks like somebody stepped on it and made a proper job of it, too."
"Yes, in the struggle," the Brigadier replied. "It contained the remains of a commercial preparation of Yohimbe. It tested true."
"Yohimbe?"
The Brigadier shot a glance at the shelves to make sure that Jo was out of earshot. She had retreated back inside the storage room. He lowered his voice. "Enhances male performance."
The Doctor was annoyed. "Performance of what?" Then he caught on. "Oh. Easily available?"
"This brand is normally by prescription," the Brigadier told him.
The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "And how do you know so much about this?"
The Brigadier actually blushed. "I asked!" he snapped. "In the interests of the investigation!"
The Doctor glanced at the bag. "Still, it does make you wonder how the pharmaceutical companies tested this for market." He opened the bag and sniffed, then shook his head at the lack of viable residue. "I suppose the guinea pigs are still smiling."
"Do you know anything about Yohimbe?" the Brigadier asked. "Can it affect the psychology of a person using it?"
The Doctor shook his head. "No. It works more in terms of blood capillaries--circulation. It's an aphrodisiac almost by accident. I don't think it works like a testosterone injection would. That sort of substance--testosterone or a similar hormone--could actually effect a man's moods and emotional stability, if taken in a high enough dosage. But I'll look into this anyway. Make sure that nothing was bound into the chemical substance." He glanced furtively at the storage room door. Jo had not come out, waiting until the Brigadier left. "Look," he said. "Let's go to your office. We need to talk privately."
The Doctor called back to the storeroom. "Jo? Will you see to that list?" he called.
"Yes Doctor."
"Are you going to follow up with that Inspector?"
"Yes, if it's all right."
"What's she doing back there?" the Brigadier asked.
"She's busy. We'll discuss it upstairs." The Doctor unslung his cape from his shoulders and hung it up on the coat rack as they exited the lab.
* * * *
It was nearly five before Jo was able to get back to Inspector Jules. Hunting down the prescriptions had taken a good deal of time, and even after several hours, she was still waiting for a few call-backs.
Jules' office at the police station was an incredible clutter: Papers and file folders everywhere, piled up on the desk, piled on hard chairs. There were even piles of papers here and there on the floors.
Jules himself was startled at her return, and as she was ushered in to the cluttered office, he hastily ran his hand through his unkempt, brown and gray hair, and gave a self conscious tug at his cheap, gabardine suit coat. But his eyes lighted up at sight of her. "Miss Grant," he said. "What a pleasant surprise. You're looking much better than you were this morning, I must say."
Actually, she still looked pretty horrible, she thought. She accepted a seat in the office's one uncluttered chair. "I was wondering," she began. "Could you tell me about Jack the Ripper type murderers?"
"Sociopaths, you mean?" he asked her. "Serial killers? That doesn't seem to be what we're dealing with here." As she said nothing one way or the other, he gave a nod. "Right. Well, going by statistics, serial killers tend to be male, tend to prey sexually on their victims--which we don't have in these cases--and tend to be motivated by a deep hatred and desire for revenge against a single person or entity, or else are addicted to the sense of power that the crime gives them." He paused and considered. "Yet there have been female serial killers; there have been serial killers who did not sexually assault victims; and there have been serial killers who should have been happy, optimistic people, yet resorted to killing anyway."
"But are their cases consistent?" she asked. "I mean, for a given killer, he uses the same method over and over again, right?"
"Very often; not always." He glanced at her with an approving look. "For some it's a matter of finding what works and then sticking with it. For others, it's almost a ritual. They have to follow certain steps with the victim before completing the crime."
"Each killer uses the same type of weapon again and again?" she asked.
"Uh, almost always. Ropes and knives figure quite a bit. But there are the bludgeon fanciers, the stranglers, and those who use guns. But very often one specific killer will use one specific type of weapon again and again: even if it's not the same knife for each victim, he'll always use a knife. Maybe not the same hammer, but always some hammer. Like that. Not always. Some find a thrill in killing in a variety of ways. But generally the police can find trademark indications of a certain killer."
She was thoughtful. "I'll make tea," he said suddenly. "Would you like some?"
"Yes, thank you."
He went out for water and soon returned with the tea kettle.
"Women are never serial killers?" she asked.
He plugged in the pot and rummaged through the vast piles of clutter for sugar and tea bags. "Well, that's the question, Miss Grant." Unable to find the sugar and tea bags, he stepped back, puzzled. Then on sudden inspiration he started rummaging through desk drawers. "We have to know there's been murder done," he told her. "What we're finding now are certain patterns of woman-originated serial killings, but they are very different. Much harder to identify."
She was puzzled. "Why is that?"
Triumphant, he pulled two withered looking tea bags from a desk drawer and smiled at her, his dark eyes alight. He went to a tall cabinet to search for cups. "Women who kill are subtle killers. Men like to gloat. They like to feel powerful. The male killer typically wants the victim to know and fear him. A woman usually is more practical. She takes her satisfaction from the fact that the victim can no longer abuse, control, infringe upon her. She gloats after the fact, if she gloats at all." He pulled two cups from the cabinet; then he shot a glance at her. "You see, some women serial killers kill their babies. It gets attributed to crib death and the like. Or they kill successive husbands to get the money or perhaps even the sympathy. Sometimes they kill to get a certain vindication. But usually, the crimes of a woman killer are more subtle." He set the items up for tea and turned to her. "I'm not saying a woman couldn't torture a victim to death or couldn't be sexually aroused by exerting utter control over a victim. But it tends to be that male serial killers want to see, and women serial killers want to know. But both are after a type of power or control. Nothing applies across the board, but those are the general rules."
"It's like, like different psychologies between men and women," Jo said.
He nodded. "Men and women do think and perceive things in different ways," he told her. "We have very different brains as well as very different physiques." By now the tea kettle was hissing steam. He unplugged it and poured the water. "What are you thinking?" he asked her.
"You know, if you were to look at the men as the weapons," she said. "Then it is a serial killer at work. He's just using men as weapons, but it's nearly the same method each time."
"Interesting perspective," Jules said. He carried the mugs to the desk and set hers down in a bare patch among the papers.
He went around the desk to his chair and sat down with a sigh of thankfulness to be off his feet. He ran his fingers through his hair and looked thoughtful. "We are certain that something influenced those men," he began. "But to assert a deliberate ploy by persons unknown, well, that's another, more complex matter."
"And it could be that the women are actually the weapons," Jo added. She knew this was an odd theory, but she forced herself to sound certain.
"What?"
She gave a short nod of her head. "Maybe the motive is not to kill women, but to ruin men. To make them suffer through the rest of their lives. That would be a crime--you know--more subtle, a crime where the thrill is knowing rather than seeing."
He leaned back and produced a pipe from his coat pocket. She nodded as he gestured at it to ask permission to smoke. He lit it and puffed thoughtfully for a few moments, then told her, "What you're saying is possible, Miss Grant, but we have no more evidence of that hypothesis than we do of solar flares causing it, or something in the water, or a nervous disorder or anything else."
"Except two of the men and their victims visited the Women's Health Center on the days of the murders," she reminded him.
"Yes, we know about that. I'm supposed to go out there first thing in the morning to interview Dr. Rocelyn Mayes." He puffed thoughtfully at his pipe and looked at her with his almost doe-like eyes. He suddenly became off-hand. "Care to go with me?"
"Love to," she told him.
* * * *
It was nearly seven when she returned to the lab at UNIT HQ. She'd stopped to purchase some expensive, pancake-type make-up, which she had applied as soon as possible. It didn't quite hide everything, but it hid a lot. She no longer felt like a walking advertisement for Aid to Women.
Unexpectedly, the Brigadier was waiting for her in the lab. The Doctor stood by the TARDIS as though he were examining something. He had his back to her.
"Miss Grant," the Brigadier said, stepping forward, hands behind his back. "You've been hurt I see."
"I'm all right, sir."
He became brisk. "Well, that's as may be. But I'm putting you on medical leave. Full pay and all that. But I want you off duty immediately."
She gasped. "Whatever for? I'm fine!"
The Doctor turned and came forward, obviously uncomfortable. She instantly turned to him for support. "Doctor--"
"Jo!" He took on the quiet authoritative tone that showed his mind was made up. "The Brigadier is right. Off you go."
"You're both in on this!" she exclaimed.
"Miss Grant!" the Brigadier's voice took an edge to it. "You are no longer a junior member of this organisation. I expect you to take orders with the promptness and bearing of a seasoned professional."
"You would never do this to a seasoned professional," she said. She caught herself just short of exclaiming that it wasn't fair. "The order is arbitrary and ill considered!"
The Doctor came up to her and put his hands on her shoulders. He met her eye. "We can't have you go with us into the heart of this thing," he told her. "We can't."
"I'll keep a guard with me--"
He shook his head. "A male guard against a male attacker, Jo? How do we know they wouldn't both turn on you? I can't stay with you every moment. For that matter, if there is a malice behind all this, it could turn anybody here at UNIT against you. It would surely thwart us that way." He stroked her cheek with the back of his hand, an effort at conciliation. "You, dead? And one of our own the killer?" he asked. "We can't allow it."
"You're frightened!" she said, a trifle sulkily.
"Yes," he told her gently. "Losing you so horribly frightens me." His tone shamed her. Part of her knew that they were acting out of genuine affection for her, genuine fear for her safety. But part of her could not endure the suddenness, the arbitrary nature of the decision. "Jo, if any man at any time can attack any woman, then it will get more dangerous for all of us as we investigate further."
"I don't mind the danger!"
He shook his head. "There are the men to consider as well."
"If the men here fall under the influence of this thing, than any woman is in danger," she told him. "Why should I be exempted?"
The Doctor shook his head, refusing to be drawn into the argument. "Your contributions in this case have been incredibly valuable," he told her. "When all is said and done, you'll be recognized for the part you've played--"
"Oh stop it!" she snapped.
The Brigadier held out a hand, palm up. "Your passes and papers will stay here, Miss Grant. I will phone you as soon as I have determined that you should return to duty."
She had been too angry to cry, but as she passed her UNIT access cards and keys to him, her hand shook. The Brigadier took them, his eyes down.
"Jo," the Doctor said kindly. "This is not a disciplinary action. We're proud of you. I'm proud of you. But we cannot adequately protect you."
"I'll escort you to your car," the Brigadier said.
The Doctor turned to him. "I will." He looked at her. "I'll take you to dinner--"
"I don't want to go to dinner," she said.
"I must ask you to hand over your briefcase and notebook as well," the Brigadier told her. She did. She wouldn't look at the Doctor as the Brigadier led her out.
