Contents
Cover
About the Book
About the Author
Title Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Epilogue
Copyright
About the Book
‘No one from this time will ever see that girl again...’
The Doctor, Amy and Rory round off a sight–seeing tour round London with a trip to the theatre. That’s when things start to go wrong.
The Doctor wonders why so many young girls are going missing from the area. When he sees Sammy Star’s amazing magic act, he thinks he knows the answer. Sammy’s glamorous assistant disappears at the climax of the act – but this is no stage trick.
The Doctor and his friends team up with residents of an old people’s home to discover the truth. And together they find themselves face to face with a deadly Weeping Angel.
Whatever you do – don’t blink!
A thrilling all–new adventure featuring the Doctor, Amy and Rory, as played by Matt Smith, Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill in the spectacular hit series from BBC Television.
About the Author
Jacqueline Rayner has written nine Doctor Who novels, as well as many other science–fiction books. She lives in Essex with her husband and twin sons, along with a number of cats, guinea pigs, gerbils and goldfish.
* * *
Chapter One
AMY POND LOOKED at the plastic bowler hat with a Union Jack pattern. ‘You’re not really going to wear that, are you?’ she asked the Doctor.
The Doctor smiled and raised the hat politely. ‘Yes. It’s cool. So is my T-shirt.’
He was wearing a white T-shirt with the slogan My companion went to London and all I got was this lousy T-shirt.
Amy rolled her eyes. ‘I can’t believe you got them to print that for you!’
‘At least he didn’t buy the T-shirt that said I’m with stupid!,’ said Amy’s husband, Rory. ‘I know he would have made me walk next to him while he was wearing it.’
‘Of course I wouldn’t,’ said the Doctor. ‘I don’t think you’re stupid at all. Now, come on, stupid, we’re missing the tour!’
The three friends were on the upper deck of an open-top red London bus. The sun was beating down, but the Doctor still wore a tweed jacket over his T-shirt. He was sitting at the front next to the tour guide. Amy and Rory sat on the seat behind them.
The tour guide, whose name was Janet, was trying to talk about London landmarks. The Doctor was joining in, but his efforts just seemed to get on Janet’s nerves.
‘On your left you can see the Tower of London,’ Janet began. ‘Building started in the year 1066.’
‘I’ve been locked up in there five or six times,’ said the Doctor. He pointed towards the castle. ‘If you squint, you can see my room. It’s that window there.’
Janet’s microphone picked up the Doctor’s words. The other tourists laughed, but Janet ignored him.
‘There’s also a top secret base below the tower,’ said the Doctor.
Amy tapped him on the shoulder before he could say any more. ‘If it’s top secret, perhaps you shouldn’t mention it,’ she said.
The Doctor nodded. ‘Good point.’ He mimed pulling a zip across his mouth.
He kept quiet until they’d crossed the river and were passing the Globe theatre. ‘That’s where I fought some witch monsters,’ he said. ‘In the old theatre, I mean, not this new one. The old one was just a little bit to the left. Of course, Shakespeare helped me fight the witches. Good old Shakespeare, he was a lovely man. His breath smelt a bit, but that’s not his fault. There was no toothpaste back then.’
Everyone on the bus apart from Janet began to giggle. Amy put on large sunglasses and held her hand over her mouth. It didn’t hide the fact that she was laughing.
‘The London Eye was opened in the year 2000,’ Janet tried a bit later. The bus was going along the South Bank.
‘Oh yes,’ said the Doctor. ‘And then the Nestenes used it as part of their plan to conquer Earth. You must remember that. There were shop-window dummies coming to life.’
It was when the Doctor told the tourists about a pig flying a spaceship into Big Ben that Janet snapped.
The bus stopped. The other tourists booed as the Doctor was led off by the driver. Amy and Rory followed. Amy was laughing, but Rory was holding up a hand to hide his face. ‘I’ve never been thrown off a bus before,’ he said.
The Doctor looked puzzled. ‘I was only trying to make things a bit more fun.’
Amy tucked her hand through the Doctor’s arm and led him towards an ice-cream van. ‘Never mind. We can still do the tourist thing like you wanted. We’ll just have to walk instead.’
They sat on the bank of the river eating ice-cream cones. Boats sailed along the water in front of them. Children laughed and couples held hands. ‘Mmm,’ said Amy, licking a blob of melting ice cream off the side of her cornet. ‘This is perfect.’
‘Better than fighting monsters,’ Rory added as he ate the last bite of ice cream. Then he frowned as he spotted a poster on a wall nearby. ‘But it’s not quite perfect.’
The Doctor and Amy turned round to see what he was looking at.
‘MISSING since May the sixth. Katie Henley.’
The photo showed a pretty blonde girl. She didn’t seem much younger than Amy.
It wasn’t the first ‘MISSING’ poster they’d seen that day. Most of them also showed young men or women, boys or girls.
The Doctor walked over and put up a hand to touch the face in the picture. ‘So much sadness,’ he said softly. ‘The sadness that made her leave home. The sadness of those left behind.’
Amy joined him. She reached out her hand to touch his. ‘We can’t solve every problem,’ she said gently.
‘We should be able to!’ The Doctor sounded fierce. ‘What’s the point of doing what we do if we can’t help everyone?’
‘I used to think that too, sometimes,’ said Rory. ‘I used to wonder why I became a nurse. There were so many people I just couldn’t help. In the end I had to accept that helping some people was better than helping no one.’
‘Wise old Rory,’ said Amy, smiling. She linked an arm through his. ‘My boys. My boys who help people.’ She linked her other arm through the Doctor’s. ‘Come on. We’re on holiday, remember.’ The three of them walked off arm in arm. ‘What do you want to do now?’ she asked the Doctor. ‘We’ve been to St Paul’s...’
‘And we got thrown out of the Whispering Gallery for shouting,’ said Rory.
‘They wouldn’t let us in to Buckingham Palace to have tea with the Queen,’ said Amy.
The Doctor frowned and pulled a crumpled paper bag out of his jacket pocket. ‘I’d even brought doughnuts!’ he said. ‘Her Majesty loves doughnuts.’
‘We were thrown out of Madame Tussaud’s when the Doctor drew on the waxwork of Guy Fawkes,’ said Rory.
‘Well, they’d got his moustache wrong,’ said the Doctor. ‘Guy was very proud of his moustache.’
‘Now we’ve been chucked off the open-top bus tour,’ said Amy. ‘There can’t be many more things to be thrown out of.’
They were walking along the river as they talked. The Doctor absent-mindedly took a doughnut out of the paper bag and bit into it. Jam squirted all down his chin.
Rory spotted another poster. This one did not show a missing girl. It was an advert for a show. ‘We�
��ve not got thrown out of a theatre yet,’ he pointed out.
‘Great idea!’ cried the Doctor. ‘I love a show.’ He looked at the poster too. ‘Sammy Star, Master of Magic. Lovely!’
‘Sammy Star? He sounds like he should be doing children’s parties, not West End shows,’ Amy said.
‘Nonsense, it’ll be great,’ the Doctor told her. ‘I love a good magic trick.’ He wiped his chin with a hankie, looking puzzled. ‘In fact, I seem to have made jam magically appear on my face.’
Rory and Amy looked at each other and laughed. Still with a puzzled frown on his face, the Doctor took another doughnut out of the bag and started to eat it. Rory and Amy laughed even more.
They crossed the river and wandered through the streets. Rory and Amy both spotted several more ‘MISSING’ notices. Neither of them pointed out the posters to the Doctor.
They came to Trafalgar Square, and stopped to look at Nelson’s Column. The Doctor patted the head of one of the huge bronze lions guarding the base. He pointed out the statues that stood on plinths at three corners of the square. The fourth corner also had a plinth, but it was empty. ‘They didn’t have enough money for the last statue,’ he told Amy and Rory.
‘I’d heard they were showing works of art on it instead,’ said Amy. ‘Something new every year or two.’
The Doctor nodded. ‘That’s right. I think they’re now looking for something that can stay on it for good.’ He bit into his third doughnut. ‘Right. Let’s see about getting tickets for the Sammy Star show!’
* * *
Chapter Two
THEY WERE SITTING in the front row of the stalls. Any minute now, the lights would go out and the show would begin.
Amy flicked through a programme. ‘Hey, it says here Sammy Star used to do children’s parties,’ she told the others. ‘I know I said he sounded like he did, but that’s weird. He must be pretty good to go from that to the West End.’
‘He was on one of those TV talent contests,’ Rory told her. ‘It said so on the poster. Britain’s Got Magic, something like that.’
‘Oh yeah.’ Amy turned a page. ‘Got all about it here. Hang on, though, he didn’t win it. “He was laughed off the programme,” it says, “but he had the last laugh. Sammy Star now has a sell-out West End show. He has won great acclaim for the Graveyard Ghosts trick that forms the finale of his act.” Wow. The boy’s done good.’
Rory frowned. ‘If this show is a sell-out, how come we got the best seats in the house?’
The Doctor looked slightly sheepish. ‘Oh, I booked our tickets weeks ago. At least, that’s what they told me at the box office just now. So I’d better make sure I do it. Remind me to pop back in time and buy them later, will you? The universe might collapse if I don’t.’ As if to distract them, he quickly added, ‘Anyone like a doughnut?’ He put his hand in his pocket and found only an empty paper bag. ‘Someone’s nicked my doughnuts!’
Amy leant across and wiped a splodge of jam off his face. ‘You already ate them, you doughnut!’
The theatre was almost full now. The only empty seats were in the row behind the Doctor, Rory and Amy.
‘That’s odd,’ said the Doctor. He looked over his shoulder at the empty row. ‘If they booked seats that good you’d think they’d be keen to see the show. Yet they haven’t even turned up.’
‘Ooh, this might be them,’ said Amy, also looking behind them. A party of elderly people was coming down the aisle. They were led by a middle-aged woman in a navy blue blazer with gold buttons. She ushered her group into the empty row, telling them to ‘Hurry up! Hurry up!’ much too loudly.
Just as the last of the party sat down, the lights went out. Amy heard someone behind her draw in their breath sharply.
‘Don’t worry, Mrs Hooper, it’s just the show starting,’ said a cheerful voice.
Amy thought the voice belonged to the blazer woman. She wondered why so many people thought being old was the same as being stupid.
The curtain was raised. A spotlight shone onto the stage. A figure stood in the middle of it, head bowed. It wore a black top hat and was wrapped in a cloak.
There was a rumble of drums. A voice from above said, ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome Mr Sammy Star!’ The drums crashed more loudly and another, brighter, spotlight followed a man swinging down from above. As he reached the cloaked figure, the swinging man kicked out. The cloak crumpled into a heap and the audience gasped.
The top hat rolled away as Sammy Star landed on the stage. He scooped up the hat and pulled a large white rabbit out of it. Then he placed the hat on his head.
Everyone clapped as he took a bow.
‘Very nice,’ said the Doctor, raising his voice so Amy could hear him over the applause. ‘Of course, he had a second hat with a rabbit in it waiting ready for him. That’s why the stage was only lit by spotlights, so we wouldn’t spot the hats being swapped.’
Amy glared at him. ‘Don’t spoil it!’ she hissed.
Amy could have saved her breath. For each of Sammy Star’s tricks, the Doctor announced how it was done. He wasn’t trying to show off, Amy knew that. Working out the tricks was just the bit of the show he enjoyed the most.
It was a shame Sammy Star didn’t seem to enjoy it as much. At first he was clearly trying to ignore the Doctor. Later he started to twitch and glare at the front row. Amy was quite relieved when it came to the interval.
‘Having fun?’ she asked the Doctor as they sat in their seats at the front.
He nodded happily. ‘Oh yes. Although...’ A frown crossed his face and he stood up. ‘Back in a minute. I just want to check out a few things.’
Amy and Rory sat for a few moments just holding hands. ‘You don’t think something’s wrong, do you?’ Amy said after a while.
‘Nah,’ said Rory, although he looked worried. ‘Just because we’ve never had a holiday without monsters or crashing spaceships before...’
‘Well, no monsters so far, and we’ve been here almost a day!’ said Amy.
‘Monster!’ The shaky voice came from the row behind. It was a word that Amy and Rory couldn’t ignore. They both spun round.
The speaker was a member of the elderly party. She looked to be in her eighties, and tears were trickling down her cheeks.
Amy knelt up on her seat and reached over the back to hold the old lady’s hand. ‘Hey, don’t cry,’ she said gently. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Monster,’ the woman repeated through her sobs.
‘Lost,’ said the elderly lady in the next seat. Amy turned her gaze on her. She was also crying. ‘So very lost. So lost we were never found.’
The woman in the blazer stood up. ‘Just ignore them,’ she said to Amy. ‘Mrs Hooper! Mrs Collins! Be quiet now! You’re getting on this nice young girl’s nerves.’
‘Oh no,’ Amy replied. ‘They’re not getting on my nerves.’ She didn’t like to hear people being spoken to so rudely, when they’d done nothing to deserve it.
‘Well, you’re very kind to say so,’ the woman said. ‘She’s very kind to say you’re not annoying her!’ she told the two old ladies loudly. ‘They were so keen to come,’ she went on, turning back to Amy. ‘The second they saw the poster it’s been Sammy Star, Sammy Star, day and night. Now then, Miss Leake, I said to myself, here’s an idea! Wouldn’t it be a lovely treat, taking them to see his show! But they’ve done nothing except make a fuss since we got here. Monsters indeed. Why, they don’t know the meaning of the word!’
‘Did you live through the war, Mrs Collins?’ Rory asked softly.
‘VE Day...’ she whispered back.
He nodded. ‘She might have a better idea of monsters than you think, then,’ he told the woman in the blazer, Miss Leake.
‘Everyone all right?’ asked the Doctor as he returned.
‘I’m a bit worried, Doctor,’ Amy began, but Miss Leake interrupted her.
‘Nothing to worry about at all!’ she said. ‘We were just being silly, weren’t we, Mrs Collins and Mrs Ho
oper?’
‘Well, you might have been being silly, I’m not so sure about them,’ muttered Amy under her breath.
The theatre lights dimmed again. The Doctor made his way back to his seat. Amy still felt concerned about the two old ladies, but wasn’t sure what to do. She decided she would tell the Doctor all about it after the show.
The curtain rose for the second half. The Doctor didn’t talk over the magic this time. He seemed troubled.
Finally it was time for the big showpiece, Graveyard Ghosts. Mist swirled across the stage, which was now covered with gravestones and statues. Amy shivered to see one that looked like a stone angel. ‘Makes me think of you know what,’ she said to the Doctor under her breath.
Tall trees twisted at the sides of the stage. A girl poked her head out from behind a tree, then crept out to the middle of the stage. She was young and pretty and dressed in a Victorian-style white nightgown. Long, dark hair curled down her back. Suddenly a pale, bony hand thrust through the turf of a grave.
In the second row of the stalls, Mrs Collins and Mrs Hooper screamed and screamed and screamed.
* * *
Chapter Three
THE OLD LADIES wouldn’t stop screaming. The show kept going, but there were nervous looks from the people on stage.
Miss Leake was trying to get the two screaming women to be quiet. Rory went to join her, and helped lead Mrs Collins and Mrs Hooper up the centre aisle. Amy was going to help, but noticed that the Doctor was sitting still. His eyes hadn’t left the stage.
‘Shouldn’t we see what’s wrong?’ she asked.
He shook his head, although his eyes didn’t move. ‘Rory will cope. Rory will be perfect. I need to see this show. I need to see it right to the end.’
Amy was torn. Go with Rory or stay with the Doctor? She dithered for a second, then sat back down. The Doctor was right. Rory would be fine on his own. He was great with old people. It sounded like the real action would be here.
Doctor Who: Magic of the Angels Page 1
