On Wednesday 27 February 1985 the BBC announced that their longest running sci-fi series, Doctor Who, was to be suspended. Anxious fans worldwide, worried that this might mean an end to the Time Lord's travels, flooded the BBC with letters of protest. Eighteen months later the show returned to the TV screens.
But missing from the Doctor's adventures was the series that would have been made and shown during those lost eighteen months. Now, available for the first time as a book, is one of those stories:
THE NIGHTMARE FAIR
Drawn into 'the nexus of the primeval cauldron of Space-Time itself', the Doctor and Peri are somewhat surprised to find themselves at Blackpool Pleasure Beach.
Is it really just chance that has brought them to the funfair? Or is their arrival somehow connected with the sinister presence of a rather familiar Chinese Mandarin?
ISBN 0 426 20334 8
The Missing Episodes
DOCTOR WHO
THE NIGHTMARE FAIR
* * *
Based on the BBC television series from the untelevised script by Graham Williams by arrangement with BBC Books, a division of BBC Enterprises Ltd
* * *
GRAHAM WILLIAMS
A TARGET BOOK
published by
The Paperback Division of
W. H. Allen & Co. PLC
A Target Book
Published in 1989
by the Paperback Division of W. H. Allen & Co. PLC
Sekforde House, 175/9 St. John Street, London EC1V 4LL
Novelisation copyright © Graham Williams 1989
Original script copyright © Graham Williams 1985
'Doctor Who' series copyright © British Broadcasting Corporation 1985, 1989
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Cox & Wyman Ltd, Reading
ISBN 0426 20334 8
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
CONTENTS
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter One
The scream was choked off halfway through, to be followed by hoarse, panting gasps. A dull crash and a scuffle came one after the other and then there was silence.
Nothing moved. Nothing visible. The shadow of a cloud passing the moon dulled the scene for a moment, but when the shadow had gone, nothing had changed. The tarmac stretched, glistening in the recent rain, the wooden walls of the building loomed up into the black night sky and the dull, dirty windows grinned down like empty eye sockets...
The scream started again, then changed abruptly to a grunting sound, panting, rasping with exertion. The wooden door smashed back on its hinges as a man crashed out and fell to the ground. He lay for a moment, stunned or exhausted, then half-shook his head and turned to look back into the building. Through the open door could be seen a glow—a softly, gently pulsating glow, the red colour burning and tearing at the edges as though testifying to the tremendous power of whatever was the source of the light, a dull, aching red light...
The man's face contorted in terror as the glow deepened, brightened, deepened, brightened... He made as though to rise and he started to scream again, a low, broken wail as he realised his leg was trapped by whatever was inside the building. The wail took on a desperate, despairing edge as he felt himself being dragged back, back, until, as his last broken attempts to hang on to the door frame proved useless, the cry rose to a pitch of absolute terror and he disappeared from view. The red light rose to a new intensity and locked, the pulsing frozen as the scream was cut off as though by a knife.
The silence was complete and the red light faded slowly, gently, away, returning the scene to the black of the night and the empty, scudding clouds across the moon...
'Perfect!' cried the Doctor, in the voice he normally reserved for a superbly delivered inside seamer or a Gamellean sunset. 'There's nowhere else like it in the Universe. Not this Universe, anyway...' He held a brass telescope to his eye, and moved it slowly across the horizon. The breeze ruffled his hair and beside him Peri shivered and pushed her hands further into her anorak pockets.
'They're trying to build one on the rim of the Crab Nebula,' he continued, 'but the design concept's all wrong. They're trying to build it for a purpose...'
'What's wrong with that?' asked Peri.
'Everything! You can't build a place like this for a mere purpose!' He snapped the telescope shut and spun to face her. 'And don't talk to me of "fluid lines provoked by the ergonomic imperatives..."'
'All right then, I won't,' murmured Peri, as though the comment had been on the tip of her tongue.
'Or the strict adherence to the symbolic form, the classical use of conceptual space...' He flung his arm dramatically to one side, as if he thought he was back in the Roman Forum and poor old Julius was waiting for a decent send-off. 'Designers' gobbledeygook,' he denounced, gravely. 'Architects' flim-flam,' he added, in agreement with himself. 'The tired consensus of a jaded age,' he concluded, finally burying the conversation.
'I entirely agree,' said Peri, trying to be helpful without the faintest idea as to what particular bee was buzzing around in the Doctor's bonnet just now.
'No, you'll never win that argument here,' added the Doctor, both smugly and unnecessarily. 'This is absolute, perfect, classic frivolity.'
Peri followed his gaze three hundred feet down to the sight of Blackpool, spread before them like a toy town, the trams clattering along the promenade towards the funfair in the middle distance.
'It's OK, I suppose,' she shrugged. 'If you like that sort of thing..
'OK?' the Doctor whirled to face her, his face a mask of fury. 'OK?' Words, unlikely though it seems, failed him. 'I'11 show you OK,' he muttered through clenched teeth as he grabbed her hand and pulled her, protesting, across the observation platform of Blackpool Tower towards the waiting lifts.
'Where are we going?' wailed Peri, fearful that at last she'd pushed the Time Lord over the edge and he was dragging her towards some dreadful punishment known only to the near-eternal. He stopped so hard she bumped into him. He pushed his face to within millimetres of hers and snarled gratingly, 'You're going to enjoy yourself if it kills you!' And with that he carried on to the lifts, with Peri forced to go with him or part company with an arm she was quite attached to...
The young man, for the hundredth time, let his gaze wander up from the bare table where he was seated to the simple clock on the wall. Two whole minutes since the last time he'd looked. His gaze carried on, over the grey plain walls, the neon striplight, the plain chair in the corner. He'd been in Police interview rooms before, several of them, and he couldn't tell one from the other. Perhaps that was the idea. He didn't have much time for your average criminal, and, truth to tell, didn't have much time for your average copper either. And as for your average Police Station... He'd never had much to do with any of them, not until the last few months anyway, and he was too young and too bright to try and unravel the thinking that went behind the design of anything to do with authority.
At last he was distracted by heavy footsteps outside in the corridor, footsteps which came to a shuffling halt outside his door. The door opened to reveal the moon-faced but not unkind constable who had been humouring him for the best p
art of the morning. The constable held the door open for a thick-set man in his late forties, dressed in what seemed to be a perfectly cut three-piece suit, a man whom the constable treated as though he were second cousin to the Lord High Executioner.
'Mr Kevin Stoney?' asked the suited man, politely. Kevin nodded without replying. The man hefted the thick file in his hand as he sat in the chair opposite.
'Didn't take much finding, did this, lad. Right on top of the pile. You're quite a regular visitor to our humble abode, aren't you?'
'Not by choice,' muttered Kevin.
'Well they all say that, lad,' observed the man with a small chuckle. 'I'm surprised we haven't met before.'
'I've asked often enough,' observed Kevin.
'Aye. "Someone in authority", I believe you stipulated,' added the man, referring to the top page of the file.
'That's right,' affirmed Kevin stoutly.
'Well, will I do? I mean, I'm only a lowly Inspector, but we could try the Chief Inspector, or Superintendent, or the Chief Superintendent—'
'You'll do,' nodded Kevin.
'You sure? Chief Constable's not got much on today, shall I —'
'No that's all right,' replied Kevin, not wanting to rise to the bait.
The Inspector looked at him thoughtfully for a moment, lips pursed, then, with a small nod, he decided to get down to business.
'This statement of yours, referring to the events of last night...' He tapped the statement in the file with a solid-looking forefinger. 'Truthful statement, is it?'
'Yes.'
'Just a simple statement of the facts...'
'That's right.' The reply sounded more defensive than he had intended. The Inspector took the statement and held it carefully, as though it was fragile—or dangerous—and read slowly and carefully from it.
'"The figure was glowing red, with some green or blue at the edges... about seven feet tall and heavily built... the red colour seemed to pulsate, giving the impression that the figure was increasing then decreasing in size. It had no eyes, no ears, nothing I could describe as a face..." Incredible —'
'I saw it —' started Kevin, gritting his teeth.
'No, no,' protested the Inspector. 'What's incredible is that at this point the sergeant who took your statement failed to determine whether there were any distinguishing marks on this... person...'
The moon-faced constable attempted, without success, to stifle a chuckle at this. The Inspector turned slowly towards him.
'This is no laughing matter, lad. One more outburst like that and I'll have you out in that amusement park every night till dawn from now until your retirement party.'
The constable, for a split second, didn't know if this was another example of the Inspector's wit. Wisely, he decided it wasn't, and straightened to attention. The Inspector turned back to Kevin.
'As I was saying, it was a definite oversight on our part, but I'm sure you'll agree we shouldn't have much trouble picking chummy out in the shopping centre, should we?'
'Not even your lot, no,' agreed Kevin. 'But it was the amusement park, not the shopping centre.'
'Even there, lad,' continued the Inspector, nodding confidently, 'reckon we'd spot him, in time. Mind you, some of the types who hang round those pinball machines—we might have to form a line-up at that...'
Kevin decided to let it ride. The Inspector continued leafing through the file, going a little further back.
'"The figure of a Chinese Mandarin, appearing and disappearing into thin air..."' He turned more pages. '"Strange lights appeared about twenty feet off the ground..."' Yet more pages. '"Strange lights appeared at ground level..."' He closed the file and placed it carefully on the table. 'So there was nothing unusual about last night then?'
Kevin returned the calm, level stare, still refusing to rise to the jibe.
'I mean, it seems to me it were just like any other night you—er—"find yourself" in the park, eh?'
'Last night the Mandarin wasn't there.'
'No Mandarin,' repeated the Inspector, heavily. He leant forward, elbows on the table. 'Right, lad. You tell me all about this Mandarin...'
The Mandarin swept in through the door almost regally, the tall figure erect, walking in long, gracious strides. The door closed obediently behind him with the softest of clicks. He crossed immediately to sit behind the huge carved desk in a huge carved chair. He paused for a moment, still but intensely alert.
The room seemed to fit around him like a glove—high ceilings and walls, panelled in English wood though decorated in the Oriental style of the nineteenth century: heavy brocaded drapes, rich, ponderous carvings, subdued, almost gloomy lights which allowed the brilliant colours of the paintings and tapestries to stand out with three-dimensional effect.
His gaze slowly turned to a large crystal ball, mounted on a round mahogany base before him. He reached his hand out slowly, delicately, and, with the lightest touch of his fingers, began to rotate it. As he did so, the picture on the large viewing screen set into the wall opposite swirled as though filled with smoke, then began to swim and clear as the fingers moved and sought their target.
Within moments a recognisable picture emerged. As if from a very great height, the Blackpool funfair could be seen, waiting in the weak spring sunshine. The fingers and the picture moved again and the funfair moved closer and closer, the images growing and passing as the seeing-eye moved down amongst the arcades, the rides and the crowds, coming to rest on the unmistakable figure of the Doctor.
The Mandarin removed his hand from the crystal ball with the same deliberate delicacy with which he had placed it there, and he settled back in his chair to view the scene, the hint of a cold smile crossing his aristocratic face...
The Doctor regarded the giant pink-coloured growth he was holding with more than usual suspicion. 'Edible?' he asked. 'You can't be serious.'
'Sure it is,' Peri maintained.
'They didn't have this at Brighton.'
'It wasn't invented then. I thought you knew all about Earth History.'
'All the salient facts, yes.'
'Well, one thing I've never heard candy floss called is salient,' admitted Peri.
'Candy floss,' repeated the Doctor.
'Go on, try it.'
Mastering his automatic distrust of sugar-based pink growths, borne of the experience on a thousand worlds where such growths are the most merciless of the inhabitants, the Doctor took a small nibble. And then another. And another.
'Astonishing,' he remarked as he grappled with a long frond. 'The triumph of volume over mass taken to its logical conclusion... Where did you say you found it?'
'In the booth over there—'
'No, no. The five-pound note you used to pay for it.'
The TARDIS cloakroom. In a sporran. At least it looked like a sporran. I nearly brought that too, but it wouldn't have gone with this outfit.'
'Good Heavens! It must be Jamie's. And I'd always thought him so... careful with his cash...'
'He won't mind, will he?'
'I'm sure he did — will — does — Oh, I don't know. This is an emergency, isn't it?'
He beamed around at his fellow holiday-makers for confirmation. The only response he received was from a very dour man in ail enormous padded anorak, who gestured rudely that he should move along with the queue.
'Are you sure this is what you want?' asked Peri.
'More sure now than I was,' replied the Doctor, taking another nibble from the candy floss.
'I mean this,' retorted Peri, gesturing at the towering frame of the giant rollercoaster which craned over their heads.
'I'll say,' enthused the Doctor. 'I've been looking back to this for years.'
'Couldn't we have gone to Hawaii?' moaned Peri, shivering again. 'Miles of sand, waving palms, beautiful, beautiful sunshine—'
'Poppycock,' snorted the Doctor. 'I'll never understand you lot — a long bath in cold sodium chloride-solution, then wallowing about on a bed of mica crystals whilst un
dergoing severe exposure to hard ultra-violet bombardment. If you ask me your summer holidays go a long way towards accounting for the basic irrationality of the human race...'
'Next you'll be telling me you planned on coming here.'
'If it had been my plan, it would have been a jolly good one.'
'Your attitude towards self-determination could be called pragmatic...'
'You mean there's another sort of self-determination? It was a malfunction, that's all.'
'That's all? We get yanked halfway across the Milky Way inside a couple of nano-seconds and that's all?'
'You're very hard to please, Peri...'
'I feel as though my stomach's still the other side of Alpha Centauri...'
'So it is, I suppose, if you take the Old Castellan's last stab at Universal Relativity slightly out of context... Don't you like it, even a little bit?'
The Doctor seemed genuinely hurt that Peri shouldn't share his enthusiasm for the Great British Wet Spring, which leads with such comforting predictability to the Great British Wet Summer, and Peri felt she should soften the blow.
'I do, I do. It's just not the centre of the Universe, is it?'
The Doctor looked around, as if to get his bearings. 'Well,' he muttered, after a moment, 'it's close...'
'A space-time vortex, you said...'
'Yes,' he affirmed, nodding vigorously.
'So strong it could only be at the centre of the Danger Zone, you said...'
'It had all the appearances —' he agreed, nodding fiercely now.
'The Nexus of the Primeval Cauldron of Space-Time itself were the exact words you used...'
'That's a very apt turn of phrase!' he exclaimed, imbued once again with enthusiasm for his own eloquence.
'For this!' squawked Peri, flinging out her arm in what the Doctor later considered to be an over-dramatic gesture but which nevertheless took in the full scale and majesty of Blackpool's outdoor amusement park. The Doctor nibbled his candy floss again, rather sheepishly this time.
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