Amos shrugged. ‘Oh aye?’

‘A long time ago.’

‘Oh aye,’ he said again. ‘How long?’

Vastra swept round, her eyes shimmering even through the veil. ‘About sixty five million years!’

*

Being the reminiscences of Miss Jenny Flint, lady’s maid of Paternoster Row, London.

The Doctor opened his arms out towards me like a kiddie wanting its mum. As long as I’d known him (and her. Though that’s another story), the Doctor had always been what you might call on the front foot. Not full of hisself like some fellas I’ve known, but he just had this breezy sort of confidence that everything was gonna turn out for the best. And it was infectious. Because the Doctor believed it, you believed it too. And nine times out of ten, he was right. But this was different. I’d never seen him look so vulnerable, so lost, and my heart went out to him. His chains clanked as he moved and his limbs was stiff as boards.

‘Doctor … ’ I said, shaking my head.

His mouth just hung open and a terrible, mournful groan come out.

‘What’s happened to you? Can’t you speak?’

He managed to shake his head – a head as red as if it’d been boiled – and I moved towards him, holding out shaking fingers. I got close to his flesh, then pulled back, scared – I don’t mind admitting. Then I gathered my wits and touched his face. I shan’t forget that sensation in a hurry. Where I expected soft and yielding flesh, my fingers touched hardness, like the poor soul had been varnished. I put my knuckles together and actually rapped on the Doctor’s cheek! It was like he’d been changed into a toy soldier or an Aunt Sally in a funfair.

‘Right,’ I said and began at once to attack the padlock on his chains with my skeleton keys. ‘We’re getting out of here!’

In no time I had him free and started to drag him towards the door. He moved like an old man, or one of them wind-up toys, his arms and legs set and hard as rock. We was almost at the door when he pulled back and gestured with one rigid hand towards the corner of the cell, grunting like a mute. I saw at once what it was. His clothes: purple frockcoat, trews, boots, all in a pile. So I grabbed them and handed them to the Doctor. He clutched on to them as if his life depended on it.