He dragged out his sonic. ‘Shoot him.’

Matthew braced himself. ‘You need to get a move on. Try not to hit anything vital.’

They looked at each other.

‘Don’t just stand there,’ shouted Matthew. ‘Shoot me.’

Luke hesitated. ‘Shit, Matthew.’

‘For fire truck’s sake – you have to make it look good. Shoot me.’

Luke raised his sonic. ‘It’s on maximum. Won’t be pleasant.’

‘Do it.’

With a deafening squeal of metal, slowly, ponderously, the doors began to rise.

Matthew said quietly, ‘Luke – they’re here. You have to do it.’

Luke pointed his sonic. ‘I’m sorry, Matthew.’ He fired.

Matthew dropped to the floor, convulsing violently.

Jane started towards him. ‘Matthew . . . !’ She turned to Luke, panic rising in her chest. ‘He’s going to need immediate treatment or he might die.’

‘And he’ll get it. Come on.’

She could hear shouts as officers tried to wriggle under the slowly rising doors. They weren’t shooting. No one would risk hitting the pods.

Luke threw her bodily into the pod. She hit the wall and fell to the floor, banging her head on the console on the way down. Dimly, a hundred miles away, a voice shouted, ‘Pod – emergency evacuation.’

The floor lurched beneath her.

The world went black. She felt vomit in the back of her throat.

At which point she gave up.

25

25

The pod touched down with a substantial thump although at least half the occupants were past caring. Inside, there was silence for a very, very long time.

Eventually, Luke said cautiously, ‘Are you still alive?’

She opened first one eye and then the other.

He heaved a sigh of relief. ‘I was worried I’d killed you.’

‘You threw me into the wall.’

‘I had to get you on board quickly. That was not the moment for you to be standing chatting to Matthew.’

Memories came back. ‘You shot him.’

‘Only very reluctantly.’

‘For God’s sake, Luke, how many more people are you going to kill today?’

‘I told you – Matthew will be fine.’

The reference to his murder of Sarah Smith apparently passed him by. She wondered if he’d actually forgotten it.

She tried to sit up. ‘We need to get away from this pod. It won’t take long for them to find it and they could be here at any moment.’

‘No huge rush.’

‘Yes, there is, Luke.’ She stopped and thought about his words. ‘Why isn’t there any huge rush?’

‘Because we’re only one of many pods here at the moment.’

‘Where’s here?’

He grinned. ‘Rome, 14th March 44BC,’ and waited to see if the date would mean anything to her.

It did not.

‘Luke, they’ll be after us already. We should go.’