‘Look, I can show you a box that’s bigger on the inside than the outside.’

Smith closed his eyes, as if struck by a sudden thought, but he just as quickly opened them again and kept walking, not looking at Benny. ‘Thank you, no, I’ve got a dinner appointment. I mustn’t be late.’

‘Listen, there are people out there who might want to hurt you.’

‘Ah.’ Smith turned suddenly and pointed at her, an uneasy half-frown on his face.

‘You’re trying to distract me. Don’t. I’m confused enough. All these…’ He waggled the hand irritatedly, searching for the right word. ‘All these… fantasies. They’re bad for you. They get between you and the real world. This is all there is, Bernice. The school and the boys and dinner. We can’t leave it, we can’t change it. We just have to live with it. So do that. University seems to have been a bad idea for you. I’ll talk to Jonathan about it. And put some clothes on. Good night.’

Benny stopped, and watched Smith march into the school buildings.

When he was out of earshot, she swore eight times.

She returned to the cottage carefully, making her way from hedge to hedge as if this quiet little town was a war zone. She hadn’t been followed going to get the Pod, so the man with the sword probably wasn’t tracking her now. A fire engine roared past down the street, a fireman on the side ringing its bell urgently as the wooden ladder on its roof rocked from side to side. Bernice noticed that a column of brown smoke was rising from the other side of town. That looked ominous.

Perhaps the lads at the pub hadn’t detained her attacker for very long. That was a worrying thought, unarmed humans circa 1914 taking on somebody armed with sophisticated weaponry like that. Between them, the man and the little girl could cut a swathe through this lot. And there was no Doctor to stop them.

So what was she going to do? There was always the TARDIS. If she could kidnap Smith somehow and get him inside, she might actually be able to persuade him of the truth. She hadn’t tried to go into the details of what had happened yet. They sounded pretty ridiculous even to her, but maybe they’d touch a nerve.

She broke from cover and dashed up the path to the cottage gate then unlocking the door with one twist of the key. If this was going to be a long-term job, or even if Smith really was going to snap out of it in three weeks, she needed to put a pack together. The bloody forest was beckoning again.