Sure enough, the door was opened from inside. A girl stood there. She had long black hair and wore a white Victorian-style nightdress. The Doctor did a double-take, but a second look showed it wasn’t Kylie Duncan. She was in the past now, the Doctor knew. It must be that Sammy Star chose girls who looked alike. That way people wouldn’t notice it was a new girl every night.

‘Hello?’ said the girl.

‘Hello, I’m the Doctor,’ replied the Doctor cheerfully. He shut the door behind him and was inside the room before she knew what had happened.

He looked around with interest. A cage in a corner held a large, sad white rabbit with floppy ears. Plastic gravestones leant against the walls. There was a full-length mirror on a stand. Chains and ropes dangled from hooks. A dozen costumes hung from a rail.

Next to the rabbit’s cage was a tall box. It was about the same size and shape as the one he’d been locked in. He smiled, thinking of Amy still dancing around on the stage.

As the girl watched, confused, he ran the sonic screwdriver across the box. ‘Hmm,’ he said, glancing at a reading. ‘Lead-lined.’

‘No one’s allowed to touch that box!’ the girl cried. ‘That’s why the door was locked!’

‘Well, yes, he would have told you that,’ said the Doctor. ‘Wouldn’t want anything to happen to you before tonight, would he?’

‘What do you mean?’

The Doctor stared straight at her. ‘We’re going to have a little talk in a minute. Then you’re going to leave. You’re in danger here.’

‘I was in danger out there, Doctor Whoever-you-are,’ she said. ‘It’s not much fun being on the streets. This bloke’s offering me a good job, good money, a chance of being on the telly.’

‘Where you’ll end up, there isn’t any telly!’ the Doctor told her. ‘They stopped broadcasts during the war and it doesn’t begin again until 1946. Even then it’s pretty much only Muffin the Mule and the News!’

‘You’re mad,’ the girl said.

‘Yes, yes, yes,’ said the Doctor. ‘Now, are you going to help me steal this box or not?’

She stared at him. ‘Not, of course!’ She turned away. ‘I’m going to get Mr Star.’

He darted across the room to get to the door first. ‘Please don’t,’ he said, barring her way. ‘I’ll explain.’ He took a deep breath.

The door burst open, nearly hitting the Doctor, and Sammy Star charged in. ‘I knew it!’ he said. ‘I knew I’d find you here!’ He turned to the girl. ‘Go and wait in the theatre while I deal with this spy.’

‘I’m not a spy,’ said the Doctor as the girl hurried out. ‘I’m a concerned citizen. Concerned that you’ve got a deadly alien monster inside that box, and you keep letting it loose.’

‘I don’t care if it’s deadly,’ said Sammy Star. ‘I don’t care if it’s alien and I don’t care if it’s a monster. All I care is that it’s bringing me fame and fortune. I’m not going to let you spoil that for me.’

The Doctor boggled. ‘You’re really putting fame and fortune above the lives of all these young girls?’

‘Yes.’ The magician strode towards him. ‘They’re nothing. They’re worthless. The scum of the gutter. They have no place, no use. They have no home.’

‘I have no home,’ said the Doctor quietly. ‘Having no home doesn’t make you a lesser person.’ He turned and pointed at the lead-lined box. ‘Doing this sort of thing is what makes you a lesser person.’

The Doctor shouldn’t have turned his back. Sammy Star grabbed a coil of rope off a hook and jumped on him. The Doctor fought back, but he’d been taken by surprise. His arms were pinned to his sides, and Sammy Star tied him to a chair.

‘No one’s going to get in my way,’ the man said. ‘I don’t know how this thing works, but I know that it does work.’ He unlocked the padlock on the lead-lined box and nudged the door open. ‘I’ll say goodbye now.’ He backed out of the room and the Doctor heard the sound of a beep as the door locked itself.

He’d dropped the sonic screwdriver during the struggle. It took just a fraction of a second for him to look down to see where it had landed. By the time he looked up again, the Weeping Angel was out of the box.

‘Oh dear,’ the Doctor murmured to himself. ‘This is slightly awkward.’

Amy was carried out of the theatre by a security guard.

‘Wow,’ said a girl who was dressed as a court jester. ‘I thought it was bad when they came out crying.’

Amy wasn’t surprised to be thrown out. It was getting to be a habit. She only hoped that the ruse had bought the Doctor enough time. He would have had a couple of minutes’ head start, at least. As long as he was able to find the Angel, that was the main thing. They had a good few hours yet to work out how to deal with it. Of course, she also had to work out a way of getting back into the theatre. At least she had a while to sort that out too.

She went and sat by one of the bronze lions in Trafalgar Square while she thought things through.

Amy wasn’t sure how long she’d been sitting there when she heard a vehicle screech to a halt. A minibus had stopped on one of the roads at the edge of Trafalgar Square. To her huge surprise, she saw Rory jump out of its door. To her even greater surprise, two old ladies hobbled after him, walking sticks in hands. They appeared to be the two old women who’d sat behind them in the theatre the night before.

‘Hey! Hey! Over here!’ Amy called out.

Rory heard and swerved towards her. ‘Nice outfit,’ he began.

‘Yes, yes, yes,’ said Amy. ‘I look like I’m from the space year 3000, I know. What are you doing here? I think you’re going to get a parking ticket, by the way.’

‘I found out something. I thought the Doctor ought to know as soon as possible,’ Rory said. The two ladies joined them. ‘Amy, this is Kylie Duncan and Amber Reynolds, as was. Now Mrs Collins and Mrs Hooper.’

‘Hello, we met last night,’ said Amy. ‘It’s very nice to see you.’

Mrs Hooper peered at her. ‘You tied me up.’

‘Er, no,’ Amy said. ‘I’m pretty sure you’re thinking of someone else there.’ She quickly turned to Rory. ‘What is it that the Doctor needs to know?’

‘Oh, right. Yes.’ Rory frowned. ‘OK. This is what it is. We were talking in the garden, and Miss Leake came out. She’s the warden of the Golden Years home. Anyway, she had a magazine. I didn’t realise what it meant at first.’

‘What what meant?’ Amy was almost shouting. ‘Come on, come on!’

‘There was an interview with Sammy Star. It said he’s being filmed this afternoon, while those talent-show judges are here. He’s being filmed doing the Graveyard Ghost act, then it’s being shown on TV later. We thought we had hours, but the Angel could be let loose any time now. We’ve got to tell the Doctor before it sends some other poor girl back into the past!’

Amy stared at him in horror. ‘It’s much worse than that,’ she said.

Pictures from a long time ago flashed into her mind. She’d been locked in a room. A recording of a Weeping Angel had started to come to life before her eyes.

‘The image of an Angel itself becomes an Angel,’ she whispered, hardly daring to say the words out loud. ‘So if a Weeping Angel is filmed and shown on TV...’

She couldn’t carry on. The thought was just too scary. A Weeping Angel would appear in front of each TV set that was showing Sammy Star’s act. Millions of Weeping Angels coming to life all over the country. Perhaps all over the world.

Chapter Nine

THE DOCTOR WAS struggling. He was struggling to get out of his bonds and he was struggling not to blink. He knew his eyes had flickered once or twice already. In those tiny moments, the Angel had advanced. It was halfway across the room now.

The big mirror on its stand was at the other end of the room. The Doctor could see himself in it out of the corner of his eye. He looked helpless, and that was making him angry. He struggled even harder.