"It was as I leaned forward to kiss her that the madness struck. At least it must have been madness, for what other explanation can there be?

"My memory tells me that, although we were absolutely alone, someone appeared next to us, floored me to the ground with a blow to the face, there was a gunshot - loud and heart-stopping - and someone cries 'murder'; a man's voice. And as I lie dazed, a gun is placed firmly in my hand. I look up, and there's no-one there. No-one else all around us. Just me and her, and she is on the ground with ..." He paused, trying to keep his voice steady. "... blood steaming from her chest.

"But I didn't do it. And a man runs in at the end of the yard. He sees me with the gun, and her ... and he turns to someone behind him and shouts 'murder!' Just like that first man did, only his voice was different. Anyway, he's soon joined by a few other big lads, and they come charging and roaring at me.

"I took off. I didn't know what else to do. I just dropped the gun and ran."

The young man paused as if expecting either one of them to respond. The Doctor continued treating his injuries in silence so Peri decided to summarise. "So you're saying that you really liked this girl, and that some stranger appeared out of thin air, floored you, shot the girl, left you with the gun and then vanished again. It doesn't exactly have the ring of truth about it, now does it?"

***

The day had been quite pleasant before this accused man had ran into their lives ...

***

"No Peri, I really would not be interested in your country's football!"

Peri leaned against the crumbling stonewall and inhaled the scents of timber, which wafted out of the workshop.

"Besides," continued the Doctor, standing to admire his newly-planed cricket bat, "apart from the somewhat ungainly padding they use, I've always had some trouble following the rules of American Football."

Peri scoffed and walked forward into the shade of the workshops doorway. "That's rich coming from a cricket player!"

"Now the rules of cricket are quite simply to follow -"

"No Doctor!" interrupted Peri, "Turlough warned me not to get you started on that particular subject!"

The Doctor, looking wounded by Peri's remark, turned to the carpenter and settled the account - despite the fact that the Doctor had insisted on doing the workmanship himself.

"Boys and their toys!" Peri teased as they walked out into the summer sunshine of 1950's England.

The Doctor swung his cricket bat at an imaginary low-bowled ball for the sheer pleasure of it.

A low rumble in the distance caught both their attentions, though neither made mention of it. By the time they had reached the Tardis the sound had grown to an advancing riot of charging feet.

The Doctor had opened the Tardis door when the clear cry of "murderer!" came from the back of the approaching hunt. For hunt it was.

A young terrified youth careered into view from around a corner, a riot of loud angry men almost at his heels. The boy - for he wasn't much older than a boy - saw the open door to blue box, the only shelter within sight, and dived into it, crying "help me!" to the man and woman who seemed to be guarding it.

The Doctor jostled Peri inside, following as an arm grabbed for this collar, missing him by inches.

Once across the threshold of the Police Box, they crossed a gateway into the dimension that held the vast interior of the Tardis time machine - the Police Box was, to that extent, simply a disguise to prevent the ship being seen or suspected.

Peri closed the inner doors with the control on the central console, but the thumping was already loud from the closed outer doors. She looked warily from the floored youth - no older than twenty - to the Doctor, who stood watching the newcomer. "Didn't they cry out 'murderer'?" she asked.

The Doctor gave her a passing glance. "Innocent until proven guilty, Peri. And that lot weren't going to give him a fair trial." He leaned down, frowning at the thin, bruised and bloodied figure on the floor. "Now then," he said, "let's get your side of the story first, shall we?"

The blonde haired young man was still panting and sweating like a hounded fox.

A louder blow to the doors further unnerved Peri. "Shouldn't we de-materialise?" she asked unsteadily, as she turned on the visual scanner.

"And risk this boy being labelled as some kind of witch disappearing by magic? A man can clear his name of any crime he didn't commit, but if he is labelled with the supernatural, his townsfolk out there would have him damned forever."

"Well what do we do with him? Leave him here till the cops arrive outside?"

"Let's get him though to the medical room first."

***

"So," said Peri in summary, "you're saying that you really liked this girl, and that some stranger appeared out of thin air, floored you, shot the girl, left you with the gun and then vanished again. It doesn't exactly have the ring of truth about it, now does it?"

"I swear to you that is what happened," pleaded the young man, boyishly. "As I remember it anyway. They chased me through the whole town, more joining, and me running into walls and things when I'm looking behind me at that lot catching up."

"In which hand was the gun placed?" asked the Doctor.

"In my right hand Sir, but that's just it see; I'm left handed."

The Doctor took his half-moon glasses off, human repairs apparently complete, and raised his eyes to Peri. "There is one way to find out if he is telling the truth." He disappeared back through to the console room, the soles of his shoes squeaking on the polished white floors.

"What?" asked Peri, leaving to follow. "Go back and witness it for ourselves?"

The Doctor's hands started dancing over the analytical controls. "Oh, I'm afraid the Tardis might not be able to highlight the exact moment unless -" His voice suddenly cut off and his eyes brightened. "Ah-ha!" he announced. "Time disturbance, local and not more than two minutes since."

"Hey, what is this place?" asked the accused man as he wandered into the console room after them. he had straightened up his polo-shirt, and the blood on his navy trousers had been wiped dry.

The Doctor turned to him and smiled. "It must be your lucky day," he told him. "It seems you have just found the right sort of detective to investigate your case for you!"

Something on the viewer screen caught Peri's attention. "Ah, Doctor ..?"

But the Doctor was once more absorbed in his console's read-outs. "I take it the Tardis was attracted to this hour and town by your un-timely gunman. By the way, we haven't been introduced yet! I'm the Doctor, this is my friend Peri, and you are ..?"

"Dean. Dean Urwin-Wright," replied the young man. He looked at the voluptuous Peri, in her shorts and blouse, and followed her gaze to the viewer screen. "Hey, is this some kind of cinema screen?" he asked her.

"Prepare for shocks number two and three today, Dean," she replied. "That screen shows exactly what's happening outside the ship just now. And that policeman's coming to see who's in here."

The Doctor looked up sharply at the screen. "Ah!" he said.

Dean looked at the Doctor, fear beginning to take a grip on him again. "You're going to want me to go out to him, aren't you? And then I'm going to imagine I dreamed everything in here too. Wherever here is ... I am going mad, amn't I? First Joan, now this ..."

The Doctor put his hands up in a calming motion. "Now Dean, you're going to have to trust us to solve this mystery for you."

***

Bill Jenkins stood in the middle of the richly carpeted office. Putting the bracelet device in his pocket, he looked about sharply, and tried to get his bearings.

He didn't know whether he felt giddy or terrified. New memories started flooding into his mind. They didn't overwrite his existing memories - the original reasons for why he had gone back into the past to kill. These events were part of his personal past even if he had caused them to be no longer part of the established past.

Jenkins poured himself a scotch from the decanter in the office. His office. Somehow he just knew that it was his office. He had succeeded in buying out his rival's firm because his rival had never been born; not since his grandmother had been shot before she had had a chance to conceive.

The intercom on his desk buzzed. He nearly dropped his glass in shock. Why was he shocked? This was his office! Yet somehow he still felt he was going to be found out at any moment. It was nonsense of course. Who else but the dying man knew about the key to time travel?

"Yes?" he said, after pressing the intercom button.

"Your wife phoned, Sir. Her meeting has finished early. She said she will be here in five minutes."

"Wife?" He could hardly believe the word. Could it be her?

"Sir?"

"Er, of course. Thank you," he answered.

Jenkins sank into the chair behind the desk; a rich leather chair. Through changing one event in the past he had wiped out his business rival who had also been his rival in love. Could he have won both now? He tried to remember, to distinguish memories coming from two lives.

***

The Doctor popped his head out of the Police Box doors. "Officer? What a relief it is to see you!" He came out slowly, blocking the entrance with his body. He called over his shoulder. "You can come out now, Dean."

Dean came out, to be greeted by the glow of the sunshine and the fiery gaze of a mob who instantly moved closer.

"Get back the lot of you!" barked the policeman above the noise of the rabble. He could tell from the accusations of the crowd which one of the two men was the accused. He turned to the Doctor and looked at his sportsman clothes. "What are you doing in a Police Box?"

The Doctor looked down at his attire. "Well it's my job to clean them Sir, but you see I'm going to a match as soon as I've finished. This young man ran in for protection when this crowd was baying for his blood. I thought he'd be safer kept in this Police Box than handed over to this crowd. There's too many trees between here and the station for those men to be trusted not to carry out their own justice."

The policeman eyed the crowd. "It's a courts decision as to whether this young youth is to hang. No-one else's." He turned again to the Doctor. "You acted sensibly Sir, but you could have been putting yourself in extreme danger. You do know what this man is accused of?"

"Murder, say these men," replied the Doctor.

"Well, the woman's not dead; at least not yet. She's been taken to hospital, but she's obviously in a bad way."

The Doctor spoke to the crowd, who were still looking vengefully at young Dean. "So the charge you men make is wrong then? It is only attempted murder. How many of you bothered to check the poor woman's condition before running like hounds after this potentially innocent juvenile?"

"We only wanted to make sure he didn't escape," said one of the more soberly-minded ringleaders. "We weren't going to harm him."

Ignoring the Doctor's high moral tone, the policeman nodded at the Police Box. "Did he leave anything in there, Sir?"

"Here? No," said the Doctor, a little more hurriedly than he had intended to.

"Let me just have a look, Sir," said the policeman, holding Dean by the arm and motioning the Doctor to move clear of the doorway.

The Doctor reluctantly obliged.

Dean passed the Doctor a wide-eyed look, but the Doctor refused to meet it.

The policeman looked inside. Just an ordinary Police Box. New to this location obviously, but nothing out of the ordinary. Four small walls with various bits and pieces hanging from nails in the walls. He kicked at the wooden box which acted as a seat. Hollow. Satisfied, he came out again, and read Dean his rights while arresting him.

"I'll just finish my cleaning now, will I?" asked the Doctor, before disappearing back inside with a passing wink at Dean. He closed the doors after him and stood in the cramped box. "Right Peri," he said to himself, "don't take forever to re-establish the dimension link to the exterior doors, now will you?"

He was actually quite pleased that the policeman had asked to see inside. It would have been such a shame if he had gone to the trouble of de-activating the link for nothing. This was only the second time he had been forced by circumstance to disable the dimension link to the interior. He tried to remember if it had been when he had first disabled the link that the chameleon circuit had first started playing up. He'd have to try fixing that again someday...

***

Peri counted the seconds down on her watch. Two minutes, the Doctor had said. Don't press the re-activation button before the full two minutes had run out. She wondered what she would do if the battery in her watch ran out? For a time machine there weren't many clocks about. She watched the second hand tick-tick-tick away.

"Its just like waiting for the bell to go at school," she muttered wearily to herself. Surely time travel ought to be a bit more exciting than this! Of course if her step-father were here now he would be criticising her impatience. She smiled; it was good to be free of parental pressure even if she still ws watching the second hand on a watch!

Finally the moment came and she pressed the button. The Doctor materialised beside her. "Right," he said airily, advancing to the console. "Let's see if the Tardis has traced where that time travelling killer is now."

***

Rachel's job was to type for a living, but working for the head office of the newly-merged Jenkins Group Holdings made her feel far more important than any mere secretary. She was after all the P.A. to the man who was C.E.O and chief share-holder after all.

A strange grinding noise from one of the neighbouring offices made her hurriedly minimise the card game on her P.C. lest she be discovered.

One of the other director's office doors - a director who was on holiday this week - opened to reveal a young fair haired man in old fashioned cricketing clothes. He smiled sweetly at her while waving a small device that looked like a remote control in front of him. He proceeded towards Mr Jenkins' door.

"Excuse me Sir, you can't go in there -" started Rachel, but too late. The man just walked in.

"Who the devil are you?" asked Jenkins, sharply.

"I'm the Doctor," said the fair haired man. "And you, Mr Jenkins, are in possession of a Time Ring. Can I have it please?"

"Will I call security?" Rachel asked her boss.

What this Doctor had said seemed to have alarmed Mr Jenkins. "No it's all right. I'll deal with this Rachel. Leave us; close the door after you."

Rachel obediently obliged. She was curious, but knew the doors were too thick to eavesdrop on any spoken conversation. So she returned to her card game.

***

"How do you know my name?" asked Jenkins from behind his executive desk.

"The name plate on your door!" replied the Doctor, with mild satisfaction. "Interesting first question though. I thought you'd at least pretend you didn't know what the Time Ring was. Can I have it please?" He stretched his hand, switching off the tracking device in his other hand, which wouldn't work at close range for some reason.

"If you mean the bracelet, it's mine," replied the round-faced, dark haired young man.

"By whose authority? You're human. You shouldn't have access to that kind of technology."

"A dying man gave it to me. He said it was an advanced experimental model."

Which could explain why his tracer wouldn't work at close range, thought the Doctor. "If he was dying he probably had no choice. If you can kill someone to change the past then you could steal from a man already dying."

Jenkins retrieved a gun from his desk drawer and aimed it at the Doctor.

"No silencer," the Doctor observed.

Jenkins eyes wavered.

"Is that the same sort of gun you used to shoot the girl young Dean was with?" the Doctor continued. "You left that gun with him, didn't you? Oh yes, you've framed him very nicely. Why go back a couple of generations though? More anonymous that way, was it?"

The intercom suddenly buzzed again, causing Jenkins' finger to bounce against the trigger in alarm. Luckily for the Doctor, not enough pressure was applied for the gun to discharge.

Jenkins used his other hand to press the intercom's microphone on. "Yes?" he asked, rather harshly.

"Your wife's here, Sir," announced Rachel's voice.

"Just a moment," replied Jenkins, taking his finger off the intercom.

"You don't want your wife to see blood on this nice grey carpet now, do you?" asked the Doctor, evenly.

"Get out!" Jenkins growled. "I never want to see you again. If I do, I'll kill you."

The Doctor turned towards the door, but looked back before turning the handle. "By the way you failed to kill the woman - Joan I think she was called. And as you thus failed to cause enough damage to past events, your current present may not be sustained for many more minutes!"

***

Rachel watched as the young cricketer disappeared back into the director's office he had first appeared from. Mr Jenkins' wife came forward and Jenkins embraced her like he hadn't seen her for years. If only she could get a man to love her like that! thought Rachel to herself. The pair disappeared into his office and closed the door.

The cricketer started up his machinery or whatever caused that antiquated grinding sound. Mercifully the sound didn't last long and Rachel returned to her card game.

***

When the door was closed, Jenkins wrapped his arms around his wife as if she were an object to be gorged upon. No formal approaches were required, no more pleasantries needed to be exchanged. Her surname was not Urwin-Wright; it was Jenkins. She was his, no-one elses, and he devoured her in an exploratory kiss. His flat hands ran over her back and sides.

She did not protest, she was merely a little taken aback by the unguarded force of his passion. But of course she knew him. They had been married for nine months after all. It had been he that she had married, not the man who no longer existed.

He pressed her closer to his body, the heat of passion now growing instinctive like two parts of a whole.

Then his hands somehow seemed to pull her closer. She grew softer, and by the time he opened his eyes, she was like a ghost. His arms came to rest on his own shoulders and she was no longer there.

Like a beast being cheated of his mate, he let out an agonised roar of anger. "What's happening?" He clutched his head in his hands.

Rachel ran into the office. "What's wrong, Sir?"

"My wife," cried Jenkins, "where's my wife?"

"Your wife?" replied Rachel, astonished. "But Sir, you're not married!"

What she was saying seemed to be true. A new, third set of memories were imprinting themselves on his mind, alongside the original two. She was not his wife, had never been, but the business had come to him. Nigel Urwin-Wright did exist, had been born, as had his father before him. "How can this be happening?" wailed Jenkins.

His sight blurred and suddenly Nigel Urwin-Wright stood before him. A rival in ever way, looks, athleticism, and in business acumen.

"What are you doing in my office, Jenkins? This is my business! I won it fair and square."

Rachel looked at Nigel. "Should I call security, Sir?"

Why was she calling him Sir? Jenkins looked at the name plate on the door. It said Urwin-Wright! What was the truth anymore? Things were changing too fast, too much.

He dived for the desk and grabbed the gun.

Security men started running into the corridor outside the office.

No time to kill. But he didn't need to here. He grinned, and pulled out the Time Ring with his other hand. Touching a button on the Time Ring, he promptly de-materialised, leaving a shocked room full of people in his absence.

***

A warning on the Tardis console alerted the Doctor.

"Our Mr Jenkins is on the move again," he told Peri.

"When to?"

The Doctor gave a nervous smile. "He's returning to the year of the crime."

***

Dean Urwin-Wright sat on the bench in his prison cell and wracked himself with guilt. He'd run, leaving his sweetheart bleeding. Maybe she would die, and what had he done to help? He only had his memories for company here. No need for guards when he was in a cell. No companions awaiting trial alongside him.

And what of the Doctor and his girl friend? Would they come to defend him in his trial? Would they find the real killer? Or would the killer get the chance to strike again before he was caught? This last thought chilled him and made him feel even more alone than ever.

***

The Doctor and Peri ran out of the Tardis and found themselves in a corridor of what was clearly a hospital.

"Oh no," called the Doctor, looking down at the electronic device in his hand.

"What is it?" asked Peri, alarmed.

"The tracker won't operate at short range. Jenkins could be anywhere in this building. We have to get to the woman before he does."

"Well what was her name? We can ask reception what ward she's in."

The Doctor looked at her blankly. "Oh dear, we didn't get her name, did we?"

"Joan," recalled Peri. "He said 'first Joan now this' just before he left the Tardis."

"Did he? Oh. Joan who?"

"Joan ... who was shot in the chest?"

Clearly the Doctor wasn't very impressed with this answer.

***

Julia had a second to catch breath. Hospital reception was a busier place than she'd ever given credit for. And she'd been left alone now for two minutes while her colleague went on her tea break.

She saw one of the Doctors approaching her, a tall man with dark hair and a round face. She still hadn't got used to all the faces, and it was perhaps obvious as her eyes instantly tried to pick out the name on his name-badge on his white coat. He was Dr Phillips.

"How's it going?" he asked her.

"Oh all right," said Julia, nervously. "There's a lot to get used to here isn't there?"

Dr Phillips looked at her more closely. "You're new here, aren't you?"

"Yes, it's my first day."

"Really? Well as you can see from my badge I'm Dr Phillips. I'm to deal with the gunshot victim, a Joan Andrews I believe her name is. Can you tell me what room she's in?"

"Oh right," said Julia, scanning her list. "Miss Andrews is in the side room in Ward 10."

Dr Phillips smiled broadly. Such a charming smile! "Thank you," he said, before leaving for his duties.

***

As the Doctor and Peri approached reception one of the Doctors was leaving the girl behind the desk. That Doctor had his back turned, but as he watched him go the Doctor wondered if -

"Can I help you?" said the girl behind the desk.

"Ah yes, we'd like to see the gunshot victim. It is visiting time, isn't it?"

"No sir, and Doctor Phillips has just gone to attend to her now."

"Oh but we've come so far," said the Doctor, crestfallen.

While the Doctor was talking, Peri attempted to see the names on the papers and lists in front of the receptionist; but it was a bit difficult when you only had half a name.

"Excuse me, what is it?" the receptionist said, screening some of the papers from Peri. "The gunshot victim is still under tight security. Perhaps you'd like to tell me the name of the person you want to see?"

Peri was saved from what could have been an embarrassing admission by a scream from a neighbouring corridor. A nurse ran towards the reception desk. "Doctor Phillips!" she cried. "He's been knocked out! Someone's taken his white coat off him and he's got an almighty black eye."

"But Doctor Phillips just asked where Joan Andrews was!"

The nurse's eyes widened in horror. "We've got an impostor in the building!"

"I think you ought to phone the police, don't you?" the Doctor asked the receptionist, coming round to the space behind the reception desk as if to take charge. "Our gunshot victim is now in extreme danger! Where is she?"

"The room in ward 10. To your right, first left and up to the second floor."

"Come on Peri," the Doctor called behind him as he took off at a jog.

***

Jenkins entered the room. Joan Andrews was alone in the room, and looked to have been doped up on painkillers. She was awake, but only half aware someone was in the room. He closed the door after him, and drew out his gun.

The problem now was how to fire a gun without bringing the whole hospital running. But then the solution was easy - escape with the Time Ring. Grinning at the sheer simplicity of this escape device, he raised the gun, and took aim at Joan's face.

Footsteps approached from outside the room. People running.

Get on with it man! Jenkins told himself.

Suddenly the door burst open and in strode the man from his office. The man in the cricket clothes who'd called himself the Doctor. But how? That had been in 1999 - did this man have a Time Ring too?

Panic gripped Jenkins, and he lunged for the patient, grabbing her round the neck with the barrel of the gun pressed against her forehead. "No closer!" he shouted.

The Doctor circled the room, and Jenkins dragged the unfortunate woman out of her bed so that he could be at the opposite side of the room from the other time traveller.

"You won't kill her," said the Doctor calmly. "You're just a small time villain who's way out of his depth."

"Don't try to sweet talk me Doctor!" growled Jenkins desperately, "I've got a perfect escape route, and you know that fine. Now you can stay here and take the blame for this one."

"You'd better stay long enough to make sure you finish the job this time then, hadn't you? After all, you don't want to return to your own time only to find your dreams falling apart again simply because you didn't check that she was dead."

"Yes, I may have failed to kill her the first time," Jenkins shrieked, "but this time I'll make sure the bullet goes right through her head!"

He pulled back his index finger on the trigger, but as he did so he found himself with his back to the open door and from where two policemen suddenly jumped him from behind. The gun fired aimlessly at the roof before it was wrestled from him. Jenkins looked round wildly, only to find that the Doctor and Peri were no where in sight, and he was surrounded by burly policemen.

"You're under arrest," said one of them. "On two counts of attempted murder."

"Two counts?" muttered Jenkins, dazed by how events had spiralled out of his control.

"You have just admitted to the original attempt on Miss Andrews life."

He found himself being man-handled out of the room before he had time to protest. "What? I can't be! I'm not even from this time!"

He grappled for the bracelet in his pocket, but someone lifted it from his grasp.

"I'll have that, thank you!" said Peri, holding the bracelet to her ample bosom. She looked into the face of the nearest policeman with the greatest of innocent righteousness. "That man stole it from me!" she complained.

"She's lying! I must have that!" Jenkins' screamed in agony.

The policeman looked at Peri uncertainly.

"It is not!" Peri pleaded with the policeman before her, and her excuses started pouring out at considerable speed. "What would a man be doing with a bracelet like that anyway? And all these shiny bits aren't real anyway. It was fake, but my grandmother gave it to me; and it means a lot to me!"

Jenkins was squirming like an eel, clearly desperate to reach the bracelet. In the end, it was his protests that led to the policeman leaving Peri with the bracelet rather than her arguments. Jenkins needed every available policeman to restrain him. And he had to be taken all the way out the building to the van waiting outside.

"Well done, Peri!" said the Doctor, quietly coming to her side. "Let's go. I think everything has sorted itself out now."

***

An hour later, Dean was released, all charges dropped. His first port of call was the hospital, only stopping on the way to buy some flowers. He asked for Joan Andrews at reception, but such was the security around the gunshot victim that no-one as allowed to know whereabouts in the hospital she was, let alone see her.

"Can the flowers be delivered to her then?"

"Yes, of course they can," said the woman behind the desk, taking the bouquet from him. "Do you want to write a note to go with them?"

"Oh, yes please ... do you have pen and paper?"

A minute later, the woman left with the flowers and the love message, disappearing down the corridors to wherever Joan was.

Phones rang, injured people milled around the reception area, and Dean felt out of place. Reluctantly he wandered over to the front doors, heading home.

"Mr Urwin-Wright?"

He turned to see the woman who had taken the flowers running back towards reception.

"Miss Andrews has asked that you be allowed through to see her."

Dean's eyes lit up and he followed the woman to the room that his sweetheart was in. When he arrived, he leaned down and kissed Joan, and this time no-one came between them.

***

Peri watched as the Doctor pressed various buttons on the Time Ring. Suddenly the Doctor threw it up in the air and the bracelet simply faded away before ever dropping back down again.

"Where's it gone?" asked Peri.

"Returned home," the Doctor replied, "to Gallifrey."

***

Nigel, grandson of Dean and Joan, walked out of the front entrance to his offices with his wife on his arm. She held her chest lightly, and something in the way they looked at one another gave the indication that she had told him they were expecting a happy event.

An old portly man watched them from across the road. He was dressed simply, balding and in his sixties.

The happy couple were oblivious to his stare. They simply got in the waiting car, and were driven home.

The old man walked slowly onwards down his side of the street, a holdall held tightly under his arm. Bill Jenkins has just been released from prison after over forty years for two attempted murders. He was lucky at the time of the trial not to have faced a hanging sentence, and he may have been released sooner were it not for continual referrals for psychiatric assessments. These had been caused mainly due to his dogmatic insistence of being from the future.

His foray into time travel had cost him half his life, and here he was, released in the week of his first encounter with the dying man. The man with the Time Ring. How ironic was that? He was now a stranger in his own hometown and time, unrecognised by those he had known before. And no-one would believe his fantastic explanation. How could they? Sometimes he doubted it himself.

He walked the streets to the location he had first seen the man. So many years of being told he was crazy had led to a need to see some evidence - any evidence that it had happened at all. And even though temptation had cost him dearly before, he still thought that if he found the man, then maybe, just maybe there might be something else ...

Back streets led to alleys, and one alley led to a dead-end with two skips full of builders' junk thrown from a second floor conversion opposite.

And concealed between the skips lay the man. He was as Jenkins remembered him. Dressed in the strange robes of some high office, and with blood crusted to his head where a falling piece of masonry had hit him.

The dead man's hand was outstretched. Jenkins smiled grimly. That hand was where he had taken the bracelet; when he'd heard the dying man's concussed ramblings about what the ring did. So he hadn't imagined it after all! Over forty years of doubt, of being told he couldn't possibly have done the things he said he'd done; well, here was the proof. He had been right!

***

When the experimental Time Ring arrived back on Gallifrey, security instantly traced it's owner, an the old TimeLord who had been dispatched to test it in a small street on Earth.

Their sensors showed that he had died at the end of his final incarnation. All that was left to do was transmat his body back to Gallifrey as his final resting place.

***

Jenkins saw the dead man simply fade away in front of his eyes. His mouth fell open. Was he going mad? But the man had been there simply a moment ago. He had seen him! He had taken the ring from him originally ... and yet ...

He paused, letting the sounds of the day pass by him. All those strange events, all those years ago. The dead man he'd just seen ... thought he'd seen... A man who had faded into thin air without any bracelet to press or use? It all ... didn't quite have the ring of truth about it.