Chapter Twelve

As far as he knew, neither he nor Benny's photograph had appeared in the press or on television in the last week. Perhaps the authorities thought that they had died in Adisham. More likely, with the Doctor dead, they weren't considered a threat any longer. The Brigadier had reached that conclusion himself, but he'd rather hoped that UNIT would pose more of a threat.

Lethbridge-Stewart quickened his pace a little, passing through a row of trees to the main street. He used to live in Gerrard's Cross, so he'd been to Windsor his fair share of times over the years. The streets were as busy as he remembered, there was even a school party making its way over to the Castle. London was less than an hour away, just along the M4. The population of that city was living in fear, under curfew, with a kilometre long warship hovering over them. Here, people were going about their daily business. A quartet of Etonians passed him, moaning that the BBC had cancelled last night's X Files 'due to recent events'.

Lethbridge-Stewart could see the WH Smiths sign now. He continued towards it, pausing every so often to look into other shop windows. This was a simple technique. If anyone was following you, they'd have to stop as well, or walk straight past you. You could also check the reflected image of the other side of the street, without having to look directly at a potential tail. As part of his basic espionage training, he'd walked down Oxford Street, from one end to the other. Half a dozen MI5 man were trailing him. His primary goal was to shake them off, the second was to identify as many of them as he could at the debrief afterwards.

The point was, of course, that he couldn't do either. If you walk down a street, people look at you. If you are going to Smiths, chances are a dozen others are too, so they'll be walking down the same pavements. At the debrief, he'd been honest enough to admit that he couldn't spot anyone who was definitely following him. He described a couple of the people he thought might have been MI5 agents, all of whom had been innocent passers-by. He got points for honesty, and realism. Despite all his weaving in and out of shops, he doubted that he'd shaken off the men following him. He had managed to drop out of sight for almost a full minute, more than enough to pass over or drop off any documents he might have been carrying. He'd passed that part of his training.

He walked into Smiths, checking the dozen or so shoppers. He paused at an empty newspaper rack.

'Excuse me,' he asked the nearest assistant, 'but - '

'Oh there aren't any,' she said in a sing-song voice.