An Eye For Murder (audio story)
An Eye For Murder was the third story in the audio anthology, Breaking Bubbles and Other Stories, which comprised the one hundred and eighty-eighth release in Big Finish's monthly range. It was written by Una McCormack and featured Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor and Nicola Bryant as Peri Brown.
Publisher's summary
The year is 1939, and a case of poison pen letters at St Ursula's College threatens to change the course of the Second World War. Fortunately thriller writer Miss Sarah Perry is on hand to investigate...
Plot
Tracking dark vacuum energy fluctuations, the Doctor takes Peri to St Ursula's College in September 1939 where she is mistaken by Dr Petherbridge, the principal, for Susan Perry, a thriller writer whom she is expecting. Dr Petherbridge tells Peri that anonymous poison pen letters have been sent to Jewish physicist Dr Horwitz and, to avoid involving the police and damaging the college's reputation, asks her to look into it, which the Doctor agrees that they will do. Peri gets the racist letters from Dr Horwitz whilst the Doctor meets economist Dr Dalton, who escorts him to his room to ensure that no undergraduates get an undeserved reputation for interacting with him.
After Dr Backhouse advises her to question Dr Dalton about her politics, Peri catches up with the Doctor and she realises that Dr Dalton is a communist rather than a Nazi following the announcement of the Second World War over the radio. Dr Horwitz tells Peri that somebody tried to murder as she was working, which coincides with the Doctor's readings becoming stronger, but she is unable to give a satisfactory answer for how she was able to escape. The Doctor and Peri wonder if Dr Dalton, who failed to recruit Dr Horwitz to the communist cause, is responsible and meet with her and Dr Petherbridge in the principal's office. Although Dr Dalton denies the charge, Dr Petherbridge has her arrested and Dr Horwitz says that a mistake has been made.
Dr Horwitz's notes and work are stolen from her room and the Doctor confronts her about the impossibility of her escape from her attacker, leading her to explain that one of the stolen items is a family heirloom, a sketch of which the Doctor recognises as a petrified eye, with the power of invisibility and that she has been studying it in the hopes of replicating its power to win the war. She says that the letters have been coming from Dr Backhouse, a Nazi who has been threatening her relatives in Vienna and who has apparently left by car. The Doctor follows the fluctuation readings so that he and a policeman can catch Dr Backhouse before she escapes, but the readings fade and he realises that she is still at St Ursula's.
Peri, Dr Petherbridge and Ruth celebrate but Peri reveals she's uneasy as she thought Backhouse would have put up more of a fight... but then they hear a noise and discover that Backhouse was hiding amongst them and never left the college using the artefact eye to hide herself the whole time. Peri and the others pursue her and the doctor arrives just in time and chases after Backhouse as the others are not able to keep up in order to stop her as she poses a danger to the girls in the dorms. He tries to pursuade Backhouse to give him the eye when they reach the roof as rain falls, making it slippery, but Backhouse refuses. She suddenly sees her hand and legs beginning to disappear and the Doctor tells her that it is the dark vacuum energy affecting her at a molecular level and destabilising her and explains he can only save her if she throws away the eye but she refuses, however, missing her limbs she slips and falls off the roof, destabilising completely as she hits the ground while the eye shatters and breaks much to the others' despair.
In the epilogue it is revealed that Ruth's notes on the eye were lost as they flew out the window after her room was ransacked but her family managed to flee Vienna and make it to Paris and are now on their way join Ruth in Britain, and the Doctor suspects that without a hostage to threaten Ruth with Backhouse now had to act quickly. The department asks the Doctor to address the college but the Doctor defers the duty to Peri who says she'd love to but needs to get her notes she left in the police box near the campus and they slip away, Peri merely using "fetching the notes" as an excuse.
Cast
- The Doctor - Colin Baker
- Peri Brown - Nicola Bryant
- Dr Maria Backhouse - Jemma Churchill
- Dr Joan Dalton - Allison McKenzie
- Dr Petherbridge - Janet Henfrey
- Dr Ruth Horwitz - Jessica Knappett
- Policeman - Andy Secombe
Worldbuilding
- The Doctor wears a London drape suit while visiting St Ursula's College.
- Peri describes the Doctor's coat as resembling "an explosion in a paint factory."
- Peri likes coffee.
- Dr. Ruth Horwitz is Jewish. She has been receiving anti-Semitic poison pen letters for two to three months.
- Dr. Joan Dalton is a Communist while Dr. Maria Backhouse is a Nazi.
- Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union have signed a non-aggression pact.
- Dr Petherbridge mistakes the Doctor and Peri for a couple.
- The Doctor is a dab hand at typing and with a typewriter.
- The energy readings are dark energy fluctuations.
- Dr Joan Dalton is an economist as the Doctor claims.
- Adolf Hitler and Jospeh Stalin are mentioned.
Continuity
- The Doctor and Peri hear a radio broadcast announcing the declaration of World War II. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus; AUDIO: Neverland)
