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 Dr Horwitz realise that Dr Backhouse is using the eye to conceal herself in the building and chase the sound of her footsteps outside. The Doctor arrives and joins them in heading to the chapel where Dr Backhouse becomes visible. He warns her that the dark vacuum energy is causing her to fall apart, but she refuses to throw the eye away and falls to her death from a height, smashing the eye and fading away. Although Dr Horwitz's notes have been lost to the storm, she is pleased to receive a telegram that her family left Vienna for Britain before war was declared, which was why Dr Backhouse had to resort to theft rather than blackmail. Dr Petherbridge asks the Doctor to address the undergraduates, but he defers to Peri and they head to the TARDIS, ostensibly to fetch Peri's notes.
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.
- Ruth Horwitz is Jewish. She has been receiving anti-Semitic poison pen letters for two to three months.
- Joan Dalton is an economist and a communist.
- 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" with a typewriter.
- The energy readings are dark vacuum energy fluctuations.
- Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin are mentioned.
Continuity
- The Doctor and Peri hear a radio broadcast announcing the declaration of World War II. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus; AUDIO: Neverland)
