The Merfolk Murders (audio story)
The Merfolk Murders was the first story in the audio anthology The Dream Team, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by Tim Foley.
Publisher's summary
St Andrews, Scotland, 1940. The Merfolk are a university society meeting through the summer to discuss murder mystery stories. Innocent escapism during wartime, they say. Their latest book is The Casebook of Orion Hood – whose hero is all-too-familiar to the Doctor...
When a real-life murder occurs soon after their gathering, the Doctor's friends encourage him to investigate. Is one of the Merfolk responsible? Was this crime the result of espionage or envy? The Doctor must embrace his deerstalker once more and solve this wartime mystery – before the killer can strike again!
Plot
Part one
The TARDIS lands in St Andrews in August 1940 and the Doctor, Adric, Nyssa and Tegan meet Athena, to whom the Doctor introduces his companions as prospective students of the University of St Andrews. Athena invites the group to join a gathering of the literary and dramatic association, the Merfolk, at Castle Sands, an offer which the Doctor accepts upon learning that the society will be discussing The Casebook of Orion Hood. In the meantime, the travellers head into town and are split into two groups when Tegan holds Adric back to discuss the fact that the Doctor seems to be hiding something from them. The Doctor and Nyssa bump into Seb, who points them to a tearoom and keeps the fact that he recognises the Doctor to himself.
Tegan takes Adric to a bookshop and finds a copy of The Casebook of Orion Hood whilst Adric looks at books on mathematics and meets Henry, a fellow wunderkind and member of the Merfolk who puts the copy of The Casebook of Orion Hood on his account when Tegan finds it. The two of them are shown the way to Castle Sands by Professor Hodgson, the Merfolk's patron, where they are reunited with the Doctor, Nyssa, Athena and Henry and meet Seb and Kowalski, a soldier. Before the meeting, Adric and Tegan confront the Doctor with the book's illustrations of the previous Doctor and he explains that he and Sarah solved mysteries together which Sarah fictionalised in the beginning of the 20th century under the name "Sarah Joan Watson".
Athena leaves the meeting when her claim of having witnessed a murder the previous summer is again dismissed as a lie. Once the meeting is over, Adric and Henry eat the leftover sandwiches and go to Henry's dorm, Nyssa learns to skip stones with Kowalski until he has to leave for roll call and Tegan accepts Professor Hodgson's invitation to Seaview House, agreeing to meet up with the Doctor at St Salvator's Quad by sundown. Seb, whose uncle works at the ministry, reveals that he knows that the Doctor is an ally of Churchill and asks for his assistance in finding a German spy in St Andrews, but he declines. When he regroups with his companions, he learns that Henry and Professor Hodgson have received letters from Athena claiming to have proof of the murder she claims to have witnessed.
The travellers are given rooms at St Salvator's Hall and the Doctor and Tegan go to Athena's, but Seb informs them that she has not returned to the building since the morning and that he too received one of her letters. Before midnight, the Doctor, Tegan and Seb go to the ruined castle per the letters' instructions whilst Adric and Nyssa spot and join Henry and Kowalski on Castle Street and go to the castle despite the Doctor's orders to keep watch from their rooms. Nyssa and Kowalski attend to Henry when he falls ill and the Doctor and Tegan find Athena in the castle, murdered by strangulation despite nobody having seen anyone enter the castle.
Part two
Nyssa, Tegan, Professor Hodgson and Seb discuss the murder whilst Kowalski finds a phone box to contact his commanding officer and the Doctor and Adric take Henry to the hospital, learning that he had ptomaine poisoning from Athena's sandwiches. Tegan joins them at the hospital and appoints herself as the Doctor's assistant as he investigates the murder, but he does not wish to get involved and goes with her to give their witness statements to the police, leaving Adric with Henry. She answers the telephone to Athena's sister, Anna, in Professor Hodgson's place and informs her of her death, an experience which makes her realise why the Doctor does not wish to play detective.
Adric tells Henry about Athena's murder once he wakes up and agrees with an earlier statement he made about murder being like mathematics and that they are capable of solving it. He writes a list of all possible suspects and Henry insists that he includes their own names and those of the Doctor, Nyssa and Tegan, but states that Professor Hodgson could have no role given that she was not there at the castle.
When Kowalski returns to the others following his phone call, he tells Nyssa that his letter asked him to meet with Athena at 11:30 rather than at midnight like the others and that he is in trouble for sneaking away from barracks. Nyssa finds him after he leaves and they bond over the both of them being refugees who lost their home, then they head to the castle together to look around for clues that might have been missed. She finds a hook in the ground and Kowalski quickly makes excuses to leave.
Tegan takes the Doctor to the TARDIS and presents him with his previous self's detective outfit, explaining that she wears her air stewardess uniform to remind herself of her duty to assist others and that the detective outfit could do the same for the Doctor. He agrees to wear it, although he had already decided to take the case to do right by Athena given the apparent incompetence of the police, and wonders if the letters were indeed written by Athena. He and Tegan visit Seb's home given that he claims to be a junior agent of the War Office and smell gas.
Part three
The unconscious Seb is saved and taken to the hospital thanks to Kowalski breaking down his door and Tegan calling for an ambulance. Given that the door was locked from the inside and there is no sign of a suicide note, the Doctor deduces that somebody tried to murder Seb and doubts that it was Kowalski given his assistance, although Tegan is suspicious of him. The Doctor realises that Seb was the only person at the castle who was in St Andrews during the time of the murder Athena claims to have witnessed the previous summer and Tegan sends him to gather Adric and Nyssa whilst she visits Morris, the porter of St Salvator's, in the hopes of confirming whether or not the murder was real.
Adric informs his friends that he and Henry have ruled out all of the known suspects and that Henry recalls Athena saying that she made her sandwiches in Professor Hodgson's house, something that Tegan finds suspicious given that Professor Hodgson previously claimed that she barely knew her.
to be completed
Part four
to be added
Cast
- The Doctor - Peter Davison
- Adric - Matthew Waterhouse
- Nyssa - Sarah Sutton
- Tegan - Janet Fielding
- Athena McDonnell / Anna - Pearl Appleby
- Professor Margo Hodgson - Josie Lawrence
- Henry Cuthbertson - Will Kirk
- Private Aurek Kowalski - Tom Alexander
- Sebastian Callow - Angus Imrie
Worldbuilding
- The Doctor previously visited St Andrews in the 30th century.
- Marmalade is Professor Hodgson's dog.
- Mrs Crane runs a bookshop.
- Athena claims that Mr Abbott put some salmon paste aside for her.
- Kowalski's mother is Nina.
- Henry hands Adric Death on the Caledonian Express
- Morris became porter of St Salvator's after Patterson died.
- Seb has a weak heart.
- Kowalski grew up in Krakow.
- Nyssa grew up in the Southern Reaches of Traken.
- Kowalski's father was a police officer.
- Athena gave Kowalski plays written by William Shakespeare and George Bernard Shaw.
- Seb lives on Playfair Terrace.
- St Salvator's Hall and Seaview House are locations around the university in St Andrews. Castle Street is nearby. Unnamed locations include a beach, a ruined castle and a clifftop.
- In October 1940, a bomb will be dropped on the university's library.
Orion Hood novels
- The Merfolk are reading The Casebook of Orion Hood.
- The Orion Hunt novels were written by Sarah Jane Smith under the pseudonym "Sarah Joan Watson" when she and the Fourth Doctor were stuck at 107 Baker Street for a few months in the turn of the century.
- The novels include The Murder of Lord Acra and Death on the Caledonian Express.
- A 1960s entry in the series from the Doctor's future, written by "Janet Govanka", is The Return of Orion Hood, which has the Doctor on the cover wearing a colourful coat.
Mathematics
- Henry discusses Goldbach's conjecture.
Notes
- As a pure historical, Peter Davison, Janet Fielding and Sarah Sutton all readily compared this story to TV: Black Orchid. (BFX: The Merfolk Murders)
Continuity
- Tegan claims Adric is looking to study mathematics (TV: Full Circle [+]Loading...["Full Circle (TV story)"]) at the university, Nyssa bioelectronics, (TV: The Keeper of Traken [+]Loading...["The Keeper of Traken (TV story)"]) and she herself would be studying aviation. (TV: Logopolis [+]Loading...["Logopolis (TV story)"])
- The Doctor refers to his "detective outfit", seen in TV: The Talons of Weng-Chiang [+]Loading...["The Talons of Weng-Chiang (TV story)"].
- The Doctor refers to the events at Cranleigh Hall, seen in TV: Black Orchid [+]Loading...["Black Orchid (TV story)"].
- "The Doctor" is known as an ally of Winston Churchill, reflecting their friendship first seen in TV: Victory of the Daleks [+]Loading...["Victory of the Daleks (TV story)"], and further established in audio stories such as AUDIO: Their Finest Hour [+]Loading...["Their Finest Hour (audio story)"] and Baker Street Irregulars [+]Loading...["Baker Street Irregulars (audio story)"], with Churchill's files including a description of the Fifth Doctor, as well as several other incarnations.
- Adric remembers clearing out Romana's TARDIS bedroom (AUDIO: Psychodrome [+]Loading...["Psychodrome (audio story)"]) after she left the TARDIS, choosing to remain in E-Space. (TV: Warriors' Gate [+]Loading...["Warriors' Gate (TV story)"])
External links
- Official The Merfolk Murders page at bigfinish.com
