Fright Motif (audio story)

 was the second story in the audio anthology Respond to All Calls, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by Tim Foley and featured Christopher Eccleston as the Ninth Doctor.

Publisher's summary
In post-War Paris, musician Artie Berger has lost his mojo, but gained a predator - something that seeps through the cracks of dissonance to devour the unwary.

Luckily for Artie, the Doctor is here. Unluckily for everyone, he needs bait to trap a monster...

Plot
Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Paris, December 1946. An American hotel pianist named Artie Berger explains to a woman named Zazie Vincent that his head is preventing him from playing in the jazz club La Cave that night and he must return to his hotel. Stumbling outside, he breathes raggedly as a passer-by checks on him. Artie makes his excuses and leaves as the man hears a knocking from inside the club. The door is slammed behind him as a deep roaring is heard and the man screams to the tune of discordant music.

Artie enters the Hôtel Le Prestige and is met by concierge Maurice Le Bon who questions what he was doing outside. Maurice explains he was preparing for tomorrow's festive celebrations, but Artie repeats that he is no longer able to play due to the notes no longer sounding right. Maurice simply promises that he will tune the piano and sends Artie away. Calling a woman named Margarite to sort out all the rooms, including those on the top floor, Maurice is interrupted by a beeping noise coming from the sudden appearance of the Ninth Doctor, whom Maurice assumes is the piano tuner.

The Doctor witnesses Artie wincing as he tries out the piano and makes conversation with him. Noticing he is causing him discomfort, the Doctor turns off his device, calling it a tracker that was not working anyway. Getting to work on the piano, the Doctor and Artie make conversation, but Artie quickly leaves upon being questioned. As he walks off, the Doctor notices that the piano is perfectly in tune.

The next morning, the Doctor rings the bell at the hotel reception and is met by Maurice again, ready to dismiss the Doctor of his piano fixing. Brandishing his psychic paper, however, the Doctor passes himself off as a hotel inspector from the tourist board of the new French Fourth Republic and asks if anything strange has happened recently. Maurice can only think of a family of Americans called the Andersons who recently left their room on the top floor without paying, seemingly vanishing while leaving their belongings behind. The Doctor, believing he can sense something nearby from a rift he recently encountered, asks to take out the Andersons' room.

The Doctor bumps into Zazie, who he describes as shifty, but she explains she is visiting Artie. She explains that Artie has perfect pitch, which leads the Doctor to wonder why someone like him is staying in the luxurious rooms of the top floor. The two enter Artie's room as he complains of a bad headache. However, he claims that "something's coming; something terrifying". Maurice enters and interrupts, telling Artie's guests to leave as he needs to be practising, but Artie explains that he has been feeling pain building inside him for over a week.

With Maurice leading the group out, the Doctor orders everyone to be silent as he guesses that Artie has lost his perfect pitch and a creature has escaped the rift and is being drawn to him somehow. As they listen closely, they are interrupted by Margarite arriving in the lift. With the invisible creature being drawn to sound, the corridor begins rippling in its wake and Margarite is powerless to escape as she screams and is killed. As the creature is loose, the Doctor orders everyone to run.

Presuming they cannot outrun the presence, the Doctor asks for a radio and is led to Maurice's office. The Doctor tunes it to the white noise between stations to briefly drive the creature away. With the ordeal over, Artie faints. He later comes to and asks the Doctor if the Andersons and the man he encountered last night fell to the same fate as Margarite. The Doctor explains that the creature is likely from another dimension, full of dark and warped sounds from N-Space. With the creature having broken through the rift, it is focusing on Artie as a source of music it can destroy and the Doctor plans to catch it and send it back. He asks for a car and some time to make the radio portable; Maurice leaves to plan. The Doctor asks for Zazie to look after Artie as he leaves to pick up equipment from the Institute of France. That evening, the Doctor meets up with Maurice again and they rendezvous in the hired car.

The Doctor, Artie, and Zazie enter the car driven by Maurice as the Doctor gives directions. As they drive, Zazie reveals that she and Artie sometimes play at La Cave at night, angering Maurice both for him having another job and for a woman being allowed to play an instrument. The Doctor leads the car to Notre Dame de Paris, causing the others to wonder why they needed to drive such a short distance, but he insists they will need it as a getaway after breaking in. The Doctor and Artie leave Zazie and Maurice behind, to their frustration.

While they walk, Artie explains how he visited Paris to do what he loves regardless of the colour of his skin and the Doctor promises that American sensibilities of the time will not last forever. Reaching the doors of Notre Dame, the Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to break the lock. Meanwhile, Maurice watches with contempt as he and Zazie feel a scary presence. Inside the cathedral, the Doctor plans to use the reverberations to satisfy the creature alongside the phonautograph that he borrowed from the Institute. However, as they do, the radio they were carrying as protection shuts off, allowing the creature to approach. They narrowly escape the cathedral and run to the car but note that the engine noise is no longer repelling the creature so drive to the Seine instead. Knowing they need to find another sanctuary with little noise, Maurice gets an idea.

Maurice parks and leads the group to a building with the sound creature close behind. They enter a silent apartment and move upstairs just as the creature destroys the car. Zazie closes the windows as Maurice starts some white noise on the gramophone and the Doctor asks the group to find as many soft furnishings as possible to completely soundproof the room. Instead, they build a blanket fort with the gramophone outside and wait until it snows again. Zazie asks where they are and Maurice explains it is the apartment of Manu, an old friend of his. However, upon noticing Maurice's photo by the bedside, everyone realises the room used to belong to his late love, and he continues to pay his rent so he can keep visiting.

As Maurice leaves to get some water, Artie explains that he has experienced loss too: his mother died last month while he was staying in the hotel. Although Maurice was already aware of this, what he did not know was that the previous day, the funeral was held without Artie. The Doctor realises that the creature is also drawn to Artie's grief just as it approaches again. The Doctor theorises it has been waiting to build up strength and decides they should confront it head-on. Artie and Zazie silently escape onto the balcony while the Doctor draws the creature's attention and urges Maurice to follow them. However, he refuses, knowing the Doctor would be a better protector and swears to fight the monster just as Manu did during the war. Maurice puts on Manu's favourite record one last time as the Doctor leaves.

On the balcony, the three meet up and grieve over the loss of Maurice, escaping down the drainpipe while they wait for it to snow, muffling their sounds further. The group run and eventually lose the creature and escape to La Cave. The Doctor decides to use its music and acoustics as bait and tries to convince Artie and Zazie to perform on stage, but Artie refuses. The Doctor stalls for time at the microphone by telling jokes. Zazie gets Artie to talk about how his mother gave him musicality and leaves to give him strength by playing on her own.

The Doctor's jokes land badly but he insists that he needed to stun the audience into silence to hear the creature. Finally, Artie works up the courage to play with Zazie and does so successfully. As they do, the Doctor takes an audience member's bottle and sonics it to create a feedback loop strong enough to attract the creature. All goes silent as the Doctor corks the bottle and the musicians finish playing. They recover the Doctor, who was knocked to the floor with the force of the creature and explains that he essentially bottled it with enough discord and promises to dispose of it in the Time Vortex.

Outside, it starts snowing again and the Doctor realises that the TARDIS is nearby. The Doctor admits that he is still feeling grief like Artie is and realises that Artie may be stuck with empathetic hearing as a side effect of the ordeal. With his work done, the Doctor leaves despite Zazie's cries and he tells them to enjoy some late-night carols and keep up the music. Artie and Zazie leave to find Le Tabou club and promise to raise a toast to those they have lost along the way, just as the TARDIS dematerialises.

Cast

 * The Doctor - Christopher Eccleston
 * Artie Berger - Damian Lynch
 * Maurice Le Bon - Adrian Schiller
 * Zazie Vincent - Gemma Whelan

Continuity

 * The Ninth Doctor states he can understand people taking time to contemplate those they have lost and admits he is still trying to rediscover himself. (TV: The Day of the Doctor)
 * The Doctor repeats "no more". (TV: The Day of the Doctor)
 * The Doctor will go on to embarrass himself onstage around the era of World War II again. (TV: The Empty Child)