The Haunting of Malkin Place (audio story)

 was the fifth story in the sixth series of The Fourth Doctor Adventures, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by Phil Mulryne and featured Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor and Lalla Ward as Romana II.

Publisher's summary
Whilst on the way to visit the birthplace of MR James, a chance encounter with a spiritualist on a train sends the Doctor and Romana on the trail of a ghost. It's the most convincing case of haunting he's ever heard of, he tells them. And so, on their arrival, does it appear to be.

Things go bump in the night at Malkin Place. The voice of a crying child. Birds bursting into flight. Strange movements in a séance.

The Doctor is determined there must be a rational explanation. But is science always the answer to everything?

Part one
to be added

Part two
to be added

Cast

 * The Doctor - Tom Baker
 * Romana - Lalla Ward
 * Talbot - Simon Jones
 * Mrs Mountford - Denise Black
 * Maurice - Gunnar Cauthery
 * Beatrice - Fiona Sheehan
 * Tom - Rikki Lawton
 * Jack - Phil Mulryne

Uncredited cast

 * Children Voices - Benedict Briggs

Worldbuilding

 * Henry James wrote The Turn of the Screw. Romana's edition was published in 1963. James died in 1916.
 * The marsh is a "liminal space," between land and sea.
 * Maurice and Beatrice's father died of influenza.
 * Cold spots appear in the house. The Doctor says one is "colder than a winter on Vostok III."
 * He's seen the spiritual world manifest in the physical world as ectoplasm.
 * Mrs Mountford mentions goblins, pixies, and elves.
 * The Doctor says the space-time displacement is breaking localised Newtonian laws.
 * Talbot lost his son, Alfred, in the Boer conflict.
 * Beatrice and Maurice are twins. She is 23, meaning they were born in 1899. Maurice was sent to war at 18 and served in Flanders.
 * After letting Jack die in the mud of the trenches, Maurice enters a "tunnel of light," a vortex tunnel, and travels from the war in 1917 to Malkin Place in 1922.
 * Maurice's presence in 1922 creates a time vacuum, pulling children from the future into a secondary time zone, as children are more susceptible to variations in the time stream. The Doctor says his and Romana's immersion in the time stream only makes it worse, and the whole fabric of time could be torn.
 * The Doctor believes Maurice's time travel is a combination of his watch, in reality a malfunctioning piece of time technology, his own psychic terror from the war, and a weak point in time, as well as his bond with his twin sister.
 * The Doctor uses the watch, which he presumes has an envelope of protection against the vortex, to follow a steady stream of artron energy and travel back to 1917, but Romana says he could end up in Italy, 1265, and he mentions arguing with Thomas Aquinas.
 * The Doctor finds a data-slug holding a recording from 20 February, revealing Maurice's watch is from a warrior-historian from the 49th century, who travelled back to fight in the war and study it.
 * The Doctor meets the younger Maurice on the night before the Third Battle of Ypres (6 June). The battle begins at 3:10 AM (on 7 June).
 * Maurice hears a nightingale.
 * The Doctor connects the "past" and "present" versions of the watch together, redacting the paradox and pulling Maurice back to the nexus point, resulting in a time wave.
 * Maurice saves Jack, but later dies. Jack becomes a war poet, the Doctor theorising that the war poetry of World War I is important to the Web of Time, though Romana laments that Maurice died for that.
 * The Doctor "waited" to get back from 1917 to 1922. He spent time in Paris, tried to grow a moustache, and spent time at Baker Street.
 * Mrs Mountford claims that ghosts have visited Malkin Place since before she was killed by smugglers in 1742.

Continuity

 * The Doctor and Romana have previously visited the roaring 20s. (AUDIO: The Stealers from Saiph, The Auntie Matter)
 * The Fifth and Eighth Doctors later utilise Baker Street. (AUDIO: The Haunting of Thomas Brewster, Fugitives)