Death of the Doctor Read Online Free PDF

had stood up, unlike the rest of the astonished guests. ‘Although there’s a tribe called the Nambikwara on the Mato Grosso – I lived there, back in ’83 – and anyway, they sing all night when there’s a funeral. They sing like birds, I swear, it’s the most astonishing sound.’
    And Sarah Jane smiled at her.
    ‘I’m sorry, do I know you?’ the woman asked Sarah Jane.
    ‘We’ve never actually met, but it’s Jo Grant, isn’t it?’
    The woman smiled a huge grin. ‘Long time since I’ve heard that name. It’s Jo Jones since I got married.’
    ‘I met the Doctor just after you left,’ Sarah Jane said. ‘You’d gone to live in the Amazon.’
    The woman, Jo, clicked her fingers. ‘Of course, they told me about you when I tried to call the Brigadier one day. He’s in Peru a lot, you know.’
    ‘I know,’ Sarah Jane smiled and held out her hand. ‘I’m –’
    ‘Sarah Jane Smith,’ Jo grinned back. ‘After all this time. And you are so beautiful!’
    The two instant new friends gripped one another’s hands. ‘They used to tell me so many stories about you, at UNIT,’ Sarah Jane said.
    Jo looked slightly wistful at the memories. ‘Those soldier boys. Happy days.’
    Sarah Jane noticed the yellow-jewelled Shansheeth by the door staring at them, perhaps wanting them to stop talking, so the service could carry on – and she ignored it.
    ‘You still married then?’
    ‘Clifford,’ Jo said. ‘About thirty years now! We left him picketing an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico to come here. We’ve got seven children.’
    Sarah Jane stared agog. ‘Seven?’
    ‘And that gorgeous boy over there,’ she pointed at the young man who had arrived with her, ‘he’s one of twelve grandchildren. Number thirteen on its way, too!’
    Sarah Jane just hugged Jo again. ‘I’ve got one son, Luke. He’s just gone to university, in Oxford. I miss him.’ And perhaps anticipating Jo’s next question, she shook her head slowly. ‘No – no father in the picture.’
    Jo grinned broadly. ‘Playing the field? Good on you, girl.’
    ‘It’s not quite like that,’ Sarah Jane said, looking a little embarrassed. ‘It’s complicated.’ Then she changed tack and led Jo to the pews and they finally sat down and lowered their voices. ‘It’s funny, all of this today,’ she waved her hand towards the Shansheeth, who all seemed to be staring at them now. ‘Got me thinking. Because the Doctor showed me such a remarkable life, and once he’d gone…well, it took me a long while to get over it.’
    ‘Me too,’ said Jo.
    ‘Then he came back.’ Sarah Jane paused, remembering the times the Doctor had briefly touched her life again. And as one the Shansheeth seemed to take a step closer, and the music from the Cradle got fractionally louder, as Sarah Jane’s mind brought more memories back. Deffry Vale School, where she and the Doctor stopped the Krillitane…fighting Brother Lassar…the Skasas Paradigm…and him upgrading K-9…giving her the sonic lipstick…
    ‘Who came back?’ Jo asked slowly, her voice a bit slow, as if she didn’t quite get what Sarah Jane was saying. ‘The Doctor?’
    Sarah Jane nodded happily. ‘Yeah.’
    ‘Do you mean…recently?’
    And Sarah Jane realised Jo was upset. And she hadn’t meant to upset her, but she couldn’t lie now. ‘About…about four years ago.’
    ‘I never saw him again.’
    And Jo was thinking about the night Cliff Jones proposed to her. In that homely little cottage in Llanfairfach, Wales. And the big party with all their friends laughing and cheering. And the Doctor. Suddenly so lonely. Slipping quietly away from the party, hoping no one had noticed his sadness amidst all the happiness. But Jo had noticed and although she couldn’t, and wouldn’t, change her and Cliff for anything in the world, she always felt a pang of guilt that wanting to be married had stopped her and the Doctor staying together.
    The Shansheeth were closer now.
    ‘Well,’ Sarah