Mews Garage

The garage sits squeezed between towering brick walls, its soot-blackened doors standing ajar under the glare of passing headlights. Worn cobblestones reflect the harsh light, streaked with oil stains and patches of standing water that swallow sound. The space is deep but narrow, its rear vanishing into solid shadow where vehicles park unseen. Metal groans as the door slides shut, sealing the interior in absolute darkness save for the faint eddies of dust motes catching the dim glow from the open doorway. The air smells of exhaust and old grease, thickened by damp masonry and the metallic tang of unwashed tools left in haste. Against one wall, Sarah Jane Smith crouches beside a pile of tangled ropes, her breath shallow as she tries to free the Doctor’s cuffed wrist while he paces, tracing the outline of a time eddy with his fingers like a wound in space. The silence is broken by the creak of the door, the flicker of a single weak bulb, and then the unmistakable tramp of armed men closing in.