The Oncoming Storm ²

Vincent & The Doctor

A Wheatfield with crows is hanging on a gallery wall with an expert enthusing over it to his audience.

"So, this is one of the last paintings Van Gogh ever painted. Those final months of his life were probably the most astonishing artistic outpouring in history. It was like Shakespeare knocking off Othello, Macbeth and King Lear over the summer hols. And especially astonishing because Van Gogh did it with no hope of praise or reward. He is now..."

"Thanks for bringing me," Amy says walking next to me which I was currently holding onto the Doctor's hand.

"You're welcome," the Doctor says.

"You're both being so nice to me. Why are you being so nice to me?" Amy asks.

"We're always nice to you" I say.

"Not like this. These places you're taking me. Arcadia, the Trojan Gardens, now this. I think it's suspicious" Amy says.

"What? It's not. There's nothing to be suspicious about" the Doctor says.

"Ok, I was joking. Why aren't you?" Amy asks.

"...Each of these pictures now is worth tens of millions of pounds, yet in his lifetime he was a commercial disaster. Sold only one painting, and that to the sister of a friend. We have here possibly the greatest artist of all time, but when he died you could sell his entire body of work and got about enough money to buy a sofa and a couple of chairs. If you follow me now..."

"Who is it?"

"It's the doctor" the Doctor and I turn. The schoolboys are looking at the portrait of Doctor Gachet "he was the doctor who took care of Van Gogh when he started to go mad."

"I knew that."

"Look. There it is. The actual one" Amy says, she holds the picture in her Van Gogh exhibition guide book next to the painting of the Church at Auvers.

"Yes. You can almost feel his hand painting it right in front of you, carving the colours into shapes. Wait a minute" I say letting go of the Doctor's hand, I walk towards the painting.

"What?" Amy asks.

"Well, just look at that."

"What?"

"Something very not good indeed."

"What thing very not good?"

"Look there, in the window of the church" the Doctor and Amy look to where I was pointing at a dragon-like image.

"Is it a face?"

"Yes. And not a nice face at all. I know evil when I see it and I see it in that window" I say, the Doctor goes over to the man, who is at the Still Life with Twelve Sunflowers.

"...It has changed hands for something in the region of twenty..."

"Excuse me. If I can just interrupt for one second. Sorry, everyone. Routine inspection, Ministry of Art and Artiness. So, er..."

"Doctor Black."

"Yes, that's right. Do you know when that picture of the church was painted?" the Doctor asks.

"Ah, well, ah, well, what an interesting question. Most people imagine..."

"I'm going to have to hurry you. When was it?" I ask.

"Exactly?"

"As exactly as you can. Without a long speech, if poss. We're in a hurry."

"Well, in that case, probably somewhere between the first and third of June."