Mystery on The Orient Express, Confidential

Unfinished Business, Doctor Who, Dr. Who, Chris Eccleston, Christopher Eccleston, Doctor who Fiction

Mystery on The Orient Express is my second original Classic Doctors story. It was meant to be the first, but the idea for a Sixth Doctor story jumped to mind first and I went with it. That gave me time to research the Orient Express, which was harder than I expected. The internet has very little about the historical train. Everything is about selling trips on the modern train.

But I did find out that there were two distinct routes that the Orient Express took. The first route went through Germany, Austria, Romania and Bulgaria and is the one Jonathon Harker travels on in Dracula. The other, known as the Simplon Orient Express, takes a more southerly route through Switzerland to Italy, though the Simplon Tunnel, then what used to be Yugoslavia before reaching Turkey. This is the route from Murder on the Orient Express. The train is stranded near the Simplon Pass when Poirot goes to work.

I mulled it over for a bit, having two classic literary genres as inspiration – vampires or murder mystery. I decided on the Simplon route and the murder mystery mainly because I found an actual timetable for that route which allowed me to frame the story of the journey over the course of a set period of time. And of course, it had to be the Fifth Doctor. Of them all he has that 1930s style that belongs on the Orient Express.

Having chosen Simplon, murder mystery seemed inevitable. So did populating the train with interesting characters. Of course, an Agatha Christie style story was ably done in The Unicorn and The Wasp in 2008, but there’s plenty of room for variations on the theme.

What this story has, of course, is aliens and a nice double bluff with a death that has nothing to do with the ultimate mystery. Several readers have asked about Lord Palmerdale and the theft of Lady Astoria’s diamonds. I completely made that up off the cuff as a throwaway scene, but there is so much interest that it may well be that my next Fifth Doctor story explains just what all that was about.

Adric and Nyssa as the bored teenagers looking for adventure while The Doctor and Tegan are the grown ups happy with a quiet trip was deliberate. I wanted to play on the fact that Tegan IS a grown up woman. I also wanted to get away from the sometimes negative aspects of her character. She doesn’t moan as much in this story and she seems very much the mature companion for The Doctor while the other two are the children who need to be kept in line.

I actually spent a lot of time deciding who the villain should be, and who the intended victim, the princess hiding on Earth. For a long time the princess was going to be the governess. Then I decided she would make a better villain and that Mrs Albin, the wife of the elderly doctor was a perfect choice for an undercover royal. Reys Hanvik, of the Annex Borea External Office was thrown in as a red herring, at first, occupying Tegan’s curiosity, then as The Doctor’s ally as they go after the assassin. Since The Doctor would never kill in cold blood, Hanvik had to take down the assassin with his tacit approval.

This story was something of a joy to write. I did most of it in spring sunshine in the park just before the Icelandic ash cloud brought wintery weather back. Researching all of the stops on the Simplon route was like taking a virtual trip in itself. The Simplon Tunnel itself turned up an amazing anecdote worth sharing. At the start of World War II it was wired with explosives at both the Swiss and Italian end, in case it was used for an invasion of neutral Switzerland. The explosives on the Italian side were only removed about ten years ago. Imagine how many trains have gone through the tunnel since 1945 not knowing that! Sometimes fact beats fiction hands down.

http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Adric
http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Tegan_Jovanka
http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Nyssa

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orient_Express
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_on_the_Orient_Express

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplon_Tunnel

The Stops on The Route

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Istanbul_Sirkeci_Terminal