Determined to get away from it all after the sarin gas threat, Sarah and Josh take a vacation to Romania to visit one of Sarah’s journalism mentors. But trouble seems to follow – with an international peace conference taking place nearby, and the delegate from America and his wife staying with Sarah’s friend, the visit is hardly normal. On the first night, Sarah sees something that she can only describe as a ghost; the next night, a sighting of something similar frightens the American delegate’s wife literally to death. Sarah and Josh set up recording devices to capture the next appearance of the “apparitions,” but even though there is another sighting, the evidence doesn’t show up on tape – and the enigmatic butler of the house turns up dead. Sarah realizes that someone is manufacturing the “ghosts” to disrupt the peace talks, but that realization, and her hunch about who is responsible, may make her the next target.
written by Rupert Laight
directed by Gary Russell
music by David DarlingtonCast: Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), Jeremy James (Josh Townsend), Ingrid Evans (Yolande), Brian Miller (Abbotly), Robert Jezek (Jack McElroy), Elizabeth Faulkner (Candice McElroy), Mark Donovan (Professor Vodanski)
Notes: For the first time in the Sarah Jane Smith audio series, the 1981 one-off Doctor Who TV spinoff K-9 & Company is referenced as part of the continuity. Between Test Of Nerve and this story, Sarah has sold off her late Aunt Lavinia’s Moreton-Harwood residence; Brendan hasn’t been living there as he’s moved on to a career in Silicon Valley.
LogBook entry by Earl Green