Doctor Who_ Island of Death - Barry Letts [40]
Sarah on the lifeboat no longer existed, at that moment; not even as a memory.
It was pure luck that the girl was going down the corridor just when Alex had made the - surprisingly small - effort to get into his clothes and set off on his first recce. He heard the footsteps coming round the corner and was just in time to pull himself back through the door, leaving a crack to peep through.
At the sight of her, camera in hand, stepping out in that cocky, superior way she had, his guts convulsed with hate. It was her fault, her and her bloody camera, that he was in this mess; her fault that Hilda had turned against him; her fault that he‟d lost everything that had made his life worth living, after he‟d had to abandon any hope of reaching the top in politics.
This might be his chance. He looked round the cabin.
There seemed to be nothing that he could use as a weapon.
But then he saw it: the simple, heavy wooden chair by the dressing table. In a moment, it was upended, his grip tightened around the base of one of the legs, and with a twist to break the brittle glue, and a wrench to free it from the joints, he was supplied with a club as deadly as any baseball bat.
Thank God he‟d recovered his strength.
Hefting it in his hand, he cautiously followed the girl out onto the deck, being careful to keep out of sight.
Maybe he‟d lost her. No! There she was, on the lifeboat.
At first it seemed that she was determined to keep within sight of the figure on the bridge, the one they called the Doctor.
But at last she climbed back onto the deck, and came towards him. He drew back into the shadow of a large ventilator and froze into the rapt stillness of a cat waiting for the moment to pounce, pressing himself against the ventilator to keep himself stationary as the ship swung up and down with the waves.
He watched, only his eyes moving, as she crossed the deck, pausing every so often to take a shot. If only...
Yes... she was coming closer, working her way down the guard rail, leaning out to find the shot she wanted.
And then she stopped not ten feet away, just out of sight of the bridge, with her back to him, snapping away as if she‟d found the ideal position at last.
He took a step forward and froze again, as the ship sank into the trough of a wave.
There was no sign that she‟d noticed him.
One more step...Wait for the pause at the top of the rise...
Now!
He should have crept nearer to her. As he rushed forward, his makeshift club aloft, she heard the movement and turned.
And screamed.
The scream was cut short as the chairleg marginally connected with the side of her skull. All in a moment, before she could slip to the deck, he grabbed her by the legs and tipped her over the guard rail.
He turned to flee, but there on the deck was the cursed camera. Picking it up, he hurled it viciously after her.
The job was done.
Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart had always been impatient. Being an only child, with a hefty pair of lungs, and a mother (and later a substitute mother in the shape of Granny McDougal) who couldn‟t deny him a thing, he‟d soon learnt that his widower father, with the bark of a Rottweiler, had the bite of a miniature poodle. It was school, and Sandhurst (public school writ large), that taught him that instant gratification was the privilege of the spoilt toddler.
But that didn‟t make him feel any better inside. Tucked out of the way in a corner of the bridge house, peering through one of the spinning discs of glass that did duty in lieu of windscreen wipers, he felt that the entire world was conspiring to thwart him.
The waves looked as big as ever, which seemed not only illogical but unfair - as the wind had by now dropped almost completely.
„We‟ll give it another hour or so,‟ said Pete Andrews. „The swell‟s easing quite fast.‟
You could have fooled him. It still felt more like a scenic railway than the bridge of one of Her Britannic Majesty‟s ships.
Bob Simkins was busy at his chart