Doctor Who_ The Banquo Legacy - Andy Lane [18]
It took me but a moment to spot a dusty, dark bottle of port in amongst the sherries and the whisky. I crossed the room and lifted it gently from where it nestled in with several implements the function of which I could not fathom. It was heavy, obviously full. Yet the cork was half out of the bottle.
By now my throat was so dry that I was tempted simply to extract the cork and drink from the bottle itself. But, as I gripped the end of the cork, I looked round for a glass. I think it was the dust that had put me off the idea.
I must have flinched visibly at the cough from behind me. It was a deliberate ‘polite’ cough, though it was obviously not intended to sound polite at all. I swung round, fingers still gripping the cork, to see Simpson framed in the narrow doorway.
‘Can I help you, sir?’ he asked levelly. There was a harshness to his voice that I had not remarked before, and at that moment – in that instant – I realised that I was trespassing within his territory.
‘I’m sorry,’ I all but stammered. ‘I was after a drink.’
In a moment he was beside me. ‘Of course you were, sir.’ He lifted the bottle from my hands and replaced it carefully exactly where it had been. ‘Crusted, sir,’ he murmured.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Best to decant it first,’ he explained. His eyes met mine, and he seemed to have recovered his usual demeanour. ‘I’d suggest you look in the kitchen for some ready-decanted port, sir,’ he said. His eyes did not blink or waver.
‘Of course.’ I nodded. ‘I was just passing. I thought –’
He made no comment, but turned to the table and busied himself rearranging the bits and pieces on it. Had I known him less well, I would have assumed it was an unhappy accident that he made it seem as if he were checking that nothing had gone astray or disappeared.
‘I’ll see myself out, thank you, Simpson,’ I said in an attempt at a joke. Again, I got no response. I almost tiptoed out of his sanctuary, and closed the door quietly behind me. He had made no explicit comment, offered no admonition for my behaviour, yet I knew that I had overstepped an unspoken mark. I knew that I would not venture into Simpson’s world unbidden again. At least, not lightly.
I arrived in the kitchen at the same time as Beryl. She had apparently been home, or at least back in the village, for the afternoon. As I entered the kitchen from the house, she came in through the outside door, closing it on the darkness and the snow. She seemed quite surprised to see me, but I told her what I was after and she offered to find me a glass.
‘Please don’t worry,’ I assured her. ‘Warm yourself first.’
She smiled a thank-you and came over to the stove, holding her wet hands out over it.
‘Is it raining? It wasn’t earlier.’
‘No.’ She seemed uncertain for a moment. ‘I fell over in the snow.’
She smiled, and I smiled back.
‘Very slippery I expect. Especially in the dark,’ I murmured and she seemed pleased that I left it at that.
She stayed a minute longer before fetching out a glass and I watched her as she stood by the warmth, drying her hands. Her long hair was soaked, plastered to her head and then falling in thick bunches across her shoulders. Several stray strands had blown forward and down over the material that clung wetly to her bosom, dark against the white of her dress. If she had fallen down in the snow, she had been in no great hurry to get up again. It seemed odd that she, soaked to the skin, should hand me a glass of water, especially as she was evidently still uncertain of what I was thinking. She watched me drink, her fingers nervously playing along the handle of one of the kitchen knives lying on the table. My mood had improved somewhat when I joined the gathering in the drawing room, and before long I had forgotten the damp on my forehead and the dryness in my throat.
The drawing room