Doctor Who_ The Banquo Legacy - Andy Lane [30]
Harries was struggling to remove his own headset as Catherine slumped back in her chair in a faint. Susan bit into her forefinger, her hand pressed hard to her face in horror and the Doctor pushed past her to help Harries, Kreiner close behind. They were a second too late.
George looked on in disbelief as all but one of the valves in front of him exploded in rapid succession like flares. I was still holding Catherine to prevent her from slipping from her chair on to the burning table. Elizabeth screamed again and Susan covered her eyes and turned away as the Doctor leaped back from Harries. Kreiner stood stock-still, mouth open in an astonished gape. Harries was staring forward, his eyes wide, his headset illuminated by blue flame and his temples blackening where the bare wire met them.
As he fell forward Harries seemed to lunge down the length of the table towards me, his hand groping out into the fire. His mouth was wide open as if in amazement as well as agony and the skin on his temples was burning back from the red-hot wires, and from his skull. His hair was scorched to the roots and his eyes rolled awkwardly in the visible bone of their sockets as red and black scars traced across his face, blistering and tearing the flesh.
After what seemed an eternity his clenched hand dropped open and he collapsed face first into the fire, sending up a shower of sparks and debris.
It was nearly a minute before we were able to drag his body from the flames, and even his sister – had she been conscious – would have been hard pressed to recognise what was left of it.
* * *
THE REPORT OF INSPECTOR IAN STRATFORD (4)
If not for the macabre situation, my journey to Banquo Manor would have been more pleasant than my previous walk to the village. The mist had dispersed and the snow crunched crisply underfoot as we retraced my footsteps down the narrow, treelined road. The presence of Baker did much to reassure me as we walked and there was no recurrence of the panic I had experienced before. I could not help but wonder what awaited us when we arrived, but Baker refused to elaborate on what I already knew. Whether this was due to his natural reticence or a genuine lack of information I wasn’t sure. All he would say was that Professor Harries had been the victim of an unfortunate accident and that Sir George Wallace had requested our (or his) presence.
Our conversation was limited as we walked. Baker seemed to have closed in on himself, perhaps resenting the presence of a senior officer in what would otherwise have been a major opportunity to display the full majesty of the law. I might have been doing him an injustice, but either way I could have reassured him. I was feeling remarkably like excess baggage on the journey. If there was any investigating to be done, Baker’s local knowledge would more than match my Scotland Yard training.
It was thus in a rather foreboding and gloomy state of mind that I recognised the tree that had so terrified me on my way to the village. Still in darkness but stripped of the mist, it was almost as disturbing: a twisted and gnarled trunk with limbs that seemed to threaten, even in their stationary state. At some time it had been struck by lightning so that the top was split and blackened, and the whole thing was quite dead.
I was startled as Baker’s voice muttered from beside me, ‘Best turn off into the Manor road now, sir.’
The first few hundred yards of the road leading to Banquo Manor were indistinguishable from the one we had just left. The trees pressed in on either side and a slight curve ahead of us hid any