Doctor Who_ The Banquo Legacy - Andy Lane [57]
She smiled and her eyes thawed a little. ‘I’m going to see the inspector,’ she said with resolve, and stood up. It was as if Kreiner had not spoken.
‘What on earth for?’ he asked abruptly. ‘You’ve seen him before, haven’t you?’
I too was surprised and neglected to rise.
‘I think he wants to question me,’ she said simply.
‘Lucky you,’ Kreiner responded.
He probably wanted to see me as well, I thought, less than happily.
‘I wish you weren’t so sarcastic.’ I wondered if she was talking to us both, or just to Kreiner. ‘I’ll tell him about the body being a clue,’ she added.
‘Oh good,’ I said, only half sarcastic myself. ‘And tell him how it exonerates me too, will you? That should just about make his day.’
‘All right, I will. Here.’ She handed Kreiner what was left of her brandy, a little less than half a glass, and took his empty glass in return. ‘I think you need this…’
‘Thank you,’ he muttered, but she was gone.
I watched the door close, as Kreiner swallowed the brandy. I was suddenly aware that I had not had a drink myself and went to pour one.
‘So what has happened to your friend the Doctor, do you think?’ I asked Kreiner. We were sitting opposite each other, each nursing a brandy glass. In other circumstances the situation would have seemed amicable if not cosy. As it was there was an air of suppressed tension between us. As if we were both awaiting a crash of thunder having already witnessed the distant lightning.
He shrugged. ‘I really have no idea.’
‘But you’re worried.’
‘Of course I’m bloody worried.’
I stared, probably I gaped. There was no call for that sort of language, and from his own embarrassed expression I saw that he knew that.
‘Have you been with the Doctor long?’ I asked in an effort to change the subject and also to glean information for my own edification.
He smiled. ‘He’s annoying and a pain sometimes. But you soon miss him when he’s not there.’
‘And Miss Seymour?’ I asked innocently. ‘I get the impression you knew her already. Both of you.’ I made it a statement rather than a question. This approach is, in my experience, more likely to solicit an honest reply.
‘You mean –’ He broke off. I wondered what he had almost said. But he went on before I could enquire. ‘No,’ he said quickly. ‘I never saw Susan Seymour before we arrived here.’ He nodded emphatically. ‘That’s the truth,’ he added, in the manner of one who is telling only the half of it.
I could tell that I should let the matter drop, at least for the meanwhile. Our conversation turned instead to politics and the situation in Germany after unification. It did not really surprise me that, while his ideas were to say the least progressive, Herr Kreiner seemed to know very little about either, though he blustered a fair deal. I was intrigued, I confess. But my own preoccupations and the current circumstances contrived to blunt my interest and our talk meandered over easy subjects for a while.
George Wallace had joined us and we were all three sitting talking when Elizabeth came in about half an hour later. ‘Ah, there you are, John.’ She seemed relieved to have found me, and I soon knew why.
Stratford had sent her. I braced myself mentally, and made my way towards the study.
* * *
THE REPORT OF INSPECTOR IAN STRATFORD (8)
I spent the afternoon in a state of some confusion. No matter what I was doing, my thoughts kept flashing back to the scene in the bedroom, pulling down the sheet to find Harries’s body missing. My mind revolved around that point, going in ever-decreasing circles. I spent some time using Sir George Wallace’s telephone, trying to get through to Chief Inspector Driscoll and failing miserably. I was shoved up, down, sideways and backwards between a succession of secretaries, sergeants and pen-pushers – without any result. The man was in a meeting, but no one knew where, with whom, or for how long. I left a message