Doctor Who_ The Banquo Legacy - Andy Lane [64]
‘You don’t feel a thing, do you?’ he demanded. ‘Nothing at all?’ He was close enough to reach out and touch her now. And he did. He caught her by the shoulders, gripped her tight. I saw the startled look in her eyes, and I took a step backwards myself.
‘Compassion!’ he shouted at her, shaking her like a doll.
She blinked again. Her mouth opened in surprise and she pulled herself free as I closed on them. I put my own hand on Kreiner’s shoulder and gently pulled him away. He was almost in tears. Perhaps he merely had to vent his frustration, his anger, his brutal sadness on someone. But that someone could be me rather than Susan, I decided.
He stared at me for a moment, as if suddenly aware that I was there. ‘No compassion,’ he said quietly. ‘None at all.’ Then he seemed to sag under my grasp. He murmured something else as he turned and walked slowly, stiffly from the room. I wasn’t sure, but it sounded like he said, ‘So there’s only me left now.’
Behind me, Susan was once again seeing to Elizabeth Wallace, who had watched these events with a mixture of apprehension and incredulity. ‘Come through to dinner,’ Susan said gently, helping Elizabeth to her feet. And I wondered what had brought Kreiner to the conclusion that there was no feeling for others in this gentle, thoughtful woman.
I needed to be alone, so I remained in the drawing room as they went in to dinner. I stared into the fire, but it held no solace. Above it the brass plaque taunted me with my own polished reflection, distorted by the grooves of the engraved letters – as if it knew the answer, and that answer was an image of myself. I still felt completely numb as I stood by the fire, and murmured the engraved words:
If you can look into the seeds of time,
And say which grain will grow and which will not,
Speak then to me who neither beg nor fear
Your favours nor your hate.
Something clicked inside my mind as I smashed my fist down on the stone mantel, and as the pain slowly permeated the empty numbness, Stratford’s face floated up into my memory, distorted by time – a younger reflection – and I knew where we had met before.
* * *
THE REPORT OF INSPECTOR IAN STRATFORD (10)
I got away from the group in the drawing room as soon as I could without being obvious about it. The conversation was going around in circles and my head was spinning at the same rate. The death of Dr Friedlander – the fight – left me stranded. It did not fit in with my tentative theories at all, but if I scrapped them where did that leave me?
Back at square one.
I walked across the hall and entered the study. I switched the lights on, crossed the room and slid into the huge leather chair behind the desk. I liked that chair. It gave me a sense of power, a sense of importance. It made me feel that, with just a little thought, the whole puzzle would become clear to me.
There was a knock on the door, and I inwardly cursed. It looked like my peace was going to be short-lived. ‘Come in,’ I yelled. The door opened and Baker appeared.
‘Not disturbing you, am I, sir?’
‘Of course not,’ I lied.
‘It’s just that I was feeling a bit out of sorts in the drawing room. Not exactly my cup of tea, sir, trying to talk to the gentry.’
He sat down in one of the chairs opposite the wall and laced his fingers behind his head. I stared at a bare piece of wall to one side of the door. There was silence for some time.
‘At least we can rule the Doctor out now,’ said Baker eventually.
‘Yes, but if not him, then who?’ I said despondently.
‘Back to Mr Hopkinson, I suppose, sir.’
‘I’m afraid we are. But Miss Seymour was right.’
Baker frowned. ‘About what?’
‘About his seeming as surprised as the rest of us when Harries’s body vanished. And he was visibly shocked when we told him about the Doctor.’
‘Could have been a put-on, sir.’
A silence again. This time