Doctor Who_ The Banquo Legacy - Andy Lane [71]
‘Are you confessing to something?’
‘The Doctor – Dr Friedlander, that is – is dead. And Comp–’ He swallowed. ‘I’m alone here. I’ve got nowhere to go.’
‘I’ll need to take a full statement from you,’ I said, not unkindly, ‘and then I suggest you go home. Will it take long?’
‘About a hundred years,’ I thought I heard him say as I moved off. I had no time for him now; I half-considered telephoning Chief Inspector Driscoll and reporting, but decided against it. Better to extract a full confession from Catherine Harries first.
Just as I was about to enter the study, George Wallace opened the door.
‘Ah, Inspector,’ he said, and I could hear the strain in his voice. ‘Baker’s here with Miss Harries, and Simpson is just coming. I’m off to find my wife. She’s having a rest upstairs, you know.’
‘Very well,’ I said. ‘In that case I’ll fetch Mr Hopkinson, Mr Kreiner and Su– Miss Seymour. I need everyone together for what I have to say.’
Wallace began to walk up the stairway as I turned back again towards the drawing room, gesturing to Mr Kreiner to follow me. It was finally all pulling together.
If only I had known.
* * *
THE ACCOUNT OF JOHN HOPKINSON (13)
We were still talking: I trying to justify myself, Susan biting her lower lip and trying to look noncommittal. I talked, she perhaps listened.
‘Mr Hopkinson, can you spare a minute?’ Stratford’s voice startled me for a moment, partly because it was even louder than my own, which had already been strengthened by my nerves and my dispelled fears.
‘Inspector,’ Susan beat me to the reply, ‘are you sure about Catherine?’
‘Yes, I am. Although I haven’t told her yet.’
‘Why not?’ I asked, but as I spoke my words were drowned…
* * *
THE REPORT OF INSPECTOR IAN STRATFORD (13)
I missed Hopkinson’s words as a woman’s scream cut sharply through the conversation. It reached a peak of pain and disgust, then ended – abruptly. Not Susan: she was here with us, thank God. Not Catherine Harries. She was with Baker. It had to be Elizabeth Wallace. But surely she was with her husband…
‘Come on,’ Kreiner shouted, pulling himself together. We all ran for the hall. Baker was emerging from the study and behind him I could see a white-faced Catherine Harries.
‘Is Miss Harries all right?’ I asked.
‘Yes, sir. What was –’
‘Stay with her, Baker.’
Hopkinson, Kreiner and I pounded side by side up the staircase. Somehow the silence we ran towards was more terrifying than the screaming…
* * *
THE ACCOUNT OF JOHN HOPKINSON (14)
The door was standing open, gaping. And we could see through to the bedroom beyond. But despite that we still went in: I first I think, despite the fact that both Stratford and Kreiner had reached the doorway before me. We were drawn in by the scene before us. Tempted closer by its very horror, by our own fear.
They were frozen in tableau, like the close of a Greek tragedy. Two bodies lying twisted, motionless, silent.
Silent.
Silent as we were until we could breathe again, until we had taken it in and begun to realise at least something of what we were seeing.
‘Oh, my God!’ I murmured. Beside me I heard Kreiner’s sharp intake of shocked breath.
‘We were wrong,’ said Stratford, but he was not disappointed. He was horrified.
George Wallace lay half off the bed, his face turned away so that the fear was partly obscured; the bruises on his neck were not. Elizabeth was further back against the wall, as if she was still cowering away from whatever had killed her husband.
Even as I watched, Elizabeth Wallace’s head peeled stickily away from the wall and fell forward on to her chest. Someone had slammed it into the wall so hard that the skull had shattered. The plaster around the resulting dent was cracked and powdered, some of it settling like snow on to what had once been the back of her head. Strings of clotting blood joined her to the wall. A small drop of red fell forlornly from her mouth to her dress.
* * *
THE REPORT OF INSPECTOR IAN STRATFORD (14)
Beside me Hopkinson turned away and retched, while Kreiner just