Doctor Who_ The Banquo Legacy - Andy Lane [78]
‘Come on!’ the Doctor shouted, and sprinted for the stairs. I thought he was getting out while he could, but then I realised what he was up to. The hole in the banisters that Simpson had fallen through was just above their shoulder level. There was a chance that we could get up there and pull them through. It was worth a try, and the Doctor had spotted it more quickly than I. I joined him on the stairway and together we hoisted first Simpson and then Kreiner up with us.
Down in the hallway, Baker was still protecting Susan Seymour and Catherine Harries. The women’s faces were white and shocked. Baker’s was grim, but I could see the strain beneath.
Harries had remained motionless, confused by the action around him. The sight of John Hopkinson vanishing from his trap (how much intelligence did he still possess?) galvanised him into action. The rotting body, swathed in the stench of decay, lumbered over and grabbed Hopkinson’s foot.
There we stayed in a frozen tableau. Hopkinson was looking up at me despairingly as we grasped each other’s forearm. Susan Seymour was crying in the hallway below. How easy to accidentally let slip and leave John Hopkinson to the cold embrace of Richard Harries. It was ironic that the three of us should be there: Harries, who had possessed Susan Seymour and then lost her; I, who had never possessed Susan Seymour and had still lost her; Hopkinson, who had taken her away from me. From us. In that way Harries and I were allies. How easy to let slip…
Catherine Harries broke the spell that held me by suddenly pushing past Baker’s bulky frame and running for the stairs. I shook my head to clear the miasma of confusion and found my muscles acting of their own volition. With a massive effort I managed to pull Hopkinson from the grasp of the body beneath. Small pieces of wet flesh fell from Harries’s hands as Hopkinson landed gasping at my side. Harries staggered backwards, and Baker took the opportunity to push Susan Seymour past him towards where Catherine Harries had paused on the lowest stairs in order to gaze at her dead brother with an oddly calm expression.
‘For a moment,’ Hopkinson muttered, ‘I thought…’
‘For a moment, you were right,’ I said.
Together we manhandled Simpson up to the first floor. I turned to see Harries just starting up the stairs behind us.
‘Are you sure those stairs are the only way down?’ I asked Hopkinson.
‘Unless you fancy jumping,’ he retorted.
Baker seemed to take him seriously. ‘How far down is it?’ he asked.
Susan glanced over at him. ‘Too far.’
The Doctor and Hopkinson led the way along the corridor. Together, like a grotesque three-legged race, Kreiner and I half carried Simpson, followed by Susan, Catherine and Sergeant Baker.
‘He’ll catch us up in a moment,’ said Kreiner over Simpson’s shoulder. He gestured to the nearest door on the right. ‘Let’s barricade ourselves in here.’
‘No,’ I said quietly. ‘It’s the Wallaces’ room.’
Kreiner looked momentarily blank, then nodded in understanding. The bodies were still in there.
(And I had a sudden horrifying vision of the door to the room flying open and their bodies tottering blindly out at us… George Wallace and his wife walking towards us with their heads flopping loosely on their shoulders… Beryl staring coquettishly at me with blank, white eyes while her hands slid seductively round my neck… My stomach lurched and sweat broke out on my forehead and down the ridge of my spine. Why Harries? Why no one else – at least, not yet? Then with a sudden sense of jolting, as if I had fallen a few inches and jarred as I hit the ground, I realised that it was something to do with Harries’s experiment. The electricity… the sudden power surge… something that hadn’t been repeated in the other deaths. I could breathe again.)
‘Mr Hopkinson’s room?’ the Doctor said firmly ‘It’s on the corner. If something goes wrong, we have two ways to run.’
‘Yes,’ I said and we hobbled down the corridor. Susan rushed in front of us to open the door and slammed it shut after us. As