Doctor Who_ The Banquo Legacy - Andy Lane [80]
‘It’s OK, Fitz,’ the Doctor said. ‘Admittedly we can’t kill him, because he’s already dead. But if we can work out what’s happened to him to make him this way, it might help us to find some way of resisting.’
The hammering on the door had almost faded into the background. Suddenly it was brought into sharp focus as the wood split down the length of one of the panels. A large splinter flew across the room, narrowly missing Sergeant Baker.
Hopkinson looked at me helplessly. I returned his stare.
‘Any ideas?’ I asked before he could.
‘I think I can cast some light on events,’ the Doctor said, rising from the bed and crossing to the window.’
‘What do you mean?’ Kreiner asked.
‘Professor Harries’s experiment,’ the Doctor replied. ‘It’s obvious that it was much more of a success than anyone – including him – expected.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘That’s what I thought.’ Straightaway I regretted saying it. The words sounded feeble, as if I were trying to steal his credit. ‘But I couldn’t work out what it was,’ I finished, trying to repair the damage to my credibility.
‘Consider the sequence of events,’ the Doctor continued. ‘Richard Harries was attempting a form of mental contact with his sister, correct? He was trying to establish a communion, a communication between their minds.’
‘Yes,’ said Catherine from behind him. ‘Because we were twins he thought –’
‘Exactly,’ the Doctor interrupted. ‘I think that he succeeded.’
In the silence that followed I thought I detected an irregularity in the thudding at the door. Then the impacts began to get heavier.
‘Succeeded?’ shouted Susan. ‘It killed him.’
‘Or so we thought,’ I muttered, looking at the door. The split was gaping further open with every blow now, and as I watched the lock gave way and the barricade began to shudder under the repeated impacts.
‘Indeed it did kill him. But the important thing is, the electric current was so great, and –’ the Doctor glanced here at Simpson – ‘was being boosted by a nearby Artron field flux that Harries knew nothing about, that before he died the telepathic contact that Richard Harries had been seeking was momentarily established. Maybe the residual energy from the murder a century ago helped things along. Nothing like the emotions generated between the victim and perpetrator of a particularly unpleasant murder to stir up the fields.’
‘That does not’, I said, ‘explain how he comes to be trying to kill us. Or indeed why he’s not still lying on his bed. What is it, some form of supernatural revenge?’
But the Doctor was not listening. ‘Of course,’ he murmured, turning to face Simpson, ‘the murder. All those years ago. The energy from that would provide a natural source of local Artron energy. No extraneous emission, no anachronistic discharge. Just the sort of energy you’d need to power the dissipater.’
Simpson met the Doctor’s level stare. ‘Elegant,’ he said quietly.
‘Inhuman,’ the Doctor replied. And it seemed to me that Simpson smiled at that.
The impacts on the barrier were much louder now and the door was visibly split in a number of places. The previous rhythm had been totally lost and the crashes were becoming more and more irregular. What was happening? I did not know how much of what we were saying could be heard by Richard Harries. I did not even know if he could still hear, although his sight was still functioning. Was he worried about how close we were getting to the truth? Perhaps there was something he wanted to stop us finding out about, something that we could use to stop him.
‘I think that must be it,’ Hopkinson said, following on with the Doctor’s line of reasoning. Looking around, I saw a blank expression on everyone’s face. Baker was mopping at his brow again, and Susan Seymour’s eyes flickered nervously from person to person.
Catherine was twitching restlessly, keeping time with the relentless pounding on the door. ‘This is ridiculous,’ she said.
‘By no means,’ retorted