Doctor Who_ The Banquo Legacy - Andy Lane [90]
Nothing.
Ahead of me, the Doctor’s movements were muffled by soot and distance. How far ahead of me was the man? And if I should get stuck, would he know? Would he come back to help me? Could he? I began to wish I had gone first, so that if I had been jammed I would at least have the benefit of someone following – someone who would know I was there, realise my predicament, push from behind.
My hand, reaching up and out for a hold to drag myself up a few feet further, not only failed to gain purchase, but failed to meet the wall at all. My weight was on the hand that had pushed through the wall and my body followed it through, and down. My first sudden thought was that I had indeed suffocated and that my spirit was leaving my body, becoming insubstantial and passing like the ghost it now was through solid bricks and mortar.
The thought was violently jolted out of me as my ribs, exposed under the outstretched arm, hit the ragged corner of the shaft that ran up and into the one that I had been climbing. I cursed silently (but nonetheless huskily) and wished I had had a spare hand to carry a lamp. For a second directions danced giddily and I had no idea which way I was facing, or where up and down were. However, just as I was deciding that the only way I could find out was by relaxing my grip and discovering which way I fell, I realised that my right arm was still lying along the floor of the gently sloping cross-shaft that met the chimney I was spread-eagled within. Indeed, my right arm and shoulder seemed to be supporting most of my weight. As the sensations of pain reached my consciousness, so did my instincts of position and geography.
As if to confirm my instincts, the Doctor’s soft voice called back to me, ‘Are you all right? Have you reached the turn yet?’
Just the sound of his voice was enough to renew my strength and confidence. ‘Yes, I’m fine,’ I whispered back. ‘Right behind you.’
I had imagined in my naïveté that the descent would be much easier. Of course, it was not. If anything it was more hazardous still, with the force of gravity always in danger of becoming too helpful. It was certainly quicker to climb down but this merely helped the grazes to bite, and the bruises were deeper – caused as they were by a greater speed of impact on the gnarled and ugly brickwork.
My eventual arrival in the study fireplace, amid clouds of soot and a staccato rattle of dislodged masonry, would probably have aroused humour in any witness to this Nicholausian entrance. Fortunately the only witnesses to my indignity was the Doctor, and he was busied in the task of brushing the soot and indignity from his own figure. He shook his head, and clouds of black specks flew from his mass of hair. I picked myself up as quickly as I could, fighting back the bruises of pain and the need to cough out what I had swallowed of the chimney’s innards.
There was a little light in the study, both from the moon outside the uncurtained windows and from the ajar door, and a faint glow from the remains of Harries’s equipment, which still lay on the desk. Some residual energy of some sort, no doubt. But after my dark incarceration it was easily enough to enable me to see quite well. I followed the Doctor as we picked our way around the furniture, unable to read the pages of Stratford’s notes that were scattered across the desk (now, I suspected, rather superseded by events), to the door.
The Doctor eased the door open a crack and peered out. For a moment he was frozen in position. Then he stepped aside and motioned for me to take his place.
My view of the hall was decidedly limited and I had no intention of opening the door any wider for fear it might creak. What I could see was Catherine Harries, her face set stiffly – almost like a death mask – and her hands as fixedly and unmovingly gripping the revolver that pointed at the drawing-room door. Suddenly her eyes flicked across towards my door and instinctively I stepped backwards, almost colliding with the Doctor as he stood