Doctor Who_ The Paradise of Death - Barry Letts [20]
‘Ya,’ said Jeremy. ‘I shouldn’t trust him all the way though.’
This time Sarah’s look of disapproval registered. ‘Well, I thought he was an oik,’ he said, sulkily. But Sarah wasn’t listening, for through the window on the other side of the gallery, she could see the man himself, standing on the far side of the scaffolding, desperately keeping his balance by clutching one of the supports.
‘Doctor! Look!’ she cried.
‘He’s going to jump!’ exclaimed the Brigadier.
The Doctor was already on his way. ‘Brigadier!’ he said as he ran to the lift. ‘Get the Fire Brigade with a long ladder. Sarah! Persuade him to turn round. Try to keep his attention!’
‘Where are you going?’ she cried, but the lift was already speeding him downwards.
Billy Grebber had no fear of heights. One of the star workers on some of the tallest developments in the City of London (fastest brickie in the East, they used to call him) he’d always enjoyed the sense of freedom he got when he was way up high, the sense of being above the petty concerns of the ordinary mortals on the ground.
But he was afraid of dying.
It had seemed so easy as he’d climbed the last thirty feet from the lift platform. Even now, as he gazed at the Lilliputian inhabitants of Space World, hundreds of feet below, he still knew with unshakeable certainty that the only way out of his present troubles was straight down.
And then? A wave of vertigo swept over him. He swallowed and hung on even more firmly. Perhaps he was being too hasty. Even to be banged up for life might be better than – what? Other certainties, inherited from a long line of chapel-goers, and largely ignored in latter years, now presented themselves with the inevitability of the predestination he’d learnt about at Sunday School.
What if he weren’t one of the elect? If ever there were creatures from hell, Tragan’s were. Maybe he’d had a glimpse of the torments waiting for him in the Eternal Pit.
He started to shake uncontrollably.
Dimly he became aware of a banging noise which had been going on for some time. There was a voice. ‘Mr Grebber! Over here! Please turn round! Please!’ He turned his head. The voice was coming from behind, but climbing up towards him was the Doctor himself, the very man he had thought to help him.
‘Don’t look down, Mr Grebber,’ the Doctor called in a calm, firm voice.
Grebber opened his mouth to try to explain, but nothing would come out but a feeble croak. The Doctor was now on a level with him, about ten feet away.
‘Look at me,’ he was saying. ‘Look at me. That’s it.
We’ll soon have you safe.’
‘I – I wanted to finish it all, but... Help me, Doctor!
Help me!’
‘Hold on tight,’ replied the Doctor. ‘Help’s on its way.
Just hang on!’
Grebber could feel a dreadful compulsion to let go. His fingers were starting to loosen, as if against his will. ‘I can’t hold on much longer,’ he gasped. ‘I shall fall! Help me!
Please!’
‘Very well,’ said the Doctor. ‘I’ll come to you.’
Grebber watched as the Doctor, with one hand on the wire rope above his head, edged along the scaffolding pole, holding out the other hand. Suddenly, Grebber knew exactly what was going to happen. Although he was still shaking in the extremity of his fear, he reached out and gripped the proffered hand with his own bricklayer’s paw.
He let go with his other hand.
For the first time, there was alarm in the Doctor’s voice.
‘What are you doing, man! Hold on! You’ll have us both over!’
‘I’m sorry, Doctor!’ he managed to gasp and then, with a great cry of desolation and despair, Billy Grebber surrendered himself to whatever fate his God had decided for him at the beginning of time.
Freeth stopped chewing in alarm as Tragan’s shout of terror echoed round the mahogany panels of the office. He leaned forward as his Vice-Chairman pulled off the headset. ‘Are you all right?’ he said.
Tragan was sitting with his eyes closed, panting slightly.
‘Oh yes,