Doctor Who_ The Sleep of Reason - Martin Day [42]
‘I’m sure he’s very busy.’
‘You don’t know the half of it!’ he snorted – and then stopped, as if he’d said something out of turn. ‘Er, anyway. . . ’ he added pointlessly, staring around the room as if he hoped to find something to change the subject.
He didn’t, and an embarrassing pause developed, Fitz fiddling with a shoe lace and Laska trying hard not to give in to her feelings of irritation.
‘So, how are things at the nut-house?’ exclaimed Fitz suddenly, his voice like a chiming grandfather clock against the growing silence.
Laska coughed involuntarily. ‘You what?’
‘I mean the Retreat. The hospital.’
‘Same old same old,’ said Laska, still not believing what she’d just heard.
‘Trix and I feel a bit out of touch here,’ continued Fitz, apparently ignorant of Laska’s reaction and the un-PC danger he’d just dropped.
(Laska couldn’t help but smile. Bollocks to political correctness.)
‘It’s all right for the Doctor, he’s part of what’s going on down there, but Trix and me. . . ’ He trailed away. ‘Perhaps I should come and gatecrash one of your therapy sessions.’ He tapped the side of his head, looking momentarily bewildered and lost. ‘But you know, the amount of weird junk I’ve got in here, I’m not sure they’d let me out again.’
He was in full flow now, the words tumbling from his lips with barely a thought for who was sat next to him.
‘Or maybe I’ll help out with the security guards one night – they always seem to be short on numbers. You wouldn’t think there was much to do, but I was talking to this chap the other day, and he said –’
Fitz paused. From the kitchen there came the strangest, most haunting noise Laska had ever heard, like a grand piano falling down the stairs. In slow motion. The elephantine sighing concluded with a muffled thump, like an explosive blast from a distant quarry.
Fitz tried to carry on talking as though nothing was the matter but it was obvious that he was as relieved to hear the noise as Laska was intrigued by it. ‘Of course, the problem’s not so much trying to keep patients in,’ he was saying, ‘as keeping local schoolboys out. . . ’
‘That’s another loose end tied up,’ came a precise and dignified voice from the doorway. ‘Now we’ve just got to. . . ’ The voice belonged to Dr Smith, and his words trailed away when he realised that Fitz was not on his own.
Momentarily this seemed to unsettle him, but then, remembering his manners, 71
he strode forward with a politely outstretched arm. ‘My dear, so pleased to see you.’
The icy blonde Trix followed in his wake, glaring accusingly at Fitz. Laska spotted a half-hearted shrug from Fitz, a Well, what else was I supposed to do?
gesture.
‘You were talking about loose ends,’ said Laska, briefly taking and then sliding from Smith’s grip. She felt in the mood for turning the screw, even if she didn’t know what Smith had been about to say, or why he had suddenly stopped. ‘Am I one of your loose ends, Dr Smith?’
‘Well, that has yet to be seen,’ said Smith. Though the words were flippant and throwaway the tone was much more serious. ‘I assume young Mr Abel managed to get hold of you?’
Laska’s eyes narrowed – was this it, the start of the subtext, the start of a bargaining process hidden behind synonyms? But Smith’s face was as open and as unchanged as before – if he was a poker player, he was a good one, though perhaps as likely to fool himself as his opponents.
Laska settled on a safe, meaningless nod.
‘I just wanted to say “Hello”,’ said Smith. ‘I’ve barely had time to speak to you since you were admitted.’
‘That’s OK,’ said Laska, reduced to meaningless phrases because she couldn’t yet work out the rules of this particular engagement. Should she play the role of the needy patient, the sulking teenager, the heroine imprisoned against her will? At least, when she’d been half flirting with Fitz, she knew what was expected of her.
‘I was very struck, when