Doctor Who_ The Sleep of Reason - Martin Day [51]
She looked around her room desperately. Her eyes came to rest on a huge paperweight of split stone. She hefted it from hand to hand, finding strength in its unarguable weight, its utter solidity. She gripped the handle, the stone in her other hand. She paused for a moment, concentrating on her ragged breathing, the relentless gnawing at the door.
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Then she pulled open the door.
She jerked back into wakefulness, water splashing over the sides of the bath and on to the carpet. She twisted her head from side to side, desperate to pinpoint the sound.
It was the CD she was listening to; it had gone over to a track recorded from vinyl, and it was popping and clicking wildly.
Laska relaxed back into the water. As she did so, she noticed her arms as they sank below the surface. There were new scratches, deep red cuts, like a shadow of all her suicide attempts, an outward manifestation of all her unhappiness. But they were ragged and random.
They looked like bite marks.
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The Stolen Child
(World Full of Weeping)
Extract from the Diary of Dr Thomas Christie Friday 25th December 1903
I have so much to recount, and so little time in which to do this, that I fear I shall not sleep this night. (Indeed, I am not sure when – if ever – I shall truly be able to come to terms with what has happened.) I once hoped that this journal would form an aide memoire to my work at Mausolus – a mere adjunct to my medical notes. Now I now feel compelled to write, for a great tragedy has befallen us.
Festive celebrations had barely made an impression on Christmas Day before being bludgeoned by the news of the death of Samuel Sands. A chill greater than the frost that had appeared from nowhere settled over Mausolus; every word spoken had the dull, sibilant resonance of a funeral reading.
We hurried back from the church. I knew I would get little sense out of Mr Craig until after I had examined Samuel Sands. He was indeed beyond help of God or man; I estimated that he had entered the twilight kingdom some hours before.
He was slumped by the window, which itself was of interest as he had clearly attempted to reach through the bars and open it. (Occasionally death can manifest itself in the most appalling ways, with a kind of mania afflicting the victim – a desire to escape, or to run, beyond the room and away from some nameless terror.)
Mr Torby noticed great scratches on the bars but I had no reason at that juncture to suspect foul play.
Craig continued to maintain that Mr Sands had died of fright; I did not agree with this diagnosis, of course, but I admit (here and here alone) that the face did seem most terribly contorted. The eyes were wide open, the pupils dilated; they seemed to continue to stare through the paper-thin eyelids even when I closed them gently.
After making the necessary arrangements I decided that there was little sense in questioning Mr Craig at that moment. Despite my tiredness, I made 89
sure that I wrote yesterday’s diary entry before falling into troubled sleep (strictly speaking that entry encompassed the early hours of this day, but one cannot impose too strict a regime on so imperfect a journal).
I woke only a little later than usual, and sought immediately to question Mr Craig in my office. The fellow seemed nervous, and not without reason, for clearly he had some explaining to do. For all that, I tried to reassure him that soon he would be eating goose with the rest of his family, this entire matter forgotten, but Craig still seemed confused. To aid his recollection I asked him my questions in strict chronological order, although my particular interest was the death of Mr Sands, and Craig’s apparent dereliction of duty.
He told me of a girl he knew from the village (it seemed to settle his mind a little to talk about how they had met, and his feelings for her – I suppose perceived beauty in such circumstances can be both calming and yet more beautiful). She is but a common milking girl, and he told me (in more detail than I found suitable) of their