Doctor Who_ The Sleep of Reason - Martin Day [76]
‘You shouldn’t have taken that!’ exclaimed Laska. ‘Liz will need it.’
‘Oh, I’ll give it to Liz, in time,’ said Smith. ‘But it’s vital that I see it first. I must stress, that’s not arrogance on my part. But I simply have to know what’s going on here.’
‘I think I might be able to help you,’ said Laska. She paused, wondering what to say. In its own way, this was harder than telling Liz about her husband.
As with her suspicions about Joe Bartholomew, what she was about to tell Smith now seemed riddled with irrelevancies, coincidence and interpretation.
And – worse still – they might possibly allow another person into her life, her past, her heart. There seemed only to be room for one person there – and he was long gone.
And yet, Smith, in these past few days, had clearly wanted nothing more than for Laska to open up to him. Although Trix had come on a bit strong, Smith himself had proved to be the opposite of Oldfield: he would clearly have never pressured her, or bribed her, or blackmailed her. It had to be knowledge – intimacy – given freely, or not at all.
Laska wondered, for a moment, if what she had in mind was mere trivia, a distraction from a murder and a suicide. But the awful parallels could not be ignored any longer. Smith had always said he felt that there was a link between her and what was going on at the Retreat – as if she had a unique insight, and on that insight rested the fate of many people.
135
‘I’ve been reading some old documents – diaries, that sort of thing,’ she said.
Those first words she’d had to force out, almost gritting her teeth. Now they came in a liberating, heady rush. ‘They were my dad’s. I brought them here when I was admitted, but I’ve only just got around to reading them. That’s where the pendant came from – it was in the suitcase, with Dad’s papers. I keep being drawn back to the books. . . And they’re freaking me out. What’s happening now is just like what happened before. . . ’
Dr Smith smiled. ‘Thank you, Laska, for being honest with me. I can’t tell you how vital this might be.’ He pushed the suicide note slightly to one side, as if to imply that she now had his full attention. ‘But the important thing is for you to tell me everything, calmly, and then I can read these diaries for myself.’
‘Sure. No problem.’
‘Perhaps you could tell me how your father came by these items.’
‘Dad had always been fascinated by genealogy,’ said Laska. ‘He said. . . he said it helped him cope with Mum’s death. It was as if, by seeing his position, and hers, in the wider scheme of things, by seeing that life continues despite death. . . That over the course of any one family there will be births and baptisms, pain and joy. . . It all somehow comforted him.’
‘Go on.’
‘I remember him scouring local book fairs, going to historical meetings, that sort of thing. When he wasn’t working, and I was old enough to look after myself, he’d spend whole afternoons at the library.’
Smith patted the pile of photocopies at his side. ‘Fitz and I have been making a nuisance of ourselves in just the same way.’
‘I never used to mind – the book fairs were a bit boring, though he normally bought me a trashy paperback to keep me quiet. It all made him so happy, I wasn’t about to complain. But I never understood it. It was just Dad’s hobby, you know?’
Smith nodded.
‘Anyway, when I became ill again. . . ’ She paused momentarily, then corrected herself. ‘When I last tried to kill myself. . . I suddenly got interested in all this stuff. I kind of thought that, if I immersed myself in what Dad was interested in, it might. . . ’ She started to breathe deeply, fighting to keep the tears at bay, fighting to stay in control. ‘It might help me to feel close to my dad again, just as it had. . . Just as it had helped him, with Mum.’
The words were beginning to slow, each one a gift-wrapped grenade of emotion. Wisely, Smith did not interrupt the ensuing silence, letting Laska gather her thoughts.
‘Anyway, a few days back. . . I started looking through this suitcase