Doctor Who_ The Sleep of Reason - Martin Day [82]
‘Have you asked Mike about this?’
‘As I said, he has been somewhat. . . preoccupied,’ continued Smith. ‘As has the good Dr Oldfield. I have my doubts about him also. Desire for leadership 148
and responsibility is not always wrong. . . But, in a place like Mausolus, that desire can be corrupted.’
‘Mausolus?’
‘The Retreat was once called Mausolus House,’ explained Smith. ‘A Victorian and Edwardian asylum. Before that, it was an especially vile workhouse.’
‘I’m not sure I’m in the mood for a history lesson.’
‘What I’m about to tell you has a very real bearing on recent events,’ said Smith. ‘I know your concern is the murder of Farrell, the suicide of Mr Butler. . . the fate of Tracy Wade. And that is as it should be. As I told you once before, Liz, you are a good doctor, concerned only for other people and their welfare. But, if you and I are to ensure that no other people die, then we must become intimately involved with the history of this building – and, as fantastical as it may sound, we must accept that history is, inexorably, beginning to repeat itself.’
‘Whatever do you mean?’
Smith indicated the two diaries on the desk. ‘These accounts, a hundred years old, tell of a great evil that visited Mausolus House. An evil that was made mighty by madness, that was birthed in fire, and that may yet be reborn in terrible destruction.’
‘I still don’t follow you.’
Smith pushed the diaries towards Liz. ‘You will.’
‘The Doctor told me to keep an eye on you,’ said Fitz as he got behind the wheel of the car.
‘I’m not a little kid,’ said Laska, irritated.
‘Oh, I know,’ said Fitz. ‘If it helps, think of me as your taxi driver.’ He turned the key in the ignition, slipped the car into first, released the handbrake. ‘Isn’t she fabulous?’ he breathed, running a hand over the plastic dashboard. ‘Automatic choke, smooth gearbox. . . So modern!’
Laska looked around as if she’d missed something – to her it was just some crappy Ford something-or-other. ‘If you say so.’ She pulled on her seatbelt, noting that Fitz’s still dangled at his side. ‘Dad had an old Triumph, but he always wanted an E-type,’ she added a few moments later.
‘A wise man,’ said Fitz, nodding his head as he completed the three-point turn. ‘Who wouldn’t?’
They proceeded down the driveway, a largely straight expanse of gravelled concrete that performed a dog-leg turn just shy of the ornate gatehouse. Laska noticed that Fitz gripped the steering wheel ever more tightly as they approached the end of the drive, his lips pursed in concentration.
‘Everything OK?’ asked Laska.
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Fitz nodded but said nothing, his attitude utterly changed now. As they turned the corner he even went as far as locking the doors from the inside.
‘What the hell’s going on?’ exclaimed Laska.
‘Better safe than sorry,’ said Fitz. ‘As patronising as it might sound, I really am here to look after you.’
‘We’re in danger then?’
‘The Doctor thinks we may not be allowed to leave.’
‘But that’s nuts! Who’s going to stop. . . ?’
Her words faded away to nothing as Fitz slowed the car.
Twenty yards or so in front of the gatehouse a great hound stood in the centre of the road, teeth bared. Its grey skin was mottled with patches of fur and exposed flesh. It resembled a terrible creature left to die in a raging inferno –
or, Laska thought, some decaying animal, like in that Peter Greenaway film about the zoo. But its eyes were terrifyingly alive and bright, seeming to glow with an ethereal brightness against the twilight.
On huge padded paws it came closer still. Fitz stopped the car.
Laska couldn’t help but grasp at Fitz’s arm. ‘Can you see it?’ she whispered.
‘Yep.