Doctor Who_ The Sleep of Reason - Martin Day [84]
‘I am medically trained,’ continued Smith. ‘I want to reassure you of that.
You just might have some trouble accepting my credentials.’
Liz thought it was best to humour him. ‘Consider me reassured.’
‘I came to the Retreat because of. . . anomalies.’
‘Anomalies?’
Smith nodded. ‘In the very fabric of the universe. It was easy to fake some qualifications, ask a few favours. . . ’
‘You must know some very powerful people.’
‘More than you can imagine,’ said Smith. ‘I’ve had to be very patient, working here while making my investigations. But thankfully time is something I have plenty of.’
Liz felt uncomfortably like a commuter stuck on a train with a charming drunk. Smith might have ail the time in the world for this nonsense – she did not.
‘It’s not vital that you believe who I am,’ continued Smith. ‘But it is vital that we get to grips with what’s going on. We have a job to do – and we must, it seems, do it without the help of the police, of anyone else.’
‘I wish I could believe you!’ exclaimed Liz. She indicated the diaries, the incredible story that they told. ‘It would be so comforting to think that you know what you’re talking about, that all that’s happened. . . is about far more than the competence, of otherwise, of my management of the Retreat.’
‘Are you still thinking about that?’ said Smith.
‘I’m thinking of Joe,’ said Liz suddenly. ‘He has that ability to make everything seem OK.’ She sighed. ‘And it has been a very long day.’
Laska pushed the key into the lock and paused for a moment before swinging open the door.
She’d not returned home since moving to the Retreat; it was only now, as she stood on its threshold, that she realised how much she missed the place –
its echoes, its smell, its ghosts. How much she still considered it home.
When her father died her friends all expected her to sell the old place, get something smaller, blow some of the money on a holiday or a new telly. But she was adamant that she wanted to stay, though it was much too large for her needs and she joked that she rattled around in it like a depressed pea in 152
an oversized pod. To sell the house would mean severing another tie with the past; to continue to live there would allow her to imagine that not everything was lost. Sometimes she could still hear her father’s voice in her mind, who had himself made a similar decision when Laska’s mother died. ‘I love it here,’
he had said. ‘It’s a sanctuary. It’s where I come to retreat from the outside world.’
Laska and Fitz stepped into the hall. It still had its original Edwardian tiled floor and its elegant, tall ceilings; not surprisingly, it was as cold as a tomb.
Laska stepped over the circulars and local newspapers and headed straight for the cupboard under the stairs that contained the central heating controls.
She switched on the heating and hot water; immediately the pipes and radiators throughout the house began to gurgle and rattle with rushing water.
‘Sorry it’s not very welcoming,’ said Laska. ‘No one’s been in for weeks.’
Fitz shook his head, looking around reverentially. ‘It’s great,’ he said. ‘Wish I could afford a place like this.’
‘I’ve had some good parties here,’ said Laska. ‘New houses seem to be built of tissue paper. But the walls here are thick, the neighbours don’t seem to mind too much.’ She smiled. ‘Actually, Mrs Booker on that side is deaf, so that helps.’
She showed Fitz the bathroom, and found some towels in the airing cupboard. His wound needed sorting out; he kept saying it didn’t hurt, but she suspected his bravado might be covering a more serious injury.
She stood in the corridor outside while Fitz removed his trousers, swearing under his breath. Soon she heard the taps going, water sloshing around in the sink.
Between audible grimaces when he dabbed at his leg too hard Fitz quizzed her on the diaries. ‘The Retreat used to be an asylum called Mausolus House?’
Laska was puzzled. ‘Surely you know that – Dr