Downtime - Marc Platt [11]
She tried to retain her composure, but he read those words, her beloved father’s words, with an ignorant flippancy. ‘I’m sorry. I think I’d like to go now,’ she stammered.
‘I think you should see the date first.’
‘Why?’
‘Because the document, which is unquestionably in the same hand as the original, was written in May 1966, over a century after the original.’
‘It’s a mistake,’ she said.
‘No.’
‘He died.’ Her voice was cracking. ‘He died. He couldn’t still be alive.’
Byle never flinched from his stare. His eyes were like ice.
‘How can you be so sure?’
She was fumbling miserably with her bag. ‘I have to go.’
She stood and headed towards the door.
‘Ms Waterfield, I apologize,’ he called. ‘But in view of the total capital invested in the trust...’
She had stopped, facing away from him. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘As trustees we have to follow up all possibilities. And you did say it was very complicated. Victoria Maud Waterfield is an unusual name after all... these days.’
‘I’m sorry I can’t help you.’
She walked out of the dingy office into the sunshine. The date on the will was impossible – a slip of the pen. Her father had died – been murdered on Skaro. The Doctor had told her.
It was impossible.
On the bus back home, she dozed gently, letting her thoughts spiral up above the grey-brown city, skirting the towering office blocks and rising towards a mountainous range of stormclouds that loomed on the horizon.
A voice seemed to be whispering into her ear. She thought she caught her name, but the wind at this height drowned out the sense of it.
Below, the city dwindled into a dark stain on the landscape, a spider crouching on a web of tangled roads.
The cloud-mountains loomed closer.
With a start, Victoria realized she had almost missed her stop. The old man in the next seat hissed and muttered through his teeth as she pushed her way off.
When she reached the house, she nearly fell down a hole in the pavement right outside the gate.
‘They’re laying cables, dear,’ said Mrs Cywynski, looking up from her biscuit-making. ‘Phones or computers or something. The cats haven’t been out the front all day.’
Three paving stones had been lifted and the hole underneath was quite deep. To Victoria, it looked like a grave.
The mountainous landscape rolled far below Victoria, like the sliding painted panorama in a theatrical transformation scene.
Snow touched the peaks, blowing streamers of white across the air like flames on monumental candles.
In the sky around her, she could see other distant figures: grey phantoms in the misty air, travelling on voyages of their own.
Again, she heard the voice. It was the wind whispering her name. ‘ Victoria. I’m here. I’ve waited so long. ‘
‘I’m coming,’ she called. ‘Where are you?’
‘ I’m waiting, ‘ the wind answered.
She was stooping lower now, moving along a great ravine and skirting a huge mountain with a broken top. It seemed oddly familiar. The land was barren and strewn with boulders.
In the next valley, she saw a cluster of grey buildings that crouched for shelter against the rocky slopes.
‘ Victoria. Release me. ‘
She began to spiral down. She remembered this place, but it seemed even wilder now than she recalled. The ornate roof was dilapidated. There was no sign of the monks who lived there. The voice came again, mingled with the distant tinkling of tiny bells.
‘ At last you’re here. ‘
She knew the voice now. They must have been wrong when they said he was dead. She had never seen his body, so how did she know they were not mistaken? She passed directly through the solid walls, flying across the courtyard with its massive overturned statue of Buddha, and down, down, towards the dark Inner Sanctum of the monastery of Det-sen.
‘What you need, dear, is a holiday.’
‘A holiday? Oh no, really...’
‘Yes, really!’ insisted Mrs Cywynski. ‘Mr Cywynski never took a holiday either. Heaven knows, I tried often enough to get him to go away. Anything for a bit of peace.’
‘You mean you would have stayed behind?’ asked Victoria.
‘Of course, dear. What a treat.