Authors: Daniel O'Mahony
She realized that the sounds outside had returned to mundane conversation. Conversation that was now just about audible.
‘Wedderburn said he heard screams from the cellar today,’ the woman was saying, her tones bordering on the maternal. ‘Did you hurt yourself?’
‘No.’ Cranleigh’s voice was less distinct. ‘I heard them as well. It wasn’t me. It was something else.’
‘It couldn’t be…’ The maternal voice stopped. When the woman continued, she no longer addressed Cranleigh as a child but as an exasperated equal: ‘Sometimes I find it very difficult to tell whether you’re telling the truth, Justin. There is no one else down here.’
‘There is!’ Cranleigh blurted. ‘There’s a girl.’
Benny froze, shocked by the sudden betrayal. Five minutes ago, he’d been terrified that this woman would find her, but now… She realized that it was pointless to place trust in someone as confused as Cranleigh.
‘There was a girl,’ Cranleigh repeated.
‘Yes,’ the woman continued, as if stating an obvious truth, ‘there’s a girl now, but there wasn’t before.’ Benny’s resigned pessimism stumbled. It seemed that she might go undetected after all.
‘Not you. A real girl. In this room,’ Cranleigh insisted. ‘In the wardrobe.’
‘In the wardrobe. Of course. Tell you what, I’ll look in the wardrobe, and we’ll see who’s right shall we?’
Perhaps, Benny thought, I haven’t got away with it after all.
Seconds later the wardrobe door was flung open and Benny caught her first glimpse of Cranleigh’s girlfriend. A pretty woman, if not a beautiful one, with a light complexion and slightly chubby features that were both good‐
humoured and attractive. There was also a darker quality in those features that suggested deep, upsetting experience. If that had come about through a long period of contact with Cranleigh, Bernice could understand it. The woman’s hair was long, dark brown and worn loose. It was also slightly damp and carried with it the faint smell of shampoo. There was something soft about her eyes, which Benny put down to the natural bemusement of finding a total stranger lurking, knife in hand, in your boyfriend’s wardrobe.
Bernice smiled uncomfortably. The woman didn’t smile back.
‘You see,’ the woman turned to address Cranleigh, ‘There’s no one here.’
Benny froze. The woman turned to take one last glance back into the wardrobe, her eyes met with Benny’s for an instant. In that instant the woman seemed to see Benny for the first time, a flicker of realization crossing her face. Then the eyes parted and the recognition faded.
‘You know,’ the woman murmured, voice a little shakier, a little less certain, ‘for a moment I thought…’ She stopped herself and shook her head. ‘There’s no one there. Trust me.’
The door was closed and the wardrobe filled with darkness.
Okay Benny, two – no, three – possible explanations. She might be more of a headcase than he is: not implausible under the circumstances. This might be something devious – maybe this girl knows something.
Or maybe she hadn’t noticed. That instant when their eyes met –
that
had been genuine. She had seen Bernice for that instant, then dismissed her as a figment of her imagination.
Whatever it was, she wanted to get out before the woman changed her mind and came back for another look. She tucked the knife carefully into her boot, then slipped into the hole. Even if it turned out to be a dead end, she could always turn back and risk a night of eavesdropping. The darkness was ominous but it offered escape.
She pushed forward into the gloom, imagining that she could hear voices ahead. No, not voices. Someone laughing. Giggling like a manic child.
The kitchen was little more than a scullery. It was a drab workspace tucked away behind a featureless door at the back of the house as if it was an embarrassment to the architect. From the look of things it was used as no more than a cupboard, a passage through to the back garden, a place to do the washing up.
But it
was
used.
The Doctor had spent some time wandering around the passages of the ground floor, following his nose. Close to the stairwell the passages had been draughty and functional, lacking carpets or even wallpaper. The further from the staircase he got, the better decorated the passages became. Furniture, pictures, ornaments adorned the warm corridors. Oak panels replaced bare plaster. The plain doors of the earlier section, cardboard‐
thin and covered in layers of flaking grey paint, gave way to heavy, elaborately decorated entrances of varnished oak.
The scullery was empty, but confirmed his feelings. The house was occupied. It was a home. Tins, cartons and boxes were stacked neatly in the cupboards; a pile of freshly washed plates was still dripping soapy water onto the draining board by the sink; fresh footprints stained the check‐
pattern lino; a half‐
empty mug of lukewarm coffee sat on the kitchen worktop beside a crumpled magazine:
Green Finger Tips Monthly
open to a well‐
thumbed page on cultivating exotic plants in a temperate climate.
The Doctor picked up the magazine and flicked through it. It was proof that this was someone’s house and that he, and Benny and Ace, would be in trouble if they were caught.
How much trouble, he wondered? Perhaps it would be trouble with an ordinary householder, accompanied by a threat of petty but complicated legal action. Perhaps it would be trouble with the sort of people who could reach into the time vortex and snatch the TARDIS like a fairground game. Deciding that he’d rather avoid either, he dropped the magazine back onto the table and made for the door. Time to round up his accomplices. Ace first, since he had a vague idea of where she might be. Try to find Benny with a minimum amount of fuss. Get out of the house then return with some plausible story which might get them in legitimately.
Ace first.
Leaving the scullery he almost collided with one of the occupants. A man, dressed in a tweed suit and standing at the end of the passageway by a door. His back was turned to the Doctor, and the Time Lord was able to slip back into the scullery doorway and watch the man from a less conspicuous angle. The Doctor estimated that the man was in his mid‐
fifties, his white hair still flecked with grey and occasional flashes of black. Initially, the Doctor had thought that he was a short man, but he suddenly realized that the man was tall and stooping under the low ceiling. The man carried a parcel under one arm – brown paper, tied with string – and with his free hand he was trying to slot a key into the door’s lock. His hand shook and it took several attempts for him to unlock the door. Casually, the Doctor noticed that the skin on the man’s hand had a rich tan. His problems with the key over, the old man hastily pushed his way into the room, slamming the door shut after him. The key turned in the lock on the far side of the door.
Certain it was safe to emerge, the Doctor slipped down the passage to the door and stared at the inscription stencilled on it.
CONSERVATORY.
Someone was talking on the far side of the door – a strong voice, wavering slightly. It was just the one voice, never interrupted, never answered. Of course – he was talking to the plants! The Doctor moved away, slipping back to the staircase. He glanced upwards, his hearts falling at the sight of countless stairs rising towards the top floor. Unless Ace was anything less than meticulous in her search for Benny, that’s where she’d be. And Ace had grown into a very meticulous young lady in the time he’d known her. He moved forward.
The stairwell above him unfolded. The roof of the building receded, accelerating into the distance until it became infinitely high, a shaft ascending into celestial heights. Steps still ran along the inside of the shaft, winding their way towards the infinitely distant roof. The Doctor could see no further than the thirtieth or fortieth storey. Real or illusory, it was a terrifying sight. The Doctor was reminded of the optical illusion staircase, winding to join its own tail; Ouroborous, the alchemical worm, incarnate as architecture; the Möbius staircase. The illusion, the visual deception fascinated him. But weren’t there people pictured on that staircase? Miserable, ragged wretches condemned to tramp up those steps forever. It occurred to him that they would see something like this – infinite steps climbing towards an invisible vertex.
Light flared at the top of the infinite staircase, flickering like sheet lightning. A haze of glowing light hovered in the shaft, gradually expanding, gradually descending, slowly winding down towards the ground floor. The Doctor recognized a highly unstable spatial anomaly collapsing in his direction and decided that down was a safer bet. He belted down the single flight of steps to the cellar.
Bernice’s mind was screaming a chorus of derision and delirium. Something sick and evil had got inside her head. It shrieked and howled, delving into her mind, picking out old memories, tearing open old wounds and fears. There were voices in her head and they burned. Her stomach was churning with nausea and her chest felt tight and trapped. She choked and retched, desperate to breathe.
She couldn’t remember how it started. She’d been wandering lost in the darkness of the cellar. She’d found, she’d seen… no, she’d smelt it first – a sickly sweet scent of decay tainting the musty air.
Then
she’d stumbled right into… what? She couldn’t remember, except for half‐
formed glimpses flashing between more pleasant thoughts.
Before she’d realized what it was, she’d stepped into it. She looked down and saw the mess on her legs, and… What? She’d freaked out. Had she been sick? It felt like it. And then, then… Something else found her. Lights at first, then voices, presences, slipping into her undefended mind.
Suddenly she was a teenager again, back at the school she’d hated, among people she’d hated. They all talked about it. Because they shouldn’t send those sort of people into battle, the sort of people who’ll turn and run at the sight of the bloody mutant dustbin bastards? But they’ve got the whole command structure in their pocket. Even cowards and traitors get their kids into military schools. Right? One person. One person in particular talked about it a little too loud. One person caught Benny’s attention. One person she’d almost murdered there and then. Her class‐
mate was lying comatose on the floor in front of her now, as she had done over half her lifetime earlier. She’d held back then, not entirely sure why. Compassion? Guilt? Given time to think, she might have carried on. Killed someone.
Now you have all the time in the world, Benny.
There was something sharp and hefty in her hands. A broken‐
off chair leg, one end a mass of shattered wood and splinters. She knelt down and drove the splintered end into her class‐
mate’s face. Shattered skull. Brain damage. Death. A living human being turned, instantly, into an empty shell. The teenage Benny Summerfield – do you realize what you’ve done – stared into the dead, mangled face, and screamed.
Don’t be so wet Benny,
the voices told her.
You’re pandering to your cultural programming.
It wouldn’t have taken much. A little more time, a little more pressure, and that could have been you. Bernice Summerfield – murderer. They would have executed you or sent you into war as Dalek fodder. Doesn’t matter. Your guilt would have been the worst of it. Do you realize what you’ve done?
Who are you?
You, as you might have been. Your past is a kaleidoscope of wasted chances and missed paths. Watch.
They’d shown her a life of Bernice Summerfield as it might have been. If she’d not gone to Heaven; if she’d not met the Doctor; if her one and only serious love affair had worked out; if she’d had a family; if someone had found out about her ‘professorship’; if she’d stuck out school and gone to war against the Daleks, or the Draconians; if her father had come home.
Then they showed her lies. Isaac Summerfield’s face blanched with terror as the Dalek warship decloaks ahead of him, his voice screaming the orders to pull back into hyperspace, abandon his convoy; Claire Summerfield making love to the corps officer sent to inform her of Isaac’s disappearance – Benny watching secretly, not understanding; the Doctor laughing as he destroys worlds, ignoring the pathetic pleading voice begging him to stop; Benny as a teenager sitting on a pile of corpses, swinging a bloodied chair leg.
Then they showed her an inalterable truth. A tiny, fragmented memory highlighted and repeated over and over again. Her mother screaming in the heart of an explosion, igniting like a slow‐
motion firework. Clothes and skin burning, sending a cloud of black smoke tapering into the atmosphere. Screams becoming howls becoming a terrible, pitiful moaning drowned out by the roar of the flames.
Bernice panicked. She plunged into the darkness of the cellar away from the hateful voices and the images they conjured up. She closed her eyes tight, trying to blank everything out. There was just the taste of blood in her mouth, the groaning, churning nausea in the pit of her stomach… But she could still
see
…
The door loomed out of the darkness in front of her, opening and closing in the draught. She crashed through, pushing herself up the steps beyond. Then she was outside, leaving the cellar, the voices and the images, the thing she had seen. The evening air, the clear drizzle was cool. Benny slumped against a wall of the house. She wanted to cry with relief. Cry or giggle, maybe both. She was free, outside and – thank God – it was over.
Someone touched her hand, lightly. She tensed and growled, throwing her arms in front of her face. It wasn’t over. Not over at all. Plunging back down into despair…
Her arms were prised away from her face with a surprising gentleness. Benny blinked in the evening light, staring at the man in front of her. He was a man of average height and build, maybe in his mid‐
fifties, not particularly athletic. There was something ambiguous in his appearance that made it impossible to pin down details. He was wearing a shabby raincoat, a broad‐
brimmed hat perched on his head, his eyes were hidden behind an incongruous pair of dark glasses. There was nothing striking about his appearance. He was grey. Grey clothes, grey skin and a grey, gentle smile.