Vampyrrhic

by Simon Clark

  David found himself warming to her immediately. Her brown eyes were as vivacious as the smile; and she seemed such a friendly, down-to-earth kid.

  ‘Take a seat,’ Bernice waved her hand to take in a dozen plum-coloured velvet chairs arranged around wrought-iron tables. ‘I’ll just open a bottle of beer and I’ll join you.’

  David chose a table closest to the bar. ‘Electra Charnwood’s my idea of the perfect hotelier. But she won’t make a profit out of us if she gives drinks away.’

  ‘It’s not every day we have one of the famous Leppingtons come to call on us. From what Electra says it’s almost on a par with a visit from royalty.’

  ‘Royalty? I’m afraid she might find me a bit disappointing. The only crown I possess is the one showing through where my hair’s going thin.’

  She laughed. ‘Nonsense. You’ve a lovely head of hair.’ Then she blushed as if she’d been overly familiar. ‘You’re here on holiday?’

  ‘Just a short break. I was just curious to see what the town looked like.’

  ‘But you once lived here?’

  By jimminy, news did travel fast.

  ‘Until I was six years old. I can hardly remember the town. But I think I can remember eating a ham sandwich in this hotel once.’ He smiled. ‘It just shows the priorities of a six-year-old when it comes to memory. I recall the sandwich but not the building.’

  ‘Good evening, Dr Leppington,’ Electra called brightly as she entered the bar. ‘Sorry, that should be David, shouldn’t it? Good evening, Bernice.’

  ‘Hi,’ Bernice said.

  David stood up, half-feeling he should bow. ‘Good evening, Electra.’

  ‘Bernice, you’ve taken care of our guest’s creature comforts? Good.’

  Electra strode across the room, looking striking in black leather trousers and a flowing silk blouse in a dazzling crimson. Her perfume swamped the room.

  ‘I’m ahead of schedule,’ she said briskly, making David think of an army officer outlining plans to capture Hill Seventeen. ‘So, if we dine in ten minutes. Oh, nobody’s a vegetarian, by any chance?’

  David shook his head. ‘Good,’ she announced. ‘Strictly speaking it should be fish because it’s Friday, but seeing as Leppington was slow to shake off its pagan past I thought we’d murder a couple of bloody venison steaks apiece.’ Still talking, she swept energetically up to the optics behind the bar, fixed herself a whacking great gin-and-tonic, splashed in a chunk of ice from the ICE TO SEE YOU ice bucket then swept across to their table, her long leather-clad legs gleaming in the soft lights of the bar.

  ‘It looks as if you two have become acquainted.’ She gave that collusive smile across the top of her glass before her red lips touched the rim. ‘You must have lots to talk about, seeing as you’re both in a similar business.’

  ‘Hardly.’ Bernice laughed.

  David sipped the Guinness, almost wincing at its iciness. ‘You work at the hospital?’ he asked Bernice.

  Grinning, girlishly, she shook her head. ‘The Farm.’

  ‘The farm?’

  ‘Not just any old farm,’ added Electra swinging her athletic body down onto the chair next to David’s. ‘The Farm’

  ‘It’s a leech farm,’ Bernice explained.

  ‘Aren’t leeches medieval, or what?’ Electra took a hefty swig of gin-and-tonic. ‘I’ll stick to the medicinal properties of Gordon’s, thank you very much. What say you, Doctor?’

  ‘Leeches are being used more and more in modern medicine. As well as their bloodsucking abilities, pharmaceutical companies extract an anticoagulant from their bodies for the drug Hirudin. I know, leeches don’t sound so palatable, nor do maggots, but they have their uses.’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ Electra said brightly. ‘Maggots are sometimes used for treating burns, and for injuries where there’s a danger of gangrene, isn’t that so?’

  David nodded. ‘Maggots only eat dead flesh, not living tissue. So if they are applied carefully to a wound — and I’m talking about sterile maggots here — they simply tidy up the wound of dead, possibly infective skin tissue. Once they’ve done their job they are removed and the wound generally heals faster, more cleanly and with less scarring than by using so-called modern methods.’

  ‘So we’ve a lot to learn from our forefathers,’ Bernice said carefully. ‘Leeches might be used when a severed limb has been sewn back onto the patient. Doctors have to ensure there’s a good blood flow through into reconnected arteries.’

  ‘So Bernice’s leeches might be used on the man you saved today,’ Electra said to David, fixing him with her cool blue eyes. ‘But Bernice doesn’t know anything about it, do you, darling?’

  David said, ‘Well, perhaps it’s not an ideal before-dinner story.’

  ‘Nonsense. Our Bernice is made of strong stuff, aren’t you, dear?’ David found himself retelling the story. He told it accurately, without embellishment. It felt good to have such an avid audience. Already the impact of Katrina’s letter was softening.

  ‘So was it a rat?’ Bernice asked when he’d finished.

  ‘Although a rat’s incisors are harder than steel and can gnaw at a pressure of five hundred kilogrammes per square centimetre, the wound was inconsistent with a rat bite. There was evidence of crush damage, not gnawing.’

  ‘And there are no rats in Leppington,’ Electra added brightly. ‘Astonishing, isn’t it?’

  ‘Well, I’d find it hard to believe,’ David said, smiling. ‘This country is riddled with the brown rat. We don’t see many of them because they tend to burrow down into the earth, or live in sewers, unlike the old black rat that prefers to live in the upper parts of houses or in hedgerows. By the way, I apologize if I’m sounding as if I’m giving a lecture. Part of my job is to give a regular talk on health and hygiene to water-company staff; once I start talking about rats I find myself starting to recite from my old papers.’

  ‘There are no black rats either.’ Electra went to the bar to fix herself another G&T. ‘Ask Rentokil. Leppington isn’t even on their maps.’

  ‘Well, if you do see a black rat,’ David smiled, ‘give yourself a pat on the back because they’re all but extinct. A couple of hundred years ago the brown rat flooded the country and wiped out the black rat population.’

  Bernice wrinkled her nose. ‘If it wasn’t a rat that bit off the man’s fingers and thumb, what did?’

  David shrugged. He decided not to the mention the human bite marks. ‘All I can come up with is that there might be some kind of mechanical device buried under the pavement. Perhaps a pump that takes the drainage water to a higher level.’

  ‘But the workmen would have known about it, surely?’

  He smiled and sipped his Guinness. ‘The mystery thickens. But there is no doubt about one thing.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I’m not sticking my hand down there to find out. Cheers.’ He lifted the glass.

  2

  Jason Morrow cruised through the narrow lanes that ran up into the hills outside Leppington. The car’s headlights revealed bushes that shivered in the breeze. To Jason, they were pigshaped and he would have sworn they were moving alongside the road as if running to keep up with the car.

  He planned to visit the country park first of all. He might find what he was looking for there. Then he could get this burning, this burning, poisonous hunger out of his system for a while. Once purged, for a few weeks he would be content to sit and watch his wife eating chocolates and drinking beer as her piggy eyes devoured their endless diet of TV soaps.

  The sign loomed out of the night: LEPPINGTON COUNTRY PARK. He made a right turn; tyres now crunched over shale.

  Jason Morrow had maybe less than an hour to live.

  3

  The meal was a success. David had immediately warmed to Bernice, but his first impressions of Electra were that she tended to have a superior air; that she could be, at times, a prickly character. However, she soon began to relax (aided, no doubt, by hefty doses of gin-and-ton
ic, then by the red wine that came with the venison steaks). Talk was strictly small talk, although occasionally Electra would drop into the conversation an intellectual comment about a Shakespeare play she’d once seen or museum she’d once visited in Barcelona or Rome or somewhere equally exotic.

  They ate the meal in a small private-function room separated from one of the hotel’s public bars by a timber and frosted glass partition. David occasionally glimpsed the blurred shape of the head of one of the drinkers and heard the occasional burst of muffled laugher.

  Bernice didn’t have much of an appetite. As she ate, the picture of blond-haired and bespectacled Mike Stroud, the man in the video, seemed to dance before her eyes. She tried to keep up the small talk to take her mind off it. But already she found herself thinking about going down into the basement where she’d seen the man struggling with an invisible assailant. I’ll go down tomorrow, she told herself, when Electra has taken the train into Whitby for a morning’s shopping. Then I’ll turn detective and investigate what happened to him.

  As she sipped her wine she looked at David Leppington. He was smiling and chatting easily to Electra. A pair of dark eyebrows arched attractively above his bright boyish blue eyes.

  When he turns those blue eyes to me, what does he see? she asked herself. This was an old game of hers. She could slip into it without trying. She would imagine she looked at herself through other people’s eyes. Maybe he likes my brown eyes and fair hair? But he must think I’m awkward and unsophisticated compared to Electra, who could quote Shakespeare or recite a line or two of Keats or Oscar Wilde in that fluid and self-assured voice of hers.

  And the blue nail varnish is a mistake, Bernice, she scolded herself, glaring at her blue nails as if they’d mischievously daubed themselves when she wasn’t looking; it makes me look like a giddy fourteen-year-old. And now they’re talking about a subject I know nothing about. Is Epstein a sculptor? Or a poet? Or even a painter? He could even be a minor character out of Ren & Stimpy for all I know. I wish dinner was over and I could go back to my room.

  Bernice thought about the videotapes in the suitcase at the bottom of the wardrobe. She thought about the man in glasses. She thought about what paced outside her room at night.

  I’ll go down into the basement tomorrow. I will turn detective and find out who the man in glasses is — or was — and I will find out what happened to him.

  ‘Electra? Could you come through to the kitchen, please?’ Bernice snapped out of her daydream. One of the barmaids was talking to Electra.

  ‘Can’t it wait until after coffee?’ Electra asked.

  ‘There’s someone at the back door asking to see you.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘He won’t give his name.’

  ‘A man?’ Electra gave wry smile. ‘Mmm, perhaps it’s my lucky night.’ She dabbed her lips with the serviette. ‘If you’ll excuse me just for a moment. Duty calls.’

  Electra swept out of the room followed by the barmaid.

  ‘A formidable woman,’ David said to Bernice with a smile. ‘I wouldn’t like to get on the wrong side of her.’

  4

  Jason Morrow parked the car beside the Country Park’s public toilets. The grounds were in complete darkness. He could only make out the tops of trees against the rising moon.

  He paused only for a moment, rubbing the nubby lump of bone above his eyebrow.

  Come on, get it over and done with. Then you can go back to that Miss Piggy and bury yourself in a bottle of vodka in front of the television.

  He climbed out of the car, closed the door as silently as he could; here I come, he thought miserably, like a thief in the night.

  Lightly, he walked towards the men’s toilets.

  He wasn’t gay. In fact he’d punch anyone out who suggested it. Only he had this bizarre urge now and again. Once it was out of his system he’d be free of it for weeks, even for months. OK, so he’d have sex with a man. But still he told himself he wasn’t gay. The idea repelled him. Only he had this vice…this addiction…this itch that needed scratching.

  He walked into the public toilets. The urinals were dirty and stank of whatever pooled in the blocked drains. Illumination came from a single fluorescent tube that flickered and buzzed. This is where the local queers picked up their boyfriends … only he wasn’t queer, he told himself grimly. This was just a bizarre urge he must exorcize every now and again. Why, one day he’d wake up and know he’d never have to do this again.

  Maybe there’d be some rent boy locked up in one of the cubicles; then he could get this over and done within ten minutes flat.

  Damn…the toilets were empty.

  What now? Drive through to Whitby?

  No, it’d take too long.

  Maybe if he waited for a few minutes one of those filthy faggots would show.

  He locked himself into one of the cubicles. The lavatory bowl was stained. Toilet tissue formed a damp mat on the floor. Graffiti had been scrawled over the fibreglass doors and walls.

  The minutes rolled past. He waited in silence. Tense. Heart thumping. Sick with anticipation at the miserable, filthy, disgusting act he was about to perform.

  Someone would scurry into the place. He knew it. There was a sense of inevitability about it, like the anticipation of a convicted murderer about to be taken to the chair.

  The light buzzed, flickered. The stink bit into the back of his throat. Then his heart missed a beat. He held his breath and listened.

  He heard a light footstep outside the door.

  At last someone was here.

  Mouth dry, he eased back the bolt and opened the door.

  That was the moment the light went out.

  5

  ‘Shall we keep him?’

  ‘Pardon?’ asked Bernice, puzzled. After Electra hadn’t returned from the kitchen she’d gone to investigate. She found Electra looking out of the window and into the rear courtyard of the hotel, a strange smile playing on her face.

  ‘Keep him,’ Electra repeated and nodded at the window. ‘You know, for a pet, a plaything?’

  Still puzzled, Bernice looked out. Under the hard electric courtyard light she saw a young man. His face was covered with tattoos. He was moving crates of beer bottles from one of the outside stores to the back door. The halogen light cast his shadow so it appeared as a distorted yet gigantic beast shape that shambled across the courtyard walls.

  ‘He looks as if he’s just escaped from jail,’ Bernice said, shivering. ‘I don’t like the look of him at all.’

  ‘Mmm…’ Electra agreed dreamily. ‘He’s got some compelling quality, though. You find yourself staring at him, don’t you?’

  ‘I think he looks like a monster. He’s probably a mugger.’

  ‘At least he’s making himself useful, seeing as Jim hasn’t bothered to turn up again.’

  ‘Who is he?’

  Electra shrugged. ‘He just turned up at the door asking for work in exchange for accommodation.’

  Bernice looked at Electra, shocked. ‘You’re never going to let him stay here?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘He’s a thug.’

  ‘Mmm, maybe. But he might make an entertaining diversion from the eternal ennui.’

  Bernice gave a nervous laugh. ‘Entertaining? You are joking, aren’t you?’

  ‘I’m perfectly serious, my dear. Have you seen those scars on his face? And those tattoos? Isn’t that Man in his raw primordial state?’

  ‘Electra, he looks like a wild animal. Why on earth would you want him staying in the hotel?’

  ‘I’m sure I could come up with something.’ She smiled the collusive smile.

  Bernice was appalled. She also wondered if there might be a streak of sheer insanity — suicidal insanity at that — in Electra’s otherwise polished character.

  ‘Please, Electra. Send him away. Just look at him. Don’t you think he’ll be dangerous?’

  ‘Mmm, I know he’ll be dangerous. Now, compose yourself, dear. Her
e he comes.’

  6

  He pushed open the door with his foot. He carried the crates full of beer as easily as if they were feather-filled pillows. The two women in the kitchen couldn’t take their eyes off him. The tall one smiled. She wore leather kecks. Her hair looked as near to blue as black. The other one with blue nail varnish looked scared.

  They had every right to be scared. Weird little bitches.

  ‘Where do you want these?’ he grunted.

  ‘Just there, by the fridge,’ the tall one said, still smiling.

  He knew she was going to ask his name. He also knew she’d let him stay there. He didn’t know why he twatting well knew. Like he knew today was Friday, and tomorrow was Saturday. He just knew and that was that.

  A name?

  Which name would he give?

  He set the crates down. The bottles rattled. Beer is piss. He didn’t know why people drank it. All booze is piss. People hide inside booze like rats hide in a hole from dogs.

  ‘That’s great, thank you,’ said the long-boned bitch. ‘Oh, you’ve got blood on your hand. Have you hurt yourself?’

  ‘No,’ he said. The blood wasn’t his.

  ‘Now that’s a coincidence.’ The bitch smiled. ‘Two men come to my hotel on the same day and both have blood on their hands. Do you think that’s an omen?’

  He gave her a glassy stare. He didn’t smile and he certainly didn’t intend replying.

  ‘Great.’ She still smiled but it looked forced.

  Suddenly words popped into his head. Well, thank you for helping out. You’ve really saved the day. Can I get you a drink, Mr — ah?

  He gave a quick smile. Sometimes the words came into his head like that before the bitches and the twats said them.

  The tall bitch, still smiling, said, ‘Well, thank you for helping out. You’ve really saved the day. Can I get you a drink, Mr — ah?’