The One Safe Place

by Ramsey Campbell

  "Bernard, this is—"

  "He's Bernard, is he? Got here fast. What kind of setup is this?"

  "Who's this? Where's he know me from?"

  "He's nobody, Bern. Just someone I met in the pub and, you know, brought home. Darren was winding me up, that's all, and I said I'd get you if he didn't behave."

  "Don't know what you think you're playing at sometimes, Marie, letting him see you with the customers. Have a bit of shame or you'll have him growing up with no respect. Chuck him out, any road. I want to talk."

  "See, I told you you weren't wanted, Darren. Maybe you'll do as your uncle says."

  "Not Darren, you daft bitch. This bugger with a belly for a neck."

  The man made a fist to go with the other one. "You want to watch who you're talking about, chum. I've had a few barneys in my time and come off better than the other feller."

  "You oughtn't to insult my friends, Bern. I've got to keep the money coming in with Phil being where he is."

  "I'll give you plenty if you'll kick this bugger out. Mother of Christ, lass, do him up against the back fence if you have to, just make it quick. He doesn't look like he'll take long."

  The man stepped forward, pushing Darren's mother aside. "Listen, matey, I've had just about e—"

  Bernard thrust his face into the man's and sucked hard on the cigar. "See this?"

  "Aye, it's an ugly mug with a stinker stuck in its mush."

  Bernard took the cigar out of his mouth and blew the end redder and poked it in the man's left eye. "Want to carry on seeing?"

  Darren hugged himself with delight and admiration. He almost called Marshall to come and see. The man stood his ground for quite a few seconds, and Darren thought he must be too terrified to move when his eye-socket was impaled on the cigar, in which case any moment now he should start dancing on the spot and waving his arms frantically and screaming. Then he retreated beyond Darren's mother, rubbing the eye hard, and Darren saw that the cigar hadn't been nearly as close as it had appeared to him. He felt disappointed and betrayed, and was trying to think of something to tell Bernard to make him go for the intruder when the man said, "No need to be like that. She came on all friendly. I thought I was on."

  "You want to thank me, pal. You might have caught something."

  Darren's mother grabbed both sides of her waist again, but the man spoke before she could squeeze out a retort. "I wouldn't call it worth four Bacardi and Cokes to find that out."

  "Cheap at the price, pal." Bernard bit hard on the cigar and walked fast at him, into his own smoke. When he took hold of the man's collar Darren thought he was going to use the cigar properly this time, but he only pulled a ten-pound note out of his pocket and stuffed it down the man's shirt. "Take that as a souvenir because I'm in a good mood. If I was you I'd get it framed to remind me never to come sniffing round here again. See the door?"

  "I'm going, I'm going." The man waddled along the hall, giving Darren the consolation that he was walking as though he'd shat himself. Having opened the front door wide enough to allow him a quick exit, he turned. "You lot against the rest of the world, eh?"

  "Couldn't have put it better myself," Bernard said, to Darren's frustration, and slammed the door behind the man. Darren's mother was waiting for her pose to be appreciated, but Bernard held up his hand, pointing the wet end of the cigar at her. "Don't start. Just listen. We've got some real money this time that we'll need to hide for as long as it takes, and I'll see to it there's a cut for you."

  "Who's we?"

  "Who do you think, with Jim dead and Brad on crutches waiting for his trial and Ken and Dave and Phil inside, all because of those bloody Yanks?"

  "That Barry again, is it?"

  "That's the feller. Only one I can trust that's left, even if he does get a bit out of hand with any bugger he takes a dislike to. Better have a ride for half an hour, Darren. He's not going to want you seeing what we bring in."

  This didn't seem a good time for Darren to announce who was in his room, but he couldn't very well go out and risk Marshall wandering into the midst of the delivery, because Barry might use that as an excuse to stash the loot somewhere else. "There's nowhere to go. You said I was the man of the house. Last time you wanted me to be the lookout."

  "All right, lad. May as well get some use out of you. I don't reckon Barry can vote against that."

  "I'll just get my Walkman, I mean my cap."

  "Sweet sainted Joseph, can't anyone of your age do a thing without one or the other? You'd think you couldn't wipe your bum without listening to that racket you call music and some bloody trademark stuck on your head."

  Darren was upstairs by now. He dodged into his room and shut the door and darted to the bed, snatching his baseball cap from the heap of clothes on the computer. Marshall peered between his fingers while he tried to worm his way farther under the quilt. "You stay like that," Darren muttered. "There's someone downstairs you won't want to see. Don't come out till I tell you they've gone."

  Marshall looked too scared to do anything else. Darren closed the door and hurried downstairs with a face that said he hadn't been talking. Bernard shoved his phone in his pocket and went into the back room to pull up the loose floorboard and hand Darren's mother the gun to wrap in a cardigan. "Put that somewhere you know where it is. Get across the road, lad. Barry's on his way."

  Darren loitered on the doorstep until Bernard snarled at him to get across the road. He went as far as the gate and listened for sounds from the house, Marshall screaming and maybe Darren's mother too, but when there was silence apart from the yelps of an injured dog he made himself walk to the opposite pavement, picking his way between turds on the tire-chewed strip of grass. Soon the old Post Office van with its official words scraped off belched to a halt outside his gate and Barry slid the door open, ignoring him after one glance.

  Darren was hoping to see him carry fistfuls of money into the house, to prove that nobody would dare to stop him or report him. Instead Barry lifted out of the rear of the van some bags of pet food, and came back for several plastic bags of straw. All of this might have appeared innocent if it hadn't been for the obvious presence of a lookout, and Barry must have realised that eventually, because he glared at Darren as he slammed the rear doors of the van and jerked his head to indicate the house as though it was his own. That enraged Darren so much that he took all the lime he could to cross the road, stopping to tie a shoelace that didn't need tying, although the delay made him itch to be certain that Marshall hadn't ventured out of his room.

  Before Darren reached the gate Barry had shut him out of the house. He ran along the path, spitting in as many directions as he could manage, and let himself in. There was nobody in sight, and only a mumble of voices from the back room. He edged that door open, and saw his mother and the two men sitting crouched forward around the hole in the floor, into which Barry was feeding a fat wad of used banknotes from one of the bags of rabbit food. "What the fuck you gawping at?" Barry said.

  "He's Phil's lad, he won't snitch. Come in as long as you've seen it, Darren, and shut the door."

  Barry was high as a kid on Ecstasy, maybe only with excitement. His metallic shaved scalp was shining with moisture, and the whitish flesh of his scar looked in danger of parting. As soon as Darren had closed the door he demanded, "Got any pets, lad?"

  Darren thought of Marshall being kept in his room, but he said, "No."

  "Wouldn't want you feeding your rabbit any of this. Here," Barry said, flinging him a bag of food. "Rip out its guts and get to the good stuff."

  He watched, rapidly tapping his heels in the air with his toes on the carpet, while Darren tried to poke his fingernails into the knot in the neck of the plastic bag. "Fuck, lad, you'd think you were unbuttoning some tart's dress," he said almost at once. "Just rip it like you'd rip her pants off."

  "Uncle Bernard doesn't like mess."

  "He puts up with it when it buys him seegars, don't you, Bern? More seegars than one of them Hollywood mongo
ls. What are you, lad, a spastic? Get a move on, we're all falling asleep."

  Darren took his time to spite him. He dug a fingernail into the knot and unravelled the plastic and thrust his hand inside the bag, cereal and grains gritting under his nails. He'd just taken hold of a wad of twenty-pound notes which he could barely fit his hand around when Barry straightened like a razor out of his chair and grabbing Darren's wrist, prised the wad loose. "That'll do you. Remember what it felt like and maybe when you're older you'll make somebody's fortune like my dad always said to me. Like he said, let someone else earn it for you, know what I mean?"

  For the moment his excitement had veered away from being dangerous. He placed the wad under the floor and started shaking his head, eyes wide and glistening. "Ever smash a crab with a rock, lad?"

  "No."

  "You want to get your mam to take you to Blackpool. I'm telling you, that's exactly what that guard's knees felt like. You should have heard him screaming at them bank girls to give us the money Like being on telly and winning the star prize, it was. Don't go away yet, here's another few grand we want you to have so you won't come back next week."

  Bernard's fixed look must have told him at last that he was talking too much. He said nothing more as he went for the packages like a dog clawing at bin-bags, scattering the contents across the carpet except for the notes, which he laid to rest under the floor. His expression was pinching itself grimmer, and once the last wad was stored he glared around him. "Don't know why you didn't bring the fucking neighbours in to watch while you was at it, Bern. Listen, lad, this is Barry talking to you. If anyone finds out about this I'll know it was you told them, and I'll do worse to your face than I got when I was your age, see it? Don't bring anyone in here, in the house, understand, till we've shifted all that, and don't even fucking dream of arguing with me. Shut your trap."

  Darren already had, and sneered inside himself at Barry for not knowing there was already someone else in the house. Nevertheless he felt nervous as the men headed for the van, Barry turning on his mother: "Every one of them notes is counted, so don't you even look at them." Suppose Barry's voice and the sound of footsteps made Marshall forget he'd been told to stay still? But there was no sound from upstairs as Bernard spoke. "Shouldn't be more than a couple of days," he told Darren's mother, and stopped to light another cigar before ambling after Barry down the path.

  "That's right, leave the woman to clear up as usual," she complained, bumping the door shut with her silvery arse, and in the instant before her eyes found him, Darren knew he wasn't going to tell her. Best to get rid of Marshall without anyone knowing. "Stay out while I clear up," she growled, which Darren knew meant she was going to look at the money—maybe more than look. As soon as she closed the door of the back room he ran upstairs.

  It ought to be easy. He only had to tell Marshall that the people he wouldn't want to see were downstairs so that he would creep out of the house, and once they were out, with the dark helping to confuse Marshall, Darren could improvise. He dodged into his room and switched on the light. "It's only me. Don't make—"

  He felt his free hand lurch to a halt in the air and dig its fingertips into the palm. He dashed to the bed and threw back the quilt, then he flung the wardrobe open before sprawling on the floor to look under the bed, and heaved all the piles of clothes onto the carpet, and jumped on the broken computer so hard he thought it would shatter as he grabbed the window frame. He held on long enough to survey the pavement beneath the few intact streetlamps, but it was no use. There was no more sign of Marshall outside than in the room.

  22 Inquiries

  Now that the police were coming to the house Susanne remembered Don had been there the last time they had, and that brought more memories alive. If only she had realised that he wasn't as opposed to Teresa Handley's offer of a weapon as Susanne... if only she had called the woman to tell her what to do with the offer... Whenever she thought of the woman Susanne was tempted to call her, but what would be the point? The writer hadn't forced Don to go for the weapon, he had made that choice himself without consulting Susanne, and now she had to wonder what choices Marshall might be making without her.

  She went into the front room and peered along the darkening street, where the only movements were of cars returning home. As her knuckles touched the chill glass of the window the first streetlamps lit up, showing her how dark it was. In some parts of the city it must already be darker. She stepped back so as not to frighten Marshall off—in case that could be any kind of possibility—and switched on the light, and hoped the view of the lit room from the far end of the street would act as a beacon. She imagined having to apologise to the police when they arrived, imagined how embarrassed she would be to have to tell them Marshall had beaten them to it, how much more embarrassed he would be, especially at having to apologise to them. She didn't fully realise how these thoughts were sustaining her until a police car as white as a headstone swung into view at the end of the road.

  She opened the front door as the car drew up outside the house. The breath she took as the headlamps faded and died felt as cold as the night was threatening to be. The car spread the white wings of its doors, and two men in black rose from it, capping their heads. The simultaneous closing of the doors sounded like a single blow with an enormous blade, and the houses were sending it flatly back when the foremost policeman opened her gate. "Mrs., or is it Professor Travis?"

  "Mrs. is fine."

  As he strode up the path she saw the scent tug his head the merest fraction toward the lavender plant. His large blue eyes, set widely in his broad round face, gave her the impression of being aware of much that he wasn't looking at directly, which compensated to some extent for his apparent youthfulness. His even more fresh-faced colleague closed the gate, holding the latch between finger and thumb as if it was a piece of evidence, and the blue-eyed policeman pointed both hands at Susanne. "Please. We'll follow."

  She mustn't expect them to be bringing her news. They took off their caps as they entered the house, but that only meant they were being polite. She shrugged off a chill which had followed them into the house and watched until both outer doors were shut, then she ushered them into the front room and sat facing the window. You didn't offer British policemen a drink on duty, she knew that much, or if you were supposed to offer one to allow them to refuse she hadn't time for the ritual, nor for making them coffee, nor for anything else that would delay their doing their job. As the blue-eyed policeman sat on the couch to her left she said, "I told you my name but I didn't get yours."

  "You told the station, the desk sergeant," he said with an air of gentle reproof which seemed to imply they had better be precise from the outset. "PC Askew and PC Angel."

  The initials didn't mean politically correct, she knew, and presumably he'd named himself first, because neither his eyes nor his hands had referred to his colleague, who'd found a seat to her right. Though he pronounced his own name with the accent on the first syllable, the names still sounded like a British comedy duo, and Susanne couldn't help reflecting that although it had taken an inspector and his team to deal with her videos, a couple of constables were apparently considered sufficient for Marshall. So long as they were good at their job, did it matter? They wouldn't be the only ones involved in the investigation. "What do you need me to tell you?" she said.

  Blue-eyed Askew produced a notebook and a rudimentary ballpoint without taking his eyes off her. "Your full name, Mrs. Travis, and your date and place of birth."

  All her resolution to conduct the interview as swiftly and efficiently as possible collapsed at once. "Do you really need all that at this stage? Can't you take a description of my son first? I only asked you to come here because your sergeant wouldn't let me phone it in."

  "I'm sure you can appreciate why, Mrs. Travis. If we started proceedings on the basis of every phone call we receive—"

  "Sure, but now you've seen I'm not a crank. I wish I hadn't had to phone at all. Can't you just put o
ut a description before you do the rest of the paperwork? There's too much of that in too many jobs these days."

  "So they say," Askew said, making his reluctance more apparent as he placed the pen and notebook next to the heap of essays on the table. "Have you any reason to suppose your son is in danger?"

  The question seemed cruelly direct even if it was legitimate. "I should think you'd know the possibilities as well as I do," Susanne said.

  "I take your point, but is there anything specific? How long has he been missing?"

  That was another question she would have preferred not to consider. "Nearly seven hours."

  "Seven hours." It wasn't clear what if any difference rounding up the amount made to Askew. "Can you tell us when he was last sighted to your knowledge?"

  "At school. Bushy Road School."

  "They had a half-day off, did they?"

  "No, he—" Susanne felt as if she was about to be compelled to pick her way through all the thoughts she'd already had. "He had a disagreement with the headmaster, and I'm afraid he walked."

  "A disagreement with the headmaster."

  "Over something someone had said about me. Don't get the idea he routinely goes AWOL. This is the first time, here or where we came from."

  "How long have you been in this country, Mrs. Travis?"

  That was Angel, whose long bony face had produced an almost invisible blond moustache once he was in the light. She wished he had remained silent if he was going to slow things down further. "Nine months. Is that relevant?"

  "Was your son happy with the move?"

  "Yes, very. It was his idea as much as, as anyone's. We wouldn't have done it if he hadn't wanted to."

  "You don't think it's possible he might have changed his mind."

  "I don't, because he would have told me. We've always talked." Askew's scrutiny was starting to play on her nerves; it felt like her own doubts rendered visible. "What?" she demanded, in the way she'd thought only characters in modes did.