by Robin Jarvis
“I assure you, Mrs Thornbury, we’re doing all we can to find your son,” the sergeant told her.
“Well, obviously that’s not enough, is it?” she retorted. “You haven’t found him yet!”
“Would you like an officer to come over and be with you there?”
“What? No, I wouldn’t! If you’ve got people to spare, they should be out looking for my son!”
“We’re doing our best, Mrs Thornbury.”
“I’m sure you are,” she said sarcastically. Carol ended the call and bit her lips in frustration.
“What if they can’t find him?” she said. “I don’t know what I’d do. You hear about these things – kids disappearing. How many do they find safe and well? Not many. We’ll have to do one of those press conferences and appeal for help. The families on those always look shifty and guilty…”
“Carol,” Martin told her, “stop it. You’re torturing yourself. Paul hasn’t been abducted. He ran away. Whatever’s the matter with him, he isn’t stupid. He’s a bright kid. He won’t do anything silly.”
The woman pointed upstairs. “What he did to your collection was sensible then, was it?” she asked.
“No, but he was rational enough to write that message on the wall. Whatever he’s on will wear off eventually. He’ll come back then.”
“You still think it was that stuff in those jars!” she cried. “It was the book, Martin.”
“Rubbish!”
“I’m not going to argue with you. I should be out there looking for him.”
“Where? Where do you think you can look that the police haven’t?”
“I can’t just sit here waiting.” Carol grabbed the car keys again and headed for the door. “I have to feel as though I’m doing something.”
“So you’re just going to drive round Felixstowe all night long, is that it?”
“It has to be better than doing nothing.”
“I’ll come with you!”
“No, one of us has to stay – in case he comes back.”
“Why does that have to be me?”
“Because I’m his mother!” she shouted.
The phone rang and Carol ran to it. “Paul?” she cried desperately. “Oh… no. Hello, Gerald. No – no word. Yes, we’re still waiting. Look, I can’t talk, I was just on my way out – here’s Martin.”
She pushed the phone across. Martin scowled at her, but she was out of the house before he could do anything.
“Hello?” Gerald’s voice sounded from the phone. “Hello?”
Martin heard the car leave the driveway and he reluctantly lifted the phone to his ear. “Hi,” he said wearily. “Sorry about that. She’s in a state – as you can imagine.”
They had already spoken to Gerald Benning earlier, but he hadn’t seen anything of the boy.
“Poor Carol,” the old man said. “It’s a nightmare.”
“Yes, yes, it is.”
“I never thought Paul would do something like this.”
“No, me neither.”
“What was that you were saying yesterday about a book?”
Martin wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone. Gerald was a lovely, sweet old guy, but the maths teacher just wanted to be left alone right now.
“Oh, just a book that’s become part of this craze at school,” he said. “Listen, I really have to…”
“I still can’t understand how you think it’s to blame for this.”
“I don’t, not any more…”
“And it was written by who?”
“Doesn’t matter… Austen someone. No, Austerly someone. Like I said, it doesn’t matter. I really have to get going…”
There was a long pause and Martin thought Gerald had quietly put the receiver down. Then the old man said, “Austerly Fellows?”
“Yes, that’s the one. I’ll call you in the morning, Gerald.”
“Martin!” the old man’s voice was suddenly forceful and urgent. “Martin! Don’t hang up!”
“What’s the matter?”
“Oh, my dear Lord. Martin – I’m so sorry. So very sorry.”
“Gerald?”
“I should have listened to you. You were right the other day. You say that book was written by Austerly Fellows?”
“Yes, why?”
“You don’t know who he is? What he was?”
Martin held the phone away from his face. What was Gerald gabbling about?
“I do know, Martin!” the old man declared. “I know. And Paul is in far greater danger than you can ever imagine.”
“Thanks, Gerald, that’s just what I needed to hear.”
“Come round. Come round here – you have to be told, you have to know.”
“Eh?”
“Martin, I’m serious. Come round right now.”
“I’m not going anywhere. Carol’s just gone out and someone has to stay here, just in case.”
“Tomorrow then!”
“That depends what happens tonight.”
“I’m begging you!”
“OK,” Martin promised, taken aback by the intensity of the old man’s plea. “What’s the big deal? Why can’t you just tell me now?”
There was another pause. “Because there’s something I have to show you,” he replied.
“What sort of something?”
“I can’t explain over the phone, but I’ll tell you this much… the police won’t be any use to you – not in this.”
Martin frowned. It wasn’t like Gerald to be so cryptic and he sounded genuinely afraid. Then he remembered one of the last things Paul had said to him in the playground yesterday morning – when he was still normal. He had told him to Google Austerly Fellows.
“Gerald,” he said suddenly. “I have to go. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Before the old man could answer, Martin put the phone down and ran upstairs. His own computer was splashed with blue paint so he sat down in front of Paul’s.
The PC blinked on. Martin hesitated. What was he doing? Was he admitting there might be some supernatural explanation for these events?
“Ridiculous,” he said aloud. “I’m just checking, that’s all.”
The Google search showed its results. Martin clicked on the Wikipedia article. The page appeared and Martin found himself staring at the black and white photograph of an unpleasant-looking man in monk’s robes. He began to read.
Austerly Fellows (1879–1936) The self-styled ‘Abbot of the Angles’ and ‘Grand Duke of the Inner Circle’…
Martin stopped. There was a spot of grime on the screen. He scratched at it, but it was beneath the glass. Then he noticed another – and another. As he stared at them, they increased in size and more began to bloom across the monitor. It was like mould, ugly black mould. Within moments, it had spread over the whole screen, totally obliterating the Wikipedia page. Martin grabbed the mouse and dragged it round and punched at the keyboard, but the screen remained dark. Then he smelled a horrible reek of damp and decay. It was coming from inside the monitor. A thread of smoke rose from the back, followed by a snap and a spit of sparks. Martin jumped out of the chair and pulled the plugs from the wall.
“What the hell?” he exclaimed as crumbs of black fungus dripped from the monitor on to the desk. The man hurriedly left the room and slammed the door behind him.
“OK,” he said. “Now I’m ready to believe!”
Carol drove aimlessly around the town. She had seen nothing for hours. Felixstowe was eerily silent. As she trawled through those empty streets, she became increasingly uneasy. The fear for her missing son was paramount in her mind, but gradually another thought nudged its way forward through that pain.
All of the houses she passed were dark, with drawn curtains, but many times, in the rear-view mirror, she thought she caught a movement in those dead windows. A curtain corner lifted or a blind swayed back into place. At first she told herself it was her imagination and then, when it happened more and more, she reasoned it was only natural for people to wonder who
was driving by so slowly at such a late hour. But there was a furtiveness about it that wasn’t normal. She never saw any faces. No lights were switched on. It was sly and stealthy, marking her progress through the town.
At half past two, when Carol was certain she had been observed from every house in one street, she stopped the car, slammed the heel of her hand on the horn for a full minute, then got out.
“I’m looking for my son!” she yelled at the top of her voice. “Have you seen him? Do you know where he is? Can anyone help me?”
The houses remained dark. No lights snapped on. No one appeared at the windows to see what the commotion was – and that, in itself, was sinister and threatening. Carol suddenly felt alone and afraid. She hurriedly jumped back into the driving seat, revved the engine and headed home.
Martin was dozing on the settee when she returned. The woman covered him with a coat and slid into the armchair opposite. How could she sleep, knowing Paul was out there somewhere? Only then did she realise that in all the time she had been out, she hadn’t seen a single police car.
The hours before dawn crept slowly by.
At six o’clock sharp, she called the station. There was still no news. The policeman on the duty desk assured her that officers had been out searching for her son. Carol didn’t believe a word of it and her responses were so angry they woke Martin in the next room.
Scratching his stubble, he came into the hall to find her staring at the phone – a look of disbelief and shock on her face.
“What’s happened?” he asked, fearing the worst.
Carol turned to him slowly. “Nothing,” she uttered. “Still no word, but…”
“But what?”
“The policeman just then… when he said goodbye, just before he rang off… he said, ‘Blessed be’.”
“My God,” Martin murmured.
“I’m so scared,” she said. “What’s happening? I got spooked driving out there last night. I’m not paranoid. This thing, this madness, is getting bigger and bigger.”
“Dancing Jacks,” the man muttered. “Paul was right, you were right.”
“What can we do?”
“Come and see Gerald with me. He’s got something he wants to show us.”
“What is it?”
“I don’t know, but he was very insistent.”
“I don’t like the thought of no one being here in case Paul comes back,” Carol said. “Look, I want to go and see my mother, make sure she’s OK. Wait till I get home before going to Gerald’s, OK?”
Martin agreed. After a shower and breakfast, he spent the rest of the morning clearing his inner sanctum. The debris filled seven bin bags. There was nothing worth keeping. Once he looked into Paul’s bedroom. It smelled of damp in there and there was a patch of mould on his desk where the monitor had leaked. The man pulled the door shut and shivered.
Carol didn’t return from her mother’s until late in the afternoon. On the way she had stopped off at the police station in the vain hope of finding someone who wasn’t under the influence of that book, but she couldn’t get past the officer on the desk. He had stared at her with large, dark eyes and assured her everything would be fine.
Her own eyes were sunken with grief and tiredness. In spite of her protests, Martin put her to bed. She would be no use to anyone if she didn’t get some rest.
A little while later the maths teacher got in the car and drove through the town. For a Saturday afternoon, Felixstowe was very quiet. Martin only saw a handful of people going in and out of the shops and there was hardly any traffic on the roads. He reached Duntinkling, the guesthouse of Gerald Benning, in next to no time.
The muted sounds of the old man’s piano greeted him as he stepped from the car. It was something tuneful by Ivor Novello. Martin recognised it from the movie Gosford Park. It was the only way he ever knew music, through soundtracks. He was a total ignoramus otherwise. He waited for the song to end, then pressed the bell.
Presently there came the sound of clipped footsteps ringing along the hallway and the front door opened.
Martin was halfway through saying hello when the word froze on his tongue. The person who had answered was not Gerald Benning. It was an elderly-looking woman with austerely coiffed steel-grey hair and horn-rimmed spectacles attached to a fine chain that looped around her neck. She wore an old-fashioned but smart black evening dress and a double string of pearls with matching earrings. She looked at Martin with impatient curiosity.
The man blinked at her. He had seen her many times in his life, on the television and once in the theatre – Professor Evelyn Hole.
Martin’s thoughts stumbled clumsily. Here was one half of Hole and Corner, the once famous double act. Gerald Benning and his late partner, Peter Drummond, had created two of the most endearing and fondly remembered characters in British entertainment. Hole and Corner were two genteel but vivacious spinsters. The act was simple and brilliant. They were supposed to be part of a musical quintet. The stage would be set with all five instruments, but the other three musicians never, ever turned up. There was always a different and hilarious reason for this and Hole and Corner would have to amuse the audience as they waited in vain for the others to arrive. They did this by relating funny anecdotes about their errant colleagues and performing songs in their absence, eventually playing each of the forsaken instruments themselves.
They were so successful at portraying these two temperamental but lovable old ladies from a bygone age that some people refused to believe that they were really two men in drag. In fact ‘drag’ was the wrong term entirely. This was no crude, ‘I’m a Lady, I do Lady things’ type of sketch that couldn’t sustain interest for more than five minutes at a time. The illusion here was absolute. Their skill at weaving this convincing world made their audiences long to believe it was true and their policy of never giving interviews as their real selves helped it along enormously.
Martin continued to stare. He was trying to look through the impeccable, yet simple, make-up of the woman standing before him, to see if he could recognise anything of Gerald in there. But no, it really did stand up to close scrutiny. Carol had always warned him that if he was ever lucky enough to be introduced to ‘Evelyn’ then he had to obey certain rules. Staring with your mouth open, trying to see the joins in the disguise, was a definite shattering of rule number one.
“Yes, young man?” a female voice, not a bit like that of Gerald Benning, asked.
Martin hastily pulled himself together, but questions were gurgling through his mind. Why was Gerald dressed up like this? They had cancelled tonight’s dinner over the phone yesterday, as soon as they told him Paul had run away. Then he recalled what Carol had once explained about ‘Evelyn’.
The Hole and Corner act had been in existence for over thirty years and in that time Gerald and Peter had created a detailed and totally believable life and history – not just for those two characters and the always absent musicians, but also their whole world. When Peter had died, taking the querulous Bunty Corner (MBE) with him to the grave, Gerald found he couldn’t kill off Evelyn. She had been such a massive part of his life for so long, he felt it would have been disloyal, even disrespectful, to pretend that she never existed. To him – and indeed to the millions who enjoyed their performances – she did. And so, every few months, Professor Evelyn Hole was allowed to breathe again, and enjoy the house she had paid for.
Carol had her own theory as to why Gerald had to keep his alter ego ‘alive’. Yes, it was another way of keeping the memory of Peter fresh and close, but it wasn’t just that. After imbuing Evelyn with such vivid life and energy for so long, perhaps she really had taken over a part of the old man’s psyche and refused to be forgotten. She was bonded to his identity now. Anyone who was honoured enough to be let in to enjoy her company on these occasional reappearances understood that they had to maintain the illusion completely. Those who blundered, or were crass enough to try and catch her out, were never invited back.
“I’
m Martin,” the maths teacher said, remembering this basic premise, but still wondering why this charade was being played out. “A friend of Gerald’s.”
“Ah, yes,” Professor Hole answered as though meeting him for the first time. “Carol’s fiancé, the one who’s frightfully clever at sums. I’ve heard so much about you from Gerald – all good I might add. Do come in.”
Martin followed Evelyn into the large, airy house and she led him into the gleaming designer kitchen. She glanced sniffily at the brushed steel surfaces – the decor wasn’t to her taste at all.
“I’m so deeply sorry to hear about my friend Paul,” she told Martin. “Have you heard anything more?”
Martin shook his head. This was really weird. The walk, the mannerisms, the vocal inflections, the bird-like tilt of the neck, this really could be an old lady.
“Nothing from the police,” he replied. “But Carol thinks they’ve been got at by the book now as well.”
Evelyn clasped her hands before her. “This is a deadly business,” she said gravely. “You may not realise just how perilous it is. Typical of Gerald not to see the significance of it straight away when you first told him. The man’s a perfect imbecile at times. I don’t know why you and Carol put up with him.”
Martin wasn’t sure how to react to that.
“Gerald said he had something to show me,” he said, really hoping it wasn’t simply this performance. He had always wanted to meet Evelyn, but this wasn’t an appropriate moment. There wasn’t time for this today.
“I upbraided him for not going straight round to show it to you last night!” Evelyn declared. “But what’s done is done. Let us hope it isn’t too late.”
“What isn’t?”
“You must learn and understand what you’re dealing with here,” she told him. “That man, Austerly Fellows. Anything to do with him… is incalculably dangerous.” She paused and pointed at the designer kettle. “Would you like a cup of tea? It may be an ugly thing, but it still boils water. Please don’t ask me to make you a coffee. His machine looks like something from Flash Gordon.”
