The Touch

by Brian Lumley

  Dusk was settling outside as Scott replaced the strip of film, Kelly’s Hat-field Evening Standard article, and the four grainy photographs back in their manila envelope. It was then that he saw and recognized a name scribbled on the envelope’s flap: B. Comber, along with a telephone number.

  Scott remembered having met Comber.

  Some three years ago, before Comber had begun working for the BBC, at a time when he and Kelly were doing some lucrative work together, Kelly had invited him and his wife Joanne around for drinks one night. Just a month or so later Joanne had run off with a tax adviser from Liverpool and her husband had sued for divorce. After that Scott had lost track of him but Kelly had stayed in touch through their work.

  Aware now that the film strip had come from Comber—and some of the photographs, too—Scott wondered if the man could perhaps tell him anything else about the day that Salcombe had visited those poor sick kids in St. Jude’s Hospital. There was an easy way to find out.

  Switching off the desk lamp, he left the now gloomy study and took Kelly’s diary and the manila envelope with him, downstairs to his own study. And putting on the lights, he poured the last of the cold coffee, took a sip, and called the number on the envelope. After two or three rings:

  “Comber,” came a slightly slurred male voice.

  “Bill?” said Scott. “It’s Scott St. John.”

  “Eh, who? Oh, St. John! Kelly’s husband.” And then, after a pause: “Lord, but I’d intended calling you! You know, commiserations, and all that? It must’ve slipped my mind.”

  The man had obviously had a few and it had left him a bit careless how he phrased things. “Don’t worry about it, I understand,” said Scott.

  “Shoulda called about Kelly, I mean,” Comber mumbled on.

  “I understand,” said Scott again, trying not to get angry. “In fact, it’s about Kelly that I’m calling you. I’d very much like to talk to you.”

  “A good kid,” said Comber. “Big heart. Sad loss. Deserved better. Really liked her.”

  “Right,” said Scott, and before Comber could say anything else, he followed up quickly with: “So would you mind if I came to see you—tonight maybe?”

  “Tonight?” Comber considered it for a moment or two, then said, “Not at all, old chap—in fact, it would be my pleasure. You see, I could maybe use some company. Me and the bottle, we don’t do too well on our own. Or rather I should say we do too well on our own, if you know what I mean. But you want to come and see me? Well, that’s fine. Do you know the way? I remember we live pretty close, actually.”

  And he gave directions . . .

  11

  Bill Comber’s house was something less than a mile away, in the direction of Wood Green. A detached, high-gabled two-story, it stood central in a large garden that had been left to run wild. Arriving there at around 8:30, Scott parked his car just inside the leaning iron gate and made his way along an overgrown crazy paving path to a porch with wet and rotting woodwork and a door that was flaking paint. To say that Comber’s place showed signs of neglect would be a serious understatement. Lights were burning in two of the downstairs rooms, however, and another glowed dimly under sagging ceiling beams in the porch.

  Having heard Scott arrive, Comber was there to meet him at the door. They shook hands and uttered the usual greetings, and Scott entered and shrugged out of his coat. Comber took it from him, then led the way down a corridor to his study: a room much like Scott’s and just as untidy.

  Comber was probably in his late forties. He was short and burly, overweight, starting to run to seed, and getting pretty thin on top. Tonight he was also flushed with liquor—it was on his breath and there could be no mistaking it—but he was steady on his feet and coherent, and Scott thought he probably handled his booze quite well; it could be that he’d had plenty of practice since his wife left. And anyway, who was Scott St. John, drunk driver, to sit in any sort of judgment on anyone?

  Comber poured him a liberal glass of whisky—not Scott’s preferred tipple; he could take it or leave it—before seating himself at a desk and waving his guest into an easy chair. And then he said: “Really, I had meant to call. Don’t know why I didn’t. But . . . we put things off, and suddenly it’s too late. How long’s it been? Six weeks, seven?”

  “Going on four months,” said Scott.

  “Christ!” Comber seemed genuinely astonished. “Like, where does the time go?”

  In answer to which Scott shrugged and said, “It just goes, but it takes a lot of stuff with it. And before everything goes completely there are some things I’ve been trying to work out.”

  “About Kelly? Know what you mean. I’ve been working things out myself, but on a different level. Well, how can I help? And what’s that you’ve got there?” He nodded, indicating the envelope in Scott’s hand.

  Scott got up and tipped the contents of the envelope onto Comber’s desk. “It’s some stuff you sent to Kelly, about a job she helped you with.”

  Spreading the photographs, the strip of excerpted film, and Kelly’s article across his desk, Comber glanced at each item in turn, frowned, and finally looked at Scott. “Simon Salcombe?” he said. “You want to know about that time Kelly saw him arrive at St. Jude’s, called us, and let us in on it? Yes, I remember. She really didn’t care too much for that bloke, and for that matter neither do I. That wasn’t the first occasion when I’ve tried to pin him down, but nothing works right when he’s around. Lights, cameras, microphones, and watches: everything goes on the fritz, completely out of whack!”

  Scott sat down again and said, “Really? Well, it looks like things were on the blink that day, too. These photographs aren’t very much good, are they?”

  “Only this one.” Comber grinned and tapped the picture in the cutting from the Hatfield Evening Standard. “Yes, she was a clever kid, your Kelly. Never said a word about this one! Let’s see now . . . hmmm!”

  While Scott sat waiting, trying not to show his impatience, Comber speed-read Kelly’s article. And in a little while:

  “Yes,” he said, “that was Kelly all right. Do you know why she had problems selling to the nationals, the broadsheets, the big-timers? It was because she was too outspoken. Other fellows might hint at this, that, and the other: in this case that Simon Salcombe was a fraud. But not Kelly. She always—”

  “—Shouted it out loud,” said Scott. “Yes, I know.”

  “Right! Not that Salcombe could sue or anything. He’s some kind of recluse, rich but retiring. To sue, say for defamation, he has to prove he’s not a fraud and Kelly’s telling lies about him. Which means a court case, which also means he’d be appearing in public. But the big papers couldn’t take the chance that he wouldn’t sue, and so couldn’t use Kelly’s stuff. Too fucking conservative by far! Chicken-shit bastards! They’re not slow to run down the little people, but they back off quick enough when they’re up against money.”

  “So you think Kelly was taking chances?”

  “I don’t, but the media probably did.”

  “But do you think Salcombe was capable of making it, well, a more personal thing?”

  Comber frowned. “How do you mean?”

  “Forget it.” Scott shook his head. “It’s nothing.”

  “Nothing? But you didn’t come here to talk about nothing!” Comber got up, took Scott’s glass, and poured more whisky. Scott found that odd, because he barely remembered drinking the first lot! It was all about how hard he was concentrating, how determined he was to track this thing down, how badly he needed some form of closure. But was it really closure he wanted? Or was he in fact seeking revenge?

  “Well,” said Comber, “what else can I tell you?”

  “About these pictures.” Scott went to the desk and picked up the group shot of the three sick children in their hospital beds. “How did you ever get permission to go inside St. Jude’s and photograph these poor kids?”

  “We didn’t.” Comber shrugged. “It was an intern. A junior doctor who h
ad about as much faith in Salcombe as Kelly and the rest of us. He took this shot secretly, just after Salcombe and the people who were with him cleared the ward.”

  Now it was Scott’s turn to frown. “Three kids in this picture,” he said. “Also in those other shots . . . but only two sets of parents?”

  Comber nodded. “That third kid, the youngest, he was there out of an orphanage. How’s that for a hell of a note? No Ma, no Da . . . just pernicious anemia. Doesn’t it get you right there?”

  “Yes, it certainly does,” said Scott, thinking, So that’s what they were sick with. “It makes you question a whole lot of things.” Then, picking up the rest of the photographs he asked, “What about these other pictures of the children? Did that same intern take them?”

  Again Comber’s nod. “He was trying to make a little money on the side. He was going to get some ‘before and after’ shots, sell them to us and do some debunking of his own. But he wasn’t much of a photographer. Either that or his camera was some kind of cheap foreign model. I mean, just look at these photographs. They have to be some of the worst shots you ever saw! Or there again, maybe it was the Salcombe influence.”

  “Come again?” Scott thought he was missing something here.

  “Like I told you,” said Comber. “Whenever Simon Salcombe’s around nothing seems to work. For example: Kelly’s picture when she got up close and personal with him outside St. Jude’s. Just take a look at it.”

  “I’ve looked at it,” said Scott. “Your strip of film, too.”

  “That, too,” Comber agreed. “We couldn’t use it so I binned it. I kept the bit with Kelly on it; dropped it in your letter box on my way home one night, along with copies of the intern’s crappy pictures.”

  But Scott was again looking at the group photograph of the three children, the shot that had been taken after Salcombe and the others had left the hospital. It was something he’d noticed—or half noticed—before, but he’d taken it to be an effect of either poor lighting, a faulty camera, or the quality of the photography in general.

  Comber saw Scott’s deepening frown and said, “What now? Is there something?”

  “Do you have a magnifier?”

  “Eh? Yes, sure. Hey, I’m a photographer!” And rummaging in a drawer in his desk, Comber produced a magnifying glass with a light. “It’s also good for reading road maps at night,” he said. “Can’t promise the battery is any good though. I don’t drive at night anymore and haven’t used it in a long time.”

  Scott took the magnifier, switched it on, gave it a shake until he saw the small bulb glimmer into reluctant life. Still frowning, he took extra care in studying the picture: a row of three children in their hospital beds, one too weak to look at the camera, another with a thin little grin on his face, actually waving, the third with his bald, baby-bird head tilted on one side, lolling there, looking for all the world like it was about to snap off at the neck. They were all bald in fact, all hollow-eyed boys, and all in deep, terminal trouble. But—

  “Are these kids wearing bandages?” Scott’s voice was very quiet, musing, almost as if he spoke to himself. “Some kind of cotton wool bandages on their wrists? What do you make of this, Bill?”

  Comber took the magnifier, squinted through it, said, “No, that has to be fuzz on the camera lens. Didn’t I say this bloke was a lousy photographer? Couldn’t even clean the lens off!”

  “Fuzz?” Scott wasn’t convinced. “Three lots of fuzz on the one picture, and all of it obscuring those kids’ wrists? That’s some kind of coincidence, isn’t it?” He took back the magnifier to use on the individual photographs this time, and said, “More fuzz here, too. And again it’s on their wrists . . .”

  “So maybe I’m wrong and it isn’t fuzz?” Comber was looking baffled. “Maybe they’d been given shots for their illness, some kind of chemo or mild radioactive treatment. Hey, I’m a photographer not a doctor!”

  Even less convinced, Scott shook his head. “No, and you’re no scientist either. Mild radiation couldn’t have done this. If it was radioactivity it would have to be hard. But hard radiation? In a children’s ward? And if that were so the whole photograph would be ruined, not just these small areas. So this has to be—I don’t know”—he shook his head again—“something else? Yes, and something very strange . . . very different.”

  Scott returned to studying the group photograph and for a while was silent. But then—once again in that quiet, musing voice, almost a whisper—he queried, “What is this? Is there something . . . something wrong with their wrists?” And giving a sudden, massive involuntary start, jerking as if galvanized as memories and images conjured by his own words flooded his mind with ice water, he husked, “Yes . . . it’s on their left wrists!” Then:

  Comber snapped back in his chair and almost toppled it as suddenly Scott leaned right over the desk, grabbed up the strip of discarded footage, and in anything but a quiet mode snarled, “God Almighty! Damn it to hell!”

  “Whoah!” Comber rocked forward again, sat up very straight and stiff-backed, and said, “What the . . . ? I mean, what’s wrong, St. John? What is it?”

  Shooting Comber a fierce glance, Scott growled, “Eh? What is it?” But a moment later he blinked, shook his head, and said, “I . . . I don’t know what it is.” And as quickly as that he was in his musing mode again—quiet but not quite calm, his hands trembling a little—as he stared at the film strip under the lens of the faintly glowing magnifier: those badly blurred and jerky frames that showed Salcombe as he grabbed at Kelly, holding her for a moment before thrusting her away.

  And repeating himself, but hoarse-voiced now, Scott said, “I’m not sure . . . I don’t know what it is.” And then, his tone of voice hardening, “But one way or the other, I’m definitely going to find out!”

  For there it was again, the blur that he’d seen before in Kelly’s study when he’d suspected that he was missing something—and indeed he had been. That selfsame fuzzy area that showed up on the wrists of those kids in the photographs.

  As for that look on Salcombe’s face: Scott saw now that it expressed a lot more than mere shock or surprise. In fact, Kelly was looking more surprised than Salcombe! Probably at the speed of his reaction: a rapid reaction indeed . . . perhaps because he wasn’t surprised at all, because he’d been expecting her to put in an appearance! Oh, the man’s hatred was there as before, but it was masking emotions other than hate. One more at least.

  And Scott saw it now.

  Salcombe’s was the look of a killer as he drives the knife in; his was the lightning strike of the cobra, sinking deep its fangs to inject its venom. And where Salcombe’s fingers gripped Kelly’s wrist—her left wrist—there was that same blurred area, Bill Comber’s “fuzz.”

  Scott began stuffing the photographs, film strip, and newspaper article back into the envelope . . . then paused. There was one last thing he needed to know, at least for the time being.

  “Bill,” he said to the now completely sober, wide-eyed man sitting behind the desk. “There’s something else you might be able to tell me . . . about these pictures of the kids. In their individual shots they all look a little bit better than in the group photograph. But if they were in the final stage of their disease, getting sicker day by day, how can that be? Some kind of brief remission, or what?”

  “Or what,” said the other, emerging cautiously from behind his desk. “I mean, it’s the damnedest thing! Remission? You can say that again! But we didn’t run the story; in fact, no one has run it—not even the more sensation-seeking rags! Why? Because One: nobody gives a damn for sodding Salcombe, and won’t do his advertising for him. Two: because it’s just too weird, a one in a billion freak that can’t ever happen again. And why should we put every parent with a sick child through all that, eh? They’d all want what isn’t possible, and all they’d get is hurt.”

  “They’d get hurt?” Scott repeated him. “A one in a billion freak? What do you mean? What kind of freak?”

  �
�The freakish kind, of course!” Comber replied. “St. John, listen. I don’t know how they work their miracles at St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital and I can’t say how it happened. But as for Salcombe’s involvement, well, that was a coincidence, of course. But I can tell you this: inside three weeks those kids were out of their beds, running riot in that place. What’s more, I have it on good authority that they’ve all made a full recovery . . .”

  Comber saw him out of the house. In the porch Scott offered his hand and his thanks. “This has been a real help,” he said. “I’m seeing things a lot clearer now. I only hope I haven’t been too much trouble.” He was being cool, calm, deliberately playing it down.

  “No trouble,” said Comber, still mystified as to what this was all about. “But, St. John—you take it easy, right?”

  “Yes, of course.” Scott nodded, knowing full well that he wasn’t going to take it easy. And breathing deeply of the night air he went back to his car.

  A full moon sat low over distant roofs and it was a beautiful night. Scott hardly noticed. He sat in the car, wound down his window, and lit a cigarette. Sitting there smoking, he tried to put his thoughts in order. But it wasn’t easy. Even here, in a stranger’s garden on a quiet night in early June, still there were distractions. One distraction at least: a distant, insistent barking. A dog’s voice—as sharp as a well-honed knife—slicing through the still night air.

  The animal itself might be more than a mile away, but its barking, punctuated with brief bursts of howling, sounded crisp and clear in Scott’s ears. It seemed odd, though, that he heard no answering cries from other dogs . . . But that aside, the more he listened the more he felt able to interpret this one’s barking; well, its meaning in general: an acceptable notion because obviously it must mean something. Dogs are intelligent and this one might be protecting its master’s property from prowlers, or it had treed a cat, or it was simply tracking a bitch’s spoor.

  But somehow Scott didn’t think so. It wasn’t like any kind of barking he’d ever heard before. Neither warning, threat, nor challenge, it was more as if this animal was asking a question. The same vexed question over and over again.