“Not by picking you up.” She had remained asleep in his arms.
“Perhaps not, but I felt your breath beneath my chin.”
“I thought I saw a pulse in your neck.”
“I felt your breath, and it was time to wake.”
“Strange meeting,” he said.
He watched as she, remaining silent, raised her glass to drink. The wine had a deeper red than her lips. He became bolder. “We shall go to old Mrs. Grayson’s house. There may be a dress you can wear . . . Mrs. Grayson had a daughter.”
“Black beads,” she said. “Just black beads; nothing else.”
His sigh was soundless, and they did not look at each other. He was having his way and she was permitting it.
Somewhere out of sight a car squeezed the pebbles of the drive. “My mother,” he said. “There will be trouble.”
“Because of me?”
“Indirectly.”
Mrs. Appian came around the corner of the house and saw them. Peevish lines puckered her mouth.
“I thought you were in the office today, Richard.” She did not glance at Angela.
“I phoned them first thing and told them what to do.”
“But you know your father likes one of us to be there when he is away. It is the only way to run a business.” Mrs. Appian, soberly dressed and trim, but with a bright scarf at her throat, looked at the drink in Angela’s hand, and then at Angela’s clothes. The girl’s long dark hair contrasted strongly with her pale skin, and she hardly seemed to have the energy to smile. Why were his girlfriends always so docile? Maybe it was just as well, considering his temper. But this one was a worry. “Are you quite well, my dear?” she asked. “There’s not a scrap of color in your cheeks.”
Her son got to his feet. “That’s why I gave myself a day off, Mother. I’m looking after her.” He turned the conversation. “And where have you been today—the hairdresser?”
“I have not.” The softly gilded waves of her hair, not as pliant as they appeared, moved in a body with her head. “I have been to see poor Mrs. Grayson.”
“Strange,” he said, “we have just been talking about her. Drink?”
“My usual,” said his mother. “And what have you two been saying?”
He looked back over his shoulder as he stepped through the open French windows. “I have been telling Angela that nothing in the world would induce me to go to that gloomy old mansion of hers. I would be far too scared.”
Mrs. Appian laughed, and thought it necessary to defend her son. “That’s nonsense,” she said to Angela. “He’s as brave as a lion, especially in dark places. He always has been.”
“He’s far too brave for me.” Angela lowered her eyes. “He frightens me.” And Mrs. Appian saw that this strange girl was, in fact, foolishly afraid of her son.
“Let me tell you what he’s really like,” she said as she accepted the drink he had brought for her. “And, Richard, don’t you dare interrupt.” She tugged at his hand as if that would make him obey. “One day when he was still a little boy he went missing and we searched and searched until it got dark and he was nowhere to be found. I was frantic. And then, I don’t know why . . .” she looked up at her son “. . . it must have been a mother’s intuition, but I was convinced he must have gone round to Mrs. Grayson’s house, even though she was on holiday. And there we found him, inside, sitting at the foot of the stairs in the great empty hall . . . sitting there in the dark all by himself as though he wanted to spend the night there.”
He laughed. “So you see, Angela, I have the soul of a thief—I broke in.”
“Nonsense!” His mother slapped at his hand. “I had the key and you had borrowed it.”
“Stolen it to break in. That’s what I’d done.”
“Don’t be perverse! You had just heard the dreadful story of Mrs. Grayson’s daughter and it had affected you and made you sad. But you told me you had only gone there as a dare.”
Angela had hardly been listening. The heat and light made her head ache and her limbs were limp and lifeless and she wanted to be elsewhere, but she had to ask a question. “What happened to Mrs. Grayson’s daughter?” she said.
“Nobody knows,” said Mrs. Appian. “She disappeared long ago, more than fifty years now, and has never been seen since.” Once again she turned her eyes on Richard. “But this young man of mine was convinced as soon as he heard the story that she was dead. What a mournful child! And there he was, all alone in that great gloomy old tomb of a house, as if he was waiting for her!”
“Were you?” The words made Angela’s heart rock. They had escaped against her will.
“Maybe.” There was a smile on his lips below the blank lenses. “Who can tell?”
“He was so cold and pale,” said Mrs. Appian, “you can’t believe it to look at him now, the great ox.”
“I am the pale one.” Angela knew that her smile was thin and wan, and Mrs. Appian responded.
“You don’t look at all well,” she said, but her sympathy had an extra purpose. “Why don’t you take her home, Richard? The poor girl obviously needs to rest. And then you can call at the office—it would please your father.”
He did not attempt to get out of the car when he dropped her at the entrance to the apartment block. There was a sheen of bad temper on his face. “One day you’ll invite me up,” he said.
It was the one thing she could not do. She had to keep something of herself apart from him; if she surrendered too deeply she would lose him. She smiled, but said nothing and waited until he had driven away before she moved. And then she turned her back on the apartments and walked to where a little church brooded secretively among buildings much taller than itself. A bench in the corner of the graveyard had become a haven for her ever since she had met Richard and the heaviness had overtaken her limbs. She would sit there for hours, neither awake nor asleep, and let her mind drift aimlessly.
But today her hazy wash of thoughts slid and circled but was anchored in one place. She was puzzled by the attraction Richard Appian had for her. A hand went to her throat. Once before she had suffered the formidable anger of a powerful man, and bore the marks, yet she was once more being drawn to someone with the strength to lift her as if she weighed no more than a kitten . . . someone callous enough to rob an old woman. And she had not the will to refuse to help him.
It was dusk when he picked her up outside the apartments. There was a tense excitement in him about what lay ahead, and he only briefly asked her how she felt.
“I spent the afternoon resting,” she said. “Sitting among the leaves.”
“Like when I first found you.” He enclosed her cold fingers in the heat of his hand and she shuddered. “Are you afraid?”
She nodded, but nothing would have made her turn back. It was necessary for her to be with him. “Where is the house?” she asked.
“You must have seen it . . . it’s big enough.” And when they drove down the broad avenue with the arching trees it seemed familiar to her. “But we can’t park here,” he said, “we may be recognized.”
He drove on and parked in a side street, and as they walked back beneath the shadows of the trees he put his arm around her so that they would be taken as strolling lovers. But he did not kiss her and it was not until they had found the gate into the grounds and were moving through a tunnel of overgrown shrubbery that she made him pause and look down at her.
“Leaf mould,” she murmured, “can you smell it?”
The scent was in his nostrils. She held her face up to him and their lips met.
“You found me lying in leaf mould,” she said, and as their lips lingered she added, “It was like a bed.”
He sensed the thrill of fear and longing in her and spoke softly. “There are rooms with beds in the house.”
“I shall choose,” she murmured.
The moon had dipped near to the horizon, but enough light filtered from the sky to make the gray house-front stand out from the shadows. The windows were deep s
et in heavy stonework and the door was hidden within a porch. He had a key. “But no one will suspect us,” he said, “because I shall smash a window when we leave. It will look like a break-in.”
She hardly heard him. Now that there was no turning back she was reckless, and her heart churned. The empty hall opened around them like a dark church, and even though he took care that the heavy door should close softly at their backs the sound was picked up and ran away, echoing across the marble floor.
“It is all ours,” he whispered. “You can pick and choose whatever takes your fancy.”
“Black beads,” she said. “I want black beads.” Her heart clamored in her breast as though she had come to the end of an exhausting journey, and he turned to find her clutching at the wall and barely able to stand.
“There is no need to be afraid,” he said with the gentleness he was capable of when his will was being obeyed. “We are alone.”
“Take me upstairs.” She was aware that her gasping breath told him that she had not the strength to climb.
He picked her up and, cradling her in his arms, carried her across the hall. He trod so softly there was no sound, and as they stirred the quiet air she surrendered. She allowed her head to fall back so that her long, black hair brushed the banisters as he carried her higher. She had dreamt of this as she lay in the woods and the autumn leaves had drifted down. Long ago.
He felt her limbs quiver. “What is it?” he asked.
She did not answer. Long ago she had been in a man’s arms, resisting him, thrusting him away but unable to prevent him holding her closer and closer until his lofty forehead and the piercing eyes beneath the heavy eyebrows loomed over her and his mouth had found hers. And then, too weak to struggle, she had gazed up through the dark branches of trees while his lips, softly and moistly, had lain against her neck. A sudden sharp pain had made her cry out, and then the trees had stooped and watched her slide into blackness. It had happened long ago.
“You woke me,” she said.
He grunted, not knowing what she meant.
“I was asleep in the wood for a much longer time than you could ever guess.” The leaf mould had taken her down into darkness, and she had lain still for year after year as the tree roots explored her and held her fast in the earth. A man had put her there. “And then you came and woke me, Ricky,” she whispered.
They came to the landing and a long passage stretched ahead. It was she who, like a child, let her fingers trail along the wall until they found a door.
“Here it is,” she said.
The silence of the house was focused on the click as the handle turned and the door swung open. They went through. A sly patch of moonlight stood against the wall at the corner of a dressing table as though it had been waiting for them.
She put her arms around his neck and kissed his ear. “Black beads,” she whispered.
She slid out of his arms and went to where the moonlight lay. He heard a drawer open and her little chuckle of surprise. He moved toward her, but she ordered him to wait as she stepped into the shadow of a corner. He heard a soft sigh of garments and then the mirror of the dressing table tilted and the dying moonbeam fell on her where she stood.
She was unclothed, pale and vague, but against her skin two long loops of black beads hung down between her breasts to the shadows of her belly. She allowed him to carry her to the bed.
“The beads,” he said, “you knew where they were.” She laughed softly and drew him down. “This is my room,” she said. “You have brought me home.”
He did not understand, and she did not tell him of the slow revival of memory as he brought her through the hall and up the stairs. His hand touched her cool skin and felt the warmth beneath, and all questions fled from his mind. He was above her and joined to her, and her hands held his head and brought him closer as if to kiss him but, as his head tilted back in a spasm, her lips touched his throat.
The teeth that punctured his neck were part of his pleasure and he, without being aware, allowed her to drink. There was little noise in the room as her lips pressed against him, and as he was drained her heartbeat grew stronger and his grew less and less until it faded and failed.
She left him in the quiet of the night and, with her lips still wet, slipped from her mother’s house and returned to where she slept beneath the deep leaf mold.
JOEL LANE (1963–2013) was one of a new generation of British horror writers that included Nicholas Royle, Michael Marshall Smith, Mark Morris, and Conrad Williams, who began their careers in Margaret Thatcher’s 1980s and came to dominate the field with stories that combined traditional horror themes with the social, sexual, and political upheavals of the time.
Perhaps more than any of his contemporaries, Lane’s fiction continued to rally against the system and prick our conscience beneath a deceptive veneer of genre fiction.
The author of the novels From Blue to Black and The Blue Mask, and the novella The Witnesses Are Gone, his short fiction is collected in the British Fantasy Award-winning The Earth Wire and Other Stories, The Lost District and Other Stories, The Terrible Changes, Do Not Pass Go, and Where Furnaces Burn, which won the World Fantasy Award.
Joel Lane also published four books of poetry and edited the anthologies Birmingham Noir: Urban Tales of Crime and Suspense (with Steve Bishop), Beneath the Ground, and Never Again (with Allyson Bird).
Edited by Peter Coleborn and Pauline E. Dungate, Something Remains was a 2016 anthology of stories based on and inspired by notes left by the writer, while the same year Mark Valentine and John Howard edited This Spectacular Darkness, which collected some of his critical essays on horror and fantasy fiction.
Your European Son
Joel Lane
Dracula’s nature demands that vampires should be superior to the human race, and so he begins to build his criminal empire . . .
Each decade’s big ideas struggle on into the next decade, looking more and more out of place. Then they either die or get revived. Graphic design was one of the big ideas of the 1980s: everyone needed it, or thought they did. By the end of the 1990s, it had been absorbed into the industries it served, and was no longer any way to make a decent living.
Two years out of college, Richard Wren was a freelance designer living on the breadline. Then a chance conversation in a rough pub near his lodgings in Tyseley got him into a new line of business. The supply side of the black economy. Car parts, office equipment, computer hardware, lifestyle accessories, even medical supplies as well as no end of pharmaceutical drugs . . . it all had to come from somewhere.
Straight robbery was only a part of it; often the “victim” was involved in the deal, claiming insurance as well as a cut. Or someone was going behind his employer’s back. Likewise, getting away with it had as much to do with negotiation as fast cars. It was setting-up a job, and clearing up after it, that Wren was useful for.
He wasn’t a hard man. He was cute, and plausible, and had a certain little-boy-lost quality that wasn’t entirely fake. As an added bonus, he knew how to handle computers. A bit of erudition and charm went a long way in the subculture of no-mark petty crime. It helped to smooth the edges and prevent mishaps. Wren’s associates weren’t into bloodshed: it had no commercial value.
He kept up the day job, such as it was. Appearances counted for everything. Still, the night work enabled him to move to a better flat.
He was looking at the posh tower blocks on the edge of the city center when Matthews, a locksmith with a useful collection of duplicates, told him about the vacant flat in Schreck’s house. Wren knew what that meant. All of Schreck’s tenants worked for the same firm, and were answerable to him. Not that Schreck was the boss, as such. He was just a good fence. Good fences made good neighbors. Schreck’s basement was an almost legendary depot for all things dodgy. Being his tenant meant that you were relied upon. The rent was low, but there were attendant responsibilities.
When Wren hesitated, Matthews suggested that it would not be in his fi
nancial interests to turn down the offer. Wren agreed to the verbal contract with only a flicker of unease. He was all for job security. Besides, he was curious.
Schreck had a bizarre reputation. He came from some Central European country no one had heard of, and had been one of Warhol’s crowd in late-1960s New York. He’d struggled through the 1970s as a rock producer and film technician, before coming to England and getting into business crime (another big idea of the 1980s). He’d brought some Warholian theatrical camp with him. Apparently he was never seen by day, and always wore black fabric: satin, velvet, that sort of thing. His face was dead white, except for the bloodshot eyes and shiny lips. Matthews and the others usually referred to him as “the Count”—which, after a few drinks, was sometimes slurred to “the Cunt.” He was as bent as a Shadow Cabinet election, obviously. But it went without saying that he had to be fucking dangerous to get away with all that. Like Ronnie Kray or something.
Wren moved into the house in early summer. It was an old detached house, newly renovated and painted white, with leaded windows that weren’t quite transparent. The district was a bright mixture of the fake-suburban and the austerely commercial, both elements having the cold smell of money. But it was only a few miles up the Warwick Road to the flaking white-trash districts of Acocks Green and Tyseley, and more criminal contacts than even Schreck would know what to do with.
The landlord was away on business the weekend Wren moved in with his computer, box of CDs and four suitcases full of Top Man shirts and worn-out jeans. But on the Wednesday, just after nightfall, there was a firm knock at the door of Wren’s studio flat.
“Come in.”
The door swung open. Schreck was a big man: he had to stoop to get through the doorway, and his handshake wrapped around Wren’s knuckles like a boxing glove.
“Nice to meet you,” he said. “I hope you’ll be comfortable here.”
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