The Count of Eleven

by Ramsey Campbell

  She was lying on top of the quilt of the double bed, staring up. Her eyes were as blank as the ceiling. "Are you all right, Mummy?" Laura said.

  Her mother turned her head to her with not much more expression in her eyes. "Just trying to relax for a few minutes."

  "Oh, okay," Laura said quickly. "I'll—" She was about to say she would go out cycling for half an hour, but that wouldn't help her mother relax. Her not being able to go for a ride made the house feel smaller, and so did knowing they weren't going to move to the house by the river. "I'll be downstairs," she said.

  Her mother managed to smile. "I wasn't sending you away, love. Have you finished your homework? Then keep me company if you like."

  Laura kicked off her shoes and lay down, resting her head on her mother's shoulder. Her mother patted her tummy and stroked it, and Laura felt that relaxing both of them. When she felt it was safe to do so she said "What did Daddy want?"

  Her mother laughed with so little feeling that the sound barely rose out of her mouth. "Oh, just what all men need sometimes, apparently."

  "What?" Laura said, not sure that she wanted to know.

  "An evening out with the boys. One boy, at any rate, by the sound of it. I assume it's a boy, I mean a man." She rolled her head from side to side on the pillow and gave an even feebler laugh. "If I'm not careful I'll be starting to sound like a wife in a Laurel and Hardy. I know he needs to unwind like the rest of us. I just never realised how much harder that is when you're out of work."

  Laura didn't know what to say to that. After a while she said "Mummy?"

  "Yessy?"

  "Could we sell our holiday?"

  Her mother propped her chin on her hand so as to look down at Laura. "Why would we want to do that?"

  "I thought we could put the money towards a house."

  "The bank would gobble up the money, love, and go on refusing us a mortgage. Would you really want to sell that holiday?"

  "No," Laura admitted.

  "Then don't even think about it. We'll see to it that Crete makes up for everything, won't we?"

  When she was convinced that Laura agreed she lay back. At least being fierce seemed to have cheered her up. Laura snuggled against her, feeling comfortable and safe, and said "When's Dad coming home?"

  "About seven, I'm told. I'll get up soon."

  Laura remembered being as young as lying in her mother's arms was making her feel. She'd built a town of upturned bucketfuls of sand on the beach and had tried not to cry when she'd seen the river coming to wash away her houses. The memory seemed deliciously sad; she found herself feeling sorry for the little girl she'd been. She could almost hear the waves and smell salt water and hot sand, but now they were in Crete, and the music bright as sunlight was so loud that she didn't need to get up and switch on the tape. The rhythms of the slow waves and of her breathing merged, and the bed floated away on a calm blue sea. Lying in her mother's arms had turned into sunlight and warmth. It seemed to Laura that if she lay quite still this might go on for ever, and she thought it almost had when she heard the van draw up outside the house.

  Her mother was asleep. Laura eased herself off the bed and closed the bedroom door quietly behind her. As she reached the top of the stairs she heard the key fitting into the lock. The front door opened and her father came in.

  She saw him before he saw her. He looked dazed, though perhaps that meant he was so deep in himself as hardly to know where he was; after all, Laura had just been in that state. "Did you have a good time?" Laura whispered, and clutched her mouth to trap a giggle; either he was putting on a show for her or he really didn't know where her voice was coming from. He spun round and stared at the letter-box, he made a visor of his hand and peered along the hall, and only then did he raise his eyes to her. She thought he was going to perform a double-take, but instead he said "Hmmm?"

  "Did you have a good time?"

  "I thought that's what you said. I've had worse."

  "Are you drunk?"

  "I suppose you could say that," he told her as though the possibility had only just occurred to him.

  "Who did you go out with?"

  He responded with most of a smile. "You'll be a good wife," he said. "Just someone I thought might be able to help."

  "Did they?"

  "We'll have to wait and see, won't we?" he said, pushing open the door of the front room. "Where's Julia?"

  "Asleep."

  "She needs it. Let's leave her that way. I'll make dinner if you'll trust me not to set the place on fire."

  "I'll help."

  "What, to set fire to it?" This time his smile was even more lopsided. "I'm getting tasteless. I'll have to watch myself."

  "We tell worse jokes than that at school."

  "I'll bet you do. Well, that's one thing jokes are for, to let us own up to our secret selves. Come on and we'll find something to keep me out of mischief."

  He seemed disappointed that the casserole was already filled and simmering. He lifted the earthenware lid and poked the ingredients with a fork to see what they were. "No leeks," he said. "What this needs is leeks. We'd better take a leek."

  Laura couldn't tell how much of this was an act which he was performing to amuse her. His jokes seemed to be coming in waves. She watched him take a bunch of leeks out of the vegetable rack and wash them and chop them up. When he started to drop them in the casserole she said "Don't you think you should cook them a bit first?"

  "Is that right? It's a good job you're here to keep an eye on me." He filled a saucepan with water and let the leeks plop into it, then he took out his lighter and turned on the gas. "Dad," Laura shouted.

  "Sorry. That was a stupid joke," he said, but she wasn't sure he'd meant it as a joke; he'd appeared to be entranced by the hiss of gas. He snapped his lighter and lit the jet, and moved the saucepan onto it quickly, hiding the flames. "Don't ever," he said, and fell silent, hearing Laura's mother in the hall.

  He looked suddenly awkward, uncertain of himself. Laura's scalp began to tingle unpleasantly. If they were going to have an argument she hoped they would hurry up. Though her mother would have heard the voices in the kitchen, she wasn't approaching. After a while Laura's father opened the kitchen door. "I'm sorry if we woke you," he said.

  "You didn't. This did."

  She was holding an envelope which must have been slipped through the front door while Laura and her father were talking, and she seemed not quite able to believe what it contained. "I think we'd better take it to the police," she said.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  SECOND MERSEYSIDE BLAZE HORROR

  Police are so far refusing to confirm any similarities between the murder of 49-year-old Helsby man Stephen Arrod and the burning to death several weeks ago of Jeremy Alston in Heswall.

  Mr. Arrod, a violin-maker, was found burned to death in the front garden of his Helsby home on Monday. He had apparently been beaten unconscious and then set on fire.

  An extensive murder hunt has been launched by Cheshire police. Door-to-door enquiries are currently being pursued in the Helsby area. Chief Inspector Puce, who is leading the hunt, described the murder as 'the most brutal, sadistic and sickening I have ever seen in twenty-two years on the force'.

  Mr. Arrod was a well-respected local figure. None of his many friends in the community have been able to suggest any motive for the killing. Police are appealing for witnesses. Anyone with any information should call

  "Chuck that away when you're finished with it," Andy Nation said. "I've better things to do than read that sort of stuff."

  "Don't you think it might be doing some good?"

  "I think they print it to sell papers, that's what I think."

  "You don't believe there's anyone who saw either of these men coming to an end who's just been waiting for the paper to remind them to get in touch with the police?"

  "About as much as I believe that someone might have seen this character walking around with a blow lamp like the one you've got there and not bot
hered telling anyone. You don't have to give it back to me, old pip. You'll have me thinking you're trying to get rid of the evidence."

  "You know we haven't much room, Andy, and there's no point in our keeping hold of it when there's no sign of our moving house."

  "I was only joking, you know. I'm just not as good at jokes as you." Andy unlocked the tailgate of his car and picked up the blow lamp from the pavement. "Not as heavy as I remember. You must have got some use out of it at least."

  "I did, at the shop."

  "Dear God, of course you did. Kick me hard," Andy said, and took care not to turn away from Jack as he slammed the tailgate. "Coming in for a cuppa or a mugga?'

  "I'd better not, thanks, or I'll never get anything done."

  "Just be sure it's worth doing, old pip, and next time try and have some good news."

  "I've got some now."

  "Spill."

  For a moment Jack thought of a wand with a flame on the end, and then he heard what Andy was requesting. He reached into his jacket and producing the envelope, unfolded the contents. "Someone put his through our door."

  Andy glanced at it and turned it over. "Now that's really interesting, a bit of newspaper."

  "You see what it's about."

  When Andy turned the torn square of paper the right way up he noticed the item in which part of a sentence was underlined by wavery lines of blue ink. "Threats swapped at prize-giving," he read aloud. "It's about you winning that holiday."

  "See what's been underlined."

  ' "She was considering suing the Orchards for distress she claimed she suffered." Don't tell me she has, the woman who brought up those thugs."

  "Not yet."

  "Not ever if there's any justice. So who sent you this?"

  "Anon. There wasn't even any writing on the envelope."

  Andy shoved the cutting at him with a kind of undirected anger. "Do you think it was that old bitch who lets her sons run wild trying to put the wind up you?"

  "Raising the wind was involved, but not that sort. I did say it was good news, remember. This wasn't all that was in the envelope."

  Andy peered into it as Jack reinserted the cutting, and looked as if he suspected Jack of playing a joke on him. "So what was?"

  "Almost a thousand pounds in used notes."

  Andy leaned on the roof of his car so hard it emitted an audible creak. "You're joking."

  "We thought someone was, I can tell you. We took the notes to the police, and they aren't forged or stolen. As far as the law is concerned the money's ours to do what we want with."

  "Who do they think..." Andy said as though he couldn't catch his breath. "Don't they have any idea..."

  "They figured as I do, a well-wisher. Maybe someone who knows the Evanses. Julia's worried it might be a pensioner who's sent us their life savings. She'd give it back if she could, but the trouble is if we advertise it the Evanses are bound to get wind of it, not to mention the bank manager."

  "Sounds like it's almost more trouble than it's worth."

  "Well, it's worth quite a lot. At least we won't be hard up for spending money in Greece."

  "There's that. And it shows there are some good folk left in the world."

  "I never thought otherwise, Andy."

  "Never said you did," Andy said, and pointed at the murder report which Jack was holding. "You'd wonder how something like that gets started, that's all."

  "Easier to imagine how it could carry on."

  "You reckon?"

  "I think you can get used to anything if you're convinced it's necessary."

  Andy shook his head, grimacing. "Who can?"

  Anyone. People like you and me. If ordinary people couldn't get used to killing there wouldn't be any wars."

  "Listen, old pip, this is the sort of discussion to have over a drink."

  "You're right, we've both got work to do. Let's keep that drink in mind," Jack said, and set off to walk home. If they went out drinking he would be sure not to revive the discussion; the topic obviously upset Andy, and it wasn't worth losing friends over. Andy couldn't be expected to understand, any more than Julia ought to be.

  She was out shopping. Jack reached home just after twelve o'clock. He still had time before he was due at the library. He drove to the nearest Oxfam shop and donated the pram, feeling as though his gesture might have earned him some luck.

  But not enough. Life could turn on him and the family. Mrs. Evans might decide to take them to court. Someone might learn of their windfall—Mr. Hardy, or a burglar. The Fraud Squad might conclude that Julia was less innocent of abetting Luke than in fact she was. If Jack was beginning to feel well nigh invulnerable, that was all the more reason for him to make certain the family was safe from harm. He'd had enough of waiting for bad luck to force him to react. Prevention was better than cure. On his way to work he called in at a builder's merchants and bought a blow lamp small enough to fit into a briefcase or a rucksack.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  As the van sped out of the tunnel into a blaze of sunlight Julia said "What are you going to do when you've got rid of me?"

  "I'll find something to keep me busy. If you like we could meet for lunch."

  "We won't have time before you have to go to work."

  He'd known she would make that point, and now she would think he was going off on his own at her suggestion. He felt ashamed of manipulating her and yet pleased with his skill. "I expect I'll drive round for a bit and maybe find somewhere to walk."

  "I wish I could come with you."

  "We'll all go walking soon. We can go up above Helsby."

  "Isn't that quite a way if the van's not too happy?"

  "Not too far, and worth the journey. So I've been told by someone at work."

  He drove into the centre of Liverpool, where mid-morning deliveries all but blocked the streets, and dropped Julia at the doors of the Adelphi Hotel, opposite the stone penis of the statue on the front of Lewis's department store. "All the luck in the world," he said to Julia, dragging at the hand brake

  "Let's not get carried away, Jack. This computer firm is holding interviews up and down the country. They're bound to be pretty competitive."

  "So are you." He leaned over to give her a kiss for luck, and when her tongue met his, tasting faintly minty, he kissed her hard. Three black cabs drew up behind him on the road which separated the hotel steps from the front entrance, and he glimpsed them drawing together like a concertina in the driving mirror, but he didn't let go of Julia until the foremost cab honked. "Don't expect too much," she told Jack, sliding her door open.

  "Of you? I never could."

  As the van reached the end of the steps he turned to wave, but she had already passed beyond the revolving doors. A rectangle of sunlight shone like the entrance to a furnace, then the glass door pivoted away. Jack blinked and drove uphill, slowing as students crowded across the road outside the University. He wasn't sure what time Julia would be called in for interview, but he wanted to have done by then if he could.

  The road grew more like an obstacle course as he approached the industrial park. Cars darted out of side streets, lorries attended shops, flashing their hazard lights repetitively as flints which were failing to ignite wicks. Jack overtook one that was parked on the scribble of white paint trailing from a set of traffic lights. The lights climbed down from red to amber, and as the amber began to pulsate a man stepped onto the deserted crossing, straight into the path of the van. It was Gavin Edge.

  He didn't recognise Jack. He gave the van a disparaging glance and walked a little slower, balancing a polystyrene cup of coffee on top of a wad of sandwiches inside a plastic wedge. If the brakes didn't work, Jack thought, neither would Gavin; he would be over his edge. He trod hard on the brake pedal and sounded the horn.

  Perhaps Gavin had been ignoring the van so thoroughly he'd forgotten it was there. He flung out his hands to ward it off and staggered away from it, not towards the pavement but along the road. His cup and sandwiches de
scribed elegant arcs in the air. The cup struck the lights, and Jack thought he heard coffee sizzling on the sign of the walking man, who'd turned bright red. The van screeched to a halt, though not before driving over Gavin's sandwiches. Jack heard and felt their shell crunch.

  Gavin staggered onto the pavement and clung to a concrete lamp-standard with one hand while he thumped it several times with the side of the other. Jack stopped the van a few yards beyond him. As he rounded it he found Gavin storming towards him, gritting his teeth and thrusting out his large square jaw and looking almost blind with fury. "What the bloody devil..."

  "It's me, Gavin. I just meant to say hello."

  Gavin seemed momentarily incapable of hearing him, but then stopped short of him, more or less opening his fists. "Oh," he said, and with an effort at generosity, "Oh, it's you, Jack."

  "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to Jack glanced past him at the dripping signal in an attempt to distract himself from his growing mirth. "I was trying to make you look at me."

  "Head somewhere else." Gavin waggled several fingers at his cranium. "Mine was, I mean. Mad's off home early, sick. She's holding the fort while I went to bring back my lunch."

  "Let me restore it for you."

  "Thanks anyway. I need to lose some weight. Maybe you did me a favour. I take it you're doing well for yourself if you were offering to buy me lunch."

  "I think I've identified my problems. And you're prospering, I hope?"

  "Doing my damnedest to keep the accountant happy. He has to see there's always a risk of overestimating a new market. You and I did." Gavin was glancing at passers-by as if he disliked thinking they had seen his comic turn. "Regards to the family, anyway," he blurted and dashed back to the crossing as the green man started to bleep.