The Count of Eleven

by Ramsey Campbell

  "If it takes no longer than it takes her to give me my change. I've left Tommy asleep."

  "Ah, the little angel. How is he?"

  "Angelic at the moment, I hope. What did you want?"

  "I was wondering when you could fit in a portrait of my little nieces. They'll be staying with me for a week now it's the holidays. It'll be a surprise for their parents, the portrait will, you understand."

  "When would you like?"

  "Whenever's most convenient for you."

  Too late Janys saw that she shouldn't have restricted their conversation to the time it took the assistant to make change, because the girl would wait until Miss Frith had finished talking. Her head was a jumble of panicky thoughts the number of guests at the party, how much longer she had left him alone than she'd meant to, the fear that his father would take him away, a fear which lingered precisely because it was so irrational. "My diary's at home," she said. "Give me a ring in a few minutes."

  "I haven't a phone, unfortunately."

  "Well then, can't you Janys said, and interrupted herself for the sake of swiftness. "Shall we say sometime next week?"

  "I don't suppose the week after might be possible?"

  "Even better. Monday?"

  "Or Tuesday, perhaps?"

  "What time?"

  "Whenever would suit you."

  About now? Eleven?"

  "Eleven."

  "I'll just write that down so we don't forget," Miss Frith said, retrieving her spectacles from the shelf. She found a fractured Biro next to the cash register and crouched behind the counter in search of a notebook. "If I can have my change," Janys said to the girl.

  "I'll do that now." But the assistant had to wait until Miss Frith stood up before she had room to sidle to the cash register. She seemed prepared to continue taking her pace from Miss Frith, until Janys stared hard at her own watch. As soon as the girl had handed her the change Janys said "Thanks' to Miss Frith, who tore out a page bearing the date and time of the portrait session and gave it to Janys, together with a faintly offended look. By now Janys didn't care. She stuffed the page into her handbag and clasped the packets of flour to her breasts and ran out of the shop.

  She wanted to let out a gasp of relief, but the sunlight and the noise and fumes of traffic oppressed her. She ran across the minor crossroads, near which no vehicles were parked now. She was calculating in her head how long it would take her to mix the ingredients, how long to cook the birthday cake, how long Tommy might continue to sleep. All this kept her surroundings at a distance, and so when the roar of traffic didn't give way to the silence of the empty front gardens but to the murmur of what sounded like a crowd, it didn't immediately strike her as strange. She was so preoccupied with Tommy's party that when she turned the corner and saw half a dozen neighbours outside her gate she wondered if they were there because of his birthday. In that first moment she thought she was somehow seeing the light of his birthday candles flickering in the house.

  FORTY-THREE

  On Friday evening there was nothing left for Jack to do. He was hoping to occupy himself with packing the luggage, but Laura and Julia had already finished that. Last night he had been able to go to bed shortly after dinner, since he had been on the late shift, and he didn't think he could bear sitting idly at home tonight while he was so on edge. "Do you know what I'd like to do?" he said to Julia.

  "What?"

  "I don't know. I was hoping you did."

  "Dad," Laura said.

  "Maybe I do. Why don't we go out for dinner."

  "I thought we were just having fish and chips for a change," Julia said.

  "Dining out will be more like starting our holiday, and it'll be a way of thanking Pete and Cath. Let me phone and see if they can fit us in."

  It felt odd not to have to make any more surreptitious calls, but that wasn't why he was nervous. Why did he feel as though he had forgotten or overlooked something? As soon as Pete Venable offered them a table for seven o'clock Jack wished he could go out for a walk by himself instead. Perhaps whatever he was unable to recall would come to him while he and the family were away. As they walked to the International Experience, towards a sun which the sea wouldn't douse for hours, he felt as though part of his brain was cut off from him.

  He failed to see how any aspect of the Count's last visit could be troubling him. He'd parked the van in a side road near Janys Day's house in Old Swan, having phoned her from a call-box on the main road. Her letter-box had been protruding a free newspaper like a rude tongue, but it had looked more like a fuse to him. After ringing her doorbell twice he'd steeped the paper in fuel with the blow lamp and set fire to the paper with his refuelled lighter, then he'd pushed the blazing paper into the house and had watched through the letter-box, which he'd held open with his handkerchief, until he had seen the hall carpet catch fire. He remembered experiencing mostly relief that nobody had answered the bell. Driving away, he'd felt that the simplicity of this visit had been a reward for completing his task.

  The International Experience had turned Spanish. "Iced soup if you can't stand the heat," Cath Venable said as she gave the Orchards menus. Throughout the meal she kept returning to their table, patting her forehead with a handkerchief, for reassurance that the food wasn't too spicy, until Jack grew hot and bothered: he could do with fewer references to heat while he was unable to sort out his thoughts. His impatience made him feel ungrateful to Pete and Cath, and so he ensured that he caught them together. "We'll bring you back a surprise from Crete," he said. "Thanks for giving us the chance."

  "It was the least we could do," Pete said.

  Jack paid the bill and looked out of the window. Julia and Laura were waiting in the car park. The low sun and its trail on the water were reddening, fire turning into blood. The sight of his family with their backs to him and gazing out to sea gave him a sudden sense of vulnerability, but he couldn't tell if that related to them or himself. Was he uneasy because now that the Count had finished he had no way of guaranteeing their good luck? Surely it was guaranteed precisely because the Count had finished and there was nothing to go wrong. Julia and Laura continued to gaze at the sun as he came out of the restaurant. "The fire's dying," he said.

  They strolled home through the cooling light, not saying much. Cars with their headlamps lit or blank passed along the promenade; a few seagulls, autumn ally tinted by the sunset, wheeled above the bay. The dwarf windmill and castle and cottage extended their longest shadows across the Crazy Golf course as though grotesque holes had opened in the earth. On Victoria Road the Bingo parlours were silent, but one arcade was still lively, reels of symbols spinning in the fruit machines, phosphorescent figures scampering about the video screens, a pinball jangling. As the family crossed in front of an empty bus parked outside the Floral Pavilion and stepped into their street, Jack hesitated, all at once sharply convinced that he was close to remembering. He watched Julia and Laura walking towards the van, and then he knew. The blow lamp was in the briefcase, which was still in the back of the van.

  The Count would never have overlooked that, but Jack Awkward had. He followed Julia and Laura in case they wondered why he was faltering, then he halted outside the gate. "Forgotten something?" Julia asked.

  "Just trying to think. I'll be in in a minute."

  Saying so used up all the words in his head. He couldn't leave the blow lamp here while they were away, or he would be unable to relax. As Julia and Laura went up the path he wandered alongside the van, dabbing at it with his fingertips and leaving prints in the grime as though a pretence of incriminating himself might quicken his thoughts. He stared blankly at the rear doors as Julia let herself and Laura into the house. He was writing "Count' on the left-hand door with his blackened fingertip, having seen that he could do so with eleven strokes if the first letter was drawn like a V turned through ninety degrees, when it occurred to him to wonder how Laura or her mother could be in the front bedroom only seconds after entering the house. He glanced up just i
n time to see a man dodging across the room towards the door.

  In a moment Jack had grasped the clown's head. As he pulled out the keys the one he needed appeared to gleam. He unlocked the rear doors in the same swift movement and ducked in to grab the briefcase, which had slid towards the doors when he was driving home, as though it had made itself ready for him. The Count was still wanted, and it was a mercy he hadn't got rid of his weapon. He shook the front door key forwards as he dashed up the path. He would leave the key in the lock, take out the blow lamp and drop his briefcase, find the lighter in his pocket, and then If the man had dared to harm Julia or Laura, he would But when he flung the front door open, he was too late.

  The stairs were strewn from top to bottom with passports and traveller's cheques and aeroplane tickets and the balance of the money sent by the anonymous benefactor. Julia was at the foot of the stairs, pale-faced and shaken, holding onto the phone and saying "Police." Where the stairs bent near the top, a man in his late teens was sprawling on his stomach. He was grey-skinned and scrawny, with painfully prominent veins, made more prominent by the way Laura was locking his arms in the small of his back as she knelt on his spine. "Fucking get off me, you little whore," he was snarling. "I'll fucking kill you. Fucking let me up."

  Jack dropped the briefcase on the doorstep and squeezed Julia's waist before charging upstairs. "It's all right, Dad," Laura said, though she was flushed and somewhat breathless. 'I've got him."

  Julia was speaking their address rapidly into the phone. "Can you be quick? He's here now. I don't know how long we can hold him."

  "Stay still," Jack warned in the Count's voice as the man started to kick the wall at the bend of the stairs. He climbed over the man's legs and stayed within reach, though Laura seemed to be in control. A few minutes that felt loaded with more seconds than he was able to count dragged by. He heard a police siren, and grew tense as he saw the man stiffen until Laura redoubled her grip on his wrists. The police arrived with a screech of brakes and a stampede of boots on the path, and Julia pushed the door wide. Top of the stairs," she said in a pinched voice.

  Two policemen came thundering upstairs while a third stayed with Julia. "Is this yours, madam?" he said.

  "No."

  Jack hovered anxiously while the two policemen took over from Laura. He had difficulty in breathing until they'd got hold of the burglar and she was out of the man's reach. He saw the other policeman stoop outside the door and pick up the briefcase, saw his finger and thumb closing around the lock to snap it open. "Yes, that's ours. Mine," he said.

  He hadn't spoken loud enough. The policeman hadn't heard. He was standing on the stage of light from the hall, his heavy face lowering over the briefcase. In a moment he would see within, and then his face would rise and catch sight of Jack. "Excuse me Julia said as if it hardly mattered under the circumstances.

  "Just one moment, madam."

  "My husband says that's his. I didn't know."

  "Oh, I beg your pardon," the policeman said, and handed her the briefcase.

  His colleagues were urging the burglar none too gently down the stairs, and there wasn't room for Jack to sidle past them. He saw Julia take the briefcase and stare at it and move her other hand towards it, then she stepped aside to let the policemen usher their captive out of the house. "I wonder if it might be convenient for me to take your statements now," their colleague said.

  "We're supposed to be going away on holiday tomorrow," Julia said as though the break-in might have changed her mind, and dropped the briefcase by the stairs with a thud which contained a dull resonance of the blow lamp

  Jack went downstairs, restraining himself from running, and having reassured himself that the briefcase hadn't snapped open with the impact, refrained from picking it up. The back door had been forced, he saw along the hall. "I'll ring Andy to fix it," he told Julia.

  He hadn't much to tell the police. He was glad that Andy was round in ten minutes; talking to him kept Jack's mind off the briefcase and its secret. By the time Andy had fixed heavy bolts at the top and bottom of the door, the interviews were finished. "That's all, sir," the policeman said to Jack. "Try not to let it spoil your holiday. You must be proud of your daughter."

  "I'd wish the media could get hold of this except we've had enough of them. People would be better off copying her instead of the Mersey Burner."

  Only Jack Awkward could have said that. He was aware of being heard by the policeman and Andy and Julia and Laura, and he thought he sensed them recoiling from him. Then the policeman grinned wryly. "You won't hear me arguing."

  Jack saw him down the path and closed the door. Andy was making coffee for everyone while the others sat in the front room. Laura looked exhausted but pleased with herself, Julia as though the shakes might be about to catch up with her. It was almost eleven o'clock, but it felt later. As Jack made to pass the open door of the front room, Julia gestured him to stop. "Whose is the briefcase?" she said.

  FORTY-FOUR

  That night none of the Orchards slept much. Whenever Jack's plans came apart in his head as he drifted towards sleep, Julia's restlessness beside him brought him back to himself. She must be suffering from some of the thoughts that were troubling him, though for different reasons: if they went to Crete now... if they didn't go to Crete... Being unable to discuss his reasons with her drove him deeper inside himself, where he might have sought the Count's advice. But his instinctive reaction to the burglary had shown him that he'd been nervous for days not because he was afraid the Count might fail on his last adventure but because he was unwilling to relinquish him, which brought the Count too close to the family, close enough to lie beside Julia in the dark.

  Shortly after dawn Jack got up. His eyes and brain felt smudged with smoke. He'd heard Laura moving about, and met her coming out of the bathroom. She looked as sleepless as he was, and as though she was trying unsuccessfully to prepare to be disappointed. "Are we still going?" she said.

  It was one plan or the other, though he couldn't foresee either in detail. "Of course we are," he said, and at once was convinced this would work; he couldn't bear to think otherwise when he saw her face light up. Julia trudged out of their room just then. "You two finish in the bathroom while I make us all coffee," Jack said, leaving them to talk.

  By the time they were out there were only a few minutes left for him to use the bathroom. He shaved and brushed his teeth and ducked under the shower, and was dressing when the doorbell rang. That'll be Andy. I'll pack my stuff from the bathroom," he called, and fetched the razor and foam and deodorant. As he heard someone opening the front door he grabbed the briefcase from beside the wardrobe and hid it under the beach towels in the larger suitcase, which he locked. "I think we're just about ready," he announced.

  While Andy loaded the suitcases into the boot of his car and then waited outside with Laura, Julia toured the house to check that everything which could be locked was locked. When she set out on a second tour Jack thought she might refuse to leave after all, and so he diverted her nervousness towards ensuring that she had the passports and tickets and traveller's cheques and Greek money in her handbag. At last she sighed, and closed and locked the front door and made certain it was locked. They climbed into the car, and as it pulled away he told himself there was no turning back.

  The motorway was almost clear. Usually when he was a passenger Jack found himself mentally driving the car, but now he was content to feel he had no control. As he dozed, signboards blue as the sky promised to be sailed past Bromborough, Helsby, Runcorn, Warrington like names in a dream, none of which seemed meaningful enough to waken him fully. Then Andy was trying to do so, and the air was laden with roaring. "Manchester Airport," Andy said.

  The Orchards clambered out of the car, and Laura ran to find a baggage trolley. Julia was blinking at the throng of passengers beyond the automatic doors as if she wasn't sure that the family ought to be here. "I'll wire up an alarm in your house the moment I get back," Andy promised. "Don't
worry, Mrs. O. With your luck the house would be safe as houses even if it wasn't alarmed. Look how you came home last night just in time to catch the villain."

  Julia nodded a little reluctantly, watching for Laura. "I'd better be off," Andy said, but Jack stopped him with the question which he could tell Andy knew he'd provoked. "What do you know about our luck?" he said for Andy alone to hear.

  "I'd really better be going, old pip. They fine you if you park here too long." Andy gave him a wink and an apologetic grin. "You've guessed, haven't you? I sent you that weird letter months ago."

  "Sent it to me and who else?"

  "Only you. You and the family were the only people I knew whose luck needed a leg up. I hope you didn't take it seriously. I just wanted to cheer you up, seeing as you always enjoy a joke."

  A taxi flashed its headlamps at him, and he waved to the driver and climbed into the car. "I'll be seeing you," he shouted to Jack. "You needn't worry about anything. Just remember to come round for your alarm keys before you let yourself into the house."

  Jack stared after him as the brake lights ignited and the car left a shimmer of fumes in its wake. He felt as though he had yet to awaken. What did it mean that Andy had simply passed on the letter to him? He was still struggling to understand when Laura returned with a trolley. "They're checking in our flight," Julia said.

  Jack loaded the trolley and pushed it through the automatic doors, which flinched away from him. There were queues at three desks for the flight to Heraklion. Julia appended herself to the shortest queue, and Jack found himself wishing she'd chosen the longest so that he would have more time to finish thinking about Andy and prepare to seem innocent when he reached the desk, or should he take the suitcase to the men's room on some pretext and hide the blow lamp behind a cistern? How long might it stay there without being noticed, and would the police be able to deduce when it had been hidden? "We're next," Julia told him.