Secret Story

by Ramsey Campbell

  “We’ll definitely be in touch.”

  Lorna Major seemed slightly less delighted to be chosen than Dudley had every right to expect, another reason why he would enjoy her lingering demise. The same was the case with the other applicants, one of whom kept trying to dart past Mr Killogram only to retreat almost to the wall, while the last had the habit of adding various forms of the same short word—adjective, adverb, directive—in a thick Scouse accent to her dialogue, a trait that failed to rescue her from Mr Killogram. By the end of the auditions Dudley was crouching forward, inflamed by the spectacle of Mr Killogram and his parade of victims, and had some difficulty in sitting up straight until he’d subsided. “You’re pleased, then,” Vincent said.

  For a moment Dudley wondered guiltily how visible that was. “I wouldn’t have been without Mr Killogram.”

  Mr Killogram widened his eyes with eagerness or pleasure. “You won’t be.”

  “Shall we let you go away and think what you want to do with them?” said Vincent.

  Dudley had to grasp that the question was addressed to him, not Mr Killogram. “I’d better,” he said to Patricia, and wondered why he sounded apologetic. He had nothing to apologise for. However tempting the girls were, they had to be preserved for the film. She was the girl who was going to stir his imagination back into life, and he wasn’t about to betray her with them. She was still his choice.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Patricia did her best to put up with Dudley’s silence, but by the time they reached the road past the Albert Dock she found it too uncomfortable. “Can I ask what you were thinking?” she said over the rumble of traffic.

  Dudley extended a hand to the button at the crossing and belatedly pushed it. As the red man lit up like a brand he said “I’ll let you know later.”

  “I was just wondering what you made of our performers.”

  “I haven’t made anything of them yet.”

  “I meant how you thought they shaped up,” Patricia said, not quite concealing some impatience.

  “He’s perfect and they ought to be.”

  The stampede of traffic trundled to a reluctant halt as the red man’s companion intensified his innocent colour. Patricia crossed the road that smelled of petrol and hot metal so fast that Dudley didn’t catch up with her until she was climbing the street to the station. “Are you heading for home?” she said.

  “I’m going your way, that’s right.”

  He was assuming too much for her liking, which was why she said “Not now you aren’t, Dudley. I’m off into town.”

  “I’ll walk along with you if you want. I’ll let you ask me some more questions.”

  Far from winning her over, this disconcerted her with its childishness. He might almost have been trying to resemble the earliest description of him in Kathy’s tale: “a cherub’s golden curls that were heavenly in their untidiness, blue eyes that were twin mirrors of the world, a face that would disown its chubbiness too soon”. Patricia halted outside the station, next to a news-stand piled with headlines about the reconstruction of a girl’s death, to tell him “Don’t worry, there’s no urgency.”

  “You can’t say how urgent it is. I’ve got to get on with my writing.”

  “I’m sure there’ll be time for both.”

  “Maybe I won’t be able to write till I’ve got you out of the way.”

  “Not literally, I hope.” Since his mouth seemed unsure what expression this deserved, she said “Please don’t feel under any pressure from me. I’m certain you’ve told me enough.”

  “You haven’t seen me at work yet.”

  “Don’t you think that might make it harder for you? Has anybody ever been there while you’re working?”

  He hadn’t answered that—his mouth was still considering what shape to adopt—when his mobile struck up its October theme. As he dragged it out of his pocket he bared his teeth at it rather than, Patricia hoped, at her for edging away. “I’ll leave you to it,” she said.

  “You don’t need to.” His voice grew sharper while he lifted the phone. “Yes?” he said, and not much more gently “Oh, Vincent. I’m working.”

  Presumably this was a lie designed to end the call. “There’s a what?” he said. “Can’t it wait? All right, I know I’ll have to. I’ve said I will.” As he pocketed the mobile he informed Patricia “Another actress has turned up. You’ll have to watch me with this one as well.”

  “I won’t, thanks. I’ve got plenty already.” She saw his hand stray towards his mobile and wondered if he could be thinking of calling Vincent back. “I won’t delay you any longer,” she said and started uphill.

  At the corner she looked over her shoulder. Of course he wasn’t just behind her; he was beyond the station, almost at the dock road. He glanced towards her, and she had to dodge around the corner. She might have lurked in Castle Street and then returned to the station, but that would be ridiculous. She’d catch her train at Moorfields, which was ridiculous enough.

  Beyond Castle Street, behind the town hall, a skeleton lay in wait for four chained prisoners, but nobody in the offices that boxed in the quadrangle seemed aware of the monument. Patricia crossed the square to Moorfields and ascended an escalator so as to descend twice as many to the platform. She wasn’t really following the route of Dudley’s story, and felt especially annoyed to have to glance back when footsteps clattered rapidly after her. They belonged to a red-faced man carrying two briefcases as if to prove he was doubly in business. If Dudley had started to betray more of an obsession with her than she welcomed, perhaps she should admit to being too obsessed with him.

  As her train emerged from its lair she remembered the one in front of which Greta had been flung, and then she felt ashamed of having thought of a fictitious victim when a real one had been killed. The train bore her around the loop under Liverpool and back to James Street, where she resisted an impulse to duck out of sight in case Dudley was on the platform. The train sped beneath the river and onward, and she wondered if she was retracing the dead girl’s journey as well as Greta’s invented one. She was glad of the brief respite from the tunnel at Conway Park; she closed her eyes and raised her face to be aware of nothing but the interlude of sunlight. Then her eyes sprang open, and the world appeared to pale. Hadn’t Greta passed through this newest station on her final journey? Had Conway Park existed then?

  The white-tiled walls slipped away as if to demonstrate she couldn’t grasp them either. Dudley had told Walt that he’d written “Night Trains Don’t Take You Home” at least seven years ago. She removed her mobile from her handbag and poised it to dial the enquiry number on a poster in the carriage as soon as the train left the tunnel. Daylight had scarcely returned with a vengeance when the number was answered so swiftly that Patricia had to take a breath. “Could you tell me when Conway Park Station was opened?”

  “Well, that’s a bit out of the common. Let me check.” The girl or, despite her voice, more probably the woman had a short muffled conversation offstage. “Over six years,” she came back to tell Patricia.

  “About seven, would that be?”

  “Nearly seven, is that?” A second consultation in the wings allowed Patricia’s informant to say “Not nearly. Just over six.”

  “Thank you,” Patricia said, by no means sure that grateful summed up how she felt, and bagged the phone. So Dudley had lied about the date of writing his story. She supposed that was understandable, given the controversy it had stirred up. Was she just bothered by the lateness of her realisation? She was still trying to decide as the train progressed from Birkenhead Park to Birkenhead North, two stations where she might have waited to confront him. She was considering the possibility when her mobile rang.

  Was it Dudley? She felt as if he’d tracked her to his station—as though he’d tapped her thoughts. Her feelings were absurd, but she hoped he was the caller. “Patricia Martingale,” she challenged him.

  “I’m sorry, Patricia. It’s only me.”

  “I’m the o
ne who should be sorry, Kathy. I wasn’t shouting at you.”

  “I won’t pry. Have you finished casting? I keep thinking it sounds like casting about,” Kathy said with nervous humour.

  “It’ll be over for today, I should think.”

  “You’re on the train, are you? By yourself? How did it go?”

  “The casting, you mean.”

  “What else? How were the girls he was having to consider?”

  “He seemed pleased. I believe he’s working on another.”

  “And how was the most important one?”

  For a moment, perhaps unfairly, Patricia thought she could only mean Dudley. “Mr Killogram? I think he convinced everyone. He’s definitely hired.”

  “So Dudley’s happy.”

  “I’d say so. I imagine you can ask him, can’t you?”

  “I can now. I didn’t want to risk bringing up a subject that might annoy him when he has to crack on with his writing.”

  The train was approaching Bidston. Patricia remembered walking from the station the first time she’d visited the Smiths’ house, and made a swift decision. “Kathy, are you at home?”

  “I’m on my lunch. Sitting outside the office in this glorious sun.”

  “I should have known you’d be at work. I was going to ask you a favour.”

  “Why, you still can.”

  “It could be quite a big one. I’d like to have a proper look at Dudley’s other stories before I finish my piece about him, but you know him. He wouldn’t want me to.”

  “I know how you must feel. I’ve felt the same.”

  Patricia doubted it, especially since she felt guilty for having predicted Kathy’s reaction in order to take advantage of it. “Do you suppose there might be a chance I could read them?”

  “Would it really make a difference?”

  “It might well.”

  “I know he’s out on Saturday. He’s reading with his father. We’d have to miss that if you wanted to slip round then.”

  “If you could bear it,” Patricia said, feeling guiltier still.

  “I expect I’ll be able to if it’s for him. I’ll ring you when I know exactly when he’s leaving.”

  “That’ll be good,” Patricia said, though she had no idea for whom. “While we’re talking about them, when did you read his stories?”

  “Different times over the years. I used to look for a new one whenever I knew he’d been writing.”

  “You can tell me when they were written, then.”

  “I should be able to when we’re sitting down with them.”

  “I’ll wait to hear from you,” Patricia said to end the conversation, though not the rumpus of her thoughts. Now that she’d persuaded Kathy to go against her son’s wishes she was unsure what it could achieve. Did she genuinely recall incidents reminiscent of his other tales? If she did, how bad was that? He’d refused to let them be published, after all. The train hesitated at Bidston before moving off, and had barely cleared the platform when her mobile rang as if to warn her she hadn’t escaped.

  If Kathy had changed her mind, Patricia doubted that she would be capable of trying to delude her further. “Hello,” she said to get it over with.

  “Patricia? Vincent. Colin’s come up with a great idea.”

  “Oh.” She’d been so far from expecting him that she could think of nothing to add other than “Well, fine.”

  “I think he’s the best thing to happen to me since Dudley.” Vincent sounded as if he was searching for words to convey the enthusiasm in his voice, and then he seemed to find them. “It’s going to be real,” he said.

  TWENTY-TWO

  “Has your son managed to get himself published yet, Kathy?”

  “He will be any day now, Mavis.”

  “We hope so, don’t we, Cheryl? Otherwise we’ll be starting to think Kathy made it up.”

  “I suppose I may have made a few things up about him, the way mothers do. I expect you can understand that even with no children of your own.”

  “You’re admitting you’ve been fibbing.”

  “No, Mavis, I’m hoping I helped make him what he is.”

  “So long as he isn’t the writer that was in the paper. He’s not, is he?”

  “How am I meant to know which you mean, Cheryl?”

  “They’re ten a penny, sure enough, now anyone can publish themselves with a computer. Maybe your son ought to do that, seeing it’s taking so long. Surely you read about this writer who turned some poor girl’s death into a murder. If he can’t do better than that he shouldn’t write at all, whoever he is.”

  “You won’t be seeing anything like that from him,” Kathy had assured her colleagues, but she’d felt her face grow hot with shame and rage. Even if it had been the end of an exhausting afternoon—an unemployed woman who addressed every other comment to the toddler on her lap as though it was a ventriloquist’s doll, a man who analysed aloud everything Kathy said, a fiftyish fellow who refused to tell her his exact age, which he appeared to resent as much as not being instantly matched with a job—how could she have avoided trouble by failing to defend her own son? She could only pray to anyone who was hearing her thoughts that the pressures of his office job wouldn’t reduce him as she’d allowed hers to lessen her. Perhaps soon he would be able to give in his notice now that his film was under way. He was bound to be more in demand once it helped establish his name.

  As the train out of West Kirby veered away from the river the memory faded. Should she have agreed to Patricia Martingale’s request? So long as Patricia understood that she must never let Dudley know, he would have to assume she’d obtained any information about his tales on her first visit. Surely anything that brought him and Patricia closer was worth a risk, and in this case Kathy could see none.

  She let Bidston Station go and left the train at Birkenhead North. Footballers were jangling their wire cage opposite the supermarket, beyond which the church in the middle of the five-way junction looked unstable with the fumes of impatient waiting traffic. A steaming van was leading vehicles out of the car wash as she crossed the road. She turned the corner to walk uphill and saw Dudley ahead.

  As he trudged left into their road he glanced back and saw her. A smile tugged at her lips until he continued only staring. “What are you trying to do?” he said.

  Once she was close enough to murmur she said “Not to disturb you, that’s all.”

  “Creeping up behind me isn’t supposed to? You wouldn’t do it to Mr Killogram.”

  “People might if they didn’t know who he was.”

  “They’d find out soon enough.” In some way this mollified Dudley. “He wants to do a bit of research. There’s a police reconstruction of some murder we’re going to have a look at.”

  Was he still annoyed with her? He was jabbing the key into the lock like a knife into a wound. She didn’t grasp that he must be eager to work until he headed upstairs. “What do you fancy for dinner?” she risked wondering aloud.

  “Don’t know. I need to get in the mood to write.”

  “We’ll have chops then, shall we?” As he disappeared into his room she called “We’ll have chops.”

  There were plenty in the refrigerator. Indeed, they outnumbered any other item. She took out six and, having sawn their bones off with a carving-knife, spent a minute in arranging the remains into an attractive pattern on the grill. She found a bag of mixed vegetables that set her fingertips tingling with chill, then grabbed two handfuls of potatoes from the plastic rack. She was fetching the potato peeler from the drawer beside the sink when she heard Dudley make a sound upstairs.

  Was it a cry of outraged disbelief? Had the computer crashed? Kathy found she was in no hurry to learn more. She began to scrape the first potato, although the sensation and the dry shrill noise made her feel as if she was peeling her nerves. She dropped it in the saucepan with a hollow clunk, and raised her eyes to glimpse a vague silent movement in the garden. No, it hadn’t been a flock of butterflies descendi
ng on the tall weeds; it was reflected by the window. She swung around, almost losing hold of the stubby knife, to see Dudley gazing at her from the hall. He was so expressionless that she could have imagined he had ceased to be himself. “Do you want me to think I’ve gone mad?” he said.

  “How could I ever want that?” Kathy attempted to laugh, but there was worse to be discovered. “Why on earth would you think you are?” she managed to ask.

  “It can’t be you if you’re saying you don’t know, can it? It isn’t you that wants to get inside my head.”

  Her fear for him felt capable of shrivelling her brain to a cinder. Had the drugs with which she’d tainted his genes overcome him at last? “Nobody does. Nobody’s trying,” she pleaded, “except maybe Patricia Martingale.”

  His lack of an expression didn’t quite give way to one. “What’s she got to do with this?”

  “She’s been doing her best to find out all about you, hasn’t she? I just wondered if she’d gone too far.”

  “She won’t be doing that. Never mind her now. She’s not the meddler.”

  “So what are we—” Kathy set out to enquire, and then she knew.

  “If you’ve no more idea than you want me to believe, maybe you’re the one that’s mad.”

  “Call me that if it makes you feel better.”

  “Maybe you are anyway, doing what you did.”

  “I know I’ll never write anywhere near as well as you, but you couldn’t have published that story, could you? I only wanted to finish it for you so you could move on.”

  “So it was you.”

  For a moment Kathy felt as if she’d strayed into a trap, but another possibility struck her as even more distressing: that her intervention might have disturbed him so much that he’d imagined someone else had trespassed in his room. “Who else could it have been?” she said, producing a diffident laugh.

  “More like who did you think you were being.”