Secret Story

by Ramsey Campbell

  “I don’t keep a record,” Dudley said a little too forcefully. “It won’t be there.”

  “It will. Let me show you,” Kathy said and clicked the mouse to exhibit the properties of the document. “See, there’s something your mother knows and you didn’t. You can do that for every document. Why you’d want to, Patricia, that’s a different matter.”

  “Do you remember when Angela Manning was killed?”

  “Sorry, who?”

  “Angela Manning. Dudley can tell you about her.”

  “She’s the girl they made all the fuss about. They still are,” he added even more bitterly.

  “And when did it happen again?”

  “I couldn’t tell you. Why should I know that?”

  “I thought you might, seeing it’s her anniversary round about now. Wasn’t that part of the objection?”

  “If you say so. You know as much as me,” Dudley said and stared red-eyed at Patricia.

  “Then let’s find out precisely. Go on and search for her.”

  “Yes, go on,” Kathy said as he hesitated. “That can’t do any harm.”

  Dudley scowled at her and concealed the keyboard with his free hand while he typed his Internet password, but Patricia had no difficulty in identifying the cramped bunch of keys. They spelled “secret”, which seemed to confirm the lack of imagination that his old schoolmaster had found in him. He called up a search engine and tapped the keys with his fingertips, too playfully to make an impression. “Is she important enough to be on here?” he mused aloud.

  Patricia controlled her loathing. “Only one way to find out, isn’t there?”

  He typed the girl’s name without capitals, which Patricia thought was one more form of derogation. In a few seconds the search engine produced a list of references to Angela Manning, all of them irrelevant. Some were in America, some in Scotland or south of London; the only ones in the north of England referred to a hair salon and a portrait painter. Patricia was beginning to think that Dudley had received the answer he wanted when Kathy said “There’s another page.”

  He clicked on the arrow that led to it. Either his swiftness betrayed defiance or he believed the second page offered no threat, unless he knew. Mightn’t he already have searched the web for anything that could expose him? Had he simply been feigning reluctance in order to appear even more innocent once he’d demonstrated that there was no evidence? Patricia did her best to swallow and tried to keep her head on an even keel as the page was replaced. An American lecturer, a South African political activist, a reference to manning pumps on a ship, a site devoted to a female falconer . . . “Will that be it?” Kathy said. “Student killed by train.”

  Dudley hesitated until she reached for the mouse. “I’ll do it,” he said and clicked on the listing. “See, I was right. She didn’t rate much.”

  “Oh, Dudley, don’t say things like that just because your story hasn’t been published yet. I’m sure it can be somewhere.” Kathy peered at the few inches from the Liverpool Daily Post and then at the top of the page. “Well, that is strange,” she said. “It’s a week today five years ago.”

  “And you know what’s stranger,” Patricia said. “The date he wrote his story.”

  “I can’t remember,” Kathy said and turned her sudden harshness on him. “Show me again.”

  Dudley covered the mouse with his hand as if he was about to crush it, then recalled the window that contained the tale. “It’s the same day as the paper,” Kathy said. “Were you so inspired when you read about it that you wrote your story straight off? I wish I hadn’t sent that one in for you. I made the wrong choice, and even if I didn’t know I apologise.”

  Patricia struggled to control the frustration that made her skin feel stretched and raw. “I’ll bet there’s a story where someone’s thrown onto the road into the Mersey Tunnel,” she said.

  “You must have seen that when I let you see his stories.”

  Patricia hadn’t, but arguing would only waste time. “I expect you remember the title, do you, Kathy?”

  “Show us ‘Head First into the Rush Hour’, Dudley. Go on, there’s nothing to be afraid of.”

  He bared his teeth at the remark or at her eagerness, and opened the document. “And when did you write it?” Kathy said as if he ought to welcome the answer. “Well, that’s even stranger, isn’t it. Two years ago last Friday.”

  “Look at the news site,” Patricia said with all the restraint she was able to command, “and see what happened then.”

  “Don’t say it was another of his instant inspirations.”

  Patricia didn’t trust herself to face Kathy. She watched Dudley rest his hand on the mouse, and then, as he returned them to the Internet, she saw him grin. He brought the page for the day in question onto the screen, and stepped back. “I don’t want anybody thinking I’m hiding anything. Take a good look.”

  Kathy scrolled through the news reports and repeated the exercise with a sidelong glance that suggested she was humouring Patricia. “Well, unless I’m blind, I don’t see anything. Nobody at all local killed that day, and certainly not like the girl in his story. Are you satisfied now, Patricia?”

  Patricia closed her eyes and took an arid breath. So she was more confused than she realised, and it had played into Dudley’s hands. She couldn’t even swallow as she heard him say “Am I allowed to go and sort things out now?”

  “You be on your way. I’ll wait downstairs with Patricia till her clothes are dry.”

  “Goodbye, Patricia. Sorry you felt you had to try and turn my mother against me. I suppose Patricia must have thought our story wasn’t sensational enough. That must be what journalists are like.”

  At first Patricia didn’t know what was rushing into her mouth, but they proved to be words. “Wait a minute, Dudley.”

  “What now?”

  It was Kathy who said that with worse than impatience, but Patricia wasn’t about to be deterred. “Kathy, have a look at the next day’s news.”

  “Oh, that’s just silly. You know perfectly well there’ll be nothing.”

  “If that’s the case I’ll give up,” Patricia said, only to fear that she was being too hasty. “If you don’t want to look, I will.”

  “I’m sure Dudley would prefer me to.”

  Dudley took a backward pace that could have been described as surreptitious. “Do what you like if you can’t see what she’s up to.”

  Kathy typed the date in the search box and clicked the mouse as if she was clipping a fingernail. Paragraphs with headlines began to fill the screen. A warning of drought that had been imminent two years ago, a series of arson attacks, a train derailed because a track had buckled in the heat, an old couple who had died of dehydration . . . Then a headline grew blacker and more solid as Patricia’s vision fastened on it. MERSEY TUNNEL DEATH FALL, the headline said.

  Kathy read the paragraph and turned to find her son. “I’m sorry, Dudley, but I’m going to say this in front of Patricia. I really hope you won’t write any more about actual murders after all the trouble people gave you over just one. If I’m going to be honest, it makes me feel a bit uncomfortable.”

  Patricia waited, willing her not to have finished. When Dudley’s indifferent grunt made it clear that the admonitions had come to an end, Patricia said “What about how he knew?”

  “You must have heard it on the radio, must you, Dudley? They’d have had the news.”

  “Does he listen to the radio that much?” Patricia said, not too desperately, she hoped. “I didn’t know you had one.”

  “Of course we have,” Kathy protested, but kept her eyes on her son. “I don’t remember hearing this reported, though. When did you find out about it?”

  “Are you going on at me like she did now?”

  “I’m only trying to show her how wrong she is about you. Don’t be offended. Just tell us when.”

  Dudley fixed his stare on Patricia. “I read it in somebody’s paper on the train home.”

  �
��But it says it was at night,” Kathy said. “It was after you came home from work.”

  Dudley passed the tip of his tongue around his grin as if to soften it. “I made that up to see what she’d say. Couldn’t you tell?”

  “Then what’s the truth?” Patricia said. “Surely you can’t mind if I hear that.”

  “I’ve got to agree with her, Dudley. Show her you’ve nothing to hide.”

  Was Kathy still convinced of that, or was she pleading to be? It simply earned her and Patricia a stare from the defiant mask of Dudley’s face. When they gazed back at him he licked his lips again. “I’ve had enough,” he blustered. “Both of you can get out of my room.”

  “That won’t solve anything, will it?” Kathy said. “Just tell—”

  “I’m not telling anybody any more. Believe her if you want, if you think I’d be bothered lying. You wouldn’t be upset now if you hadn’t let her in my room. This all started when you gave her my stories to read and I never said she could.”

  “No, it started years before that,” Patricia said. “I wonder when exactly? When was the first—”

  She hadn’t time to dodge as he darted at her. Her exhaustion might have sent her sprawling, and in any case she wasn’t going to show fear. Whatever he did to her would betray him to Kathy, and so Patricia braced herself. As he ducked she wondered if he meant to pick her up and fling her at the window, and pressed her knees against the underside of the desk. But he was stooping to snatch the plug of the computer out of the wall socket. “Look what you’ve made me do,” he cried or snarled. “I hope you’re happy now. I expect that’s deleted all my stories.”

  “I’m sure it won’t have,” Kathy begged. “Switch on again and see.”

  “Not while anybody’s here.” When his stare didn’t move her or Patricia he said “I’m not wasting any more time. Stay in here for all I care. I’ve got important stuff to do.”

  She ought to have grabbed him while he was within reach, Patricia realised. His reaction might have been all that Kathy needed to convince her. He was nearly at the door when Kathy said “No, Dudley. You stay too.”

  She sounded as if she was addressing somebody not even half his age. His mouth and teeth worked to fasten on a grin but couldn’t quite. “Who do you think you’re talking to?” he demanded.

  “My son, I hope. You stay and make your case while you have the chance.”

  “I don’t need you to give me a chance.” In seconds he was at the door, where he swung around with a disdainful look. “Nobody tells Mr Killogram what to do,” he said, “especially not women.”

  “Dudley, do as I ask you for once. Dudley. Dudley.” His mother ran onto the landing, to be silenced by the slam of the front door. Patricia tried to stand up, but her muscles wavered so much that she had to sink onto the chair. She watched Dudley sprint across the road and up the path that climbed the hill. Kathy returned to stand beside her as he disappeared between the trees. “He’ll have to come back,” she said.

  “You really think so.”

  “When he calms down. Why wouldn’t he? Where else can he go?”

  “You don’t think anything that’s happened would keep him away.”

  “There has to be an explanation, hasn’t there? It’s only one story. Maybe the news site got the details wrong. Even the media can be mistaken, you know.”

  Patricia didn’t know how personally she was meant to take the remark. All that mattered was ensuring Dudley didn’t go too far before the police heard about him. She could see that Kathy wasn’t ready to call them. “We can soon find out,” she said and crouched gingerly to plug in the computer. She was afraid that Kathy might try to stop her, or that the information might indeed prove to have been erased. But Kathy allowed the screen to revive, and once the computer had searched itself for errors Patricia was able to type both passwords. Now she only had to be afraid how Kathy might react when the truth became unavoidable. “You still think it’s just one story?” Patricia said without pleasure. “Let’s look.”

  THIRTY-NINE

  At last Kathy saw that she had to get rid of Patricia. It wasn’t just that once she was alone she might be able to think, although her mind felt as if it was being dragged into a pit whose darkness hovered at the edge of her vision, cancelling the sunlight. She did her best to blame that on Patricia’s insistence on showing her date after date and the sympathy she kept letting Kathy sense, perhaps unaware how patronising Kathy found it. None of this was why she would do anything to send Patricia on her way, however. Dudley was up on the hill, watching the house.

  She’d glimpsed him minutes ago, and was afraid Patricia would. She’d had to pretend to want to be shown yet another pair of dates in order to keep her tormentor occupied. At least she had a reason to be glad that Patricia was at the desk: Dudley could see it wasn’t safe for him to venture back to the house. Kathy feigned interest in the details on the screen until she was certain he was observing the situation from behind a clump of ferns. “All right,” she said then, hoping that in some way it could be.

  Patricia raised her head so steadily it looked effortful and met Kathy’s eyes. With almost more pity than Kathy could bear, and its discreetness only made it worse, she said “You’ve seen enough, then.”

  “I definitely have.”

  “Will you call or do you want me to?”

  “I will, of course.”

  “Sorry if I sounded interfering. Actually, I don’t know where my mobile is. He used it to text my parents that I’d gone to London.” Kathy was thinking she had no use for the belated explanation when Patricia said “I hope he’s still got it. They’ll be able to trace where he is.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that. Do you want to see if your clothes are ready while I phone?”

  Patricia gazed at her not quite long enough to be openly suspicious. “I may as well,” she said.

  While Patricia made carefully for the landing Kathy switched off the computer. She couldn’t locate Dudley now, but it didn’t matter if he had retreated; once they were rid of Patricia she would be able to call him home. As she followed Patricia downstairs and watched her retrieve her clothes from the line she felt almost protective of the girl. Perhaps it was the sense of domesticity she was anxious to preserve—the notion that as long as life depended on this kind of detail it would remain solid and familiar or at any rate be capable of reverting to that condition. “All right?” she asked Patricia like an echo of herself.

  “I’m going to be. You haven’t phoned yet, have you?”

  “I was seeing how you were first.”

  “I’m dealing with it,” Patricia said and renewed her gaze.

  “Get changed down here if you don’t want to be bothered going up.”

  As Kathy expected, this sent Patricia in search of privacy, but she left the bathroom door open. Kathy had to crouch over the phone and keep her voice almost too low to be heard on it. Patricia emerged from the bathroom, looking dishevelled but resolute, as Kathy finished the call. Kathy saw there was another question on the way and headed it off. “Would you like to phone your parents? I should think they must be wondering about you.”

  “I might,” Patricia said, then seemed to remember the demands of politeness. “Thank you. I would.”

  “Do you think you could just let them know you’re safe and tell them the rest when you’re home?”

  She wasn’t sure what the postponement would achieve, but anything that might protect her son had to be worth trying. She was wondering if she’d asked too much when Patricia said “I just want this to be over.”

  Kathy didn’t know whether to take that as a threat to her son. It became apparent that Patricia wasn’t sure which number to call. Eventually she settled on one that had to belong to a mobile, and Kathy was belatedly afraid that Patricia was trying to track down her own. She held her breath, and before Patricia spoke it had begun to feel like an exaggerated heartbeat. “Mummy, it’s me,” Patricia said.

  Kathy wished her son wo
uld speak to her like that. She let the breath go, but found the next one quite as difficult; she was still nervous of how much Patricia might communicate. “I’m not there” sounded potentially dangerous, as did “I didn’t” and “There wasn’t one.” Not until Patricia said “Can I tell you when I see you?” did Kathy start to any extent to relax. “Where are you?” Patricia said. “Can you get away? Could you meet me at home? I’d like to be at home. I’ll see you there.”

  She parked the receiver and faced Kathy. “May I ring for a taxi?”

  “I already have.”

  “Thank you.” After a pause so curt it hardly deserved the name Patricia said “Have you called anyone else?”

  “Not yet, no.”

  “Someone has to, Kathy.”

  “Then please leave it to me. I’ll handle it. I’m his mother.”

  Kathy was struggling to look earnest without letting the effort show when she heard a car draw up outside. It couldn’t be the police, she had to remind herself. “I think that’s your cab.”

  Patricia held her gaze until the driver honked the horn, and then she said “Where’s my bag? Has Dudley taken that as well?”

  “He isn’t a thief, Patricia.” If he’d kept the girl’s mobile, it was surely out of forgetfulness. “I brought it downstairs,” Kathy said and fetched it from the kitchen. “You’d left it on the landing.”

  Patricia seemed ready to argue even once she’d checked the contents of the handbag, but a second honk intervened. “You’d better go before the neighbours start complaining,” Kathy said.

  Indeed, Brenda Staples was glowering through her front window. Kathy accompanied Patricia to the taxi, both in case she needed support and to shut her in the vehicle. “Drive carefully. She’s a little fragile just now,” she advised the driver.

  Perhaps she oughtn’t to have said that, since the look Patricia left her was by no means wholly grateful. Kathy watched the taxi disappear around the corner, and then she turned to confront the neighbouring window. “Only a visitor,” she informed Brenda Staples and retreated into the house.

  She had to speak to Dudley. Beyond that she couldn’t think. Trying to do so made her feel surrounded by darkness that the sunlight was unable to dispel. She grabbed the phone in the hall and prodded the digits of Dudley’s number as she ran upstairs to sit at his window. She thought of opening it, but suppose Brenda Staples overheard Kathy’s side of the call? As she peered through the glass, Dudley’s voice brought the ringing to an end. “Dudley Smith, writer and scriptwriter. Me and Mr Killogram must be busy. Leave us a message.”