Read The Face That Must Die Online
Authors: Ramsey Campbell
The Face That Must Die (32 page)
She shoved frantically with both hands, and managed to roll over on her back. Her foot caught in a gash in the slate. She was no more than her own width away from the edge, and sliding towards it. She pushed again, and reached stone too rough to allow her to slide.
The man limped straight at her. His unsteady leg rose; he was going to kick her over the edge. She managed to crawl out of his path, but he turned at once and followed her. The light caught his face. His mouth was huge with blood like inexpertly applied lipstick. “You haven’t done for me yet,” he was muttering, muffled by blood.
She crawled backwards, terrified. Her retreat seemed intolerably slow, but to clamber to her feet would delay her still more. The wind threw itself against her, trying to force her to the edge. Though he was limping, he was quicker now than she.
As he reached her and drew back his good leg to kick, his injured leg betrayed him. His foot slithered towards the rim. “You bitch,” he screamed as he fell. She saw the edge of the quarry bite into his face.
A long clamour of bumping and scraping fell into the dark. Nothing else came up from the quarry except, for a few seconds, a faint bony rattling of stone.
Peter stumbled towards her, still holding a fist-sized rock. It was brightly stained. He passed her and flung it into the darkness. After its thud, the scuttling of stone seemed unnervingly prolonged.
He stood at the edge, his whole body shaking. “Jesus, I did it,” he mumbled to himself. “I did it.” At last she succeeded in standing up, and went to hold him. She felt as though she might never again be able to speak. When she turned his face to her, she found he was shaking with laughter.
* * *
Epilogue
Peter plodded along the street. The pavement blazed like chalk; the paint of all the houses shone as though fresh. Above Anfield the floodlights gleamed, though they were extinguished for the summer. He stepped off the pavement into the house.
The silence was abrupt and violent. He closed his eyes to clear them of the street’s glare, which clung to them and dimmed the stubby hall. Often the house was invaded by chanting from the football ground. Was that why the silence seemed unnatural?
No, it was only that Cathy was holding her breath, nervously waiting for him to announce himself. He dropped the carrier bag of vegetables. “Me,” he called.
The ritual annoyed him. Why was she still nervous of any noise that entered the house? Why wasn’t she answering? “Me,” he roared.
At last he heard her gasping “Yes.” She was upstairs, and sounded short of breath. Was anything wrong? He climbed the stairs irritably; the treads reverberated, muffled by the close walls. On the walls hung two of Fanny Adamson’s paintings. After he’d told the police to check her flat he’d impulsively visited her exhibition. He’d found that he enjoyed her work more since taking his trip. Cathy liked her paintings, and they might be an investment. As soon as the news of her murder was published, interest in her work had grown spectacularly.
He glanced proudly at the paintings. They hung well. He found he enjoyed using the drill for jobs around the house. There were still jobs to be done; some of the cheap improvements had been shoddy.
Why wasn’t Cathy speaking?
She lay naked on the bed. Sunlight through the curtains made her glow orange. Her exercises had tired her into silence. She lay smiling at something within herself. Was it hidden in her head, or was she experiencing the child in her large belly?
When he sat on the bed she opened her eyes. “How are you?” he said.
She seemed to debate whether to be honest. Her smile faded. “I’m depressed, I don’t know why. I suppose depression is part of it. I expect it’ll pass.”
“
We’ll go and see the Halliwells if you like.”
“
Not if you don’t want to.”
At times he resented having to be grateful while repaying Frank’s loan; it made their relationship uncomfortable. But he’d been grateful for the chance to take Cathy away from Aigburth Drive. “Oh, I don’t mind,” he said. “I can smoke a joint first.”
She looked away, her face limp with resignation. “Maybe we’ll just walk up to Stanley Park.”
Perhaps he wouldn’t smoke a joint; he could get pissed at Frank’s instead. Not that he intended to stop smoking — Christ, he needed some relaxation. He took her hand. Was he displaying the razor scar on the back of his hand, to remind her that he wasn’t weak?
She kissed the scar. What was she remembering? On the stage of glaring light he’d pretended to be still stunned, waiting to be sure the slasher was preoccupied with Cathy before he seized the chunk of rock: hard, heavy, jagged, satisfying. He’d felt the man’s mouth cave in, but the razor had snapped at his hand like a bird of prey. He’d thought the blow had finished the slasher. The bruise on his forehead had sent him wandering dizzily until he’d glimpsed the man advancing on Cathy. For a moment he’d thought the man had won.
Her lips moved on the scar. Was she avoiding speech? By smashing the man, Peter had revealed to her what he was capable of. He wasn’t sure that they had come to terms with that revelation. Once, when he’d tried to talk about that drive to Wales, she had changed the subject. She had seemed guilty — he hadn’t asked why.
All at once she clasped his hand. “I love our house. Don’t you?”
“
Yeah.” She seemed more and more unpredictable. He’d had to grow used to her shifts in mood: her sobs at Fanny’s paintings, her locked-in silences, sudden fits of weeping, starts of panic at no sound he could hear. For months she had been too tense for sex. Eventually she’d begun to relax, though sometimes crockery in her hands broke into a spasm of chattering, as though she were trying to hold still a poltergeist. Now, like the limp which her fall had given her, her apprehension was fading. Or was her calm the product of brittle control?
She took his pondering for suppressed impatience. “I’ll make dinner in a minute,” she said.
“
No hurry. Nobody’s coming to visit. You rest a bit if you like.”
They were gentle with each other now, perhaps warily. They hadn’t had a row since the identikit picture. The police had shown them a book of eyes, noses, mouths, from which to compose the face. They hadn’t agreed on a single feature. “For Christ’s sake, let me do it,” Peter had snarled at last. “You’re no use at all.” But the sketch the artist produced to his instructions looked stiff and unconvincing. Neither he nor Cathy had been satisfied.
Her clasp was softer; its meaning had changed. Did she want to make love? Dimness flooded the room, then the orange blaze rushed back as the stray cloud moved on. He couldn’t work up any desire; the positions her pregnancy forced them to adopt seemed too absurd. A noise in the hall saved him from seeming aloof. Her grip tightened spasmodically. “That’s the postman, isn’t it?” she demanded.
“
Right. I’ll go and see.”
She let go reluctantly. Again her nervousness annoyed him. She ought to be happy now, with the house and the promise of the baby. Was he trying to shift his own unease by blaming Cathy for hers?
He had been lolling against a shoulder in the dark. Cold metal had caressed his face: a razor-blade. That had held him still while he gathered memories, blurred and incomplete: being supported half conscious to the van, as though he’d been stoned out of his head on cake; Horridge in the kitchen, glancing at a rolling-pin, seizing it and thumping Peter’s skull. That had enraged Peter — but he’d slumped in the dark of the van, paralysed by images of the razor. Only the sheer dullness of the drive had allowed his fear to drift away and enabled him to plot revenge.
Yes, it had been the postman. Envelopes overlapped in the hall. He was glad he’d smashed Horridge; pity he’d struck him only once. And he was still protecting Cathy. No need for either of them to be nervous.
He faltered on the landing. He felt odd; his forehead was tight with undefined apprehension. The landing was oppressively small and hot. He found the house less spacious than the large main room of their flat. He hadn’t a room to himself, after all; the spare room was full of books, comics, furniture that they couldn’t bring themselves to throw away. Soon they’d need the room for the child. He might sell his comics then, before the child ruined them. He didn’t read them now.
Halfway down he was forced to halt. The light twitched, plucking at his vision. Outlines trembled; walls and stairs moved uneasily. He closed his eyes and waited for the flashback to recede. Christ, he’d thought he was over the flashbacks. He hadn’t taken acid since before that night in Wales.
At last he was able to go downstairs, though the envelopes shifted a little over one another, like cards eager for a deal. All of them looked official. Was someone offering him a job? He hoped he’d be working before the birth. That gave him three months.
One letter was an advertising circular, forwarded from Aigburth Drive. He dropped it angrily. Eighteen months and they were still addressing stuff there. The other letters were from newspapers. Two invited him to be interviewed, one said there were no vacancies for trainee reporters.
Maybe one of the interviews would lead somewhere. Those he’d had so far had been dispiriting. One editor had sounded like a senile comedian. “When did you stop beating your wife? That’s the way we have to phrase our questions. That’s the secret of reporting.” How could Peter work for someone as plastic as that?
“
Nothing much,” he called to Cathy, and stooped to pick up the circular.
The envelope had fallen on its face. For the first time he saw what was scribbled on the back, by whoever was now living in the flat on Aigburth Drive. The noose of apprehension tightened round his skull.
SOMEONE PHONED
He was reading too much into the words. They could mean a dozen things. Maybe someone had wanted to get in touch with him in search of dope.
SOMEONE PHONED AND WANTED YOUR ADDRESS
When at last Cathy had felt capable of driving away from the quarry, they’d gone in search of the police. By the time the police reached the quarry there had been no sign of Horridge. Peter had been secretly glad: they might have detained him over the killing, searched his flat, found his dope. Horridge had never been seen again, as far as the police could ascertain. They’d concluded that he must have crawled away somewhere to die.
SO WE GAVE IT TO HIM. WE HOPE THAT’S ALL RIGHT!
Upstairs the bed creaked. Cathy was preparing to come down. For a moment he glared at the envelope. Then he hurried to the kitchen, tearing the envelope as he went. ALL RIGHT! said the largest fragment before he tore it in half.
He strode into the back yard. The door to the alley drooped on its hinges. He must attend to that, before it fell. He scattered the envelope into the bin. Clouds were massing; shadows stepped forward within the gaping outhouse, into which his dazzled eyes could hardly see.
Thank Christ Cathy hadn’t read it. What effect might her panic have had on the child? There would have been no need for panic. He dumped the contents of the kitchen bin on top of the fragments.
When he grabbed the bag of vegetables from the hall floor, Cathy was standing at the top of the stairs. “Wasn’t there anything important?” she said wistfully.
“
Not today.” He glanced back as he returned to the kitchen. A shadow loomed on the front-door pane; the hall plunged into dimness. “Nothing worth bothering about,” he called.
* * *
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